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BCC Minutes 03/28/1995 R REGULAR MEETING OF MARCH 28, 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 9:05 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRPERSON: ALSO PRESENT: Bettye J. Hatthews Timothy J. Constantine John C. Norris Timothy L. Hancock Pamela S. Hac'Kie W. Neil Dotrill, County Hanager Kenneth B. Cuyler, County Attorney CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Call to order the Board of Commissioners -- is the mike off? -- Board of Commissioners meeting for March -- yeah, March 28th, 1995. Mr. Dotrill, would you lead us in an invocation and pledge. MR. DORRILL: Heavenly Father, we thank you this morning. We thank you recently for the wonderful weather that we've enjoyed in this community and in particular this time of year. Father, as always, we thank you for your saving grace and the wonder that you bestow on this community. Father, in addition, it is always that we pray that the -- your hand would guide and direct these elected officials as they make the important business decisions and the deliberations for Collier County at today's meeting. We give thanks for the people of this community and for their participation in their government process. We always give thanks for the hard and dedicated work of our staff, and we would ask that you bless our time here together this morning. We pray these things in your son's holy name. Amen. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Dorrill, we have a few changes to the agenda? MR. DORRILL: Yes, ma'am. Good morning. Good morning, Commissioners. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Good morning. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good morning. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Boy, you're smiling today. What's going on? MR. DORRILL: I guess life is really like a box of chocolates. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You've been waiting to get to say that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: But you never know what you're going to get. Item #5C RECOGNITION OF SAM POOLE - EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT MR. DORRILL: We have several add-on items this morning. The first one that you'll see on your change list is recognition of our new executive director of the South Florida Water Management District. And I see that Mr. Poole, whom I have not had the pleasure of meeting before, and Ms. Boyd are here, and we may want to do that right now at your discretion. Miss Boyd, would you like to MS. BOYD: We'd appreciate it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We certainly can. MS. BOYD: I really -- I just would simply say good morning. Thank you for having us, and I've brought with me today Sam Poole. Sam is our executive director. I think many of you maybe met him when Sustainable South Florida was down here, but he's here today. He met with the Economic Development Council this morning and is going to be doing some touring of Collier County then heading down to Lee County. And we just wanted him to say hello, to get to know you and to let you know wewre looking forward to our May meeting. So thank you very much, and I'll introduce Sam. And, Sam, if you would introduce Chip. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. POOLE: Thank you. Good morning. Thank you, Valetie. It's a pleasure to be back over here. I actually am practicing law with Holland and Knight, had a number of clients over here, so I was involved in the development issues for a time prior to coming to the Water Management District. It's very nice to be back. As Valetie says, we look forward to getting down to some issues with you at our May board meeting workshop over here. We intend to make an annual event of getting together with local governments and regions. We will be back not only in May but often in the future. We do intend to increase the responsibility and the staffing of our service centers. Chip Merriam is here. Chip is with the Fort Myers Service Center. We also have here in town the Big Cypress Basin office. We intend to have responsibility delegated down to the offices within the community so that you will be dealing more and more with people that -- that you know from your community and people who are very much in touch with the community issues. That's something that we intend to push very strongly in our current budgeting process for the fiscal year '96 and even prior to that if possible. So again it's nice to be back. I look forward to working with you and hearing your specific issues, working closely with you beginning at the May meeting. MS. BOYD: And when Mr. Poole said increase the staff, we're not increasing the staff. We're going to bring some of the east coast people over to the west coast to serve us better. I don't want you to think we're going to have this big empire growing over here. I wanted to clarify that point. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Poole. MR. POOLE: Thank you. Item #2 & #2A AGENDA AND CONSENT AGENDA - APPROVED WITH CHANGES MR. DORRILL: The other changes, Madam Chairman, to your agenda this morning, we have two add-on items. The first one is under transportation. It will be item 8-B-1 as it pertains to approving an emergency contract as a result of a default action for selected median and beautification projects in both Golden Gate as well as the Marco Island median beautification districts. We have one other add-on item this morning under the Board of County Commissioners at the request of Commissioner Norris. It's item 10-C, which is a request to consider certain limited services pertaining to our representation next week in Tallahassee before the governor and cabinet as it pertains to the Marco Island beach management plan. There are two items there that are noted for my reminding as it pertains to staff communications, and I will mention those at the appropriate time. That's all that I have. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Are there further changes, Mr. Cuyler? any? Do you have any changes? MR. CUYLER: No, ma'am, no changes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris, do you have COMMISSIONER NORRIS: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Nothing further. Commissioner Hancock? Nothing from me. Commissioner Mac'Kie? No, ma'am. Commissioner Constantine? COHHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have no changes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have two as I was reading through my mail last night, and both would be added on in the board of commissioners area. One is a letter from the Immokalee Nonprofit Housing Incorporated regarding the wording of their impacts fee deferral resolution. And the other is a letter from Representative Butt Saunders regarding a house bill that we may want to take up and do some more work on, so I'd like to add both of those. I guess it's 10-D and E, Mr. Dotrill? MR. DORRILL: D and E respectively, yes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't think there's any further changes. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, with that I'll make a motion to approve the agenda and consent agenda as amended. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry. I need to withdraw one item from the consent agenda. It slipped past me. I wasn't paying close enough attention. I have -- I have a conflict on a consent agenda that is -- let me find it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Cuyler, do we have to withdraw that, or can we merely make note in the record that Commissioner Mac'Kie '- MR. CUYLER: As long as you file your memorandum of conflict, you can just note it for the record that your vote is not applicable to that, and you need to be recorded as an abstention for -- I think it's 16-B-l, if I'm not mistaken. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: 16-B-l, yes, thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. So we'll have the record note that Commissioner Hac'Kie abstains on -- on that consent agenda item. Mr. Cuyler, we can do it that way? MR. CUYLER: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay, fine. Thank you. We have a motion to approve the agenda and the consent agenda with the abstention noted and a second I presume -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: If no further discussion, I'll call the question. All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5-0. Item #3 MINUTES OF MARCH 7, 1995 REGULAR MEETING - APPROVED AS PRESENTED COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve the minutes of the March 7th, 1995, regular meeting. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of March 7th. If there's no further discussion, I'll call the question. All those in favor, say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5 to 0. Item #4A1 PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING APRIL 1, 1995 AS SPECIAL OLYMPICS DAY - ADOPTED With that we'll move on to proclamations and service awards. Our first and only proclamation today, Commissioner Constantine. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It gives me great pleasure to present this. Mr. Robert Betman from Special Olympics is with us today. Robert, if you'd come on up and turn around and face everyone as we read the proclamation. Whereas, Collier County Special Olympics, a year-round program of sports training and competition for children and adults with mental retardation has served Collier County well since 1972; and Whereas, Collier County Special Olympics provides services for over 400 Collier County special citizens; and Whereas, Collier County Special Olympics provides its athletes with opportunities to gain confidence, improve physical skills and self-esteem and become more involved citizens; and Whereas, three Collier County Special Olympic athletes will represent Collier County and the State of Florida at the Special Olympic World Games in New Haven, Connecticut, this July 1 through 9th; and Whereas, Collier County will host the 1995 Special Olympics Area 9 Spring Games on this coming Saturday, April 1st, at Pine Ridge Middle School Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County Commissioners, Board of Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that the day of April 1, 1995, be designated as Special Olympics Day. Done and ordered this 28th day of March, '95, Board of County Commissioners, Bettye J. Matthews, Chairman. And I will make a motion we approve this proclamation. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve the proclamation. If there is no further discussion, I'll call the question. All in favor, please say aye. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Robert, I want to give you this, and if you'd like to add a little bit about what's going on Saturday, we'll welcome that. (Applause) MR. BERHAN: I really appreciate the fact that you, the Collier County Commission, has taken this step. In effect what it says to those people with mental retardation is that this county not only cares but honors these special people, and that is very, very important to them to be honored. On behalf of my steering committee and all of our volunteers and our over 400 athletes, I thank you very much for this recognition. And I would also say in conclusion I would urge you to come out to Pine Ridge Middle School this Saturday to see these 400 athletes compete in four different sports. It will not open your eyes, but it will open your hearts. We are starting at ten o'clock on Saturday, and we're going until one o'clock. And athletes from Collier, Lee, Charlotte, and DeSoto Counties are going to be competing in soccer, track and field, tennis, and cycling. And it's going to be quite a day. So please come if you can. I think it would be important to them and to you. Thank you again for this honor. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thanks. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. Item #4B EMPLOYEE SERVICE AWARDS - PRESENTED CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Next item on the agenda, service awards. Commissioner Norris. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you, Madam Chairman. We have a number of awards this week. We'll start out with a five-year pin for Renee Johnathan from housing and urban improvement. Renee, are you here? (Applause) COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Our second one is Stephen J. Rockey from emergency medical services. (Applause) COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Ed Finn from budget has also got his five-year pin. (Applause) COMMISSIONER NORRIS: For those of you who may not be aware, Ed Finn is our resident Harley hogget motorcycle man. We have -- Maria Lucero from agriculture has a ten-year pin. (Applause) COMMISSIONER NORRIS: David Miller from traffic operations has a ten-year pin. (Applause) COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We have -- Ann Hare from emergency medical services also has a ten-year pin. (Applause) COMMISSIONER NORRIS: And for the grand finale with a twenty-year pin we have George Archibald from transportation. (Applause) COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Tim, what were you and I doing 20 years ago? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Playing kickball. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I was wondering if Mr. Archibald was going to tell us what 20 years feels like. Congratulations, Mr. Archibald. Item #5 BUDGET AMENDMENTS 95-207 AND 95-208 - ADOPTED Next item on the agenda, we have some budget information. Do we need to approve those amendments? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. For the record Michael Smykowski. I'm your budget director. There are two budget amendments that require your approval this morning. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: These have been previously discussed? MR. SMYKOWSKI: No. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Motion to approve. Why ask the question? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion to approve the budget amendments. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that motion. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve the budget amendments. favor please say aye. Motion passes 5 to 0. Thank you, Mr. Smykowski. No further discussion, all those in Item #SA1 DISCUSSION OF ISSUES RELATED TO THE SAFE HARBOR DEVELOPHENT'S ENTRY WALL AND CHAIN LINK FENCE ENCROACHMENT INTO CR 951 DRAINAGE CANAL RIGHT-OF-WAY - PROPERTY OWNER TO OBTAIN RIGHT-OF-WAY PERMIT Next item on the agenda as we move to the county manager's report is item 8-A-l, discussion of issues related to Safe Harbor. Mr. Arnold. MR. ARNOLD: Good morning, Commissioners, Wayne Arnold of community development staff. This item is brought before you because I believe you've had correspondence on both sides of an issue related to the Safe Harbor easement vacation. And if most of you recall, this item was brought to you originally as an easement vacation back in October. Subsequently staff issued a permit for the property owner to construct their entry wall and fencing at the terminus of 39th Street Southwest. In doing so the petitioner did construct a portion of the fence within part of the county's drainage easement which did restrict access for the public along the canal right of way. Subsequently staff responded to the developer asking them to remove their encroachment to which they responded back to us with an alternate plan which might allow them to leave the fencing as constructed. I believe some correspondence was directed to several of the commissioners in both opposition and in favor of the fencing. We're bringing this back to you and hopefully trying to resolve the issue today. I think the property owner is here. He would like to make a presentation and maybe bring you an alternate proposal on that issue. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Arnold. Is the property owner here? Are there questions from the commissioners? MR. ARNOLD: Mr. Papineau is here representing the property. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Papineau, are you just here to answer questions, or do you want to -- have something to say? MR. PAPINEAU: My name is Pat Papineau, and I can answer questions for you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Commissioner Constantine. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A couple of questions for our staff. We've received complaints on this? MR. ARNOLD: To my knowledge, we received one person who resides in the area who's complained about the restricted access for fishing along this portion of the -- the 951 canal right of way. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How long is the 951 canal? MR. ARNOLD: Several miles of which this portion is restricted would be approximately a thousand feet. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do the fish congregate in this thousand feet or populate it or -- MR. ARNOLD: That I'm not -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A fish nightclub down there in that corner or -- MR. ARNOLD: I think the one thing that's come to our attention and -- when the easement vacation was brought before you I don't think there was any knowledge, at least on county staff's part, that this was an area of such great desire for fishing. But in -- in looking at this and being out on the site, I -- I would argue that it's probably not in the county's interest to encourage people to take their vehicles down this canal right of way in order to gain access for fishing, and -- and that in itself may not be a safe situation. I think -- as you may recall, we've had several deaths, at least two in the last couple of years that I'm familiar with, with people driving vehicles off into canals. I don't think we want to encourage other residents to drive down this portion of the county's easement. It's purely for maintenance. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just so the rest of the board is aware, is it true the gentleman who has complained got in trouble for having some sort of fencing or some sort of obstruction on his property at some point in the past? MR. ARNOLD: I've looked into that issue, and I can't find any evidence that a permit was ever issued for the person who filed complaints. That has been alleged by another individual that they were not permitted to construct a similar type fence issue which I can't verify that. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. Do we know -- does anyone from our code enforcement -- maybe Dick can help. We have a letter here from Bruce Daley who's a neighbor, indicates there has been -- have been a number of activities less than desirable, dumping of garbage in particular. I know that's a problem in different places in the estates. Have we had trouble at that location? MR. CLARK: For the record, Dick Clark, acting community development administrator. That's correct, Commissioner Constantine. We've had several complaints there and cleanups of that area where unauthorized parties took place. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do we have other places in the county where people put fencing or shrubberies or what have you, if we need to get access to it, they're aware that we'll tear up that fencing or shrubberies or whatever, and it's no expense to us, they're responsible for that? MR. CLARK: That's correct. That's a routine arrangement. I would suggest there are probably a hundred or more of those throughout the county. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Then this isn't really different than those around the county -- others around the county; is that accurate? MR. CLARK: That's correct. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Papineau, you've offered -- I understand the main concern of the gentleman who's complained is he'd like access to the fishing -- MR. PAPINEAU: I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I understand the gentleman who's complained has -- his main concern appears to be access to that particular thousand feet for fishing. You've offered a compromise on the south side of the -- MR. PAPINEAU: Well, we own the property on the south side of the main Golden Gate canal which is approximately twenty-five, thirty feet wide by a thousand twenty feet deep. We're more than willing to let him fish from that side. In fact, people already have. I've seen four or five fellas over there fishing already. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It seems to me if the easement is the issue, we're not doing anything different than we do in other places in the county and that as long as you're aware if we need to get in there, we're going to tear your fence down and go through, and you're responsible for getting it back up. MR. PAPINEAU: Yes, I understand. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And if -- so if the easement is the issue, it shouldn't be. If fishing is the issue, there's an alternative. And, frankly, I don't know why you can't fish on any of the other several miles of canal there. But I'm not sure what the problem is if both of those seem to have been answered. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I have a question for Mr. Cuyler. Do we have any kind of eminent domain issues as a result of the fencing? MR. PAPINEAU: I'm sorry, ma'am. I -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I was actually asking the county attorney if we have any eminent domain issues as a result of your fence being on the county's easement property. MR. CUYLER: Not to my knowledge as part of this. Has a permit been issued or is that the question of whether a permit to be within the easement -- MR. ARNOLD: I think the question would be a right-of-way permit was issued for the fence to be within the county's utility easement that was not vacated as a part of the 39th Street Southwest street vacation. But the encroachment goes on into the county's drainage easement of which the right-of-way permit could certainly be modified to make -- to make that point known that there would be an encroachment subject to the conditions of removal. MR. CUYLER: Yeah, normally as Commissioner Constantine pointed out, when we do allow that, we have a permit situation. They're responsible in the event we have to get in there and it's destroyed. But it is possible to authorize that, yes. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And as a condition of the permit MR. CUYLER: As a -- as a condition of the permit you can -- as a matter of fact, there's various conditions of the permit. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Papineau, do you have a permit from the South Florida Water Management District to have this fence in the drainage easement -- MR. PAPINEAU: We have all the South Florida Management permits to my knowledge. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Pardon? MR. PAPINEAU: I say to my knowledge, we have all the -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: To your knowledge, you have all the appropriate permits from the Big Cypress Basin Board and the South Florida Water Management District -- MR. PAPINEAU: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- to put the fence in the right-of-way? MR. PAPINEAU: Oh, that I'm not sure of. I'd have to check with our project manager. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Clark, a question for you. You just said a few moments ago that we're not doing anything different here than we're doing throughout the county. MR. CLARK: The only difference would be the fence is there before the permit was issued, so having that difference resolved, that's correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We're not doing anything different here? We're not being asked to do anything different than were doing administratively in other parts of the county; is that correct? MR. CLARK: That's correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Why did you issue a citation then on this in January? MR. CLARK: I believe the citation was for doing it without the permit. He does not -- that's why I say aside from not having the permit, that's the difference. And we did not give the permit because the question came up of whether or not it should be, and that's why this is being resolved here today. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So -- I'm sorry, but I'm getting confused. I mean I don't think that this is a big deal. It doesn't appear to me to be a problem, but I want to be clear if we're doing something -- I mean if we're making an exception, I'd like to know we're making an exception. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's my problem with this. I don't have any problem with the fence being where it is so long as this is standard operating procedure. And if Mr. Papineau is required to get a permit required for putting the fence in the right-of-way and into the drainage easement and even into the canal, then I think he should do so. MR. CLARK: Sure. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And I don't know why we should have to handle it at all if such a right-of-way is available to him. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: If it's standard, why are we talking about it? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah. MR. CLARK: Well, the difference is -- there were two different permits. One was a vacation of a paved area in which he did get a permit for that. Then there was another area in which they fenced off about forty feet to continue down farther than what the permit allowed for. We -- we gave a notice of violation to -- community development gave a notice of violation saying that to put the permit out -- that you put that fence up without the proper permit that -- the last 40 or 50 feet -- then I believe there was a complaint registered, and the issue became should we or should we not. So that issue of should we or should we not on the last 40 or 50 feet is what is before you today. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It would be my suggestion that if such a right-of-way permit is available, that Mr. Papineau get it. I don't know why it's here. MR. CLARK: Fine. Okay. We accept that direction, and we'll follow it. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: If that's available, that seems to me that's what he ought to do. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If it puts the board at ease at all, there's photographs here. I don't know if you all seen these, but it doesn't actually extend into the canal. It does go in obviously into the easement right-of-way, though. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I agree with Commissioner Matthews. There's no reason not to issue the permit, so my -- my choice is to go ahead and move ahead with it, and let's move on with our agenda. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I mean I just don't understand why this is at this level. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's on the board because I asked it to be. You had sent a memo questioning whether it should be there or not. I had sent a memo wondering why we were -- why there was a question, and the only way you and I can talk about it is put it on the agenda. So it's on the agenda at my request if that answers the question. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, it just seems to me that in the very beginning before code enforcement issued the citation Mr. Papineau should have gotten the permit, and all this would never have happened, but that's where we are. If you would do that, we're fine. MR. PAPINEAU: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Item #SB1 EHERGENCY CONTRACT FOR HEDIAN AND SELECTED PUBLIC AREA GROUNDS MAINTENANCE FOR BOTH MARCO ISLAND AND GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY BEAUTIFICATION HSTU DISTRICTS - STAFF RECOHMENDATION APPROVED Next item on the agenda, item 8-B-1. This is the add-on item for the Marco median. MR. ARCHIBALD: Good morning, board members. The agenda item 8-B-1 is an add-on agenda item that deals with the landscape maintenance contract for both Marco Island and Golden Gate City and its area. As many of you all are aware, the contractor that's been maintaining both of those areas for a number of years has, in fact, had financial problems and has gone into receivership. And those that are handling the assets do not wish to pursue additional services under the contract. And as a result the county staff has performed an alternatives analysis of taking a look at the options that the county has in going ahead and continuing that maintenance activity recognizing that we probably have far in excess of a million dollars in improvements and landscaping to maintain both on Marco and in Golden Gate. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Excuse me, Mr. Archibald. This seems like a -- fairly cut and dried if it's an emergency item. If the guy or group that was doing this can no longer do it, obviously we still need to have service done. Unless there is some objection, I'll make a motion we approve staff recommendation. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have to get clarification from Mr. Cuyler. We have to first declare an emergency to let this contract? MR. CUYLER: No. I think staff's recommendation -- I don't have the executive summary in front of me. I assume staff's recommendation includes the declaration of the emergency. MR. ARCHIBALD: Yes, it does. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. We don't have to do it in two separate votes? MR. CUYLER: No. That's only when you have an emergency ordinance. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Fine. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion by Commissioner Constantine and a second by Commissioner Norris to approve both the emergency and this contract. If there's no further discussion, call the question. All those in favor, please say aye. Motion passes 5 to 0. MR. ARCHIBALD: Thank you. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: He's been doing that for 20 years. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Oh, Mr. Archi -- oh, I thought -- okay. He has, hasn't he. Item #8C1 CONSIDERATION OF OPTIONS RE THE PROPOSED ANNUAL AGREEMENT WITH THE STATE HRS FOR THE PROVISION OF COUNTY FUNDS FOR LOCALLY PROVIDED HEALTH SERVICES - CONTRACT TO BE SIGNED AND INSURANCE TO BE PURCHASED FROM STATE RESERVE FUND; INDEMNIFICATION LANGUAGE TO BE ADDED Next item on the agenda is item 8-C-1, a recommendation that we consider options to the HRS contract. Mr. Olliff. MR. OLLIFF: Good morning. For the record Tom Olliff, your public services administrator. This item is a request that the board approve an annual contract that the county has with the state HRS department for its provision of additional funds for the local Collier County Public Health Unit. As you will recall, this item was actually presented to the board back in October. It is a contract for this current fiscal year. The one outstanding item that arose at that time was an issue regarding indemnification. The county's risk management department and county attorney's office indicated because of several past issues that had arisen and the relationship that we have by contract with the health department, they were requesting that the state indemnify the county within the contract that was being presented. The state indicated that they did not believe that they could legally indemnify, and as a result the commission did not approve the agreement but asked instead that we jointly with the health department's legal staff send a request to the attorney general's office asking for an opinion. Enclosed in the executive summary is a copy of that opinion that was received from Attorney General Bob Butterworth who indicated that in his opinion he did not believe that the state could indemnify the county through that agreement. As a result there are really two issues that need to be decided today and only two. We are assuming that the board would approve a contract as it always has. The only two outstanding remaining issues then are how does the board want to handle that indemnification issue. What's being proposed is -- in this agreement is that insurance coverage be purchased to protect the county from those medical malpractice and other liability-related issues that arise out of the health department. We have been very fortunate. I think Jeff Walker has done a real good job of beating the streets and trying to get a very good price and has come up with a $7,500 annual cost to provide that coverage to the county, so that's -- that's the first issue, and the recommendation being made as a part of this contract that we simply pick up that medical coverage or medical insurance coverage for the county. The second issue is one that the county deals with annually. It regards the -- what is called the trust fund balance. The county actually through this contract provides cash funding to the health department, and at the end of that year the remaining funds are either left in that trust fund balance to serve as a reserve or contingency or a reserve for cash flow for the health department, or the contract provides that the county commission can use those monies towards next year's contribution. I believe the current balance as of September 30th before entering into this contract for that trust fund balance on the County side of the ledger was about $121,000. On the state side of that ledger the balance was $427,000. So there was a carry forward, if you will, into this fiscal year of about $550,000. So those are really the only two issues. The first recommendation is that the county go ahead and purchase the liability and coverage insurance at $7,500 as quoted by -- by Jeff Walker, your risk manager. And the second issue regarding trust fund balances, only because every other agency in the county returns their funds unspent funds at the end of the year, the staff recommendation is that that be the same practice for this health department contract. But I do need to indicate to you that in years past the board has allowed the health department to retain all of those funds in their trust fund and, in fact, last year made a decision that anything up to $250,000 could be retained in that trust fund balance, so that's the second decision before you this morning. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Miss -- Commissioner Hancock. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Olliff, all the employees with the public health unit are state employees; is that correct? MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Mr. Cuyler, if I write a check to an agency and just give them money, can I be held liable in a court of law for their actions? I'm trying to draw a parallel that I can understand here because the county partially funds, minorly funds our public health unit, are we in a position of liability realistically? MR. CUYLER: Well, we've been grappling with that. And unfortunately in some other -- other instances -- and Mr. Bryant's here if he wants to discuss this a little bit. With regard to the sheriff's office there is case law out there that has, in fact, been held against us I think on at least one occasion that indicates that solely because of the budgetary process -- we have nothing to do with the sheriff's department. We don't handle their training. We don't handle their instructions. We don't handle their personnel or their operations. But just because we have a budgetary relationship where we approve the sheriff's budget there is case law out there that ties you to the sheriff's department. Mr. Bryant, you may want to elaborate on that a little bit. MR. BRYANT: Thank you, Mr. Cuyler. That's correct, Commissioner Hancock. I know it sounds absolutely phenomenal, and every time I argue that point I'm standing there thinking this is so irrational. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, fewer things surprise me every day, Mr. Bryant. MR. BRYANT: Another day in paradise. But what we have found, that because of a case of Lucas versus O'Laughlin (phonetic), and the progeny of that case -- it came out of Saint John's County where the sheriff terminated a deputy because he backed the wrong incumbent. And when the new sheriff came in, he terminated that deputy, and then the deputy sued. The court held and the llth Circuit has sustained that position, that because the county just gives the sheriff's office ad valorem taxation that is acquired from all of the people in the county, the county is liable for the acts of the sheriff. And the case that we have today, the Pratton (phonetic) lease case, which is a major case with the sheriff's office -- we had nothing, I mean absolutely unilaterally nothing to do with that case, but we have already defended, and the court just denied our motion to dismiss finding that there was a sufficient nexus because of the financial arrangement that we are liable. That's the same concern we have with the HRS contract. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. And you've answered my question. The bottom line is, yes, we can be tied to it. MR. BRYANT: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I don't really think that plays a serious role in the decision of whether or not we fund, but it at least lets me know what the potential impact to the county could be and the need for the insurance. MR. CUYLER: And our main point in talking about that is not only to answer your question but just so you're aware of that. We're not saying that that is a reason for you not to approve the contract. You just need as an informed client to be aware of that. MR. BRYANT: And the county has been bare in the past, and that was a significant consideration that we had. We did not want you as our client to be bare any longer since this issue has come up. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Agreed. Thank you. MR. BRYANT: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Mac'Kie. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I obviously want to support the contract and, therefore, support the purchase of the insurance. It's a question of where that money comes from, and I have a couple questions. One is do we have insurance on issues related to the sheriff's office and other agencies where we have this similar risk? I understand medical malpractice is probably a high-risk area, but it sounds like the sheriff's where the litigation has been. Do we have insurance there? MR. BRYANT: We have acquired insurance. We have a policy now for law enforcement liability because of that. We are an additional insured to a policy the sheriff has, and we are purchasing that coverage. We did not have it in the past because these issues did not come up in the past. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: These are new. Are there other areas that you would suggest we should insure in addition to law enforcement and health? MR. BRYANT: Well, those are the only areas that we're excluded, so we have now covered our risk areas. And Mr. Walker has been looking at all these issues in conjunction with our defending the county because these are really new novel issues. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Creative courts. The other question that I have, and I don't know who to ask this, is what happens to that reserve money artear? Does it get spent eventually? Does it come back eventually? What's been the pattern? MR. DORRILL: As it sits in that trust fund, it would either come back to the county commission if that is your desire, or it would sit as part of their expendable trust fund and in effect be a reserve for contingencies to the health department. My suggestion to you is going to be that the premium to pay this health insurance at a minimum should come from her reserve fund as opposed to yours. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My question was historically does the reserve just continue to roll over every year? MR. DORRILL: Historically I don't know. This has only been an issue in the last several years, and I don't know what we have done in terms of the cash carried forward at year end. MR. OLLIFF: Historically the county has left the money there, and it has rolled over year after year. It is a decision issue in the contract. That is the reason we bring it up each year. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But does it accumulate, Tom? What I'm trying to find out is it accumulating, or does it get spent on an annual basis. MR. OLLIFF: It fluctuates depending on their budget. And it has fluctuated on the county side anywhere from four years ago, I believe, from about two hundred fifty thousand dollars to its current balance of one hundred twenty. It will anywhere on average of about $150,000 on the county side. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So it sounds like it gets spent. MR. OLLIFF: That's correct. MS. POLKOWSKI: Yes. I'm Jane Polkowski, the director of the Collier County Public Health Unit. Yes, it is a contingency fund, and it's important for the regular cash flow for certainly emergency kinds of concerns that may come up and for special projects that we plan for, and Roger may add. MR. EVANS: Roger Evans, public health unit. Let me just add a little bit of an additional concept for you with this. This was brought up for the first time last year. It resulted in the board's decision to allow us the 250,000 balance as a hold harmless figure. And it's now being brought up again this year. The -- the amount of money that remains in the trust fund reserve is, indeed, equivalent to our reserve, our general fund, as the board has its reserve and general fund to take care of cash flow problems and special projects as you find them necessary through the year. Our cash flow varies greatly from month to month. I have a graphic here if it's of interest to you. It shows -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't think that this contingent fund is part of the discussion today. The discussion is the contract. MR. EVANS: Mr. Olliff had included it in the executive summary, so we felt we needed to make you understand the complete dynamics of how this fund works. It is basically our fund to help cash flow. It is our fund to help with projects that we plan -- capital projects, et cetera, that we plan and try to obtain funding to affect throughout time. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So you don't have a budget reserve? MR. EVANS: I'm sorry? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You don't have a budgeted reserve? You don't have a reserve account in your budget at all? You have just a -- MR. EVANS: This is our reserve. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That is your reserve? If you didn't have this trust fund then when you brought your budget before us, you would probably budget or request a reserve? Is that what I'm understanding? MR. EVANS: We basically draw from that trust fund to balance the budget every year. Now, what actually happens is a problem of cash flow throughout the year. But we need money from that trust fund to balance the budget every year. It also then throughout the year dynamically pays our bills when our revenue isn't there to pay for them. And that can fluctuate as much as $400,000 in one month. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So we're not talking about a health and safety kind of an emergency crisis that this board could otherwise fund? You'd probably come to us for that kind of crisis of a health crisis. This is a cash flow -- MS. POLKOWSKI: Right. And it also could cover certain kinds of emergencies where you need the cash rather quickly. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll put a motion on the floor to see if we can move ahead on this. It sounds to me that the previous board has decided 250,000 was an acceptable level in that reserve. I think we need to continue with that. Any cost of the insurance to cover ourselves should not be an additional budget item but should come out of those cash reserves. I'd like to make a motion that we approve number one as a financial option which is approving the contract for the existing amount with a stipulation that the cost for insurance regarding malpractice to cover the county sufficiently come out of the reserve fund. If you want to put a not to exceed amount, I don't know what that amount is going to be. Assuming it's not astronomical, I would like to make the motion that we proceed in that direction. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I will be happy to second that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second. Commissioner Norris, do you have discussion? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Yeah. Which contract option is in the motion? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: requested, $899,000. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: believe you're talking to. number 27 COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: that in my motion. Number one, which is the amount That's the financial option I What about the contract option on page CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: COHHISSIONER MAC'KIE: COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: out of the reserve. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Two. -- two. Sounds like a modified two -- It is. It's two with the money coming It is. It's really not an option listed in the executive summary. Instead of the county adding it as an additional item in our budget, we're requesting it come out of the existing reserves. MR. OLLIFF: Right. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: The -- their reserves, in other words. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have a remaining question be -- before we call the vote on this. Mr. Cuyler, it came to my attention about a month, maybe six weeks after the original discussion on this in October that either Hillsborough County or Pinellas County has an indemnification clause and has had it for a number of years. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Huh. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And I'd like to know why they can have something we can't. MR. CUYLER: Mr. Bryant's been in touch with -- MR. BRYANT: That's correct. In fact, we brought this up with HRS at our meeting that we had approximately two weeks ago. The position Hillsborough County has is you're going to do it our way; I'm sorry. I did not include That would be -- it's our money. They have a one cent dedicated sales tax for indigent health care where they created a safety net for all of Hillsborough County. That brings in approximately 40 million dollars a year. The indemnification language that we utilized is exactly the language that we got from them, and their position is if they want our money, they will sign the contract the way we have it. And if they don't, we're going to give the money to somebody else. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So you're contending that the board should hold firm and get the indemnification, short of that, get the insurance policy. MR. BRYANT: I would think that the best would be to do both, buy the policy and require the indemnification language. MR. CUYLER: But that, as in all these cases, is a policy decision. You have to come up -- we can tell you what the ramifications of it are, but you have to make that decision. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We understand. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I don't think we have a big lever here. We don't have a 40 million dollar lever, nor do I think our taxpayers want one. But I'd be glad to amend the motion to direct staff to pursue the indemnification clause, but I don't want to leave ourselves open to a potential malpractice suit here. In the meantime I think we need to purchase the insurance as a matter of prudent action. MR. BRYANT: What I could suggest, Commissioner Hancock, is that you might want to require that we buy the insurance out of the funds as you suggested and put in the contract the indemnification language, submit it to HRS. If they refuse it, that's their right to do that. If they don't, they can sign it, take the funds the county gives them, and we can buy the insurance also. MS. POLKOWSKI: Commissioners, without a signed contract now, we're going to have to stop providing a lot of services. That's the bottom line. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So then perhaps it would be in your best interest to sign the contract even with the indemnification. MS. POLKOWSKI: That's correct. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If you want to amend the motion, I'll -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Wait, wait, wait. I think what she's saying -- if I may. I'm sorry. I think what she's saying is don't put that -- don't dare the state not to sign it. MS. POLKOWSKI: That's correct. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: They may not sign it, and we are going not to be able to provide some services to needy people in Collier County. MS. POLKOWSKI: We're going to have to cut a lot of services. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Is that because the current available cash balance to provide these services is not there? MS. POLKOWSKI: There is none from the county, yes. The money is need -- the contract is needed for the monies from the county. This is something which certainly can continue to be explored, but we -- the signed contract is needed. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Frankly, I think that's a bigger level than the 40 million dollars you mentioned. Right now it's either a do or die situation that would be pretty strong incentive to sign the contract. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have one more question too. Dr. Polkowski, of the funds that you receive from Collier County to operate the public health unit, what percentage of your total budget is that? MS. POLKOWSKI: About 23 percent. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: About 23 percent of your -- MS. POLKOWSKI: Total of all the county funds, right. The AGO indicated that the state cannot -- that they would not be able to honor this kind of wording in the contract. The attorney general's opinion stated that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: But they do it for Hillsborough County. MS. POLKOWSKI: I think Susan Scott, our district attorney, can address that issue perhaps. You need to come forward. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: While this discussion is going on, I'm going to withdraw my second. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's okay. I can't even remember my motion. MS. SCOTT: Hello, I'm Susan Scott. I really can't add too much to this except to say that the Hillsborough contract was entered into prior to the clarification obtained from the attorney general's opinion that contains a clear mandate prohibition against state agencies signing a contract like Hillsborough signed. So I think the jury's out on what Hillsborough will not do, what their county commissioners will or will not hold their feet to the fire, and what will happen at that point. All that contract language happened prior to our request for an attorney general's opinion and prior to the clear mandate. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: When does their contract come up again? MS. SCOTT: I don't know. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is it an annual contract like ours is? MS. SCOTT: Yes. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Bryant, how long would it take to send a contract up and get it denied? MR. BRYANT: Mr. Olliff can probably answer that. I don't think it would take very long at all. MR. OLLIFF: Tell me. MS. POLKOWSKI: For the contract to be sent up and denied. MS. SCOTT: Well, we've already been given the clear instructions that we cannot sign that contract with indemnification language in it. And I'm really -- another point to consider is I'm not sure with the insurance being purchased what added protection the county is receiving from the indemnification language anyway. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm trying to avoid an annual expenditure of purchasing the insurance by getting -- being indemnified if it's possible. Now, I don't want to sacrifice the services of the health unit overall in that pursuit. However, if it's a matter of one week to send a contract up and for the state to say you've got to be kidding, and then we follow up with a contract immediately showing the insurance, and that does not sacrifice the county's health pursuits, then -- then I would like to try that. I just -- if there's a reasonable time frame that we can try that, and if we get turned away, then at least we finally fully know the answer. Otherwise, you know, I'm trying to -- I'm trying to achieve both things here. MS. POLKOWSKI: Okay. I'm sorry. Certainly it can be sent up. We've been informed that it will not be signed. I mean that's advance notification. You know -- we know that it won't be signed. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Maybe catch them on a bad day. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: With all due respect, as much as I'd like to accomplish the same goal that you're seeking to accomplish, we have the attorney general's opinion. That is the answer. He is the lawyer to the agency. He tells them thou shalt not sign, and they ain't going to sign it. We know that already. The only avenue we have at this point is to appeal the attorney general's opinion maybe. I mean I don't know what the legal process is for that, but maybe we ought to pursue some sort of action against the state, but -- but I think we already know they're not going to sign this one, and we can't put the public health at risk while we have this little, you know, argument with the state as appropriate as it is to have the argument. So, Mr. Cuyler, what's the process for appealing an attorney general's opinion, or where do we go from here if we want to try to have that set aside? MR. CUYLER: You would need to go to court and file a declaratory judgment because, as you know, the attorney general opinions are advisory in nature. They're not really legal precedent. So your next step would be to file a declaratory judgment and get a court to rule on what the answer to the issue is. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: What would be the cost and the time of doing that? MR. CUYLER: The cost, if we did it in-house, which we would, would be acceptable costs. It wouldn't be that much. In terms of time, nine months. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I -- my -- my suggestion, and I don't know what -- the appropriate procedure at this point, because there's a motion on the floor, would be that we -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll withdraw the motion. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There is no motion now. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Then I would like to move that we approve -- that we sign the contract, that we purchase the insurance out of the state -- out of the existing state reserved funds, and that we direct the county attorney to seek a declaratory judgment on the issue of whether or not we can force the state to indemnify us for their actions. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm not going to support that motion. I'll tell you why. Thank you, Mr. Cuyler, for pointing out the AGO's advisory is not binding. Obviously we don't want to shut down health care here in Collier. That's, I think, contrary to what everyone here is trying to achieve. But at the same time this is a negotiation, and to put ourselves in the defensive posture doesn't make much sense to me. When you negotiate, it doesn't make such sense to tell the attorney for the people we are negotiating with that, well, if you don't like this, bring it back in a week, and we'll change it. I think what we need to do is say, look, we're providing 23 percent. We're providing -- what is it -- $890,000. MS. POLKOWSKI: Well, that plus fees and others, yes. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So close to a million dollars, 23 percent of your budget. We have a responsibility to protect ourselves, to protect the taxpayer. And whether that expense be through an insurance policy or through outright payment in the event we lose a lawsuit, we have a fiscal responsibility that is equal to the responsibility to run the agency. So I think what we need to do is put the onus on the agency to come up with this. We want to provide you with the money. We want to provide health care to the community, but we want to protect ourselves, ourselves being the community, as well. And so I think the onus needs to be on you to say, no, I don't think the community should be protected and explain why. But for us to sit here and say we'll figure that out on our end is -- in my mind doesn't make a lot of sense. We should go ahead, give you the money, give you a contract that indemnifies us. And if you don't want the money or don't want the agency to stay open or don't -- none of which I know is true -- but don't want to move forward with that, that's your prerogative. But I think we're providing all of that for you, and then the ball's in your court. MS. POLKOWSKI: It's not our decision. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Your being your agency? MS. POLKOWSKI: Yes. And you know, I can just -- need to reinforce is without the funding now, we are going to have to shut down services because it -- it's at a critical point. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, I've got to assume your state agency knows that and that in an effort to best serve the citizens of the state, they're not going to allow you to shut down. MR. DORRILL: Or I might add -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie. MR. DORRILL: I don't want you just to take that statement, Dr. Polkowski's statement, at face value. There are at least two other public and/or not-for-profit health providers in this community. And I don't want the headline to be tomorrow that don't eat the fish in the canal, and we're going to treat -- you know, we're not treating anybody at the health department anymore, because if we had to, we could go and enter into an agreement, I would think, with either Naples Community Hospital and one of its subsidiaries or Collier Health Services, Incorporated, which is a not-for-profit federally subsidized health care provider in Naples and Immokalee. So don't think for a minute that sick people aren't going to be treated or that pregnant mothers aren't going to receive prenatal care -- as a threat -- and I hope she didn't intend that as a threat, but you have other mechanisms available in the interim should you choose to do so. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I just need to clarify my comments. My suggestion is not that we cut out funding. My suggestion is simply that we protect the citizens through the indemnification. And if -- it's not our role then to figure out the legal ins and outs of that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think we're losing focus. This agency, like -- like the sheriff's agency who pays for out of their own budget the insurance costs for indemnifying the county for that liability, we are instructing that insurance, which isn't terribly expensive when we look at the overall picture here, come out of their budget. We're not adding that to what we're giving them. We're saying we're giving you the same amount of money we told you we were going to give you, but the only way you're going to get it is if you use part of it to buy insurance to indemnify this county. We're not -- if we were purchasing the insurance on top of the costs -- on top of the funding, then we would be giving a gift. At this point we are saying to this agency we will only give you this money if you use part of it to buy insurance to protect the county. I donwt -- and -- and separately, I agree. Itws not right for the state to tell us what the state is telling us. But the avenue for appealing that is through the courts. Therews no point in a standoff with the agency. The agency has answered the question. Now, the next step is we tell the agency jump in the lake by appealing it to the courts. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Commissioner Norris. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yeah, Mr. Olliff, clarify for me, is there any other counties besides Hillsborough that -- that uses the indemnification language in their contracts? Mr. Bryant? MR. OLLIFF: None that Iwm aware of. MR. BRYANT: One thing as a point of edification for the board that I would share with you, we just received a contract from the Department of Transportation this past week over a total separate issue. It has nothing to do with health care. And itws really novel, but their contract has an indemnification clause in it where we indemnify DOT if there are any accidents, anything that takes place that we cause that type of injury to them. In fact, we talked to them about it. Itws novel. DOT is requiring it of us, but when we require it of another state agency, they tell us they canwt do it. But I know Hillsborough does, and I know that Orange is going to require it too because Orange makes a phenomenal commitment to HRS also. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think what Iwd like to see here is to try to strike a balance in that we have a problem, we have a contract, and we have funding that the public health unit needs to continue. Our attorney tells us that to try to remedy the problem is going to take about nine months in which time wewll be back at October of 1995, and a new HRS contract will be before us. We have yet to see what Hillsborough County is going to do about their upcoming contract. And now wewre told that Orange County is going to request similar indemnification. I think what I would like to see in this balance is for us to approve the funding, approve the contract, get the insurance, direct Mr. Cuyler to move forward with the declaratory judgment on this, and by next fall when the new contract comes up wewll be armed with a lot more information hopefully. I think thatws a good balance, and we can get off of -- of square one, get this moving, and everybody can continue functioning while we try to handle it through the court system. If therews a motion in that direction, Iwd like it. COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: That was my motion exactly, so it just needs a second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: A discussion. No, not a second. Iim just trying to take our staffls advice. We pay Mr. Bryant a lot of money and -- well, okay, maybe not enough. MR. BRYANT: I wish it were a little more. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And he -- he has suggested that we take a certain course that appears prudent to me. And I would just like to give him the credit of his expertise and go down that path. We have assurances from our county manager; that doesnlt mean that the doors over at public health close tomorrow and that everyonels turned away. It just appears to be a prudent course to me, and I would like to pursue that particular course as a matter of preference. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Iim not so sure itls terribly prudent. Just a moment, Commissioner Mac'Kie. Mr. Cuyler, you want to put something legal in here? MR. CUYLER: If there's not going to be a second to that, I've also suggested to counsel for HRS that we put the language in there to the extent permitted by law and then have the indemnification language, and if it turns out as part of a proceeding that we hold them to indemnify us, they can prove in a court of law that they're not legally required or entitled to indemnify us, then that takes care of it. If it turns out the AG's wrong and the courts rule the other way, instead of us pursuing a declaratory judgment at this time as part of that proceeding, you can get a ruling as to whether or not they could indemnify us. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Commissioner Hac'Kie. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Actually that would satisfy me too. What -- if I understand what you're saying is we put the indemnification language in -- wait, let me try to make another motion since the last one didn't get seconded. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, it was about to get seconded, but that's okay. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I want to withdraw it and make a new one, that we sign the contract, we fund the contract, we require the insurance to be purchased from their reserve, that in the contract we add a provision requiring the state to indemnify the county to the extent permitted by law. At that point they are likely to sign it because in their -- in their view that is no indemnification. In our view that is an indemnification. Then that can be argued in the courts later. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That -- that's similar to what our Mr. Bryant has been telling us to do, and I will second that one. MR. EVANS: Commissioners, we need to give you a little bit of a quick recap and a comment about that motion. MS. SCOTT: It's my understanding, and I -- maybe Mr. Bryant can clarify that, but it's my understanding that that's a language that was proposed originally, and that was turned down by the state that started the entire discussion and spurred the request for an attorney general's opinion. MR. EVANS: Exactly, and that's how we got to where we are today. This very same discussion occurred at the last board meeting. All of those considerations came about with the final result being let's get an attorney general's opinion to cover the issue. The opinion came back saying it -- it can't be signed with that language. We've gone full circle. At the last board meeting on this issue the board suggested that if that attorney general came back not supporting the contract issue, then we would have as a backup element the obtaining of the insurance coverage, which working with Jeff Walker and others and county staff we have found an answer to the insurance issue, very low cost, and for which the public health unit will cover the cost. We've gone full circle now, and we're back to give the contract to HRS, make them not sign it, and basically holding the health unit caught between a rock and a hard place in terms of its function. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Bryant, have we sent this particular form of language already to the HRS and they refused to sign it? MR. BRYANT: I'm not sure if that was exactly the language. I know that there was a discussion about to the extent provided by law or allowed by law, and I concur wholeheartedly with what Mr. Cuyler has recommended to you, because that gives us the ability to go ahead, move forward, have the insurance, submit the contract. And then if an issue comes up that we request them to indemnify us, if the provision says to that extent allowed by law and the court says no, you can't require that, then that's fine. But we already have the insurance coverage too. But that way we don't have to go through another proceeding to see if our contract is appropriate. I concur wholeheartedly what he's recommended to you. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have to say just -- this makes me really angry that I'm hearing from -- the staff needs to be clearer. I need to get better information to be able to make decisions. When you're telling me there was indemnification language and the state rejected it, then we get this new idea, hey, I've got a great idea, let's add this to the extent permitted by law. And lo and behold, that's what we've already asked. MR. CUYLER: No, I don't think that is what we asked. I think the question issued -- or submitted to the AG was can the state agency indemnify the county as a local government, and the answer was no. I mean somebody needs to correct me if -- I mean I don't know how the state can take the position that we don't want to add to the extent permitted by law. I mean just logically if it's not allowed by law, as you said, Commissioner Mac'Kie, means nothing. If it is allowed by law, then it means something. MR. BRYANT: That's exactly right, Commissioner Mac'Kie. This was not sent to the attorney general, that language. That was what was discussed with HRS. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Then I keep my motion as it was made. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Call it, please. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have one more comment. Commissioner Constantine. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: In reference to their comments, this is -- Mr. Cuyler used the word logical, it's reasonable, it's fair, puts everybody on an even playing field, allows care to continue and allows us to pursue it legally, both holding our respective positions. I'm not sure how anyone including HRS can oppose that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'll call the question. We have a motion by Commissioner Mac'Kie, a second by Commissioner Norris. If there is no further discussion, I'll call the question. All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5 to 0. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have a question, if I may, before Dr. Polkowski leaves. In the event -- can somebody describe to me what the process is? If we send this to the state, and the state said we told you we weren't going to sign it, I don't want -- I want to know at least, Mr. Dotrill, if what you say is that nobody is going to be harmed by this, what will happen when the state says we're not going to sign it, and Dr. Polkowski says, sorry, pregnant ladies, go home, I can't, you know, give you your vitamins? MR. DORRILL: Then before Mr. Olliff leaves this room in just a minute he's going to come here, and we're going to establish a meeting both with the Isabel Collier Read facility in Immokalee and Collier Health Services, Incorporated, which is a separate not-for-profit health care provider to determine that in the event the worst happens, that we already have a fallback plan or position to offer to you. If they come back and for whatever reason say they're not willing to enter into a contract with the Board of County Commissioners for those primary or tertiary-type health care services, then I will be back here to tell you that. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: All right. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock. MS. POLKOWSKI: I just want to make a comment, though, in the current contract with the Immokalee site in providing funding for their urgent care center, it is my understanding that the county pays a substantial amount of the malpractice insurance. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: It would appear to me that if this gets turned down by the state, we get an emergency item on our agenda. I mean that makes sense to me -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Does to me. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: -- because I don't think we're going to be able to set up a secondary system with other providers at what we're -- we're currently doing with our Collier County Public Health Unit. So I -- I think Commissioner Mac'Kie is looking for that immediate red flag to come back on our agenda and tell us this is the situation, and here are your options, but we want to -- MR. DORRILL: We wouldn't wait. We would tell you in advance of her putting us on notice that those services would cease. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. MR. DORRILL: It would give you an opportunity to reconsider your action of today if there is no viable alternative. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: That would be my -- my preference. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Fine. Then I presume that we will be either getting good news or bad news in a very short time. Let's hope it's good news. MS. POLKOWSKI: All right. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Before we take the next item -- and I have a belief based on what I've read during the week that it's going to be a fairly long item -- do we want to take a break for 15 minutes? COMHISSIONER NORRIS: The alternative impact fee is going to be long? COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Don, can you do this in 5 minutes? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Don, can you do this in 5 minutes? MR. PICKWORTH: Can I do this in 5 minutes? Can you do it in 5 minutes? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We can do it in 5 minutes. MR. PICKWORTH: No, a break is fine. It's going to me more than 5 minutes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let's take a break. Let's take a break until 10:30. (A short bread was held.) Item #SD1 ALTERNATIVE IHPACT FEE CALCULATION FOR SHERWOOD PARK - DENIED CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Reconvene the Board of County Commissioners meeting for March 28th. We are at item 8-D-1. This s the alternative impact fee calculation, Sherwood Park. Mr. HcNees. MR. HcNEES: Good morning, Commissioners, Mike HcNees. I'll make my introduction very brief. You've already heard my presentation on this item a few weeks ago. Staff's position is -- s really unchanged, and our advice to you is unchanged. I know you've been given a considerable amount of information in the meantime. I'll refresh your minds as we go into this what staff's position was; one, that -- that the alternative impact fee calculation submitted by the developers of Sherwood Park did not meet the requirements or the criteria specified in the ordinance for an impact fee waiver or -- or mitigation or alternative calculation, whatever you want to call it. Beyond that, staff's position was that even if it had met those criteria, that the data and the documentation that had been submitted by Sherwood Park at that time merely verified that the units to be developed in Sherwood Park were similar to and consistent with many, many other units that we have in our system that have been developed and who paid impact fees under the terms of the ordinance. There would be one piece of information I would add to the mix here that has just really come to my attention, would be in the submittals for site plan review for Sherwood Park, a document that was prepared in June of 1994 -- or received in June of 1994 when the developers and the engineers of Sherwood Park engineered their master pump stations and -- and did the engineering criteria by which we would then provide regional sewer treatment to them. They used assumptions of 250 gallons per day for engineering of the system, which is exactly the number that's contained in the impact fee ordinance that they're here today disputing and have -- I would point out that that would be one set of numbers used for the engineering, and now we're talking about different numbers when we're trying to pay the fee. And from staff's point of view that's exactly why we're recommending what we are. With that, that would end my comments. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. HcNees, the petitioner's provided us with a few properties and based on those properties makes a convincing argument that -- that really what's happening out there is not what we included in our impact fee ordinance. Did staff do any research on similar floor sized type condominiums elsewhere that lend credence to the 410-gallon-per-day average? MR. HcNEES: Let me clarify a couple things. The 410-gallon-per-day number that you see in the table on the first page of the ordinance we believed to be nothing more than an oversight that when the ordinance was revised, it was not stricken. The -- the impact fee study which develops the numbers in that ordinance talks about a 350-gallon-per-day assumption and -- and I think everyone recognizes that the 410 is probably just a stray that was left over when the ordinance was amended and not stricken when it was printed. Now, if that's material, then -- then we'll face that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: When was that amended? MR. McNEES: 1992, I believe. To answer your question, I would -- I would word part of it somewhat differently. We have no dispute in any way with any of the numbers that have been provided to -- to document the Sherwood Park case, so we're not -- it's not a question of do we think their numbers are incorrect. It's what those numbers represent that the staff would dispute. What they from the staff point of view are arguing is that 90 or 80 or 70, which is a number that they've consistently come up with to be an average per-day usage for these units, is less than 350, which is the average number that's used in calculating the impact fee system-wide. And we have no dispute that 90 is less than 350. It's a lot less. It's 30 percent, okay. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's very big of you, Mr. McNees. MR. McNEES: And staff has not in any way disputed that position. What that means, however, and what those numbers are all about is what's in contention here today. So to answer your question, we have not provided alternative disputing numbers because we don't dispute the numbers. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. We've -- were talking about average because we all know the maximum strain on any water sewer system occurs at peak time in peak season. I assume when we look at 350 or 250 gallons per day, depending on whether we're talking about water or sewer, we're planning for peak usage. I -- and, again, I'll let -- in your presentation you may want to cover this. I asked for some peak numbers, and they're in here. MR. PICKWORTH: I'll address it. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Because we can talk about averages all day long, but the bottom line, if the capacity isn't there or the need to provide capacity on a given day during the year is not there, then we've done a disservice to the other people along that line. So, again, Mr. McNees, you probably would say I agree, but is there anything you have to add to that rationale? MR. McNEES: No, sir. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any further questions for staff? I guess, Mr. Pickworth, you're on. MR. PICKWORTH: Okay. Thank you, Commissioners. I'm Don Pickworth representing Sherwood Park. I'll be brief because I want to put Mr. Vines up here because I think he can summarize it very quickly but before we get away on this because you mentioned this before, and I -- I would say that the -- the concept of peak demand is factored in. It is, in fact, part of the 410 or 350, and it's kind of interesting that it's an oversight -- I don't know -- but let's use 350. That's what's in your county report, and I think that's that Hartman report. It's one of the tabs in there. It's -- it's -- and he talks in there about the peaking factor, and that's discussed. That's all taken into account, so -- so we're apples to apples on this, because we take your average which includes the peak months and the down months, and that is discussed in three or four places in the county report. So when the -- so when the county -- when the county designed its impact fee, that -- those numbers included that, and that was part of their calculation. One other concept to keep in mind in going through this what this 350 number -- let's use 350 for now, and if we get down to looking at percentages, I think notwithstanding that it's an oversight, you know, that's been in the law for a couple of years. Maybe it's an oversight, maybe not. It's there. It's been reviewed annually. It's hard to imagine that just, you know, gratuitously all of a sudden it's an error. I don't think so. I think it is what it is. But we'll talk 350 because your report talks 350. We're not -- as I emphasized before, we are not here to dispute or bring in another study. We're here to talk off of your study. 350 is in terms of equivalent residential connections. It's very, very clearly spelled out in your report. That is the basis upon which the impact fee was designed, that being a single-family unit, and it's clearly defined in your engineer's report. So I just -- I just -- as we go through this, I'd just like that to be kept in mind, and we're only arguing off of that, your report, not some new and different thing. With that I think probably the first thing is let me have Bill Vines come up here and just talk you through this and what our concern is. And then after that I will get back up and just introduce Mr. Asmus, our rate consultant, to you. And then after that we'll be prepared to answer some questions. If there are members of the public registered to speak that can add something to this and it's necessary for rebuttal, I would like to reserve a couple minutes at the end to comment on that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I just have one question for myself as we move through this, and that is -- actually I guess it's two questions. Is the developer prepared to place a covenant or restriction on the condominium deeds that these condos will only be inhabited by seasonal occupiers and -- and that they will only be two people occupying forever on a seasonal basis and that they will never have children or people using this who will be there year-round and, therefore, use a lot more water? MR. PICKWORTH: Well, let me answer that this way -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I mean I need to know that. MR. PICKWORTH: Okay. And let me -- let me try to answer that. I guess the answer is no. But before you decide, well, we're not going to go with them because of that, keep in mind that when we discuss the comparables, these are year-round units. The factor is not whether or not it's two people or three people. It's not whether it's seasonal. The real issue is -- what we have found -- and I think we have probably the only data on the floor -- is that where a condominium development does its irrigation of its grounds through a source other than the county's water system, or if they have a separate meter for that, i.e., if they get gray water, and I know you serve some developments with effluent, if they get it out of lakes or wells, that's the factor. And when we went through and did those comparables, we didn't look at how many people. We didn't look at whether it was seasonal because it really doesn't matter. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MR. PICKWORTH: And so just -- Mr. Vines. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. VINES: Good morning, Commissioners. I'm William Vines. I filed the application which seeks to reduce the water and sewer impact fees for the Sherwood Park multifamily project on the grounds that its financial impact on the county water and sewer system will be much less than the fees your staff has asked for. My remarks this morning will give you some background and context regarding the matter and should help you understand the basis for the application and the basis for our belief that it is reasonable and proper. In investigating this matter we examined water use records from a great many residential projects and found that there's a huge variation in the amount of water used. The range generally is from 60-gallons-per-day per dwelling unit on a year-round basis to over a thousand gallons a day per dwelling unit and occasionally over 2,000 gallons per day per dwelling unit on a year-round basis. The biggest users typically use as much as 15 to 30 times as much as the smallest users. We found three primary factors which accounts for the huge variation. Mr. Pickworth just mentioned one. The first is the type of residence, single family or multifamily, big variation. The second is whether or not there is a swimming pool at the residence. And the third, the biggest of all, is whether and how much lawn irrigation and other outside water use takes place using potable water. Both the water and sewer impact fee ordinances state that impact fees are to be based on the anticipated actual water and sewer usage expressed in equivalent dwelling units, which is stated by the ordinance to be an average of 410 gallons per day. The Hartman engineering study uses 350 gallons per day. It's an integral part of the water and sewer impact fee ordinances, and it indicates that the average gallons per day figure for an equivalent dwelling unit is increased for system design purposes to take peaking into account. The Sherwood Park project will essentially be a carbon copy of a multifamily development project previously developed by the Sherwood Park developer. The dwelling units will be small. All are two bedroom. A single swimming pool will serve the entire 336-unit complex. The entire project will be irrigated with nonpotable water. There will be no outside hose bibs and, therefore, no outside water usage. Projects with these characteristics typically utilize 60 to 70 gallons of potable water per day per dwelling unit on a year-round basis. 70 gallons per day is 17 percent of a 410-gallon-per-day equivalent dwelling unit. It is 20 percent of a 350-gallon-per-day equivalent dwelling unit. Your county staff administers the water and sewer impact fee ordinances as if every residence, single or multifamily, were an equivalent dwelling unit. All residential units are charged the same water and sewer impact fee without regard to the huge variation in actual service provided. That's wrong, and the ordinance says it's wrong. What that practice does is cause residents of projects like Sherwood Park, other small users, to pay far more impact fees than their fair share thereby subsidizing large impact residences. If you look in your Sherwood Park folder which Mr. Pickworth gave you, under tab 12 you will see that back in 1991 I applied for an alternative impact fee for the Quail West clubhouse on the grounds that the impact fee assigned to it by county staff was based on assumed water and sewer use volumes which were many times as large as use records of area golf clubhouses showed to be the actual case. That application was resolved when the county determined that its water and sewer impact fees would be based on the size of the meter required to serve the clubhouse. The meter size in turn was based on use records of comparable club facilities. That is exactly the kind of adjustment we believe to be appropriate in this case. It is planned to serve the entirety of the Sherwood Park development with a single master meter. Water use calculations indicate that the appropriate meter size is 6 inches taking into account seasonal peaking requirements for both potable water use and fire flow requirements. The water impact fee for a 6-inch meter is $45,000. Sewer impact fees for Sherwood Park should be $67,000, which is the stated sewer impact fee for a nonresidential project with a 6-inch meter and is equally valid for a residential project with a 6-inch meter. COMMISSIONER MACwKIE: Mr. Vines, may I ask you a question? Is the 6-inch meter -- I was just trying to compare this with what the information Mr. McNees shared this morning about your -- I think it was your site development plan. Is -- is -- is the meter or the 6-inch line that you described what was applied for in -- is that what was shown in your SDP? MR. VINES: Yes, I believe so, but there are others here who are much more familiar with the specifics. I didnwt make that application, so -- Iim almost finished. If you would let me complete, and then weill answer that and any other questions. COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: All right. MR. VINES: Total water and sewer impact fees for Sherwood Park based on its anticipated usage should be $112,000, which is the extent of fiscal impact which Sherwood Park will have on the countyls regional water and sewer system expansion requirements. The water and sewer impact fee ordinances expressly require that impact fees be based on anticipated demand. That is the potable water and sewage volumes which will flow to and away from the impact fee paying project. The impact fee ordinances do not permit all residential units to be charged the same impact fees regardless of whether they are large or small users, although that is the administrative practice. In accord with the ordinances, Sherwood Park wishes to pay water and sewer impact fees based on its impact on the county plant and distribution system. The extent of Sherwood Park impact has been professionally calculated. We are willing to commit that if any kind of future circumstances result in a future use volume greater than calculated, we will pay for installation of the required larger meter and will pay for the additional impact fees. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I have to interrupt you right there because I read that -- MR. VINES: I just finished. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In that case, great timing. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Good timing. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I read that in here, and the question came to my mind is three years from now itls sold out. The numbers are higher than you said they would be. You tell me youill pay for the impact. We canlt find you. MR. VINES: Well, I say we, Sherwood Park. Sherwood Park. I donlt -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In other words, the unit owners. MR. VINES: The ordinance requires -- the ordinance -- you know, itls not only in advance that you canlt measure volume before a project is developed, so you have to make a reasonable assumption of the kind of use volumes which that project will generate. The only way I know to do that is to compare it to comparable projects for which you do have use records, and thatls what we have been trying to do here. But we just offer as insurance if after -- if after there is enough of Sherwood Park developed to have occupied units and to develop a -- a year or more worth of use records, if it is shown that we underestimated the volume, that the 6-inch meter isn't big enough, we'll buy a bigger meter and pay the additional impact fee. And whether that's the current developer or the homeowner's association or whatever, we'll commit to that. We just offer that as an extra, an added insurance against -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, correct me if I'm wrong, a 6-inch meter doesn't regulate -- I mean there's a maximum flow, but let's face it, a 6-inch meter covers a broad spectrum. MR. VINES: Sure. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And a flow much greater than what you've proposed could occur with a 6-inch meter easily. MR. VINES: It could. So if it does -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So if we tie the upsizing of a meter to that, doesn't that make sense because the flow could increase with a meter being -- remaining the same size? MR. VINES: Well -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me. We've got a court reporter here who's trying to get this, and we have conversation on top of another person. If each of us would wait until the other person finishes speaking, then I think our court reporter can do a much better job. Thank you. MR. VINES: I agree with that. The ordinance provides for meter upsizing at various incremental volumes of water. And the 6-inch meter -- the volume which the ordinance says should require an 8-inch meter rather than a 6-inch meter is known. It's set forth. If that larger volume should ever materialize in actual use -- we say it won't, but if it should, then it will be shown that we undersized the meter, underpaid the impact fee, and we're liable to make the correction. That's -- I don't know how to be more fair to -- to more properly commit that we will do what the ordinance says, which is pay your fair share, which is the amount that the system will have to be expanded to serve. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And I -- I don't take issue with that. That's the reason that is in the impact fee ordinance, and I -- I think you're correct in addressing it. Mr. McNees, the 350 or 410, whichever we're talking about, that was arrived at on the average when for the most part potable water was being used for irrigation, this -- the idea of effluent is something that is -- is not used everywhere. And I guess what I'm looking at is if a development comes in and uses effluent or nonpotable water for irrigation, they're obviously going to reduce their impact on the system. So was that 350 arrived at for most places using, in fact, potable water for irrigation purposes? MR. McNEES: I don't believe it's -- it's discussed in the impact fee study as far as some reference to potable water versus effluent water for irrigation. The 350-gallon figure is an industry standard, and it's not -- I'd say to give a direct answer to your question, no, that's not considered. And if at some point we wanted to further subdivide our impact fee calculations or our -- or our billing systems in some way to differentiate somehow someone who irrigates with potable versus someone who doesn't, that's sure something that's possible. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Because it seems to me it's to our advantage if we were to encourage the use of effluent for irrigation, to have a commensurate reduction in impact fees for potable water use that would otherwise be used for that. I mean that seems to make sense to me. MR. HcNEES: And you do encourage effluent use on the other side of your financial equation which is in the user fee equation by -- you have a conservation rate in your water billing structure where the more water you use, the higher the rate, which encourages potable water not to be used for irrigation. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The last question I have -- and I'll let the rest of the commission speak, if we grant this, Mr. Cuyler, does that allow others to request retroactive judgments on existing development? MR. CUYLER: I would say not retroactive, but you have a lot of -- because you're not -- you're not going -- I don't think you would ever rule that your fee was inappropriate. You're just saying that some specific person has proved that they're different. The problem is that this project is not different than a lot of projects out there. I'm not so concerned with the retroactive aspect, but Mr. McNees can tell you that this project is not unusual in its water consumption. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Because my under -- and I'm going to try and wrap this up, Commissioner Constantine. I'm sorry. I got a lot of questions. I'm sorry. It seems obvious if we're not using potable water for irrigation, then -- and if we're not using outside hose bibs as you've promised, the only use is inside the unit. It seems to me there's a real basic formula. We know how much water it takes to flush a toilet. We know about how many times you do it a day. We know how much it takes to shower or bathe. We add all this up, multiply by the units, and that seems to be a kind of a common-sense approach. MR. VINES: It's 60 to 70 gallons per day per unit for two bedrooms -- COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Very quick showers in those units. MR. VINES: Whatever, that's the record, your records. They're the ones that show that over and over and over, month after month, year after year. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Definitely no teenagers living there. MR. VINES: That's right. Family-size house size, big difference. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The problem is, though, that you can't guarantee -- impact fees are assessed when the project is initiated, and it seems to me that the -- the goal of impact fees is not so much to -- to try to fix the use at the time that it's being built. I mean if -- if we're going to play that game, we can play those games all day long, and the Collier County Regional Water Sewer District will be behind the ball for the rest of time, because I can see developers coming in here for the next ten years saying, well, our use is not going to be what your impact fee ordinance requires, and we have this alternative calculation because people who buy our units are going to be elderly people. They don't have any children. They don't have any visitors. They're only going to be here one or two months a year. And then ten years from now the whole picture for that project changes, and now we have young families living there, and -- and the water consumption and the water use is far different. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think in a nutshell just because other places haven't applied doesn't mean this isn't different. However, I don't think, Bill, you've proven that it is different. You haven't proven that it will be utilizing less, and I think that burden is on you rather than on us to try to play catchup three years from now. Just in my mind I'm not comfortable that you have proven that there will be less use. MR. VINES: Well, the -- the -- the proof -- the best proof that we could offer is to show you a series of very, very similar projects and their use records over the years. And there's no instance that I know of where small two-bedroom condominium projects of this kind ever convert to large families with large children with a huge increase in water and sewage usage. I mean it just doesn't happen. Theoretically it could, but it's not a practice. The ordinance says you have to do a reasonable job of forecasting use. I'll -- let me just make a couple of gratuitous comments and sit down, and these are external to our application. The application had to follow the format of applying for an alternative impact fee for a project. But what we learned is that you need as much income from income -- from impact fees as is required to expand -- expand your systems, water and sewer systems, to accommodate the growth. You need to comply with the ordinance by varying the amount of impact fee charges that you make in accord with impacts that these individual projects have. The bottom line is that your ordinance isn't really too bad. The administrative practice is terrible because it ignores the ordinance. It doesn't do what it says. It charges every residential unit the same, and they are not anywhere near the same. There are huge variations. You need to revise the ordinance if that's necessary. Certainly you would need to revise the administrative practice so as to more fairly assign impact fees in relation to the logically expectable impact which those projects will have. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Commissioner Hancock. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. McNees, Mr. Vines has shown us the low end. Can you show me the high end on condominiums? In other words, can you rationally show me where there is 250-gallons-a-day average being used or 300-gallons-a-day average being used in any type of condominium project in Collier County? MR. McNEES: I'm not prepared to do that today. I don't have numbers. I'm willing to agree to the numbers that the petitioner threw out a few minutes ago when he began his presentation that there are single-family users who use as much as a thousand to two thousand and that there is a substantial variation. What this kind of comes down to is the question can a fee methodology be developed for impact fees that further subdivides this category of residential dwelling units. And the answer is absolutely it could be done. But the second question is does that necessarily mean that the existing structure is unfair. No, it does not. It -- we could further subdivide and -- and our impact fee ordinances used to be structured completely differently. They weren't wrong then. They were just done differently so that it doesn't necessarily lead that because we don't subdivide to the degree that would benefit this project that the existing structure is unfair. Perhaps when the next iteration of this comes through, that's something that merits consideration. The last question that I'll throw at you is can you subdivide this residential single-family classification unilaterally to benefit the lower end without jeopardizing the integrity of the whole impact fee structure. The answer is no, you cannot. You have to look at the entire structure and the allocation of the costs from top to bottom, and that's why staff's making the recommendation to you that it is. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Hargett. MR. HARGETT: Yes, ma'am, thank you. Madam Chairman. Having done a couple impact fee studies before and right in the middle of reviewing Collier County's impact fees, just a couple comments in terms of, I guess, the petition in front of the board. Number one, having looked at the Brown and Caldwell study for Collier County in 1991 followed by the Hartman report in '92, I think it's extremely important to recognize that each was a -- a complete report, a system. And I don't recall any instances in which either of those reports went and looked at development A or development B or development C. It's a system-wide report. The whole philosophy behind impact fees are encouched in the name. It is an impact, and it's a potential impact based on the size of the meter and what that meter may deliver. And without respect to what you might do with this request or subsequent requests, when this county goes forward to build its next treatment plant the -- the consumption or the impact for the potential consumption per equivalent unit -- and there's a difference there between what's being stated here and what's used -- it's an equivalent residential unit, is specified by the DEP, and we will have to build those facilities in accordance with specific consumption potentials of each equivalent residential unit, both for potable water as well as for wastewater. And so while we might come up and say that it's 200 gallons in this case or 83 or 87 gallons that they're using, when we get around to building the plant for that, it's going to be 350 gallons, and there's going to be a big gap there. I think one of the commissioners has exactly hit on it, that you do need to look at your entire report, and in that -- especially in the Hartman report you'll find a series of comparisons between I'll call equivalent units whereby there was a Collier County calculation for how many five-eighths inch meters there are in a 6-inch meter. That was compared with the AWWA calculations as well as the Florida Public Service Commission calculations as to relative volumes of water that can pass through those meters. The board, I think, very deliberately selected the least costly or the ratios that had the least impacts. Already you need to know we're on the very low end of the scale in terms of evaluating this 6-inch meter in terms of how many five-eighths inch meters there are in it. I think, you know, there's some multiplier that's used to calculate that. I think, thirdly, in terms of the ordinance in being permissive and offering alternate schedules of impact fee calculations are, in fact, that. What you have seen and the big document I read, it's not an alternate impact fee calculation. It's simply to tell you what three or four different units or developments that are similar to this one have used. It does not tell you what they will use in the future, nor does it consider them in the context of your overall water and sewer system, which is what an impact fee is based on. It's not based on a single development. I think ideally your utility would like to see a flat line that a unit would use 200 gallons per capita or unit per day every day of the year. You know, I think it's very obvious we don't do that. You know, we've had some discussions regarding seasonal residents that their impact on the system may be -- ought to be a multiple of two instead of the straight calculations that's included. There are that I'm familiar with more than one right way to do these impact fees. COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Hargett, I don't mean to interrupt a very good presentation. You said one thing that -- MR. HARGETT: I'm about to conclude. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Are you? MR. HARGETT: Yes. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: You said one thing that as much as I'm trying to understand, we have an alternate impact fee calculation, and it says come forward and try to do it. You said something that washes all that away from me. If DEP requires us to build the facilities on an average of 350 gallons per day per unit and we have to do that, then I'm sorry. We need to take alternate impact fee calculation out of here. MR. HARGETT: Well, maybe that's our problem in terms of convincing the DEP that their criteria is no longer valid. And until we do that, that remains a fact. In the analysis that I'm presently looking at it's hopefully to achieve some of the things that are being suggested both by Mr. Vines and Mr. Pickworth here in terms of how to give appropriate consideration to developments of this nature. But my strong suggestion to you is that it be in the overall context of your total users and future potential users and the demands that they place on the system, and there are ways to do this. Your impact fee calculations that was done by Hartman and, I guess, followed up or preceded by Brown and Caldwell is a right way. It's a way of doing it, and it is a right way. There are other ways. We're looking at one now. I'm sure that their rate consultant can tell you several other ways. But, you know, until that's done, you do need to look at anything that's proposed to you as an alternative that it, in fact, be a system-wide alternative. And simply what you've been given is just a teeny piece of the pie, a snapshot of one development at a specific period of time. And we just caution you about the use of that in making a -- a broad system-wide policy. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: When -- when we do our annual adequate public facilities report are we required to set aside 350 gallons a day? MR. HARGETT: It's my recollection that's the number, yes, ma'am. Mr. HcNees, would you confirm that in our annual update in our facilities report that it's 350 gallons per day? Do you know? MR. HcNEES: I believe that's correct. I'd have to verify that, though. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So in order to continue issuing building permits for residential units, one of which Sherwood Park has I don't know how many units, but we -- we have been required to set aside capacities in our system for 350 gallons a day and built the system accordingly; is that true? MR. HcNEES: I believe that's true. I'd sure like to verify that, though. MR. PICKWORTH: Madam Chairman, before we go too far down that road, we read those DEP regulations. There's a 350-gallon-a-day standard unless actual use records over six months show it's something different. So if somebody is assuming 350 gallons a day here, I don't know why they're doing that because, you know, we got our numbers out of the county's records. They're equally available obviously to the people who work out there who can look at those records, so I don't know why they're doing that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Commissioner Hancock. Let's get a motion. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: What is your average -- what is the county's average over the last six months? Does anyone know? MR. PICKWORTH: Well, I know this. The Hartman report says that the average equivalent residential connection, which is a single-family unit, is 350 gallons a day. Hartman says it got that information from the county, so I assume the county gave them that. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I -- again, as much as I want to be fair because there's something in writing that says you can come in and request this, I don't feel like I have enough information to go down that road because I see one end of the spectrum. I don't see the other end. I don't know if we have any -- obviously you found some things that shore up your case, but I don't see anything that shores up the 300 gallons a day or 250. I just feel I don't have enough to grant -- MR. PICKWORTH: Could we finish our presentation? I have one other witness who may be able to address some of this. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have one more question for Mr. Hargett. The purpose -- let me just see if I can clarify in my mind why we have an alternative calculation in the ordinance at all. Is the purpose for that if someone has a proposal where they can show that their development is significantly different from any other development around and that they can show because of the way they're developing the project, i.e., a specific tense system handling shower water and so forth where it will never get to our water -- our wastewater treatment plant, is -- is that what this alternative method is for? MR. HARGETT: I don't think that's what that means. I think that is about this much of the criteria, because if you get into that impact fee study that Hartman did, there's a whole list of improvements and a dollar amount associated with that and an equivalent number of residential units that gets divided into that. Now we're talking about over here changing only one side of the equation without going over here and say -- and I don't know what Mr. -- you know, what Mr. Pickworth is saying and we're saying is not all that different. It's in terms of the timing. We think we need to be looking at these things because the system is changing. But I don't think that -- this is a narrow view, a one-development issue, you know, that he's representing, and the board has the entire system to look at. So it -- there is a considerable amount of consideration that -- that you need to make other than this unit uses X gallons, and it's less than. You've got to go over and adjust the other side of the equation or come back and do that division using a different number of units, and those -- that would be the kind of thing that an alternative impact fee analysis would mean to me. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Mr. Pickworth, you have additional that you -- MR. PICKWORTH: Yes, I do. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- would like to go through? MR. PICKWORTH: I would like to bring up Mr. Batty Asmus. Mr. Asmus is president of Regulated Industry's Consultants. We have a statement of his professional qualifications in the book that you were given. I would ask that he be accepted as an expert in this for the purpose of this hearing. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to recognize him as an expert. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to recognize Mr. Asmus as an expert in this field. Is there a discussion on that motion? There being none, I'll call the question. All in favor, please say aye. You're an expert. MR. PICKWORTH: Without further ado I will ask Mr. Asmus to address -- and I think he will hit some of the points that Mr. Hargett was talking about. MR. ASHUS: Good morning, Commissioners. Well, you've cut out about 5 minutes of my going through and trying to explain to you who I am. In looking at the Collier County code and trying to ascertain the basis for setting an impact fee, if you look at articles 4 and articles 5 of the Collier County code, which are the regional water and sewer impact fee, those -- that -- those sections of the code or those articles of the code are based upon and in part the August '92 Hartman and Associates report, and it's so stated in the master plan section of those two articles, which are contained in sections 1 and 2 of your presentation that we've provided you. Section 5 of our submission contains the August 1992 engineering document of Hartman and Associates in toto, and I would direct your attention to it. The -- it summarizes the basis for their recommendation concerning impact fees. Their letter dated August 27th, 1992, states in quote, an equitable and to reflect the cost burden of each utility. So what they're looking for is an equitable distribution. Page 1 of the report defines an equivalent residential unit, and let me read it for the moment. An ERU is a unit of measure which approximates the average demand of a single-family residential customer or customer receiving service based on certain attributes of the residential unit, e.g., single versus multifamily square footage of account. The ERU concept defines all types of development and facility uses as either a percentage or a multiple of a single-family residence on the basis of anticipated water use. Anticipated water use speaks to demand, the anticipated demand that a unit will be placing on the facilities of the county. Going back, an ERU concept, it's either a percentage or a multiple of a single-family residence. We represent other jurisdictions that in the vast majority, in fact, if not all the ERU for a condominium association or for a multifamily dwelling, is a less than one ERU. It's a percentage of an ERU. It does not equate to an ERU. It goes on to explain the ERU factor as I've just discussed which is detailed in section 14 of our submission. I direct your attention to that because it was referred to earlier, which is the calculation of water systems equivalent in residential units, and this is out of the Florida Public Service Commission annual report which shows by size meter how many units are anticipated to be in those unit -- in those meter equivalents. That was determined many years ago. I've been doing this for in excess of 25 years. And when I began doing public utility accounting and regulatory accounting, this was already -- the 350 had already been set by the American Water Works Association predicated upon an average household of 3.5 residents and an average consumption on an annual basis of a hundred gallons per day. That's -- that's the derivation of the 350. And basically the Hartman report based on demand goes into meter equivalents, and it discusses meter equivalents. And I direct you to page 8 of the report which discusses -- excuse me, still on page 1. Let me go back -- discusses that the -- an ERU factor is predicated on meter equivalents. It goes to meter equivalents, and they discuss it in a few places in their report, meter equivalents. If you go to page 8 of their report, which is in section 5 of our submission, you'll see that it explains the design of the wastewater system impact fee, and it states, the development of the wastewater system impact fee for capacity reservation was developed in a similar matter as discussed for the water impact fee, specifically the proposed wastewater system impact fee for system capacity or demand was predicated on the estimated project costs, et cetera. Again, they mentioned demand, anticipated demand placed upon the system by the units. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me, Mr. Asmus. MR. CUYLER: I don't want to interrupt the presentation, but I just want to note something on the record before we go too long. A lot of these references are to the submission that was handed out, I think, two weeks ago. I think staff wants to place on the record in the event this ever goes any further than the Board of County Commissioners that the impact fee study had a time frame, and I know Mr. Pickworth will probably want to get on the record some things at the end of his presentation, but the alternative impact fee study had a time frame in which it was supposed to be produced and submitted. These -- a lot of these references are to information that was submitted two weeks ago, and I think the staff would want to place an objection just in -- for the purposes of the record not to preclude you from hearing this if you want to go ahead and hear it, but a lot of these references were not a part of the original alternative impact fee study. I just wanted to get that on the record in case we ever need to argue that further. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Do we need to -- do we need to have staff do that now, or can they wait until Mr. Asmus finishes? MR. CUYLER: I think you can note that as an objection. We can proceed. Mr. Pickworth can put something on the record after his expert gets through. too much. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COMHISSIONER NORRIS: at a point here. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COMHISSIONER NORRIS: I don't want to interrupt his presentation Okay. Thank you. Let me ask a question while we're Commissioner Norris. Mr. McNees, are the impact fee rates for single-family residents the same as for condominiums or apartments? MR. McNEES: Yes. We consider that apartment to be a residential single-family unit. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. ASMUS: If you turn to page 11 of the Hartman report, which is in section 5 of our submission, it talks about the impact fee customer application, and it states in part as previously mentioned, the application for the water impact fee is based on the size of the meter, whereas, the wastewater impact fee is based on the amount of fixtures, i.e., e.g., bathrooms, et cetera, that a dwelling unit or account may have. Thus, there is an inconsistency in the application of the fees between the two utility systems. In order to promote consistency among the two utilities, being water and sewer, for the county, and equitably to the application of the fee, it is recommended that the application of the fee be modified to an entire -- to be entirely on the basis of meter equivalents, and then it goes in the next paragraph and says the basis for meter sizing is based on customer demand, our rate of flow generally required by a customer. That's on page 11 of their property. Now, the -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: If I could just for a second. MR. ASMUS: Sure, sure. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: You know this line of discussion would be very interesting and probably appropriate some day when we were perhaps considering amending our ordinances, but we're dealing with the ordinance that we have today. MR. ASMUS: No, I understand that. And basically, Commissioner Norris, what I'm trying to explain is when drafting your impact fee ordinances, you look to the impact fee study prepared by your consultants, Hartman and Associates, which throughout their study they discussed demand and meter equivalence equaling demand. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We're going over the same ground. MR. ASMUS: No, no. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: This is what you just spent a lot of time explaining, and I understand it, but we're dealing with an ordinance in place today. MR. ASMUS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. MR. ASMUS: And basically the ordinance that's in effect today also addresses -- if you look in article 4 and 5, there are referrals to demand. And if you want me to point them out, I can point them out to you. But they also -- the common thread throughout the ordinances and the Hartman study is the demand placed on the system by a potential user, by the person paying the impact fee. And when we looked at the alternative impact fee analysis to determine what is fair and equitable, we figured that since your consultant said the only equitable way is based on demand on meter equivalence, we agree with them on that. And we say that Sherwood Park should be allowed to pay the meter equivalence for a 6-inch meter for water and wastewater because we did the study. We did the table which is included in section 9 of our submission which takes into consideration 25 comparable condominium associations representing 761 condominium units in Lee and Collier County. So logistically the demographics -- it's right here in the southwest Florida area and comparable in that they do not use potable water for irrigation. They do not have hose bibs outside. They are like-size units in that they're two beds and two bath. They are newer developments that take into consideration efficient facilities inside the units for water conservation because everyone now is cognizant of water conservation. And the results of our study shows that the average consumption and gallons per unit per day is 66 gallons. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Did your study encompass the rate of impact fees that these comparable projects had paid? MR. ASMUS: No, because basically we understand that whatever they paid when they hooked up to wherever they hooked up, whether it be Collier or Lee County, is what they paid. The -- the alternative impact fee calculation proviso in the ordinances specifically states that those who do not come forth for an alternative fee calculation within a certain period of time, they waive their rights to that, you know, in perpetuity, and that's it. I mean they had their chance. They decided not to do it. But the point is there is a proviso there so that someone who is knowledgeable in this field and who wants to take advantage and go to the county commission or go to the county staff like was done in the Quail West situation -- again, in the Quail West situation there was a presentation, and it was gone to. What -- what -- what the negotiated settlement or what they agreed to -- what all parties agreed to was to go to the meter equivalents. Not to the units, not to the number of -- of chairs in the dining room, not to the number of shower stalls, not to the number of bathroom facilities, but go to the meter equivalents. And your engineer discusses the meter equivalents predicated on demand. That sets demand because that is the barometer for demand. The ordinance talks to demand. So all we're saying is that the 6-inch meter is what we're going to be -- this is what the engineers have told us is going to be needed in this development. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I'm sorry -- excuse me. I'm sorry, but I can't let you get away with trying to compare a commercial unit such as the clubhouse at Quail West with a residential complex. I can't let you make that comparison. MR. ASHUS: Well, that's true. And I'll tell you why, Commissioner Norris, because the Quail West clubhouse will probably use more gallons per day than Sherwood Park condominium -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Fine. MR. ASHUS: -- because they are a commercial entity. And a commercial entity because -- see, a 6 inch says how much is the maximum the water flows, and the 6 inch is predicated for Sherwood Park to determine what is -- with fire protection what is necessary to provide service for the 336 units plus fire protection. And, of course, that is also true for the country club. So you're right. They may be -- one's commercial, one's residential. But the 6-inch meter is a 6-inch meter. And the 6-inch doesn't know if it's servicing 336 units or servicing a country club. It knows how much water can go through its -- its openings and knows how to register that. So basically we compared the two. And as you can see on table number 9, the percentage of the 410 gallons per day, which is in the water ordinance, is 16.6 -- I mean 16.06 percent of the 410. Now, to go one step further, is this fair and equitable, does it make any sense. What we have done is we went to the county, and we have asked for some computer runs because we realize that there may be a question as to -- well, okay, these are nice. Table 9 is nice, but has anybody looked at the total population of the condominium units as to all the condominiums out there? What -- what is the use for the condominiums out there that do not use potable water for irrigation purposes, because if you compared us to those that are sprinkling their public places with potable water, you would have an apples and oranges situation. It would be noncomparables. They would still be condominium units, but they would be noncomparables. So we asked for the information, and we received it yesterday. And in the beginning of our review of the 135 pages, which is a listing, there are major problems with the computer run. You have instances where on 7 pages in a row you have the same consumptions per month for 10 months with 32 different accounts. Something is wrong with the numbers. The numbers do not jive. They are researching as we speak right now because we brought it to their attention, and it just isn't those six or seven pages. It's fraught throughout the report. I mean -- COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mike, would you respond? MR. McNEES: I would love to. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. McNees, please. MR. McNEES: We were asked somewhere in the neighborhood of a week ago to provide a report in a format that we did not have and that we had not prepared before and to gather information for the petitioner in a manner in which he requested it be formatted. I put 100 percent of the utilities data processing staff -- that's one man -- on it and told him to work with the petitioner and get whatever he could for him. That report was made available to the petitioner in the format they requested yesterday. It turns out that when it ran, we didn't have any time to reality check it. It apparently didn't work exactly like it was supposed to, and he's trying to fix it. I just wanted to clarify that. MR. ASMUS: And that's fine, and he is working on it, and I'm not casting aspersions because 135 -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm sorry, but you just were. MR. ASMUS: No. Basically -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You said there are problems with the report, and he merely rebutted that. MR. ASMUS: All right, you're right. And in response basically what I was trying to say is we have made an attempt to look at the entire population, but we have not finished that look-see because there is something wrong with the numbers. And I apologize if -- if it appeared to be an aspersion, because Mr. Spillers and Mr. McNees have been very cooperative and have worked with us, and we have no problem with that. We did not realize that there was a mistake until early afternoon yesterday, and, no, he hasn't had a chance to respond because I gave him the numbers where I was going to be at -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Could I interject and say if this board had not continued this hearing for two weeks you wouldn't have got that report at all because you requested it in the interim so -- MR. ASMUS: You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right, but I was uncomfortable because being in this business for as long as I have, I know that a condominium unit does not use nearly the water consumption that a -- a equivalent residential connection uses. And I know how that's -- how that is presented in various jurisdictions. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I just have -- I have a question, and that is how long will it take you to conclude your practical information from here? MR. ASMUS: I don't know how long it's going to take to get -- oh, you mean right today? COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. MR. ASMUS: Be about 3 minutes. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. MR. ASMUS: We also looked at -- if you look in section 13, I think there are 9 different accounts there of residential users that shows what the high-end users are using, because there is a disparity between a condominium association and some of the high-end users for residential service. We reviewed seven additional residential customers in the Conners/Vanderbilt area. And basically what we have found is that the demand that's being placed on your system by some of these high users as opposed to the 87.67 high, 87.67 gallons per day per unit, which is our high per table number 9, the average or the high from what we looked at in section 13 is 2,328 gallons per day. That's on average. So you're looking at 27 times what our study shows the condos are pulling -- are their demand on the system to some of the high-end users, you know, that are pulling 27 times the consumption records. I mean, the consumptions are the consumptions, and they're pulling 27 times what a condo is pulling. The question now is what is fair and equitable. And in our professional opinion the only fair, equitable impact fee for condominium developments should be based on the meter equivalency, period, should not be based on number of units, should not be based on anything but what the AWWA standards say this is what size meter is necessary and what is the unit derivation for that size meter. Now, AWWA has set it. Florida Public Service Commission has said this is what it -- what we're going to go with, and in your ordinance that's what you say you're going to go with. And to demonstrate that the meter equivalency is a reasonable consideration, is reasonable, fair, and equitable, we ask that you consider what the impact fee would be using the information contained in table 9 which shows that the average consumption per unit is 16 percent of what the 410 is. If you take the impact fee for water and sewer times 16.06 percent times 336 units, you're going to arrive at an impact fee of $120,872.64, approximately $121,000. If you look at the meter equivalency for 6-inch meter, the impact fee would be 45,000 for water, 67,000 for sewer, or a total of 112,000, which the difference is approximately $9,000 which represents a difference of less than 8 percent. So they're close. The two numbers are very close. And one of the things that has been discussed previously is that this developer is not closing the book on the impact fee. They're saying if we use more than what is reflected, we'll pay more. But we'll pay what we feel is our fair share, and I mean if it gets to a situation where the county wants to protect itself, and I feel that's a very prudent thing to do, I would say, you know, maybe there will be a bond put up. What's the difference? Put it in a bond to protect the county in case the flows are different. Now, the Quail West situation was determined on meter equivalency, but the book was closed. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Can you wrap this up? MR. ASHUS: Sure. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You said 3 minutes about 5 minutes ago. MR. ASHUS: Yeah. I'm sorry. But the book was closed. There was no comeback. There was no leaving the book open. And all we're saying is if you give us the same consideration as you gave the Quail West situation going on meter equivalents, you can leave the book open. And if it's determined that the flows are -- the actual flows are more than what we anticipate, we'll pay the difference. Thank you. Any questions? MR. HARGETT: Madam Chairman, I need to comment on a couple of things here to make sure this doesn't get lost as the time goes by. I think what you just heard described is another right way. We're discussing methodologies. The county has adopted one methodology, and they're talking about another. I don't know that they're -- either one are right or wrong. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: They're just different. MR. HARGETT: I would say to you if you -- you could take the consumption, and we have some twenty-five thousand six hundred and some odd water accounts, and we could go through there and take the consumption of each one of those accounts and divide that into the cost of the capital improvements and come out with an impact fee based on the amount of water we think you might use for that meter, and that's what they've done, and we could do that. But there's 26,000 calculations each time. He referenced you to table 9 here in 87 gallons a day. What they did is they got one year's of reading and divided that by 365 days and to represent that to you that that's the -- in fact, an annual average per-day consumption. But whether these dwellings are occupied or not occupied or what they got and don't got, I couldn't comment. It just seemed a little more than -- MR. ASMUS: May I respond because we prepared the study? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Just a moment, sir. MR. ASMUS: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I've been going through as you've been talking -- MR. ASMUS: Sure. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- this list of use by month by address, and I've circled many -- MR. ASMUS: Go ahead. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- in the month of March and April that are seven, eight, nine thousand gallons. MR. ASMUS: Yes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: One of them is eleven thousand. One of them is eleven thousand gallons, and I realize those are peak use, peak months, but that's what we have to build our facilities for. MR. ASHUS: No, I beg to differ. When the 410 -- no. Let me explain this, all right. When the 410 is -- was set, when the 350 was set, whatever the -- the barometer is used, whatever that barometer is, that takes into consideration peak month. It also takes into consideration the seasonal months. It takes into consideration the 410 or the 350 as predicated on the average annual consumption of gallons per day, not the peak month gallons per day, but the annual gallons per day average. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Mr. HcNees. MR. HcNEES: Madam Chairman, I just threw out one little reality check in here, and I kind of like reality checks when I get confused. But if you stop and look at the system as a whole, there are thousands and thousands, as the petitioner has identified for you, of single-family residential condominium units on our system who have paid this impact fee and for which we have constructed a plant. If these folks had paid an impact fee that was significantly higher than the impact of their unit, or if they used a lot less water than we were building a plant to serve them, we'd either have a lot of excess capacity, or we'd have tens of millions of dollars in the bank. I'm telling you we're full. And for every one of those six or eight or ten or eleven thousand dollar high users, there are hundreds probably of these condominium units. So when you stand back and look from a reality check standpoint, the system works. The integrity of the impact fee system is we're building our plants; we're keeping even and as it is intended to. And if there was some huge -- and this 16 percent is a startling number. But if there was some huge anomaly in the system, we would be out of bounds, and it would be much more out of whack. Now, some say we are out of whack, but I'm not sure that's true. I think the integrity of the system is intact. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Commissioner Hancock. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm going to make a statement here; then I'm going to wrap it up with a motion. Host of what you've brought us in the way of numbers involves units that are not occupied, averages that involve units that are not occupied. I'm looking at occupied units, and they're ranging between the 70 and 80 you're talking about. 293, and that's if you remove the anomalies of those that obviously had a water service problem. We do not have the luxury of assuming those units will not be occupied ten years from now. We have to make sure we don't shortchange ourselves, and we have to plan for worse-case scenario, which is full occupancy 12 months a year. If we don't do that, I don't think we're doing our job. So based on that your request of a 24 percent amount of the impact fees for water and a 44 percent amount of sewer I don't think is validated in the information you gave us, and I'm going to make a motion to deny. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Just a moment. We have a motion. We have a second. Mr. Cuyler, you need -- you have something you need. MR. HARGETT: There are three public speakers. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Fine. We'll deal with that. Mr. Cuyler, did you have a comment, or was it other than -- MR. CUYLER: Just a procedural issue. Mr. Pickworth is interested in having the document that the gentleman was referring to, and I think the same one that was handed out to the board two weeks ago, admitted into the record. I have no objection with -- except for the following specific objection. That is, again, as I mentioned, that Mr. Pickworth's welcomed to comment on this if he wants to, but for those parts that are supplementary to as opposed to clarifications of the original alternative impact fee study that was submitted within the time period, we would place an objection to those portions of it. I don't want to supplement the record with things that were not originally within the time period. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. So you're asking to put an objection to anything that was not submitted within the required time period? MR. CUYLER: Correct, just for purposes of future proceedings. If there are any other than that, you can except -- note in the record that that is part of the record. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Just a moment, Mr. Hargett. Do you have additional? MR. HARGETT: No, ma'am, other than the speakers. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. HcNees, do you have additional? MR. HcNEES: No, ma'am, only if you have questions. MR. ASHUS: There is only one thing I would like to say in response to Mr. HcNees. And I don't doubt for a moment that he doesn't have a large cash reserve sitting in abeyance waiting -- or a large excess capacity sitting in reserves. But that probably can be explained also by the subsidization by the condominium associations that the condominium units are paying more than their fair share, and some of the high-end users are not paying their fair share. So, you know, some people are getting away with not paying their fair share and using two to three -- I mean we've looked at where someone's used 3,600 gallons a day on average. That is incredible. That is an incredible usage for domestic use, 3,600 gallons a day. So, you know, there could be a cross-subsidization, and I would say there probably is. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Pickworth, do you have something you want to wrap up, and then we'll get to public speakers before we -- MR. PICKWORTH: Madam Chairman, I only have a quick procedural comment because I had reserved a couple minutes after the public speakers, so let me just handle the procedural matters if we could so we know we've got all that done if that's all right. And I only want to reiterate what Mr. Cuyler said. I would like a motion accepting all of that evidence into the record so otherwise I'm going to have to call these people back to testify to all of this again to establish its relevance in the record. I'd like to deal with that quickly if you're in a hurry and, secondly, just to note the objection on the submission is noted. I also want it noted that the county has -- there is a prescribed procedure for -- for these alternative calculations, and right from the start the county has not followed that procedure. So if we're going to note objections to procedure, let me make sure that it's on the record that we don't feel the proper procedure was followed. Could I have a motion accepting this as the record, please? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Cuyler, is that necessary in your estimation? You're our attorney, and we're asking you to direct us. MR. CUYLER: It's -- it's not necessary, and I think what the board has done in the past is obviously petitioners like to get things into the record because then they argue based on the record. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: At the appeals level. MR. CUYLER: I think if you wish to -- you have one of two choices. You can say no, we're not going to accept that for the record or introduce it on a document-by-document basis as opposed to the binding. On the other hand, I think you can take it into the record and say we're not accepting the veracity of this document. We're not saying we are relying with regard to our opinion entirely on this document. For purposes of those things that were appropriately referred to by your expert, we understand those. There may be some things in there that are not relevant. But if you want to put it in the record, then that's fine. We'll put it in the record if you wish to. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, he's offered it for the record, and there it is. I mean I don't see why there's any other action required by the board. You've offered it. MR. CUYLER: Right. It can stand or what anybody later wants to argue, but you don't necessarily say we take it -- COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't want to endorse it. MR. CUYLER: -- we believe all these things or we endorse all these things. MR. PICKWORTH: I'm not asking that. MR. CUYLER: It just goes into the record. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's there all right, though. I mean it's in the record. You submitted it. The court reporter has it. It's there. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I concur. I don't see any need to have a motion that gives some veil that we endorse what's -- what's been given to us. I don't see a need to do that. MR. CUYLER: Okay. It can just be noted that Mr. Pickworth has submitted that document for the record. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Pickworth, you've reserved time after the public speakers; is that what you've said? MR. PICKWORTH: Yes, yes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think that's your prerogative. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's my prerogative. MR. PICKWORTH: I don't know if I'll have anything more to say. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: How many public speakers do we have? MR. HARGETT: Three. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have three public speakers. All right, the motion is on the floor. You're aware of what the motion is. Obviously it's -- it's getting late, and we do want to move on. If you concur with the motion, if you just quickly say so and move on, but let's do that. MR. HARGETT: Mr. Keller followed by Mr. Erlichman. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just while he's coming up, Mr. Cuyler, I don't want to lose the second point that Mr. Pickworth made. First he was asking us for this motion on his records submittal, and then he made some point about that we haven't followed the appropriate procedure. I would assume then that we need to respond with an assertion that we have or something. I don't want that to be left unresponded to on the record. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Good point. MR. CUYLER: I think from a factual point of view Mr. McNees can respond, but from a legal point of view wherever we are is where we are, and that's where we are. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Steve, get that in the paper. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Did Yogi Berra enter the room? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. McNees, do you want to respond to that? MR. McNEES: I can only assume that -- Mr. Pickworth can correct me. I am guessing at what he's talking about because I haven't had this conversation with him, but there is a provision within the alternative impact fee mechanism that that study be brought back to the board within -- or brought to the board for the board's decision making within 30 days of submittal. And I'll -- I'll tell you that I was not aware of that when I received the alternative impact fee study and, in fact, became aware of that nearly right at the end of the 30 days or immediately thereafter and checked into the mechanism and discovered that the county commission has the right to grant a 30-day extension to that original 30-day submittal date. I spoke to the petitioner, and what we agreed to do was come back to you within the 60-day period. And as you'll recall, I mentioned that at the time and asked you to grant retroactively the 60-day extension, so that -- that is the "where we are," and how we got that. MR. CUYLER: And what I mean by that tortured little philosophy is you can argue that at a later time if he wished. I'm not going to tell you to approve anything based on that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Mr. Keller. MR. KELLER: I'm George Keller, concerned citizen, and also represent the Golden Gate Estates Civic Association. The -- it's very apparent that if I knew exactly how you were going to vote, I wouldn't even say anything. I -- I see a motion on the floor, but I don't know how you're going to vote. But let's be honest about this thing. Impact fees, whether it's school impact fees, water, sewer impact fees, road impact fees, are based upon what we need to keep the thing going in the county. And if I drove two cars, I don't get charged twice the number of road impact fees that the guy next car that drives one car. I don't have any children, but I pay -- if I built a house I'd have to pay impact fees for the school, and I don't have any children. So the amount of use you put in a meter and stuff shouldn't even -- should never have even been considered in impact fees. What we need -- with the impact fee you have to have a certain amount of money to set up the facilities you need to handle the county as a whole, and you prorate that over the population by units -- in this case by units. These people come in before, and they asked -- they had some figures that were going to ask you to go and forgive five hundred fifty-one odd thousand dollars, which is over half a million dollars. I just heard some figures before that they reduced the amount that they should pay so that you should be giving them a break of six hundred thirty odd million -- thousand dollars which is well more than the first proposal. Now, we -- the general public is not in favor of setting up this complicated setup because in the first place, we have set up that people pay for what they use on a meter. We take meter readings. That's one phase of this finance. The other phase is you need a certain amount of facilities to handle the overall county -- county needs, and it has to be prorated some way. How can you ever prorate this on the basis of how much a person uses any more than you can prorate roads on how many miles I use? Are you going to take my mileage every year? Are you going to take -- if I have grandchildren coming in here that they go to school, so I should pay for that? So let's be practical about this. Anything in this impact fee ordinance that talks about alternative methods is baloney. It has nothing -- it has no basis for how to collect the impact fees in order to have the facilities there that we need. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Erlichman, and then your only other speaker, Ms. Matthews, is Mr. Olds. MR. ERLICHMAN: My name is Gilbert Erlichman. I am speaking for TAG, and I reside in east Naples. I would like to take this time -- even though I agree with the motion, as Mr. Keller said, I don't know how you're going to vote. But I sat here through this whole discussion and harangue by their expert, and the whole thing comes down to what are impact fees. Impact fees are to pay for growth, growth to pay for growth. And this whole idea about water meters and 6-inch meters and five-eighths inch, I'm an engineer, but to me it means nothing. The impact fee ordinance for roads, for schools, for utilities, for the library, those are the things that we need to pay for -- to pay for the people that are coming down here and contributing to our growth in Collier County. I -- when I bought my condominium I signed a contract, but unfortunately the condominium wasn't finished. The building that I bought the unit in wasn't finished in time to me -- for me to have the advantage of a lower impact fee. Lo and behold when I came to close I had to pay another $656 in impact fees because it was in 1989 and 1988, but I paid it gladly. I love Naples, and I've been here seven years, and I -- I hope I'm here another seven years. When I hear these people trying to negate impact fees and try to circumvent what is -- what they have to rightfully pay, it makes me very, very ill. I don't know how they're going to -- how they're going to discover or find out how the people that are going to reside in their units in this Sherwood PUD, they're going to have a TV -- a TV monitor in the bathrooms to see how many times they flush the toilet and how many showers they take. Are they going to have a TV monitor where their washing machine is or the dishwasher? I don't -- you know, I'm absolutely amazed that the commission has heard this thing now for -- since February. I believe it's been before the commission four times or three times. Anyhow, I don't want to take up any more of your time. I hope that you will vote your -- the way you see fit. But, believe me, we cannot allow this -- this move by this -- these -- this builder to circumvent what we have put in place here, impact fees for utilities, roads, libraries, schools, et cetera. Thank you. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I'd like the record to clearly show that Mr. Erlichman admitted that he gladly paid an impact fee. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Olds. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That could cost you your membership in TAG. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Olds. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Olds. Yes, sir, and you'll be the final speaker. MR. OLDS: The name is Stanley Olds, and I am with the TAG group too. I just want to say I don't blame the Sherwood group for bringing in all their owners and high-priced lawyers and experts. But I do think that trying to get a decrease in their impact fees is a little bit strong, and I think that the county staff has really brought out the fact that they stand by what they've said, and I don't think that the Sherwood people have a leg to stand on. After all, if they do -- if they do obtain that in the long run, the rest of the taxpayers in Collier County might be suffering too because they might have to pay more money to overcome what they lack in payment. Well, according to the alternate impact fees, I believe they have a chance to talk about it. But I don't think that -- that what they've said so far has even come up to the fact that the county staff has proven that they shouldn't get it. Thank you very much. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Olds. Mr. Cuyler, we -- we have a motion on the floor and -- and a second, and I -- I have a feeling with some of the contentionness that's come up in the last half hour or so on this that we as a board may need to get some findings on the record. MR. CUYLER: I think the -- if you can do that, that would be preferable. I think that the basic finding is that the petitioners did not present competent, substantial evidence to show that they were entitled to the granting of their alternative impact fee. Anything else that you want to specifically note other than that you're encouraged to do so. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Fine. MR. CUYLER: I mean I think a lot of the discussion came out. If you want to just summarize what your reasons were, then -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I prefer to call the question. Mr. Pickworth, if you can wrap it up in 15 seconds because -- MR. PICKWORTH: Yeah. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- I want to finish this. MR. PICKWORTH: Yeah. My -- my closing comment is -- is I understand that what's being asked for appears to be distasteful because there's a thought that this somehow constitutes a loss of money that the county is otherwise entitled to. I would only reiterate again that it is not that, that it is very clear from your ordinance -- and maybe as Mr. Hargett said you got to go back and do some retuning. I don't know. But it's real clear from the ordinance the basis upon which these fees are to be calculated. There is absolutely no justification in your ordinance whatsoever, not one shred anywhere which tells or suggests in any way that every dwelling unit is an equivalent dwelling unit. To the contrary, everything in your laws and your studies says exactly the opposite. Now that may not appear very tasteful, but that is what it says, and I am glad the fella from TAG was at least willing to acknowledge we can read the law, that we're bound by this law. If it were against us, we would be bound by it anyway because the ordinance says when a developer feels that his impact will be less than that which is shown in the ordinance, he has a right to ask for relief. And we have shown -- and I don't think there's any dispute here today that our impact is, in fact, less -- less than the impact basis opinion which your EDU is derived in your ordinance. And as I say again, no one wants to hear that. But that is the fact. That's what it says. That's all we're here to say. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Mr. Hancock, do you have some findings you want to add to the motion? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yes. I would amend the motion to add the findings as stated by Mr. Cuyler. In addition my reasons for making the motion is that the data presented to us by the petitioner includes a high absenteeism, a lot of units that are not occupied, and I feel that it's shortchanging the citizens of this county to include absenteeism when, in fact, the potential for one hundred percent occupancy is there. And it needs to be considered in a manner of fairness by this board regarding impact fees, and for that reason what they have presented, the dollar figures they have presented, are not sufficient to -- to cover the responsibilities and the fiscal impact to the county. Therefore, I made the motion. Do we have any other commissioners that want to add findings? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me ask the motion maker if he would accept the additional finding that this board was not presented with sufficient evidence to convince us that this project should be treated different from any other similar project. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I will accept that. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll accept all those amendments. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The second accepts the amendments. Mr. HcNees, are you comfortable with where we are? MR. HcNEES: Well, as I understand, you're denying based on the evidence. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's what the evidence is. MR. HcNEES: I'm certainly comfortable with that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. No further discussion? I'll call the question. All those in favor, please say aye. All those opposed? There being none, motion passes 5 to 0. (Applause) COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just a comment, one -- one point that came up during that. If we're expanding at an assumption of 350 because that's what the state requires, if there is an out in there somewhere where we can provide otherwise, I hope we exhaust that avenue. Maybe we already are, but -- MR. HcNEES: Yeah, we did that. We're expanding based on real demand. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Fine. With that we're at the noon hour. We have a long agenda yet. Are we prepared to take a full hour for lunch? Okay. Let's adjourn until 1 -- 1 p.m. (A lunch break was held between 12:00 p.m. to 1:10 p.m.) Item #SG1 SELECTION OF SCOPE OF PROJECT FOR NAPLES PARK DRAINAGE PROJECT COST ALLOCATION AND PROCEED WITH IMPLEMENTATION OF SPECIAL TAXING AND BENEFIT UNIT TO FUND PROPOSED DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS - STAFF TO INVESTIGATE AVAILABILITY FOR TOWN HALL MEETING ON 4/20/95 IN THE EVENING TO DISCUSS OPTIONS CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Call to order the Board of County Commission meeting for March the 28th. We are at item 8-G-1. It's the select scope of project for Naples Park drainage. Mr. Boldt. MR. BOLDT: Good afternoon. For the record my name's John Boldt, your storm water management director. I was here on December on the same item. And we had at that point, I think, kind of a general agreement that the board was interested in going ahead with this project on their own initiative without a petition process, that we wanted to use a tax or H.S.T. & B.U. to fund the project. And you also asked me to reevaluate the project to see if there was a way we could reduce the cost. On that last matter, we did reevaluate it. We're talking about enclosing of the 91st and 92nd Avenue and the 8th Street ditches. And if we were to try to enclose the 8th Street ditch without enclosing the 91st and 92nd Avenue, because the shape of the pipe, the cover that's needed over it, and the grade of the pipe along each street, the pipe at that point when it crosses underneath 8th Street on 91st and 92nd would have to be six foot deeper then the existing ditch bottom, which means the ditch between 91st and 92nd Avenue would have to be six foot deeper, which because of the soil conditions, the wet conditions, and the sandy soil, we would need to be impractical. So it's kind of either in one situation or the other. You need to either close the whole thing or you need leave the whole thing open. It's not practical to try and enclose 8th Street without doing the same for 91st and 92nd. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Bolt. MR. BOLDT: Yes. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Hay I interrupt you for a point of clarification for my benefit? You're talking about this -- there came a point when I just had to trust the engineer's design on that because I don't have that background. As I understand it on 91st and 92nd on that ditch there is a fall from the 8th Street to the outfall of approximately six feet. MR. BOLDT: That's correct. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. On the 8th Street ditch, which runs north and south, there's very little fall, if any. MR. BOLDT: That's flat grade. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: If we were to look at a combination, would it be possible -- because I understand the six-foot fall on 91st and 92nd is probably more than you would design typically because there's pretty high velocity of water flow in that area. MR. BOLDT: It's getting to that point, yes. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. My -- my logic brain says that if we were to reduce that fall from six feet to say three or four feet, we then have the ability to increase the fall on 8th that one or two feet that we make up. Does that make sense? MR. BOLDT: That's in effect what the present design is all about. That's why it -- in order to enclose along 8th Street, the pipe has to be six foot deeper in that area to take advantage of the fall, get some grade of the pipe along 8th Street in order to get the capacity there. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. That's one design. But what if that fall along 8th were less than what is proposed? It's better than what we have now, which is none. MR. BOLDT: That's true. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And I'm just asking if possibly instead of doing an enclosed pipe there we look at the idea of doing a box covert type that allows for maybe one or two feet of fall along 8th but still allows 91st/92nd to be open. Is that a possibility? MR. BOLDT: Anything's a possibility, but a combination of the design storm, which we have picked as a storm happens once every ten years, and with the combination we have, the cover over the pipe is a limitation because it starts -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: What's the minimum cover? MR. BOLDT: About two foot of cover. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's a problem. MR. BOLDT: That's considering you take the existing open ditch, you put the pipe in the bottom of it, cover over the pipe and still maintain a shallow swale over it. By the time you do all that, it puts the pipe so deep in the ground, especially when it's 72 inches in diameter, that if you're gonna try to flatten it out, you're got to either increase the pipe size or get a less than a desirable design storm through it. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. That answered my question. I'm sorry. Go ahead with your presentation. MR. BOLDT: You also asked that I look at a couple different options, some of which we just talked about. We talked about Plan A, which is the original 3.8 million project which was to enclose both those ditches. And the new proposal is Plan B, which would be to leave the ditches as open ditches, to rock riprap the side slopes of the ditches, and also along 8th Street to increase the pipe sizes under the various avenues. Right now they're basically twin 24-inch pipes, and we talked about maybe upgrading them to single 48s or double 48s to get some additional capacity. But that would not, however, provide a level of protection for the 10-year storm. Plan B we estimate real roughly at around $900,000. So that's the two choices I would offer today, either 3.8 million to enclose the whole thing, 10-year protection; or Plan B which is a 900,000 job, open ditch, rock riprap, increase the pipe sizes under the avenue, but not have the level of protection you're after. We can get into some more details on that in a minute. You also asked me to go back on the original cost methodology I proposed to you had the county paying -- using a benefit factor of one, about one-third of the cost of the project which amounted to over $1 million. And you asked me to go back and reevaluate that based on the actual usage of the roads over at Naples Park. And so I did come up with kind of a scenario on that where I had looked at all the different types of road systems in the county and rated them on the amount of public use on the road and applied that to Naples Park, and I came up with a benefit factor then of .17, which indicates roughly over all 17e of the general public use of roads in around Naples Park if you consider 91st, lllth, Vanderbilt Drive, and some of the major streets through there. So my scenarios I'll show you a little bit later has reduced the benefit factor down from 1.17. And that makes, I would say, a considerable difference. The other thing you asked me to consider was what kind of precedent has been set at Willoughby Acres. Well, they had somewhat of a similar project there where they enclosed road ditches within Willoughby Acres. And the county also participated in that project by some services for engineering, for supplying some fill, and by purchasing the -- not buying the pipe, but handling the pipe and sales tax and so on. And the figures that were made available to me indicate a $900,000 project. The county paid about 10.4e of that project by more incline-type services. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Bolt, again, clarification. MR. BOLDT: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Was that roadside swales? We're talking pipes of what size? MR. BOLDT: I think they were more the 48 inch, maybe double 48s. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. MR. BOLDT: Much smaller size, but somewhere in that area. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you. MR. BOLDT: Also, I need to point out that when this project was initiated way back in the middle '80s, that was done with a tax was set up to raise money to do a preliminary engineering study which has obviously been completed. That M.S.T. & B.U. was already up and running. It's an existing county ordinance. And I've had conversations with the County Attorney's office, and they think it would be most expedient just to modify or amend that existing M.S.T.U. rather than start all over. They would take an amendment, change the boundaries of existing taxing and assessment unit because originally it included all the finger canals west of Vanderbilt Drive. And the original ordinance emphasized a preliminary engineering study and also the use of ad valorem millage rates. Although it provides for funds for construction and also financing through special assessment, it was felt we need to make it much more clear in the ordinance by amending it to provide for the funding mechanism that we are proposing here. The other thing that's come up that I need to bring to your attention is the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has had some hearings on declaring the waters of the Cocohatchee River and the Wiggins Pass as outstanding Florida water. That was done at the request of the conservancy petition. There has been several public hearings. Our staff has attended those. You need to know that was declared an O.F.W., those waters. It requires much more stringent and costly water quality standards. And also, if that's a direct discharge like it would be if we went directly into the Cocohatchee River, an indirect discharge like would be going into the Vanderbilt Lagoon says we cannot significantly degrade those Outstanding Florida Waters. We already have our D.E.P. permit for this project. It was issued back in 1990. It's a five-year permit. It was due to expire this August. The O.F.W. allows for grandfathering of projects that are already permitted. We've made a call. We've got a verbal commitment from D.E.P. that they would extend this permit for another five years if we would refile the application with a $3,000 fee. It doesn't look like they would do a review. They would just extend the permit. If that was the case, then we would have grandfathering protection for this project under this O.F.W. designation. We're in the process of trying to do that. I've requested a check be cut, and we hope to get that up to Fort Myers and get a decision back on that real soon. Another issue that seems to be quite important to the people is the item of enclosure of their roadside swales in their front yards. As you're aware, we have a moratorium in place at this time prohibiting that practice from closing those roadside swales, has extended again recently till the end of the year. That was a special condition placed by D.E.P. on our original permit when we proposed to enclose the 91st and 92nd Avenue and the 8th Street ditches because of the loss of volume of storage and water quality treatment in that large ditch. They wanted to preserve what treatment we were getting in the existing roadside ditches. Plan B, which is leaving the open ditches open ditches and rock riprapping. I haven't been able to get a decision, but I think logic has it if we were to total that type of plan, my feeling is that D.E.P. would probably remove that moratorium requirement on the enclosure of the swales because we would still be getting volume of storage in the open ditch, even though it's rock riprapped. And because the bottom is still open, we're going to get the groundwater percolation. The only way to find that out, though, would be to officially apply for a Plan B permit, and then you would be able to get your decision from them. Otherwise, it's just going to be a verbal commitment. Fiscal impact on the project depending here -- I'll lead you through some the cost allocation scenarios. We're talking about the 3.8 million or the $900,000 project. Depending on which scenario you might select, it could be the impact on the county at large. It could be anywhere from $70,000 up to around $400,000. I need to point out to you I did my homework a little better this time in going back and checking the records. The original preliminary report was paid for by the original H.S.T. & B.U. When it came to actually preparing the engineer plans which have been completed, previous boards gave us the authority to do that, costs $150,000. The moneys to pay for that report or those plans, which are on our shelves right now, came from our County at Large Fund 325, the Capital Program Fund. So that's already been paid for up front by County at Large Fund 325. It was always my intention at some point that this would be a cost that would be reimbursed by taxing or special assessment district back to the Fund 325. In addition to that, because of some construction that took place between Vanderbilt Drive and Vanderbilt Lagoon, the Transportation Department in their wisdom back then worked with the condominium developer in putting in the box culverts from Vanderbilt Drive to the lagoon during the construction of that condominium project, thus saving us a lot of trouble and expense in tearing up that area if we were to let it go beyond that. That cost also came out of -- portions of it came out of our Fund 325. Two-thirds of it came out in the amount of $78,000. So in effect Fund 325 is already up front cost about $228,000, which I say is -- could be applied toward the county's share of this project. If you were to select one of those scenarios, for instance, that was around $340,000, we only need to find an additional 100,000-plus of County at Large funds to provide for the percentages that I'm gonna review with you in a minute. If you wouldn't mind, let me just go through real quickly on these six different sheets of scenarios and point out to you the difference of them. The first one on page 1 is the original one I presented to you back in December where it showed the county road right-of-way of the benefit factor of one. This is in column number 5. And also, the benefit factor for those lots abutting the 91st and 92nd and 8th Street ditches was one and a half. That was my original recommendation. So that meant the county was gonna pay about a third of the cost or $1,279,000. And the typical lot in Naples Park would pay then $515 per lot, which could be spread over a period of time. And again, I point out that that's per lot. There's a lot of homes on there on one lot, some are on two, and some are on three, but this is on a per lot basis. On page 2, first scenario, this is under column 5, shows the lots abutting at one and a half of the county road right-of-way. This is recomputed at .17 benefit factor, which reduces the county's share down to 8.2e. And this is a $3.8 million project. That means the County's share would be $314,000. And the typical lot then would be then $709. The next sheet is the -- the only change there is on the lots abutting, still using the one and a half factor, it was suggested that perhaps that wasn't enough, and we used a factor of 3.0. So they would pay three times as much as the rest of the lots in Naples Park. When you do that, it reduces the county's share to around $300,000 and the typical lot $677. And on sheet 4, this is introducing the Willoughby Acres factor on the county road right-of-way. I just automatically put in 10.4e and then spread the cost on the balance using those lot abutting at 3-0, and that increases the county's share to almost $400,000, and then the typical lot is $659. And then the last three sheets are similar type scenarios, only instead of 3.8 it's $900,000. You can see it significantly reduces the cost of the county down in the area around 70 to 90,000 for the County's share, and a typical lot in the park would pay around 155 to 167 dollars, depending on which combination that you took. So my recommendation today is asking that you help us narrow the scope of this down between Plan A and Plan B. If you desire to proceed, we need your instructions to firm up our bidding plans and get this thing ready to go out to bid. We'd like to have you select one of these proposed cost allocation methodologies, and we can proceed in working out the fine details. And also, recognizing that we have an existing ordinance that needs an amendment to change the boundaries and make clear its intent, we'd like your direction on that point. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay, Mr. Bolt. Thank you. Commissioner Hancock. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I want to mention something that may make this process a little bit easier for all of us. I have told the folks in Naples Park that I did not feel the board was going to sit up here today, make a decision, and go ahead and impose a tax or M.S.T. B.U. on Naples Park today. What I would ask of you today is to look at the methodology Mr. Bolt has presented, listen to the public testimony, determine if any of these are acceptable as far as what you feel the county's role would be and reasonable. If more than one of those is acceptable or if just one of them is, I in the next four weeks will set up a town hall meeting in Naples Park and will do my best through the newspaper and whatever means available to advertise it to let everyone in Naples Park know, everyone in Beach Walk, everyone in Pavilion Club, do the best I can to get as much information out as possible so that the residents who show up there will have an opportunity to review what the board has said is acceptable to them, and we'll have a chance to take a straw ballot and determine what the residents want. We went the H.S.T. B.U. route because we wanted to save the 10 to 15 years of signature gathering it would probably take with the absentee owners in Naples Park to make some positive steps in improving the drainage. You know, I've got enough information on this that I could go on for two hours, and I imagine most of what the public is here to do today is to express their concern over some of these items. But I would like the board to look critically at each of these as to what they feel is acceptable and reasonable for the Naples Park residents to have a voice in deciding. And then I'll do everything I can to make that avenue a possibility so that we can try and not impose something that the residents don't want as a whole, but to do just the opposite, to improve the drainage based on the recommendations of the residents of Naples Park and Beach Walk and Pavilion Club. That's the attack I would like to take, and I'd just ask the board to consider that in your thoughts today. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Commissioner Hancock. Are there further questions for Mr. Bolt? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I just have one before we start on the public hearings. And if you pardon me, Mr. Boldt, this is just a point of curiosity. You mentioned earlier about the O.F.W. designation, and I wasn't quite clear. Can a private organization bring this forward and get this accomplished without any determination by the county whether they want to do that or not? MR. BOLDT: My understanding is private agency like the conservancy did in fact petition F.D.E.P. They held a series of public meetings. It's apparently their prerogative to declare that Florida outstanding water. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Even though the county could be potentially adversely impacted by that decision, we have no input in it? That doesn't seem correct to me. But -- if you could -- I mean that's not part of today's discussion, but if you could check that out for me and let me know I would appreciate it. MR. BOLDT: Okay. Very good. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Dorrill, how many speakers do we have? MR. DORRILL: We have ten. We may have had some over the course of lunch, but I have ten here. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let's get started with it. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I did want to mention that I met with a lot of you. A question was raised last night regarding Pavilion Club that made sense to me. I look at their benefit factor being equal to that of the balance of the lots in Naples Park. That didn't ring right with me last night. So I think we're gonna hear from Pavilion Club here today, and I just wanted to alert to you that because I need some clarification on that also. MR. DORRILL: Very good. We'll have Mr. Metzger, if you would, please. You'll be first. And Mr. Wood, if I could have you stand by, you'll follow Mr. Metzger. MR. BOLDT: As he's coming up, just a point of clarification on the O.F.W. Staff had considerable input in that public hearing process when they went on, so we have been involved. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Metzger, if you would, please. MR. METZGER: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. May I pass out to you some photographs -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Give them to Mr. Weigel. MR. METZGER: -- because I would like you to see them. First of all, thank you very much for hearing me. I appeared here for the first time on this project eight years ago. At that time, Mr. Hancock, a vote was taken by the five commissioners then sitting to direct the staff to obtain the necessary permits to do this job and to proceed forthwith to accomplish it. Now, I don't know what happened in the eight years. I wouldn't attempt to speculate. But I do know that this unsightly ditch, which is absolutely miserable, has been left to be a festering sore in Naples Park for all too long. I'm not angry at anybody. I'm not -- I'm not making a big noise about it. I only came the first time because Mr. -- the late Mr. Robert Wilson, a retired chemist, a friend of mine, asked me to come and speak. But I'm here today at my own behalf. I want to tell you I don't hear too much said about the health and safety factors in this whole thing. I have seen children go in that miserable ditch up to their knees in black muck and come out with feet that were bleeding. That's the gospel truth. I hope the day doesn't come when a youngster drowns in that ditch when we have a heavy storm. I'll tell you something else. Every time we get a rain, I take three or four bags from the grocery store and I go out there and I gather coconuts, oranges, beer bottles, oil cans, and all the rest of it -- and one of those photos shows you what the ditch looks like when those oil cans float down. It's horrible. And I'm about to say something now which I am very reticent to say because I don't believe in self -- I'm no hero. But I am gonna say this anyway because I never asked anything from my country. Fifty-three years ago I put on a uniform for the United States of America. I did what 13 million other American women and men did to support our country against a ruthless enemy, and I lived to see the day when I faced them face to face in the jungles in the Southwest Pacific. I didn't consider myself a hero. I didn't think the country owed me anything. I did what I felt was my duty. And I was proud to do it. And I was honored to do it. And I never asked five cents from the country. Some of these men here may know what the 5220 club. I don't know if any of you do. If you don't it's just as well. But there was such a thing, and it drained the pockets of the American people. I didn't ask for a penny. Furthermore, I didn't ask -- I didn't sign any petition that came to me from the legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars to agitate for a veteran's bonus either state-wide or federal. As I said, I didn't consider myself a hero, but if I think I mentioned something, which I won't, you might be sympathetic to me. I'm not asking you ladies and gentlemen for anything special today, not at all. What I am asking you to do for me is to do just what you have done for the people of Willoughby Acres, parts of Golden Gate, and other aspects of Collier County where this unsightly, unhealthy condition that exists would be removed. It's been a long time, ladies and gentlemen, a long, long time. And it's about time that it was accomplished. It may be good to -- to propose something which saves the county a lot of money, but I'll tell you ladies and gentlemen what I told that original commission. We've got two kinds of public servants in this country, one we call statesmen, the others we call politicians. According to our constitution, the statesman does what he knows in his heart is right, and he doesn't count the votes, and political expediency is not an end that he pursues. All I'm asking you ladies and gentlemen today is to do what is right. And the only right thing in this situation is to enclose that ditch. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Wood and then Ms. Hortensen. MR. WOOD: I'm a little slow getting up here. My back's a little out of commission after trying to fill that ditch behind my house. No, I'm not kidding. That's true. I've moved tons of dirt with a wheelbarrow trying to save my fence. Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Richard Wood. I live in Naples Park. As the former gentleman just spoke, I've been pursuing this since 1987. And as I speak, I'm gonna pass around some charts. I had them here last Friday, but I understand they didn't get to all the commissioners. So I want you to keep these in case you don't get to look at them too good today. I want you to keep them and look at them before you make a final decision. Chart number 1 shows the first picture of a 19 and 54 ditch. This ditch was less than 3 feet deep and less than 10 feet wide. That was the original Naples Park ditch. It's the first picture up in the left corner. The gentleman you see standing there is John Hadjciar. He's seated in the audience today. If you need any proof, ask him how deep it is. That's him standing there, nice looking guy there. Sorry, John. Okay. Notice how much wider the other pictures are on that. That's the 19 and 94 ditch. Those pictures were taken late last fall. Look at the difference. The ditches in '94 are six feet deep, and you will never find a 30-foot ditch in there anymore. See, that's the county right-of-way is 30 feet. That's what the county's law says is 30 feet. They own that. You will find those ditches anywhere from 31. -- 31 1/2 feet to 40 feet deep going west to east. They get deeper going to 8th Street. I'll show you the blueprint after awhile. I'll give you the blueprint. Chart number 2 shows what 40 years of erosion has done. Now, this erosion was caused mainly by two factors: A, overburdening the drainage easement by allowing other developments, such as the Pavilion shopping mall without all of it's cement, the Beach Walk, the Pavilion Club, and the State highway. Yes, U.S. 41, rather, at the present time is part of that drainage into our community. Of course, that's gonna be corrected, and Mr. Bolt's records show that it has been taken off our chart. They used this small ditch and, as a result, over the years has caused it to erode more. A weir was installed in the Pavilion Lake. We were promised a weir that would not allow the water to come out of that Pavilion Club and Pavilion shopping center until 24 hours later. They were supposed to store their water in a -- in the new ditch -- or rather new -- I got ditch on my mind today -- on the new lake that they established, but that's not true. As soon as it rains, it gets to 8th Street before our water gets down to 91st on 8th Street. The second reason for this erosion is improper and infrequent county maintenance of the easement. Until last year, '94, Mr. Bolt and his two men were in that ditch day after day cleaning it out. I don't know how many tons he removed. And if you ever seen a man sweating, you should have seen Mr. Bolt when he came in for a drink of ice water one day sweating in his rubber suit walking up and down that deep ditch trying to improve it. He has done a lot trying to improve it. Mr. Archibald has done a lot for us, and we've worked with him over the years. We have known them for several years, and they try, but they don't have the final authority. The above factors is causing the reduction of the market value of our property, not the ditch, but the improper maintenance of the ditch, the erosion of my property and several other people along that ditch on 91st 92nd. Since 1987, I spent many hours working with different committees, president of the -- and also leader in SOS. SOS is Save Our Sod. Now, that's the very active group who's had to have lawyers to get some opinions. And because we're the ones, the SOS group are the ones that are losing our backyards. And we have some good information on that we are being overburdened. That ditch is overburdened with other people's water. Chart 3 shows improvements since ABB had this project in the 18 -- 199 -- is that five minutes already? Okay. Let's hurry it up then. Give me another minute maybe? Chart 4 -- what I really came up here to say is this benefit factor. I don't know who thought up this benefit factor. Don't know. Don't want to know, probably. This benefit factor -- Willoughby Acres didn't have a benefit factor. They all pay the same. Why should I, living on the ditch, pay three times more than everybody else in the park? Just because that county allowed that ditch to erode and take my land, then they want us to pay three times more. It doesn't make sense. I wish someone would explain today before I leave what do they mean by benefit factor, in writing, so that I can study it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Can you wrap it up, sir? MR. WOOD: Riprapping is item 4 there. We had a little bit of riprapping on the lower end of the ditch. The people don't like it. It's ugly. It doesn't solve our three original goals that we were trying to meet. So I'm not gonna go into detail on riprapping. This is the last item 5. There's a blueprint showing you, made by ABB, how much the ditches are -- have enlarged, going east to west, from 31.6 inches down to 40 feet -- rather feet, not inches. Chart 5. In closing, yes, you pay 10.4e on Willoughby Acres. But remember we are three, four, five times bigger than Willoughby Acres. We're twice as old as Willoughby Acres. We have more problems than Willoughby Acres had. But yet you want us to pay -- some of us to pay more than others. Okay. In closing, this week I learned that by October 1997 they will start the construction of US 41 to make it six lanes. I urge you to make a decision in the next few days -- few weeks to get this project out of the way, because we certainly don't want the park torn up the same time we have six lanes torn up because that would be war zone, wouldn't it, trying to get anything out of these bad streets and all the things that's gonna be torn up. We know it's gonna be a mess for awhile. So please do something. If you're gonna do it, do it soon. And I'm asking that you pay more than 10 -- you should pay three times more than you did at Willoughby Acres because we're three times bigger or four times bigger. You should pay more than 10.4. You should pay 30 like it was originally planned in ABB. We spent thousands of dollars -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Wood, can you wrap it up? MR. WOOD: Okay. We have the plans. We have the construction drawings all ready to go to work. All have you to do is say yes, we'll pay 30e, and yes you don't have that three point factor. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you very much. MR. DORRILL: Ms. Hortensen. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I've explained benefit factor to you before, sir. I'm gonna explain it again. When people moved -- when you moved to your house there was a drainage easement and ditch behind your house. Sir, you asked me to explain it, let me explain it. MR. WOOD: I didn't ask -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yes, you did. When you bought your house, there was a ditch behind your house. MR. WOOD: That's right. Small ditch. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Albeit, if you want the ditch restored to a small ditch, that's a different story. But when we're talking about covering it up, the value of your property will be more with a covered ditch back there than it would if it were an open ditch. MR. WOOD: 300e more? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's gonna be worth more, sir. I haven't done real estate evaluations. It's not my job. Okay? But I'm telling you that you as an individual would benefit more than a person who lives up in the upper left-hand corner up there that doesn't have this in their backyard. That's the purpose of benefit factor. Now, I agree. The 3.0 factor is high. The result in cost doesn't make sense. But the bottom line is if you have that ditch in your backyard, yes, sir, you will benefit aesthetically more from that improvement than someone who is a half mile away from it. And I don't think that reasonably you can argue against that. MR. WOOD: Only if I'm in the real estate business and going into the selling business. I'm there to live the rest of my life. I'm not selling property. It's a -- it may improve it, but I'm not selling it, so I won't benefit from that. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Unless you know something I don't, eventually you will sell it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Somebody will. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Somebody will. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Wood. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm sorry you don't agree, but I think there is a benefit there. MR. DORRILL: Ms. Hortensen, then Mr. Richardson. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Ms. Richards (sic), you have to come to the mike. Thank you. MS. MORTENSEN: Thought you knew me by now. Good afternoon. My name is Flo Hortensen. I'm a homeowner in Naples Park for 19 years. The ultimate proposal to use the rock riprap instead of enclosing the two main drainage canals has resulted in an appealing cost reduction. And more importantly, it carries with it an enticing codicil, an opportunity for property owners to enclose their swales, an aesthetic improvement for some, more parking space for others. What it doesn't do is solve the problems related to health and safety. It is merely a million dollar Band-aid that will tidy the wound but will not cure the disease. If Plan B is adopted, still remaining will be stagnant water, mosquito breeding, encephalitis, snakes, and varments feasting on garbage. Riprap will not eliminate tiny tots dangling on the edge of the roadway that expands the ditch on 6th Street or boys riding bicycles on the rim of that span or the parade of children who will remove the rocks to smash a turtle or just for the hell of it, nor will it stop them from malicious mischief, vandalizing orange, grapefruit, banana trees -- not to eat, but to play with and to leave behind in the water to feed the varments and clog the piping. Riprap will not cure the disintegration of the roadway which on numerous occasions over the years left holes large enough to claim a pedestrian, a fatal catastrophe waiting to happen. If there ever was a political ploy, Plan B is a blatant personification because on the surface it appears to be a solution, but when you give thoughtful analysis to both plans, enclosing the unhealthy and unsightly ditches remains a sensible approach because in addition to the health and safety factors, it will reduce future costs of manual maintenance, herbicides, and even police protection because that will be the only recourse to solving the ongoing problems of construction and vandalism caused by playful children. The accident waiting to happen and the lawsuits that follow will then be prevented. Please don't postpone this project. It's bite the bullet time. Hake Naples Park a community to be proud of. Please adopt Plan A. Personally, I will have to scringe and scrounge to pay for my share of Plan A, but health and safety is far more important than beautification. I thank you for listening, but I want to say something to Commissioner Hancock. You're new, and you haven't heard all this before. It's been going on for seven, eight, or more years. And you are now proposing that we start all over again with town hall meetings and votes from everybody in the park. We can't wait any longer. Please rethink some of those plans. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Richardson and then -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I dare say I should have allowed the course to continue with nothing happening, but I didn't think that was right. So I'm trying to do the best I can. I'm trying to get something done in Naples Park. I'm sorry that's not appreciated, but I tell you I'm doing the best I can. I can't blindly approach something. I need to learn about it. I'm sorry that's not enough. MR. DORRILL: Following Mr. Richardson, Ms. Hajciar, H-a-j-c-i-a-r, if you would stand by, please. MR. RICHARDSON: Dwight Richardson. I live on 101st. Avenue, right in the heart of Naples Park. Commissioner Hancock, don't be defensive. We've all got a problem in front of us to try to resolve. As members of the public come forward, we each struggle to try to find the right words to be helpful and not really pull us apart. I'm inspired by our counsel because he says wherever we are, we are, and we are wherever we are. MR. CUYLER: Am I never gonna live that down? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Never. MR. RICHARDSON: And nothing could be more true than that in this situation because we are where we are. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is that similar to like when we're trying to plan, if we don't plan we're gonna wind up in the direction in which we are headed? MR. RICHARDSON: Right. Whether we intended to go there or not. No, but the truth is that the problem we have is not the problem that you created. It's not a problem we created. It predates all of us. So let's put the history behind us. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Except this gentleman right here. He's in that picture. MR. RICHARDSON: But I think let's just try to solve the problem that's in front of us. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes. MR. RICHARDSON: And I don't think that there's any question that we've got a problem. There are ditches there. They're getting deeper, and we need to take care of them. We've got several solutions. We've got experts that can testify to every aspect of this problem. They can give us benefit analyses. They can give us costs. And you folks are the ones that have to sort that out, balance out these issues. My contribution is going to be as follows -- you lost me? They haven't lost me. My contribution's going to be as follows: We have the ditches. Let's not leave the ditches. I suggest that dumping rock into the ditches is not a solution. Don't leave us with a solution that depends on some future level of maintenance because you know how material that is. Sometimes we would get it and sometimes we don't. We're really only gonna do this project once. I don't think people are gonna live long enough to see us come back and re-address this issue. So my plea would be let's do the project. Do it in the best wisdom you can as far as cost is concerned. We live there. We're willing to pay our share. And whatever wisdom you feel is the appropriate share, let's just go ahead and get it done. I say let's go on. I think Plan A makes more sense in terms of the -- what it accomplishes for us. Maybe there's some modifications that can come from that so that we can still take care of some of the open swales and some porous pipes and that so that we're not stuck with that problem forever. But let's get rid of the ditches. And as the commercial would say, you know, just do it. Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Ms. Hajciar, and then Mr. Newman. MS. HAJCIAR: Good afternoon. My name is Janette Hajciar, and I'm here to complain about that old ditch in the back of my yard. It is at least 50 feet wide and more than 10 feet deep. It is an eyesore. We do not have any more of an easement left. Now, what I'm getting at is the utility lines and poles. I feel that is contributing to our loss of property simply because whenever the linesmen would come through when they were putting in the new cables back in '93, there wasn't an easement. They couldn't walk on air. Therefore, they had to straddle our property lines and, well, more loss to our grounds. So I'm just going to make this brief simply because everyone before me said it all. And I would like to see the ditches covered over completely. It will be much nicer for Naples Park. As drive into Naples Park, what do you see but these horrible ditches? No one's gonna look at our front lawns that we have a swale, but they do see that ugly, dirty ditch. Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Newman and then Ms. Sourbeer. MR. NEWMAN: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Allen Newman. I live in Naples Park. The Plan B scenario reminds me of something that should have been taken care of along the years. It's a maintenance thing that should have already been taken care of. The deterioration of the lands and the sides of the ditch has -- or should have been maintained by the county throughout the years, which had been lack of maintenance. The ditches got wider and wider and wider. And now we're right here today where we've been for the past five, six years. I don't live on a ditch. I live on 94th Avenue. I'm not troubled with any flooding. I'm on high ground of Naples Park. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's about 18 inches above everyone else? MR. NEWMAN: That's about it. But I'd like to see the ditches covered for what it's gonna cost me mainly because I'm waiting for somebody to get hurt in those ditches, a child drown in a ditch. It's a health hazard. And how we got away -- as lucky as we have been throughout the years this long, we're just lucky that something hasn't happened. Now we're approaching the 21st century and we're still going with the 19th century ditch. Personally, I would like to see you people get your stuff together and cover those ditches for me. I have a brief letter from one of the residents in the park I'd like to read. It's from Bob and Julie Wright. They live on 91st Avenue right along the ditch. "Dear Commissioners, I would like -- I would like to make my opinion known concerning the drainage ditches between 91st/92nd Avenue North and along 8th Street. I feel they should be fully covered to preserve and enhance the beauty of Naples Park and to compliment the surrounding areas such as Pelican Marsh and Pelican Bay. We should not accept the makeshift riprap solution to a long-term eyesore. Riprap will require spraying for weeds, it will smell of stagnant water, and will encourage people to dump lawn clippings and other wastes. However, the main concern of not filling in a ditch is the dangerous attraction it will be for the children. "A couple of years ago, a friend of ours had a daughter who was playing near rocks like riprap and was bitten by a snake. She was rushed to the hospital and had to go through therapy to regain all her feeling. "In conclusion, let's do the right thing and spend a little extra money it will take to do a professional job so we can protect our property values and be proud to say that we live in Naples Park." Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Ms. Sourbeer, then Mr. King. Mr. King will follow Ms. Sourbeer. MS. SOURBEER: Good afternoon. I thought I was gonna say good morning to you folks. My name is Marie Sourbeer. I'm from Naples Park. I also reside in the highland. I think my elevation is 13 feet above sea level. I live on 100th Avenue right in the 700 block. And AB & B is the one that provided me with that information. So I don't have a problem with flooding. And I'm a very fortunate woman living on the avenue with a front 100 feet under pipe. It was approved by the county. We got our permit right down here at the county. It was long before the moratorium. My plea is let's go with Plan A, but lift that moratorium. The streets -- most people in the park live on the avenues. And they're the ones that have an unsightly mess in some of the places which are really a hazard. We have a lot of people walking those streets. We have a lot of kids riding bicycles. I've seen new construction come in there and put a big house on a 50-foot lot. By the time they put a driveway in and the next house is built, you've got a little pot hole there that the poor construction people can't put a pipe in and cover it over. You've got a hole. Just ride up and down some of these streets and you'll see. Yesterday we did a two-hour survey of the Naples area. We've got some open swales along the avenues that are almost as bad now as what you have on 8th Street. Please, by all means, any way we can do it, we'll pay what we have to pay to get it done, but let's not put it off. I have a folder with me. We started this with the county back in 1987. And at that time I told George Archibald and Mr. Boldt I thought they were miracle workers to be able to put up with all the problems we had with town hall meetings and get together and trying to get approval and votes and so forth. Take that H.S.T.U. and expand it or extend it, whatever have you to do you, but let's gets on with this project. I'd like to be around to see it be done. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. King and then Ms. Bateman. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Before Mr. King, Marie brings up an important point because a lot of the phone calls I got -- if we enclose 8th and 91st/92nd, Mr. Boldt, that moratorium stays; am I correct? D.E.P. will not lift that moratorium if we cover those two. And the reason is that we need those open swales in front yards to scrub and clean the water before it gets discharged in the Vanderbilt Lagoon. That's not a decision this board can make. It's not one we can make for you, although we'd like to. Those swales have to stay open that are open now in your front yard. It's an either/or. We can't have both, Marie, and the State won't allow it. So that I can't -- we can't answer for you. MS. SOURBEER: Can I address that just a moment? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: You'll need to come to the microphone, but, you know, that's the fact. Those are the facts. MS. SOURBEER: I have a letter here -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Marie, you can't scream from the audience, please. Thank you. Mr. King. MR. KING: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm George King. I'm a resident of Naples Park. I want to speak to the proposal that has been made to asses properties abutting the ditch up to three times more than properties of -- because of the increased benefit. Naples Park, I believe, is in one tax district. All properties should be assessed equally. There is no better way to divide a community than to say one property has more benefit than another. Many factors determine this. Any assessments of benefits would have to be based on assessed valuations. Our properties abutting the ditch asses one to three times less than comparable properties. The county should increase their contribution to make up for the lack of proper maintenance. If the ditches had been properly maintained, the increase in benefit to the abutting properties would be minimal compared to the other properties. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Ms. Bateman, and then Mr. McGilvra. MS. BATEMAN: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Barbara Bateman for the record. I'm a resident of Naples Park and a homeowner as well for over 20 years. I'm here today to speak on behalf of the homeowners and property owners of Naples Park, not from the associations but the people who could not come here and voice their comments about the implementation of an M.S.T.U. to pay for the drainage problems in Naples Park. I would like to go on record as saying the issue of Naples Park's ditches and swales creating the flooding, health and safety hazards has been known for many years. The responsibility of Collier County is and has been to have budgeted these tax dollars in previous years to correct this problem. Yes, Naples Park does need the 53 miles of drainage ditches and swales improved. There's no question about that, but not through another M.S.T.U. There's no adequate public support for the amendment, which at the time I had petitions taken for an amended M.S.T.U. I understood that it was gonna be a creation of a special taxing district to fund the proposed drainage improvement. Since we already pay two special district taxes currently on our ad valorem taxes, we're reluctant to carry a reinstated or amended M.S.T.U., which would make it a third one, as we are still paying off for 1983 voter-approved bond created by the North Naples area for the construction of five community parks. Now, I do believe that it is the opinion of the homeowners and property owners in Naples Park to bring these concerns to commissioners to try to find other amending -- or other funding sources either from federal and state grants, as we have seen numerous of them throughout the year in the paper. Various projects within the community are getting all kinds of federal and state funding and saying is there some possible way that this could be addressed from the county? The property owners of Naples Park, not associated, but just the people are really opposed. They need more information than what is being presented here to the commissioners. And I really applaud and commend Commissioner Hancock for opening up the door to reach out and have another town hall meeting that hopefully this will bring the issue of 1989 -- we'll kind of bring it full circle, but we'll reach more people to see the overall costs. There's a lot of costs being tossed around. There's no question that the people want the ditches covered, but at the expense -- we have to look at the county taking the responsibility over all these years to try to address it. And concerning the secondary system, how can we move forward on the secondary system? And I don't understand why we cannot address that first as opposed to the going and doing the primary system. The people on 91st and 92nd Avenues are going to receive an improvement. I, being on 106th, am experiencing during heavy rainfalls 106th Avenue is now being overflowed with water. The 20 years that I have lived there, I have never experienced flooding in my backyard, which I now have. And also, the swales are filling up tremendously, more than they ever have, because of the, I guess, build out and change of building codes. I would like, in closing, to make some comments about another Naples Park resident, Steve Cozgrove, had come before the board January 19th, 1994. And he said the phase one of the plan -- he said would that fix it if the storm water cannot get to the pipes, can't flow through them, and the water can't get to the new pipes because roughly 35e of the existing pipes are too small, clogged, or grades are too high or too low, thus clogging the flow of water? And the point is we would like to address the secondary system overall along with the primary system. And these are the concerns of the people of Naples Park. I have names and petitions that were taken as of December 1994 stressing their oppose -- excuse me, their opposing the H.S.T.U. we would like to have you go back perhaps and re-examine some other cost methodology. Thank you very much. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Can I ask you a question? I was just wondering -- I'm gonna ask the same question of the property owners. Do you have any idea what number of people you represent or what percentage? MS. BATEMAN: Right now we have over 200 signatures, and there are still some being signed. But at the -- there have been -- from what I read this morning of the executive summary, there has been presently some changes taking place in addressing the new procedure. And they're going to reactivate or reinstate the H.S.T.U. that is already in place. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right. MS. BATEMAN: This petition was drawn up saying that they oppose the creation of a special taxing district in Naples Park. That's my understanding that it's already in place. This would just be an amendment. But I just wanted to express that they are opposed to this type of -- of cost structure. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: They don't want to pay for the improvements under an H.S.T.U., the people you speak for? MS. BATEMAN: Yes, yes. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And you think that's -- did you say 100, couple hundred? MS. BATEMAN: Well, a little over 200 right now, but there are people that have had the petition sent and have not been returned. So there are more people that have opposition and because of that either don't have the clear information as to what is being done, and that needs to be addressed. And they need to have the cost figures spelled out evidently more clearly, because they are in opposition. They don't want to pay it. They don't feel that it's their responsibility. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MS. BATEMAN: Thank you very much. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Dorrill, 200 signatures, how many residents are there in Naples Park? MR. DORRILL: 6,000. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: 6,000? That's what I thought. I just wanted to get some magnitude on that. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And does anybody know how many members -- how many of the 6,000 are represented by the property owners association? MR. DORRILL: That has been part of the problem. This is not inconsistent with what we have heard historically. You would have needed to have attended some of the town hall meetings. There is a very fractured sense of responsibility in financing for the project. And by in large the people that come here are those who are the most directly impacted. Those are the ones that live on one of these big ditches. They have historically not been able to convince the other residents within the community to pursue special assessment financing and create an assessment district. And now we have come back full circle where they realize there is not the support within the community to have an assessment district. They don't feel there's support of the county commission to force an assessment district. This is now the third round of financing opportunities to try and have some type of tiered taxing district. And it's not inconsistent with what we've heard before. Mr. HcGilvra is your final registered speaker. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Mr. HcGilvra. Are you dragging a ball and chain or is your back hurt too? MR. HcGILVRA: I'm dragging up because I had to mow my swale the other day, and it's very deep. First of all, let me say one thing. Something was said earlier about Mr. Hancock -- Commissioner Hancock. I want to applaud Mr. Hancock because he's been one of the commissioners -- as a matter of fact, the only commissioner that we've had recently in the second district who has done as much and as fast as he's gotten into office about helping us out, do something about Naples Park drainage. And I think we all owe him a debt of gratitude for that. I'd like to mention that at this point in time the property owners of Naples Park -- and we consist of about 220 people. And from what I understood from Harie's statement, she has a lot more people than we have, probably about 300. Number one -- the number one point on this -- in other words cover all the swales is still wanted by the majority of the people. Now, that's not saying they all want to pay for it. Nobody wants to pay for anything. However, a lot of us are willing to pay a fair share. And a fair share has got to be determined by you people. It's gonna be somewhere between 10.4e and 33e obviously. I want to say a couple of things about the $900,000 proposal. Okay. The $900,000 proposal, which consisted of riprap -- and I've taken three strong votes of my membership over the last year you might say. The first year vote was 100e in favor of the covered swales. We did not have the riprap proposal at that time. Once we had the riprap proposal, we had about 67e. It got down to about 67e still for covering the swales. The last one that was just held the last week was a 63e majority for covering the swales. So still the majority is for covering the swales and helping to pay for it. One of the reasons for this, I believe, is for the possibility of the increasing in ad valorem taxes which have been talked about greatly in the newspaper. Our great Naples Daily News, as you know, has spoken about it to great extent. We may get a 25 to 35 percent increase in the commissions, increase in ad valorem taxes. That scares a lot of people. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Don't make it go any worse than the 29e we've been told. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That will only happen if the Naples Daily News staff sets the ad valorem rate. MR. HcGILVRA: There you have it. Anyhow, that's one of the reasons, obviously, that a lot of people are beginning to teeter a little bit. Another reason is that we have been told that if we went to the $900,000 route in riprap, that we would be able to reduce -- remove the moratorium and be able to fill our internal individual swales, which I just limped up here on. That is very interesting to many many people, believe it or not. I don't know why because it costs 2,000 to 2,500 to do that which is fairly expensive for each individual. It is not an inexpensive endeavor. So these three things -- two or three things will point out why the movement has been probably straight from what we talked before which was a complete cover to the riprap. Now, there's no question in my mind that the riprapping is not going to do the three main things which we set out to do here, health, safety, and welfare. Riprapping by its very nature is gonna enclose more of the existing ditches than we have. It's gonna make them nattower. So the water velocity is either going to overflow or go faster through it, one way or the other. Also, it is not gonna stop the ability for vermin, snakes, and so forth to manifest themselves and run around the areas of the riprapping. And thirdly, it's gonna be an open wound, open sore that people can fall into, have algae growth and so forth like that, even though we do change some of the culvert sizes and increase them in height and lower them and so forth like that. So, basically I think that's about all I wanted to say. I wanted to thank everybody else for getting up and talk. And we still think that we should stay with the -- we still feel we should cover all. And one additional thing as far as the people who are concerned with the benefit factors applied to it, I agree that anybody who lives along the ditch, their property values will be increased more than other people's. And I think that the original statements of this was brought out over a year ago. Everybody agreed with it at that time. I see no reason to disagree with it at this time. I do not, however, think the 3 factor is right. I don't think the 1 1/2 factor is right either. I think a 2.2 factor would be more correct which would more or less make then a 2-1 factor as to us. And we're talking about overall dollars, not individual dollars. And that works out fairly substantially to be in the benefit. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you. That concludes our speakers? MR. DORRILL: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Commissioner Hancock. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In a nutshell I'm gonna try and summarize for the board our three options that are presented to us here and what I see as some potential positives and negatives. And I'll be as quick as I can. The first option which is the enclosure of the swales, the positives obviously are that it achieves the result of the drainage in Naples Park that is long overdue. Ultimately it's what we'd like to have. I believe, Mr. Boldt, even doing that a ten-year storm event may still stand awhile. It's not gonna be whisked away very quickly. We still may have some problems. And the reason is Naples Park was designed at an elevation that just simply is lower than what we would do. There's no retention or detention areas in the entire park. It's impossible to make a system that old work like current systems. So we're never gonna get to where we are today no matter how much money we spend in there unless we go condemning tens of acres for retention areas, and I don't think we need to go any further with that. So the positive is that it is the greatest water management plan possible to get water out of Naples Park. The other positive is it aesthetically improves the park more than any of the other plans. The negatives. One, the cost. Obviously you're talking well over $1,000 for a lot of lots that don't even front on the ditches that one house is built on two lots. That's a big negative, too. Home evaluations range from 60 to over $100,000. So when you look at $1,000 compared to that, that's a big chunk of change. The other negative is that this would then take all the water in Naples Park and dump it in a less treated sense into Vanderbilt Lagoon, which is gonna diminish the water quality there. It's gonna affect those property owners. So we're not in a vacuum. We can't look just at Naples Park. The O.F.W. designation plays in there also. And the third negative is that your front yard swales will remain if you haven't covered them, okay? So that's -- that's nuts and bolts on A. Plan B. It's been talked about that we are just throwing rock in the ditches. The reason I came -- I tried to develop Plan B is to try to find middle ground because of the response I was getting from Naples Park residents. And the idea there was that the pipe sizes would be increased along 8th because that is the problem. The water can't move quick enough. It backs up. There's head loss in some areas that the water can't get through. By increasing pipe size we increase ability to move the water, not to the extent of Plan A, not to the cost of Plan A, not to the aesthetic value of Plan A. You can call it a Band-aid, you can call it whatever, but the idea was to try to make an improvement that, instead of moving the water as rapidly as possible, would move it a lot better than it is being moved right now. And that improvement would have a less or lower fiscal impact on everybody. That was the idea for it. And then, of course, option C is wait till the county can have the money to do every ounce of this themselves. And I think my colleagues will say that hell will be frozen over for long before that happens, because the history is that in any other neighborhood that has drainage problems, they have had to go through a special taxing district to make the improvements. The county has never said that because your design is not good enough, it's the rest of the county taxpayers' responsibility to fix it. And I don't see that happening here. So that's it, the three plans in a nut shell. And I know what I hear today is either Plan A, and you don't want any town hall meetings, you don't want input, you just want the board to go ahead and do Plan A, and I'm not comfortable with it. I dare say that the ten people that spoke here today are one very small portion of the people I'm supposed to represent. And I can't represent you and not them. So I again would ask the board to entertain discussion on which of these options they're amenable to as far as the cost to the county and the method. And I still would like to get for my own sake -- no matter what I'm doing on this, folks, I'm committing political suicide. Any assessment I place on residents in my district, those will count as votes against me. And you want to know the truth? I don't care. I really don't care about whether I'm reelected. I care more about getting something done, but that doesn't mean the Cadillac is the answer. It doesn't mean I'm gonna be unfair to other residents who don't want Plan A. I'm just trying to get something done and be reasonable about it. If it kills me, so be it. I'm not worried about that, I'll survive. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you, MAdam Chairman. There are certainly pros and cons to Plan A or Plan B. Plan A will make those ditches look a lot better by enclosing them. And the enclosure of those, by the way, I think we heard some people voice concern that since their assessment would be three times the other lots if they lived along that ditch, that that was not fair because their property values wouldn't increase by three times. Well, it doesn't have to increase by three times, it only has to increase by 11 or 1200 dollars, depending on which of these option you go with in order to make that equitable. And to remove that ditch from a back of -- I'm looking at from my perspective, if I lived on that ditch and I knew that it was gonna be covered, and if I was basing my decision on whether it would be worth 1200 bucks in property value, I would say certainly go right ahead. Because that's really all you're talking about is a $1200 difference, not a trebling of property values. So scenario A -- or Plan A has a great benefit to the aesthetics in general of Naples Park, but it really doesn't do much for the other residents off of the ditches unless the D.E.P., the State, could be convinced at some point in time to allow those swales to be enclosed for aesthetic value up there. If that's not going to happen, then that's a fairly sizable drawback to Plan A. Plan B, on the other hand, doesn't do enough aesthetically for the ditches themselves, the big ditches. But the two benefits that it gets are a lot lesser cost and a -- the ability then for everyone else in the park to be able to enclose their ditches at some time if they choose to do so. And that seems to be a pretty good benefit. So there's pluses and minuses on both of those. Commissioner Hancock, have fun with this when you have your town hall meeting. I'm sure you'll enjoy these. But I would support you going forward with the town hall meetings if that's what you want to do if you feel that's necessary and with what's called either scenario 1-A or scenario 1-B or scenario 2-A or 2-B because they're very similar. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: ditches. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COHMISSIONER NORRIS: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: closing of the swales. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, 1-A and B are closing the That's right. That's the 3.8 million. That's right. But that will not allow the That's true. But scenario 2-A and B, if you'll look on your sheets here -- I know this gets confusing because we've got 2s and As and Bs and Cs and all this business, but scenario 2-A and B are both the riprap project with the 3.0 benefit factor. The scenario 1-A and B are the full enclosure with the 3.0 benefit factor. And I would support any of those options you want to discuss at a town hall meeting. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I'm done. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other comments? I don't have many either except that I appreciate what the comments have been today from the public. And there's a benefit to -- while we are elected from specific districts, we do represent all of the county. So I look after District 2 in Naples Park as much as I do the rest of the county. My preference sounds like it's not available, and that's to close the swales and close the ditches, but that sounds like that's not available. So we're gonna have to leave it up to the town hall meetings, I guess, to help guide us in the preference that's going to take us where the citizens want to go the most. It's not gonna be an easy decision because close the ditches, we don't close the swales. And those swales could become ditches over time. Commissioner Norris. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Whatever we do, I think it would be appropriate for the benefit of the citizens, especially the ones that have come here today, to set a schedule at least tentatively to come back and make a decision on this as soon as possible. I don't know how long you think it will take to get the town hall meeting going, but I'd like to come back within a week or two after their town hall meeting and go ahead and make a final decision and put this thing to bed finally. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock, was it your intention to have a town hall meeting with all five of us present, or were you going to be present to take -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Host of the heat? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: God bless you. But was it your intention to just take input and report back to us, or -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I would like to have it publicly advertised and extend an invitation for all commissioners to attend. What I don't want to have is a grill session. What I would like is the options that the board says today they would like to be presented to the general public, the residents of Naples Park and Beach Walk and so forth, to narrow down those options so that we know what the county's role in those would be, to present those, to explain each One. And I'm going to be blunt. When you walk in you get a little gold star. And when you leave, you put it on the one you want. That's what have I to come to rely on as the representation of my constituents. And that -- you got a better idea out there, great, but that's what I anticipate being the rule. And anyone who is subject to this assessment would have a vote in what they would like to see done. That to me seems to be the only fair way to approach it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. So let's -- let's begin to look then at a time frame. Mr. Weigel, what's the minimum time that we could put such a meeting together that has to be properly advertised? MR. WEIGEL: Oh, about 14 days? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: 14 days? MR. WEIGEL: Yeah, 12, 14 days range to get it in the paper with a little advanced notice. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So if we were to set this meeting for three weeks and then give us two weeks to digest the results of it, then we should be back here in no more than six weeks. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I would like to hold it at Veterans Park if we can schedule it there because there's more room, it's more accessible, it's closer, and so forth. So I would like to schedule it at Veteran's Park for the evening for presentation three weeks from this week. We'll have to set a date for that based on availability. If you have a concern or question, please come up to the microphone. MS. PETT: I would like to, if you will recognize me. Let me get over here first. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We can do it very quickly, please. We're past the public comment on this. MS. PETT: Yes. If we use the star as you're suggesting, which sounds very very good, how would you be able to know how many people in Naples Park will be willing to pay their share? You've heard that brought up today. Isn't that a real concern before you vote on this issue? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I would love nothing more '- MS. PETT: It would be if I sat up there. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I would like nothing more than to throw this back on the shoulders of the residents, and say go get 51e. MS. PETT: Would you get them to sign for that? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I would like to do it, but the truth is it's not gonna happen. MS. PETT: I know. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: We're never gonna make any improvements if I do that, and I don't think it's right. MS. PETT: We have to find some kind of solution. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to get as much public input as possible. There's a lot of absentee in Naples Park. All that's been said today is do what's right. I'm trying to that because something has to be done. MS. PETT: I know it does. And I feel very strongly in favor of these people, but what does disturb me is this particular area was built in 1950. Where have they been all of these years? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I -- really, I think we're beyond that. MS. PETT: Oh, well, of course we are. It's just that it's really upsetting because so many statements have been made. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me. We're not gonna rehash this. We've been listening. We know you've been there for 30 years or more, and we understand what the history is and so forth. What we're working at now is trying to set a date for a town hall meeting and to firm up a date of when this board intends to make a final decision. And that's where we are right now. MS. PETT: All right. Thank you. Hay name is Helen Pett, P-e-t-t, from Beach Walk. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: There will be an option C, a do nothing option, because some people may want that. But at this point I think we need to set a time in which this is gonna happen and do our best to notify all the property owners in Naples Park in the meantime of the date and time. And we'll see what comes out of that. I don't know how to be more fair about it to be honest. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock, why don't we look at trying to set a date for either the Wednesday or Thursday evening three weeks from today? Land Development Code on that Wednesday? Okay. Let's look at three weeks from Thursday. UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: Madam Chairman, Commissioner Hancock just notified us-- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Sir, you cannot talk from the audience, thank you. UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: In Naples Park, I'd like to know -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Sir, I'm sorry. Everyone who's impacted, we'll do our best to notify everyone using local media, radio, newspaper. I don't know what my abilities are to get something out to property owners. I have to find that out. But I'll make every effort possible to notify everyone who's affected. UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We are looking at April the -- April the 20th, Thursday evening. I don't know what the availability of Veteran's Park is, but for the time being -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Why don't we '- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- I think we're looking at that. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: If it's available on that evening, let's try it and do that. If it is, then it moves ahead. The advertisement will be in the paper and we'll go from there. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And have it back before the commission. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: My colleagues are enjoying this, watching me go down with the ship. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Let's just say in the next couple weeks we'll have the town hall meeting and we'll get the word out. We don't have to set the time or date or manner we're going to operate at that time at this exact instant. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No, we're not going to do that. But we do want the citizens to know that it will be within the next three weeks or so, so be watching the newspaper. MS. BATEMAN: Hay I make one brief comment? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Ha'am, we are finished with public comment. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'd like to ask the board, if you would, we looked at offering four items. I'd like to narrow it to two, options 1-A and i-B, which are both the coverage items. The difference in those two as I see it -- Mr. Boldt correct me if I'm wrong -- is the county's share, ranging between 10.4e down to 7.85. Could you help me select one of those two? Because obviously -- you know, I don't see any benefit in the residents -- you know, kind of choose one or the other. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: well. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I thought Hr. Norris did fairly Well, excuse me -- I thought Mr. Norris did that. No, I natrowed it down to four choices. Scenario 1-A and B are really very similar except the county share varies a little bit. That's the decision I would ask the board to look at. The same things goes with scenario 2-A and B, which is Plan B. I like this, this is very confusing. I'm sure everybody is totally confused at this moment. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: The difference is 7.85e and 10.4e on the part of the county to -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's a decision I think this board needs to make at some future date. MR. BOLDT: You realize that's a factor of 3.0 for those lots abutting? Is that your intention? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I heard Commissioner Norris say he felt that that was a -- a reasonable approach. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I would suggest at this point that we -- that we find out if Veterans Park is available on Thursday the 20th, and that we are going to be listening to public input on this. And the public is gonna come forward with whatever ideas they have, regardless of what we want them to come forward with. So I don't see that there's any point in asking them at this point to confine to any of these six options. It's just -- I don't think that's really realistic. These are individuals with their own thoughts. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, is there some sort of motion out there right now and do we need one? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There is not one. I'm not sure if we need one except direction do we check availability of Veterans Park for Thursday evening, April the 20th? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: One comment is if we don't narrow down these choices, if we don't at least give some direction to the property owners about what the board's leaning is, I'm, with all due respect, not sure what we did today besides have another hearing where we accomplished nothing. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think the board, based on what I've heard over the period of time especially from December, has said that the 30e contribution from the general fund was simply more than we thought was really reasonable. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think that -- I agree with that. And I think it would be important to make that clear today so that when we have this meeting that that's -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's why we're back today was because we directed Mr. Boldt to go find a different way to do it, that 30e was too high. And he's come back with either something around 10.4e -- MR. BOLDT: 8 to 10e. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- contribution. And I don't know whether it's going to be 8e or 10e, but I do suspect it's not going to be 30e. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Let me try and resolve that in the form of motion. I'd like to make a motion that we direct staff to set up a town hall meeting on or about April 20th, during that week, to be held in the evening at Veterans Park and to offer the residents a choice and a forum, and the choice being between options 1-B and 2-B which has the county share at 10.4e -- is that correct -- 1-B and 2-B with 10.4e for the total project cost, and that we hear what the public has to say at that time. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And you anticipate having another public hearing after that to make the final decision? COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: The immediate Tuesday following it we can do it, but I'm sure we have to have advertising time from there. I'm sure the decision is to move in any direction other than none. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm not gonna be able to support moving in no direction. That is a public health and safety issue. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: I'll second your motion. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just for clarification, can I see which one we're talking about with all this 1-A and 2-B, all that stuff? What we're talking about under 2-A, is that where the county shares 8.2e, the -- the abutting property owners pay 342 a year, the balance pay 126 a year? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yes. But that was not a part of my motion. My motion was 1-B or 2-B. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, B. I thought it was A. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: 1-B is a $3.8 million total project cost, the county shares 10.4e, the directly affected lots along 8th and 91st and 92nd is a benefit factor of 3.0. I still need some justification on the Pavilion Club residential benefit factor. That one I don't understand. But that's -- that's scenario 1-B. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. The motion is on or about April the 20th in the evening, and that the county is looking at a 10.4e contribution? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COHMISSIONER NORRIS: that. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's correct. Okay. Do we have a second? Yes, we have a second. I seconded And what we're asking from -- are we telling the public now that option A is gone? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: No. Option A is one of the two. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. We're saying our contribution is about 10e, you tell us if you want to do A or B, and we'll figure out the assessment methodology. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Exactly. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there further discussion? I'll call it to question. All those in favor please say aye. Opposed? None. Motion passes 5-0. Thank you. MR. DORRILL: We'll advise you very quickly concerning the availability of that room. And if not, then we might look at the Naples Park Elementary School, or there's also a very large Catholic church there on lllth. And -- but I understand your intent. We'll try to work that around your schedules, an evening meeting, but to occur as close to Naples Park as it can. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Please. Thank you. Item #SH1 RESOLUTION 95-243 RE AQUISITION OF NON-EXCLUSIVE, PERPETUAL DRAINAGE EASEMENTS AND A MITIGATION EASEMENT FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ROADWAY SIX-LANING OF GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY FROM GOODLETTE-FRANK ROAD TO AIRPORT-PULLING ROAD - ADOPTED CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Next item on the agenda. Where are we? We are at 8-H-1. MR. CONRECODE: For the record Tom Conrecode. Item 8-H-1 is a return of modification of the resolution authorizing nonexclusive drainage easement for the construction of the -- I'll wait. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Go ahead, Tom. MR. CONRECODE: Okay. Item 8-H-1 is a recommendation that the board adopt a resolution authorizing the acquisition of nonexclusive drainage easements and mitigation for the sixth lane of the Golden Gate Parkway project. It's back before you because there's been a change in those easements. That's the extension. Staff has reviewed alternative locations, possible factors, cost variables, and the board finds the most feasible location of the drainage easements is as described in Exhibit A attached to the resolution. Staff recommends that the board approve and adopt. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: for Mr. Conrecode? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: second? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Are there questions Move for approval. We have a motion. Is there a Second. Motion and a second to approve the recommendation of staff. If there's no further discussion, I'll call it. All those in favor please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5-0. Thank you, Mr. Conrecode. Item #8H2 RECOHMENDATION TO APPROVE ADVISORY BOARDS DESIGNATED FOR ANNUAL REVIEW PER ORDINANCE 92-44 - APPROVED Next item is 8-H-2, recommendation to approve advisory board designated for annual review. MR. DORRILL: This is a routine item. There is an executive summary and also a memo of transmittal in conjunction with your ordinance. Various advisory boards are required to submit to you a brief written report in accordance with the ordinance. We have done that. We'd be happy to answer any specific questions that you might have or to schedule follow-up meetings with any of the advisory boards that are required to be with you this year. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, if there are no public speakers, I will make a motion to approve the advisory board reports as they're presented. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't think we have any public speakers. MR. DORRILL: No, ma'am. MR. NORRIS: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve the recommendation. All those in favor please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 4-0, Commissioner Hac'Kie absent. Next item on the agenda 8-H-3, consideration of utility privatization tasks scheduling policy. Mr. Dotrill, I've just been handed a note that Veterans Park is booked that evening, so if we want too look at the other -- MR. DORRILL: I'll look either at the main lunch room of Naples Park Elementary or the Catholic church. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Saint John's? See, I know North Naples. MR. DORRILL: The board asked us three weeks ago to come back today with a proposed schedule as to how the procurement could proceed towards a utility privatization. In conjunction with that we have a series of examples of policy direction that we'd like to have as part of the discussion on this item today. Mr. Hargett has prepared the actual critical tasks schedule that is attached. We have a series of other questions we'd like to get the board to give us some direction on. And you've got some speakers as well. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: How long do you anticipate this taking? MR. DORRILL: I'd say 15, maybe 30 minutes. We've got three -- no, we now have two speakers. I wouldn't think that it would take longer than this. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Does the board want to hear this and then take a break or take a break before we get started? Break? Let's reconvene at -- what is it -- 3:00 o'clock. (A short break was held.) Item #8H3 UTILITY PRIVATIZATION TASKS SCHEDULE AND POLICIES - STAFF DIRECTED TO DEVELOP LEVEL OF SERVICE AND PROVIDE BEST BID CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Reconvene the Board of County Commission meeting for March the 28th. We are on item -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Doug, we're not interrupting you, are we? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- 8-H-3, consideration of the utility privatization tasks schedule. Mr. Hargett. MR. HARGETT: Good afternoon, commissioners. Bill Hargett, Assistant County Manager. In your agenda is a schedule to -- an aggressive schedule to get back to the board with some bids to privatize the utilities. You can see the various tasks that are listed there, and I just want to briefly talk about it just a few minutes. In other jurisdictions, this -- some cases it's taken about a year and a half. It's our understanding from your discussion that you wanted to move forward with haste with this effort. We've been very aggressive. I'd like to call your attention to item number 3 where we talk about developing requests for -- or request for qualifications. This is a process whereby we would ask all the vendors out there who might be interested in submitting either bid or RFP on a project to submit their qualifications. And from that list, you would select the most qualified, ideally two, three, maybe four firms who would then become the only people that you would really take bids or proposals from. That does require an additional document. It would require some additional time. It's a task that can be incorporated into the RFP number 7. You can see there's no time lost or gained by whichever way that you choose. Probably the -- in terms of the administrative burden it's best not to have an RFQ. In terms of the impact on the utilities, we estimate that there could be anywhere between 8 and 15 companies out there who may be interested, probably would need to spend at least minimum of three possibly five days reviewing our operations, let's say 15 firms. I think you can see the disruption of the utility operations should that involve that many firms. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The RFP process eliminates that or narrows it down to two, three, or four? Is that the point? MR. HARGETT: Yes, it does. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I notice in here you have RFP written several times. In our discussion on this three or four weeks ago, we said specifically we wanted that to be request for bids not request for proposals so that we would end up with apples to apples. MR. HARGETT: Yes, sir. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Also, it seems to me if we are asking those companies to come, we ought to be able to set a schedule for when they would come. And rather than have 15 or 20 times, you ought to say, okay, you get this choice of these three times or this choice of one time, and you can come or don't have to come. But it doesn't seem like it should be that much of a disruption for us. It should be at our convenience and their inconvenience. MR. HARGETT: We definitely would reschedule it -- I think if you were to set aside probably 15 different time periods -- COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Why different though? MR. HARGETT: The number of folks they would bring to look at it, my guess is it could be up to ten, more in the neighborhood, I think, of three to five just depending on the qualifications of their people. Our recommendation to you is that we not go through this RFQ, that we go ahead and write the qualifications in to the RFP. And let me -- Commissioner, let me qualify that, because I did provide you a list of some policies/issue questions. And one of the questions I did have was did you want a bid or an RFP? And I think you've answered that at least from your perspective. When it does say RFP, if you would read that to mean RFP/bids, whichever you might decide that you wanted to do. So that -- that up front would be the very first question that we would ask the board is whether or not you wanted to proceed without a separate RFQ process and include that in the RFP/bids or whether or not you wanted to go ahead and narrow the vendors to a small manageable number to the most qualified folks. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have a question, Mr. Hargett. The difference between an RFP or request for bid, request for proposal, and request for qualifications, which one of those three is it that we are required under the CCNA to take the lowest responsive bid whether we like it or not? MR. HARGETT: If you went the sealed bid route, you would be required to take the lowest bid. In terms of CCNA, I'm not sure that we're gonna be governed by State statute since this is not the three things that are required under that law. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: What's CCNA? MR. DORRILL: Competitive Consultants Negotiations Act prescribes a mechanism for selecting architects, engineers, or land surveyors, and that would not apply in this instance. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That does not apply in this case? MR. DORRILL: No. But it is a procurement method that is similar to what we did on our landfill privatization, similar. It's just covered in that instance under your purchasing ordinance as opposed to state statute. MR. HARGETT: This is the proposal from one company that was sent in to Lee County so that you kind of get the feel for the magnitude of it, three of them versus 15 of them. There's some advantages both ways. I think we're, you know, more inclined to recommend that we go ahead and cover the qualifications issue and an RFP/bid. And you know, we'll just have to work through the number of documents that we're given and come up with the most qualified. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I agree. My preference would be for a bid and have the qualifications included as part of that rather than use time and money and effort trying to pin that down separately. What I'm wondering -- and I appreciate the fact you said this is an aggressive schedule. However, it's a week away -- according to the schedule, a week away. We prepared the RFP. And that's 2 1/2 months to prepare it before we actually get to look at it and approve it. I also notice you're advertising it the day before we approve it. It seems to me we might be able to trim a little out of that 2 1/2 months. If we're gonna have a straight bid and we're operating -- it's fairly clear how we're operating the facility right now. I know you made reference to other communities that have done this, so I assume we have other documents that other communities have used or have access to those. But it seems to me we might be able to trim a little time off that 2 1/2 months. Also, the time that's received -- receive/review RFPs, July 6th, present them to the BCC first week in August. That's a full month. Seems like maybe we ought to be able to cut that down to a couple of weeks time. So if we could make that a month and a half and make that -- seems like we ought to be able to cut a month or two out of this. And then at the back end I see a month to put the contract documents together and then two months transition time. I wonder if we don't cut a month or two out of this if we can't get it pretty close to the beginning of the fiscal year instead of the beginning of the calendar year. MR. DORRILL: I guess my concern would be sure, we could do that if a majority of the members of the board felt it were necessary. But I will tell you I have a concern or -- given the magnitude of the project it's not that we're -- we feel a sense of hurry or urgency, but this is a fairly complicated process and that's why Mr. Hargett's indicated that at least in the case of Lee County, whose utility is only about 2/3 the size of ours and thus the complexity, they've been doing this for 18 months, and we're trying to do it in six months. And you're suggesting that maybe we ought to accelerate that. I just have a concern that if we get in so much of a hurry are we gonna make some mistakes along the way? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's not my intent. My intent is from a fiscal standpoint it seems to make a lot more sense to aline that with the fiscal year. If we can't do that, fine. But as I look at this calendar it appears we may be able to. I'm not sure why it takes 10 or 12 weeks to prepare an RFP of this if we have folks who are familiar with operating in this day to day. I'm also not sure why we need a full month review once we receive the RFPs back before they ever make their way to the board. MR. HARGETT: They're going on four months review right now in Lee County. The question as to who will do this, we're proposing that for the most part this be done by your in-house staff. At Lee County they hired a consultant to come in and assist. We say in-house staff, that's by folks who are either operating your plants now and will -- or are doing other things that are gonna have to give to perform this. I think as the manager said, we'll meet your schedule, but something's got to give. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The last thing I ever want to do is hire an outside consultant. I do have one concern being, though, if our own staff is bidding, then having them review it seems a little out of the ordinarily. That's the fox guarding the hen house. MR. HARGETT: I seriously suggest you hire a consultant then, 'cause there's no one who can better describe what it is we want done than the people who do it. And we can sit up here and I think perhaps draft to the best of our knowledge -- I've done one before -- and get in the ballpark, but I don't think you're gonna have as good as I think you expect and certainly our customers demand in this case. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do we intend to plagiarize anything that's been done in other counties? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Borrow, borrow. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Borrow. MR. HARGETT: I've looked at three of them. And I was discussing before the meeting with our purchasing manager as to whether or not we could get this on tape. We do have the hard copies. And after looking through it and what was described to me by the other entities as being a rush rush job, some of the difficulties that they encountered and the reasons that it's taking time. We were discussing whether or not we'd be better off to start from scratch or take their documents and omit this, add that, whether it would be better to actually edit or start over. And I don't know the answer to that. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It just seems regardless of whether we use their document as a base or not that we should be able to learn from their process. MR. HARGETT: That's right. MR. DORRILL: That's our intent. I don't want the board's intention to be that the utility staff is going to be directing the writing of the proposal nor the technical staff, but obviously as was the case in solid waste, they need to be responsible to review and comment on that. The actual procurement effort is going to be directed by your purchasing director who's to be instructed by my office. We're asking that the board review and approve the document before it's put on the street. My rationale for that being one of objectivity and in the event that there's a desire to make changes that that is done prior to bids being solicited as opposed to trying to rewrite or renegotiate provisions of a privatization after the bids are received. It gets a little awkward in the case of the landfill privatization. We're trying to prevent that. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One suggestion. I don't want to get too far off the schedule item here, but one suggestion as part of this, I don't necessarily think it's true but there may have been some perception of the lobbying done by the various firms during the landfill thing. One of the things we do with Lee Port Authority is on big contracts like this is simply say that's off limits. If you're bidding you or your representatives cannot be in touch with the board members. And that way you don't have A the lobbying, but B the perception that there is some undue influence there. I don't know what the rest of the board thinks. I would think that would be helpful that that way if there are five presenters or seven presenters, you're getting the same representation from each one of them. Host importantly the public perception is that we are giving all of them an equal comment. MR. DORRILL: Just one other comment to answer your second question about could we accelerate the one month after the bid opening, we have some constraints with your current purchasing ordinance that allows for a review and bid protest time period. And then we have the normal requirement to prepare and print and advertise the bid award as part of the agenda. And that at a very minimum takes the three to four weeks that are shown in the schedule there for the actual bid analysis and bid award phase. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I just see here present RFPs to the Board of Commissioners and then a week later interviews by the Board of Commissioners. There's no reason why the RPFs can't be presented at some point during -- even as staff is reviewing them. You know, at least we can be reasonable about going through them on our own. It seems a little bit could be trimmed out of there, but then you tell me it can't, but it seems as though -- MR. HARGETT: That depends a great deal on if you -- if we do receive 15, for example, if you as the board wanted to review all 15 of those and select three for interviews or you wanted staff to do that, you know, that was based on an assumption. And if you wanted to do something else, that's fine. Some of the time lines here are predicated on some assumptions. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock, you have a question? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I do. I guess I'm -- I don't feel the gang buster need to rush ahead. And that's not anything against you, Commissioner Constantine. I just don't feel a need to really rush into this. We're not building a new Frankenstein. We're asking someone to come in and operate facilities that we currently operate. My understanding was that we were looking for the predominate part at replacing staff with staff. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: By the way, I hear Naples Daily News quote there, "We're not building a new Frankenstein." COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I try not to get quoted in the paper as much as possible. No offense, Steve. Have I covered all my bases? Anyone else I might have offended? What I see us doing is doing a personnel switch here. In other words I heard they're going to come in and they can do it cheaper than our people are doing it, yet they're supposed to make a profit at that. I'm a little skeptical about whether that can be done, but it seems to me we are the people that -- we are the ones that know exactly what tasks have to be done, and we know what it takes for us to do them. And they should bid against those tasks and what it takes for them to do them. So we can compare them even for even. If their response is to do what we do with 80e of the staff we have, we can do it with 80e of the staff. You mentioned something, and I don't want to see these proposals that are -- I would rather us take the time and prepare something that says this is the task, these are the personnel it takes to do it, what's it gonna cost you to get these tasks done, and to walk through the department. If that takes time I think we're protected regarding so many varying things in the landfill contracts by going that route. And that's my preference if we're going to go that way. And I'm getting more skeptical as we go into this as to whether or not we can save money. MR. HARGETT: I think our primary concern here as we understand it based on our research will be the largest privatization undertaking in this state. You know, you're talking about an 80 to 100 million dollar contract. And that's a little bit scary to us, and we want to make sure that we touch all the bases and that all of our interests to the extent that we can develop it, you review it, and I think at that point in time that, you know, we have time to do that and you have a chance to, you know, look through it and evaluate it and assist us in finalizing the document that we'll perhaps save some money doing that. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: You're here asking us what -- what we're directing you to do, and -- MR. HARGETT: That's correct. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think we as a board need to focus on that now on more specifically of, again, just state that my idea is that we put out a request for bids that says these are the functions we perform, this is our cost of those functions, or leave that cost blank for now and let things speed up and we can figure those out as the process continues and ask them what is it gonna take for them to perform that function at the same level service we can. That seems to me to be the only apples to apples comparison. And I guess I ask the board if that's what we in fact are asking staff to do? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I agree wholeheartedly. COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Absolutely. COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Hargett, does that give you an idea of where we're going? MR. HARGETT: Yes, sir. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One thing, and Bill and I had this conversation in my office this morning. I don't want us to say okay it takes 12 people to do this job, how much will it cost you to hire 12 people to do this job? If they can do it with 11 people and can still do it to the level we're doing it, I think we need to outline the level of service we think we need or think is being done right now and do allow them the freedom to say we can do that, but this is how we can do it cheap. MR. HARGETT: I think the only -- and Mr. Constantine and I were talking about that and, you know, that opens up a whole gamut of things where one contractor says it will take 50 employees and I'll work them 10 hours and the next guy says, well, I'll do it with 10 employees but they have to work 50 hours. And you're gonna have all kinds of variations. One of the options we had talked about is yeah, let's specify. You know, this board has been through the operator issue over the Coopers and Lybrand report, and we've been through that, and we've basically bought off that it takes a certain number of operators. Let's have a guy price those. Let's pick our top three and say okay, what can you do now better than that? But let's get it down to open a bid, what's the bottom line, and then we'll negotiate with a low bidder. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But I don't -- MR. HARGETT: Say we require 16, can you do it for 147 COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Seems like that's where you're going to get into stretching the time line out. If you allow them to do that up front -- I don't care if they work their people 10 hours or 50 hours. All I care about is the job going to get done? And is it gonna be done every bit as well as our people are doing it? And whether that takes 50 employees or five employees should be up to them. MR. HARGETT: I don't intend to be argumentative with you. We said we're going to take bids. You can't take a bid on something that you don't define. So I think you're talking proposals now, you propose how many people. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No, I'm not. You're not listening to what I'm saying, apparently. I'm saying a particular performance -- we expect XYZ duties to be done, and you tell us how you can -- at what price you can do it. And if you can do it with 11 people instead of 12, more power to you. Tim and I go play basketball. If he dunks it and he gets his two points, and I shoot a 15-footer and get two points, they're both worth two points. His might look better, but they're both worth two points, and it doesn't matter. So if we can get the job done, if we can score the two points, I don't care how they go about doing it. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I guess now would be a good time to announce the charity one-on-one commissioner basketball game? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My thought is quite similar to Commissioner Constantine's. My goal would be -- my question for you is isn't it possible -- like we're going through the program budgeting process, isn't it possible to identify this is the service level we expect, these are the programs that we expect our utility department to perform, and this is the response time we expect for complaints, and whatever else -- whatever other elements there would be that we define the program and say bid on that program. Because if somebody can do it with computer software for cheap, then that's what we want if they can reach that level of service standard. MR. HARGETT: One of the reasons that I have these bid documents here, this proposal, is because we were very interested in how a private vendor could come in what's traditionally a publicly operated facility how they could beat Lee County. And I talked to the utilities director there, and he said for one of the plants -- an entire plant operation the contractor bids zero, and he bought it. And we discussed a little bit the maintenance provisions that if we know it takes $100,000 in maintenance to do this plan and I have a contractor that says I'll do it for $10,000, that's not possible, but yet we're all gonna be real enamored by saving $90,000 knowing full well that that maintenance is not gonna be performed. I just -- you know, I appreciate the bidding, but we do need to somehow verify the, you know, cost versus what's being asked. And unless we define that, I'm not sure how we would do it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Isn't it -- I know that in the private sector we sometimes bid on a loss. We sometimes do work where we lose money at first because we can recognize that over the 10 years that we expect or 20 or 30 we know that we'll catch up. So the fact that they bid 10,000 on a $100,000 job might not automatically -- I mean it does raise a red flag and does tell us what's required about the qualifications of this proposer. But frankly that is one the advantages of privatization, it seems to me, is they can bid a loss up front. MR. DORRILL: Excuse me one second. If they had 20 years, I would say -- and I think that's what happened to us, frankly, on the landfill agreement. I think they bought it at a loss in the early years in the hope that they would make it up with their automatic increases over time. Preliminarily, we've been told by bond counsel that there's a provision in the state statute that precludes service maintenance contracts for public utilities beyond five years, and you're also precluded from having an extension to those contracts. So we're dealing with a very finite, very fixed period of time. And our only point for recommending to you that if you don't specify some minimum staffing standards or requirements, that they're going to cut corners. And if -- burying trash with dirt at the landfill is one thing. The people that you're entrusting to produce potable drinking water or dispose properly sewage effluent for this county over a very small five-year contract term, the risks are a little higher. That's why we're going to continue to say if you don't specify some minimum staffing requirements or some minimal treatment parameters or prevent it in maintenance parameters, then you're gonna have a system that at the end of five years you're not gonna be happy with. MR. HARGETT: We've basically researched three possible pricing methods under the Internal Revenue Service code as really, I guess, set forth in our bond covenants. And we have some $150 million of utility bonds, and the last thing we want to look at is having to defease those. The first method that we could use, which I think everybody would recognize, is a fixed price. In other words we have the bid and the contractor says I'll do it for $10 or 10 million, whatever it is. Under that scenario we could enter into a no more than a five-year contract with no renewable options. We must have a three-year buy out provision or three-year -- or it's not buy out. It's a three year cancel -- the ability to counsel after three years. Or we could have a three-year contract with a two-year option, either way that we wanted to go. That's one method, and that's probably the most flexible. The second we could do this is a percent of revenues. When you get into the percent of revenues -- in other words if we were collecting from utility customers $30 million over the course of the year, they would get some percentage of those gross revenues. In those cases it's a three-year contract. So your limits even go down. And really, based on the number of customers, I'm not sure if we really have that option. But those are the three things that we have looked at. So we've got somebody who basically would be coming into this contract knowing that the maximum that we can give them is five years. And at the end of that five years, should you choose to continue with privatization, you would need to re-bid it or re-request proposals. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Commissioner Norris, you had some questions? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I have a few questions. Mr. Hargett, what was our income -- total income -- gross income on the utility system last fiscal year? MR. HARGETT: About 47.5 million. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay, 48 let's say, round it up. And of that, what did we retain? MR. HARGETT: Commissioner, I don't -- I don't know that. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I've heard figures called profit. Of course we don't make a profit, we have retainings because we're not in private business. MR. HARGETT: We set aside reserves for cash balance, reserves for contingency, some capital outlay reserves. And then we also paid for these things. And there's about $10 million that are set aside in those areas. They would not be part of this contract. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I understand. But I'm saying what did we do last fiscal year? MR. HARGETT: We'll get that for you shortly. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. What -- how do our water rates, for example, compare with state-wide rates? MR. HARGETT: We're probably on the lower end of the scale below the median. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: We're certainly lower than SSU, for example, down on Marco, very little more than that -- I mean a little more than half of that. What -- how do we -- how do we compare staffing-wise? Do you have any comparison of the number of people we use to operate compared to any other utilities? MR. HARGETT: I know the only thing where we have run comparisons state wide was when we were reviewing the numbers of operators at our plants, and we went through the little scenario about how money operators of each class we were staffing the plant with. And we found out that I think about 80e of everybody we talked to was at the same staffing level we were. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: What -- okay. What -- how many compliance problems have we had compared to an average? Where do we stand on compliance problems? MR. HARGETT: You know, we recently had one overflow of our ponds. In the last few years that's the only one we're aware of. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That's the only one in either system? What about -- what about the -- do we have a calculation and a comparison on ratio of down time or problems associated with the operation of our plant? What is the -- in other words, what is the quality of the operation that we're performing? MR. HARGETT: I'm not sure other than a subjective, if there's anyone out there who gives you a specific evaluation. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I think Mr. HcNees has a figure for you there. MR. HARGETT: Hike was reflecting D.E.P. comments that they're probably one of the more effective, excellent type operations in this district. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Do you have a -- does Mr. HcNees have a numerical figure for the first question I asked? MR. HARGETT: That's more their subjective analysis of how they look at it. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, what I'm getting around to is that our annual survey shows that one of the highest areas of satisfaction of citizens is the utility department. And I'm struggling with the idea of what problem is it that we're trying to correct here by privatizing? And I'm not sure that I see a problem that needs to be corrected. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: The what's broke factor? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, you know we've got $350 million worth of capital asset here that we're considering turning over to someone else to run. And before we do that, make that kind of decision, I think we ought to at least try to identify a problem that we're trying to correct, which I don't think we've done yet. And I'm not sure what the purpose of going forward with this is. I'm having a little difficulty understanding why we should even -- let me ask you this question. What do you think we're going to expend to go through this RFB process and end up with a -- at a point of making a decision of whether or not to go forward with this privatization? MR. HARGETT: Mr. Dorrill's estimate was probably right on, somewhere in the neighborhood of 30, 40,000. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That's all? MR. HARGETT: Yes, sir. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That's not a lot. And as I understood it, we could at that point with no problem reject all proposals or bids and just forget the idea, right? MR. HARGETT: Absolutely. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: If that's all we're gonna spend, that lessens my objection even though, like I said, I'm having a difficult time trying to see what the problem is we're trying to correct. If it's a matter of -- I think in the original discussion we said perhaps a private company could save us 10e on operations. Before we go through all this procedure and turn our $350 million worth of assets to someone else, I prefer just to tell our county manager to go in there and save us 10e and don't reduce the service level at all, and come back, tell us about it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I believe what the report that the privatization committee brought to us was that the whole purpose for this exercise is to reduce the rate payer's burden. And the company that made the presentation said that they could reduce our rate, if the operation was fairly efficient, by 10 to 15e. If it's not efficient, they could reduce it even more. My -- my feeling is that we probably have an efficient operation, but if we can find a way to reduce the burden to the rate payers 10 to 15e, I'd certainly want to look at it. MR. HARGETT: I took the operations budget, which has eliminated all these reserves and transfers, and we're somewhere in the neighborhood of about $19.2 million. And if we took 10e of that and rounded it off, say we're right at about $2 million, what that would mean. And for someone who had a 5/8-inch meter this would be about -- if we cut at per million dollars it would run about 70 cents per month, assuming that it was all affixed cost. If we looked at it and said it's all variable cost, in other words if we reduced the price of the water, it's about .0002 cents per gallon per million dollars of reduction. Pretty negligible. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I understand. Commissioner Constantine. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The question's pretty simple. Can we do it better? Can we do it cheaper? And by allowing our own people to bid in this process, I think we can get an answer and maybe we can do the best, but maybe we can't. I think maybe you minimize that and save, well, 70 cents a month, but for $12 a year the Marco Island people were in here screaming over their lighting district. I think it was about an eight bucks a month -- or eight bucks a year difference. So $10 or $12 a year does make a difference to people. And I'll be happy -- maybe there's no fiscal problems, but I think there are some problems in utilities. I'll be happy to put together a memo to the other members of the board and share what my thoughts on at that are. I'll pass that on to you, Commissioner Norris, but I think it was you -- I can't remember what the topic was. A couple weeks ago, we were talking about -- maybe it was even this issue, but something to do with privatization. You said if we don't look, we'll never know. The question is do we want to know if we can do it better or cheaper? And I'd like to know. So I think by going through this process, particularly if it's $30,000, you divide that into $50 million a year, that's a pretty small percentage, a tiny tiny percentage. So I think it's an exercise well worth undertaking. Let me make a suggestion. I don't know if we have public comment or not, but I'll put a suggestion and I'll save the motion portion until after that. I would like to see us issue an RFB, that's "B" as in "bid." Part of that could be qualifications. And I think as long as qualifications are in there, then we don't get into the situations where we have a way to respond to the situations you've outlined, Mr. Hargett, as far as hypothetical low bids or cutting corners and so on. Many of these companies have a track record, and we can look and see how they are performing elsewhere and what they intend to do. The majority of the remainder of the RFB should be performing specific tasks. With their qualifications either they can do it or can't do it effectively with the tasks. Either they can do them or can't do them. And then as you outlined, treatment parameters of different performance parameters, but I think we should leave it at that. And obviously you don't want to have an empty building, but I don't think to fulfill the needs -- when you talk about extremes with how many employees. When you talk about fulfilling the requirements we have, I don't think you can realistically do that with zero people or with a couple of people. But if they can shave a person here or there and save a dollar, that's well worth looking at. And I suspect maybe our own people will come back with a bid that shaves an expense here or there, maybe even cellular phone calls. But we'll see. I think to not go through the exercise would be a terrible mistake. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just a short comment because I want to hear the public, but the most troubling aspect of this -- and I'm sorry Mr. Dorrill's not in here, but I'm sure you'll pass it on. The most troubling aspect of this to me is that we have to go through this exercise to get the county manager's lowest bid. He told us that he hadn't given us his best deal on running the utility's department yet because competition is a wonderful thing. And what I wish I knew that I had -- if I knew that I had the county manager's very best bottom line, I bet he could save that same 10e that these outsiders said they could save, and I would be a lot more comfortable with that. And I think it's a shame we're going to go through this exercise in order to get our own agency's lowest bid for doing the work. That's, to me, one of the primary motivators for doing it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's exactly right. MR. HARGETT: Commissioner Hac'Kie, do you have a copies of these issues? I would like to quickly walk through them and either get the board to either nod or say no. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't. It's not in the packet. MR. HARGETT: It would be down under number 7. And simply as we go through there, I will tell you up in Lee county they kept a staff of five for management and compliance. That was in addition to engineering. So I would ask the question had you intended to privatize the engineering, the plan reviews, the locates, helping developers, those kinds of things? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I would think so. MR. HARGETT: Okay. Under water operations -- and I'll just go through this unless there's objection -- we believe that you intended to do the north plant, the south plant, our distribution system, our laboratory. This is the compliance portion of it, okay, the Goodland water district. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: What exactly does that entail, Mr. Hargett? MR. HARGETT: That is the Goodland water district that has lines and customers that we serve in Goodland. It's a separate district. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is that otherwise known as the Rookery Bay? MR. HARGETT: It's a separate district from -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is that otherwise known as the Rookery Bay area? MR. HARGETT: That area, yes, ma'am. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Are you talking about the operation of? MR. HcNEES: Goodland Water District, all we do is buy water from Southern States Utilities, store it there right at the head of Goodland there at the water tank and provide the distribution system and the maintenance for the customers right there on the island. MR. HARGETT: I guess it was just passed within six months we've undertaken a major expansion of that system down there. And it would be those kinds of things that we would ask do you want to turn those over to a private company? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: What do you mean by major expansion? MR. HARGETT: Where we put in the tank and the Key Marco development, there was, I guess, a three party arrangement there that involved the Goodland district. And ultimately we would run a line up and tie back into the county line at 29. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't know why we wouldn't want to include that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: As we go through here if either of you have a recommendation -- I mean we're going through and, for my vote anyway, blindly saying yep, include it, yep include it, because we don't know any better. So if you have a reason for asking the question or some specific concern about a particular aspect, please advise us. MR. McNEES: I have an answer to a question you asked a few minutes ago if you want me to throw it out while Mr. Hargett takes a breath. Retained earnings, the number I've been seeing thrown around is the eight-point-some-odd million dollars that was retained at the end of fiscal '93, which was just the last audited numbers. I just got a call. I haven't seen this yet. These are the fiscal '94 audited numbers which are apparently about to hit the streets. Revenue increased expenses state level and retained earnings went to 12.5 million. That's the money we have a available to fund Capital Projects, to put into reserves, or eventually mitigate rates if that's what we choose to do in the future. So that retained earnings for fiscal '94 was actually 12.5 million. Again, revenues increased expenses state level. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So we had an increase in retained earnings, or if we were in a private enterprise we would say profit of $4.5 million. MR. HcNEES: Additional. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Commissioner Hac'Kie's point is well taken on 7-B-4, the laboratory. I'm not sure that we would want to turn that over to the private people. That's something that we might want to discuss a little bit. I think we would want to keep control of the laboratory so we could make sure of the quality of the product that's going out. MR. HARGETT: In any event, should you privatize that part of it, you're gonna have to -- or we would strongly recommend to you that you start up another laboratory so you could do the compliance monitoring to make sure that what they tell you they're doing they're in fact doing it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Why couldn't we take water samples and send them out to a private laboratory? MR. HARGETT: You could do that. We have found that it's cheaper to run an in-house lab than it is to send them out, but we could do that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: For an occasional water sampling? MR. HARGETT: Oh, I think you do this daily. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Perhaps we could just have one lab. MR. HARGETT: Pardon? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Perhaps we could just have one lab if we're merely checking their work anyway, rather than located at both waste water plants and so on. MR. HARGETT: This is water lab. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, I know. I'm down to 7-F-7. MR. HARGETT: Okay. You will have what's called a wet lab at every facility. That is to control your operations. You will then have this big major laboratory, which is now located at the south waste water treatment plant that performs all of the compliance testing that we send in and are required to do and furnish results to D.E.P., et cetera, et cetera. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Hargett, I hate to interrupt you, but I think we've got a little bit of -- at least I've got a little bit of concern about the members of this board. None of us are water plant operators or waste water plant operators, engineers, or anything of the such. You're asking us to make operational decisions that we know absolutely nothing about. We pay some pretty good salaries to some pretty well qualified people to make those decisions, and it seems to me that that's where this ought to be. MR. HARGETT: Be glad to answer those questions for you if you so direct, and we obviously have an opinion. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: At least make some recommendations. MR. HARGETT: We're asking the board what had you intended? And if you'd like a recommendation, we can go through these very quickly and tell you what we recommend. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, Commissioner Matthews, if I may. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: We keep chasing our tail here. It was 30 minutes ago that I suggested that we list what it is we do and we ask for a bid on that service. We know what it costs us to do it. Let's get them to tell us what it costs. If it's significantly different, I want an explanation from them. If they put a goose egg next too it, I'm not buying it. To me -- I know what you're looking for, Bill, and I'm trying to bridge that because you're right, our people need to determine the minimum level of service that anyone who comes in and operates our plants should continue to provide. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: At that level. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Our people have to determine that. And we need them to obtain that minimum level and tell us what it takes to do it and if it's grossly different, why is it grossly different so that we don't hurt ourselves. I mean is there anything in that that causes great difficulty for you or anyone on this board? MR. DORRILL: No, we can do that. Excuse me again. We can do that. I just would like to have a public opportunity to have that reviewed prior to the bids being solicited. But I -- I underscore again my recommendation to you. You need to prescribe the minimal level of staffing and operating provisions that are acceptable to you even if it's on recommendation of your staff. And I think then the burden is on the prospective private vendors to come in and to acknowledge that the spec is either fair or to sit here and debate it in an open forum whether there are any proprietary type provisions that are in that spec, and we need to do that publicly. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Why can't our staff establish what the minimal operational and service levels are? Certainly they know what they are. MR. DORRILL: I'm telling you we can't. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And we put that bid out on the street, and if there are companies who say that what we have said is minimal is higher than it needs to be and they can justify why they feel that the level is higher than it really needs to be, and we buy into that, then that's a decision this board has made, and it's a policy decision. But our staff certainly is right now operating at some level, and the citizens seem to be pleased with the level of service -- maybe not with some other parts of it, but with the level of service, meaning the water is certainly potable. It's clear, and you know, you flush your tank and it goes away. But -- and certainly put that RFP out and let's see what happens. MR. HARGETT: And, Commissioner, we can. And as I said we have a very aggressive schedule here. We can go write an RFP based on what we think, and it sure would be nice to know if we are thinking the same here. If you just give me a couple minutes, I'll bounce through these real quick. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MR. HARGETT: And, you know, we've got meter reading, testing, setting, back flow prevention, purchase and replacement, that's something we currently do. Meter reading typically goes with billing and collecting, which are the next two items, which you have previously said. That's going over into a Department of Revenue. That's where we recommend that it stay, but we just wanted to be sure you concur with that. We jump down under waste water, and we've got the two plants obviously. We've got north collection, south collection. Simply point out that we've got about 500 lift stations, Pelican Bay treatment plant. That's always been, you know, a sensitive issue. We've got the main laboratory for compliance. You've got the Marco Island sewer district. We want to tell you that it's our intent that any contractor coming in here will purchase the county rolling stock and equipment. He's got to amortize it five years. He's going to purchase -- we would intend to write in that he's got to purchase all of our inventory and our chemicals. In terms of transferring the leases and effluent contracts, that all goes to the contractor. And we will transfer the leases and those contracts with the golf courses, and that will become a service provision for the contractor to perform. We would intend, unless you tell us otherwise, to keep a compliance contract management team in place. As I said, they had about five up in Lee County that they kept. I'm not sure what that level will be, but I'm sure it's gonna be greater than five. I mentioned the fire hydrants. Since we only maintain a part of them and we have, you know, an integral relationship with the independent fire districts and, you know, we're gonna involve a third party here, but that is a service we provide. We would continue to own the land and the facilities. And as such, we'll be the permit holder. We will intend to include provisions in there that the contractor will pay any fines that are levied for operation. We would ask you what about existing county personnel? You know, at the landfill we were talking about 20, here we're talking about 200. Up at Lee County they used 150-day -- that the contractor must employ existing county employees for 150 days after the start-up. And we would recommend that we extend that to one year that they must employ all the employees. Lee County used comparable salary and benefits. We would say the same salary and benefits. We simply ask you if you are willing to do anything regarding pension plans. I know there are a number of employees that have approached me indicating they're vesting next Hay which have transferred to or become an employee of the contractor on the first of January would be leaving the Florida Retirement System four or five months from vesting. One of the biggest issues is the definition of capital and the responsibility for maintenance. One of the things that we found up at Lee County and they're advising us they had $2500 as a definition of capital. And there's a lot of pumps and motors out there that have a value of $2500 or more. And the specific thing is anything that breaks down or won't run that's over $2500, the county replaces it, and yet the contractor was asked to budget maintenance money. I think you can see that it's really in his best interest not to spend that maintenance money, you know, have the equipment breakdown because it will be replaced by the county and everybody wants a new piece of equipment. We would intend to take a very hard look at that and probably increase that substantially. Sludge management, I guess that's part of the operation, and I'll forego the discussion on that. Capital construction responsibility, while the design now is with OCPH, certainly the initiation and ownership of projects is with utilities. And that's really a question I would ask you where did you intend for that to stay? And lastly, under subcontracts, we would assume that the contractor would not be allowed to broker these services. They actually if they would contract for them and provide them with their employees and not sub out, you know, this plan or that plan to some subcontractor. And those were kind of some of the concerns that we were seeing. Kind of help us get it right the first time as to what you might be intending so when we write this RFP we're headed off in the right direction. And I apologize for what might seem to be some incidentals here, but we did want that direction. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: In an effort to move this along. Let me throw out a couple ideas and see if the majority of the board agrees. Commissioner Norris made the point, and I think some lab testing obviously should be kept with us. We need to make sure the product -- if we enter into a privatization situation, the product is appropriate. Billing collection, we're just getting started on our Department of Revenue. That seems very obvious to me should go there. And then the only other one I had was at the bottom capital construction responsibility. I think we need to keep a tight fist on that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock. MR. HARGETT: Excuse me. Commissioner, going back with sticking with the billing and directing, our meter readers are a part of that. I assume that would also flow with that to DOR. MR. DORRILL: I think so. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah, I don't think we would want them reading the meters. Was there anything that you felt the county should have under its umbrella that Commissioner Constantine did not mention, Mr. Hargett? MR. HARGETT: No, sir. Based on the discussion I've heard today, you know, these are all the operation. I want to be sure that you intended to include them all. And I'm getting, you know that, direction. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. I just want to make sure our utility department as our experts is comfortable with those other items being possibilities for letting out of contracts and would not be encumbrances upon the county eventually, such as turning meter reading over. That would be a disaster. So I just want to make sure our in-house people are giving me the green light that those are the protected areas, if you will. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Hargett, number 11 is compliance and contract management. You feel that would be appropriate to turn over to private? MR. HARGETT: Well, what we were contemplating under 11 is the fact that it was our belief that you would want us to keep some of the utility staff to ensure compliance; number one, that that contractor's doing what he's supposed to do, and number two, to manage this contract. And in terms of that, you know, I mentioned what Lee County was doing with five individuals. We would need to staff that. And we will work through those numbers and come back to you and say this is what we think it will take at some point. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. And I'm not sure I understood the answer on number 17, capital construction responsibility that Commissioner Constantine asked. MR. HARGETT: That would stay with the county. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That would stay with the county? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I believe the idea of this is that the county maintains the location of treatment plants, the rate paying or the rate making authority, all of the -- you could say the overall umbrella. It was my intention from the beginning to look at privatizing operations of not, you know, certainly contract management. They're not gonna manage themselves. Okay. Do we have a motion of where we're gonna go on this? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is there anybody from the public? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think there are some. MR. HcNEES: I would just like to perhaps annotate from Mr. Hargett's comments if I may. Regarding the comfort level of the staff, we recognize that there are private vendors who can come in and do a very good job and management companies that can run your facilities. I guess I need to stop here. And speaking for the 196 people who are your employees who run the Collier County utility's division, they're gonna tell you nobody will do a better job of protecting the safety and integrity of water supply and treating and disposing your waste water according to the federal and state regulations than they do. And they recognize that there's a competitive issue here. And I just feel like it's appropriate time for me to stand up and represent them because they believe absolutely they will be competitive. And to answer your question, no, nobody else can do it as well as they can, but we're sure open to the process. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Hoping you win the bid. Mr. Cuyler, two speakers? MR. CUYLER: Yes, ma'am. The first is Mary Jane Havenet, followed by John Hoffman. MS. HAVENER: Good afternoon. My name is Mary Havenet. I am a chemist in the water department laboratory, and I've been with the county for eight years. My primary concern in coming here today is how privatization will affect the possibility of losing the opportunity to become vested in the State of Florida Retirement System. I feel I have much more invested in the utility's department besides time, and I'm concerned about losing that investment. Eight years ago the water department had only one water plant, and I was the second person that was hired into the laboratory. Today the water department has two water plants that produce some 20 million gallons of water a day, which used to be four to five when I worked there eight years ago and there was five full-time employees in the laboratory. We have gone through incredible growing pains, but I feel that we have struggled to build an operation -- the operation of the department into a professional, effective, and efficient organization. As I look at all of you, I remember that eight years ago we had a -- we had other members that sat on the board at that time, and I'm sure that over the next eight to twelve years that many of you will probably leave here and go on to serve the public in other capacities. And I just want to say that it's the dedication of people like me who were here eight years ago and given a chance will be here eight to twelve years from now that create the back bone of this organization. It's our commitment to our careers in this community that's an asset. It's a tremendous asset to this community, and I hope that will you not easily give it away. It's within everyone's best interest, yours and ours, to see that this community continues to grow and prosper. I have a letter that was received by a fellow coworker of mine that I would like to read to you because it's important to me. It was dated March 14th, 1995. "Dear Mr. Grabnet, Congratulations and thank you on your ten years of service with Collier County government. Hay these first ten years of success serve as an inspiration for many more. I want to take this opportunity to personally thank you for all your hard work and efforts. Again, thank you. Very truly yours, Timothy J. Constantine." And I have two other letters here, one from Commissioner Hac'Kie and one from Commissioner Hancock that express similar sediments. And I just want to say to you I really want to get one of these letters and so do other people out there who have seven, eight, and nine years in with the county. And I'd like to be able to fulfill the sediments that are in here. And I'm asking you please give us that opportunity to do so, regardless of your final decision on privatization. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. HOFFHAN: Ladies and gentlemen of the board, good afternoon. My name is John Hoffman. I'm a licensed operator at the north regional water treatment plant. I'm here before you representing all of my fellow coworkers. My question is why privatize? I don't know and don't understand when your risks are greater than your return. Here's a utility grossing millions and millions of dollars in profit and you want to turn it over to a private company to save a few dollars. You have one of the finest utility organizations. Sure there's a few minor problems, but as we all know the treasures far exceed the headaches there are in any profitable business. The one major headache that breaks us is greed. Greed hurts and greed kills. You could not possibly think a private company would maintain and upkeep our whole facility in the professional manner that we do. How much will it take to restore this outfit after their contract runs out? Also remember the effect it will have on the economy of this county. Many county personnel stand to lose their jobs and also the vendors that provide a service to us. Is this the thanks you give us? What about all the people who have given you their life in the county to make this utility organization what it is today? Now destroy it? I don't think it's fair for many of us and our families to use our one and only benefit, and that's our security. We all work for money, but our pride is our retirement, and what little we have left is being taken away. Our United States government has a fund called social security which helps Americans survive when they retire. But we let them misuse the so-called secured funds, which are now being depleted which we are still paying into. With little hope, there's enough for us. Now many of us are being forced to lose our benefits and retirement for a company to deplete our staff and to kill our integrity. I can't believe you would consider this. The lives and families of county personnel are to be affected with the minuses that are you think are the pluses. This is not the American way. I want to thank all of you for giving me the time to hear how we, the operators, feel. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Commissioner Constantine. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just a comment. I appreciate those thoughts. The whole idea of this process is to find out who can do it best, and we may very well find that our own people can. But I think through the bidding process whether we privatize or whether we stay the way we are, we're gonna end up doing it a little less expensively than we do. So I suspect when the microscope is put on this now -- the county manager said that himself a couple weeks ago. I don't want you to think today's vote, if we decide to move forward with a request for bids, automatically means we're gonna privatize. It means we want a bid, and one of those bids we definitely want is from our own employees. So I have a motion in mind, unless there's further discussion. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have no further public speakers? MR. CUYLER: No, ma'am. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd like to make a motion that we direct our staff to issue a request for bid, obviously make qualifications of any company part of that, to have them put together the performance parameters, specific task, et cetera, that we expect out of that, to keep -- to keep public the lab testing, the billing and collections, capital construction, other areas we outlined. One thing I did not like that was on the outline Mr. Hargett had was the five-plus people suggested to maintain the contract maintenance. I'm not sure what 200 hours a week -- what you're going to do in contract maintenance for 200 hours a week. If the time comes -- we don't need to discuss that now. If the time comes that we opt to privatize, that would be the appropriate time for the discussion. I can't imagine five 40-hour a week people. MR. HARGETT: That's contract management. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I can't fathom what you do managing a contract for 200 hours every week. And the final part of that, I'd like to have what I mentioned earlier, and that is the no lobbying no contact rule from anyone who submits a bid on this, similar to how we do, as I mentioned, at the Lee Port Authority. I think that will help very much the public perception that our decision will be made here and not in our own offices. I don't think that would happen anyway, but I think the public perception of that is very important. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just a couple of things. I have -- on the second part of your motion, the business about no contact. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I like the idea, but I think if we're gonna do it, we need to adopt it across the board and not do it on a case by case basis. We have this quasi-judicial rule that we've just asked the legislature please to undo that problem. So I need some more consideration of that issue before I tell people they can't come and talk to me. Are you saying nobody can talk to me or just lobbyists? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: My suggestion if someone has put a bid on this -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That company. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- that company or their representative cannot come and lobby. Obviously the public can share their thoughts. When you talk about policy on this, that's a good idea. We maybe need to pick that up and address it. I don't think we need to do that on everything, but when we're you can talking about $180 million item or some huge item, that business should all be done here and not in our offices. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My other comment -- I agree it should be done here. But my other -- my other comment, and I hope it's following up on something Commissioner Morris said, is I'm -- you know, we can go through this exercise, but my motivation in going through this exercise is to get the county manager's lowest bid. This is part of county government that doesn't appear to be broken. We're doing this one pretty well according to our constituencies. Why don't we -- what is to be harmed by let's go through the process with the county manager first? Let's tell him we're gonna privatize this, show us your best deal. Make him put his cards on the table right now. What's wrong with this? Why go through this long, involved, expensive process? Even if it is 30, 40,000 dollars, it's a lot of staff time when we can be doing something better. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think I can answer that. If you're on a foot race with other people, they push you if someone is running close to you. If you run by yourself, you know you're gonna win or you know -- you may go out and run, but you're not being pushed on the track. And I think by having competitive bids we are pushing the manager and his staff to come up with their absolute best; whereas if you're running against no one, there's no incentive to do that. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: As I understand from the privatization task force, what we were advised is that they think they can beat our bid by 10~ or 15 or somewhere in that neighborhood. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The current operating cost, yeah. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So my -- my approach to this would be first challenge the county manager. Give us -- show us a 12~ savings without a loss of service. If he can do it, then fine. And if he can't do it, then we go through this process. MR. DORRILL: Let me expound then on what I had said the other day when I was asked. I believe it was Commissioner Norris who said, well, we won't need a staff bid because your current budget is, in effect, what your bid should be. And I said no. And let me put that in the proper context. It's no based on the current budget is at our preferred costs of operation and operating in fixed capital. And I said then and I will say again today if the board wants to see a lower cost or our best cost as opposed to preferred cost, we stand ready to do that in advance of what is going to be a very complicated, very high stakes bid process. And that's why I said if your intent is to try and maintain service quality but determine what our best cost of operation is as opposed to the previously board-approved program priority preferred costs, we stand ready to do that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd just like to see that before we go through a long, expensive -- and somebody today said it's a $30,000 process. It depends on how you measure it. It's more than that when you think of maybe staff could be doing something that would otherwise be more beneficial to taxpayers. And I'd like to get the county manager's best bid on a function of government that ain't broke before we go into this big bid process that we've seen the problems with it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So you're suggesting, Commissioner MAc'Kie, that not only do we have a cost associated to this process of $30,000, but in addition we have a lost opportunity cost of $30,000 as well. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: At least. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Hargett, does that $30,000 take into consideration staff time? MR. HARGETT: I think that's a number that's just based on our estimate that we pulled out as to what it would do when you start putting it in context of what it's going to take out. I would say probably, no, it won't cover all staff time. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nine months of staff time of more than one person is going to cost this county more than $30,000. You've told us the fastest you can do it is nine months. MR. DORRILL: We've talk about that. And again, when we had this discussion three weeks ago, I indicated to the board that this was not on our plan of work for this year. But I will tell you that this will be the single largest element of anything that we do this year. And that's gonna take a certain amount of my time, and we're gonna have to go back and probably suggest to you -- you've also directed my office, the executive office, which consist of three people, to also undertake a review of all the impact fees, and we made a partial submittal to you. But I'm gonna tell that you we cannot undertake a review of impact fees and undertake the high level of this type of project at the same time on the schedule that we previously gave you. And that's why I said then about if you want to see better program costs for the utilities divisions in advance of going to bid, we stand ready to do that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm gonna say one more thing, and I'm gonna shut up. Simple question is do we want to know how we can do this best at the cheapest cost or don't we want to know that? And we can say, Mr. Dotrill, cut 10e, and you can probably come back and do that. But we don't know if someone else could do that same level with whatever you bring back at 12e or 14e. My hope is that you come back with the very best bid. But unless we do it competitively, we will never know. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris. MR. DORRILL: The only thing I would say in response is that I think this is a two-edged issue. Cost is something that increasingly this board is very much concerned about and has as a high priority. The ability to control the service impacts is what you trade away if you privatize. And so yes, while we would stand ready to show you a lower cost utility operation, what you do get is the ability to continue to control directly through your own staff the operations of the utility division. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Commissioner Norris. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And that was part of the point that I've been considering this afternoon. I think Commissioner Hac'Kie has a good suggestion. And to augment it just a little bit and to address Commissioner Constantine's concern about the staff not putting in their very best bid if they're the only one bidding, if we ask for the staff bid first and are not satisfied with it, the staff would not be allowed to bid a second time. And therefore they are, in effect, bidding against everyone else to the extent that they know they have to put in their best bid first shot, or if we're not happy with it then we're gonna look at something else. So I can support Commissioner Hac'Kie's position on that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion on the floor, and that is to issue RFBs, bids, and some other constraints built into the motion. I'm gonna call for a second. Is there a second? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Cuyler, do we have -- any time we issue RFBs, do we usually have the opportunity to reject all bids if we so desire? MR. CUYLER: That's correct. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So there would be no harm done. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Except for the cost. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Which comes out to about 1/100 of a percent of what they do annually. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm gonna second the motion and put it on the floor so that we can get a vote on it. Is there further discussion? We'll call to question then, all those in favor of the motion on the floor please say aye. Opposed? Motion fails 2-3. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd like to '- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Substitute motion? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes, ma'am. I'd like to move that we direct the County Attorney's agency to give us -- I'm sorry, the County Manager's agency to give us their very best bid on increasing -- decreasing the cost without changing the level of service and with the understanding that this is your shot. This is your bid. And I think it puts you in a worse position because you're bidding before anybody else and you don't get to know what anybody else is gonna be doing. But we want to see your best bid of doing this work. That's it. MR. DORRILL: Well, I told you we were prepared to do that, and we'd be prepared to defend the service implications of where we've elected to make changes to propose lower costs. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: What are we going to compare that to? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How about last year's budget? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm going to second the motion. We already know that a private company's come in and promised 10 to 15e savings. If we can find 10e savings, I think we have a comparison. If the utility tree needs to be shaken, by God let's shake it, but let's not put the future of 196 people in the balance because we have internal problems. I just don't feel comfortable doing that. I want you to fix the problems, streamline it, bring it back cheaper. If you do that, I'll be happy. If you come back with a 2e reduction, we're probably gonna go out to bid for privatization because I won't be satisfied. I'm not comfortable going the other way, so I'll second the motion of Commissioner Mac'Kie. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The motion seems meaningless to me because we -- what is it you're gonna cut? If you list the items you're gonna put in a bid as outlined by Mr. Hargett, it seems like that's everything we're already doing anyway, so what -- what's the change gonna be? You said a couple week ago, well, we can alter the level of service we provide and save money that way. We're asking -- the motion in essence says bring us a better price. We don't know what it is we're asking you to do. We don't mow what level of service we're looking for. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Let me clarify. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We just hope you come back and we don't have anything to compare it to. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Why don't we just cut the utility budget by 12e and say we don't care how you do it, just do it. That's essentially what we're doing. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No. That's not what my motion is. So let me clarify my motion. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That's not right. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My motion is to direct the county manager to bring back a proposal as if we had put the entire -- everything on Mr. Hargett's list as if we had put all that out to a private bid, I want to see his bid for that work. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: But you also said in your motion, I believe -- or at least I understood you to say that there would be no reduction in level of service. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely. Absolutely. At the current level of service. Thank you, Commissioner Norris. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Who's going to describe the current level of service before this proposal comes in? Because if we don't like the reduction, I want to be able to compare apples to apples. If we only get a 2 or 3e reduction, I want to be able to take that level of service and put it out to private bid. We need a description of the level of service, as Mr. Hargett was saying, before we even build the proposal. We need to say what is it we want to do and how well do we want to do it? And we need to put that same constraint on our department if this motion is to pass. COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: It seems to me the current level of service is defined. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Where? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, with the customer satisfaction ratios we have, with the profit that we've made. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I know you've had psychology 101 in college. And we can talk about unnoticeable differences all day long. I'll guarantee you you can reduce the budget 10e and, depending in the service area that you reduce it, the customer will never see any difference. It depends on where you do it. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And if the customer doesn't see any difference and we've saved 10e, isn't that a good thing? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Then we should have done that five years ago. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Damn straight we should have, but let's at least start now. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So the motion is staff will determine what our current level is, and then staff will bid on that, and then staff will review their bid and report to us? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Who could possibly oppose that? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and we have a second. And I'm not gonna support the motion because I think the level of service needs to be well written and defined before any proposals are done. So with that in mind, I'm not gonna support it, but I don't think that's gonna matter. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have a question. I'm interested in defining the level of service. Do you have -- is there -- do you have a suggestion for how we might do that before we get -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I can't do it. I'm asking staff to define the level of service by which they are going to make the proposal. Give us the level of service, make their proposal, and then if we don't like the proposal, we have a level of service definition by which we can go out to the marketplace. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I thought that's what we said. MR. DORRILL: My presumption is going to be essentially develop the best cost line item budget but relate it back to the same type of performance and indicator measures that you had been reviewing for other department. And whether it's the number of days that it takes Mr. HcNees to schedule a meter replacement or the installation of a new meter or what our current costs are per thousand to treat sewage effluent and then have it disposed of properly, that the board will be able to see what the performance indicators are based on the best cost as opposed to a preferred cost budget. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Does that address your concern? Because I do want us to have measurable standards so that after we get their bid, if we decide we're unhappy with it, we go out for bids, we have established that level of service at which we will require outside providers to bid. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd like to call the question. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. I just think it's clearer. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't think it does address the question because I don't think that we have embodied within the current written material within the utility department a definitive level of service standard at this point in time. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, excuse me. Let me just make a suggestion then. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Please, Commissioner Hac'Kie, incorporate into your motion that before the staff brings us back their bid that they will develop levels of service exactly what the -- that they would do if we were gonna go out to bid in private companies. That way if we're not happy with their bid, we take that same level of service and go out and bid the private companies. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So we're spending that staff time and associated costs that we wouldn't have spent? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That satisfies my concern because the level of service is developed prior to a proposal. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's really why I've been trying to understand. I didn't articulate well what my intention was. I certainly want that to be a part of what staff was instructed to do. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I can support the motion then. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Are you amending the motion? I'll second accordingly. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: With that in mind, we'll call to question. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4-1, Commissioner Constantine in the opposition. Thank you. Item #9A RESOLUTION 95-244 RE REQUEST BY THE COLLIER COUNTY INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY FOR AUTHORIZATION TO ISSUE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT REVENUE BONDS TO BE USED TO FINANCE A QUALIFYING MANUFACTURING FACILITY - ADOPTED We're still on the morning agenda, item 9-A on the County Attorney's report. This is the industrial development authority. MR. CUYLER: Yes, ma'am. You've seen a couple of these items from Mr. Pickworth. Although I'm not sure we've had IDA before, but Mr. Pickworth coordinates through my office, gets something on the agenda. He's gonna address the board right now let you know what's going on. We've reviewed it, but Mr. Pickworth wants to make this presentation. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Pickworth. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Would you delay your presentation in lieu of a motion? MR. PICKWORTH: Absolutely. I certainly would. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Cuyler, nothing unusual about this? MR. CUYLER: No. We've reviewed it as past arrangements have been. And there has been a fair amount of backup in your agenda. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Motion to approve. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Motion by Commissioner Hancock, seconded by Commissioner Constantine to approve the request. There's no further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5-0. Item #9B DISPOSITION OF SURPLUS MONIES COLLECTED AS AN AD VALOREM TAX IN SEWER AREA "B" SOUTH HALF MUNICIPAL SERVICE TAXING DISTRICT - STAFF RECOHMENDATION APPROVED Next item on the agenda, to move along, 9-B, request for board direction on the disposition of surplus moneys. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: This one seems fairly simple. We've collected a bunch of money about 15 years ago, Ken? MR. CUYLER: Correct. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's been sitting, it has no purpose. The suggestion is to return it to the current landholder. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We're not going to make an effort to find the payor? MR. CUYLER: Correct. This is mainly to have you decide to have a public hearing and set out in the agenda package. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. So this is for us to decide to have a public hearing on what we're going to do with the money? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve staff recommendation. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion. Is there a second? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The staff recommendation being -- I read it as having some alternatives. The one that you indicated that we have a public hearing to try to determine the present landholder and disburse the money to that person? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Correct. Staff recommendation has three steps to it, and that is dismissing the pending declaratory judgment and then moving forward with the public hearing date and so on and, yeah, putting it forward to the current landholder. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So we're -- it gives us either alternative 2-B or 2-C. And the one that you're trying to get is C. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: motion. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Do we have a second? Not quite yet. I'm trying to understand the Oh, I'll second. Is it 2-B or 2-C? I believe it's either/or. In other words if someone comes forward and claims it, they rightfully claim it, they get it. If they don't, then it's returned to the current property holder. Is that what I'm reading, Mr. Cuyler? MR. CUYLER: Correct. It may be a combination of B and C if those persons that claim, if not, you may be able to determine what you want to do with it. We're not suggesting necessarily that you -- I think you probably have the right right now to transfer it into general funds, but that is not our recommendation. We're gonna try to locate who paid it, provide a notice. And we're also gonna give you some additional information on this before the public hearing so you'll be fully advised. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Motion and a second. Is there further discussion? There being none, all those in favor please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5-0. Item #10A REQUEST FOR SUPPORT FOR THE FLORIDA SHORE & BEACH PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION RE FEDERAL BEACH FUNDING - DECLINED The next item on the agenda under the Board of County Commissioners, we have a discussion requesting support of the Florida Shore and Beach Preservation Association. You have information in your packet from the Florida Shore and Beach Preservation Association requesting that we support their activities. I'm not a particular supporter or non-supporter of this, but it was something I was requested to put on the agenda. Commissioner Constantine. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: As I read the letter, I guess I would have liked to have seen more substance. I realize the backup has some -- while it could potentially have some impact on the Florida beaches, at the same time it actually kind of sounds like less government to me, and I'm not sure I necessarily want to impose that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have to say I can't tell from what's here, so I'm not ready to take a position or recommend. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: How about if we get a letter to the Florida Shore and Beach Preservation Association then requesting additional information on it so that we can make that decision. Or do we just want to drop it completely? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I have no interest in pursuing based on the information we have here. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Commissioner Constantine makes a good point. It's a reduction in federal programs and federal spending. I don't know whether there's any proposal to bring that slack up with the State, but it's hard to argue with that sort of thing. If we do decide to ask Florida Shore and Beach for more information, I think it's only appropriate that we also contact Porter Goss' office and have him tell us what precisely the proposal is. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. We have a motion? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: At this point I'll make a motion that we decline the support of this. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's a third. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I was yawning. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to decline support of the resolution as it was sent to us. There's no further discussion, call to question, all in favor please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5-0. Do we want to gather additional information on it, though? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I don't have an interest in moving ahead with it. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Nor do I. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Enough said. MR. CUYLER: Madam Chairman, could I get you to do something on the item we had and you so kindly moved quickly on for me? I just noticed something in this executive summary I had not seen before. Could we continue that one week. Just leave your motion as it is right now, but continue that for one week? I think I may want to talk about that on the agenda next week as well. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Do we want to reconsider and then table it? MR. CUYLER: Why don't you just table it and move it a week? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's already been approved. We'd have to reconsider and then table it. MR. CUYLER: I may want that approval to stay in place, but would you just continue the item and authorize me to put it on the agenda? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't see how we can do that. I think we have to reconsider and then table. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How about if we leave it approved, and if you need to place it on the agenda next week under County Attorney, we can reconsider at that time. MR. CUYLER: Okay. Let's do that. Thank you. Item #10B REQUEST FROM LT. WELLS OF THE FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL RE THE PURCHASE OF RADAR DEVICES BY COLLIER COUNTY - CONTINUED TO 4/4/95 CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Next item on the agenda is under Board of County Commission 10-B, a request from Lieutenant Wells for the highway patrol regarding radar devices. I think we've all had conversations with Lieutenant Wells over the last couple of months. I don't know that we need to hear a whole lot more unless somebody wants to have another introduction or if they have questions. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just to clarify, the money's coming from -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Fines. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think it's fines. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I thought it was actually coming from the clerk. That's why I wanted to -- he had some excess funds he had -- the example in here where it talks about fiscal impact, I think, shows that fines will end up repaying it over the long run, but I don't think that's the source from -- MR. DORRILL: Fines and forfeitures are currently a revenue we generate to the general fund, so it would be general fund money. If he's suggesting that it would come from fines within the clerk's agency, we would have to do an analysis and budget amendment if necessary. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Last approach on this, I was left with the feeling that we're gonna be nipping away at our sheriff's budget for local police protection, yet we're gonna be spending $65,000 on radar for the Florida highway patrol. I know other counties are doing it. I know it would increase their enforcement and supposedly ticket revenues would increase. If a Florida highway patrolman writes a ticket in Collier County, is it not correct that 100e of that money goes to Collier County? I'm having a tough time telling Don Hunter he can't have that extra officer when we just spent $65,000 on radars for Florida highway patrol. I guess I'm just looking for some help on that. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I had talked -- maybe we can continue this for a week. I had just spoken informally two or three months ago to our sheriff about this. He had no objection, thought it was a good idea, but perhaps we need to have that in some formal way before, you know, I don't -- if that makes you more comfortable. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I guess if Don were here to say, yeah, I don't have a problem with this, I would feel better about it. But I have an allocation problem there. I would like if we can continue it until we get some input from the sheriff on this. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion -- sorry for interrupting. Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion we continue that item for one week. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Is there a second? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We have a motion and second to continue for one week and ask for the sheriff's input on this. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? That carries 4-0. Item #10C RESOLUTION 95-250 RE CONSIDERATION OF CONSULTANT RE THE MARCO BEACH MANAGEMENT PLAN (CRITICAL WILDLIFE AREA) - ADOPTED; LEGAL FEES AUTHORIZED IN THE AMOUNT OF $7,500.00 COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is it just me or is this the least productive week we've had? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: This is the second Monday this week. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: This is going to be a long day. Where are we? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: 10-C, Marco Beach, Commissioner Norris' item. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris' item. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes, we -- in relation to our trip up to Tallahassee next week and apparently the week following, we just wanted to make sure that we had authorization from the board to require the services of a Tallahassee attorney firm. And I don't -- I don't know. Mr. Cuyler, do you have a feel for how much we need to authorize or an up to, or as needed, or how do you want to do this? Do you have any feel at all for the amount that we're talking about? MR. CUYLER: I would probably say for $7500, and then it has to come back to the board if it's gonna go beyond that. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. So the proposal then would be to authorize up to $7500 legal fees. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is that a motion? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's a motion. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and second to authorize up to $7500 in legal fees in our request for beach management plan, is that it, and the critical wildlife? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. If there's no further discussion, I'll call it to question. All those in favor please say aye. Motion passes 4-0. Commissioner Mac'Kie is absent. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Otherwise engaged. Item #10D DISCUSSION RE LETTER FROM IMMOKALEE NON-PROFIT HOUSING, INC. RE VERBIAGE OF IMPACT FEE RESOLUTION - EMERGENCY ORDINANCE TO ALLOW WAIVERS TO BE PRESENTED ON 4/4/95 CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The next item on the agenda is item 10-D. And this was the item that I passed out earlier today dealing with the -- I believe it's the Immokalee non-profit. What's happened here is a couple months ago we agreed to defer impact fees for Immokalee non-profit housing for their rental units. And I received a fax a couple days ago. They have requested from the DCA an extension of their loan commitment, and the DCA has refused to do that. And all this is because of in the deferral agreement we have a paragraph which you all have underlined and asterisked that our lien on their property is superior and paramount to interest. So their lender, who is Enterprise Mortgage Investments, is having difficulty with that, which doesn't surprise me. The problem that the county -- not really a problem we're having, a problem Immokalee non-profit is having is in the wording of our ordinance where we do not subordinate our lien unless the petitioner can produce satisfactory collateral or a monetary equivalence of what the deferral is valued at. MR. MIHALIC: That's right, Commissioner. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's where we are. So this whole rental project is about to fall apart based on what our ordinance requires, and everything we've done to date follows the ordinance. I don't know where we are or what we can do. Mr. Mihalic, maybe you can help us. MR. MIHALIC: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Greg Mihalic, director of housing improvement for the county. You're right that in the impact fee waiver and deferral ordinances for multi-family rental housing, if the developer wishes to have our impact fee lien subordinate -- deferral lien subordinated to other mortgages, they must put up a cash or cash equivalent instrument for the total amount of impact fees that are due at the time that deferral is due. In the case of Immokalee non-profit housing, that would be in 15 years for the 133,603.58. They believe that would cost them approximately $40,000 to do to get that zero treasury note payable at that time. They do not have the 40,000 available to put that money up front now to secure that zero coupon note, treasury bill. And I believe that we would have to at least amend the ordinances on an emergency basis if the commission wants to treat non-profit multi-family developers in a different way than we treat for profit multi-family rental developers. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What risk do we run if we do that? MR. MIHALIC: The risk we run is that if there should be a problem with the development, we would then be in this particular case third position rather than first position potentially. And our lien for $133,000 would be subordinated to the first mortgage and the sale loan, state apartment incentive loan, from the Florida Housing Finance Agency. The chances of recovering our moneys would be lessened. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I guess I don't want to see this project fall through. I want to make sure we protect ourselves. I'm not sure how we accomplish that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there some way that we can protect ourselves by agreeing to take a second or third position provided that the accumulated loan value does not exceed the market value? MR. MIHALIC: I don't know how we could substantiate that the market value of low income housing single-family loans rental project development could -- could cover all the -- all the costs and still have equity there. I would not feel comfortable making that substantiation to the board. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there a cheaper way to obtain the monetary equivalence than zero coupon notes for 40,0007 MR. MIHALIC: No. I believe that's about the best way to -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's about the least expensive way? MR. MIHALIC: Yes. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: You could certainly get some instruments that would yield a higher yield, but I don't think they would be appropriated for the county commissioners to invest in. I think Mr. Mihalic's here suggesting that we invest in derivatives as it is. MR. MIHALIC: No, I don't think that. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: It's a derivative. Zero coupon treasury is a derivative. MR. MIHALIC: A treasury note? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: This is not a note, this is a zero coupon, which is a derivative. But in any case -- in any case, it certainly has very little risk, and that's what we're interested in. The only question now is I think you said it would be about $40,000 up front to buy the notes? MR. MIHALIC: That's what Immokalee non-profit housing has gone out and priced it at. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. And the Board of Commissioners would have to front that 40,000 at this time? MR. MIHALIC: If they wish to leave the ordinance the same and require that guarantee, yes, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mr. Keener, do you have anything to offer on the subject topic? He may have some bright ideas. MR. KEENER: Sorry, I don't have any bright ideas, Commissioner MAc'Kie. My name is Carl Keener, representing Immokalee non-profit housing. The exact amount of how much it will cost is a function of the interest rate on the day that one buys the bonds and so it really can't be fully determined. Going back to the kind of loan-to-value ratio which I think is really at the heart of this, this project of 34 houses will cost a total of slightly over $2 million. The moneys that a first and second mortgage will total a $1,025,000. The $133,000 even being subordinate to that, it seems to be a fairly reasonable ratio, particularly 15 years out assuming any rate of appreciation for single-family housing. And I think I made the point at the last hearing that single-family housing tends to appreciate as opposed to affordable housing multi-family which tends to depreciate. This is a very difficult problem for us. Not only is Enterprise Mortgage objecting to it, but the State of Florida Housing Finance Agency, who would hold a second mortgage as under their sale loan, is also saying that they will not move ahead assuming that this is in place. The difficulty comes about is because all of these mortgages are underwritten assuming these -- the loan that was in front of them. Now, if we now place another $133,000 in front of them, even in default situation, their counsel really doesn't react well to this. I think the only way that can be done is either the presentation by Immokalee non-profit if we had the money of the $40,000 or to amend the ordinance to take into account the generalized problem of dealing with non-profits. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: I understood you to say that the two loans together, first and second mortgages, total a 1,025,0007 MR. KEENER: That's correct, Commissioner Norris. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: So this 133 would then be 1,158,0007 MR. KEENER: Yeah, that's correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Only a $2 million project. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Where did the money come from? MR. KEENER: The other money is coming in from the sale of the low income housing tax credits. They become and investor in the project, and they pay for that privilege the difference. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. MR. KEENER: You see the problem is that the project rentals can't afford any more debt than that. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: I see. That fully soaks up all your debt service capability? MR. KEENER: Exactly, exactly. It meets the minimum 1.1 cover that the two lenders are requiring. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: You don't feel that you're in a position to -- to be able to contribute the $40,000? MR. KEENER: The problem is it's a cash commitment today which had not been, you know, planned upon. We would have to raise the money in some form. And the State of Florida, for whatever it's reason, through the Florida Housing Finance Agency has refused -- has said that the board will refuse to grant this an extension beyond the 13th or 15th of April. And if we don't close by that time, they'll take our allocation and put it back into the sale pool for the next go-round. This is a letter from their general counsel, Steve Donallen (phonetic), this package. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Mac'Kie. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mr. Cuyler, do we have an option other than a general amendment to the ordinance? Can we make an exception in case or do we have to make an across the board policy for non-profits? MR. CUYLER: You would need to adjust your current policy for non-profit. You have made the policy decision that you want to maintain your priority or your security one way or another. And that applies across the board if you want to make a policy decision to treat this type of enterprise differently. We can do it in an emergency ordinance as early as next Tuesday if that's what you want to do. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could we do something for non-profit single-families? I'm just concerned that we'll make an across the board policy. And maybe, Mr. Keener, there's a piece to this puzzle that I don't see, but if the concern is -- if the safety net here is that this is a single-family product where the appreciation instead of the depreciation issue comes in, I'm concerned if we made a non-profit policy that would apply to multi-family where we have the depreciation issue. MR. CUYLER: I think that single-family's already covered, is it not? MR. HIHALIC: Yes. But this is a rental project, and so it's really a single-family rental project of 34 units. So it becomes one project that's claimed to be rented for 15 years and then sold to the occupants. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: The idea of the Board of Commissioners fronting the $40,000 to get back $133 in 15 years is certainly not good economic policy. So -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's the present value of that 133. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I understand. We're paying the present value. So we're kind of double dipping our own treasury if we do that. I would be supportive of making a waiver in this instance to go into third position. Mr. Cuyler, are you saying that we can't waive and go into the third position? MR. CUYLER: Correct. Your ordinance doesn't allow a waiver. It doesn't have a provision in there for a waiver. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Can we simply amend the ordinance to allow waivers? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah, I like that idea the best. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We can do that. We can do it next week under emergency provisions. I'm just questioning whether that -- that's timely enough to allow Immokalee -- MR. KEENER: Yes, yes. In fact we could move that along, then I believe both the lenders will take our word that this is what we see happening in that time frame. MR. CUYLER: The only thing I would like to see in terms of a waiver, if you have something you're trying to address that you can put criteria on of some sort, I would like to see that. I mean you're gonna eventually -- not any time soon, but eventually you get an argument that you're being arbitrary. If you just have a waiver provision, then Mr. X gets it, Mr. Y doesn't. So you're trying to address in language in terms of criteria. That's obviously what you want to do. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm thinking I agree with Commissioner Hac'Kie in this instance. It's a single-family rental project. The concept is that the market value will appreciate over time rather than depreciate. And that may be the mechanism that we want to use so that we're not held to be arbitrary. MR. HIHALIC: That will certainly limit the definition that we can put in there. And I think that we have not seen many single-family rental projects that have come in this market. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd be willing to -- or I would appreciate actually hearing from you, Mr. Hihalic, if there are other recommendations of criteria that you would make. This is one if you can anticipate future issues, I'd like to hear them when the ordinance comes back. If this is the only one, then so be it. But if you have thoughts in addition to, I'd like to hear what they are. MR. HIHALIC: In this particular case, the equity and subordination -- subordination issues have been handled differently by different developers. Many developers settle it with their lender. They're able to make an arrangement with their lender where the lending agency reserve's there when the deferred fees are needed to be available and they make that arrangement. We have also subordinated for the cash equivalent instrument required, and that's been done. We also have -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Forgive me for interrupting, but everybody's so worn out up here that I don't want -- I'm not asking for you go through that now. But as the ordinance comes back, if you have other recommendations, I'd just like to hear them at that point. MR. CUYLER: Let me make two quick points so you will be advised. One is you may get a number of requests for those types of waivers once you put them into place. And secondly, you understand it's in the nature of a pure financial decision you're making. You may not recover those moneys. Right now what you're doing is assuring yourself you'll get your -- at least your present value back -- or you'll get your 133, whatever that's worth, in 15 years. You may not recover those impact fees. As long as you understand that, then you can make the public policy decision that that is where you want to put your moneys out. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: But can't we -- MR. CUYLER: You'll still have a lien. You just won't have a priority lien. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We'll still have a lien. And so long as the property appreciates -- and I would hope that we would have that kind of wording, some -- some way that we -- that we can still have the ability to take that lien and foreclose the property at some point in time. MR. CUYLER: Correct. You're only putting your security in an unknown position. Obviously if you give somebody a third mortgage on your house, maybe they'll get paid, maybe they won't. It will just depend on what's left -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, the idea if you've got a $2 million piece of property with 1.1 million in loans and the third position forecloses for $100,000, either the first or the second is gonna buy out the third. MR. CUYLER: Okay. We'll try to put whatever we can in for your criteria. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. I guess we'll look at this, then, next Tuesday. MR. KEENER: Thank you very much for your timely response. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Item #10E DISCUSSION REGARDING LETTER FROH REPRESENTATIVE SAUNDERS REGARDING PROPOSED HOUSE BILL - CHAIRMAN TO DRAFT LETTER IN SUPPORT OF SAID HOUSE BILL Next item on the agenda is also an add-on today. It's a letter that I received yesterday from our representative Butt Saunders and distributed earlier today. He has asked me to share this with both Charlotte and Lee County, which I have done. But what it is is the State agreeing to pick up the costs for transporting, housing, feeding, and the medical care of parole violators and technical probation violators. And what I'm asking for from this board is permission to either adopt -- draft a resolution or at least to send our legislative delegation a strong letter of support, either way. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: As I understand this, it's shifting the costs -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: From the county. COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: -- from the county to the State? Heck, as long as we can shift up and away, I'm not opposed to it. don't know what chance it has of success. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, I make a motion you draft a letter and send it on behalf of all of us supporting this measure. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. We have a motion and a second to send what I prefer to say a strong letter of support for this house bill. And with no further discussion, I'll call to question all in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion passes 5-0. PUBLIC COHMENT - JOHN DELATE RE WASTE MANAGEMENT LANDFILL CONTRACT AND CONCEPT OF GOLDEN GATE FIRE AUDIT I thought that one would be a done deal real quick. MR. CUYLER: Madam Chairman, you do have someone registered for public comments. Mr. Delate is with us again today. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Before we get into that, the court reporter had talked to me about 3:00 o'clock, and we are approaching 5:00 o'clock, and we have not yet started the afternoon agenda, and I think she needs to make some arrangements for the evening. So I think, Mr. Delate, we're gonna hear from you real quick, five minutes, and then we'll go to break and let her make her arrangements. Mr. Delate. MR. DELATE: Thank you. Good evening. For the record John Delate. I'm here today to address two issues related to the landfill. They are relevant issues as you will see. At the February 28, 1995, County Board meeting, George Varnado representing Waste Management stated, and I quote, "We have no desire to use chipped tires for cover, so I won't have any problem with that being in the contract explicitly." Mr. Varnado reiterated that assertion on page 223 and says, "I suggest we put it in the contract and not leave it to some later document." As you are aware the contract -- the finalized version has come out and has been signed. In section 2.14 the contract reads, "Chipped tire shall not be used for daily cover material." There's no reference to intermediate cover. And the distinction is very critical here. Anyone who knows anything about landfills, there's a significant difference between daily and intermediate cover. And Mr. Varnadoe did state that chipped tires would not be used for, it was implied, any cover. So that would include, obviously, daily and intermediate cover. So I hope this error can be corrected either by removing the "daily" and just simply stating "cover," or adding the word "intermediate." CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Can we address it when the plan comes to us? MR. DELATE: Well, I just think it's something that's stated in his own words. He wanted it in there. He even states explicitly that he wanted it in the contract prior to going to the daily operations plans. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, it's my understanding in the operating plan that the intermediate cover is 12 inches of dirt. MR. CUYLER: We can probably get an estoppel letter from Waste Management to take care of that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Good. Thank you. MR. DELATE: The second item involves the concept of the fire audit. In a March 1, 1995, letter to Chief Don Peterson of the Golden Gate Fire District, Commissioner Matthews writes, "If a fire protection engineer is needed to asses the hazard, then perhaps we should see that is done." Commissioner Matthews reiterated that idea at the March 14th county board meeting when she stated, "If we need to have some sort of engineering survey for fire protection services, so be it, let's do it." In a letter dated March 15th, 1995, from Chief Peterson to Commissioner Matthews, the chief writes, "This fire district has no objections to a fire protection engineer coming in to do an assessment of the landfill provided the recommendations will be used in the final operations plan." The chief obviously does not want to see tax dollars spent if the findings of the study will not be utilized. The Florida D.E.P. affirms that local fire chiefs do have the authority to question fire safety at landfills, and that an audit would be in order if the chief feels it is warranted. Now I know that, Commissioner Matthews, you have responded back to the chief and you suggested that adjustments could be made. I, therefore, ask you right now where this issue stands and if it will be done. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm waiting for the information that you did not include in your excerpt of the gathering of the information that Chief Peterson is currently trying to gather. And I'm not willing to make an assessment -- I'm not a fire chief -- until he's got figures, facts, and numbers put together. MR. DELATE: I would like to add to that, though, you have to remember you're talking about history, and he even notes in his letter to you that we're comparing apples to oranges. There's a new operations plan out there than this was before, so that history of safety or non-safety out there is not completely relevant to this new operations plan that is put forth. I think that should be -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm waiting to get the information from the fire chief. And then, of course, one of my questions that will be right on the tail of that is that if this is a concern now why wasn't it a year ago? Why wasn't it six months ago? MR. DELATE: I agree. Whose job is that? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Fire chief. MR. DELATE: The board should protect -- the board should also be concerned about public safety I hope, too. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It is an independent fire district. We cannot tell them what to do. They have to come to us and say there's a problem. MR. DELATE: I understand. He still has the opportunity, though, to do that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes. MR. DELATE: Thank you very much. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Cuyler. MR. CUYLER: Before your break, I resolved my problem on 9-B. You will never see that again until public hearing. It was not a mistake. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you. Let's take a 15-minute break, and the court reporter has to make some arrangements either to have someone else come in. I don't have any idea how long we're going to be this evening, I hope not more than a couple hours. Let's break till 5:15. (A short break was held.) Item #12B1 ORDINANCE 95-14 RE PETITION PUD-94-11, HICHAEL J. LANDY OF BUTLER ENGINEERING, INC., REPRESENTING R. L. SCHHECKPEPER, INC., DARRYL J. DAMICO, HERMAN AND ILSE SCHUHACHER AND IVAN AND HADELEINE VARKAY, REQUESTING REZONING FROM RHF-12 TO PUD (PARKWAY PLACE PUD) AT THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF THE INTERSECTION OF GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY AND 53RD STREET S.W. - ADOPTED AS AMENDED CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Reconvene the Board of County Commissioners meeting for March 28th, 1995. The court reporter has said that her relief will be here in about 10 more minutes, 15 minutes. We'll be taking another very short break while they switch out. Next item on the agenda is item 12-B-l, petition PUD 9411. MR. MILK: Good evening, Commissioners. For the record my name is Bryan Milk. I'm presenting petition number PUD 9411, Parkway Place PUD. The subject property is located at the southwest intersection of 53rd Street Southwest and Golden Gate Parkway. The property is approximately 1.99 acres in size and is located in the Golden Gate Parkway commercial office professional district and is really an extenuation of the Parkway Center PUD. As you recall, at Santa Barbara Boulevard and Golden Gate Parkway, this board just approved a PUD for professional office and like commercial uses. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If I can interrupt for a minute. MR. MILK: Yes, sir. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Terms outlined here virtually the same as how we amended it a couple weeks ago with the three years? MR. MILK: That's correct. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't know if the rest of the board does, but this is exactly -- I don't have any objection because this is exactly what we're trying to develop along the parkway. It is in substance almost identical to the one we approved once and then approved the amendment after that. So unless you all have -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Might I ask if we have any letters of support or letters against this particular petition? MR. MILK: No, we don't. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Close the public hearing then. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't know if we have speakers or not. We don't have an attorney or '- MS. STUDENT: Madam chairman, I will see if they -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Would you please see if there's any speakers for this? If there are none, we will close the hearing. MS. STUDENT: Madam Chairman, I see no speakers registered for this item. MR. MILK: Could I add one thing, please? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Milk. MR. MILK: On page 53 of the executive summary, section 4.8.B, we massaged that paragraph in accordance with Ms. Student and George Archibald. I would like to read into the record what that language now states. "In concert with that ordinance requirement, transportation services will require a right turn lane into to the site located within the right-of-way prior to granting the first certificate of compliance on any commercial building that this access will serve. Accompanying said right-of-way from the developer will be considered to be a four-foot wide sidewalk constructed on the petitioner's property and will be required to be conveyed to the county by easement when requested by Collier County or prior to the issuance of a certificate of compliance on any commercial building this access will serve." Just a point of clarification. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The petitioner in agreement with that wording? MR. LANDY: Yes. For the record I'm Mike Landy with Butler Engineering. We've discussed this with Bryan previously, and we don't have any problem with that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Close the public hearing. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I make a motion we approve the item with the amendment. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I'll second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Motion and second to approve PUD 9411 with the amended wording. There's no further discussion. All those in favor please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5-0. Item #12B2 ORDINANCE 95-15 RE PETITION R-94-8, ROBERT DUANE OF HOLE, HONTES AND ASSOCIATES, INC., REPRESENTING MR. FRANCINI AND MR. ROHANO, REQUESTING REZONE FROM C-1/T AND RSF-3 TO C-3 FOR PROPERTY ON THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF U.S. 41 EAST & HIGHLAND ROAD - ADOPTED WITH STIPULATIONS AS AMENDED The next item on the agenda is item 12-B-2, petition R-94-A. MR. BELLOWS: For the record I'm Ray Bellows with the current planning staff. Petition R-94-A, Mr. Robert Duane requested to present subject 4.3-acre site from C-1/T to RSF-3 to C-3. The property is located on the south side of U.S. 41 East and the north side of Highland. The petitioner's qualifying for the Commercial Under Criteria found on two sites by existing commercial uses and zoning. The Commercial Under Criteria are as follows: The property shall not exceed 200 feet in width without Board of Collier County Commission approval. Since the site 561 feet it requires Board of County Commission approval. It's staff's opinion that since adjacent properties are also similar width that this should be granted. Number two, the project doesn't generate trips that exceed 5e of the level of service or designed capacity of U.S. 41. And number three, the project is limited to 25,000 square feet. Petitioner's site plan and traffic impact statement indicate the project complies with these provisions. In addition these last two provisions will be enforced at the time the site's zone is planned. To further enhance compatibility with the residential areas to the south, the petitioner has increased the required setback from 25 feet to 40 feet and increased the landscape from 15 feet to 20 feet along the outer drive. No letters for or against this project have been received. The Planning Commission has approved this by vote of 7-0. Any questions? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: On the south you say the buffer has been increased from 15 to 25 feet. What about is there a material increase additionally to accompany that for screening purposes? I'm just concerned with the residences behind it. The back side of the Property is not generally very attractive. MR. BELLOWS: To meet the code I'm not sure how much material is -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Duane, make sure you identify -- MR. DUANE: Robert Duane from Hole, Montes and Associates. The intent was to increase the material within that. I would be happy to revise the stipulation to reflect that. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. A type B buffer brings us to a hedge, and a tree on the center would be 30 feet. I guess I'm looking for something that every couple of years would be a six-foot high hedge. MR. DUANE: My understanding is a 15-foot buffer is required, and it needs to be six feet within a one-month period and an 80~ capacity. So we just volunteered to increase the width of the that buffer, including the number of plantings within it. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. That's correct, Mr. Bellows? MR. BELLOWS: Yes. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: That's good enough. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Are there public speakers, Mr. Hargett? There are no public speakers. I'll close the public hearing. Could I have a motion? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve the item. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Motion and second to approve petition Number R-94-A. There's no further discussion, call to question, all those in favor please say aye. Opposed? Being none, motion passes 5-2. Item #12C1 RESOLUTION 95-245 RE PETITION AV-94-018 TO VACATE A 60 FOOT ROAD, UTILITY AND DRAINAGE EASEMENT EAST OF C.R. 951, ONE MILE SOUTH OF 1-75 - ADOPTED Next item is item 12-C-1 petition AV 94-018 to vacate 60-foot road utility and drainage easements. Mr. Archibald. MR. ARCHIBALD: Board members, agenda item 12-C-1. This public hearing involves petition 89-4-018. Somewhat straightforward. Someone that has a rural parcel property located south of 84 and to the east of 951 is wanting to vacate a 60-foot easement going through the eastern third of the property and replace that easement with a easement running along the north boundary of the parcel. The appropriate letters of no objection have been received. The public benefit is, of course, the replacement easement. This is being recommended by staff in accordance with statute 336. And again, the staff's recommendation is for approval, and a resolution is included in the agenda item. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Archibald, an obvious question you've probably already considered, but just because I can't really make it out here, I assume that former easement, there are no properties that would then be isolated by this action? MR. ARCHIBALD: There are none. And all this -- all the parent parcel and all the surrounding parcels, they're all vacant at this time. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Archibald, can you tell me where this property is? I see the 951 canal, but that doesn't tell me where on 951 it's located. MR. ARCHIBALD: It's locate about half way between State Road 84 on the north and Rattlesnake Hammock on the south. It's in that quadrant of the county that would be east of 951 and about in that location. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. So we're -- how close to the Florida Sports Park is this? Well, that's right at Rattlesnake, isn't it? MR. ARCHIBALD: This would be north of the Florida Sports Park, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a quarter of a mile or more. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Do you have more that you want to add? MR. NADEAU: No, I was just going to clarify that for the record. For the record my name is Dwight Nadeau, HcAnley, Asher and Associates, representing the applicant Clyde Quinby as trustee. As Mr. Archibald stated, the subject property 40 acres is approximately one mile to the south of Alligator Alley, the intersection of Davis Boulevard and 951. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Hargett, are there public speakers? MR. HARGETT: No ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'll close the public hearing. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Move to approve. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Motion and second to approve petition AV 94-018. There's no further discussion, I'll call to question, all in favor say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5-0. MR. NADEAU: Thank you, Commissioners. Item # 12C2 RESOLUTION 95-246 RE PETITION AV-95-002, BESS ERIKSSON, AS AGENT FOR OWNER, DALE BEATTY, REQUESTING VACATION OF A PORTION OF A DRAINAGE EASEMENT KNOWN AS HALDEHAN CREEK - ADOPTED WITH STIPULATIONS CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Next item is item 12-C-2, petition AV 95-002, Bess Eriksson. MR. ARCHIBALD: Board members, this is a vacation of an easement that's located to the west of Bay Shore Drive located on Alderman Creek. In regards to the processing of the vacation, this particular one was requested by the board subject to the fee being tied to some sort of mortgage agreement. Before I get to that particular agreement and that provision, I'd like to just outline very quickly that in fact we're talking about vacating 35 feet of roughly 150 feet of existing easement. There are improvements within the 35 feet. And accordingly, by vacating that portion of the easement, we'll end up going ahead and rectifying those encumbrances. It should be recognized that the property is zoned currently C-4. And again, there are improvements on that property that probably go back many many years. In regards to public benefit, staff is taking a look at recognizing that the DOT, the Florida Department of Transportation, had required that many many years ago, I believe in the early 50s. There wasn't a value associated with that. The remaining easement serves our purpose. So from staff standpoint not only have we received the appropriate letters of no objection, but the resolution that has been prepared reflects the Florida Statute 336. Accordingly, staff is recommending that in consideration of that public benefit and recognizing the corrections of past mistakes on the property itself, that we're recommending approval and processing of the resolution, but noting two items, one that the fee that has not been paid by agreement is to be paid at closing. And I believe the applicant will confirm that closing is proposed this week. The remaining item was that the taxes from last year have not been paid. Those are planned to be also paid at closing. The applicant may want to address any questions the board has. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The waiver -- the fee for the vacating and the taxes will be paid from closing? MS. ERIKSSON: Right. We will have the closing at the County Attorney's office on Thursday. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: We've seen this one time before, and this is result of board direction, and I feel comfortable Mr. Archibald has a handle on this. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Hargett, are there public speakers? MR. HARGETT: No, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Ms. Eriksson, did you have more that you want to add? MS. ERIKSSON: I don't think so. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there a motion? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Motion to approve. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Motion by Commissioner Hac'Kie, seconded by Commissioner Norris to move the item Petition AV 95-002. If there's no further discussion, call to question, all in favor say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Item #12C3 RESOLUTION 95-247 PETITION CCSL-94-15, DOROTHEA ZYSKO OF WILSON, MILLER, BARTON AND PEEK, INC., REPRESENTING THE RITZ-CARLTON HOTELS, A GEORGIA LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, REQUESTING A COASTAL CONSTRUCTION SETBACK LINE VARIANCE LOCATED AT 280 VANDERBILT BEACH ROAD - ADOPTED Next item on the agenda is petition CCSL-94-15. MR. LENBERGER: Good evening. Stephen Lenberger from current planning. Request a setback line variance to expand existing beach side facilities at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Vanderbilt Beach Road. Staff has reviewed the petition and finds it consistent with the Land Development Code and the Collier County growth management plan, and I'll be glad to answer any questions you have. We also have the petitioner present here to answer questions. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: My question is what we're doing expanding out by the beach, particularly the second story, second coverage pavilion. You said it's consistent with the growth management plan. But I'm just wondering, it seems as though it may be accessive enough. I'm kind of grasping here. I need your help. But second story existing pavilion? It seems we have limited or tried to limit the activity going on right on the beach that way or in the dune area in between. MR. LENBERGER: Staff has reviewed petitions like this, similar structures on the beach. What we did was we looked at the structures allowed within the Pelican Bay PUD, and we went to the north beach and south beach facilities and found similar structures there. The other alternative would be to put the banquet facility and restaurant facility, instead of combined two-story building, to go outward as opposed to being upward. I guess staff kind of feels it wouldn't have as much impact to the dune vegetation if we went up as opposed to out and expand the footprint of the building. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is another alternative to have no expansion? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My question was do they have a right without an application to go out or would that also require this variance? MR. LENBERGER: No. It would require variances. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: So we shouldn't look at it as if we don't approve this they're gonna do that. I think that's an important factor. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I got wrapped up in what you're asking over there. There is a difference here between what we've looked at in the past in Pelican Bay which was an intensification of existing uses, such as they asked for, I think, a bar or restaurant that is more, and it was affecting residents that may not have bargained for that when they bought there. But the fact that this is a hotel and that this beach is -- although the public has access to it per se, this doesn't encroach upon the public's use of the area. I don't see that any real potential for detractors. So I guess I just wanted to draw the difference there between what had gone on in Pelican Bay and what this request is in my mind anyway. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: When we craft variances dealing with the coastal construction setback line, Mr. Cuyler, do we need some sort of hardship or reason for that? The second covered pavilion will extend approximately 30 feet seaward, the proposed dune walkovers will extend approximately 125 feet seaward, proposed boardwalk will extend approximately 60 feet seaward, all of the adopted coastal construction setback line. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: There's more, the 55 here. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Sorry, I left one out. There's four. Do we need some sort of hardship to make those changes or '- MR. CUYLER: Usually the criteria's in your backup. Do you have the criteria for the CCSL? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't see it. MR. CUYLER: It's not in the backup? It usually provides that it has to be on a line with other existing structures. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Maybe the petitioner knows what they are. MS. ZYSKO: I'm not sure what the-- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You have to identify yourself. MS. ZYSKO: Dorothea Zysko, Wilson, Miller, Barton and Peek, representing the Ritz Carlton. I'm not sure what the exact criteria are in you regulations. However, generally it's accepted that if you're not advancing the line of construction, the existing line of construction in the area, then you would meet the setback criteria for the variance. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What terms in the area are 125 feet seaward of the adopted coastal construction setback line? MS. ZYSKO: I believe what we demonstrated is if you take a line of the existing construction in the vicinity, and I don't -- I don't have the exhibit with me and drew that along the beach, the Vanderbilt Beach area extending down to Pelican Bay north beach facilities is that same line of construction. And also the existing facilities do not advance the current line of construction at the Ritz. The only facilities that are extending seaward are the actual dune crossovers. The shore parallel boardwalk is behind the existing line of construction of the existing beach pavilion. And the second story is also within the immediate footprint of the existing building. So we're not advancing the line of construction even on the project site. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You mentioned Vanderbilt Beach. Were those built since the coastal construction setback line was put in place? MS. ZYSKO: I can't say that any of them have been built. There have been modifications. For example, just recently the La Playa was granted a setback variance from the existing setback conditions there. So -- COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But they certainly precede the existing line, if that's your question, Commissioner Constantine. The construction of those structures certainly precedes the existing-- MS. ZYSKO: But modifications to so existing facilities have been granted variances. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm just troubled by an application. This seems to me to be something that ought to be able to be approved. I have a couple questions. One is do you have to have approval from the State? MS. ZYSKO: Yes, we do. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Have you? MS. ZYSKO: No, we have not obtained that yet. It's in process. The application's been submitted to the state D.E.P., Bureau of Coastal Systems. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: And does the action of the county board have any -- is that something that you are to advise them? Do they take that into consideration? MS. ZYSKO: Yes. Yes, they do. We have to have a letter of local government compliance, and that would include not only an approval of setback variance, but we've also submitted a site improvement plan to the county for review. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: My problem with this, guys, is just you didn't give us enough information here to be able to make adequate findings about whether or not they meet the criteria. It may well do that, but it's not in this staff report. MR. MULHERE: I take your direction. In the future we'll include more specific information as to finding. They're really kind of sparse. When you talk about a variance from a coastal construction control line, setback lines are not the same as for a structure requiring a setback from let's say a property line. In fact, there's three instances in the LDC where the board, I guess, has authorized to grant the variance. And the first is whether or not -- I'll read right from the LDC. "If in the immediate continuous or adjacent area of number of existing structures has established a reasonably continuous and uniform construction line closer to the line of mean high water than the line as herein established and said structures have not been duly or unduly affected by erosion." COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: In the vicinity did you say, or in the immediate vicinity? MR. MULHERE: It reads "if in the immediate continuous or adjacent area." And we have always construed that to mean we kind of look up and down the shoreline in a fairly close proximity and see what extends out beyond the coastal construction control line, and we have never recommended approval of anything to extend beyond the development line, the existing development line. The other two circumstances are for pipe lines, piers, et cetera, and then temporary -- types of temporary activities. So there is no criteria to establish a hardship within the Land Development Code. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: But there is this one criteria you described about up and down the shoreline. And so have you made a specific finding on that point? MR. MULHERE: Yes, we have. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that is? MS. ZYSKO: We're not advancing the line of construction. MR. MULHERE: Right. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Hargett, are there speakers? MR. HARGETT: No, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Are there further questions for staff or Ms. Zysko? I'll close public hearing. Is there a motion? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Motion to approve. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Motion. Is there a second? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I'll second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. We have a motion and a second to approve CCSL-94-15. If there is no further discussion, all those in favor please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5-0. MS. ZYSKO: Thank you, Commissioners. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Item #12C4 ORDINANCE 95-16 REPEALING AND SUPERSEDING COLLIER COUNTY ORDINANCE NO. 91-56 AS A_MENDED, BEING THE COUNTY'S BUILDING CONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATIVE CODE FOR THE GAS, MECHANICAL, PLUMBING, ELECTRICAL, FIRE, SWIHMING POOL, AND BUILDING CODES - ADOPTED AND TO BECOME EFFECTIVE UPON RETURN BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE'S OFFICE Next item on the agenda. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I ask Mr. Cuyler a question, or at least our staff? These all seem to be updates. Do we need to take separate motions? And if we do, can we at least get one single presentation? MR. CUYLER: Yes, on the latter one. You can take one presentation, one public hearing. I'd like a motion on each one if you would, though. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. So we're gonna have a single presentation, a single public comment, and then we'll take separate motions on each of the ordinances. MR. SMITH: Good evening, Commissioners. Bill Smith, director of permitting. We have two speakers that will speak, and they agreed to encompass also. We'll try to make this brief. Collier County subscribes to a mandated community rating system. It's referred to as CRS. That establishes insurance rates for Collier County. Collier County had a questionnaire that was posed to Collier County in October of last year in which I filled out. During the filing of that application, I had proposed that we were gonna be under the new ordinances and retain a proactive approach. Because of the filing of that document, stating that we were gonna use the new codes and the new ordinances, Collier County will realize from which we were currently rated at a 5e, Collier County will be almost close to a 15e discount in the insurance rates to the consumers of Collier County for being proactive in using the more stringent building codes. When we came before the board before, there was a question of what was the impact gonna be. Since then, we have gone out to several contractors along to the industry, and the realization of passing the new codes will increase the cost to the consumer of the product or of the house or the residential unit anywhere from 3e to 7e. But that's of the new home buyer. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I thought you said something like 1 to 3e. MR. SMITH: Well, it was 1 to 3 per title. But this was done back in October. The accumulative effect of the whole thing is if you pass an ordinance by itself and we don't pass all the ordinances collectively which encompasses the whole construction, I've got a cumulative cost of close to 7e. If you say to me I'm not gonna pass any of your ordinances at all, what do we look at for the cost of either the electrical, pluming, or the chemical standing on its own. What I'm trying to explain would be 1 to 3e for that ordinance, what is the cost to the consumer to go out and build a house today assuming we pass all these ordinances? Cumulatively it would be about 7e. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I suggest that that too is something that should have been in a staff report and would be useful in the future to be presented to us ahead of time. I've been examining this as a 1 to 2e, 1 to 3e issue, just for reference. MR. SMITH: Sure. So therefore, in addition to that we have the new building codes, the 1994 Standard Building Code. In addition to the 1994 Standard Building Code, there is also a deem to comply code which is passed through the State. We have taken the approach those codes have not been adopted by the State. We have taken the approach under the Collier County building code, and we have put some modifications in there due to some of the criteria that was established after the hurricane. We had a hurricane code. Since the hurricane code, we have found that some of the items in the hurricane code were more cursory in nature and got passed almost -- not in a panic, but got rushed through. We now have defined the building code, and we have become more of a prescriptive code which goes back and gives outlines in better detail. So if we do have an owner/builder who wants to build, he has not a true cookbook but he does have more iljustrations, more definition, and gives them a better idea of what they need to do. In addition to that we have had -- we have had all the ordinances have been presented through the development steering committee. We have their recommendation. We have met with the CBIA, the ASA, the ECF or the electrical. We have met with the Plumber's Association. We have workshopped all these ordinances numerous of times. These are the final drafts. They have all passed and supported these ordinances. Members of the CBIA are here, along with another gentleman who's an electrical contractor who are here to support the ordinances. In addition to that, when I had talked to you at budget time about hiring three inspectors, and your question was was that gonna be enough, the administrative code which is incorporated in this packet also allows for us to utilize -- for the industry to utilize independent inspection services, independent plan review services. So they can go to a privatization for inspection if they elect. There's a provision now in the ordinance which there was never a provision before that would allow them to go through some privatization for inspectors as long as they have the required state licenses which will help them to try to meet some of their demands. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't know. I don't know about that one. We're gonna take a short break so that the court reporters can change out. It's only going to be two or three mines. (A short break was held at 5:50 p.m.) CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let's reconvene the board of county commission for March 28, 19 -- COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Still. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- '95. Mr. Smith, do you want to continue? MR. SMITH: I'll just finish up on your -- you didn't know about that note. I was -- I was kind of done until you said, well, I don't know about that, so -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I -- I'm just not completely sure that we should be turning our inspection duties over to private companies. MR. SMITH: What -- okay. Then there's a misunderstand -- the privatization of inspection, what that allows is they still pay the county the fees. The county still does the inspection and -- and verifies that there has been an inspection done if we don't physically do the inspection. But what that allows is that allows all the firms under state license now -- there is a license for an inspector and for a plan review that the state has recognized, and they are licensed to do that. It is a -- it is a requirement by state statute now. And what that allows, if the contractor decides on a Saturday and we -- and we don't have staff or we didn't make the inspection and he's ready for drywall and he doesn't want to wait till a Monday to get his insulation inspected, he has the option of hiring one of these independent firms to do an insulation inspection, for instance. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Uh-huh. MR. SMITH: Because that person has a license -- it's like a contractor's license. Because that individual has a license and has proved that they have the qualifications and the credentials, that certification will be okay. That will still go in the permit file and will still be noted. But it's an avenue that's available either to, like I say, a contractor or an owner/builder in certain -- in certain instances. Could they do it through the whole project? If it's set up in the beginning and there's a schedule and there's the proper documentation, it could. It's an additional cost that the contractor will have to bear, but it's something that the industry and people that we've talked with want to see. Lee County's doing it on a part-time type of basis. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah. MR. SMITH: We do it in times of emergency. Previously during the backlog of inspections that we had, we were doing it. And on a trial basis it works. It's not that we're looking to turn over the whole thing. But it is an option that a contractor has, and the contractor may use that. If the owner agrees that that's what the owner wants to do also, then that's an option that they have. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- I guess I'm -- I'm just a little bit concerned and I probably should say more than a little bit with the Headowood and the -- and the Beach Walk garages and -- and so forth that building inspection seems to be an integral part of the responsibilities of this county government. And I'm -- I'm -- I'm just a little bit concerned of whether we should release that responsibility. I mean, we remain responsible, and -- and whether we should release that authority to a private contractor and make the people who -- who use that building subsequent to the inspection rely on records that we may not then have and I'm -- MR. SMITH: Well, we will do the recordkeeping. We will do still do the follow-up. It doesn't -- and I'll give you the example so we understand. Let's assume for a minute they decide to use the person for insulation on a Saturday and we're not there. We still -- they still have to schedule that inspection with the county. It's still a required schedule. The county then because they did it on a Saturday will accept that affidavit or that notification on a Monday, but the county still will look at what portion it is or make sure we have the required documentation to make sure the required safeguards are in effect. The -- the other side of that coin is the state has already said once this person has the license. They are qualified. I mean, the state's already recognized that and has already checked their credentials. So once that person has that license, they have that right. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, I understand. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But let me just -- who's liable if they make a mistake in their inspection even though they've been licensed? Is the state liable because they licensed them improperly? Or is the county going to have to pay if the balcony falls off the building? MR. SMITH: The -- the county attorney's office can answer that. But -- but to answer the first part of your question -- I think your question was twofold -- who's -- who's liable -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You have many hats. MR. SMITH: Who's liable still goes back to the contractor or the permittee of record. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I understand that. MR. SMITH: In some instances you don't have a contractor. But the permittee of record is the one who's ultimately liable. But the license holder will have some liability too. It's no different than a general contractor who hires a licensed electrical contractor. That electrical contractor becomes his sub. If that electrical contractor should err in a code, the electrical person's responsible, but the GC's still responsible. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I see. Mr. Hargett, are there public speakers? MR. HARGETT: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I know he spoke of two. MR. HARGETT: Yes, ma'am. There are two. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have one more question. Mr. -- Commissioner Hancock. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Smith, let me draw a scenario for you, and tell me if it's realistic. MR. SMITH: Okay. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We have a tropical storm, does some damage. A lot of construction results from it. We're short on inspections. Couple of free wheelers come in with state licenses and start cleaning up on -- on inspections, making a lot of money on inspections. They're worried about doing more of them than they are about quality ones. They don't live here. They're from another area. They walk out with faulty inspections. What -- the worst that can happen is their license gets pulled, and we're left with the bag. I'm drawing that as a worst case scenario, and I'm curious as to whether or not that's a valid concern, whether that -- you feel that can happen or -- you know, I'm trying -- I understand what the building industry's trying to do, and I'm -- I'm trying to relieve our work load, too, because that's less ad valorem tax dollar -- or I'm sorry, less -- less fees that are charged and so forth. But I'm just curious if that's a situation that could very well happen. MR. SMITH: Your concern -- first, your question requires two answers too. First of all, your concerns are valid. But -- but prior to that, the question was can this happen. And these inspectors who come in from out of town still have to have permission of the building official before they can do those inspections. So just because they hold that license and they run around in this disaster storm and start doing inspections, those -- they have to have prior certification through the building official, through the building department, and prove that they have their credentials. And there is a background check that goes on, and there are some other criteria that we require for them other than just running in from wherever and saying, here's my license, and walking up to the door and I'll do your inspection. The county does not recognize that and does not have to recognize that until their credentials have been proven, until they have been recognized by the county. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So we have controls on the -- on the process then. MR. SMITH: Yes, ma'am, definitely. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let's move to the public speakers. MR. HARGETT: Okay. Mr. Timothy Ryan. And he'll be followed by Doug Nelson. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Nelson, do you want to come forward so you can take over when he finishes? MR. RYAN: Good evening. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Hi. MR. RYAN: And my speech started out good morning. I had to amend it a little bit. To the administrative code, over the past 25 years I've watched our community grow and prosper into a mature thriving community. This growth has been great to watch, but with it comes some new problems. The days when everyone knew everyone else by first name are gone. And this follows into the electrical wiring industry where the building department knew all the workers in the electrical industry by their reputations. Today our industry has grown in proportion to the county, and our work force has grown to the point where we in the industry feel we need a more formal method to establish the qualifications of our workers than just a simple handshake. In addition, we need to establish a minimum level of qualifications for our field worker in order to create an equal playing field for all our contractors. In the December version of the administrative code there was a -- a section which addressed on-site supervision of electrician -- electrical workers, air conditioner, and plumbers. That's missing in today's version. We would like some direction from the county commission to our industry, to the building department, and to the building industry as to whether you want to see us move forward with such an ordinance. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Hargett or Mr. Smith, when we had that discussion in December, we assured the folks who had brought it forward that we would be discussing that again and while it wouldn't necessarily appear in what we're reviewing now that we would have some sort of formal hearing on that. When is that anticipated to come back to us? MR. HARGETT: I don't have an answer. I do recall, you know, us discussing that, and -- and there were some modifications being coordinated at that time. Bill, if you can help me here. MR. SMITH: Yes, sir. We are working along with -- members of some of the industry are working with the CBIA right now. We have a -- we have a committee that we are in the process of forming. Gary Hayes who was one of the speakers from one of the contractors is heading the committee for journeymen and on-site supervision. And we are working on that right now, and there is a committee being formed. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I just wanted to make sure it doesn't fade away on us. MR. SMITH: No, sir. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And this board had assured the folks that had come forward that it wouldn't. We can expect that back then in 60 days? MR. SMITH: The -- the committee was directed to have no more than three meetings. We met yesterday to make sure that the committee had been formed. They were short one member. That member should be picked up probably this week, and then they are to proceed right from there. So I would say that we're safe within five, six weeks that there should be -- and Mr. Nelson can expound on that a little bit, too, through the CBIA because they're working towards that direction. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So you'd have no trouble committing that that will make its way back to us by -- let's see. This is the 1st of April -- 1st of June? MR. SMITH: 1st of June? I could come back to you prior to the 1st of June. I don't know in ordinance form, but I can come back to you in a proposal form. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Great. MR. SMITH: If that would satisfy -- if that's okay. Go the middle of Hay, you know, that's -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. MR. RYAN: This is an area then that you'd like to see us move towards as -- as opposed to move against. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think I'd certainly like to air it out in public and -- and try to get a feel from the board. I think there have been different feelings expressed amongst the board members here and on radio and television. But I think we need to have a full public hearing on the pros and cons and whatever work that committee does and so on. And so yeah, I don't want to stop here if that's the question. MR. RYAN: Yeah. Okay. The electric industry does approve the -- the approval of the national electric code '93. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MR. RYAN: That portion of what he's talking about. Thank you very much. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Mr. Nelson. MR. HARGETT: Mr. Nelson. MR. NELSON: Hi. Doug Nelson, president, Collier Building Industry Association. Do we do addresses and all that still? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No, huh-uh. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You can. MR. NELSON: Three issues, and I'll -- and I'll try to be brief because we have -- I'm representing 6 agenda items which gives me 30 minutes to speak to you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Oh, no. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: We'll be right back, Mr. Nelson. MR. NELSON: Let -- let me -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I believe he said it's a single public hearing. You got five minutes. MR. NELSON: Let me fire away then. Item number one is the codes. Plumbing, mechanical, electrical, and administrative 91-56 which is -- I don't have the items in front of me. The -- the -- the issue that you got to with Bill was it's going to cost a couple more bucks. That's probably the case. But let me say in very loud and strong terms, if we don't pass it, it's big bucks. And -- and that's a differentiation. We're saying, yes, we are going to cost more money to build your home. But if we don't do these -- pass the administrative code with the new hurricane wind load ordinance that we have re -- rewritten for our county, we being the industry, both the contractors' association, the county staff, and representatives across the industry, if we don't get that into our code, it's going to be big dollars. And that's a key factor. Additionally, if we're not moved up to ninety -- the '91 code which is what the administrative code does for us, we are going to spend a whole bunch of money on state-mandated codes that, again, we can't afford and -- and our consumers, your constituents, do not need or do not want. So let me make it loud and clear that we absolutely have to move towards the administrative code as it's proposed. The plumbing, electrical, and mechanical, I've sat through the development services subcommittee meetings on those. It's unanimous across the board. Let's get them in there. Let's start building to them. So fire away. MR. SMITH: Just to clarify one thing, when Mr. Nelson talks about the administrative code, he's also referring to the structural building code that will go into the structural code. You have in your packet six ordinances. And when he spieled them off, he -- he came up with four. But we also have a -- a gas code, and then we also have this -- we have the administrative code which is the administrative part. And then on the other hand, we have the structural building code which is the structural components which I talked to you a little bit about which was a prospective code and a prescriptive code along with hurricane requirements. And if we don't come up with comparable hurricane requirements, then we get into deem to comply, and we get into '94 codes which is another nature that we may not want to explore. MR. NELSON: Let me expound on -- on Bill saying -- it's so darn confusing that the building official is confused with all these codes. One thing that happens here is that we round them into one ordinance. So when we have a question, we can grab one document and read that document and get an answer. Right now we're referenced from here to there, from '91 to '92 to '93 to the '89 code. But with the chapter 12 addendum, it's just a mess. And we're going to fix that. And that's what we're trying to do, and everyone's for it. let's just do it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Sounds like the IRS rates to me. MR. NELSON: It's nuts. Number two, as it relates to the journeymen's amendment being yanked out of there, that -- let me -- let me just back up by saying that the CBIA -- and I spent an -- an hour out here this afternoon talking to Tim Ryan about journeymens and the goal here. We both have the same goal. Educate and train our work force so that in a couple years down the road, we have better, more qualified, and better paid people. The issue is education, training. There's many different ways to get there. And -- and as of right now, we look at slightly different methods to get there. Who knows? But -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Nelson, we're going to address the journeyman's part of this in 60 days or so. MR. NELSON: Well, what I'm saying -- and let me give you the -- the subcommittee part that you were asking where they are. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I'm just saying we're not addressing -- we're not addressing the journeymen's part. MR. NELSON: Oh, I thought it was yanked out of the code which is one of the things you have to vote on today. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's going to come back. We're going to have the journeymen's section back in 60 days? MR. SMITH: No, ma'am. That's -- no, let me clarify that. If I said that, I didn't think I said that. What I said was I can come back to you before June with a proposal. It would not be in ordinance form. No, no. I -- we have other avenues we're exploring right now with the committee. So rather than adding it into the ordinance, I'm not going to make that commitment to you today. But there will be a plan, and I will make that commitment to you. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think the point is just that's not the item before us today, Doug, so if we can stay to these codes, keep our discussion to that, the hour's pretty late. MR. NELSON: Okay. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We'll deal with journeymen whenever it comes back to us. MR. NELSON: Well, correct me if I'm wrong. Part of their voting is to vote in without journeymen, and it's there, so it's not an issue? MR. SMITH: The journeymen ordinance is not in here, and that portion is not. MR. NELSON: Okay. I'm sorry. So I'm confused. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Sorry. Time's up. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Time's up. MR. NELSON: You know, the last time we didn't get this thing passed. The public hearing was closed. You guys asked a bunch of questions. I couldn't answer them. And, you know, it took three more months. So item number three is privatization. Let me just make a couple points. We're -- we're talking about buildings like high-rise buildings that need inspections quickly to get them -- to keep them moving which in most cases is the structural engineer or the architect that has liability as big as Texas on his back if he lets things go. We're not talking about metal wherever and these -- these issues that didn't have those type of controls that -- when they were building them. If I remember correctly, those buildings and projects weren't built with a contractor, an architect, and all that. They had plans. They just went. They were slam bam things. And it's a whole different world. What we're talking about, tightly controlled projects where people can come in and merely replace the timing of county inspections. So if we need an inspection today for X, the engineer or the architect can sign off on that. They're getting checked by the county when the county gets around to it, but it doesn't hold the progress of the building up. The liability, in my opinion, is exactly the same. It doesn't change one iota. It actually -- it changes one iota from the standpoint that in -- in -- it adds another layer of protection for the county because there's also another person involved doing that inspection. The county still has their inspection to sign off on it, and it's there, and then you have these other professionals in there. When we're doing projects like DiVosta where they're building a house in 47 days, you can't wait 3 days for the county to get there or 3 hours for the county to get there to give you your tie beam inspection, your insulation inspection, whatever. You cannot do what the industry's requiring us to do today if we don't move towards these type of -- of ideas which is, you know, inspections in-house or whatever. And by the way, it's being done there, and it's working very well by both the county's standpoint and the private side standpoint. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Doug, I know we used some of your five minutes in our questions. But if you can wrap it up, I'd appreciate it. MR. NELSON: State licensing for inspectors is extremely different than just contractor licensing. Ninety-nine -- a hundred percent of the inspectors that are qualified today to be these threshold inspectors or whatever are former employees of the county or whatever. It's a -- it's a whole different ballgame. As Bill said, it's not easy to do. Whatever. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. No questions? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Love that conclusion. MR. HARGETT: Madam Chairman, there's one additional speaker. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: One additional speaker? MR. NELSON: Thank you. I'm sorry I went over my five. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock, you had a question. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I want to ask Doug real quick. Let me be absolutely clear on this. MR. NELSON: Uh-huh. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: If we invoke all of this or if we adopt all of these, we're talking a 3 to 7 percent potential increase in construction costs. If we don't, is the potential cost to the home builder more than that 3 to 7 percent? MR. NELSON: Absolutely. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I need you to explain a little more clearly why. You said state mandates and made vague reference, but I didn't follow. MR. NELSON: The '89 code -- if we don't go to '91 which allows us to go to -- help me out -- the code we're using which is our Collier County hurricane wind ordinance code requires us to go to deem to comply. Deem to comply which we supplemented with our other code which is called the Collier County hurricane wind load ordinance is a cookbook fashion of an extremely unrealistic and restrictive building code. So that alone allows us a lot of latitude to do things less -- more cost effective, let's say. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Will this then in some way replace the hurricane code that was passed? MR. SMITH: Yes, sir. MR. NELSON: We have -- that's correct. The -- the Collier County hurricane wind load ordinance was originally passed in '93. MR. SMITH: Right after -- MR. NELSON: 93-64. And what we've done is the county or staff or the industry, whatever, got together with a whole bunch of engineers and went through -- jeez, it was forever -- workshops and looked at what's good about it, what's bad about it, and made a whole bunch of corrections, updates, and -- and -- and tweaked the thing. Now everybody likes it. And it's -- and it's better, more cost effective, more realistic or whatever and definitely more cost effective. It also gives us the ability to build things that weren't in there before. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Let me ask this then. The hurricane code at the time it was passed, though I voted against it, was said to cause a probable increase of about $4,000 per home on $100,000 home. Is this 3 to 7 percent over and above that, or are we taking into consideration that that will be negated? MR. NELSON: You know, I have to be honest with you. I spend -- what I do for my -- for my business is budgeting and the dollars and following them. I couldn't tell you with any amount of certainty whether it's 10,000 or 3,000 because it's very different in every structure. I can absolutely guarantee you it's more expensive. The hurricane wind code in my opinion was a knee jerk reaction to the hurricane. It was unnecessary. It was whatever. But because it came in and it was so stringent and the building -- because of the insurance lobby caused the -- the building codes in general to be so comprehensive, what we did with a Collier County hurricane wind load ordinance is made that a realistic and effective code for our county that was then accepted by the state for our use. So the real -- the real solution there is that can we do something that the industry got together with county staff and all agree is a better code for our area? Or should we use what is industry -- which is insurance lobbied and state mandated that does not make any sense? That's really the bottom line. So, you know, it's a cost factor, yes. But the issue is do we want to be doing the best thing for our community? And by far, it's the code that we're proposing get passed today. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. MR. NELSON: Thanks. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just while you're coming up, the only troubling thing that I'm -- that I'm hearing is the best thing for our industry and -- and -- and the best -- I'm trusting that when you say the best thing for our industry you mean because of your responsibility to the public to build, you know, the best thing for the community. It's a little troubling to hear that when I'm hearing that this is at least going to make you 7 to 10 percent more money than you were making before this code. MR. NELSON: I -- I don't think that's the case at all. I do not believe that there's a builder out there that's making a penny more on the -- on the -- on the hurricane code. I think it's costing us business, and it's a pain. But it's a necessary evil. It's essentially if you want, you know, a blunt opinion, it's the -- it's the -- it's the best of all the evils. We have looked at it and said this is a code that works for us, and it -- and it meets all the national and state standards, and it's -- it's better for the industry to have than if we go with a state-mandated code which makes no sense. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: When you say it's better for the industry, you don't mean because it's going to make more money for builders. You mean because it will result in a better product? MR. NELSON: It will result in a better product. And -- and maybe I'm not making it clear. The product is if it was left up to the building lobby which is essentially the insurance industry, we -- we would all be building hurricane-proof homes, and they'd cost tremendous amounts of money. I think that's silly. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Of course it is. MR. SMITH: You get to a point -- what Mr. Nelson's trying to say is you get to a point with the deem to comply codes and some of these other codes where the -- where the mind-set was, if we require one, let's go to two or three so it has to be better. When he refers to the industry, he's referring to the home industry as such, I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong. He's not referring just to his group of contractors, no. He's referring that the customer -- that the consumer, the customer, and the contractor get a better product. Everybody's protected. MR. NELSON: Banks, title industries, related -- everybody. It's -- it's not -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I knew that had to be what you meant, but I just wanted your -- your statement to be clear on the record that you weren't speaking for builders that this is great for us. MR. NELSON: Oh, no. It's not. It's -- it's ridiculous for us. In fact, most -- you know, we could talk forever without the five-minute thing about the ridiculous codes that we have every day, you know, those stupid things that you trip over on your -- you shut your garage door off. I mean, that's the most absurd thing that was ever put into the building code. The -- the -- the stair rail -- the hand rail issue that -- that we just went through is -- is an absurd issue. I mean, it's -- it's crazy. But we have to deal with them because they're mandated by state. And until we get our state legislators to see some light, we're going to have to go with the best one it has. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Fine. MR. WARD: Commissioners, my name is -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Ward. MR. WARD: -- Whit Ward. I represent the Collier Builder Industry Association. I can talk about the administrative code which will take about 15 seconds. I can also talk about the building code if you would like. But it seems to me that we're on the administrative code first, so let me just tell you that the Development Services Steering Committee has reviewed this code at some length several times, and they have endorsed it. The -- our Governmental Affairs Committee -- the Collier Building Industry Association has reviewed and endorsed the administrative code. The Builders' Round Table which is like our codes committee has reviewed and endorsed the code. And our board of directors finally have endorsed this administrative code. And so rather than go into a lot of the things that I know that Doug has already discussed with you, let me just tell you that we have very diligently looked at this code, and we are unanimously recommending it for adoption. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Commissioner Constantine? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I want to do a little reality check here. And I understand the majority of the board will probably vote in favor of these. However, 1992 I think -- help me here -- was it the last time we -- I wasn't on the -- none of us were on the board at the time -- that the board increased impact fees? MR. WARD: Yes. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That was about $1,500 if I recall. And I remember doing a check with -- doing some background information with local bankers in the Golden Gate community. And what we did was pulled every $100,000 or less mortgage that was approved that year from three or four of the banks out there. And what we found is of those hundred thousand dollar mortgages that had been approved, one in four, 24.7 percent, would not have been approved if there was an extra 1,500 bucks on there. That's how close it is for people whether or not they're getting their -- what I assume is their first home. Since that time that -- that board increased impact fees $1,500. Hurricane code added 4,000. Our impact fees as a total are 6,000. We're now told this will be up to 7 percent, so that could be another 7,000. You've got seventeen to twenty thousand dollars in a home before you have one stick of wood down. And we're creating a situation where it's impossible for the people on the lower end of the scale to have the American dream, to have a house. And I don't think -- we're not talking about anything fancy here. We're talking about the smallest allowable homes in the county, and -- and $100,000 isn't buying a lot of home in Collier County right now. Whether we move forward with adopting these or not, I would like to suggest that as part of any motion we make today we assign to our productivity committee who comes to us from time to time saying, what exactly would you like us to be doing, I'd like them to go through our building codes and hit on some of the items like Doug is pointing out that are foolishness in there and try to pick out item by item -- and I don't -- I don't care what time frame it takes them. It may take six months to go through there and do that. And I'm sure CBIA would help -- but go through and take out some of the foolishness. And -- and if we have to have some of these things to make sure our homes are safe or to make sure we don't have other cost alternatives hitting us, that's one thing. But I think we need to go through and -- and cut down on the expense, this being it, because we are cutting out a whole segment of our population from having the ability to own a home. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I agree with that 100 percent. I -- I -- I think we have to go forward with adopting these codes, and I'm going to support doing that. But my -- my limited involvement in the industry, it's -- you guys know better than anybody just how absurd a whole lot of what we have is. So I -- if the productivity committee is the right place for it to go, maybe it's development services committee. I don't know where it is, but I'd sure like to support that. MR. SMITH: Part of what we had -- part of -- if I could respond to Commissioner Constantine. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah. MR. SMITH: The -- the 7 percent was on the 10,000 to up square foot home. The 3 percent was on the 1,500 to 2,000 square foot Golden Gate home that -- that you make reference to or you said Golden Gate area or whatever. The permit fees, impact fees, on your Golden Gate home -- and you mentioned 1,500 -- run anywhere between 3,500 to $6,000 depending on what they're doing. That's your permit fees, your impact fees. The 3 percent is -- is a gross figure of what we've done cumulative of the $4,000 figure that you said that they were given in '92 which I wasn't here for. So if that's what they told you, I guess that's what it is. But when we did a cost comparison, we actually took houses that were in, gave them to local contractors and said, here's today's code. Tell me what this house is going to cost. And what I'm trying to explain to you is it was a 3 percent overall or a 7 percent overall depending on the size of the house. It was not a 7 percent for the little one and a 3 percent for the high one. And that was hard, true costs. What Doug referred to before is a lot of the things and a lot of the costs that's going into this are better materials, but they're still labor intensive. They're still doing it like strapping. I mean, every truss and every -- and every anchoring requires an anchoring, a truss, or a clip. The new code talks about having -- or the new code refers to maybe a bigger clip or a bigger strap, but they're already -- they've already got the labor there by putting the strap in. But whether it's a three-inch strap or a five-inch strap is what we get into. We get into a little more detail for the masonry -- tie-downs for the masonry foundation into the gable ends and into the balloon framing to stop some of the failures that they had and some of the problems that they were having in their reports. As we have found out later, the hurricane problem reports, even though that we hit the market with them after August and between August and January, there were a lot of reports done which is what prompted Collier County's first hurricane ordinance. The -- the true findings to most of the reports and by the engineers and by the American Society for Civil Engineers didn't really come out till the summer after the year which our code had already been passed in an -- in an effort to try to alleviate some of those problems and try to get a quick fix. So comprehensively we've gone back through all of the reports that were put out to date and tried to come up with a common sense -- like Commissioner Constantine mentioned, a common sense approach, something that was a little bit easier. Some of the uncommon sense items like Doug was referring to is in the standard building code. It was not in the Collier County code that we adopt. And -- and as those come up, we've -- we've had meetings, and we are trying to settle some of those. And -- and fortunately it leaves it to the discretion of the building official. And when we sit down and have these meetings, we try to come up with a common sense approach if that will help. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mac'Kie? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: think we're -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Just -- just a question. I -- I I think we're pretty close. Are you saying that you think it's a bad idea to send this to productivity or development services committee to review for these kinds of issues? MR. SMITH: Well, I don't know that it's a bad idea to have more people looking at it. But what I'm telling you is we have a mechanism in place now. When the contractors' association brings them up and -- and they have problems, we do sit down and brainstorm these, and we do have meetings with the CBIA, and we do discuss them at the round tables. We do discuss them at the governmental affairs so -- COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: How do you feel about that, Mr. Ward? MR. WARD: Commissioner, I think it's an excellent idea. It's -- it's always good to have a group of -- of people who are not directly involved which we are, they certainly are to look at things because sometimes they can offer solutions that we don't think -- we're so deep into the forest that we can't see it. And -- and -- and that's always good. I think it's an excellent idea. I -- I -- we do obviously support this code and the building code. We think it's much better than deem to comply because deem to comply does things like it restricts the architectural ability to do some of the things we like to do especially close to the beach in more expensive houses. You know, it just is -- you've got to have this wall, this wall, and this roof, and you can't have an overhang over 18 inches and those kinds of things. And you -- you can only have so much glass, and it just doesn't give you that -- the freedom to build like we build in this county, and -- and that's why we are avoiding -- we -- we want to avoid deem to comply. In addition to that, it's more expensive because it's -- it's worse than -- what we did is -- in the sheeting that goes on the roof as an example, we -- we have a nailing pattern. You have to nail it every six inches and every four inches along the -- the edge, and you'd have to nail the drip edge and you'd have to -- you have more -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MR. WARD: More bracing in the trusses, and we actually have pictures of that stuff. And so that's why we like this code better than deem to comply. They're both more expensive. Deem to comply is the most expensive. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: At an a -- if it's appropriate, if the public hearing can get closed -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I haven't closed the public hearing yet. MR. WARD: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank -- thank you, Mr. Ward. I just to want make a comment because I -- and -- and -- and I think I'm -- what I'm saying's correct. And Mr. Smith can certainly correct me if it's not. But these -- these are building codes and fire codes. They're consensus standards. They don't have the force of law. MR. SMITH: Well, they're adopted by ordinance. Yes, they do. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, but they're consensus standards within the codes themselves. I -- I know the NFPA is because I've -- I've -- I've got the NFPA, all 16 or 18 volumes, at home. And -- and every single paragraph has alternatives that's not cut and dried. MR. SMITH: Well, the codes are minimum. When you say they're not cut and dried, they give you direction, and they give you guidelines. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Uh-huh. MR. SMITH: The building official still has the ultimate authority to interpret if that's your question. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's -- that's -- that's exactly what I'm saying. MR. SMITH: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That they are not cut and dried. Commissioner Mac'Kie, do you have more? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just -- just that these -- these codes that we're considering adopting are, as Mr. Ward said, thou shalt nail your nails so many inches apart. And -- and then they have the force of law if we adopt them today. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Some -- some parts. MR. SMITH: Well, that's true, but they also say that if there's an alternative method or it's proven that there's an alternative method, you -- you -- you do have the ability in some instances to use that alternative method. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's what I mean by consensus standards. MR. SMITH: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There's a goal to -- to get to a point, and they make a suggestion as to how to get to that point. But if you've got a better idea, that's okay too. MR. SMITH: I have one thing further, and then I will be here just for questions only. If you elect to pass these codes today, we would like you to let the administrative code take effect when it comes back from the Secretary of State. All the other codes we would ask that they don't take effect till July 1 to give the industry some time to recognize them. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Fine. I'm going to close the public hearing. Is there a motion? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll make a motion, and I'll -- I'll start with item 12 whatever 4. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Four. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And then we can run through them one at a time, and then I'd like to conclude by making a motion we set some direction for our productivity committee. But motion that we approve item 4, superseding Collier County ordinance 9156. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve ordinance ninety -- the repealing and superseding of 9156. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I'll say all of these are subject to Mr. Smith's comments there as far as going into effect. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: To take effect July 1 of '95. MR. CUYLER: No, this one takes effect immediately. The administrative code you want to take effect immediately. MR. SMITH: That's correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MR. CUYLER: This is the only one that takes effect immediately. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Fine. This one will take effect when it's returned from the Secretary of State. MR. SMITH: Yes. MR. CUYLER: Correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: If there's no further discussion, call the question. All those in favor please say aye. Motion passes four to zero with Commissioner Hancock absent. Item #12C5 ORDINANCE 95-17 RE THE "STANDARD MECHANICAL CODE, 1994 EDITION" AS PUBLISHED BY THE SOUTHERN BUILDING CODE CONGRESS INTERNATIONAL, INC. - ADOPTED AND TO BECOME EFFECTIVE 7/1/95 COHHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll make a motion to approve staff recommendation on item 5 that the BCC adopt ordinance known as the standard mechanical code 1994 edition. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Second. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Effective July? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The rest of these will all be effective, as Mr. Smith indicated, July 1 of this year. MR. SMITH: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second. No further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. I heard that fifth. Motion passes five to zero. Item #12C6 ORDINANCE 95-18 RE THE "NATIONAL ELECTRICAL CODE, 1993 EDITION" AS PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION ASSOCIATION - ADOPTED AND TO BECOME EFFECTIVE 7/1/95 COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, I'll make a motion we approve national electric code 1993 edition to take effect July 1. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second. If there's no further discussion, I'll call the question. All in favor say aye. Motion passes five to zero. Item #12C7 ORDINANCE 95-19 RE THE "STANDARD PLUMBING CODE, 1994 EDITION" AS PUBLISHED BY THE SOUTHERN BUILDING CODE CONGRESS INTERNATIONAL, INC. - ADOPTED AND TO BECOME EFFECTIVE 7/1/95 COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, recommendation the BCC -- motion to approve recommendation BCC adopt ordinance standard plumbing code 1994 edition. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second. If there's no further discussion, all those in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion passes five to zero. Item #12C8 ORDINANCE 95-20 THE "1991 EDITION OF THE STANDARD BUILDING CODE" AS PUBLISHED BY THE SOUTHERN BUILDING CODE GONRESS INTERNATIONAL - ADOPTED AND TO BECOME EFFECTIVE 7/1/95 COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, recommendation item 8, motion to approve as outlined here 1991 edition of the standard building code. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Motion and a second. Discussion? All those in favor say aye. Motion passes five to zero. Item #12C9 ORDINANCE 95-21 THE "STANDARD GAS CODE, 1994 EDITION" AS PUBLISHED BY THE SOUTHERN BUILDING CODE CONGRESS INTERNATIONAL, INC. - ADOPTED AND TO BECOME EFFECTIVE 7/1/95 COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, item 9, recommendation BCC ordinance standard gas code 1994 edition, I'll move to approve that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second. Discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Motion passes five to zero. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And, Madam Chairman, I'll make a motion we give direction to our productivity committee acting as the lead but working in concert with Developmental Services Committee, CBIA, and any other interested parties to review as detailed as they possibly can item by item current codes looking for ways to preserve our safety and health but cut costs. MR. SMITH: I have -- I have one thing before we adjourn or before we -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. MR. SMITH: The building code that Commissioner Constantine approved, the 1991 edition, that also needs to include Collier County amendments, and he didn't say that technically. Does that still include that, or does he need to say that? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He said staff recommendation. MR. CUYLER: It's part of the staff recommendation. Yeah, that's okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Then it's covered. We have a motion to direct our productivity committee to look into our building codes and find -- find ways -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Question on the motion. Is the productivity committee really the best route, or is development services subcommittee in itself the -- the best way to go with that? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think as -- MR. SMITH: Mr. -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If I can answer that, my intent there, I think as Mr. Ward said, is perhaps to have a fresh set of eyes and people that are not necessarily dealing with that day in and day out. And that's why I did include acting in concert with Developmental Services Committee. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But I just thought have some people who are going in fresh and have not been pouring over this thing in the past. MR. SMITH: I think what we could probably do is after the productivity reviews it, then we could take it onto the steering committee then for their ideas. That would work. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. We have -- we have a motion and a second to give direction to productivity committee. If there's no further discussion -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm sorry. Did we have a second? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: second. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: aye. Opposed? MR. SMITH: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: passes five to zero. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't hear. Yeah, we did. We do have a My role. Second. All those in favor please say Have a nice -- There being no opposition, motion Thank you. Item #12C10 ORDINANCE 95-22 ESTABLISHING THE IHMOKALEE ENTERPRISE ZONE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY (EZDA); RESOLUTION 95-249 APPOINTING MEMBERS TO THE AGENCY; RESOLUTION 95-248 NOMINATING THE IHMOKALEE COHMUNITY FOR STATE ENTERPRISE ZONE DESIGNATION - ADOPTED COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Question on -- on the item 10, is there any reason why we'd be opposing this? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I can't imagine any reason. I believe Mr. Mihalic, though, has something he needs to get on the record. MR. MIHALIC: Couple things, Commissioner. I'd like to define the recommendations a little bit more accurately than the way they were in the executive summary. We need a recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners adopt the resolution nominating the Immokalee community for state enterprise zone designation, to adopt the ordinance establishing the enterprise zone development agency, to approve the resolution appointing the members of the enterprise zone development agency, and to authorize the housing and urban improvement department to submit to the state any relevant documentation to complete the enterprise zone application and have the chairman to sign these documents when necessary as approved by the county attorney. We would also like to put a cover sheet and a table of contents on the summary that you received. This is the actual application for the enterprise zone. You received a summary in your package. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It looks like deja vue on the empowerment zone. MR. MIHALIC: It -- it is really based on the empowerment zone application. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do you guys want to read through that tonight before we approve it? MR. MIHALIC: Yeah. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Can we go page by page? COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Aloud. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'll see you all later. MR. MIHALIC: I'll be happy to discuss it further or talk about its implication to the Immokalee community if you'd like. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Are there public speakers? MR. HARGETT: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MR. HARGETT: Betsy Figueroa. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Before she comes up, I do have a question for staff. Mr. Mihalic, on page 4 of your staff report -- MR. HIHALIC: Yes. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- just about every element says 200,000 in tax credit, 5,000 in sales tax refunds, 10,000 in sales tax refunds. Are these all to be funded out of the grant monies? MR. HIHALIC: No, these are to be funded by the state. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: By the state. MR. HIHALIC: The state provides the incentives, and they really are most effective when you're dealing with corporations. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. MR. HIHALIC: If you are not a corporation, your incentives are much more limited. Most -- most of them are credits against your corporate income taxes. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: So the fiscal impact line that says this request will have no fiscal impact is pretty much true then. MR. HIHALIC: No fiscal impact to Collier County. Now, let me just state we're talking about this economic development coordinator, and there's been some discussion in the paper that there's $50,000 to pay for the -- part of the staffing costs of that person. That is not from the enterprise zone grant at all. There is no money that we receive from the county for the enterprise zone grant so -- so you understand that. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me ask one more question quickly. MR. HIHALIC: Yes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Where do I find a list of the members that are going to be on this board? MR. HIHALIC: On page -- the last -- page 90 and 91, which lists the members of the enterprise zone development agency. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I've got them. Thank you. MR. HIHALIC: And they're fairly defined categories of persons that we needed to apply. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Yes. MS. FIGUEROA: I'm Betsy Figueroa, and I'm the assistant executive director of the Immokalee Foundation, and Parker Collier was not able to come today, though she wanted to be here, so I'm relaying a message from Parker. The foundation supports this enterprise zone designation for Immokalee. And as the county commissioners are aware, Immokalee has declared through its own community assessment and through its empowerment zone application that job creation is its number one priority. And the creation of and your support of this enterprise zone would be a big help to us. So we'd like it to go forward. Thanks. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, if you'll close the public hearing, I'll gladly make a motion to approve the item. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think that was the last speaker. Is that the last speaker? MR. HARGETT: That is the last speaker. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'll close the public hearing. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll make a motion we approve the item. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve an ordinance establishing the Immokalee Enterprise Development Agency. And if there's no further discussion, I'll call the question. All in favor please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes five to zero. MR. MIHALIC: Thank you, Commissioners. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Mihalic. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Another great tie, Greg. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Having concluded the afternoon agenda, we are to communications. We have three items I think on -- listed here at this point. Commission district redistricting, I believe Mr. Dotrill was going to -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Excuse me just a minute. We had a couple items under staff. I did have something under BCC which I didn't mention earlier today. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Item #14A LOBBYING EFFORTS IN TALLAHASSEE - WEEKLY UPDATE TO BE FAXED TO ALL THREE COUNTIES COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The -- couple of you have already gone to Tallahassee on our lobbying thing. Do we have a title for that? COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I think lobbying thing works. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Lobbying thing. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Maybe we'll find a name for it this summer. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm due to go in a couple of weeks. I wondered if it is possible that rather than just read the notes when we get there -- get there that everyone has kept if we might be able to get an update weekly so that I know before I get there what direction everyone is headed, who they've met with, what they've achieved, and so on. I just think it would be more effective. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Certainly we can ask Miss Filson to send a fax because we probably don't have an answering machine there yet but to send a fax to the apartment asking whoever's there this week to make a synopsis and to fax that out to all three counties. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Someone from Charlotte County is there this week. I talked to him last week. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Great. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. I don't think that's much of a problem to accomplish that. Commissioner Norris? Item #14B LETTER PREPARED FOR LEGISLATIVE REVIEW RE BIG MARCO PASS CRITICAL WILDLIFE AREA - LETTER TO ALSO BE SENT TO GOVERNOR AND CABINET COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes. One thing -- and I apologize. I -- I just completely forgot to mention it during the other portion of the BCC agenda. The -- the letter that we sent last week to our legislative delegation, it is now apparently time to send that to our Governor and cabinet members or a similar letter. And I'd like board authorization to reword that a little bit to make it more appropriate for the Governor and cabinet and to authorize the chairman to go ahead and -- and forward that letter on up. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Are you looking for a motion? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COMMISSIONER NORRIS: consensus. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Direction. Direction, just approval, Consensus. Consensus. So done. I think you got it. I'll work on that tomorrow. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So consented. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Good. Fine. Commissioner Hancock, I think you had something too. Item #14C INTERNAL AUDIT OF UTILITIES DIVISION - DISCUSSED COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah, I do. No offense, Mr. Hargett. I'd hoped Mr. Dotrill could be here for this. I don't know if you'll have the answer. I just found out that there's an audit of our utility department that's going on that has emanated from somewhere and -- MR. HART: It was in the paper. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Huh? MR. HART: It was in the paper. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: When I say just, I mean in the last week, but I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to update everyone on a daily basis. But I found that out, and I guess I just wanted to know where that came from because it seems like a pretty good -- you know, a staff kind of a thing. And -- and I think the clerk's office is involved, and I'd just -- I thought it was strange that an audit's going on that I didn't know about because it sounded kind of big. So I'm in a -- I'm the rookie. I can ask these questions. Who orders those, and -- and how do -- in this particular case how did it come about? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I take a stab at that, Mr. Hargett? MR. HARGETT: Sure, sure. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You don't look really excited about that. That may be partially anyway from me. The clerk's office doesn't really need a request, so he tells us, to do these audits. And I had spoken with Jim probably in November -- I think it was November -- about some concerns I had with utilities and so on. Since that time he's apparently seen the productivity committee report on that and some of the concerns they have and I guess he's -- I'm guessing now. This portion is from the article but gone through the old Coopers and Lybrand audit as well and so on and so forth. But he and I had this discussion last November. And he had said then that they would do that but that it would be February, March before they got around to it because they were busy auditing other things at the time. So I don't know that I was the catalyst, but I think I may have played some small role in that anyway. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. I just -- I'm -- again, I feel like I'm in the dark here. And if it was -- if it was stemmed from a productivity committee report -- correct me if I'm wrong -- did we -- have we accepted officially that particular report from the productivity committee? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No. And again, I don't think that -- Steve, you've talked to them. Maybe you can help us here. I don't think from -- MR. HART: I'm just a reporter. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: When I spoke to Jim, I don't think that was -- I don't think any single thing is the catalyst. He and I talked about it. I had some concerns. He's apparently heard that elsewhere. He saw the -- that report as well and has moved forward. And again, they don't need our authority to do that. But as far as communication, he and I had spoken when I was serving as chair. So he had tried to make some communication with the board on that. So -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I -- I have one little bit of information about that, too, because I had -- you might have seen the clerk here visiting with me earlier in the meeting today. He -- he came by because I had asked that someone from the clerk's office be here while we discussed the utilities privatization issue so that we could ask questions about the -- the audit that we all read about in the newspaper. And basically what I -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm sorry. When was this in the newspaper? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Over the weekend. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. I'm still catching up from last -- MR. HART: Sunday. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Sunday, yeah, because I -- when I got back from Maryland, I remember seeing it. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And basically what he said is that there had been a request from a -- that had emanated out of the county commission. Now I'm assuming that must be -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's probably me. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's probably you when you were the chair. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Because this board has not requested that. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But -- but that it had come from a commissioner and that he -- he was trying to get more information about it as well. There wasn't a whole lot -- he didn't know -- it was his attempt to facilitate this board. He was trying to do what he was asked to do by this board or by a commissioner and so -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I don't want to make this bigger than -- than it is. It just sounds like that something has been acted on in -- in good faith and a request and so forth. I just feel that when we are going to investigate a county department or if another constitutional officer is that this board as a whole should be aware of it and either have part in it or -- or object to it. I'm certainly not objecting. I'm just saying that I felt it very strange that the clerk was going to be auditing a county department and I knew nothing of it. I was uncomfortable with that. And I would prefer that if you see something going that you think is maybe going in a unilateral way that it may be a -- another officer's acting on something that you mentioned to them, if you would let us know about it before we read it in the paper, it would help me tremendously. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just for clarification's sake, after -- in response to what you said, Pam, I did have discussions with them. At no time did I represent that to be on behalf of the board. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, no. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Those were clearly my opinions that I shared with him. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I apologize if I -- if I misstated because he didn't -- he just said a commissioner. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm just trying to obtain some form of -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Understand. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- consensus on policy here. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let me -- let me make a -- let me make a comment on this, too, because I -- I think one of the things I'm hearing here is that there's a little bit of concern that efforts are being conducted in behalf of the board of county -- county commissioners when the board as a whole has not discussed it. And if memory serves me, in January we discussed putting together an administrative code, and this is an example of why we need it for what the protocol is going to be in discussing things between ourselves and discussing things with constitutional officers and -- and so forth. And I don't know how -- how close you are to having something done on that. But -- but do you think that at the workshop in May that we might be able to -- COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- to move forward on that because I see as this county grows and as things get more complicated the need -- COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Absolutely. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- is greater and greater. So I'll ask Mr. Dorrill then to put the administrative code on the agenda for the May workshop. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Great. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I think -- and I certainly didn't mean any discouraging comments towards your efforts. I just -- I was seeking some level of consensus on policy for my benefit. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Agreed. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you. MR. HARGETT: If I could make a comment to follow up on that, I'd say probably at all times there's some audit going on. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: At all times. MR. HARGETT: I know Mr. Mitchell does on an annual basis sit down and develop a list of areas that based on history and how soon he's -- how long ago it was before he was there does come up with a list of areas that he's going to -- his work plan for the next year. There are also occasions that -- that when there's a turnover of key personnel in key departments involving lots of financial transactions, we have asked him to come in as we have changed the leadership there to look at those. Other areas where we might anticipate a problem, we do make a request that he look at those areas as well for us. And for the most part I think you could say we look at him, you know, as part of the support staff and -- and coming in and looking at those things and giving us, you know, a real indication of what's going on. So we have made those as well. And he works them in as his time permits. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I appreciate that, and I'm not trying to handcuff you in any way. MR. HARGETT: I just wanted to fill the gap. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Maybe if you'll let us know when -- when you're requesting those, it makes my world a lot easier. Item #14D LETTER FROM BLACK AFFAIRS ADVISORY BOARD REQUESTING MEETING - CHAIRMAN TO FORWARD LETTER OF RESPONSE CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Moving -- moving right along since we're doing commissioner communications, I have received a letter from Henry Tribble regarding the Black Affairs Advisory Board, and my -- and our letter to him requesting they give us information about what their purpose is and so forth. The letter I received from him is -- is another request for what amounts to a very large meeting of a lot of people other than the advisory board. And what I have drafted is a letter back to him making him an offer similar to what we offered the Hispanic advisory board, that we have a brown bag lunch with advisory board members only and -- and to try to formulate some sort of -- of direction to the black affairs board, and -- and I -- I -- I don't feel at this point that we should at a luncheon meeting have community leaders from all over the county to give direction to our Black Affairs Advisory Board. It's our board, and we should give -- give that direction. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So that's the letter I'm -- I'm sending off to him. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Not -- not -- I have no argument with that in particular. I just -- you know, I'm curious how -- what would be wrong with a big meeting? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Not -- there's nothing particularly wrong with a big meeting, but that's not -- that is not the essence of what we were asking for. If we want to put a large, full-blown public meeting on the agenda as a result of our brown bag lunch -- COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- that's fine. I've got no problem. But I don't think that we should be extending to the Black Affairs Advisory Board anything more than we've extended others. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think it's simply we need to crawl before we can walk there. We don't seem to have a direction with those boards. And we ought to set one with this board and the advisory board before we invite the entire community to participate. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: In addition, I will say that the civil rights forum that was held, that was a -- supposedly a big community thing. We had three commissioners in attendance at that. And, of course, because it wasn't advertised, we had to take shifts. We couldn't be in the room at the same time. So we took shifts, and that was a -- a really terrific thing. And -- and it was informative, and I think it's exactly what we've been looking for. So hopefully we'll bring that to light in these meetings with the HAAB and the BAAB to encourage more of those because it was -- it was -- it was a good event. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm presuming that we want to have a separate brown -- brown bag lunch with each of them so we can -- so that we can discuss their individual issues and not -- and not get them confused. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I think we would like that very much. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, so I think we're going to be seeing a couple of Tuesdays of -- I'm going to be asking you to bring your lunch. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: How about April the 4th and the llth? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't think it's going to be quite that soon, Commissioner Norris. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Just kidding. gone? gone? COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Is that when you're going to be COHHISSIONER NORRIS: Hmm? COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Is that when you're going to be COMMISSIONER NORRIS: No. The -- the thing is that let's -- let's all keep in mind that the duties, responsibilities, and authorities of these boards are all specifically spelled out in the ordinances already. If they want to get in there and -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think that's a problem with these two boards. It is not spelled out. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, then what we need to do is -- is to clarify their -- their direction for them. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Uh-huh. That's what they're asking for. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, that doesn't -- I agree with you then that that does not take the -- the input of community leaders from all around the county because it's a -- it's a county commission-authorized board. And we're the one who sets the direction of them. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Hence the essence of the letter that I'm -- I'm sending to them. Item #15A & B COMMISSION DISTRICT REDISTRICTING AND PILOT PROGRAM FOR CHANNEL 54 - NO ACTION Mr. Hargett, there are two items that Mr. Dorrill had brought forward. MR. HARGETT: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Are you prepared to discuss them, or are we going to talk about them next week? MR. HARGETT: He has asked that -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Where is our beloved manager at this hour? MR. HARGETT: He had to leave. He has asked that -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No particular reason? He just had to leave? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Moving right along. MR. HARGETT: I did not -- he did not share that with me. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's just a legitimate question. He's been in and out all day. I'm just curious where he -- where he's been. Probably working on a resume. I don't know. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tim. MR. HARGETT: He has suggested that he place these two items on your one-on-one agendas and speak to you and bring it back at a subsequent date if that's appropriate. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Fine. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: What a timely suggestion. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'll put it on my -- I'll put it on my agenda for next Monday then. I guess with that then we are finished. MR. CUYLER: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Cuyler. We keep thinking. MR. CUYLER: I am pleased to announce -- and I will tell you later when I'm buying beers -- but we have the final judgment for defendants in the tourist tax case signed by Judge Reese which means the six million dollars is now available for use for tourist tax purposes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So we can move that money out of escrow and put it into the tourist tax funding -- MR. CUYLER: You can move it into the appropriate categories. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Good. Good news. We're finished. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Miss Filson. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Miss Filson, we're done? MS. FILSON: I have nothing. You can be adjourned. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We're adjourned. ***** Commissioner Constantine moved, seconded by Commissioner Hancock, that the following items under the Consent Agenda be approved and/or adopted 5/0 with the exception of Item #16B1 - 4/0 (Commissioner Hac'Kie abstained) ***** Item #16A1 ACCEPTANCE OF A REPLACEHENT MAINTENANCE SECURITY FOR THE INFRASTRUCTURE WITHIN "FALLING WATERS", ENTER INTO A SUPPLEMENTAL AGREEMENT, RELEASE DEVELOPER'S MORTGAGE SECURITY See Pages Item #16A2 RESOLUTION 95-236 APPROVAL OF THE RECORDING OF THE FINAL PLAT OF "FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF NAPLES" See Pages Item #16A3 ACCEPTANCE OF WATER FACILITIES FOR CANTERBURY HOUSE AT THE VINEYARDS O. R. Book Pages Item #16A4 RESOLUTION 95-237 FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE ROADWAY, DRAINAGE, WATER AND SEWER IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE FINAL PLAT OF "VINEYARDS ARBOR GLEN" See Pages Item #16A5 ACCEPTANCE OF WATER AND SEWER FACILITIES FOR FOUNTAINHEAD AT THE VINEYARDS O. R. Book Pages Item #16B1 PETITION AV 94-005 TO VACATE PORTIONS OF DRAINAGE EASEHENTS LOCATED ON A PARCEL OF LAND LYING IN SECTION 33, TOWNSHIP 48 SOUTH, RANGE 25 EAST, AS RECORDED IN OFFICIAL RECORD BOOK 1833, PAGE 1825, AND OFFICIAL RECORD BOOK 1236, PAGE 1726, OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS OF COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA See Pages Item #1682 RESOLUTION 95-238 FOR THE SALE OF COUNTY OWNED PROPERTY TO THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION FOR ROADWAY IMPROVEMENTS See Pages Item #1683 AWARD CONTRACT TO COHMERCIAL LAND MAINTENANCE, INC. FOR HEDIAN AND SELECTED PUBLIC AREA GROUNDS MAINTENANCE FOR THE IHMOKALEE BEAUTIFICATION H.S.T.U.; BID NO. 95-2330; IN THE A_MOUNT OF $60,087.16 Item #16C1 REJECT BID 94-2182 FOR A CONCESSION OPERATION AT THE GOLDEN GATE AQUATIC FACILITY AND DIRECT STAFF TO RE-BID THE CONCESSION OPERATION AT THE AQUATIC FACILITY Item #16C2 RECOGNITION OF PRIVATE CONTRIBUTIONS FOR THE GRAND OPENING OF VINEYARDS COHMUNITY PARK Item #16El RESOLUTION 95-239 APPROVAL OF UTILITY EASEMENT TO THE FP&L COMPANY FOR THE INSTALLATION OF ELECTRICAL SERVICES FOR THE NORTH NAPLES FIRE STATION LOCATED AT THE NORTH NAPLES EMERGENCY SERVICE COMPLEX ON VANDERBILT BEACH ROAD (PELICAN BAY) See Pages Item #16E2 AWARD AGREEMENTS FOR GENERAL CONTRACTORS SERVICES ON AN AS NEEDED BASES (RFP-2334) TO VANDERBILT BAY, CHRIS-TEL, SURETY AND VARIAN CONSTRUCTION Item #16E3 RESOLUTION 95-240 AUTHORIZING EXPENDITURE OF FUNDS FOR MARCH OF DIMES WALK AMERICA ACTIVITIES See Pages Item #16H1 APPROVAL OF CERTIFICATE OF FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AS PREREQUISITE FOR FDEP PERMIT TO CONSTRUCT DEEP WELL INJECTION AT THE SOUTH COUNTY REGIONAL WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT See Pages Item #16H2 RESOLUTION 95-241 APPROVAL TO ADMINISTRATIVELY ADJUST A CERTAIN NON-AD VALOREH ASSESSMENT FOR THE NAPLES PRODUCTION PARK HSTU See Pages Item #16H3 AWARD CONTRACT FOR BID NO. 95-2321, LANDSCAPE IMPROVEMENTS IN PHASE II OF THE LELY GOLF ESTATES MEDIAN BEAUTIFICATION PROJECT TO HANNULA LANDSCAPING, INC. IN THE A_MOUNT OF $13,768.97 Item #16H4 APPROVAL OF BUDGET AMENDMENTS RECOGNIZING CARRY FORWARD FOR ROAD PROJECTS IN FUNDS 313, 331, 333, 338 AND 339 Item #16H5 AWARD CONTRACT FOR BID NO. 95-2322, IRRIGATION IMPROVEMENTS IN PHASE IV OF THE LELY GOLF ESTATES MEDIAN BEAUTIFICATION PROJECT, TO AQUA-FFICIENT POROUS PIPE, IN THE AMOUNT OF $13,523.50 Item #16H6 APPROVAL OF A PURCHASE ORDER FOR $44,766 FOR UTILITY RELOCATION WORK BY FP&L COMPANY FOR AIRPORT-PULLING ROAD (CR31) CIE#039 Item #16H7 RESOLUTION 95-242 AUTHORIZING THE ACQUISITION OF "TEMPORARY BEACH RESTORATION EASEMENTS" AND "TEMPORARY BEACH ACCESS EASEMENTS" BY GIFT IN SUPPORT OF THE IMPROVEMENTS NECESSARY FOR THE COMPLETION OF THE COLLIER COUNTY BEACH RESTORATION PROJECT AND THE ASSOCIATED MANAGEMENT PLAN See Pages Item #16J HISCELLANEOUS 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 1990 REAL PROPERTY No. Dated 361 03/13/95 1991 REAL PROPERTY 275 03/13/95 1992 REAL PROPERTY 192 03/13/95 1993 REAL PROPERTY 211 03/13/95 1994 REAL PROPERTY 134 03/09/95 135 03/13/95 136 03/13/95 137 03/13/95 138 03/13/95 1994 TANGIBLE PROPERTY 119 03/13/95 120 03/15/95 121 03/15/95 Item #16J2 SATISFACTIONS OF LIENS FOR SERVICES OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER See Pages Item #16L1 APPROVAL OF THE FORM OF A SPECIAL ASSESSHENT AGREEHENT FOR PROPERTIES LOCATED ALONG U.S. 41 AND DAVIS BLVD. THAT HAY BE ACQUIRED BY THE FLORIDA DOT FOR WIDENING OF SAID ROADWAYS There being no further business for the Good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by Order of the Chair at 6:55 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL BETTYE J. MATTHEWS, CHAIRPERSON ATTEST: DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK These minutes approved by the Board on as presented or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING BY: Barbara Donovan, Anjonette Baum and Shelly Semmler