Loading...
BCC Minutes 04/23/1997 S (County Manager Interviews: Fernandez, Ochs, and McNees) SPECIAL MEETING OF APRIL 23, 1997 OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS LET IT BE REHEHBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law, and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 5:30 p.m. in SPECIAL SESSION, at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: Chairman: Timothy L. Hancock Barbara B. Berry Timothy J. Constantine Pamela S. Hac'Kie John C. Norris COMMISSIONER BERRY: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. If I could have your attention, please. Good evening to all of you. Thank you for coming out. And our weather is a little less than Chamber of Commerce perfect, but I certainly appreciate all of you coming here this evening. Before we go too far down the line, I have a very important thing that I need to do here. There is a group of people who have given an insurmountable amount of time to the selection process for our County Manager. And at this time, I would like to recognize those individuals, and we have a plaque that we would like to present to them. To start off with, our Committee Chairman, John Passidomo, who is a partner in the law firm of Cheffy, Passidomo, Wilson and Johnson. If John would come forward, please. Thank you so much, John, for all of your time and effort. (Applause) Next, Nick Carsillo, who is a former vice-president of the Engelhardt Corporation, now retired Marco Island citizen and active in the community. Mr. Carsillo. (Applause) Mr. Don Herman. Don's a Naples resident who retired from the office of the Chief Executive of NCR after founding several very successful companies in the computer and communications field. Mr. Herman. He's not here? Okay. Gary Wrage. Gary, I'm very familiar with; he's a neighbor. And Gary is the Vice President of Florida Community Bank in Immokalee. (Applause) Our last but not least member of this committee was Don York, who is the Executive Vice President of the Community Bank of Naples. Don York. (Applause) These gentlemen peered over a number of resumes. It was countless. I did see the stack of resumes, and then they had hours of spending time in front of their television sets and VCRs viewing tapes, and so on. Just an insurmountable amount of time, and I can't thank them enough for all the work that they did. And you certainly -- I don't know of anybody else who has ever done a process like we have done it here, but I can't thank you enough for all of your time and effort. Thank you so very much for your contribution to our community. (Applause) At this time and our reason for being here, is to introduce our three candidates for the County Manager's position. Our first candidate is Bob Fernandez, and Bob is the former County Administrator for Manatee County, and most recently the County Manager for Alachua County in Florida. And if I can have Bob come forward, we are going to let them each say a few words so you can kind of see who our candidates are. Bob. (Applause) MR. FERNANDEZ: Good evening. First of all, I'd like to thank the members of the Selection Committee for all their work on this effort and also sponsors for tonight's events. I don't remember them all, but they are listed there on the card. I'd also like to thank everyone that's participated in this project, this process, all the employees. I met a lot of people today and I'm continuing to meet more. This is a wonderful community that you have. It has a very good feeling about it. And as I said to those of you who have already heard me speak today, I really feel this is a community that has done a lot of things right. It seems like you've benefitted from the fact that your growth has taken place a little later than it has in other communities, and you have learned from what some of the other communities have gone through. So I am very happy being part of this process and I appreciate being chosen as one of the finalists. I look forward to the interview again tomorrow. And they told me I was going to make a few just very brief remarks and I thought it was going to be kind of informal, so I didn't prepare a whole lot to say, obviously, and I didn't know it was going to be recorded formally with a court reporter. But there is always a surprise in a process like this, you know. They kind of give you the hook, tell you come on over and there will be nothing to it, and then they do something like this. (Laughter) So that's part of what being a County Manager is all about, you get a lot surprises, and you have to learn to deal with it. One of the things I've talked a lot about is flexibility, the realization that the County Commission is a changing body and every two years there's a potential for some change to take place, and a manager has to be flexible in order to deal with that; and that's one thing that I felt that I've always tried to do in my job, and realize that that's an important consideration. Thank you again for the chance to be here. I'm glad to meet those of you that I have, and I hope to meet those of you that I haven't yet, and as I said, I look forward to tomorrow. Thank you. (Applause) COHMISSIONER BERRY: And now perhaps the tallest candidate that we have, Mike HcNees. Hike's the Assistant County Manager for Collier County, and he's currently acting as our interim Collier County Manager. Mike. MR. HcNEES: I really tried to get the height requirement written into the job description. Jennifer, we still need to talk about that, I think. (Laughter) I really haven't prepared any kind of a speech, either. I'd very much like to thank Myra Daniels for having us here in this wonderful building. I find myself standing there, just suddenly struck at the fact that this group of people, representing the portion of the community that you do, has gathered in this place today to hear me speak. And I find that pretty amazing. Granddad HcNees would be proud. And I appreciate that y'all came out here tonight. He would also say that this building would sure hold a lot of eggs. (Laughter) But I appreciate that y'all would come out tonight and have enough of an interest in what we're up to and what we're going through this week, that you want to know who we are and what we're all about. I've been saying all week that there's three good candidates here. The County Commission is in an enviable position. I think any one of us is going to do a good job for Collier County, and I'm real positive about that, because God willing, I'll be here either way when it's over. (Laughter) So I'm real happy that y'all could make it tonight. One thing, I've been speechifying all week about how intelligent and wonderful I am and what an awesome vision I have for Collier County and all those things. I'd like to maybe do something a little different. The County Manager's staff, in December, numbered seven and -- in the County Manager's office. Today it numbers four, and nothing else changed. The work load stayed the same, the number of telephone calls stayed the same. We've still got five commissioners. And there is some folks in there who have been carrying an awful lot of load while I'm getting all the attention while my picture's in the paper and I'd like to recognize them today, because I think at least some of them are here. Chris Sinclair, Barb Pedone and Sam Saadeh, those people have been carrying an amazing load doing the job of twice as many people as there are there. And I just want to thank them publicly in front of people who know what that means. Also, Michelle Arnold is here, who is out on maternity leave and part of that's her fault that we're so busy. (Laughter) We forgive her, though. She's got a good reason. Anyway, thank you all for coming and appreciate being here. (Applause) COMMISSIONER BERRY: Last, but not certainly least, is Leo Ochs, who is our Support Services Division Administrator for Collier County. Leo. (Applause) MR. OCHS: I must be the vertically challenged candidate here. I have to move the microphone down. (Laughter) Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Commissioner Berry. I, too, again obviously would like to begin by thanking the Philharmonic for hosting the event and all of the fine financial institutions for sponsoring this evening's event. It's been a real privilege to participate in the process over the last several weeks. I know that I have grown personally and professionally by the whole process. And Debbie and I, when we came to Collier County almost 10 and a half years ago now, we came down because we thought this was a community that had a chance to do many things right. And as we spent time here in the community, worked in the community and raised our family in the community, I think we certainly made the right choice. We never looked back. And I'm very proud to be a member of the Collier County staff. I look forward to working with each and every one of you, regardless of the outcome. And I think we've got something real special going here, and I know that whoever the candidate is that's selected is going to be very committed to doing the right things for Collier County. So with that, I appreciate everyone coming out tonight. Thank you. (Applause) COMMISSIONER BERRY: This next person we owe a huge debt of gratitude for the things that she has provided to this community. It was through her vision that we have the facility that we're standing in tonight. Her name's been mentioned before and she's been thanked, but I want to publicly thank Myra. Where are you? Please come up here. (Applause) When I called Myra and said Myra, this is what I would like to do and we're thinking about some kind of a reception for our candidates, there was no hesitation in this lady's voice to say, "Well, you must have it at the Philharmonic." And you don't know how sweet those words were, Myra, to my ears. It was a wonderful sound, and I just can't thank you enough for your graciousness in offering this facility. I would also encourage you, when we finish here, to feel free -- she's made arrangements that the galleries are open on both sides. Please feel free to stroll through and take a look at the exhibits that are on exhibit there. We also have refreshments over on that side and also back by the window. I would encourage you to partake in those refreshments. Also responsible for those refreshments, again, answering the call when I got on the phone and said can you help, they were most kind and without hesitation, I'd like to thank Barnett Bank and who's the representative here for Barnett? This gentleman over here? Doug Ford. Thank you so much. Community Bank of Naples. Where is he? I saw him earlier. He's gone -- Don York. All right; I'm sorry. First National Bank of Naples. I've spoken to Gary Rector, but I don't know that he was able to be here. He just sent his check. First Union Bank, Dick Botthoff. Is Dick still here? He may have gone. He was here earlier. Florida Community Bank. Gary. Okay, I knew you were somewhere. Gary Wrage. That's over in Immokalee and Lehigh and is there another bank now? That's it for now, okay. Gulf Coast National Bank. No representative? Okay. And Northern Trust Bank. Those were our banks that sponsored this reception tonight. I'd like to say publicly thank you so much for supporting this endeavor. This day for the candidates started very early this morning. At 7:30 they were at the Beach Club Hotel for a breakfast, and the breakfast was sponsored by the EDC and the Naples Chamber of Commerce, and they proceeded to tell a little bit about business in our particular area, and shared all of that good information. At lunchtime, the sponsors for our lunch were Everglades City Chamber of Commerce, the Golden Gate Chamber of Commerce, Immokalee Chamber of Commerce, and Marco Island Chamber of Commerce. And again, a great debt of gratitude to those organizations. Thank you. (Applause) As you know, tomorrow we will be interviewing the candidates starting at 1:30 in the Commission chambers. Those meetings are going to be, I believe, televised. Also, they are open to the public, and after that point in time, the Commissioners will be making their decision in regard to our next County Manager. It's a very important day for Collier County. This hasn't happened in a number of years. And while we're at it, I would like to introduce our former County Manager, Neil Dotrill, who is here with his wife this evening. (Applause) Anyway, I'd like to thank all of you again for coming. Please feel free to stroll through the galleries and enjoy some of the refreshments. Thank you very much. (Applause) There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned at 6:15 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL TIHOTHY L. HANCOCK, CHAIRPERSON ATTEST: DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK These minutes approved by the Board on as presented or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING BY: Kaye Gray, RPR