BCC Minutes 05/07/1996 R REGULAR MEETING OF HAY 7, 1996,
OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in
and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning
Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as
have been created according to law and having conducted business
herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building
"F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the
following members present:
CHAIRPERSON: John C. Norris
VICE-CHAIRMAN: Timothy L. Hancock
Timothy J. Constantine
Pamela S. Hac'Kie
Bettye J. Matthews
ALSO PRESENT: W. Neil Dorrill, County Manager
David Weigel, County Attorney
Item #3
AGENDA AND CONSENT AGENDA - APPROVED AND/OR ADOPTED WITH CHANGES
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I'm going to call to order the Board of County
Commission meeting for Collier County for Hay 7, 1996.
Mr. Dotrill, could you lead us in an invocation and pledge, please.
MR. DORRILL: Heavenly Father, we give thanks to you this morning.
We praise your name. We give thanks for the wonder and the glory that
we have to live in Collier County. Father, as always, it is our prayer
on each and every Tuesday that you guide the hand and thoughts of this
elected commission as they are important decisions that affect Collier
County and its people, and we thank you for the quality of life that we
enjoy in this community. We thank you for your saving grace, and we
would ask that you bless our time here together this morning. We pray
these things in Jesus's name. Amen.
(The pledge of allegiance was recited in unison.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Any changes to the agenda today, Mr. Dorrill?
MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners.
We have a couple of presentations. I have one that just came in. It
will be Item 5(C)(1) under presentations. And we need to make a
presentation to the board concerning a charitable event that we
participated in over the weekend. We had a good time. I'll tell you
about that when we get to 5(C)(1).
Also I have only one additional add-on item this morning. Some of
the Board of County Commissioners at the request of Commissioner
Matthews -- will be Item 10(B) as in boy, which is the establishment
of the Lake Trafford restoration task force.
I have one item that I would like to withdraw, Item 10(D)(3) or Item
8(D)(3) rather.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm concerned with that withdrawal. I
would imagine -- I mean, unless somebody else knows about it, I didn't
know about it or that it was going to be withdrawn.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I had a phone call last night at ten o'clock.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do we know why?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Who withdrew it? Who is the petitioner, for
God's sake?
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Hazard has withdrawn an item that was
scheduled to be discussed concerning the settlement agreement, it is
my understanding. I have not seen the letter. I was advised of it
this morning. I was actually advised of it by a reporter. My
secretary was able to confirm it in a brief conversation with the
attorney's office. You may or may not be aware. I've provided a copy
to the board. I have upheld the staff's position on the appeal of the
code enforcement item, and it will be scheduled at the June meeting of
the Code Enforcement Board and has already been advertised.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So they've withdrawn the item, and
it will just move ahead as it was scheduled?
MR. DORRILL: We had already moved ahead, and he may as a
result of different conversations or reading in the newspaper. It is
my understanding he has withdrawn the settlement of the lawsuit.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: He's withdrawn the settlement offer?
Is that the point?
MR. DORRILL: That is my understanding.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: There is nothing to discuss.
MR. DORRILL: Right. I have not seen his letter, but if the
board has not been provided a copy, I will provide you with one as
soon as I see it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: One other comment just on that subject
is I got in the last couple of days -- I finally got a copy of a
letter that was directed to the county attorney's office, Mr. Weigel,
to Mr. Bryant in your office from Mr. Hazard that was apparently --
this was the settlement offer. I would like it if we could get those
things more promptly instead of newspaper reporters have them before I
did because I didn't know what the settlement offer was. And as far
as I'm concerned, if they're not here today, they just need not show
up again.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think they might have other rights,
Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm just tired of being jerked around.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: This has gone on a year and a half
now.
COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: It's enough.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I just want to clarify that
it's withdrawn. It's not asking for a continuance? MR. DORRILL: No, sir.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's withdrawn.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay.
MR. DORRILL: The next item that I have is a petition to
properly place on the index. Item 8(B)(1) on the regular agenda
should actually be Item 8(D)(5) on the regular agenda. Then I have
one item that I would like to -- or two items, rather, I would like to
move from the consent agenda and to the regular agenda for
presentation. First one is Item 16(B)(2) is moving and will become
8(B)(1). That is the contract and project involving the potential
roundabout on Harco Island. And the second item is Item 16(H)(1), is
moving and will become 9(A) under the county attorney's report that
pertains to an authorization for principal reduction as part of a
commercial paper brought down that we're participating in.
I have one reminder for me under communications, but aside
from that that's all I have, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay. Mr. Weigel, do you have anything
else today?
MR. WEIGEL: Just one note regarding a consent agenda item.
16(D)(10) concerns a recommendation to the board to approve a contract
with essentially a collection agency for the collection of certain
types of assessments and bills that are outstanding owed the county.
Just to note for the record that if solid waste bills and a few other
types of liens that the county has are processed this way, they have
occupied and do occupy by law a priority status as a lien with the
foreclosure mechanism available. If the foreclosure mechanism is not
utilized, it will have a different status in terms of bill collection,
and I just wanted the board to be aware of choices it's making if we
go forward with this kind of collection process.
John Ukowski (phonetic) from the Department of Revenue has
indicated that any type of account that they would be looking to turn
over to the collection agency shall be reviewed preliminarily by the
county attorney's office for correctness or insufficiency and to make
sure that no element of the countywide or underlying bond obligation
is going to be lost in any way.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you. Commissioner Matthews.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I have one additional item. I would
like to remove Item 16(B)(1) from the consent agenda to the regular
agenda.
MR. DORRILL: 16(D) as in David?
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: B as in boy.
MR. DORRILL: Okay. And that will become 8(E)(2)--
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Three.
MR. DORRILL: On the regular agenda.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: 8(B)(3). We've already moved one to
8(B)(2).
MR. DORRILL: You're right, 8(B)(3).
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: That's all I have, sir.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: None for me, Commissioner Norris.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Hac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just sort of heads up for the county
attorney's office on 16(A)(27). Our construction maintenance
agreement with the developer there is signed by someone who is no
longer authorized to sign for that company, and the agreement is not
dated. So it worries me a little bit, and I just wanted you to notice
that. Nothing else.
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: You're welcome.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Two things: One, I don't want to
remove this item from the consent agenda because I still intend to
vote in favor of it. Just a question on 16(D)(5). Hr. Dotrill, is
the recommendation to approve security measures for the Collier County
Courthouse as suggested by the marshall's office? Do you have any
idea if that is -- is that a new marshall's report, or is that about a
year ago we had a very in-depth report from the marshall?
MR. DORRILL: This is done as a result of that. Mr. Camp can
correct me if I'm wrong. The funding was incomplete. This goes back
to your budget discussion.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Second item, I don't think we're
still going to be here, looking at the agenda, at 12:15; but if we do,
I have a commitment back in our offices at 12:15. We just need to
take a brief break if we get that far. Other than that I have no
changes.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: You mean in lieu of lunch.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We can take lunch at 12:15.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We need a motion on our agenda.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve the agenda and
consent agenda as amended.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I have one question before you call
the vote on that. All of the legal settlements today are in support
services instead of under our county attorney, and I'm just
questioning why normally when they're under the county attorney.
MR. DORRILL: If they involve matters pertaining to our risk
management department and certain insurance, the executive summaries
may have been prepared by Mr. Walker or in conjunction with Mr.
Bryant. And that's typically the only reason you would see them there
is if they involve risk management issues and Jeff Walker's
participation. Other than that they are -- you're correct -- always
in the county attorney's report. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion and a second.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
Item #4
MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING OF APRIL 9, 1996; WORKSHOP OF APRIL 15,
1996; REGULAR MEETING OF APRIL 16, 1996; AND SPECIAL MEETING OF PARIL
17, 1996 - APPROVED AS PRESENTED
We have minutes.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion to
approve the minutes of April 9 regular meeting, April 15 workshop,
April 16 regular meeting, and April 17 special meeting, all of 1996.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Second.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have motion and a second for approval of
the minutes.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
Accepted.
Item #5A1
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING THE WEEK OF MAY 5 - 11, 1996 AS 1996 NALC
NATIONAL FOOD DRIVE WEEK - ADOPTED
We have a proclamation to be accepted here by Linda Kelly.
Linda, would you please come forward and stand here and face the
folks.
Whereas, letter carriers deliver to and have personal contact
with every address nationwide; and
Whereas, Collier County organizations who feed the less
fortunate in our area need donations of non-perishable food items for
local distribution; and
Whereas, 45 million pounds of food were collected in 1995
during the largest food drive in the nation, (15,000 pounds in Collier
County). The National Association of Letter Carriers in cooperation
with the Southwest Area Local of the American Postal Workers' Union
and the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association and Postal
Management are sponsoring the 1996 NALC National Food Drive to collect
food directly from residents on May 11, 1996; and
Whereas, the Board of County Commissioners lends support and
encouragement to all Collier County citizens interested in the
community effort to eradicate hunger in Collier County; and
Whereas, Collier County residents have been encouraged to
participate in the food drive by leaving non-perishable food items at
their mailboxes for collection by their letter carriers. The food
items will be given to Collier Harvest who will then distribute it to
charitable organizations with Collier County; and
Whereas, the Board of County Commissioners recognizes the
positive effects of it citizen's participation in helping to fight
hunger.
Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that the week of May 5 to
11, 1996, be designated as 1996 National Association of Letter
Carriers' National Food Drive Week. Done and ordered this 7th day
May, 1996, by the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County,
Florida. And I would like to make a motion that we accept this.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I'll second that
motion.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion and a second.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Those opposed?
MS. KELLY: I want to thank the Collier County Commissioners
for recognizing this important event. On behalf of the National
Association of Letter Carriers, I would like to express to you how
difficult it is to imagine that in this prosperous country of ours
where 30 million Americans go to bed hungry every night. Many of them
are kids. And for the third consecutive year the NALC has sponsored
this food drive nationally to assist food banks in their efforts to
feed those Americans.
Letter Carriers in Marco and Naples are participating again
for the third year, and with the help of all postal employees, we hope
to collect over 30,000 pounds of food this year. For those of you who
aren't familiar with Collier Harvest, Collier Harvest is a very quiet
organization here in Collier County that with little fanfare goes
about the job of feeding the hungry in Collier County.
As a representative of Branch 4716 I ask you to tell your
friends and neighbors to leave non-perishable foods at their mailbox
on Saturday, Hay 11, and help us to make this the most successful food
drive in Collier County. Thank you for recognizing this event.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you. (Applause)
Item #5B
EMPLOYEE SERVICE AWARDS - PRESENTED
Next item is service awards. Mr. Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, thank you. We have
a number employees receiving service awards for various number of
years. Having been with us for five years and currently serving in
pollution control we have Mary Cornelisse. Is Mary here? Receiving
the award for Mary will be Commissioner Hac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Thank you. Do I get to keep the pin?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Whoops, I guess you have to take
Hary's.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: No one on this panel gets that pin
yet.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Also with us for five years with
EHS is Laurie Klingerman (applause)-- celebrating 15 years with us --
many people think George Archibald is in charge of transportation. I
think those of us who work regularly know the real story is Harquita
King, and she's been with us 15 years. I don't see Harquita here.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: She's handling road and bridge right
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: George will handle this. And two
folks with us for 20 years -- and Commissioner Hancock just said none
of us have got the 5-year pin yet. I think Tim and I both were in
elementary school when these two came onboard. Linda Denning who is
with us 20 years, Linda (applause). And also with us for 20 years
from transportation is Cap Breeden (applause).
Item #5C1
PRESENTATION TO SOCIAL SERVICES CLIENTS FROM COUNTY GOVERNMENT TEAM FOR
50 RIB DINNERS WON IN KENNY ROGERS CONTEST - PRESENTED
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Next item is yours, Mr. Dotrill. You have
a presentation?
MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir, and good morning. It is a pleasure
on this particular occasion. We had participated in a fun event on
Sunday. You may have seen a picture in the newspaper submitted from
your devout team as part of the Kenny Rogers rib eating contest on
Sunday afternoon.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I just want to state my surprise that
we beat the tax collector.
MR. DORRILL: We came in first place. We were not the grand
champion as you may have seen in the newspaper, but I wanted to
commend, and I've got some pictures. I want you to see your team. In
the spirit of fun I can tell you that your team weighed in on an
average weight of about 235 pounds. They consisted of Jeff Kucko,
Curtis Curtright, Steve Nagy, Stan Crysnowski, and Rickie Garcia. I
will tell you that these men ate 126 ribs in 120 seconds. So they
were eating them at the pop of one rib in less than a second. That's
approximately 16 slabs of babyback ribs, if you've ever eaten a slab
of babyback ribs.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Dotrill, is this why we don't have
the county picnic anymore?
MR. DORRILL: The fun part of this award was that because of
the good spirit and the fun in particular of your team, Kenny Rogers'
restaurants donated 50 complete dinners for the winning team, of which
we were one. And the members of your team have suggested and are
recommending to you that those dinners be provided to the social
service department in county government and be given to worthy
families as opposed to the team members who participated. And I
thought that was in good spirit (applause).
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: They're probably going on a diet
anyway after this.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Five bucks says you'll forget what's
on there.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Well, that is a heavy-weight event.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Did they come from one department
predominantly?
MR. DORRILL: From every division you get one appointment.
And I will tell you I'm close enough to some of my employees that I
handpicked three of them to be on our team.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Wonderful. Good job with those folks.
Item #7A
JANE VARNER, WOHEN'S REPUBLICAN CLUB OF NAPLES REGARDING MANAGEMENT
THROUGH DENSITY ZONING - STAFF TO INVESTIGATE THESE CONCERNS
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Our next item is public petition by Ms.
Jane Varner. I think you understand the rules, that you have ten
minutes to make your presentation.
MR. DORRILL: She does, and then '-
MS. VARNER: Gina Hahn is going to introduce it. I will
present the position paper.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Whatever you want to do as long as it is
ten minutes.
MS. VARNER: That's right. Thank you. We know the time, ten
minutes.
MS. HAHN: Good morning, Commissioners. Jane Varner will
pass to you a packet that we proposed, put together, and also for Neil
Dotrill. I will review just briefly. The subject is Position Paper
1996, and for your review we have enclosed the Women's Republican Club
of Naples Federated Future Population Growth Position Paper 1996 with
a cover letter; two, letters received in support for our position;
three, Collier County permanent population estimates and projections,
April 1, 1990, through 2020 prepared on Hay 24, 1995, by the Collier
County long range planning section; also the Naples Daily News'
editorial growth management, "No Reason to Tamper with County's Urban
Boundary"; and five, Perspective, Naples Daily News, Sunday, Hay 5,
and it was on Focus.
I would like to just make a brief, very brief presentation.
For the record, I am Gina Hahn, president of the Naples -- of Naples
since 1978 and president of the Women's Republican Club of Naples
Federated. We began this effort under the past president, Harjorie
Pierson-Farley, author of the cover letter included in your packet.
And I, Gina Hahn, as president, joined by the executive board,
continue the effort on behalf of our membership.
We seek your consideration for we here in Collier County
continue to be a very special part of Florida. It is now my pleasure
to have Jane Varner as second vice president and local issues chairman
and author of the Position Paper 1996 included in your packet. Before
I leave I would just briefly like to mention to you that in the Naples
Daily News Perspective on Sunday, there was a very interesting article
pointing out the concerns that we here in Collier County have, our
citizens. And it just ties in very, very nicely with our presentation
because the concerns are the environment, growth, urban design, and
growth zoning. So I pass that on to you, and I'd like to present to
you Jane Varner. Thank you.
MS. VARNER: Thank you for hearing our petition today. It
has come to our attention that Collier County is expected to reach
approximately 600,000 residents by the year 2020. This expansion of
our population is most disturbing to us in light of the many problems
that we believe that this imposes. With a present population of
approximately 190,000 residents, we are already experiencing pains of
growth. The areas that are of great concern are availability of
freshwater and the future costs, storm water drainage, flood control
and its negative effect on our freshwater supplies, traffic
congestion, increased crime, wildlife conservation, and environmental
protection of our ecosystems, high density, and loss of open spaces
and overall quality of life.
Collier County, a heavy tourist area with many out-of-staters
remaining the whole winter experiences an unusual outburst of
population. This, unlike an average community with a consistent
population level, since 600,000 would represent only the year-round
residents, then to what number can we expect our outburst population
to grow?
We, the Women's Republican Club of Naples Federated, are
strongly opposed to this rapid growth which will ultimately lead to a
population of 600,000. Therefore, we urge the Collier County
Commission and the Naples City Council to use all methods at their
disposal to reduce density for the purposes of constraining population
growth. It must be kept to a minimum. It is our intention to
communicate with and encourage clubs and organizations to join us in
presenting this position to the Collier County Commission and Naples
City Council.
Thank you for letting us give you our opinions about
population growth. We feel this is a very timely presentation.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you, Ms. Varner.
MR. DORRILL: And then Ms. Farley will conclude.
MS. FARLEY: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the
commission and faithful Collier County citizens. I am Harge Farley.
I am the immediate past president of the Women's Republican Club. And
at most of our meetings last year regarding the growth management of
our county this problem emerged. The attendees never hesitated to
question any speaker of ours, and so at one of our monthly meetings
this topic of population projection surfaced.
From a podium I requested a show of hands to indicate whether
or not the, quote, accepted projected population of approximately
500,000 to 600,000 was too high. Unanimously and with great, great
abandon the group voted -- which, incidentally, I must mention that 2
of the 94 candidates mentioned this projection figure, so that's what
was brought up.
I'm here today to indicate my support for their position
paper and the avenues they have undertaken to accomplish their goal.
It's important to mention that our members represent all areas of
Collier County, namely, Golden Gate, North Naples, East Naples, Fort
Royal, and all the others.
Now, I am very aware of your complicated tasks that you have
in steering and managing for the appropriate growth. Iwm also aware
of the constraints under which you move and act. But I also know,
having served on a town council in another state, that any ordinance
can be changed, that approved amendments can be modified, that
existing rules and regulations can be overturned. Therefore, Iwm here
to show my strong support of the position paper outlined for you, and
I ask the commissioners to acknowledge very carefully our concerns and
act in any appropriate way to accomplish the stated goal of reduction
of population density.
The overriding quest for the commission is to maintain the
quality of life here in our very special area. It may not be easy,
but I believe it is imperative to withstand pressure from special
interest groups, whatever they may be, and move towards that goal.
Thank you, very much.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you, Ms. Farley. That -- does that
conclude your presentation?
MS. VARNER: Do we have more time? Yes, I would like to
speak. What is your opinion? How is that? Wewll put you on the
spot.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a couple of ways to do this.
Commissioner Constantine suggested that we relook at the overall base
density of our growth management plan. Commissioner Hancock has
suggested that we revise our concept of how we plan our road network
trying to guide the growth rather than letting the growth guide the
road network.
MS. VARNER: Good idea.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: So wewre actually not unaware of your
concerns and, in fact, share them and are working even now on ideas to
help us go along in that direction.
MS. VARNER: Thank you. There are a number of citizens in
our county who feel exactly the same way. Iwd also like to just
briefly say we have received support from the Conservancy, the Florida
Wildlife Federation of Southwest Florida, Lake Park neighborhood, the
Old Naples Civic Association. And we did receive also a letter from
the League of Women Voters not really in full support but certainly
encouraging us in the way we are headed. Thank you for your time.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A couple of thoughts. First, the
WomenTs Republican Club is of -- there are probably 10 or 11 political
groups of some sort in town. I would say you all are probably the most
active as far as particular issues and trying to get some things done.
And I appreciate on -- this is a nonpartisan thing, and a couple of
the groups focus solely on their party, the Democrat or Republican,
whatever other parties may be, so I appreciate the interest in things
that affect our community.
And I think as Jane said, this is very timely. It is
something that a couple of us have kind of put in the works right now,
and I think over the next two or three months youTre going to see some
of the issues you brought up before this board in a specific manner.
MS. VARNER: Thank you. Thank you very much. WeTre in it
together, be it whatever party weTre from.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman, along with the list of
things that youTve already stated our staff is looking at for us,
weTve also asked them to look at transfer and development rights and
cjuster housing and cjuster zoning. So those ideas I think we need to
reiterate to our staff. We would like to see those as quickly as
possible.
COMMISSIONER MACTKIE: Just to add, too, I think one of the
more obvious is that what Representative Saunders' group is looking
at, and that is if you don't want to build on it, buy it. So the
acquisition of open space in the urban area is the most obvious way to
keep from increasing density.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Well, I think the important point is that
we're all in agreement and that we're actually moving that way. So
thank you very much for that presentation.
Item #7B
ANNE GOODNIGHT REGARDING IHMOKALEE HIGH SCHOOL PROJECT GRADUATION -
WAIVER OF FEES APPROVED
Our next item is former Commissioner Goodnight is here in
person to give us a little petition which I think is going to be well
received.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve the item.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm all for it.
MS. GOODNIGHT: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record,
my name is Anne Goodnight, and I'm here today along with Janet Price
representing the Immokalee High School and advisory committee. As you
may well know, Immokalee High School is under construction. And
project graduation is approaching very fast which is going to be June
7. We almost have no place to go, so we're wanting to use the
community park, the gym, and the pool. Now, staff has said that it's
fine that we use it, but we have run into a little problem because we
want to swim about 1:30 until 3:30. We need some lifeguards. And so
we're here to request that the county pay for the lifeguards to be
there so that project graduation doesn't have to pay them.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Hancock said that he would
personally go out there and volunteer as a lifeguard. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He's certified.
MS. GOODNIGHT: Well, we would be more than happy to have
him. We will feed him.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: If I was certified I would do it.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm well aware as my wife when she was
seven months pregnant walking to her portable every day at Immokalee
High School -- I am aware of the construction situation out there.
Mr. Olliff, do we have an idea of what the total cost of providing
lifeguards for that time period is at the Immokalee Pool? There's
what; four stations out there?
MR. OLLIFF: $420.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. I have heard there was a
motion.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah. Motion to approve, whatever.
MS. GOODNIGHT: Thank you, and I'll try not to come back and
see you again.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But we love to see you.
MS. GOODNIGHT: I love seeing you guys, too, but I don't like
coming up here and asking you for money. But this is for the kids of
Immokalee, and I appreciate it. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Anytime it's for the kids of Immokalee you
come up and ask.
Mr. Dotrill, do we need to take a motion on that? Can we
direct staff to bring it back next week, or what do you want us to do?
MR. DORRILL: I don't need your concurrence. We will
schedule the overtime for the appropriate number of employees that are
there, and I presume there will be some limited agreement that is
entered into between either the school or this group.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay. So that will take care of it.
MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Very good. Thank you, Ms. Goodnight, for
bringing that forward.
Item #882
CONTRACT TO APAC-FLORIDA, INC. TO CONSTRUCT A ROUNDABOUT ON MARCO
ISLAND AT THE INTERSECTION OF BALD EAGLE DRIVE AND ELKCAM CIRCLE UNDER
BID #96-2487 - TRANSPORTATION DIRECTOR TO SEE WHAT ITEMS MAY BE
EXTRACTED FROM THE CURRENT BID AND COME BACK TO THE BCC
Our next item is the former 16(B)(2). It has now been moved
to 8(B)(2). It's the roundabout on Harco Island. I asked to have
this removed from the consent agenda. I think Mr. Vann is here to
make a statement which will probably clarify a few things for us, and
maybe we can move forward with this item.
MR. DORRILL: You have a couple of speakers not knowing what
way we may be going.
MR. VANN: Good morning. For the record, my name is Harold
Vann. I'm chairman of the vision of planning and advisory committee
on Marco Island. It is my understanding that you have received a
petition with some names on it and a few phone calls from concerned
residents of Marco Island objecting to the specific location that is
Bald Eagle Drive and Elkcam of the demonstration roundabout for Marco
Island.
A vision planning committee was held yesterday afternoon at
which the originators of this petition were present. We, that is the
vision planning committee, and the petitioners request that today's
agenda item on the construction of the roundabout at Elkcam Circle and
Bald Eagle Drive be put on hold. We plan to hold an education meeting
on traffic common, traffic flow, and roundabouts very promptly on
Marco Island and will select an alternate location to come back and
discuss with you. The principal problem seems to be the location and
not the concept. We would like to come back and with no significant
public opposition to any of the programs that we take. We think that
we can do it, and that's the way we would like to handle it. And I'd
like to ask one of the petitioners, Joan, if she has anything to say
on what I've just said. Otherwise we would request that you put this
subject on hold. We'll come back to you specifically with a minimum,
if you need, of public opposition.
Joan, is that basically -- I want to make sure --
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a couple of questions here first.
MR. VANN: Yes. All right.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Vann, the roundabout that was
planned for this particular intersection and any others that may be
planned on Marco, correct me if I'm wrong, but they're very different
from those that were put on 7th in the city. They're not that small.
They're not that confined. It's more of a true intersection
management. Does that include sidewalks and other things of that
nature?
MR. VANN: Yes, sir. It is approximately 60 feet in diameter
on the circle as compared to, I believe, about 20 in the Naples
roundabout.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: So instead of trying to slow traffic
down, we're trying to move traffic more fluidly through an area. Is
that the difference?
MR. VANN: Yes. Now, the reason we wanted to demonstrate
this is because we have 12 potential applications for this on Marco.
And we wanted to make awful sure that this first one demonstrated the
problem. We reviewed the situations in Naples. They're attractive,
but basically they're a little different. You predominantly have an
east and west flow of traffic there with very little north and south.
On Elkcam Circle we've got 15,000 cars a day going north and
south and 6,000 going east and west. So we have to design that a
little differently, and we may not have too many alternates, but we
think we can work this out since it's not a fundamental difference of
concept. It's simply where is the best location to try this, and we
want to make sure that we are responsive to the public. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I understand.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Archibald, assuming that the board goes
along with the request, we still are left with the problem of what we
are going to do with that intersection. It is my understanding in the
past, I believe, that the traffic light may not be the best solution
but perhaps a four-way stop with turn lanes. What is the opinion of
staff at that intersection?
MR. ARCHIBALD: The staff would like to go back to the
contractor who submitted the lowest bid and be able to pull out those
items that may still be improvements to include the items you've
outlined; turn lanes, sidewalks, curbing and drainage improvements.
All of those are going to be necessary when we add turn lanes or
construct a roundabout. So if the board would direct staff, we would
go back and renegotiate with the contractor those items that may apply
to other changes at that same location. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Vann, the description that I just
heard you make of what you're trying to accomplish, this sounds more
like a traffic circle than a roundabout; is that correct?
MR. VANN: Well, we hope not. We hope this is just a
roundabout. We think we have a better chance on Marco than other
places. Bald Eagle Drive, for example, is only 2.3 miles long, so we
don't see a whole lot of reason for having the speeding in the
neighborhood, anything above 25 miles an hour and so forth. So this
is designed to slow the traffic down to 18 miles an hour and provide
the opportunity for the cross traffic to get in. Now, we realize that
we've got to have public education, and this is when public support is
so essential in this because it won't work without it. If people are
determined to stop it, it's not going to work.
But we don't have too many alternates. It's only a block
away to the traffic light, as George knows, up on Collier Boulevard.
And if you back that traffic up from Elkcam Circle, which is a block
south of that with a stop traffic light, we don't have an easy
solution. I suspect that we're going to be pioneering this for other
similar places in congested areas, and so that's why we would like to
cooperate as much as we can with anyone who wants to get involved.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Let's hear the rest of our public speakers.
Thank you, Mr. Vann.
MR. DORRILL: Ms. Schroll.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: How many do we have?
MR. DORRILL: I have two following this lady. And, Ms.
Eckert, if I could have you stand by please, Ha'am.
MS. SCHROLL: I'm Joan Schroll, a resident of Marco Island,
and I have another petition, the same petition. A group of people who
signed this is approximately 680 signatures, which brings the total to
about 1,000. And we can go on and on with this, but we have reached
this agreement with Vision that we're going to have an education
meeting. I would like to read this petition to you so that everybody
knows exactly what we're talking about.
"We, the undersigned residents of Marco Island hereby
petition the Collier County Commissioners to install a traffic light
at the intersection of Elkcam and Bald Eagle Drive and wish to
register our dissatisfaction with the proposal to install a roundabout
at that location." So what we have to do, the people of Marco Island
are very, very interested in this issue. We have to make sure that
there is a very public meeting, that we listen to them and listen
intently and don't say we're not discussing that, and then we can come
to a consensus and work this out. I feel confident we can do that.
However, I am not confident that we will come back here and
say we have totally agreed that there will be roundabouts. I don't
know that because the people have to speak. I'm just taking
signatures of people who feel this way.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you, Ms. Schroll.
MS. SCHROLL: Thank you. So this is for you.
MR. DORRILL: Ms. Eckert, you're next, and then, Mr.
Pettersen, you will be last, if I could have you stand by.
MS. ECKERT: Good morning. Thank you for allowing me some
time to say a few words. My name is Harriett Lake Eckert. I've been
a homeowner on Marco Island since 1977 and a full-time resident since
1990. My first comment is in regard to my opinion against the
roundabout, and it's about a letter that I wrote to Bettye Matthews.
It was in reply to hers that one of her statements was, quote, the
committee who developed the master plan only has the clout the
citizens of Marco Island have given them, unquote.
My comment to that is that a large percentage of Marco
Islanders, as well as a large percentage of the population anywhere in
this country, are not inclined to be politically active, nor do they
desire to be active in civic affairs. Just because they don't choose
to be active doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to vote on issues
which affect their lives or their way of living. I note that in
Sunday's paper under the article on Focus that there were, quote, 380
participants signed up, some more than once, for committees to help
implement their favorite goals, unquote. There, again, considering
the total population of Collier County, only a small percentage
participated.
I just think that we -- I've gone to a couple of committee
meetings, and we just felt it was kind of useless. The decision had
been made and, therefore, we didn't attend any more. Thank you for
your time.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Pettersen will be your final speaker.
MR. PETTERSEN: My name is Kjell Pettersen from Marco Island,
Commissioner Norris, Commissioners. I strongly oppose roundabouts on
Harco Island, and I believe I join the overwhelming majority for Harco
residents in opposing this enormously expensive type of traffic circle
that will bring confusion and potential mishaps. There are other
options available that will solve the intersection problem without the
enormous $210,000 expenditure coupled with the potential confusion the
roundabout will cause.
I understand that the fiscal impact included in the lowest
construction charge -- that this fiscal impact included in the lowest
construction pass and the highest bid was over $300,000. We had been
told that the cost of this roundabout would be $170,000, and I'm
appalled by figures that were thrown around even at yesterday's
meeting on Marco Island. It was not $170,000. It was $210,000. That
$210,000, according to the project manager, who told me that two weeks
ago it was $225,000, and it was suddenly reduced to $210,000.
We had been told -- and I question some of the figures that
we received from Mr. Archibald yesterday. We had been told that a
traffic light, which is an alternative solution would cost less than
$100,000. That was in the first instance, that we were told it would
cost a hundred and ten. And we were told a few weeks ago it would
cost $130,000. Yesterday Mr. Archibald told us it will cost almost
the same as the roundabout, the construction bid, which was almost
$170,000. So I think what we need are hard facts, honest figures,
realistic figures that we can deal with and consider that. But in any
case, we will look forward to these educational meetings that has been
proposed by Harold. Thank you very much.
MR. DORRILL: That is all, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Archibald, as I understood your
comments, you wanted to go back to the contractor and pick and choose
those improvements for this intersection to at least improve the
intersection?
MR. ARCHIBALD: Yes, Chairman. We also will be coming back
to the board with not only our recommendations, but midyear we've got
our signal report countywide. And as part of that report we'll
include in that not only what our recommendations would be for this
intersection but also the costs of that. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Hancock.
MR. HANCOCK: Just a very quick comment. I'm going to ask
all the people of Marco whether you are for this or against this to
please walk in with your eyes wide open. We keep saying that we don't
want the big-town feel. We want to do this a little differently in
other urban areas. Yet I hear us keep coming -- we keep coming back
to stoplights. I have yet to see a community say, you know, I'm so
glad we put those extra 20 stoplights because it really makes the
community a better place to live.
We're trying to be a little creative here and look for things
that will get us there differently and better than other communities.
And I don't know if this is it. I can't honestly say it is or it
isn't, but we need to be a little creative in that design. And I just
ask for everyone's assistance. And if this isn't the way to go, it's
not the way to go. But when walking into it let's keep our eyes wide
open and look for options that are less urban than what we're
experiencing everywhere else.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's interesting. I was in
Massachusetts last week. I drove 2,600 miles in 10 days up there, and
I was in small towns all over.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's an average --
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: You visited a lot of roundabouts.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yes, all over the state, and there
were roundabouts all over. And some of them were great, and some of
them were just a mess. So I think it's like anything else. It
depends on your layout and depends on engineering and location and the
community's acceptance and so on. I think it is worth looking at and
exploring, and we may end up there, and we may end up not. But there
are places where that works very well, and much of that is through the
small town America up there anyway.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Iwve a question for Mr. Archibald.
Based on the bid that youwve seen when you were extracting from that
bid the gutters and the sidewalks and all the things that are not the
roundabout itself, what do you anticipate is the actual cost of the
roundabout? I mean just a ballpark figure on that.
MR. ARCHIBALD: About $90,000, and I have a breakdown of all
the different items of the work. If you break out the construction of
the roundabout and leave out the curbing and leave out the sidewalks
and leave out the landscaping, leave out the drainage, the net amount
is a little more than $90,000.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: And itws about $80,000 to put a light
in. Is that the number wewve been hearing?
MR. ARCHIBALD: The signal is one cost. We have to recognize
that at this location we still have to spend a great deal of the money
to redo the drainage. We have to come in and spend a great deal of
money to install the turn lanes and then install the signal itself.
The signal, just the signal alone, varies from 45,000 to 85,000
depending on what is involved.
CHAIRNLAN NORRIS: When would you anticipate coming back to
the board with your recommendation?
MR. ARCHIBALD: After the consensus on the island.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: You have to be on the microphone, Harold,
if youlre going to talk.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine, did you take
any notes as you were going through --
MR. VANN: Thank you. For the record again my name is Harold
Vann. This is a very important question. We hope to come back to you
well within 30 days because whatever we do we want to do during the
summer peak so that we donlt disrupt the whole Marco Island and this
big traffic problem. I think we have a reasonable chance based on our
meeting yesterday afternoon of doing this.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Then your direction is clear, Mr.
Archibald?
MR. ARCHIBALD: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Do we a need a motion on that?
MR. DORRILL: No, sir.
MR. VANN: Thank you for your comments.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman, is Mr. Archibald going
to bring back to us the awarding of the bid for the parts that he sees
we need to do, or are we just going to give him direction to go ahead
and do that?
MR. ARCHIBALD: My direction, I believe, is to go back and
see what items can be extracted from the current bid and bring those
recommendations to the board and also as a joint item, the consensus
that develops from the island as to an alternate location, and Iill
bring that back in a separate report.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Okay. So this bid from -- is it APAC
-- is you are going to use this bid now to do the work that you need
to do?
MR. ARCHIBALD: Yes. Welre asking the board not to reject
that bid at this time.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Okay.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you, Mr. Archibald.
Item #883
CHANGE ORDER #1 FOR THE SOUTH REGIONAL RECLAIMED WATER STORAGE POND
PROJECT - APPROVED
Next item was the former 16(B)(4). Hs. Hatthews, you pulled
this off of it?
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yeah. Let me turn my papers. My
only question with this was the change order number 1. The added cost
is $104,000, which is roughly almost 50 percent of the original. How
did we miss it by such a big mark?
MR. GONZALEZ: Good morning, Commissioners, Adolfo Gonzalez
with your office of capital projects management. In the initial
contract we had the provision that you just placed the fill material
onto the park properties. Subsequent to that our parks and rec
department asked us to expedite the design and construction of that
property. We then were concerned with whether we just leave it as an
uncompacted fill which would cause some undue settlement over time
after construction of the facilities.
The original item was for less than $2 a cubic yard for the
fill material which is substantially less than we were going to pay in
order to truck it off from on off-site location. The compaction adds
about another 50 cents a cubic yard to the fill which brings it to
about two and a half dollars per cubic yard of fill which are in place
and compacted. It is still substantially less than the $4 to $6 a
yard we're getting at those other projects when we bring it from an
off-site location. So you're still realizing a savings from having it
essentially excavated from one location on site and just trucked over
a very short distance onto another location.
MR. DORRILL: I asked the same identical question when I saw
it, and I think it's easy to say this is an owner-desired extra to the
contract as opposed to an error or an omission that was overlooked.
And we're trying to take advantage of what we consider to be a very
good unit price to have the material not only just stockpiled, spread,
placed, and compacted, but to be able to effectuate the phase two
construction if you authorize that as part of the budget item this
summer.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I understand it now. I was just
concerned that on the consent agenda we have an increase in our work
order that was 25 percent of the original estimate. So if there are
not any further questions from the board, I'll move the item.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I have a motion and a second.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: (Phone ringing). We may need to
invoke the Lance Ito rule in here on the phone.
Item #8C1
CONSIDERATION OF TRANSFERRING THE COST OF ALL NEIGHBORHOOD PARK
OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE TO EITHER EXISTING NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONS,
EXISTING BEAUTIFICATION DISTRICTS OR NEW BEAUTIFICATION DISTRICTS -
DENIED
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Next item is 8(C)(1). Mr. Olliff, Mr.
Brinkman.
MR. BRINKMAN: Good morning. Steve Brinkman, your parks and
recreation director. And we're bringing before you today a concept.
Our neighborhood parks provide a very limited area of benefit for the
county, yet they're currently supported throughout the county by ad
valorem taxes. This might be an equitable means of support if they
were in fact a county-wide system. But at this time there is not, and
there is no consistent number of standards countywide for those
various park areas.
All county residents now do benefit from our existing
community parks, which there are about 14, and they're serviced very
well by those. Also the growth management plan doesn't emphasize
neighborhood parks as well. The focus of our growth management plan
is community parks and regional parks. So, therefore, we would like
to bring to you to consider the letting the existing beautification
districts or creating new beautification districts in areas where we
might need to letting them assume the total cost for those
neighborhood parks in their area. That would actually include the
total cost of maintenance, renovation, replacement of the equipment or
whatever is there and any expansion of those areas that those
particular groups would like to see in the future. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay. Mr. Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have a number of problems with
this. I appreciate the fact that you all are trying to save money on
the general fund. I don't happen to agree with this particular idea
for a number of reasons. It's true that we are emphasizing community
parks and regional parks now. But at the time that either the county
built these neighborhood parks or assumes control of these
neighborhood parks, I think we assume some responsibility to take care
of those, and I'm not sure we can change that in midstream. While we
changed our direction, I suspect we won't be building or accepting
more neighborhood parks from here on. I think we still carry that
responsibility when we accepted it initially.
I have a little problem with aligning this with
beautification because I think beautification is a voluntary thing
that each community just decided, yes, we want to do or we wouldn't.
But when I think of a park and I think of kids playing in a park, I
don't think of that as just a voluntary thing. I think that is
something that is a necessity and something that really -- children's
lives and family lives is important and is necessary. So to align
that with beautification I have a little concern.
Also my understanding anyway is we haven't spoken with any
beautification districts to get feedback from them. I know that in
Golden Gate anyways we haven't. But perhaps most importantly is this
would set up the very strong potential of having different levels of
service for parks and recreation depending on where you live in the
county and depending upon your affluence. If you were a low-class or
a lower-income neighborhood and couldn't afford to repair the water
fountain when it got broken or to upgrade the equipment that the kids
play on after five years, then that park would deteriorate simply
because you couldn't afford it. So by living in different parts of
the county you might have better parks or worse parks.
What concerns me perhaps more than anything is regardless of
where they live, I think kids anywhere in our county should have the
same recreational opportunity. If there is an existing park that the
county has carried the responsibility on, I think we need to continue
to carry that responsibility.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just in the interest of time,
absolutely, positively ditto to everything he just said and also that
I question the assumption that the benefit is not there for
neighborhood parks because I think -- as a mom of little kids, my kids
can't get to community parks without me driving them somewhere.
Neighborhood parks they can walk to. I acknowledge that that decision
has been made going to favor community and regional parks, but I like
neighborhood parks. I wish that we could look at that -- I'd like to
look at the policy again and see if they understand the financial
rationale for it because I think neighborhood parks are probably very
important.
And then the last thing I worried about, Mr. Weigel, was we
could decide -- I hope there's not a majority on the board who will
decide to do this. For example, if we decided Poinciana Park, we are
going to put the responsibility for it now to a new association or
neighborhood association. Can we do that? Can we just say we're just
kidding around and we're not going to mow grass there anymore? We're
not going to -- you know, I don't see how we can do that.
MR. WEIGEL: We would have considerable reservations from a
legal standpoint in the ability to do that particularly with the
neighborhood associations. The municipal taxing concept is a little
different, albeit related their ongoing and existing millage caps for
the particular districts that exist. And so there are elements of the
budget that would have to be looked at closely, too. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Matthews.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Brinkman, this list of parks that
we have here, there are nine parks that are listed on it? MR. BRINKMAN: Yes.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: How many total acres are those nine
parks?
MR. BRINKMAN: They probably amount to about 35 acres.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: How much?
MR. BRINKMAN: About 35 out of our 1,000.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Thirty-five acres, and that's about
the size of one community park? MR. BRINKMAN: Yes.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: So we're operating 35 acres of
neighborhood parks for $80,000 a year? MR. BRINKMAN: Yes.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: That's a bargain. Thank you. That's
a bargain compared to the cost of operating community parks. It seems
to me to be.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Please, please, please that is exactly
the analysis I wanted to have because I think there's a great -- and
there's a whole segment of community that gets left out of the park
system if we don't have neighborhood parks, and that's little kids.
And, good grief, really that is what parks are for.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just a kind of a neat analysis
there that the land is purchased like for Everglades, any of those
trusts, the figure that is generally bantered around is the
administrative costs of maintaining those annually are $5,000 an acre.
And we are doing parks the people actually use for about twenty-two
hundred bucks an acre in this case.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: And people have actually used them.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: And we maintain them and all those
neat things. I like neighborhood parks myself.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We're all benefitting from this
discussion except for the gentleman at the podium because last year we
cut park's maintenance budget by a considerable amount. This year
it's already on the list by at least one commissioner for further
cuts. And it is causing our parks to have to go out and look at
alternate funding sources because the maintenance dollars have been
cut significantly.
I don't know about the rest of you. I've got a lot of
complaints in North Naples about the condition of the ball fields,
about maintenance ability and so forth over the last year. So beyond
the verbal support of a great park system, let's either back it up or
back off from it because to continue cutting the maintenance budget is
going to force our parks department to look at these types of creative
solutions. So we need to gel with what concept we want with county
parks and what funding is to be there to maintain them appropriately
and pursue it. You know, it's either get on or get off, but you can't
have one leg over and one on the ground. It's not going to work.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And maybe what's been wrong is that if
we have been proceeding with the presumption that the board's policy
is community parks over neighborhood parks, then I hear from this
board that maybe that is not the policy of this board because
community parks are the more expensive to maintain. So maybe a way to
be cutting that budget is that we don't have as many ball fields, but
we have more playgrounds.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The facilities are more intensive.
But if you look at the usership of the community parks, those fields
are not sitting idle. The demand for them is there even more. So I
don't think it is an either/or. I mean, both are important to the
community, and we don't have the money to put out as many as we like.
Understand that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My suggestion is that my kids play in
those programs that utilize those -- the community parks as well. I
personally can afford to pay a higher fee for that. Maybe everybody
in every park can't, but maybe that's where we ought to be looking
because those are the high-cost areas.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I just want to make sure we link our
desires with our funding.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll make a motion that we deny
staff recommendation.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Second.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have some speakers. Just a second
before I call that.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I got excited.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: And I need to get my two cents worth in.
I'm going to support the motion. I want to commend again our staff,
our parks staff, for the job that they do and for coming up with
alternatives perhaps. And I might suggest that while I don't think
any of the board members are going to support forcing this action
certainly on a voluntary basis, if some of the beautification
districts or areas of the county wanted to assume that responsibility
to upgrade their own service, they are certainly welcome to do that, I
would think. But I don't think to force it is the point. So would
you call the speakers?
MR. DORRILL: I can. Just let me be the voice of a little
reason. Last summer we did balance the budget in particular on the
back of the parks maintenance area. And so that you recall what we did
was we balanced the maintenance side of the budget in the anticipation
that we were going to eliminate our responsibilities for neighborhood
parks this year, the point being, the money ain't there. That is
evidence. We're beginning to get into the peak growing season. My
church meets at the Vineyards Community Park, and the exterior grounds
maintenance got so bad recently that I got involved to assign a crew
to go out there and pull weeds and do maintenance.
I took my family to the Golden Gate Community Park and the
pool Sunday afternoon, and I was appalled at what the place looked
like, and that is not a reflection of either Mr. Brinkman or Mr.
Smith. The money ain't there to take care of these parks. There was
trash and weeds and grass two or three feet deep on some of the
nonathletic field playing areas. You have made the policy decision or
about to. But let me tell you the grass is growing, and we need to
get some money out of the reserves because the grass cannot be
maintained, and the trash cannot be dumped with the budget that he has
been given.
And so we're going to need to move some money out of the
reserves. And we need to go back and anticipate in your motion to get
authorization to process the budget amendment to either move the area
out of some other area that he has. We need to do that, or he is
going to run out of money probably the first week of August.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I would be happy to take that up
as an item, but it's not on this particular item. If we can discuss
that and if that's a problem, then we need to correct it.
MR. DORRILL: I will bring it back up, but if you can
incorporate that in your motion, I just want you to know there is a
cost implication of your proposal.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Yes.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I'd like to make a comment based on
what Mr. Dotrill has just said because I've had some phone calls
recently, too, regarding the condition of parks. One of them I had
last evening dealt with the idea that mowing of the grass, the turf on
the ball fields is going to be only once a week next year. Is that
what we're contemplating?
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Matthews, he's going to bring
that back next week, I would assume, next week or -- MR. DORRILL: Probably two weeks.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Two weeks. So can we --
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: It's a simple yes or no, if you don't
mind, because I would like to know what to expect when he brings it
back.
MR. OLLIFF: You're looking at some of those items this year
in the budget. One of the items back in your memo was to look at
another reduction level.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yeah. But we went from five to four
last year.
MR. OLLIFF: No. You went from three to two last year, and I
think what we're looking at is another layer of reduction; we're going
from two to one. And we're going to propose that to you and show you
so that you can make that decision. That is your choice to make, but
we've not made any decision about what the main focus is going to be
next year. That will be for the budget workshop in June. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Okay.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Keller. Mr. Kerrigan, if I could have you
stand by, please.
MR. KELLER: George Keller and official spokesman to the
Golden Gate Estates Civic Association. You know, basically I used to
think the government was the trouble. I've come to the conclusion
that people are the trouble. You as government commissioners try to
go and give the people what they want, and unfortunately too many
groups come in here with proposals for their benefit, but they're not
willing to pay the fee to maintain those things. These small
community parks around are a real problem to the parks department.
There's no question about it. It's not so much the cost to building
it, but the cost of maintaining it is terrific.
And, secondly, putting a community park next to a school
playground is so ridiculous it's like two people living in a house and
building a house next door so when they have a party. You know, so
let's get some sense into government. We cannot have -- we have
reasonable parks and certain places where we can provide good
facilities, swimming pools and baseball fields and soccer fields.
That should be enough.
But what you have to do is when people come here, special
interest groups come here, and they want a park in their neighborhood,
say fine. Set up a taxing district. This news of putting on
beautification areas and neighborhood areas is ridiculous. If we had
a better provision that if people want something and they're willing
to get enough people to go and file a petition to come in here and
they're willing to pay for it, fine. Then they can have it because
they're paying for it. And that's what we have to get back to really.
We've got to get back to common sense in government finances.
We can't just let people come in and want something. Everybody
wants something. The point is somebody has to pay for the thing.
let's set up taxing districts for any more regional -- not regional
parks but neighborhood parks. Then you will see there will be no
demand for neighborhood parks anymore.
Now, we can't do anything about the unfortunate things that
we have. We've got them, and I would say that the parks department
should maintain what we've got. But we should set up a policy; any
new regional -- not regional parks but neighborhood parks, they come
in here with a petition and say we want a neighborhood park, and we're
willing to pay for them. Thank you.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Kerrigan. Ms. Hilligan, if I could have
you stand by up front, please.
MR. KERRIGAN: My name is Bill Kerrigan. I'm the president
of Poinciana Village Civic Association. Mostly everything I was going
to say has been addressed by the board. I would just like to say in
the future, Mr. Olliff, Mr. Brinkman, or Mr. Franco, talk to us before
they say that they want to turn parks over, and we read about this in
the newspaper. If they had, they would find that this is a totally
bad idea. We're a voluntary association. We only represent the pay
dues. We could vote to dissolve ourselves tomorrow. And then who
would own the park, or who would be maintaining it? That should come
out. So if the NPO can contact me about bicycles and paths, I think
the public services administrator can contact us about a park. And we
have another gal that is going to talk. Thank you.
MR. DORRILL: Ms. Hilligan.
MS. HILLIGAN: Good morning. My name is Jennifer Hilligan,
and I'm here to address the issue of the Poinciana Village Park. For
over 27 years ours has been established as a county park. When I
moved to the village three years ago, I started to call and request
some certain maintenance things be done with the park as far as repair
of jungle gyms and so forth. There was a water fountain that ran
constantly. It was just leaking water all the time. It took about
six weeks, and they did fix the water fountain, and new ground was put
in. And although the jungle gym was not repaired in any manner, it
was painted.
To turn this park over to the residents of Peinciana would
prove to be probably a county disaster as we are a voluntary
organization. Fire ant piles, particularly mowing of the grass and
trash cleanup has already been taken on by several of the residents on
their own without anybody. This was just a pure voluntary effort.
This park is very important to our neighborhood. As Ms.
Mac'Kie said, our kids can walk to the park. It's a relatively safe
area. We hold several functions there. I hold my Cub Scout meetings
there at least once a month. It is a neighborhood park. I feel that
this is a very important aspect to our community to instill and insure
a sense of neighborhood in our whole growing, growing community.
Thank you. That is it.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Erlichman, then Ms. Maggie.
MR. ERLICHMAN: For the record, Gil Erlichman-- I live in
East Naples -- speaking for myself. The previous speakers has brought
out one thing in my mind, and that's our priorities. We have our
priorities all mixed up, not mixed up but topsy-turvy. The
environmental groups are all busy in protecting the red ceckaded
woodpecker, gopher tortoise, the Texas cougar or known as the Florida
Panther and worry about the millions or thousands of acres that these
animals and birds need to fly around in, roam in. Now, we come to a
point where neighborhood parks have been neglected. Where are our
priorities?
Let's take care of the neighborhood parks that we have. Mr.
Constantine eloquently presented the case against us, the motion or
objection that Mr. Olliff brought in. And I'm in favor of park
operation maintenance of all existing neighborhood park associations,
et cetera, but no new neighborhood parks, no new associations unless
those people want to take on the tax burden, as Mr. Keller stated. I
think this is another indication, like I said, that our priorities are
upside down. Let's consider human beings, our children, our
neighborhoods and ourselves.
MR. DORRILL: Ms. Maggie and then Mr. Gibbons.
MS. MAGGIO: Good morning. For the record, Emily Maggie,
Little Hickory Shores. In the interest of brevity, ditto, ditto
everything Commissioner Constantine said. One point that I think is
important to remember, these are public facilities, and if you turn
these parks over to a neighborhood association, you're going to get a
little parochial, don't you think?
And as far as having problems with keeping the place looking
nice and mowing grass, I'm going to say one word, volunteers. There's
a whole bunch of us out here that volunteer to pick trash off the
beach and do a whole lot of pick-up off the road and everywhere else.
Why not the parks? Thank you.
MR. GIBBONS: Good morning, Commissioners, Rich Gibbons,
former resident of Collier County. Now I'm a resident of Blairsville,
Georgia. I heard about this, and I drove all the way down to speak
about this. It's an eleven-hour drive, and I drove all the way
through so I could get here in time for the meeting. But I'm afraid
what Pam Mac'Kie said about neighborhood parks because I was involved
in building the park in Naples Manor. And as you know, Naples Manor
is a working-class people and a lot of poor people. And the community
park is quite a distance from Naples Manor, and the kids can't walk
there because their parents are working. And I wouldn't want my kids
crossing 41, and they can't drive them because they're working. So
it's a small park, and it's only got a couple of slides and a swing
set in there. But the last time I was down here there were a lot of
kids playing in there. There is no grass growing in there -- that I
know of -- because it's sand in there instead of grass. I didn't
allow any grass because Mr. Brinkman didn't want any grass in there to
have to mow it. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion and a second.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just a comment to our staff. And
while obviously we turned this one down. I hope this doesn't scare
you away from bringing ideas to save money. I don't want you to be
discouraged. Any time you have thoughts along those lines, we'll be
more than happy to listen to them. We may agree or may not.
MR. BRINKMAN: We'll be back.
Item #8C2
BUDGET AMENDMENT OF $5,000 TO PAY FOR AN APPRAISAL OF THE COUNTY'S
ANIMAL CONTROL PROPERTY LOCATED ON NORTH AIRPORT ROAD - APPROVED
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Next item is 8(C)(2).
MR. OLLIFF: On the heels of that popular item is 8(C)(2).
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Do we have a motion?
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: If I can interrupt, Mr. Olliff, as
far as I know, a proposal from the citizens that asked me to delay
this four weeks has not been forthcoming, and with that in mind I'll
move approval.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Do we have speakers?
MR. DORRILL: No, sir.
MR. OLLIFF: Just on the motion, I did meet with
representatives of the District 2 association, and they express an
interest. They were aware that the item was going to be on. I think
there is still some interest in that area to create, amazingly, a
neighborhood park.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The key here and the requests I've
received before making a decision to either sell this property or
whatnot is to consider that. And I think we have plenty of time to do
that. In the meantime we still have a facility control question, an
animal control that is really the dominant issue here. And if we can
accomplish that and create a park, great. But that's a decision down
the road, and we will consider that at some point.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: This item is not to make a decision to sell
the property. It's simply to get an appraisal.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Correct.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: With that we have a motion and a second.
Opposed?
None on that.
Item #SD1
SETTLEMENT OFFER IN THE CASE OF KNUT GERNAT, PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF
THE ESTATE OF HEIKE GERNAT VS. COLLIER COUNTY - RECOHMENDATION #2,
$10,000 OFFER AND IF REJECTED COUNTY TO PROCEED TO COURT
Next item, 8(D)(1).
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Now we're into the really exciting
part of the agenda, the legal part.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: These are settlement discussions?
MR. WALKER: Yes, Ha'am. For the record, Jeff Walker, risk
management director. Items 8(D)(1) and (2) were placed on the agenda
to bring the board up to date in terms of a couple of cases that we
have going to trial in the near future. We wanted to bring these
matters to the board's attention for informational purposes as well as
any direction that may be needed. Mr. Bryant is with me this morning.
He'll be discussing the legal aspects of the case, and I'll turn it
over to him.
MR. BRYANT: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners. Hay
it please the board. As you saw from the agenda, we have three
matters on today. I'll talk about the Lely one first. That was
withdrawn late yesterday afternoon from Mr. Hazard to me. He faxed a
letter over saying that he was withdrawing his offer. I tried to call
him, and he was out of his office, and I have no idea why he did that.
So that's a moot issue today.
The other two matters, the Gernat and the Wilbur (phonetic)
cases are very important to the county. If you remember from reading
the backup material, the Gernat matter is a wrongful death case that
took place on 951 where a lady flipped over a jeep and then died from
that accident. The county has maintained all along that we were not
responsible for this accident, that she died at her own hands, that
she modified -- she and her husband modified the jeep she was in.
I'm sure you've seen some of the CJ7 rollover material on
television. They're inherently dangerous vehicles. This one was
modified. It was jacked up. It had oversized tires on it, and she
was driving too fast for conditions. In fact, the homicide report by
the FHP homicide office said she died because she was driving
improperly.
So that's one the county has made a very minimal outlook in
this matter. We had to bring this issue to you because we're going to
trial on June 3 for two weeks in this case. It's our position that we
have a strong case. But as I said in my memo to you, anytime you have
a decedent, you never know what the jury is going to do. But it's our
position that the county was correct. It's Better Road's position
that they built the road correctly. And it's Hole, Hontes' position
that they designed it correctly, and that's why the offer has been so
minimal in this case. Yes, Ha'am.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Are the other two defendants sharing
in the cost of the defense?
MR. BRYANT: They're defending their own clients. They
aren't sharing in our defense. They're defending -- Better Roads is
paying for their defense; and Hole, Hontes is definitely paying
theirs.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just so they're not piggybacking off
of ours.
MR. BRYANT: Oh, no, Ha'am. In fact, they are paying a lot
more because Hole, Hontes has private counsel, and also Better Roads
has private counsel that they're probably paying $150 an hour to where
we're handling it ourselves.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Obviously it's a tragedy if this
woman was killed. However, from reading the backup material and
hearing your comments today and also the comments of the other two
defendants in the case, I'm fairly comfortable. And I realize
unfortunately that this thing happened, but I have a high comfort
level that the county is in the right here. And although it was a
tragic situation, it was not the responsibility -- the county was not
responsible for it. And so I would make a motion that we go ahead and
proceed to court with that.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Bryant, a couple of questions.
Item 2 on the recommendation is to submit an offer of $10,000 to
proceed at trial if the offer is rejected. Let me ask my two
questions. One is did I read correctly that we are capping Florida
Statutes $200,000 exposure on this item?
MR. BRYANT: That's correct, Commissioner. The only way that
can be exceeded is if a person took a claims bill to the legislature,
which is an exceptionally hard thing to get through. You would have
to have a very egregious case to get the legislature to go forward and
order the county to pay more money than what's our immunity limit,
your exposure is at.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. And the second question is one
of do we arrive at $10,000 on the basis that the expense of defending
the county would be somewhere in that ballpark regardless?
MR. BRYANT: Well, we probably spent to date, I would
guestimate, about $8,500 because we have two outstanding experts over
on the east coast, one in storm water and one in crash analysis and
crash clauses. In fact, our crash analyst is the crash analyst for
the Dade County State Attorney's Office and works with the Dade County
grand jury on very important homicide crash cases, and he's
represented us before. Our storm water person is one of the
outstanding storm water engineering groups, and they are all prepared
to testify that everything is correct.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The cost of that testimony and getting
through that would be approximately how much, in your opinion? I
understand it's a ballpark.
MR. BRYANT: I would guestimate that we're going to spend
probably another -- anywhere from $2,500, $7,500. All the work has
been done. Now it's just a matter of bringing the people over for a
day and putting them on the stand and letting them testify and go
back.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm going to amend my motion, by
the way, to reflect recommendation number 2.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. And the reason -- I was going
to submit recommendation number 2 also, but here is the question I
have. If we go to trial and prevail, can we go after our expense on
this one?
MR. BRYANT: Oh, yes, sir, we can. In fact --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: If he accepts the offer of $10,000, we
cannot?
MR. BRYANT: If he accepts $10,000 and he's out of it and
we're out of it, then we don't get anything.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: But I'm willing to bet that his
attorneys are on contingency.
MR. BRYANT: Oh, they are. They definitely are. I can tell
you that. I know that.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: He's not out of pocket a dime so far?
MR. BRYANT: Well, he spent some money.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: He's had some expenses.
MR. BRYANT: Yeah. He's spent some money already. In fact,
I thought they were going to take our $5,000 offer earlier that we
didn't offer a judgment like we did in the Phillips case. And now
we're getting back about $12,000 in fees and costs in that case.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: We've taken a pretty hard line in the
past on what appears to be meritless lawsuits in that we try to take a
position that we can recoup expenses if at all possible. And by
offering the $10,000, if he takes it, then we're done, and we spent
tax dollars for no reason. And I have to question whether or not we
want to take that position in this case. I personally do not.
MR. BRYANT: Commissioner, if I could interject one thing.
We offered an offer of judgment of $5,000. That expired. They did
not accept that. If we go to trial and we roll the dice and we win,
they owe us all of our costs and fees because of the $5,000 offer.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But they've made a $75,000 offer
judgment to us. So explain the flip side of that, please.
MR. BRYANT: Well, if they get more than $75,000 from the
date of the offer of settlement, we have to pay their fees and costs.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: The $75,000 we have to -- it's simply
a gamble here, so we have to be sure. We have to feel pretty
confident that they're going to get less than $75,000, or otherwise
we're gambling on the offer of judgment.
MR. BRYANT: Well, as you know, Commissioner Hac'Kie, from
being an attorney you roll the dice anytime you walk into a courtroom.
If I could tell they're going to get X, I would be representing IBM
today.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: See, there's part of that let's make
our offer of judgment $300,000, but that was absurd. They made it at
seventy-five, and that's not too --
MR. BRYANT: As a point of comfort level, if you look at what
Hole, Hontes and what Better Roads offered, the 20,000 each, that
shows you they feel that the offer they've made is only worth what it
is going to cost them to go because they feel it's a nuisance also.
We think it's one of these where we're the only target out there, so
let's see if we can get some free money.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'll second the motion on number 2.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Any speakers?
MR. DORRILL: No, sir.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I am really reluctant to go along with
number 2. I think we should go after it and recoup the expenses. If
we feel our case is that strong, I think we should do that but --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Let me just offer a thought to go
after it. We've been told it could run as much as $7,500. So, in
essence, what we're doing is saying $2,500 we can make this stop for
sure.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Well, we're not really because we could
recoup expenses if we are successful. It's $2,500 plus $7,500 worth
of expenses.
MR. BRYANT: Yes, sir.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: So it's a pretty big swing.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Anyway, we have a motion and second.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
It passes three to two.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I talked myself back into that one,
didn't I?
Item #8D2
CASE OF JOHN WILVER VS. COLLIER COUNTY - UPDATE PRESENTED
HR. BRYANT: Hr. Chairman, Commissioners, that last one is
the Wilbur matter. If you remember, this case involves an age
discrimination lawsuit by Mr. Wilbur against the county because of a
reduction in force of the development services in 1994 based upon the
board's instruction to streamline development services, to improve the
level of service, and to do a better job with less people. We have
defended this matter vigorously from the very beginning. We were set
to go to trial on the 13th. I went to the pretrial yesterday in
federal court, and I had made a motion to strike one of their expert
witnesses that I maintained they had given us too late in discovery.
The court agreed with me and gave the plaintiff's counsel two
alternatives, to request for a continuance or go to trial without
their expert. They didn't want to go to trial without their expert,
so they moved for a continuance which the court granted.
We are now set for trial on the 13th of August. We brought
this matter to you today because we fully believe that we will be in
trial next Monday morning in federal court for a week. And we have an
ethical and a legal responsibility, as Mr. Dotrill has talked about in
the past, to share with you all offers of settlement or matters that
are going to trial.
We have never received a formal offer in this matter, but I
can tell that they're asking for over $200,000. We believe that the
reduction in force was appropriate. We believe that the county's
position is sound. We believe that it meets the McDonald Douglas test
which was a major supreme court reduction of force case. We believe
that it meets the Clark case which is a major reduction of force case.
We believe what the board has directed staff to do was proper, and it
was done properly. In fact, I have an expert witness from Tampa. He
will come and testify that the way we did it is the textbook way to
handle personnel matters, and we did it in a way that was the fairest
for the people. So at this time we're now prepared to go to trial in
August.
There is a silver lining in the matter that I'll share with
you. This is the reason that Mr. Walker and I brought these cases to
you today and brought them to you as part of the risk management
department. The overall figure in Florida, based upon EEOC's own
figures or a Title 7 discrimination case, such as Mr. Wilbur, is
$250,000 for defense costs only, $250,000 in attorney's fees and
costs, which is the average cost in defending a case like Mr.
Wilbur's. To date, Mr. Walker tells me we have spent $4,002.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just to clarify one of the items
that was in our backup material. The position that was vacated when
Mr. Wilbur was laid off has not been filled? MR. BRYANT: No, sir, it has not.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Has it at all been assigned to
existing positions?
MR. BRYANT: And that's one of the strongest parts in our
case. If we had teassigned that to a younger person making less
money, we would not be in as strong a position as we are. We still
could rebut their claim, but we believe that the way the
reorganization was done and the mission statement that was developed
by Mr. Dotrill for the board that was followed was the most
appropriate way to handle that.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So that position was truly
dissolved?
MR. BRYANT: Yes, sir. It's spread out among a number of
people. Now, we didn't need that body to be dedicated to that one
job. But I wanted you to see the amount of money that we are saving
in these kind of cases because Title 7 cases are very involved and
very expensive because of the fact that you have to pay so much if you
go to the private sector to defend it.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: This is for information only?
MR. BRYANT: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Any speakers, Mr. Dorrill?
MR. DORRILL: No, sir.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We will take a five-minute break and come
back.
(A short recess was taken.)
Item #8D4
DIRECTION TO THE COUNTY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE TO PREPARE AN ORDINANCE
ESTABLISHING AN ELECTRIC UTILITY FRANCHISE AND/OR PRIVILEGE FEE - STAFF
TO BRING BACK A DRAFT ORDINANCE PRIOR TO ADVERTISING
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Reconvene the county commission meeting.
We're ready for item 8(D)(4). Who is going to present this, Hr.
Dotrill?
MR. YONKOSKY: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, good morning. My
name is John Yonkosky. The next item on the agenda, 8(C)(4) or
8(D)(4), is a request for the Board of County Commissioners to
authorize the county attorney's office and the staff to formally
develop an ordinance under either a franchise fee arrangement or a
privilege fee arrangement for electric utility franchise fee revenue
for the Board of County Commissioners.
At your budget hearing, I believe, on March 5 the board
directed staff to explore the possibility of the franchise fee
utilization or position on electric utility operations in this county.
There are two electric utility organizations; that's Florida Power and
Light and Lee County Electric Co-op who provides the electric service
in this county.
Staff has met with these organizations. The revenues have
basically been verified, and the next step in the process is before
the board for them to direct us to develop the ordinance.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm personally still wrestling with
the concept of reduced ad valorem and put a franchise fee out there.
They appear, from what I hear, to be conflicting. Let's lower it over
here and raise it over here. That's not what we're discussing today.
You're just going to go ahead and prepare the ordinance for adoption.
The only caution I want to issue we may not need a 3-percent franchise
fee, and whatever we don't absolutely need I don't want to go after.
But this is just the preparation of the ordinance. And as much as I
want to have that discussion, this is probably not an appropriate
time. So I don't know if we can just streamline this particular step
and then have the meat of the discussion at the time of adoption.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The question is just, do we want
them to come back with a specific proposal for us to weigh?
MR. YONKOSKY: That is all the direction that the staff is
requesting.
MR. DORRILL: You have some speakers.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Let's go to the speakers.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Goodlette. Ms. Maggio, would you stand by,
please?
MR. GOODLETTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Dudley
Goodlette with the law firm of Goodlette, Coleman, and Johnson. We
represent Lee County Electric Co-op. We recognize that the item on
your agenda today, as you have just alluded, is not to discuss the
substantive issues, so I will be brief. However, the co-op has asked
that we appear this morning on their behalf merely to make you aware
that they are willing to continue to cooperate with your staff in
providing the information that has been requested of them. They have
obviously an interest in this subject, and they have an interest in
the policy decision. When it comes time to address that subject,
we'll be back to discuss that with you as well.
In that regard Bryan Brockel (phonetic), who is the manager
of public relations and rates with the co-op, has provided information
to Mr. Yonkosky and his staff concerning the customer charges and the
miscellaneous information relating to the sale of electricity to the
co-op customers. They will continue to cooperate in providing that
information to enable your staff to submit proposals to you in
conjunction with your 1997 fiscal budget.
The overriding concern that they asked that I just state to
you this morning is to insure that the customer rates do not increase
as a result of the adoption of a utility franchise fee in Collier
County. Indeed, the co-op has asked that again we state on their
behalf that they are searching for ways to reduce those rates, not to
increase those rates. They just merely asked me to make that a part
of your record this morning.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you.
MR. GOODLETTE: Thank you.
MR. DORRILL: Ms. Maggio and then Mr. Erlichman.
MS. MAGGIO: For the record, Emily Maggio, Little Hickory
Shores. Really briefly since I guess maybe this is the wrong time,
but when you're putting things together you need input. First of all,
it is a tax. I appreciate not wanting to raise the millage,
et cetera, but this is a tax that we will have to pay. At least my ad
valorems I can put on my income tax. What do I do with a franchise
fee? And a franchise fee like a sales tax is regressive. You're
going to have to think about it every time you pick up the phone or
turn your AC on or whatever. And also on my electric bill they ask
for contributions for people who can't pay their electric bill. Add
on a franchise fee. That is my comment. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Erlichman, he'll be your final speaker.
MR. ERLICHMAN: Gil Erlichman, East Naples speaking for
myself and TAG. I have a question first. Mr. Chairman, is there a 3
percent electric utility tax that is going to be on our tax bills in
Collier County at present?
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Not yet.
MR. ERLICHMAN: What I'm hearing -- I just heard somebody say
3 percent. Now I've also heard 3 percent on the electric utility
bills. Are those separate issues?
MR. DORRILL: There's no proposal for the tax bill. The
proposal would be to charge the regulated utilities a franchise or a
privilege fee for the purpose and the ability to use the rights-of-way
in Collier County that would appear on your monthly electric bill.
We're not talking about anything involving your property tax bill at
all.
MR. ERLICHHAN: But you're talking about the electric utility
bill?
MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir.
MR. ERLICHHAN: A direct tax of 3 percent on the electric
utility, correct.
MR. DORRILL: You can call it a tax if you like. It's a
right-of-way and a privilege fee.
MR. ERLICHHAN: Oh, you're talking about a franchise fee to
the utility.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: What is your point, Mr. Erlichman?
MR. ERLICHHAN: My point is, sir, that if you clearly state
-- the fiscal impact is clearly stated here at the bottom of the
first page on the executive summary. It says the fiscal impact, none
at this time. However, the intent of this action is to provide a
significant countywide general fund revenue source beginning with
fiscal year 1997. So in other words, you have already stated that
you're looking for money or more money to run the county.
By imposing any type of tax or fee on a corporation or
company, for instance, a utility that supplies electricity in this
case, that cost is going to be passed on to the consumer. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That's right.
MR. ERLICHHAN: I mean the consumer is going to pay that, the
taxpayer. So, therefore, it's a hidden tax in one way, and another
way it's a message for the county commission to say that we still have
the lowest millage rate in the State of Florida because you're not
going to add this tax -- you're not going to have a tax on our
ad valorem tax. Pardon me, the ad valorem tax is not going to be
increased.
Therefore, the taxpayer is caught no matter what happens. We
are going to pay for it whether it's a franchise fee or whether it's a
3 percent tax on our utility bill, et cetera. Right now we pay on our
utility bills. On our electric bill we pay a gross receipt tax. And
then we're paying a gross tax increase to the state, an increase, as
they call it, because in 1990 it was increased from -- I don't know
what, by a half -- one-half of a percent.
On our telephone bills we pay a gross receipts tax, and we
also pay the federal tax which was imposed in World War II to help pay
for the war, to offset the expense of World War II. And that tax was
supposed to be offset at the end of the war. Telephone tax, it's
still on. The war ended 50 years ago, a little over 50 years ago, and
the tax is still on our telephone bill. So once the tax is imposed,
whether it is a franchise fee or otherwise, it stays.
And I think that the county should consider other measures
and look at their budget and try to keep our costs down. I really --
it's not ingenuous on your part because you've disclosed it here. But
it is disingenuous in the fact that people think that they're not
paying increased taxes, but they are going to pay increased taxes if
you permit this franchise fee to go through. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you.
MR. DORRILL: That's all, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We need a motion.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think there are a number points
that Gil and the other people have made that are valid, but I don't
want us to just not even look at it. I think those all need to be
looked at when we see the specific proposals, so I will make a motion
that you go ahead and bring a specific proposal to us. And as
Commissioner Hancock said, if we decide to go ahead, you need to plug
in the smallest number possible. I'm not sure we will end up going
ahead, but I want to have something to look at before I make that
decision.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And I'll second it, but again we know,
Mr. Erlichman, it's a shell game. It is just which way we're going to
tax. But it is, and I'll say it, it is. So it's just a question of
which way we tax, and the goal should be to reduce them at every
opportunity. And it is this board's goal, but I would like to look at
this as an alternative before I write it off, so second. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Go ahead.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I would like to say something. Mr.
Yonkosky, is it your intention when you bring this ordinance back '-
I'm assuming we're going to vote for you to do that, to have a clause
in there, not specifically specifying the percentage, but only for
this board to have the authority to assess the tax and that each year
that tax could go up or down accordingly?
MR. YONKOSKY: If the board so instructs us we do not have to
put a percentage in the ordinance or agreement at this time. But the
board will have to make a decision on the percentage if it adopts the
ordinance, and Mr. Weigel may want to say something about that also.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: But would that percentage be
alterable from year to year depending on what the needs are? CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That is a policy decision.
MR. YONKOSKY: Well, it generally is set for a period of
time, that percentage. You can define the length of time that you
want to establish that fee for. And I believe that it can be couched
in a variable term. You can certainly put a sunset on it, too.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: This may come down to a simple
question of which route do we want to go to raise the funds necessary
if necessary, and we're rather premature in that discussion today.
There are a lot of legal questions that we'll want to pursue, but I
would suggest that maybe when the ordinance comes back would be the
most appropriate time. I think the public can rest assured that we're
not looking to go after 3 percent regardless of what other budgetary
moves we make, and the attempt to avoid new taxes is clearly the
direction of this board, I think. I don't hear anyone objecting.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: No. I'm fine. The merits of the
ordinance itself needs to be discussed when the ordinance comes back,
and we can read it and discuss the merits of it.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd also like -- perhaps as part
of the staff presentation when you come back is some of the impact.
One of the things that strikes me as an advantage of this, it spreads
the cost among some of those who may not be paying ad valorem tax.
But there are also disadvantages. I think one of the speakers pointed
out it is really a regressive tax. So maybe look at some of those
issues as part of the presentation other than strictly the ordinance
itself. You can help us along with those.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I believe Mr. Weigel wants to jump in here
for a second.
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you. I'll jump briefly. Just in
clarification, if the direction of the board is to bring back an
ordinance, whether it is to be brought back as an agenda item with a
report or actually being advertised and brought back so that it might
be adopted with the report, additional information that Mr. Yonkosky
might bring. And, secondly, in regard to a percentage amount
specifically in the ordinance, we can draft with some flexibility in
that regard.
But in regard to an advertised ordinance, we will still be
held to a standard of some specificity to a percentage amount. So if
I have to put in a percent, I will. But I would expect that the
ordinance would in the text of the ordinance address the fact that
it's a variable percentage, and you would still have the opportunity
on the floor to change that percentage on the adoption date if you
were to adopt it.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you. We have a motion and a second.
All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
Being none, we'll move on to --
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman, is it our intent for
Mr. Weigel and Mr. Yonkosky to bring this ordinance back, to advertise
for passage on that day, or to bring us a draft ordinance for
inspection and input?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I would hope -- my opinion is a draft
ordinance because I'm not going to be ready to pass anything until I
see what our budgetary restraints are and whether it's necessary.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: That's my feeling, too, to have a
draft.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I would like it to be brought back in
draft form for consideration, but I wouldn't be ready to pass it until
I know more about our budget situation.
MR. DORRILL: You'll have the opportunity to know that prior
to the 4th of July. You will know what the ad valorem picture is at
that time. At some point, though, for certain of you keep in mind
that the first Tuesday in September is there, and you don't want to be
pushing up too close to that and/or the final public hearing dates
where you get yourself caught short. And I think we'll prepare a memo
to you. But I would think that if you want to see the draft, we ought
to see the draft prior to the 4th of July so that we can get some
direction to advertise that thing.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That's your direction then, Mr. Yonkosky.
MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir.
Item #8D5
HVAC EQUIPMENT IN THE TAX COLLECTOR AND PROPERTY APPRAISER'S OFFICES
THAT WILL REDUCE THE RELATIVE HUMIDITY AND RELATING CLEANING AND
SANITIZING OF THESE SYSTEMS - APPROVED
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: And we'll go to --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make
a motion to approve item 8(E)(1).
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Haven't gotten there yet. We're going to
8 (D) (5) , the former 8 (B) (1) .
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm sorry. I'll rescind my motion
for the time being.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Chairman, we have a real short
presentation, but in particular we have some exhibits made, and I have
asked Mr. Camp to refer you to those and explain to you the nature of
this, and for no other reason we're asking to take the money out of
reserves. It is fairly urgent, but we would not otherwise be asking
for this.
COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: Motion to approve.
COHHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Second.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion and a second. Is Mr.
Carlton going to come up and object to this?
MR. CARLTON: Not at all.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: The picture has a thousand words with
it.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: It has a thousand colonies of mold on it.
A motion and a second.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
There is none. Now, Mr. Constantine, you were saying?
Item #BE1
RESOLUTION 96-224 APPROVING THE POSITION CLASSIFICATION SPECIFICATIONS
AND PAY RANGES FOR THE POSITION OF EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE COUNTY
MANAGER AND OTHER POSITIONS RESULTING FROM REORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY
HANAGER'S OFFICE - ADOPTED
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make
a motion that we approve 8(E)(1). COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Motion and a second. All those in favor --
do we have speakers on this?
MR. DORRILL: Not on this one. I do -- well, I do. Well, I
take that back. I have some speakers I know that's here in favor of
it.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Motion and a second.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
Item #8E2
ESTABLISHMENT OF BUDGETS FOR THE OFFICE OF UTILITY REGULATION AND THE
OFFICE OF FRANCHISE ADMINISTRATION - APPROVED
We are on 8(E)(2).
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make
a motion that we approve item 8(E)(2), and I'm actually kind of
excited about it.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I'm kind of excited about it, too. Do we
have public speakers on this?
MR. DORRILL: You have one speaker on this who may be
opposed. Mr. Keller, did you wish to speak on this item? MR. KELLER: I'm in favor of it.
MR. DORRILL: Okay. I believe all the others are. Mr.
Chairman, I do want to thank my human resources staff for turning this
around quickly. And some of the members of my staff did a fine job on
this, and I just want to thank them on your behalf.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I think members of your staff have done an
excellent job on this. We don't have any more public speakers on
this?
We have a motion and a second.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
That is unanimous.
Item #9A
AUTHORIZATION FOR $2,283,000 PRINCIPAL REDUCTION ON TAX EXEMPT
COHMERCIAL PAPER DRAW A-1 - CONTINUED ONE WEEK AND STAFF TO PROVIDE
OPTIONS
Our next one is 16(H)(1). Former 16(H)(1) is now 9(A). Who
pulled that off?
MR. WEIGEL: The county attorney's office did. And Ms.
Jo-Anne Leamet will be speaking from the clerk's office in regard to
that.
MS. LEAMER: Hi, Jo-Anne Leamet with the clerk's finance
department. We're here today to request authorization to pay down on
commercial paper draw A-1 which was the road draw. You had approved
in your budget last year a two-million-dollar reduction on this draw
which was not done. That money is still available. In addition,
$283,000 is accumulated in interest, which we would like to reduce the
amount of principal outstanding on that draw. We do need a resolution
prepared, and I believe that is why it has been pulled off the consent
agenda.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Ms. Leamet, in a nutshell, what's the
benefit of doing this?
MS. LEAMER: Reduce our outstanding debt and future interest
expense.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I will make a motion to approve.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Wait a minute. You just asked a
question, Mr. Chairman. If we don't -- since we have not paid it down
and if we do not pay it down, what would happen to that money?
MS. LEAMER: Right now it's sitting in fund 299. We could
transfer it back to the general fund which is where it came from
originally.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: That's why I said wait a minute
because -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I thought that was a dedicated fund,
so I apologize.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: No. It goes back to the general
fund.
MS. LEAMER: During your budget workshops last year it was
approved that the money be transferred from the general fund into the
fund 299 to reduce the debt. That should have taken place but didn't,
but I assume at the board's direction it could be transferred back.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Well, we haven't resolved what we're
going to do with the budget restraints this year. While I'm fully in
favor of reducing our debt wherever possible, I'm also questioning
whether we should be reducing our debt only to have to incur more debt
and pay whatever fees we have to pay to incur that debt at some future
date which may not be too far in the future. So I'm not too sure that
we should be doing this, and I think I would like more information
from staff as to what the options are if we do not reduce this
principal amount by 2 million dollars. I mean, we can do this a week
from now as well as today, couldn't we? MS. LEAMER: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I think I'd like to hear more about
__
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: So your motion is to continue for a week?
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: To continue for a week and ask staff
to give us options as to what happens if we do not spend this 2
million -- $2,283,000 in view of the financial crunch that we're
looking at.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll second that. I, too, would like
see the implications.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Motion and a second to continue.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
That is continued until next week.
Item #10A
EXTRA GAIN TIME FOR INMATE NO. 83354 - DENIED
10(A), extra gain time.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, if you look at the
history on this, July '93, bad checks; May of '95, eight bad checks,
found guilty, put on probation; December of '95, more bad checks.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Are you going to make a motion?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm going to make a motion that we
deny it.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Second.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm going to agree with you on this
One.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion and a second to deny.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
There are none.
Maybe give this person a little extra time to think about bad
checks.
Item #10B
RESOLUTION 96-225 ESTABLISHING THE LAKE TRAFFORD RESTORATION TASK FORCE
- ADOPTED
We're now ready for Mr. Fred "punctual" Thomas here. He told
me he would be here before eleven o'clock and, by golly, he lived up
to his word.
MR. THOMAS: For the record --
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: By the way, I told you I would have this on
at eleven o'clock, and it looks like I'm a couple minutes late.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Don't accept his apologies.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Before Mr. Thomas gets started, most
of you received a memorandum from me yesterday putting this on the
agenda. If you don't have it with you, I have extra copies of the
chamber letter that we received. If you need them, they're here.
MR. THOMAS: My name is Fred Thomas. I'm operating today as
president of the Immokalee Chamber of Commerce. Let me first thank
you not only for this audience but for so graciously supporting our
project graduation earlier today. I want to thank you all for that.
It's going to make it very easy for us to keep the kids on the right
track during the graduation and celebrations.
We have a problem at Lake Trafford. And the problem is
caused by an algae bloom, an algae bloom that when the sun is shining
bright can give you eight parts per million in a lake that only needs
five parts per million. But when you have a lot of rain and cloud
cover like we had in the last several -- within the last month and a
half, the oxygen levels get reduced to less than one part per million.
This is the reason why we had a fish kill that killed off about 60
percent of the fish population in that lake estimated by the fish and
wildlife folks.
We're asking that a task force be formed similar to the Clam
task force to look at restoring Lake Trafford, okay. Just -- if there
is any fisherman in the room, I'm an avid fisherman. I fish the lake
all the time. Until I went out there the morning of the fish kill I
had no idea of the numbers of large-mouth bass that had been eluding
me in the 10 years I was fishing in that lake. I just did not.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: You just need to spend more than
1,000-hour segments out there.
MR. THOMAS: That's true. That's true. We're talking over
350 bass over 5 pounds. There were over 100 bass over 10 pounds, and
there were a couple that were in the 14-pound range. I mean, there
were a lot of huge -- that's just the bass. That's not talking about
the shell cracker you could walk across and the blue gill and the brim
that are out there. But it's caused by the algae bloom, and we need
to do something about it.
We don't know what the complete answers are. I thought we
had an idea of what the answer -- what the best answer would be, but
we have people coming out because of the press coverage out of the
woodworks coming up with new technology, new things that are being
used around the world. And I mention that because there is a side
benefit to you all taking a lead in doing something about this. We
have an industrial park with an international trade zone in it and tax
credits coming to us through an enterprise zone that was passed with
Senate Bill 958 last weekend.
We could be a demonstration site for a number of these
technologies, which is what we -- what would help the overall economy
of Immokalee and help with the airport and industrial parks. So any
solution we come up to I see it as a double spin off in helping the
overall economy in addition to sporting goods but also to jobs based
with the number of types technology that they have.
Just to give you an example, one of the problems in dredging
the lake is where are you going to put the water, and how do you get
the water back in the lake? When you're talking about trying to
remove 7 million cubic yards of muck, that's a lot of water. But the
Japanese have a new dredge that dewaters the muck as you pull it out.
They're looking to get into the United States market.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The United States muck market?
MR. THOMAS: Muck market. And we have two things going for
us, and that's an international trade zone where they can do some
construction and assembly and what have you and a demonstration site
right here at Lake Trafford and get our muck done almost free.
Another concept that's gone around that you'll see up and
alive at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is a living system for treating the
biomass. That is another thing that would go great and provide an
asset. So we just need the technical people to be appointed by you
folks in the form of a task force to begin to look at the most
reasonable, best ways of getting this done, finding the sources,
federal, state monies to make it happen, and come back with
recommendations to you. So today we're asking you to appoint that
task force.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I've got to tell you the list that
is attached here is a pretty impressive list you've assembled.
MR. THOMAS: All of these people have agreed to several on
this task force.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We need a motion then.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: We need a motion. I'll make that
motion. Essentially the motion is for BCC to recognize the task force
as an advisory board to the Board of County Commissioners similar to
the mangrove task force and that we allow staff to put their time and
effort to the creation of grant applications and so forth in support
of the task force.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Weigel has a little comment he wants to
make.
MR. WEIGEL: It would appear that you're creating one of the
ad hoc committees or task force which under our ordinance have a
requirement if it is to exist one year or less to be approved by
resolution. If it's longer than one year, it would be by an
ordinance.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I would hope it would be less than a
year that we come to a solution.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: As to an ad hoc, if we need it we can
reestablish it next year if we're not finished with it.
MR. THOMAS: Everything that I've been hearing about this we
can probably find a solution within a year, but the implementation,
dredging is going to take a minimum of two years. The other
technology that I was talking about, using the living lab, would take
many years.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: But this is only in reference to the
establishment of the task force itself. If it's a year or less, then
we can do it simply by resolution?
MR. THOMAS: Okay. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I want to second the motion. I just
want -- I'm a little troubled by what your analogy to the Clam Bay
task force -- because I wanted to commend Immokalee for not coming in
and asking for a check and instead say we're going to find solutions
to our own problems. So to the extent that it's like --
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Well --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Was that a jab?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That was a jab.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: My kidney, it hurts right here.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Immokalee has elected to do that, and
we, with the help of Fred have gotten together an excellent task
force. What we need the Board of County Commissioners to support is
that we're going to need staff time and effort to proceed with various
grant applications and so forth. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Second.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: We are looking for grants to fund it.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion and a second.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
There doesn't seem to be any. Thank you, Mr. Thomas.
PUBLIC COHMENT REGARDING A PRIVATE LEGAL ISSUE BY AN INDIVIDUAL - NO
ACTION AS THIS IS NOT COUNTY JURISDICTION
That brings us to down to public comment. Mr. Dotrill, do we
have any?
MR. DORRILL: I have none today, but Mr. Weigel has one.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Weigel has one more comment.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Mr. Weigel.
MR. WEIGEL: But not public comment. It's under staff
communications. I was going to just ask the clerk to reserve a
resolution number for that last item. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay.
MR. DORRILL: I appear to have one under public comment.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay. Let's have that one.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. DeBaun, that would be you, sir.
MR. DE BAUN: I got here just in the nick of time. I would
like to talk about law and order. We have a good man; our sheriff is
Don Hunter. I think he's great, don't get me wrong. But this -- I'm
very happily married. A number of years ago, which is going on about
four years now, I was dating a girl, and she tried to claim she was a
psychiatrist. So far it has cost me something like $20,000. The
lawyer's name is McDonnell, and she's no more of a psychiatrist than
I'm a cook. And she lied under oath. And I took all this stuff to
the District Attorney's Office, and they won't do nothing about it.
And it's got me in a poor house, and I am getting irritated.
I'm getting very frustrated at what's going on. I figured,
well, Collier County -- I live in the city, but Collier County is the
right people to go see, and let's take it from there. And I hope you
gentlemen could do something for me to get my paperwork going through
the district -- D.A.'s office and prosecute this woman for lying
under oath. What do you say?
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Is that your request?
MR. DE BAUN: Yes.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I'm sorry, sir, but you've come to the
wrong board. We don't deal with that matter at all.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: We have no authority over the state
attorney's office whatsoever. MR. DE BAUN: No?
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: No. You have to take the matter up with
them, not us.
MR. DE BAUN: With who?
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: The state attorney's office.
MR. DE BAUN: I have.
MR. DORRILL: If he'll see me in the hallway immediately
following the break or the meeting, I can at least instruct him to a
little higher level of authority in the state attorney's office in
Fort Myers, and we will be happy to try and coordinate that meeting
for him. I'll see you outside in just a second.
MR. DE BAUN: Thank you very much.
Item #12C1
RESOLUTION 96-226/CWS 96-6; 96-227/CWS96-7 AS AMENDED; AND 96-228/CWS
96-8 APPROVING THE 201 FACILITIES PLAN UPDATE FOR THE COLLIER COUNTY
WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT PROGRAM AND AUTHORIZING AN APPLICATION FOR A
STATE REVOLVING FUND LOAN - ADOPTED
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you, sir. Our next item is 13(C)(1).
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Or maybe 12.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: 12(C)(1). I'm getting ahead of myself.
MR. GONZALEZ: Good morning, Commissioners. Adolfo Gonzalez.
We have two items for you to consider taking action on today, 12(C)(1)
and 12(C)(2). To give you a little bit of information before we
start, this item relates to trying to get some loan monies to proceed
with the south county waste water treatment plant facility relocations
next year. This was a consequence of your board action just in
February of this year when we settled on the Hubschman agreement.
That left a deficit in future years as far as capital construction
costs goes. Your staff is trying to find alternative means to get the
money to build those improvements.
There's a few things that the CDH team will be doing today as
part of necessary statements that have to be inputted into the public
record. If you will bear with us, we're going to go through two
presentations; one on the actual facility plan and the second one on
the financing plan for the facility projects.
We have today with us Mr. Richard Moore from Camp, Dresser &
HcKee who will be giving you an overview of the project. Mr. Jeff
Payne will be giving you an overview of the facility plan, and Ms.
Diane Kemp (phonetic) will be giving you some information regarding
the revenue data for the plan.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: It's not sufficient to merely submit those
presentations for the record, or you must go through a physical
presentation?
MR. GONZALEZ: Apparently we have to get certain things
stated on the record and have an opportunity for public comment
afterwards. And Mr. Moore is going to set up the projector and give
you some handouts, and there's also -- the same handouts will be shown
on the easel for the public to view. At the end of the public comment
question and answers I would like to ask you to modify some of the
language in one of the resolutions to afford a little more flexibility
in financing the plan if you choose to adopt.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Weigel, how much of this needs, in your
opinion, to be physically done on the record?
MR. WEIGEL: I can't tell you with specificity. I expect a
few minutes of each element of the presentation to put it on the
record.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just a question along those lines.
Has this been -- I assume this has been available to the public as
we approached today's agenda?
MR. WEIGEL: I believe it has as part of the 201 package in
the manager's office, in the clerk's office.
MR. MOORE: Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, good
morning. I'm Richard Moore with Camp, Dresser & HcKee, and as Mr.
Gonzalez mentioned, I have staff members with me to help with this
presentation. I understand your concern that we keep this brief, so
we will make it as brief as possible. The purpose -- one of the
purposes of this presentation is so that FDEP can review the minutes
of this hearing and make sure that certain things are read into the
public record, so please bear with us. We will try to keep it brief.
The purpose of this whole process is to make certain projects
in your program eligible for low interest SRF loans. The original 201
was done in 1986, and this update which we have just completed
accomplishes two things. One is it updates to reflect existing
conditions as they revolved in the last 10 years, and second is to
incorporate current and planned projects into your 201 plan. Any
projects for which you request funding needs to be incorporated into a
current adopted 201 plan. It covers a 20-year planning horizon, and
as we'll describe, it's been divided into four phases over that 20
years.
As I mentioned, it is a required step in qualifying for the
loans. We will be presenting briefly some numbers reflecting
potential savings, comparing SRF low-interest loans versus
conventional revenue bond funding. And I would like to also point out
that none of the action that takes place today in terms of the public
hearing or adopting resolutions obligates the county for acceptance of
the loans. There will be a loan offer made by the state probably
around August or September, and we will be coming back to you, so you
would have at any time the flexibility to reconsider. So this is just
to keep you on a track for funding.
The 201 document is consistent with your comprehensive plan,
more particular with respect to population projections and level of
service. And in direct response to a question that one of the
commissioners just raised, this document has been on file for review
since it was advertised 30 days ago on April 8. The handout I gave
you are slides that come out of the 201 to present a brief summary.
And with that I'm going turn it over to Jeff Payne who is going to run
through the 201 document, and then Diane will run through the
dedicated revenue.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you.
MR. PAYNE: Thank you, Richard. For the record, Jeff Payne
with CDH. I will try to go through these as quickly as I can. We do
have to state certain things for the record as required for the 201,
so I'll go as fast as I can.
This particular figure shows the 201 planning area. It's
basically bounded by Lee County on the north, the Gulf of Mexico on
the south, and also the Gulf of Mexico on the west, with the exception
of the City of Naples and also the boundary here on the eastern
portion of the planning area (indicating.)
A little more detailed description of the planning area.
This is actually the planning area and the regional service areas as
depicted in the 1986 201 plan where there were three distinct service
areas; the north, the central, and the south service area. Since that
time in 1986 the central service area which was planned to have a
treatment facility for itself has not been built to date, and most of
the infrastructure including your waste water facilities that have
been constructed have been centered around a two-service area, a north
service area and a south service area.
That's one of the things that this 201 evaluated was
continuing this infrastructure in the two-service area mode or going
back to the '86 plans which had a three-service area scenario with
three different treatment plants.
Briefly, existing conditions in the north service area that
is served by two treatment facilities, the north county regional
treatment facility and the Pelican Bay treatment plant, that effluent
disposal is through reeves and perculation ponds. There are six
package waste water treatment plants in the service area and
approximately 300 septic tanks.
In the south service area there is one regional treatment
facility, the south county regional treatment facility. Effluent
disposal is also through reeves and perculation ponds, and there are
currently nine package waste water treatments plants and two private
utilities, Eagle Creek and Rookery Bay, in this service area and
approximately 600 septic tanks.
The 201 analysis projected waste water flows for this service
area for a 20-year period -- these flows in the year 2000 are expected
to be about 7.3 MGD in the north, 8.2A in the south, and more than
doubling by the year 2016. These flow projections are based on
population projections based on the growth management plan and is
consistent with the countyws current comprehensive plan.
In order to plan for these increased flows, three
alternatives were developed for analysis in the 201. The first is the
no-action alternative in which the county will continue to operate the
existing system with no changes. This has a lot of consequences in
that youwre not accommodating for any growth. Youwd probably have a
proliferation of septic tanks and package plants to take care of any
new growth, or youwd have to do a moratorium on growth. So with that
this alternative is no longer considered and is not consistent with
policies and goals of the county and also would probably end up
violating a lot of the state rules.
Alternative 2 is continuation of the two regional treatment
plants, the two-service area scenarios and alternative 3, going back
and installing or constructing the third treatment plant in the
central service area as depicted in the w86 201 update. Both
alternative 2 and alternative 3 include immediate improvements at the
south county regional treatment facility.
Part of the analysis that was done with the economic analysis
of the two alternatives which included capital costs, operating, and
maintenance costs over the 20-year period and salvage costs are at a
value of constructed facilities at the end of the 20-year period.
This was done for the treatment, the transmission, and the effluent
disposal portions of the waste water management programs.
And basically as a summary, the present worth or the total
present worth costs of alternative 2, which is the two-treatment plant
scenario, is of less cost than alternative 3. Keep in mind that those
costs at the bottom are not total capital costs. This is an economic
analysis which takes into account O&M. So donwt be startled by the
large number.
In addition to an economic analysis, other factors were also
considered, the alternatives including environmental impacts; impacts
on wetlands; natural species; anything else associated with the
environment; implementation; implementability, including if you have
to buy land, you have to get easements, how easy is the project to
implement; and social considerations of the impact on the human
environment. These were ranked with the lower ranking, the lowest
score being of a higher ranking similar to golf. And the total score
for the alternative 2 was 12, and alternative 3 was 20 making
alternative 2 the selected plan which is continuing the two-regional
or the two-service area and two-treatment plant scenario.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Could I interrupt there? Alternative
2 calls for two regional plants? MR. PAYNE: Yes, mawam.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: What size are we anticipating those
two plants being in their final?
MR. PAYNE: I will get to that in a little bit.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Okay.
MR. PAYNE: I will present that. The selected plan is
actually divided into four phases. Phase I of the selected plan,
which is to be implemented by 1998 is the real reason why this 201 was
done to get funding for a portion of the Phase I program. That
program includes immediate improvements and upgrades to the south
county treatment facility including construction of new headworks and
odor control, construction of a new aeration basin and a lower
building and conversion of the existing aeration basis to a reave
storage tank.
In addition to those projects which are being requested for
by funding, for SRF funding, two other projects are also going to be
implemented in Phase I, and that's the construction of a new deep
injection well to the south county treatment facility, an extension of
reuse lime from the north county regional treatment facility to
existing deep wells at the north county water plant to provide backup
disposal to the reuse system.
Briefly Phases II and III and IV of the selected plan --
Phase II by the year 2000 includes expansion of the north county
regional treatment facility to twelve and a half MGD, expansion of the
south county treatment facility 13 MGD. That particular expansion of
the south plant needs some more evaluation in terms of actual growth
and actual population, and flow in the south service needs to be
looked at. So that particular expansion could be moved up into Phase
III.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm glad that you made that point
because when we went through the specific topic -- I think this was
before Commissioner Hancock and Mac'Kie were on the board -- but when
we went through the specifics of the south plant, the numbers were
disputed as far as that. I think at one point they had it going all
the way to 32 million gallons. It was made very clear that wasn't
going to be necessary in the foreseeable future, and there was some
question that there were some reserves. I'm glad you make that point.
MR. PAYNE: Right. And I think that waste water management
plans currently being done will help address this issue.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: That was my concern in asking the
question is we have been under the assumption that 32 million gallons
a day at the south plant was not necessary.
MR. PAYNE: Phase II also includes additional urban reuse in
the north and south service area and the removal of approximately 13
package plants from the two service areas.
Phase III by the year 2000 includes additional expansion of
the urban reave system, removal of three more package plants from
service, and by this time it is planned, that all the package plants
in the two existing utilities would be removed from service, and you'd
have just the two regional treatment facilities providing treatment in
the two service areas. Phase III also includes extension of sewer
service to currently unsewered area in the north which I have on my
graphic which you will be able to see.
Phase IV, this is getting way out there, but it does show
right now an expansion of the north county and the south county plant
to seventeen and a half and eighteen MGD. Again, that's all going to
depend on the way growth is occurring at that time and additional
urban reeves in the north and south service area.
Real quickly, this is the north service area, so this is hard
to see, but it does show where the existing north treatment facility
is, the existing Pelican Bay treatment facility. You can probably see
it better in your graphic. It indicates the current service area by
the regional treatment facility and current septic tank areas and also
the location of the package plants in the area that will be removed
from service.
Now, this is the south service area with -- it shows the
location of the existing south county regional treatment facility, the
existing sewage service area, existing package plants, and the
location of all the existing package plants and the two utilities in
the south Eagle Creek and Rookery Bay.
The Phase I program, the implementation schedule, the
requests for inclusion to get on the planning list for the funding was
completed in March of '96. Today we are conducting the public hearing
and the dedicated revenue hearing, the capital financing plan, these
resolutions passed as well as the 201 plan. And plans and
specifications for Phase I will be sent to the state probably later
this week.
Advertisement for bids for Phase I is planned in late August
of '96. The loan application submittal and loan closing are actually
to be determined based on approval of the documents in getting
elevated to the fundable list by the state. Bid opening for the
project is planned for September of '96, contract award in October of
'96 with construction complete in two years later in October of 1998.
So that concludes my portion of the presentation. I will
turn it over to Diane Kemp who is going to present some of the
financial aspects of the program.
MS. KEMP: Good morning. For the record, my name is Diane
Kemp with Camp, Dresser & McKee, and I'll be showing the important
part, the dollars. These dollars right here are consistent with the
same phasing that was shown previously with the $11,889,500 related to
the immediate improvements to the south county waste water -- regional
waste water treatment facility. The $28 million would be a second
possible SRF loan financing. And that is for a combination of the
north county waste water treatment plant expansion as well as the
expansion of the reuse system and transmission system with the balance
of all of the other projects tentatively being scheduled for other
funding sources including possible revenue bonds.
The $19 million shown in Phase II is actually primarily for
the expansion of the south county regional waste water treatment
facility but only if it is required. The other large amount to be
considered is Phase IV which involves the expansion of both the north
and south waste water treatment facilities which again can be looked
at in greater detail the closer you came to those actual years.
This table shows the differential between SRF funding and
revenue funding. And the major difference is that it saves
approximately $146,000 per year net bottom line in debt service costs.
Just multiplying that by 20 over a 20-year period is nearly a $3
million savings, and that's only on the one loan rather than going for
both loans.
We're also showing what the impact would be. This is a not a
true impact. What this is showing is a cost as though it were not
folded into what exists right now. This is stand-alone. In other
words, the annual debt service for the SRF project initially is
$823,400 divided by your customer base would be an annualized cost of
$13.13. The incremental O&M cost is for the cost of putting the reuse
into the deep well, and that's approximately $30,000 per year or 53
cents per year incremental cost or a total of $13.66 per year per
customer.
This shows the corresponding amounts as though it were
financed with revenue bonds with an annualized debt service of
$969,400 and annualized per residence cost of $15.46 or a total of
$15.99. This is a net difference of $2.33 per residence per year.
Another document that has to be submitted in order to qualify
for this funding is called a capital finance plan. What this does is
this shows what the costs would be, their impact on the utility both
from a total utility viewpoint and also from a stand-alone sewer
system viewpoint. Another difference is that it's only for a
five-year period rather than for the entire 20-year planning horizon.
What we're showing here is we're showing the Phase I SRF
funded project in total. In other words, it's the $11,889,000 of
project costs which is contingency, engineering, and administrative
costs as well as typical financing costs. The annualized debt service
as stated before is $823,400.
The anticipated Phase II funded SRF program would have a cost
inclusive of construction, engineering, contingency, and
administration would be approximately $28,136,000 with financing costs
of approximately a total of $30,092,000 for an annualized debt service
of $1,948,600.
The other project anticipated to be borrowed during this
five-year period is for the expansion of the south county regional
waste water treatment facilities with a total project cost of
approximately $23 million or an additional $1,999,540 for this
project. The other thing that I should point out is that the
differential in the interest rate is 3 percent for the municipal bond
buyer's quarterly index. It's a 3 percent subsidy. The current
interest rate is 2.56 percent. I have used 2.6 percent in my example,
so they're very current with today's market.
This is a pro forma statement that shows the initial year
estimated to meet 1998 through the end of the five-year planning
horizon of 2000. It shows the operating, existing expenditures, and
those are based on the 1996 utility budget. And this is for the sewer
system portion only. The costs were increased by 4 percent annually
for inflation. Variable costs were increased by the flow differential
per year.
The incremental cost in 1998 as stated was for the deep
injection well operation. In the year 2000 there was a 15 percent per
1,000 gallon estimated O&M cost for expanding the reuse facilities.
The existing portion of the sewer debt service was estimated to be
approximately four and a half million dollars. The SRF debt in the
initial year of 1999 is $1,029,251, and the reason that this differs
is because this is inclusive of a 25 percent coverage which is
consistent with your existing SRF loan. You have one in existence
right now with the additional $1.9 million in the year 2000 also
increased by the coverage factor.
Bottom line what this shows is that in 1998 and 1999 the debt
can be provided with existing rates at least for this planning level
example. It does show a 68 percent rate increase needed in the year
2000 which supports all three levels of debt. In other words, that
supports both the SRF loan, the initial one, the second one, and also
the revenue bond forecast for the south county regional waste water
treatment plant. And that's assuming that they were all required.
The bottom line, though, is that if growth did not occur, you
would not be increasing the size of your south county plant. However,
if the two do coincide as projected, the growth would pay
substantially for that element of the expansion, and it wouldn't have
a negative aspect. But the other thing I would like to caution is
that this does not necessarily mean that you don't need a rate
increase. This is for planning level only. There is a rate study
that is being done which may have a different viewpoint.
This shows a little more concisely the debt service coverage
anticipated. As can be seen, the 6.8 percent increase that I forecast
for the year 2000 wasn't meant to generate excess funds. In other
words, the debt service coverage just meets it with a onetime
coverage. There is a 1.25 times coverage, but that also assumes the
use of system development charges. And that is consistent with the
way that I would expect the revenue pledge to hold for this issue as
well.
The current pledge of revenue for your SRF loan right now is
a combination of net revenues of the water and sewer utility system as
well as the system development charges and assessments. And I would
make the recommendation that we be consistent with that simply so that
everything remains pretty constant. You don't have to keep doing
different coverage calculations.
Another item that we have to show is what is the impact, the
bottom line on the customers. And this is residential customers. So
what we're showing here is the annualized expenditures for the year
1998 through the year 2000. We took the commercial percentage of
customers which is based on equivalent residential units. The
commercial portion was approximately 10 percent. We deducted that
share of the expenses. We divided by the number of households and
computed two things. We computed what the cost is per residence, and
it varied between $19.63 per month to $22.14 per month.
The current annual average for residential charge, however,
is $21.10 per month increasing as pointed out by 6.8 percent to $22.53
per month. This is based on average usage for the sewer system
customers of 4,500 gallons per month. And in addition, there is
currently a system development charge of $1,340 for the sewer system.
And with that I would like to turn it back over to Mr. Adolfo
Gonzalez.
MR. GONZALEZ: Actually, I'd like to turn it over to -- if
there's any public comment and then wrap up on the discussion.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Do we have any public speakers?
MR. DORRILL: No, sir. We don't have any.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Wrap it up.
MR. GONZALEZ: Okay. Thank you. If you could, I would like
to ask you to include in your motion a modification of language in one
of your resolutions. If you look on page 9 of the second resolution,
lines 27 and 28, to be consistent with Ms. Kemp's recommendation
regarding how to pay for the loan obligations, I would like to strike
out the sewer system user fees and insert instead net revenues plus
system development fees and special assessments for the water and
sewer system. That will give you as much flexibility as you can have
to pay the obligations afterward.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a
-- oops, you're going to need to close the public hearing on this.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Close the public hearing.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd like to make a motion that we
approve the item including the modification just outlined by Mr.
Gonzalez.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Motion and a second.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
It passes.
Item #12C2
FUNDING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT PROGRAM - APPROVED
Next item is the companion.
HR. GONZALEZ: Yes, sir. This one is to request that you ask
the clerk of the court to issue a certification that basically says we
have -- we'll be able to fund the projects, and the list of the
project is a complete list, there are no other miscellaneous projects
that will be considered in the plan. I think the presentation that
your CDH team on the companion item covered this item.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Motion to approve.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Second.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion and a second.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do you want to close the public
hearing on this?
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Public hearing is closed. We have a motion
and a second.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
There is none.
Thank you very much. And thank you lady and gentlemen, for
that nice presentation.
MR. PAYNE: Thank you for your time.
Item #14A
DISCUSSION REGARDING RECENTLY PASSED EMINENT DOMAIN ISSUE - COUNTY
ATTORNEY TO EXPLORE POSSIBILITY OF CHALLENGING LEGALITY
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Do we have any communications today?
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have one -- well, okay.
COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Dotrill had something, didn't he?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have one.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I have one, yeah.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: You have one?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I had a couple.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Let's hear it.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Well, okay. As we probably all know,
the eminent domain bill passed the legislature Friday evening about
7:30. I have a minute-by-minute update on it. I asked Mr. Weigel
yesterday if he would look into what the complicated nature and the
costs would be if this board was to elect a challenge to the
constitutionality of that bill, and I'm saying this today to let you
know that I've asked him to do that and hopefully he give us that
report rather quickly.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Next item. I certainly agree. I think we
ought to challenge it. I must say on the record, too, that it appears
that the city has reversed its commitment to furthering any
city-county relations with a couple of recent items, this being one of
them, and the move to -- at least the discussion of excluding county
residents from Naples' beach parking passes.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yeah. They're talking about not
recognizing our passes.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That's right, and I --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Particularly considering our
effort to join them on expenditures with the pier and with the boat
dock and all those things in the last couple of years, I was very
disappointed in that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Let me just point out, though, that
was a citizen initiative that has not had any kind of formal adoption
or any kind of formal action by the city council. So let's wait and
see, please, but not be insulted ahead of time. That's just coming
out of focus, kind of community input and not anything official at
this point.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Rather than wait and see, I personally
am going to meet with as many of the city council people and the mayor
to discuss these items just for my own edification because I do think
we've forged a decent relationship in the last couple of years, and I
would hate to see that challenged and lost. So I will do what I can
to at least find out where things are, but I would encourage my
colleagues, if interested, to do the same.
Item #14B
LELY BAREFOOT BEACH GUARDHOUSE - DISCUSSED
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Has Ms. Mac'Kie anything?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I just have one question for the
county attorney that probably would have come up but for the
withdrawal of the settlement offer by the Barefoot Beach attorney. I
had wanted to use that as an opportunity to find out what the status
was. I hear that the workmen action is going forward in that, and we
would have them scheduled sometime in the reasonable future, but there
were two fronts we were proceeding on. That was one, and the other
was an injunction to remove the existing structure, and I'm wondering
where we are in that process, in the injunction process. And I see
that Mr. Bryant is not here, and that catches you at a disadvantage.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Can you maybe catch an update outside of
the meeting?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I can. I wanted to take the public
opportunity to encourage it to move more quickly.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I would like to actually request that
in writing to all of the board members because I would like to see the
detail on that myself, and maybe after talking to Mr. Bryant we can
get a more -- that, of course, becomes available to the public at that
point. I would like to see that on.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think that's great.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Good suggestion.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A couple of quick items. One, I
mentioned I was driving quite a bit in New England last weekend. As I
was in some of these small towns I also had the misfortune of getting
behind public transportation buses and between breathing their smoke
through the air conditioning system and being belayed constantly, I
applaud our decision a week ago.
A couple of other thoughts. Midnight basketball program
started this past weekend at the Golden Gate Community Center. We had
about 75 kids turn out for the first night. That runs nine to twelve
or nine to a little after twelve. It's going to be a great program.
It's off to a great start.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: It's not a school night, is it?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Do they allow us old folks to play?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Actually we had the old stars play
against the kids and retired at 500. We won one game and lost one
game.
On a kind of an amusing note, I got a call last night from
the sheriff at home. Some of you may recall my car disappeared four
years ago. My Chrysler LeBaron, they found it in a canal last night.
We have discovered the Chrysler LeBaron.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Is all the --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. I said, gosh, just in time.
We can wash out those T-shirts and dry out those bumper stickers and
put them to good use.
Mr. Weigel, can I see you after the meeting?
MR. WEIGEL: Certainly.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Dotrill, anything?
Item #15A
BCC WORKSHOP TO BE HELD ON MAY 30, 1996
MR. DORRILL: Two things. The first thing, we now have, I
think, a consensus on May the 30th workshop with Mr. Sumek so that
those of you who want to attend can expect to be there.
Item #15B
COHMERCIAL VEHICLE AMENDMENT FOR THE HAY 8, 1996 MEETING WITHDRAWN AT
THIS TIME
Mr. Cautero came and asked me earlier in the course of the meeting if
we could continue the subject for tomorrow evening as it relates to
commercial vehicles, and I said not unless and without a full
explanation of that to the board.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: And the public.
MR. DORRILL: Otherwise, I think that's the main thing that
you're coming for tomorrow evening -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's what we're doing.
MR. DORRILL: -- as opposed to just coming to talk about the
signs problem. With that I believe the contractors' and builders'
association -- I wanted to elaborate on that before you make any
decision.
MR. CAUTERO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
Commissioners. My reasoning to present the information to Mr. Dotrill
and to you is that there is quite a bit of confusion from the first
meeting to leading up to tomorrow night's meeting on that particular
issue. There was an alert sent out by CBIA, and we're trying to work
with as many contractors and subcontractors in the community based on
the revised amendment that we have put forward for your consideration
tomorrow evening.
We are continuing to work on additional language which you
may consider at the hearing based on some of the information. But,
quite frankly, I think tomorrow night you're going to have a lot of
confusion at the meeting. Our estimates are that you're going to have
close to 200 people here, and I just don't think anything productive
is really going to come out of it. I think it's better to have
something like that at a special meeting or workshop. And I'm of the
opinion right now that I think it would be best if we withdrew the
amendment and had staff work on it, as we do other projects where we
felt that there's a community-wide issue or community-wide problem,
and go forward.
What may come out of this is no amendment at all. I don't
believe that we've wasted our time in doing it, and I hope that we
didn't waste your time. What we have done is work on the issue with
various community associations and professional groups to let them
know what the ordinance really says. And some people were even
astounded to find out that the ordinance is as restrictive as it is in
this particular area. That was our main goal.
It's not that enforcement is a major issue or the ability to
enforce is a major issue. What the major issue is, I don't think
there are people out there that really understood it, and that was the
primary reason why we brought it forward, and we felt that the
language needed to be cleaned up a little bit. In doing that it has
caused a lot of confusion and some discontent on the part of some
people that you saw at the last meeting.
My best recommendation is to withdraw it, not even table it,
and let the staff work it out. With your permission or your
acceptance of this recommendation I can begin today to talk to people
on all fronts regardless of their opinion on the issue and put the
words out.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't disagree with you at all.
I think it's a good idea. I just want to make sure that it doesn't
get dropped and that we do continue to work whether we keep the same
or do eventually amend it or not. I think we need to continue to
work. Iwm going to meet tonight with a number of the people who are
affected by this, and Iwm sure they wonwt have any objection to
putting it off. I just want to make sure that we donwt simply drop
the issue at this point.
MR. DORRILL: I think specifically he was proposing some type
of staff workshop or a series of meetings with professional
contractors, subcontractor organizations. I think Vince made a good
recommendation. Itws better for your staff to do that then to make
you sit here for two and half hours tomorrow evening and just have a
big, you know, ranting and raving sort of thing.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Since there is a great deal of
confusion, and I happened to be watching Fox news last night, I think
it only fueled the confusion because their story indicated, gosh, itws
another Cape Coral, which it is not.
MR. CAUTERO: Thatls exactly right, sir.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Of course, some of the folks they
interviewed on there they were concerned about issues that welre not
actually taking up, and I think the story was misleading thinking that
we were going to ban all pickup trucks or something. And I donlt mind
having a public hearing with 200 people at it, but Iid rather them
have a clear understanding of what it is welre trying to do. So I
think it is a good idea.
COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: And if we can communicate adequately.
As much as I understand your point about donlt just let this drop,
frankly, what I was expecting to support when we discussed this was
leaving the ordinance like it is and enforcing it in accordance with
the opinion that we already have out of the county attorneyls office.
So from that perspective, just for what itls worth, my feeling about
it is withdrawal is great; continuing is not so hot. I would love to
just drop it. I think it was an idea that was worth exploring, but
now letls just drop it.
CHAIRNLAN NORRIS: Well, I donlt think itls something that
should be dropped. I agree with Commissioner Constantine. We need to
clarify it. Itls been the law for 14 years, and we need to --
MR. DORRILL: If those are your desires, then before Mr.
Cautero leaves the room, he will do the same with Mr. Cody (phonetic)
so that tomorrow morningls newspaper adequately reflects that, and
weill also make contact with the other news media.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: William, also make contact -- I
know there are some specific homeownersi groups based with them as
well, and let them know it will be back in the future at some point.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Cody, did you agree to meet with Mr.
Cautero after the meeting? Thank you.
Mr. Taylor is here with the television news people, and Iim
sure he would want to clarify it for his program tonight as well. He
even indicated that he would love to.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I really confer, agree, with what
Commissioner Constantine and Commissioner Norris have said. I, for
one, would like to see it come back in the next cycle either as a
positive change or as no change.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Weigel, you donlt have anything
further?
MR. WEIGEL: A couple things.
CHAIRNLAN NORRIS: Oh, do you?
Item #15C
DISCUSSION REGARDING CHICKEE HUT
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you. In regard to the request for the
Lely guardhouse information, certainly I recognize that the county
attorney and partly the omission of the office has failed to respond
to the questions. And I don't back off from any questions or
specifics in regard to this case or anything else. I may look to an
attorney to see if there is one here who's directly working on it for
either assistance or a nod, but I don't back away from answering the
questions. But we'll have a memo to you all right away.
Secondly, in regard to the chickee hut matter, it's
appropriate, I think, for me to ask the question in regard to the
invitation, the second invitation that was tendered to the board
through our office from the law firm of Holland and Knight. And they
had requested and clarified their request that they would like a
meeting with the Board of County Commissioners at the Billy village
settlement at a mutually convenient time intimating that they felt
there were legislative issues separate from the code enforcement board
issues. Their statement, their opinion, not necessarily mine,
although there are numerous issues related to the settlement.
I thought I'd ask so that the county attorney's office at
your direction, if there is to be direction, could assist in response
to Holland and Knight, to the Billy delegation, or nothing. If
nothing further, the message has been passed, and you may respond in
the manners that you wish.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll reiterate my thoughts that
I've passed on to you in memo form, and that is a code enforcement
issue. And, well, on the board we have varying opinions as to how
that should be addressed, but I think it's not our place when you look
at the legal responsibilities of the board for the code enforcement
staff or the code enforcement board itself or legal staff. Everybody
has their own responsibility under this, and it is a code enforcement
issue at this point, and it's not something that we have the authority
to deal with under our existing ordinance.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: How is that different from the Lely
guardhouse that we talk about every blasted meeting or talk about or
don't talk about?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And what I would say is I think
I'm being consistent because with the Lely guardhouse I said let's let
that go through the court system and through the code enforcement
board, and I'm asking us to do the exact same thing with this.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: As am I.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You don't think it's any different
than Lely guardhouse? I know you voted in favor of sending that off
to code enforcement, to the court system, and I would hope that you
would do the same here.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: As a matter of fact, I have already
indicated that I would welcome the opportunity and am honored to be
asked by the Billy family to meet with them and, as a matter of fact,
plan to participate, not in three full days of marching with them, but
in their walk to the courthouse next week.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That's fine. I would be honored to visit
them after this is all settled in court or code enforcement or
wherever it's going but not during the meeting.
MR. DORRILL: For purposes on that just to inform you, they
have asked to use an area here at the government center for part of
the rally. In keeping with the administrative practice and in the
absence of any ordinance that would govern that, I sent a very
specific and detailed letter concerning what they can and can't do
here at the government center as part of their rally.
And, in addition, we have been in contact with them to make
sure that they have the necessary right-of-way permits in coordination
for pedestrian and vehicular safety as part of the march so that the
sheriff and/or organizers will have the type of permit necessary and
consistent with what we do at Frontier Days or the St. Patrick's Day
parade or whatnot on Marco Island and so that there would be no
confusion on the part of any of the organizers at the rally what the
county expectations and regulations are for both the march and the
rally here at the government center.
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you. The second part of it I wish to tell
you about the chickee matter was that Holland and Knight had made the
request of the county attorney office to call Secretary Murley
(phonetic), the secretary of the Department of Community Affairs, TCA,
which we did. We had a telephonic conversation whereupon they have
kind of banded or proposed that the county might wish to propose for
them to issue an opinion about Chapter 553 of the Florida Statutes
which is the statutory authorization requirement for the
implementation for the state Southern Building Code which was one of
the issues that we've had all along is that the state standard for
Southern Building Code is one which requires permits for structures,
not particularly dwellings, but structures.
And the question that was posed to us is what we wish to pose
to them, DCA. Within its purview the implementation of the code, a
request that analyze and determine whether the Indian chickee hut as
existing here in Collier County was or was not governed by the Chapter
553 Statutes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In other words, is it a structure,
which is what I had asked that we get an attorney general's opinion
about before?
MR. WEIGEL: And the point you make is important in the sense
that this opinion is not an attorney general opinion. It's an opinion
of an area where they do have delegated authority. It might, in fact,
conceivably could be either different or the same as an attorney
general opinion end result, but it might not be. You did not
authorize us to seek an attorney general opinion a couple of months
ago.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I guess I feel fairly similar to
the DCA thing, that that is the job of the attorney firm representing
Pacific Land Company. If they feel there is no violation, then they
need to be able to present that to us. It seems kind of unusual that
we're arguing both sides of the case here, that on one side we have
our own staff saying there is a violation, and on the other hand we
have our own staff trying to find out how we can make it not a
violation. And either it is or it isn't. And if Pacific Land Company
is violating county ordinance according to our staff, and they don't
believe that they are, they need to present that information to you
and to code enforcement.
MR. WEIGEL: It's a tough rope that we walk. The code
enforcement board hearing is set for May 23. A notice has been issued
for Pacific Land Company which is the cited party to appear.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can you cite one other case in the
history of the county where we have done the work for the party that
is being cited, in this case Pacific Land Company?
MR. WEIGEL: Not easily.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: With there being no further business, we
are adjourned.
***** Commissioner Constantine moved, seconded by Commissioner
Hancock, and carried unanimously, that the following items under the
consent agenda be approved and/or adopted: *****
Item #16A1 - This item has been removed
Item #16A2
ACCEPTANCE OF WATER AND SEWER FACILITIES FOR VILLAGE WALK, PHASE III -
WITH STIPULATIONS
O. R. Book Page
See Pages
Item #16A3
IRREVOCABLE LETTER OF CREDIT ACCEPTED AS SECURITY FOR EXCAVATION PERMIT
NO. 59.545 "BONITA BAY EAST GOLF COURSE - PHASE I" LOCATED IN SECTIONS
18, 19 AND 20, T485, R27E
See Pages
Item #16A4
AGREEMENTS WITH QUALIFIED HYDROLOGICAL CONSULTANTS AND CLEANUP
CONTRACTORS PURSUANT TO RFP #95-2380 - AS LISTED IN THE EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Item #16A5
RESOLUTION 96-213 RE FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE ROADWAY, DRAINAGE, WATER
AND SEWER IMPROVMENTS FOR THE FINAL PLAT OF "WALDEN OAKS PROFESSIONAL
CENTER AT LONE OAK"
See Pages
Item #16A6
RESOLUTION 96-214 AMENDING RESOLUTION 96-150 TO REFLECT THE INCREASED
MORTGAGE AMOUNT FROM THE FLORIDA HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY OF UP TO
$13,500,000; AUTHORIZING THE SUBORDINATION OF LIEN FOR IMPACT FEES FOR
TURTLE CREEK APARTMENTS, A 268 UNIT AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING PROJECT
See Pages
Item #16A7
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 95-253 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A
PUBLIC NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS LOT 2, BLOCK 9, NAPLES
SOUTH UNIT 2; OWNER - BERNARDO RUIZ
See Pages
Item #16A8
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 92-545 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A
PUBLIC NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS LOT 15, BLOCK 298 OF MARCO
BEACH UNIT 8; OWNER - CITIZENS & SOUTHERN NATIONAL BANK OF FLORIDA
See Pages
Item #16A9
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 94-105 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A
PUBLIC NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS LOT 5, BLOCK 204 OF MARCO
BEACH UNIT SEVEN; OWNER - JAMES CLARK
See Pages
Item #16A10
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 95-220 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A
PUBLIC NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS LOT 16, BLOCK 779 OF A
REPLAT OF A PORTION OF MARCO BECH UNIT TWENTY-FIVE; OWNER - ANDRONIC
CANTACUZINO
See Pages
Item #16All
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 95-679 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A
PUBLIC NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS UNIT 8, BLOCK 286, LOT 8,
MARCO BEACH; OWNER - MINDY JORDAN
See Pages
Item #16A12
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 94-238 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A
PUBLIC NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS LOT 2, BLOCK 594 OF MARCO
BEACH UNIT TWENTY-THREE; OWNER - HELEN BORGLUM
See Pages
Item #16A13
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 94-479 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A
PUBLIC NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS LOT 7, MYRTLE COVE ACRES,
BLOCK D; OWNER - BETTY MILLS
See Pages
Item #16A14
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 91-96 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A PUBLIC
NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS LOT 35, BLOCK U, CONNER~S
VANDERBILT BEACH ESTATES, UNIT 3; OWNER - PETER WAICHUNAS
See Pages
Item #16A15
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 95-169 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A
PUBLIC NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS LOT 8, BLOCK 203, GOLDEN
GATE, UNIT 6, PART 1; OWNER - MICHAEL BIBBO
See Pages
Item #16A16
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 95-411 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A
PUBLIC NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS LOT 11, BLOCK 3, NAPLES
MANOR LAKES; OWNER - RAFAEL HARTINEZ
See Pages
Item #16A17
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 91-51 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A PUBLIC
NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS LOT 10, BLOCK 11, OF MARCO BEACH
UNIT ONE; OWNER - JAMES MCCARTHY AND KAREN MCCARTHY
See Pages
Item #16A18
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 95-262 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A
PUBLIC NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS LOT 11, BLOCK 295, MARCO
BEACH UNIT EIGHT; OWNER - TOHMIE WARD AND DIANE WARD
See Pages
Item #16A19
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 94-543 ASSESSING A LIEN FOR A
PUBLIC NUISANCE ON THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED AS TRACT "B" OF MARCO BEACH
UNIT TWENTY-FIVE; OWNER - DELTONA CORPORATION
See Pages
Item #16A20
FINAL PLAT OF "HIDCITY PARK" - WITH STIPULATIONS AND CONSTRUCTION AND
MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT
See Pages
Item #16A21
FINAL PLAT OF "SAVANNA" - WITH LETTER OF CREDIT, STIPULATIONS AND
CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT
See Pages
Item #16A22
RESOLUTION 96-215 PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, CODE ENFORCEMENT CASE NO. 60116-017;
OWNER OF RECORD LLOYD G. SHEEHAN, TR.
See Pages
Item #16A23
RESOLUTION 96-216 PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, CODE ENFORCEMENT CASE NO. 50905-007;
OWNER OF RECORD NATALIE PORTER
See Pages
Item #16A24
RESOLUTION 96-217 PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, CODE ENFORCEMENT CASE NO. 51219-109;
OWNER OF RECORD KEVIN D. FITZGERALD
See Pages
Item #16A25
RESOLUTION 96-218 PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, CODE ENFORCEMENT CASE NO. 60109-086;
OWNER OF RECORD HARIO H. BURNETT
See Pages
Item #16A26
RESOLUTION 96-219 PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE
ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, CODE ENFORCEMENT CASE NO. 51221-021;
OWNER OF RECORD SAXON MANOR ISLES, LTD.
See Pages
Item #16A27
FINAL PLAT OF "PELICAN HARSH UNIT ELEVEN" - WITH STIPULATIONS AND
CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT
See Pages
O.R. Book Page
Item #16A28
REQUEST FROM METROPOLITAN MORTGAGE COMPANY TO SUBORDINATE ITS SECOND
MORTGAGE HELD FOR VANESSA HOWARD UNDER THE COLLIER COUNTY RESIDENTIAL
REHABILITATION PROGRAM
See Pages
Item #16A29
TRANSFER OF FUNDS FOR WATERWAY MAINTENANCE AT HIDEAWAY BEACH AND
FACTORY BAY
Item #16A30
RESOLUTION 96-220 RE FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE ROADWAY, DRAINAGE, WATER
AND SEWER IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE FINAL PLAT OF "CARILLON TRACT C REPLAT"
See Pages
Item #16B1 - Moved to Item #883
Item #1682 - Moved to Item #882
Item #1683
MID-YEAR ADJUSTMENTS TO NAPLES PARK DRAINAGE H.S.T.U. BUDGET (FUND 139)
Item #1684
MID-YEAR ADJUSTMENTS TO PINE RIDGE INDUSTRIAL PARK H.S.T.U. BUDGET
(FUND 140)
Item #1685
MID-YEAR ADJUSTMENTS TO NAPLES PRODUCTION PARK H.S.T.U. BUDGET (FUND
141)
Item #1686
MID-YEAR ADJUSTMENTS TO HAWKSRIDGE PUMPING STATION H.S.T.U. BUDGET
(FUND 154)
Item #1687
MID-YEAR ADJUSTMENTS TO VICTORIA PARK DRAINAGE H.S.T.U. BUDGET (FUND
134)
Item #1688
RESOLUTION 96-221 RE THE CANCELLATION OF CURRENT TAXES UPON LAND
ACQUIRED FOR PUBLIC USE ON A PORTION OF PROPERTY KNOWN AS FAITH BIBLE
CHURCH OF NAPLES, INC., CONTAINING .62 ACRES OF LAND, MORE OR LESS
See Pages
Item #1689
MID-YEAR ADJUSTMENTS TO WATER MANAGEMENT CIP BUDGET (FUND 325)
Item #16B10
PURCHASE OF A REPLACHENT FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE LOADER BACKHOE FOR THE ROAD
AND BRIDGE SECTION IN ACCORDANCE WITH FDOT STATE CONTRACT NO.
760-001-95-1 - AWARDED TO NEW HOLLAND NORTH AMERICA IN THE AMOUNT OF
$43,504.00
Item #16Bll
AWARD BID NO. S96-2514 TO MINUTE MAN HAULING FOR REMOVAL OF SCRAP
MATERIAL FROM THE ROAD AND BRIDGE FACILITY GROUNDS
Item #16B12
APPROPRIATE FY95/96 ADDITONAL CARRY FORWARD OPERATING - FUND 152 LELY
GOLF ESTATES BEAUTIFICATION H.S.T.U.
Item #16B13 - This item has been deleted
Item #16B14
AWARD BID NO. 96-2516 TO SUNSHINE EXCAVATORS, INC., FOR COUNTYWIDE
DITCH BANK CLEARING PROJECT PHASE V, IN THE AMOUNT OF $79,198.50
Item #16B15
REFUND AN OVERPAYMENT OF ROAD IMPACT FEES IN THE AMOUNT OF $8,268 FOR
CENTEX HOMES FOR EXCESS FEES COLLECTED IN ERROR FOR CONDOHINIUH UNITS
CONSTRUCTED IN THE ORCHARD DEVELOPMENT ON VANDERBILT BEACH ROAD
EXTENSION
Item #16B16
TRANSFER OF FUNDS AMOUNG VARIOUS TRANSPORTATION CAPITAL ACCOUNTS FOR
THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING DESIGN FUNDS FOR GOLDEN GATE BOULEVARD
FOUR-LANING PROJECT
Item #16B17
APPROPRIATE FY95/96 ADDITIONAL CARRY FORWARD TO OPERATING - FUND 136
GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY BEAUTIFICATION H.S.T.U.
Item #16B18
BUDGET AMENDMENT FOR ADDITIONAL FUNDS NECESSARY TO RENOVATE STRUCTURES
IN CLAM PASS PARK AND WORK ORDER #CT-7 WITH CHRIS-TEL COMPANY TO
PERFORM THE RENOVATIONS OF SAID STRUCTURES
See Pages
Item #16B19
SOLID WASTE DEPARTMENT BUDGET AMENDMENTS TO RECOGNIZE CARRY FORWARD FOR
PROJECTS IN FUND 471, AND TO TRANSFER MONIES FROM RESERVES IN FUND 470
Item #16820
BUDGET AMENDMENT FOR THE SOUTH COUNTY REGIONAL WATER TREATMENT PLANT
STANDBY POWER SYSTEM IMPROVEMENTS PROJECT
Item #16821
WORK ORDER #DS-17, IN THE AMOUNT OF $31,500.00, TO DS ATLANTIC, FOR THE
SOUTH NAPLES COMMUNITY PARK ELECTIRCAL POWER AND LIGHTING SYSTEMS
DESIGN
See Pages
Item #16B22
RESOLUTION 96-222 RE THE ACQUISITION OF RIGHT-OF-WAY FOR ORANGE BLOSSOM
DRIVE BY EITHER GIFT OR PURCHASE
See Pages
Item #16823
PUBLIC WORKS IMPLEMENTATION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT
DESKTOP MODERNIZATION PROGRAM
Item #16824
AWARD BID NO. 96-2506 TO CROSS COUNTRY PIPE & RAIL, IN THE AMOUNT OF
$191,719.60, TO CONSTRUCT PINE RIDGE ROAD FORCE MAIN
Item #16825 - This item has been deleted
Item #16826
CONTRACT AMENDMENT NO. 6 WITH HOLE, HONTES AND ASSOCIATES, INC.FOR
ADDITIONAL SERVICES RELATED TO THE EAST AND SOUTH NAPLES SANITARY SEWER
COLLECTION SYSTEM PROJECT IN THE AMOUNT OF $16,000
See Pages
Item #16D1
BUDGET AMENDMENT TO APPROPRIATE THE MAINTENANCE SERVICES REVENUES THAT
ARE IN EXCESS OF THEIR BUDGET
Item #16D2
REPLACE STEEL DOORS LOCATED WITHIN THE SECURED AREAS OF THE JAIL
Item #16D3
REJECT THE BIDS FOR THE ACQUISITION OF STRETCHERS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF
EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES AND TO APPROVE A SOLE SOURCE PURCHASE FROM
AERO PRODUCTS, IN THE AMOUNT OF $23,607.84
Item #16D4 - This item has been deleted
Item #16D5
SECURITY MEASURES FOR THE COLLIER COUNTY COURTHOUSE AS SUGGESTED BY THE
U. S. HARSHAL'S OFFICE
Item #16D6
WAIVE THE COMPETITIVE BID PROCESS AND AUTHORIZE THE PURCHASE OF NETWORK
EQUIPMENT FROM UNICOHP IN THE AMOUNT OF $22,354.00 FOR THE
ADMINISTRATION BUILIDNG FOURTH FLOOR RENOVATIONS
Item #16D7
AMENDMENT TO A FACILITIES AND EQUIPMENT CONTRACT BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY
AND THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF COHMUNITY AFFAIRS
See Pages
Item #16D8
SATISFACTIONS OF CLAIM OF LIENS
See Pages
Item #16D9
SATISFACTIONS OF NOTICE OF PROMISE TO PAY AND AGREEMENT TO EXTEND
PAYMENT OF WATERAND/OR SEWER SYSTEM IMPACT FEES
See Pages
Item #16D10
RFP 96-2493 CONTRACT WITH PROFESSIONAL ADJUSTMENT OF FORT MYERS FOR THE
COLLECTION OF PAST DUE ACCOUNTS
Item #16Dll
AWARD BID NO. 96-2510 TO VARIOUS VENDORS LISTED IN THE EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY FOR TEMPORARY DAY LABOR SERVICES
Item #16D12
COUNTY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE TO ASSIST THE HANAGER'S STAFF IN THE
MODIFICATION OF THE ORDINANCE FOR THE BILLING AND COLLECTION OF COLLIER
COUNTY AMBULANCE SERVICE FEES AND CHARGES
Item #16El
BUDGET AMENDMENT NOS. 96-351, 96-364 AND 96-376
Item #16E2
AWARD BID #96-2511 FOR ANUAL BEDDING PLANTS TO H. H. BUCKLEY & SONS, IN
THE AMOUNT OF $20,000.00
Item #1662
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR SERVICES OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER
See Pages
Item #1663
MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE - FILED AND/OR REFERRED
The following miscellaneous correspondence as presented by the
Board of County Commissioners has been directed to the various
departmets as indicated:
Item #16H1 - Moved to Item #9A
Item #16H2
RESOLUTION 96-223 AUTHORIZING CHARLES SCHWAB TO SELL THE NUMBER OF
SHARES OF RALCORP HOLDINGS COHON STOCK WHICH MOST CLOSELY APPROXIMATE
THE SUM OF $200,000.00 ON BEHALF OF THE COUNTY AND TO REQUEST THE
CHAIRMAN TO SIGN THE NECESSARY FORMS, LETTERS AND BUDGET AMENDMENT FOR
THIS TRANSACTION
See Pages
Item #1611
ALTERNATIVE SEWER IMPACT FEE AGREEMENT WITH HARMONY SHORES MOBILE HOME
PARK AND AN AGREEMENT TO EXTEND HARMONY SHORES' PAYMENT OF ITS SEWER
IMPACT FEE
See Pages
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 12:07 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS
CONTROL
JOHN C. NORRIS, CHAIRMAN
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:
Catherine H. Hoffman