BCC Minutes 11/04/1997 RREGULAR MEETING OF NOVEMBER 4, 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 9:00 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building
"F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the
following members present:
ALSO PRESENT:
CHAIRMAN:
Timothy L. Hancock
Pamela S. Mac'Kie
John C. Norris
Timothy J. Constantine
Barbara Berry
Robert Fernandez, County Administrator
David Weigel, County Attorney
Item #3
AGENDA AND CONSENT AGENDA - APPROVED AND/OR ADOPTED WITH CHANGES
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Good morning, everyone. I would like to call
to order the Tuesday, November 4, meeting of the Board of County
Commissioners. It's a pleasure this morning to have Senior Pastor
Michael Valentine of the Gulf Shore Community Church with us to bless
us with an invocation this morning. Pastor Valentine, if I could ask
for your invocation and we will follow that with the pledge of
allegiance.
REVEREND VALENTINE: Shall we pray. Almighty God, we thank you
this morning that we can call upon your name with deep appreciation
and with great expectation that you not only hear us but you take
great delight in responding to our requests. We thank you for the
privilege of living in this great nation, for the freedom that you
have given to each and every one of us. Thank you for our great state
and for our county, the beauty of all that you have created. With
that beauty and blessing comes great responsibility.
So we pray this morning for our county commissioners, for our
county manager. We ask that you would grant unto them wisdom and also
vision to be able to be good stewards of all that has been entrusted
into our care. We thank you now for this day. We ask your blessing
upon each item of the agenda, for it's in your name that we pray. In
the name of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Amen.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited in unison.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Pastor Valentine, thank you again for taking
the time to be with us this morning. We appreciate it. Good morning, Mr. Fernandez.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What's on the change sheet for today?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Chairman, this morning we have four changes
to discuss. The first is to add item 8-C-1, which is approval of
interlocal agreement between the City of Naples and Collier County
authorizing resident beach parking --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Otherwise known as the harmony agreement.
MR. FERNANDEZ: -- harmony agreement -- without the payment of
parking meter revenues.
The second is to add item 9-D. This is a recommendation to
consider and approve the settlement of Moore versus Collier County,
case number 96-247-CIV-FPM-25D. This is in the United States Court --
District Court for the Middle District of Florida, a County Attorney
request.
Third item is to add item 10-B, recommendation to declare a
vacancy on three advisory committees. This is a board request.
Final item is to add item ll-A, which is approval of court
administration expenses. And this is really a request of the Clerk of
Circuit Court.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Commissioner Mac'Kie, did you have any
changes for the agenda this morning?
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, I don't. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Norris?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: No more changes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry?
COMHISSIONER BERRY: No, sir, nothing.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I have no changes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And neither do I.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I make a motion, then, that we approve the
agenda as noted.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and second. Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous approval.)
Item #4
MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING OF OCTOBER 14, 1997 - APPROVED AS PRESENTED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We are to approval of minutes.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Chairman, I will let Commissioner Berry
approve these minutes.
COMHISSIONER BERRY: I'd like to move approval of the October 14,
1997 regular meeting minutes.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And there will be no laughter other fun up
here, Commissioner Berry. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Motion carries five zero.
Item #5A1
PROCLAMATION PROCLAIMING NOVEMBER 3-9, 1997 AS COLLIER COUNTY
PROTECTIVE SERVICES APPRECIATION WEEK - ADOPTED
Our first proclamation actually should be declaring this
proclamation week because we have six, but all are equally important
and glad to have them all.
First one, Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yes, it's my honor to read a proclamation
for Collier County Protective Services Appreciation Week which would
be received -- excuse me -- by Representative Butt Saunders except for
he's been called to Tallahassee for a special session on education.
And in his absence, we are pleased to have Chief Shank from the fire
district, Chief Rambosk from the City of Naples Emergency Services and
also Diane Flagg, if you'd come forward. Diane is the head of
emergency services. Don't be shy, guys. Come on down.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That's Chief Shank from the East Naples Fire
Department. You have to give him correct billing.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm sorry. East Naples. I thought he was
"the" fire department. That's what I thought.
Whereas, the problems of crime and safety touch all segments of
our society and can undermine and erode the moral and economic
strengths of our communities; and
Whereas, we are fortunate that individuals from protective
service agencies in Collier County dedicate themselves to preserving
law and order and public safety; and
Whereas, we recognize that the men and women in protective
services risk their lives daily to protect our citizens and maintain
social order; and
Whereas, it is appropriate to encourage the residents of Collier
County to pay tribute to their protective services agencies; and
Whereas, the administrators of Collier County's public service
agencies wish to recognize and honor the members of their agencies for
their dedication and service to the community.
Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that the week of November 3
through 9, 1997, be designated as Collier County Protective Services
Appreciation Week, and that all residents of Collier County are hereby
encouraged to honor the men and women in protective services and,
further, are encouraged to always assist them by being responsible
citizens.
Done and ordered this 4th day of November, 1997, Board of County
Commissioners, Collier County, Florida, Timothy Hancock, Chairman.
And I'd to approve acceptance of this proclamation.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Congratulations.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'd also like to ask while we're doing our
shaking hands up here if Kathleen Passidomo would come forward and
tell us a little bit about what is planned to honor our protective
services employees.
MS. PASSIDOHO: Good morning, Commissioners. I'm here in my
representative capacity as secretary of the Collier County 100 Club,
which is an organization dedicated to promote our members of our
protective services.
We'd like to invite the community to a protective services
barbecue that has been organized by Representative Saunders and his
staff. This Sunday at the Florida Sports Park between noon and 6
p.m., all members of the protective services and their families will
be our guests at a family barbecue. The public are invited, and the
cost for the public is $10 for adults and $5 for children. Present
will be our Attorney General, Bob Butterworth, and the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Tim Morris. So we'd like
all members of the community to come out and honor the members of the
protective services. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Miss Passidomo.
Item #5A2
PROCLAMATION PROCLAIMING SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1997, AS GUADALUPE CENTER
DAY - ADOPTED
Our second proclamation this morning, Commissioner Berry.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Mr. Chairman, it's my pleasure this morning
to read a proclamation honoring Guadalupe Center Day. If I could have
board member Jack Hangan and also Sister Judy Dohner, the executive
director, come up please.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Good morning. You're going to want to turn
around and face the camera, please. The proclamation reads:
Whereas, the migrant and rural poor residents of Immokalee in
Collier County, because of the seasonal and transitory nature of their
agricultural employment were in frequent need of emergency services,
i.e., food, clothing, shelter, and comfort; and
Whereas, Guadalupe Center was established 15 years ago to freely
provide such services to anyone in need; and
Whereas, to this day Guadalupe Center continues to provide those
emergency services and others, i.e., after-school tutoring for migrant
and other children, literacy training for adults, back-to-school
shoes, and Christmas toys to the poor of Immokalee; and
Whereas, to better serve the children of the working poor of
Immokalee, Guadalupe Center is inaugurating this year a new family
education center to provide day care and instruction for babies and
very young children to parents who need such help because they must
work and also to provide parenting and job skills training for those
parents; and
Whereas, ceremonies celebrating the dedication of the Guadalupe
Center for Family Education will take place on November 16, 1997, in
the newly remodeled facility the center occupies in Immokalee; and
Whereas, those same ceremonies will also celebrate the 15 years
of service which Guadalupe Center has give to the community of
Immokalee.
Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that Sunday, November 16,
1997, be designated as Guadalupe Center Day with a special invitation
to the people of Collier County to attend this dedication ceremony at
the Guadalupe Center for Family Education at 505 Hope Circle on
November 16th between 2 and 4 p.m.
Done and ordered this 4th day of November 1997, Board of County
Commissioners, Timothy L. Hancock, Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move this proclamation, please.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have a motion and a second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Sister Dohner, congratulations.
Item #5A3
PROCLAMATION PROCLAIMING NOVEMBER 2-8, 1997, AS YOUTH APPRECIATION WEEK
- ADOPTED
Our next proclamation this morning is regarding Youth
Appreciation Week, and it will be presented by Commissioner
Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe
we have Jerry Neff from Sunset Optimist Club. If you would come on up
and turn around for TV land, we'll read the following proclamation.
Whereas, the vast majority of youth are concerned, knowledgeable,
and responsible citizens; and
Whereas, the accomplishments and achievements of these young
citizens deserve the recognition and praise of their elders; and
Whereas, Optimist International has, since 1954, developed and
promoted a program entitled Youth Appreciation Week; and
Whereas, the citizens of Naples, Florida, have indicated a desire
to join the Sunset Optimists in expressing appreciation and approval
of the contributions of our youth.
Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that the week of November
2nd through 8th, 1997, be designated as Youth Appreciation Week.
Done and ordered this 4th day of November 1997, Board of County
Commissioners, Timothy L. Hancock, Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion we approval this
proclamation.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Congratulations.
Miss Filson, did you break his camera?
MS. FILSON: It seems so.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. The obligatory handshake.
If you ever attended one of the gatherings the Optimists have
recognizing the kids during Youth Appreciation Week, it's well worth
it. Thank you very much.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The interesting thing is if you go to
the theater or go someplace and -- and unfortunately sometimes the
kids you notice are the ones who are gamering negative attention, but
I think the first paragraph here is the most accurate and that is that
most of the kids are darn good kids. So we appreciate the kids.
MR. NEFF: Well, we'll be honoring about, I believe, 115
students.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Great. Again, thank you very much.
Item #5A4
PROCLAivLATION PROCLAIMING NOVEMBER, 1997 AS DIABETES AWARENESS MONTH -
ADOPTED
Our next proclamation, again, Commissioner Constantine, is
designating November 1997 as Diabetes Awareness Month.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Roger Munz and Diane Bennett. Roger
is hiding, I think. Let me read the following proclamation:
Whereas, diabetes is a chronic, life threatening autoimmune
disease that affects approximately 16 million people in the United
States; and
Whereas, there are an estimated 22,000 people residing in Collier
County that have diabetes; and
Whereas, the Diabetes Foundation is a nonprofit service and
educational organization created in 1992 to meet community needs by
providing awareness, ongoing education, support, and agency referral
for persons diagnosed with, affected by, or at high risk for diabetes;
and
Whereas, the Diabetes Foundation is funded by memberships,
donations, bequests, fund raising events, and volunteer efforts of
those individuals who are dedicated to finding a cure for this
disease.
Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that November 1997 be
designated as Diabetes Awareness Month.
Done and ordered this 4th day of November 1997, Board of County
Commissioners, Timothy L. Hancock, AICP, Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion we approve this
proclamation.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
Item #5A5
PROCLAivLATION PROCLAIMING NOVEMBER, 1997 AS ADOPTION AWARENESS MONTH -
ADOPTED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Our next proclamation this morning is my
pleasure to introduce.
Can I have Ms. Kathy Stick of the Florida Department of Children
and Families come forward. Ms. Stick, thank you for being here. The proclamation reads as follows:
Whereas, all children need love, support, security, and a place
to call home; and
Whereas, families are the strength and cornerstone of the nation
and the State of Florida, adoption has long been recognized as a way
to provide permanent loving families for children who are unable to
grow up with their family of origin; and
Whereas, children waiting for adoptive parents, and families who
have adopted children require and deserve community support. It is
fitting that we in Collier County pay tribute to those whose lives
have been touched by the adoption experience and focus attention on
those children who are uncertain about their future awaiting
permanent families.
Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that November 1997 be
designated as Adoption Awareness Month and, in honor of this event,
urge all people of this community celebrate adoption and remember the
children who need permanent families to help them develop into mature,
responsible, and productive adults -- we could use some of those on
this board.
Done and ordered this 4th day of November 1997, signed Timothy
Hancock, Chairman.
I'd like to move acceptance of this proclamation.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Ms. Stick, thank you very much.
(Applause.)
Item #5A6
PROCLAMATION HONORING WORLD WAR I VETERANS - ADOPTED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have a unique recognition, a proclamation
honoring -- and I'm reading this correctly -- World War I veterans,
Bernard Hickey and Francis Vasseur. If I could ask Mr. Hickey and Mr.
Vasseur to come forward, please.
They obviously both lied about their age.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And, Commissioner Norris, I understand you
have the honor of this proclamation.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I do, Mr. Chairman, and it is quite an
honor. The proclamation reads:
Whereas, November llth, 1997, is a day set aside to recognize and
honor the contributions of our country's veterans; and
Whereas, the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917
through Armistice Day on November 11, 1918; and
Whereas, the participation of the United States forces in the
European theater of operations was instrumental in the success of
Allied Forces; and
Whereas, the World War I goal of defending freedom in Europe
exemplifies the purpose and tradition of all United States armed
forces; and
Whereas, those American soldiers who fought for our nation during
the "Great War" serve to represent all veterans and as such deserve
special recognition; and
Whereas, we encourage all citizens to pause to recognize the
contributions of all our country's veterans in protecting and
providing for this nation's freedom.
Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that on behalf of the
citizens of Collier County great appreciation and honor is owed to all
of this community's veterans for serving their country in the armed
forces, and that Bernard Hickey, Francis Vasseur, and Cecil R.
Kingsbury, who served during World War I, are honored on behalf of
their personal service and on this day represent all of this
community's veterans whose dedication and sacrifice have helped to
make this nation great.
Done and ordered this 4th day of November, 1997 by the Board of
County Commissioners of Collier County, Florida.
And, Mr. Chairman, I'm proud to ask that we approve this
proclamation.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I second it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Gentlemen, we're honored. Thank you very much.
It would be a good time to mention to everyone that Veteran's Day
falls on a Tuesday this year, so government -- the county government
complex will be closed next Tuesday. There will not be a scheduled
board hearing -- or board meeting, and I know at least a handful of us
will be spending our morning at the services at Cambier Park, and we
look forward to seeing everyone there.
Item #5C1
ANNA RUBIN, LIBRARY DEPARTMENT, PUBLIC SERVICES DIVISION, RECOGNIZED AS
EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH FOR NOVEMBER, 1997
Our next item under presentations is a recommendation to
recognize the employee of the month for November 1997, and Miss Anna
Rubin has been nominated.
So, Miss Rubin, if I could ask you to come forward to be duly
embarrassed.
The nomination of Miss Rubin was based on the fact that Anna has
significantly enhanced our Collier County Public Library by creating
exciting visual displays, exhibiting her sincere interest in the
public, sharing her enthusiasm of books with others, and implementing
a training program for other librarians.
Above and beyond her responsibilities, Anna coordinated the
donation of valuable books to the Collier County Museum and helps
write articles for the Friends of the Library's monthly newsletter.
Anna Rubin's positive attitude and work demeanor go beyond the
requirement of her position and project an excellent image of our
library in our community. And it's stated in here most appropriately,
bravo, Anna.
It is my pleasure to rec -- to -- on behalf of the board to
recognize you as the employee of the month for November, 1997. And as
doing so, I am here to present you with a letter of congratulations, a
plaque for your wall, a check for $50, and a hearty congratulations
and thanks.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And one of the integral parts of our Library
Advisory Board, Miss Mellinger, thank you for joining us this morning
in recognizing Miss Rubin.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Enough of these sentimentalities. Let's
get on to business.
Item #SA1
RESOLUTION 97-431 ESTABLISHING GENERAL REQUIREMENTS AND PROCEDURES FOR
AMENDING THE COLLIER COUNTY GROWTH MANAGEMENT PLAN - ADOPTED WITH
CHANGE
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Next item on the agenda, much to
Commissioner Norris' glee, is 8(A)(1) under community development,
recommendation to adopt a resolution establishing general requirements
and procedures for amending the Collier County Growth Management Plan.
Good morning.
MS. LAYNE: Good morning, Commissioners. Lee Layne for the
record, and I think this will be a little shorter than our last
Tuesday's Growth Management Plan item.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Oh, you better hope so, Lee.
MS. LAYNE: We're looking to amend the resolution that governs
the procedures now for submitting Growth Management Plan amendments.
Resolution 91-521 was adopted almost seven years ago. We're looking
at changing the submittal date from March to April, requiring only one
hearing by the Planning Commission instead of the two in the present
resolution. The state law only requires one hearing by the land
planning agency at the time of transmittal. What this will do, it
will shorten the time it now takes for the final adoption of the
amendment from approximately 12 months to 10 months.
We're also changing the time period for submitting the adopted
amendments from five days to ten days. We're increasing the fee from
$2,100 to $3,000. Presently we have to advertise each public hearing,
a quarter-page ad, which is over $500; so the present fee basically
just covers the advertising costs with no staff costs.
We're also adding small-scale amendments. Right now we were
charging the same fee that we charge for comp plan amendments. They
do not take as much time, so we're requesting a separate fee for that.
And this will become effective in the April cycle of next year.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Question, Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just a couple comments. The fee
schedules I think are good. They're overdue. Ten days is good. Last
week we had a couple of items that we had questions on and we wanted
to see, and that just allows us the time frame to do that.
My one question I do have is, I'm not sure I'm in favor of the
idea of cutting out the Planning Commission on this end. I know the
Planning Commission had some differences with staff recommendation
this last time around and, frankly, I think that's good for the
process, if there's some disagreement or some alternatives when things
come back. And we had a number of changes, a number of suggestions
from DCA and a number of staff changes, including a couple of total
rewrites, and I hate to cut Planning Commission out of that. I think
it's a healthy of the process, and it saves some of the debate before
it gets to us to us. But more importantly, it opens some new debate
if there is some disagreement between our staff and the Planning
Commission.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I agree. I think if, you know, what we got
back from DCA was a rubber stamp, then that second -- the elimination
of the second Planning Commission approval would be warranted. But
more than likely there's going to be some substantive comments and
recommendations, and I would like to see that go through the Planning
Commission.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I really value, appreciate their
participation in the process as well, and it does provide just more
opportunity for public comment. And, frankly, the need for public
comment is often mostly because of the responses from DCA, and so I'd
hate to limit that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Miss Layne, is there any particular reason why
that one recommendation is included? Anything that maybe we're -- I'm
missing?
MS. LAYNE: No. It was just basically a change in the statute
that only required one hearing by the Planning Commission. We felt
cutting the time period for the petitioner -- you know, their time
from, you know, two, two and a half months off the process. We felt
that was good for the community in that respect.
And like you say, the majority of the time, DCA's comments are
pretty much rubber stamped, at least on the citizen amendments.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Right.
MS. LAYNE: You know, we may want to look at the citizen
amendments maybe not having the second hearing and only having the
second hearing on the staff submitted.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: At this point I'm going to agree with the -- I
guess the majority of the board so far that we leave that as is and
not make that one individual change at this point.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Although, I like the idea Miss Layne just
suggested about when we do have a rubber stamp -- and that is usually
the case on the citizen proposed amendments -- that we favor the
citizen revise, you know, eliminating that -- cutting two and a half
months off the process.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We're going to have one set of
hearings, though. We're not having two different set of hearings for
-- if some of the amendments come back one week and some come back
another.
I don't really understand where there's ten weeks if we have the
Planning Commission hear this. I don't think that's a realistic
description. I don't think there's a 10-week difference if we have
them or don't. And what's what two and a half months is.
MS. LAYNE: That's with advertising time and getting it set up;
that's approximately two months.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, it seems to me this last
go-around, the Planning Commission meeting was less than weeks before
our meeting or about two and a half weeks.
MS. LAYNE: No, sir. No. It was over a month. It was September
18th and October 28th.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And is there any reason that those two
couldn't be more compressed? I mean, if time is the issue, I don't
think cutting the public out of the process is the answer. If time is
the issue -- and what you just described is five weeks, not ten -- but
if that's the process, we're going to have to advertise for the Board
of Commissioners public hearing anyway. So there's going to be that
five weeks. Why not cut that out of the process as well?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, you know, I'm going to -- I'm going
to retract what I just said, because I'm recalling one in particular
citizen-proposed amendment that was quite controversial among the
public. So I think let's just go with the Planning -- MS. LAYNE: Staff has no problem with that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I understand your intent. I think it's
honorable. But I think what you're hearing really is two things: The
reason for that time lag -- and in defense of our staff -- is that the
Planning Commission does make some substantive changes that staff has
to go back and make evaluations on and whatnot before it comes to us.
So I do understand how it can add, you know, a minimum of three to
four weeks, but I think it's well worth it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I do, too.
MS. LAYNE: What we can do then, based on resolution 91-521, we
can put the same language that we had in the -- in that which was
paragraph 8, that the CCPC shall conduct a public hearing to make
recommendations to the board after we get the ORC report; so we can
put that paragraph back in.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. With that one change, is there any
other recommended changes that someone would like to put in the form
of a motion?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I move approval with that one change,
staff recommendation with that change.
MS. LAYNE: And we also need to include a budget amendment to
recognize the increased revenues and expenditures.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Is that included in the motion?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So included. Second? Was there a second?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I will second it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Am I the only one here? Okay.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Any public comment at all?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: No.
MR. FERNANDEZ: There are two.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I'd checked. Let's
back up just a second. I think you probably see the board's direction
on this. Let's go ahead and go to public speakers.
MR. FERNANDEZ: First speaker is Mike Davis and then Don
Pickworth.
MR. DAVIS: For the record, Mike Davis, chairman of the Planning
Commission. And I think all the really intelligent things I was going
to say you-all have already said, and I thank you for that. There is
one comment I would make. In discussion with Miss Cacchione, there
may be a time where -- and maybe this is farfetched that DCA comes
back with little or no comment, everything is wonderful --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Do you know how many people would be
unemployed if that happened?
MR. DAVIS: Yeah, that's true. There -- and what we discussed
was the possibility of a provision for situations like that, that at
the discretion of the chairman of the Planning Commission meeting with
staff, that it might not be worth hearing because there's nothing to
hear.
But -- and I agree with Commissioner Constantine's comments. We
can probably try harder in the future with the scheduling of our
meetings to compress the time situation between the two, and are happy
to do so.
And thank you for your comments. We worked long and hard on
that, and it was good to be here this morning and hear Commissioner
Constantine's comments that the work we did was a benefit to you, the
Board of County Commissioners.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Clearly, and we thank you.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Don Pickworth.
MR. PICKWORTH: My concern has been covered.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: With that, I apologize. I took the motion out
of order; so I'll just ask, does the motion still stand?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And the second?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Both seconds apparently stand.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The bevy of seconds remain.
Thank you very much.
Item #8A2
CHAIRMAN TO SIGN LETTERS OF CONCURRENCE WITH THE EVERGLADES CITY
REGIONAL SEWER PROJECT INDICATING ITS CONSISTENCE WITH THE GROWTH
MANAGEMENT PLAN - APPROVED
Item 8(A)(2), authorization for chairman to sign letters of
concurrence with the Everglades City Regional Sewer Project. MS. CACCHIONE: Good morning, Commissioners.
For the record my name is Barbara Cacchione with your long-range
planning staff.
The request before you today is on behalf of the City of
Everglades, who has filed grant application for a sewer project with
USDA's Rural Development Administration. As part of that grant
application, two letters are requested from the county commission, one
stating that the sewer project is in compliance with our water and
sewer subelements of our Growth Management Plan; and, two, that you
concur with this project serving that area.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Motion to approve.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Speakers, Mr. Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: No, Mr. Chairman. You just have a number of
people here from Everglades City. Don't particularly need to speak,
but I just thought I'd just call to your attention that they're here.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: They're here to urge us on by mere presence
alone.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Two council members, two staff members, and a
member of the --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Which is amazingly --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have a motion and a second.
Is there any discussion on the motion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero.
Miss Cacchione, thank you.
Members of the Everglades City council, that you for being here.
Motion by Commissioner Norris, seconded by Commissioner Berry.
Item #8A3
RESOLUTION 97-432 EXTENDING THE LIVINGSTON ROAD COUNTRY CLUB PUD TO
JUNE 17, 1999 - ADOPTED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Item 8(A)(3), staff review and
recommendations relative to Ordinance 92-31, the Livingston Road
Country Club PUD, which has not commenced construction, as defined in
Section 2.7.3.4 of the Collier County Land Development Code. Mr. Bellows, good morning.
MR. BELLOWS: Good morning, Commissioners.
For the record, Ray Bellows of planning services staff. I'm
presenting the Livingston Road Country Club for consideration under
the sunset provisions of the Land Development Code.
The subject PUD was approved for 407 single-family units and 343
multifamily units for a total of 750. The Growth Management Plan
indicates that this area is in the urban residential which permits a
base density of four units per acre, therefore, the resulting density
of this project is -- at 1.5 units per acre is consistent with the
Growth Management Plan.
In addition, the petitioner is requesting an extension of the
agricultural uses and exemptions as noted in Section 3.8 of the PUD
document to allow it to be extended through November of 1999, with a
two-year extension of the PUD zoning.
Staff's review has no inconsistencies with the other elements of
the Growth Management Plan, therefore, staff recommends that the Board
of County Commissioners grant a two-year extension of the Livingston
Road Country Club per the attached resolution which contains the
extension of the agricultural uses in this exemption.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Mr. Bellows.
Questions of staff?
Seeing none, Mr. Duane, I assume you're a representative of the
petitioner?
MR. DUANE: Yes. Robert Duane from Hole, Hontes and Associates.
Commissioners, our request to staff was to extend the zoning for
two years beyond the date that Livingston Road could be put in place,
because it's our feeling that we're going to be back before the two
years requesting an extension again, because I doubt that the road
will be constructed within that period of time.
So I would call your attention to Resolution 97-72 for Imperial
Lakes in which you granted a five-year extension. Imperial Lakes is
located approximately one mile to the west of this property and
presumedly --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Duane, I understand exactly what you're
saying. The roadway that needs to be there to access the project
isn't there yet. You're asking for an extension until it is there.
In all likelihood, we'll probably see this back under some
redevelopment plan at that time anyway, so why go through the motions
now; is that kind of the heart of it?
MR. DUANE: Well, I would like to have the same five years that
Imperial Lakes was granted presumably because they didn't have access
to the same roadway. So I would ask you to treat this project and
the extension of the zoning similarly.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Bellows, is that five years problematic or
inconsistent with what we've done in other similar cases?
MR. BELLOWS: The only one that was granted more than the -- what
the provisions call for, a maximum of two years, the Imperial Lakes
was slightly different. They had an approved site development plan and
dedication of right-of-way, and the board deemed that was usual
circumstances which allowed at that time for the board to motion for a
five-year extension.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Duane, we may just have to see you in two
years in the same hearing. I'm going to have to say without those
things existing, I would probably go ahead and just support a two-year
extension.
Any comments from members of the board?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Let's approve a two-year extension.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Did we have any additional speakers on this?
MR. FERNANDEZ: You have no speakers.
MR. NORRIS: Second here.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero.
Mr. Duane and Mr. Bellows, thank you very much.
Item #8C1
INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF NAPLES AND COLLIER COUNTY
AUTHORIZING RESIDENT BEACH PARKING WITHOUT THE PAYMENT OF PARKING METER
REVENUES - APPROVED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Next item, the interlocal agreement between
the City of Naples and Collier County. And we all owe the mayor a
wonderful thank you for the pastries from Tony's Off Third yesterday.
He certainly knows how to buy a good deal, doesn't he, Mr. Olliff?
This is precisely what we looked at yesterday.
Commissioner Constantine, have you had a chance to review --
okay, I just wanted to make sure. It's good to see you're not under
the weather today.
Mr. Olliff --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Motion to approve.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Without much fanfare, it seems we're making
you're life a little easier.
Do we have any speakers on this, Mr. Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: No speakers, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: With none, we have a motion and a second.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response; Commissioner Norris not present).
Opposed?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Four, zero.
Excellent presentation, sir.
Item #SD1
PURCHASING PRODUCTIVITY IMPLEMENTATION PLAN - APPROVED WITH CHANGE
Next item is under 8(D)(1). This is a continuation from
October 28th requesting approval of Purchasing Productivity
Implementation Plan.
Mr. Camell, good morning.
MR. CARNELL: Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Steve Camell, purchasing and general services director.
I'll try to be as short as Mr. Olliff. Two purposes for being
here today, to obtain BCC approval to -- for approval of a staff
implementation plan in response to the Citizens Productivity Committee
report that was presented to the board on September the 23rd. And as
part and parcel to that, we'd like to discuss briefly two items that
were part of the report that we'd like to receive some board direction
on this morning.
Let me preface the discussion by just commenting and expressing
on behalf of the staff again our gratitude to the Productivity
Committee for just a really outstanding job and thorough job done in
gathering information, and their desires and efforts to be factual
and accurate in everything that they've done, and really giving us an
opportunity to look at some substantive improvements to our purchasing
system. I would also like to say that we wholeheartedly as staff
endorse the lion's share of what's been proposed here and are very
much in step with the Productivity Committee, we believe, in what we
intend to do.
There are, again, two issues that we'd like to briefly discuss
with the board. Obviously, we'll entertain any questions from the
commissioners about the plan in general, but two issues in particular;
one pertains to the recommendation concerning post employment
restrictions, and the other regarding the formal competitive threshold
that is currently in place.
With regard to the former issue, the Productivity Committee
recommended implementing a prohibition that would be effective -- it's
presently effective on county commissioners and other elected
officials, extending that prohibition locally to selected county
employees based on their position within the organization, and that is
a prohibition of not lobbying or having contact with any county agent
or employee for a period of two years from the point of severance.
The staff has reviewed this proposal and believes while it has
some merit, that we are not totally comfortable with it at this point
in time. Two primary areas of concern; one being on the recruitment
of staff and having some concerns about the fact that this could have
a bit of a chilling effect in terms of being able to hire people who
work in fields that readily interchange with the private sector, or
for that matter, other public sector agencies.
We also have a concern pertaining to enforcement in terms of how
we would administer the enforcement and how it would be done and the
specifics of how we would ensure compliance based on how the proposal
was set forth.
With regard to formal competition, the committee has proposed
that we raise the limit, which is currently at $15,000, to $25,000.
This is a proposal that the staff concurs with and, in fact,
recommended in 1995. If you'll remember when the board raised the
limit from $6,500 to $15,000, at the time we had recommended $25,000,
and that's, in effect, what the committee is saying now independently.
So we do concur with that recommendation.
And at this point we'll entertain questions from the board.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Questions for Mr. Camell?
COMHISSIONER BERRY: Mr. Chairman, my only comment is that I
guess I do disagree with the staff in regard to Item No. 1. I don't
really believe that that is -- should really present too much of a
problem. It's not precluding anyone from going to work in the private
sector. It's just a matter of coming, you know -- coming back before
the board or working with others in county government. And I do
believe that there is an influence there. No matter how hard you
would try, you know, it's a respect almost for the people that you've
worked with, and then coming back -- when they come back to you from
the private sector, I think it's very difficult. It puts you in a
difficult situation.
It's simply -- I would believe that someone else from whatever
company or whatever it is they go to work for would be the one to do
the negotiating rather than them. But it would not preclude them from
going out into the private sector to better themselves if that's how
they viewed it.
So from that standpoint, I kind of disagree with the staff
recommendation. I don't think it's any different in the private
sector. When you leave one company, many times, to go with another,
sometimes there's like a noncompete situation that ties you up for two
years or longer. It can be much longer depending on whatever level
you served in in the private industry.
So I don't really believe that this should be viewed as negative.
I mean, I would say more power to you. If get a job in the private
sector, fine. It just comes to county government, then you're not
going to be coming back before us or coming and working with the
current staff. That's how I look at it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, I disagree with you,
Commissioner Berry, and I've got to agree with out staff. And it's
interesting you use the example of the noncompete clauses, because
they're often found invalid in court. I think if we look at real-life
examples of who are some employees who have come back to see us here,
we see there isn't something inappropriate there and, if anything,
some of that respect is probably a good thing that they've earned
while they're here. They had a good working relationship with our
staff, and I think that accrues to everyone's benefit, to the
community's most of all.
But when you look at Tom Conrecode -- it's probably the most
recent example -- worked for the county for, I don't know, 10 years,
12 years, and did a great job, and had an opportunity to better
himself and move on. And that position, by the nature of what he
does, requires him to work with the county from time to time. And
because Tom put in 10 or 12 years with us, we should penalize him
because his particular field requires him to deal with government, I
think would be a mistake.
Other examples, Rick Yovanavich, Ken Cuyler, you know, the list
goes on -- Bruce Anderson. And the list goes on. I just don't think
it's in our best interest to limit ourselves. I think all of those
people have come back before the board. They certainly haven't gotten
everything they have represented. They win some; they loose some, and
that's the nature of it. But to suggest that somehow there is
something innately inappropriate about that really hasn't been the
case in real life.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, I disagree, Commissioner
Constantine. I have to support Commissioner Berry's position on this,
and basically because I think the same -- the same prohibition applies
as it applies to us. I'm confident that Commissioner Volpe, for
example, would not have done anything untoward if he had been able to
appear before this board earlier than two years after leaving this
board, but that -- that gap gives a comfort zone to the public and to
the -- to the remaining board members and the remaining members of
staff. I think that it's important as a buffer, and not as a
prohibition. It's not permanent; it's two years. It doesn't conflict
out. I'm not suggesting that it should conflict out other members of
the person's firm, but I am interested in the scope of the prohibition
should we adopt one. Clearly it would apply to appearing before the
Board of County Commissioners. I wonder if it would also -- I would
suggest that it should also apply to negotiations among staff, because
there are so many administrative decisions that are made that aren't
made in the public eye that are certainly appropriately made -- and
I'm not suggesting they're not -- but my concern is that former staff
should not be negotiating with their former co-workers on a -- on
county business matters as well. And I wonder how the enforcement
mechanism -- what the enforcement mechanism could be for that. But I
think that we need to look at that as well, not just appearances
before the board.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Fernandez, do we have any idea whether
this similar type ordinance would be in effect anywhere else in the
state?
MR. FERNANDEZ: I understand from newspaper reports that there
are ordinances in place in Dade and Broward County but not in other
counties in Florida. I'm not aware of any myself from personal
experience. This is -- this is not a typical restriction that I have
seen.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: It seems fairly cynical to me.
Commissioner Constantine was pointing out that we've had members of
our staff leave and come back and actually be serving the public by
representing the companies that they deal with in a positive manner,
so I don't know -- it's --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think what's missing here, in my opinion,
is, you know, the window of who does this affect? Because if we're
talking about someone who is an entry-level engineer, then I don't
think we're really dealing -- we should be dealing with any type of
restriction. My concern is -- and I guess the way I look at it -- I
mean, we all knew the restriction when we ran for this office, you
know, so you walked into it willingly.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, it was actually passed after I
was elected.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Well, I knew it walking into this
office; so I did so willing. It was not a deterrent for me as an
elected official, even though it probably means a career change when
I'm done with this, at least for a two-year period, or going out of
county if I want to practice my profession. So I have been at least
exposed to it. Even though it's in the electoral process, I don't
think a hiring process would have been that different to me. And the
reason to me is the level of commitment. When you look at an
organization such as the county, as you move up to a certain level of
responsibility, I think your commitment to public service whether it e
in this county or another becomes, you know, what you put on the
horizon as a goal, very much like the military. Once you make a
certain rank, it's -- it's seen as a commitment. Beyond that you're a
career man or woman; short of that, who knows. And the level of
responsibility is different. What I would like to see in order to
arrive at a level of comfort here is I do support some type of a
prohibition of a period -- I'm looking more at one year instead of
two, but I'd like to see it limited to what I consider a professional
break point where you expect someone that once they reach a certain
level within our organization, that are they are committed to Collier
County, to public service. And for the one out of a thousand that may
be taking a position in order to shop their talents, it's worth while.
I don't think it has the deterrent to one in a thousand who are
committed to public service. So in weighing that, I think if you
combine limiting at what point this goes into effect, who it affects,
and putting it one year instead of two -- I personally think we
should be held to a higher standard. So with those two things, I
could support it and would like to see it come back in that format.
But at two years across the board, I can't support it.
MS. HAC'KIE: I agree across the board is way too broad and have
assumed -- because I think in the Productivity Committee
recommendation there was some professional break point --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. And I didn't want -- I just didn't want
anyone to misunderstand our discussion, because we had not mentioned
that. But that's my personal feeling. I also, you know -- Mr.
Fernandez, you and I haven't sat down and discussed this specifically,
but before passing anything, I think it would be worthwhile for you to
have that discussion with each commissioner -- MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- and bring your background and your
experience to bear on this issue. But I'm inclined to support
something along the lines of let's define who's affected, let's put it
at a one-year limit instead of two years, and I'd be willing to offer
direction in that regard.
The other question I have is, Mr. Camell, on your adoption time
frames for many of these items, I find them all to be rather
acceptable with the exception of under the data -- the past
performance database. I see two dates of March 31st, 1999. I think
we need that sooner than later, and I am more than happy to see some
things pushed out to later in '98, such as the credit card purchase
program and standard contract documents. But I would like to see a
more aggressive schedule on the database to be no later than the end
of 1998. I understand this is your -- you know, you're trying not to
give us unrealistic time frames, but I think that particular element
caught my eye and ear in the presentation as being critical when we
are making decisions on two or three companies, one of which we may
not have any experience with, that past performance database can
really give us a tool. So I'd like to see that moved up, even if it
means other things get juggled a little bit, to no later than
12-31-1998, so it would be done in the next calendar year. Those are
the two comments -- the two issues that I had.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Did I hear you suggest we hold on the
one item until the county administrator has had a chance to talk about
it?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I would. I think it's important enough that
we set that item aside, have discussions with the county
administrator, you know, look at it individually and looking, again,
at the limits. How do we want to tailor this? How do we want to it
implement it? If it's going to be, you know, in essence implemented
tomorrow, let's -- you know, these folks working for us now weren't
hired under that. Is that fair? Is that appropriate? So I think
there's a lot more we need to consider. And if we would just
individually consider those and have a discussion at a future point, I
think that would be more productive.
But the balance of this with the change of the past performance
database, completion being moved to 12-23-98, I'm ready to support.
Mr. Fernandez, do we have speakers on this?
MR. FERNANDEZ: You have none, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Is there any member of the Prod -- any member
of the Productivity Committee -- is there anything? COHMISSIONER BERRY: We have several here.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. One of them was unfortunate enough to
sit up front. Is there anything else the Productivity Committee would
like to add to this?
COHMISSIONER BERRY: General Weiss.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: General Weiss, if you could come forward,
please.
GENERAL WEISS: I'm Bernie Weiss, for the record, chairman of the
subcommittee or leader of the subcommittee of the Productivity
Committee.
I appreciate the help of the staff and the comments of the
commissioners. I truly believe that the database comments of the
chairman were very appropriate and will be very helpful. They tend to
be the responsibilities of people administering contracts anyhow, and
I think they can start doing that, and the database can be collected.
In order for a database to be effective, you need data, and the longer
you wait to implement, the less data you have for a long time.
So you really wouldn't have anything if you wait till '99 until
2001 or late 2000; so I really think that's a very good idea.
With regard to the first recommendation on a kind of a
cooling-off period, the subcommittee and the committee basically said
that it ought to be applicable to people above a certain pay level or
grade level, and in our mind we know there are about a thousand people
within the county government, and we envision it being -- you know,
possibly covering maybe a hundred people. And it would not limit, as
Commissioner Berry said, anyone from going to work for somebody. It's
just representing their new employer in front of the county
government, both the commissioners and more particularly the staff,
because those things are not done in a public manner, and so those
prohibitions should be there.
Steve had shared with me his concern about enforcement. There
are models within the federal government and within the state
government in Tallahassee. By the way, this is a requirement of state
employees in Tallahassee. Again, it's the top managers or project
engineers who are dealing with major programs, where they can't leave
their job within the government of the state and work for a client who
now they are going to represent in front of deliberative bodies or
staff agencies.
And it's not so much there there's going to be something done
that's not right or illegal, but it's the perception to citizens that
there is a way of presenting an appearance of a conflict of interest.
And that's kind of what we're looking for, to avoid any perception or
appearance that there could be a conflict of interest.
And I've looked for studies in my 40 years of doing this kind of
thing where we found in the federal government particularly that there
was a -- it impeded young, bright professionals or even senior people
coming to work for government. We have never found that to be the
case. We found people who want to make a career or start out in
government and leave later on before they hit that point, get the
experience, go to work in private industry and then represent
industry.
As Commissioner Constantine said, this is helpful because they
understand the operation. But once they get into a position of
authority, then the cooling-off period provides for the elimination of
any perception that something could be unacceptable or wrong.
I think your opportunity to discuss, you know, this with the
county administrator is very appropriate, because he has a long
history in this kind of business. We have talked to the -- the county
administrator has made a call to the Association of County Government,
Vivian Dericki (phonetic), very, very helpful; didn't have this
information. She asked that we send a copy of our report. I did to
her as a kind of a public thing that maybe she could use elsewhere.
But the key thing is that she's going to collect this data, and we do
know that from where we have made contacts that three of the counties,
the larger counties, do have it, and the smaller counties don't have
it. Lee, Charlotte, and Sarasota doesn't have the ordinance, the
lobby ordinance. Dade, Orange, and Broward do.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you for mentioning a county not on the
east coast. That's helpful.
GENERAL WEISS: But anyhow, I think we need to look at it.
There's some talk, according to Vivian, that there's a constitutional
committee being formed in Tallahassee that's considering, among other
things, the proposition to change the recommendation in the Florida
statute on employees of the county to being the same as elected
officials. So that is an area that's going around. I'm not sure
that's around the corner, but it's something that's being considered
at the county government.
So we appreciate your very sincere interests, both from the staff
and from the commissioners. And we look forward to further
opportunities to implement this with Steve and the other staff members
and to do other things that would be worthy of, you know, our time and
be beneficial to the taxpayers in general. Thank you.
MR. WEISS: General Weiss, in addition to being obviously
grateful for the time and effort everyone has put in, Mr. Camell,
also thank you for seeing this as a tool. When I served on the
Productivity Committee, not all departments saw the activities of the
committee as a tool for betterment. Some saw it as a threat. And
this kind of relationship needs to be fostered more. And it's
professionals such as yourself, General Weiss, and the balance of the
committee and like you, Mr. Camell, that allows that to happen.
Thank you to both of you. With that --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I make a motion we
approve all but the one section we have discussed there and bring that
back in an appropriate time frame after each of us has had a chance to
talk with --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. That would be the proposed
conflict-of-interest ordinance.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Fernandez, do we have any speakers?
HR. FERNANDEZ: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We didn't have any registered.
We have a motion and a second.
Discussion on the motion?
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Yes. Are we going to make the change today
then, Mr. Chairman, with the updating of the database?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I will ask the motion maker. I'd ask that that
be no later than December 31st, 1998.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, that's fine.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I'll second that to that effect.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Without further discussion, I will call the
question.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero.
Thank you, Mr. Camell.
Item #8D2
STAFF DIRECTED TO WORK ON TWO-PHASE APPROACH RE EHERGENCY SERVICE
CONTRACT WITH THE EAST NAPLES FIRE DISTRICT FOR THE ISLES OF CAPRI
Item 8(D)(2), discussion regarding request from the Isles of
Capri Advisory Board. This, again, was continued from October 28th.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Chairman, maybe I can handle this one
for us today.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: This -- we've all received a letter from
the Isles of Capri Fire District Advisory Board that requested that we
look at perhaps contracting for service with the East Naples Fire
Department.
We had a large meeting last night at the fire house in Isle of
Capri, very well attended, but most of the citizens felt that they
were unaware of what was being proposed and had questions. And while
I think we talked for an hour and a half, very spirited conversations
a lot of the time. But at the end of the meeting, I asked if people
wanted -- if there was anybody that did not want to develop more
information and bring this back for a further look at some point and,
of course, nobody raised their hands on that one.
So, in other words, everybody agreed that what we should do is
look at some more information, bring it back at some point in time,
and take it back in front of the fire board for an official meeting
and perhaps even have the civic association join in with that meeting
or present it to them at a separate meeting. And then before -- do
all of that before it comes to the Board of Commissioners for a final
vote.
So what we are asked to do is -- if the board agrees -- is that
we would like to see if -- if Chief Shank from the East Naples Fire
Department would enter into some sort of a little negotiation with
some of our staff to see if we can come to some sort of an agreement
and be more specific about what's being proposed. That's what the
citizens were concerned about is what specifically was being proposed.
And so that's what we ended up the meeting, is everybody is in
agreement, let's at least see what's going to be proposed, bring it
back for discussion, and then vote on it at that point.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Agreed. To date the letters and calls I have
received really didn't know -- it was kind of fear of the unknown.
They really didn't know what the other side was offering, but there
were obvious concerns that needed to be addressed. So I can easily
support that although -- Mr. Fernandez, do we have speakers on this?
MR. FERNANDEZ: None.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We don't have any registered?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: One of the problems -- you're correct, Mr.
Chairman. One of the problems was that a citizen, Mr. Bowman,
circulated a letter that had a lot of misinformation on it. And --
and he implied that the fire district was going to be taken over or
merged with East Naples and that sort of thing and, of course, that's
just -- that's not what the discussion is about at all. It's simply
contracting for services.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: To me the question is right now, can the same
or better service be provided for the same or less cost? And once we
have an answer for that, then we build in performance guarantees and
expense guarantees, and then we have something to look at.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, we have cost guarantees, because
it's got a one-mill tab.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Right. I just -- I think that once the
citizens have the opportunity to have that presented to them, they can
then make a fair assessment of, you know, comparing apples to apples.
Right now that isn't happening.
Mr. Fernandez, do you have something?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ochs, who was also at the
meeting last night, indicates to me that his understanding of the
discussion included a request for an explanation of all the options
that are available, and would ask that the board give consideration to
that as an additional part of this discussion.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And what do we mean by all of the options?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Ochs, if we could get some elaboration,
because all of the options includes some things I may not be
interested in.
MR. OCHS: Yes, Commissioner. Thanks. For the record, Leo Ochs,
support services administrator. During the course of the discussion
last evening, a couple of questions came up. For example, when we
discussed the size currently of the Isles of Capri district, the
actual geographical district and the fact that it extended into
portions of what will be the Fiddler's Creek development and down
into the Marco Shores area, there were some questions about, well,
perhaps, we want to reconfigure the district to, in fact, make the
district perhaps smaller and ask another independent district to take
pieces of the existing district. That was an option that some people
wanted explored in terms of what it would take either legislatively or
what are the costs-and-benefit implications of something like that, or
what would it cost if we wanted to put on more full-time people within
the current Isles of Capri district and tax ourselves to do that.
So we just wanted to make sure that we developed or we were
getting direction to develop all of the options that were requested of
us to develop.
The primary one, obviously, is the contractual -- potential
contractual relationship for operations by the East Naples Fire and
Rescue Control District. And that would be the obvious and the
primary option that would be evaluated and developed. But there were
others that were requested of staff to explore, and I just wanted to
make sure that that direction, if you want us to explore all of those
fully, was given today.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'd like to suggest a two-phased approach.
The first is to look at simply switching service from existing to East
Naples and what those impacts are, you know, to have that negotiation
first, because I think that's the immediate question. The problem I
have is some of the others things you talk about are very -- become,
you know, difficult to define boundary-wise. I mean, what areas are
we talking about adding or deleting? What areas are we talking about
expanding or not? And I wouldn't want that to hold up any type of
meaningful negotiation to come to at least a service decision.
So I'd like to see it come in two phases. The first is the
immediate question of service -- a service contract with East Naples
versus the existing service, and see if there is a good decision or a
good benefit there for the residents. And beyond that, I think those
other things are long-term district issues that we do have to look at.
But I wouldn't want to hold up that first decision while that second
one is out there being researched.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: And I suspect some of those things have to
be done through referendum. I think that's something we'll need to
check definitively. But your suggestion is well taken, Mr. Chairman.
And it's probably useful to point out that the discussion so far has
been to simply contract for a one-year period with one-year renewals,
and that way if things are not working out as planned, you can cancel
pretty much at any time and go back to the way things are presently.
So I really don't see any downside to what you've suggested, and it's
probably the best approach.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Is that an agreeable direction for the board?
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Acceptable.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Consensus? Okay.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Do we need a motion on that?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Since it's staff direction, I don't think a
motion is necessary.
Mr. Ochs, is that sufficiently clear to move ahead? Okay.
Mr. Fernandez, thank you very much.
Item #BE1
FUNDING FOR EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK 50TH ANNIVERSARY REDEDICATION IN
THE AMOUNT OF $148,800; MARCO ISLAND SPORTS FESTIVAL IN THE AMOUNT OF
$55,000; AND MARCO ISLAND FILM FESTIVAL IN THE AMOUNT OF $75,000 FOR
TOURIST DEVELOPMENT SPECIAL EVENTS FUND - APPRVOED
Next item under county administrator, this is a request to
approve funding. We have three separate requests before us. One is
the funding for the Everglades National Park 50th anniversary
rededication of 148,800. Second is the Marco Island Sports Festival,
160,000. The Marco Island Film Festival 295,000; all tourist
development special events funds. This is category B-2; it's only for
special events.
Miss Gansel, as I add these three up, I come up with $603,800,
yet we don't quite have that much available, do we?
MS. GANSEL: That's correct.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, can we also go through
each one of these items? They're all -- I don't understand why
they're all lumped in one item, but can we go through them one at a
time?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Oh, yes. We will make individual -- because
they each have presentations and whatnot. We will do them
individually, but I think it's important to get a total picture here.
And I was asking Ms. Gansel for the financial side, because I think we
only have 440,000 available without going into reserves; is that
correct?
MS. GANSEL: That's correct. And that was the reason I put them
all together, not to give one preference that funds are available for
that one and by the time we got to the third one, we had less funds
available.
As the commission may be aware, we do have a little over a
million dollars that is in reserves for economic disaster. That is
encumbered at this time, but the commission, at their discretion, can
reduce that funding for economic disaster and allocate any of those
funds for special events.
So although the funds -- we don't have sufficient funds that are
unencumbered, there are reserves that can be used if that was the
desire of the commission.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry, this occurred before you
were on the board, but a plus-or-minus one million dollars was set
aside during Hurricane Andrew when it came through, there was some
errant report that Fort Myers was wiped out.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Dan Rather hard at work.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah, Dan Rather doing his normal eloquent
job. So, you know, they -- we established a fund to try and counter
that type of misinformation should it occur in a disaster. So the
money is sitting there for that purpose. We can use it for Category
B-2, but to date we have not gone into that money.
MS. GANSEL: That's correct. And if all of the applications were
funded that were recommended by the Tourist Development Council,
$154,500 would be used from the economic disaster fund.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just kind of a general comment, and
that is -- we had this debate when we talked about that issue, but
should something happen or should there be a storm and somewhere in
Florida and we feel a need to inform the rest of the world that we're
okay, we're still here, please keep coming, I need to come up short on
that. I think we made a dedicated comment, a dedicated commitment to
have an emergency fund literally for a rainy day. I think we really
need to stick to that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: If we spend everything in the savings account,
it doesn't make a lot of sense having one. So I had a real reluctance
at the TDC and expressed that concern, and I'll express it again here.
I don't have an interest in dipping into those reserves, period. I
don't care how the formula works. And as I review each application, I
realize we are a hundred and fifty thousand short on the three that
are before us alone, and a couple were also turned down. So we had,
you know -- we had several requests far in excess of the availability.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Jean, do we not -- do the ones that
the TDC say no to, do they never make it to us? CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: They can.
MS. GANSEL: Yeah. The procedure has been in the past that if it
isn't -- if the TDC does not affirmatively recommend it, if the
applicant requests that it be brought forward to the Board of County
Commissioners, it is done so.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Never would have gotten those golf
tournaments otherwise.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Miss Gansel, anything else?
MS. GANSEL: The applicants are here to respond to any questions
that you may have regarding the events. If there's any other questions
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We need to pick an order to take these.
And the way they're listed on the sheet probably makes the most sense.
The first one before us -- let's go ahead and hear from
representatives regarding the Everglades National Park 50th
anniversary rededication. If there's a presentation to be made, let's
go ahead and have those individuals come up and do that. I see Mr.
Mohlke in the back, and I know he's intimately involved in this.
Miss Gansel, if you'll stand by for questions as necessary.
Thank you.
MS. GANSEL: Certainly.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You can have a seat if you like; you don't
need to actually stand.
MS. GANSEL: Okay. Thank you.
MR. MOHLKE: Chairman and members, if it please this honorable
commission -- my name is Chuck Mohlke, M-o-h-l-k-e. I appear here at
the request of Mayor Sammie Hamilton, Jr., and the members of the
Everglades City council as well as the committee appointed by the
council for the purpose of planning the efforts to celebrate the
rededication of the Everglades National Park on its 50th anniversary
on December 6th of this year.
This proposal, commissioners, is very straightforward. I'm
pleased to report that it received a vote of six to one in support of
the proposal at the Tourist Development Council, including -- I'm
equally to pleased to say -- the support of your chairman serving in
his capacity as chairman of the Tourist Development Council.
The budget summary or marketing plan, which is included as
Addendum A in this report, fairly summarizes the use of the resources
which we are asking for.
And the matter of timeliness is especially important in regard to
this event. As observed by Commissioner Hancock at the TDC meeting,
had President Truman wisely decided to appear in Everglades City
before the 30th of November of 1947, some concerns about this being
six days after the threshold date would not be expressed. However,
we're dealing with a historical situation where we have little option
but to celebrate this very unique event at the time. And the effort
has been made, supported by advice from the County Attorney's Office.
Assistant County Attorney, Heidi Ashton, provided a letter, which
perhaps you are aware of, which was discussed before the Tourist
Development Council and you have access through your very able budget
analyst, Miss Gansel, indicating that this does not represent a
conflict with the ordinance which provides you with the basis for your
decision here today.
I don't know that I have any additional comments to make except
to take just a moment of your time, if you will permit me, and mention
that we have here today in support of this application two members of
the Everglades City council, the Mayor pro tem, Tammy Smallwood, is in
the back of the room, and she also serves as the cochairman with Susan
Paregisis of the Economic Development Council of the 50th anniversary
celebration committee.
In addition to that, the Tourist Development Council member from
Everglades City, councilman James Landry is here as well. Two members
of the city staff are with us, Dottie Joiner and Vivian Storey. And
we're benefitted in addition to that a good deal by the presence of
Mike Mayor (phonetic) from the National Park Service, who you see
sitting next to David Guggenheim, who has been a substantial supporter
of this effort in the past.
That concludes any remarks that I have, and I'd be happy to be
responsive to any questions that commissioners have.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Questions for Mr. Hohlke?
Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I need some help walking me through
the marketing plan and what each of these expenditures are attempting
to do. We have from time to time -- we've criticized ourselves for
this recently and from time to time let sentiment go before our own
ordinance as far as what monies are to be expended on. And I think
it's very important if we're going to expend any of the tourist
dollars that it be very clear how we intend to attract tourists from
that. And so I am looking here, the event itself, of course, is about
a month away and yet we see advertising coming for any number of
things coming over the next several months. I think I have an idea
what's going on there but I haven't had it explained to me so maybe
you can help me.
MR. HOHLKE: Well, Commissioner, I'd be pleased to and if you
deal with a question addressed by the Tourist Development Council as
well. The hope is that this unique event will be accommodated by a
good deal of free media in an effort to attract public interest, not
only to the Everglades, but this rather unique event. And in order to
meet the requirements of your ordinance, it was determined in this
marketing plan to first of all have a period of heavy advertising and
promotion activity prior to November 30th designed to attract interest
in the event. And then in the period at the beginning of the
so-called shoulder season following the winter tourist period, to
again extend an invitation to family visitors and European visitors to
come to the Everglades, taking advantage of this rather singular
emphasis on the event in December.
It was pointed out by a member of the TDC, John Dougherty, that
this particular program is one valued greatly by the accommodations
industry, because it provides an opportunity for planning by European
visitors who need those opportunities during the winter months in
order to plan for their summer vacation season and then permits an
opportunity to use these dollars effectively, we hope, on behalf of
bringing visitors to the area during a period of time in which there
is a heightened interest in ecotourism and availability of rooms,
accommodations and facilities for those purposes. So that's the basic
concept, sir, behind the proposal as you see it.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I read under Item 10C on page 8 of
our packet, an estimated 7,000 room nights can be expected over the
duration of the seven month period. Is that 7,000 over and above what
we have gotten in other shoulder seasons, or is that standard? I need
to have that number based in something.
MR. HOHLKE: Commissioner, these calculations are always
difficult. So if the -- the assumption being that those translate
into a thousand room nights for each of the seven months that we're
talking about --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm sorry. Let me just clarify my
question. Are those 1,000 room nights per month additional over what
we have now, or do we get 900 now, and we think we'll get a thousand
next year?
MR. HOHLKE: Well, that's an excellent question. But here, in
respect to room nights, we have a somewhat different approach here.
First of all, this is very family oriented and to some degree group
oriented. And also to try and accommodate an expansion of the room
night concept into recreational vehicle parks and a variety of other
opportunities for people to spend time in Collier County, a little
different than the focus exclusively on hotel and motel
accommodations. So we have tried to put that focus in here with a
good deal of support from the Marco Island tourist community that
hopefully will benefit considerably from its relatively close
proximity to this area and the very fine professional efforts of the
Marco Island Tourist and Visitors Bureau, whose advertising agency has
assisted in these efforts to try and focus correctly on a plan to
attract interest during these two shoulder season episodes, first of
all before the event and then after the event. So we have tried to
expand that a little bit, and itws to make that calculation if youwre
going beyond the traditional venue of the hotel and hotel room unit
and trying to apply that principal to recreational vehicle parks and
other accommodations.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I appreciate that difficulty.
just reading from the application itself that says an estimated 7,000
room nights can be expected. Is that an additional 7,000 room nights?
MR. MOHLKE: It is, sir.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Additional over and above what we
experience now?
MR. MOHLKE: It is, sir.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Yeah. My question is, Chuck, what exactly
is the national park group -- what are they contributing to this?
Maybe I missed it in here, but I know that youlre asking the TDC for
this 148,000. What is the National Park Service doing on behalf of
this whole thing?
MR. MOHLKE: Well, it would be inappropriate for me to feel that
I can express fully what the National Park Service is doing --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: What information do you know?
MR. MOHLKE: Iid ask that Mike Mayor from the National Park
Service to do this. The actual rededication ceremony, Commissioner
Berry, the period from two olclock in the afternoon to four olclock in
the afternoon that Saturday is the exclusive responsibility of the
National Park Service. They are providing all of the resources which
are necessary in order to have that event take place. And it has been
their responsibility since the beginning to establish that program, to
tender invitations to public officials and others to attend the event
and a variety of other things. They also have a very important role
in the public information aspects of this.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I was concerned more because I know that the
park service -- I believe from the my experience, I have seen
brochures that they put out, and I just wondered if this was going to
be duly noted in their brochures which certainly would take on some,
quote, some advertising for the fact that this is the 50th anniversary
of the Everglades Park, and that perhaps, you know, theylre going to
carry some of this thatls maybe trying to be done here. I donlt know.
Iim just asking. And thatls the reason I wanted to know to what
extent are they involved here. I know theylre doing the actual
ceremony part, but I just wondered to what extent theylre involved in
brochure printing and that kind of thing.
MR. MOHLKE: There is a very good deal of that. You perhaps
remember, Commissioner and board members, that in the early stages of
this, I believe you had distributed to you a rather thick packet
prepared in December and January of 1996-97 from the National Park
Service with a board assembled by them with expertise in this area who
had put together a program beginning in January of this year and that
will extend well into the summer of next year. They're undertaking
all the costs that are related to that program, and the public service
announcements that are being generated by them and a variety of other
services they are providing. It would be hard to put a monetary value
on it, but it is considerable.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry, we had some discussion at
TDC on this. And I guess to characterize this best, if Mr. Mohlke
and his group's numbers are off by 50 percent, then it's -- the
investment is $42 a room night. If they're on, it's $21 a room night,
which is in any exchange that we have done in this manner, a
considerable consideration -- a beneficial consideration, excuse me.
What this is in a nutshell is we have got a twice-in-a-century
celebration. It's going to happen. Whether TDC funds are there or
not, there's going to be a celebration, okay? Whether you are an
environmentalist or not has nothing to do with the fact the Everglades
National Park is there. It is a resource. It is a tremendous asset
to this community. And what this application does, to me, is it uses
that event to springboard a promotion that brings in the ecotourists,
which is something that is a huge European market predominantly. It's
becoming a larger American market. It's a different kind of tourism in
an area of the county that traditionally has not seen that much of
these funds. So it's -- in a way we have a problem in doing these.
Some of the larger coastal hotels tend to get all of the room nights.
I mean, when we look at the balance of the county, they aren't spread
out very well. But by geography alone, this will force spreading out
of that effort.
So I was taken aback by the total amount of 148,000 initially.
I'm not a hundred percent comfortable with it, but as I look at the
breakdown, to pull any one item out, you have equal reason to pull
another out, because they all seem very much promotion related. And
what people tend to forget -- and it's not really the public's fault
because they -- I mean, they don't read it every day -- is that this
money has to be used for promotion and marketing of tourism. It can't
be used for schools, roads, you know, you name it. It has to be for
promotion and marketing. So the question is, is this a substantial or
positive marketing plan for the money based on this event? And with
-- that is the predominant reason I supported it at the TDC, and I'm
willing to support it at a level today, whatever level this board
decides.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, the other thing that I think
gives a great deal of comfort is if you look at the marketing plan, it
is extremely specific. It doesn't just talk about radio advertising
genetically. It has exactly where and what markets, what costs in
each market, talks about production costs, talks about specific print
materials. And I think that's important. It's easy to talk
conceptually, but clearly they've done -- have put a great deal of
effort into the specific elements that will make that marketing plan
successful.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Further questions for Mr. Mohlke?
Seeing none, do we have registered speakers on this, Mr.
Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: You have two on this particular section of Item
E(1).
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Let's go ahead.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You have a few more of them coming up.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, let's go ahead and do that, and then
we'll call the speakers.
Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Are we going to vote on these
individually? Are we going to hear all the -- all of the
presentations and then -- because I share the concern about not
dipping into the emergency money. I want to support -- I'm a strong
supporter of this particular application, but I'd like to hear all of
them. And, frankly, I'd like to hear them from the perspective of
that 21 or 42 dollars a room night. I'd like to hear -- I don't know
if that's a part of the presentation, but if Ms. Gansel or somebody
could make that a part of their presentation, I'd to hear all of that
information before voting on any of them. Is that the way you're
going to do that?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think that's a very worthwhile -- I really
hadn't gotten that far, but let's go ahead and hear from the speakers
on each item, and then at the wrap-up, let's see if there's a single
-- you know, we can go back and motions either individually or
jointly, whatever is appropriate at that time. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let's go ahead and hear from the two speakers
on this particular item.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay. These are on the Everglades anniversary.
First is Mr. Gil Erlichman and then Judy Leinweber.
MR. ERLICHMAN: Good morning. Gil Erlichman. I reside in East
Naples. I'm a taxpayer and elector in Collier County.
I picked out this particular item in today's agenda specifically
this Everglades City request. And I think it's very easy to be within
your Tourist Development Council budget without dipping into reserves
by eliminating this Everglades City request. You'll still -- you'll
be about $6,000 over budget with the Marco Island Film Festival and
the Marco Island YMCA.
This request, which was eloquently presented by Mr. Mohlke, I'm
wondering what the involvement he has professionally in this request
for this $148,000. I don't know whether he's -- I know he's in the
marketing sphere and publicity, but I wonder if you would like to
answer that question.
I haven't heard any valid arguments other than ecosystem and
ecotourism and so forth. Talking about the proximity of Marco Island
to Everglades City, which was mentioned by Mr. Mohlke, that Marco
Island would benefit indirectly by this. I cannot compare the
facilities of Marco Island with the facilities of Everglades City so
far as hotels or motels. I'm wondering where these 7,000 nights are
going to be spent. I've been to Everglades City once and, I mean,
that was enough. That's my personal opinion. I have a right to my
opinion, and maybe it was the wrong time of the year. It was in the
height of the summer season. I think that was the wrong time.
But remember, the TDC funds are made -- are available to promote
off-season tourism. Now, we're talking about European and German
tourists coming here in the summer time?
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Which is when they traditionally come.
MR. ERLICHMAN: And they're going to go to Everglades National
Park in the summertime?
COMHISSIONER BERRY: They do it now.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's when they come, yes, sir.
MR. ERLICHMAN: Well, they have to be -- evidently they must have
strong mosquito repellant and they're very -- very insulated so far as
the heat is concerned. But I just don't have a picture of us devel --
getting benefit from this -- spending this $148,000 for this -- for
Everglades National Park rededication.
But, of course, I'm in horror to think that our president would
come down here. This is my personal opinion. Thank you very much.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Gil, you need to go to Everglades City with
me.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: There's a lot of good --
COHMISSIONER BERRY: There's a lot of good areas down there.
MR. ERLICHHAN: Well, I don't know. Maybe I don't appreciate
nature in that respect down there.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: You need to go down right now and take a
look at the white pelicans that are down -- getting close to that
area, because in the next couple of months, you're going to see a
sight down there in the bay that's absolutely incredible.
MR. ERLICHHAN: Yeah, but we're getting into the tourist season,
ma'am, and I'm talking about off season.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think you guys ought to have the Everglades
City discussion after the meeting.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: We will do that.
MR. ERLICHHAN: Well, okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Mr. Erlichman.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Judy Leinweber.
MS. LEINWEBER: Hi. I'm Judy Leinweber, and I do like Everglades
City and Everglades National Park. I don't know if our county
commissioners have read News Press from yesterday. It said new
Collier refuge may exclude people. Wildlife service considers banning
hunters, anglers, and airboats. On page 6, the whole page listed.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Judy, this has to have something to do
with the TDC request before us today. I know where you're going,
because I've heard about that, and I understand where you're going,
but it doesn't have anything to do with the request for Everglades
National Park and this particular celebration. So we just need to
confine it to that at this point.
MS. LEINWEBER: I realize that, and I am getting to it. Like I
said, this is -- made front-page news in the News Press. But this
also gets on the Internet. This goes to the European people. If this
is what they're reading about the parks here in Florida, that they
want to close them down to people, period, and I know for a fact that
the Europeans are on the Internet, when my brother-in-law from Holland
has my unlisted telephone number he got off the Internet. So I know
from firsthand experience that the Germans and Dutch do see what's
going on in this area, otherwise, they wouldn't be coming here. And
this is on it. And if we're going to give them money and then the
environmentalists wants to close down the parks, it doesn't make
sense. Thank you.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Seems like we need to do some promotion to
counteract that misunderstanding.
MS. LEINWEBER: Not me. You folks. You're the ones that want to
spend our taxpayer dollars.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me ask, do we have any additional speakers
on that particular item, Mr. Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Not on that particular one.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Hohlke, what do you have to gain
personally and financially from this endeavor? Anything at all? MR. HOHLKE: Nothing whatsoever.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You're volunteering your time and efforts?
MR. HOHLKE: I am. I have been a volunteer member of the 50th
Anniversary Committee since July.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. The question was posed, and I thought
we needed an answer. Thank you.
MR. HOHLKE: I appreciate your courtesy in permitting an answer.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Mr. Hohlke.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, a couple of interesting
comments. One, that Miss Leinweber -- Judy's comments are correct in
that I think argues in favor of doing this, because if folks in Europe
reading that there is a problem, then just like the emergency funds
being set aside if misinformation is out there after a storm, if
there's some information that they're not welcome, this would be a
wonderful opportunity to correct that.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That's a very good analogy.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Second on Mr. Erlichman -- Erlichman's
comments.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You're having a problem with names today.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm having a heck of a time with names
today. Gil, I grew up in Maine, you know, and Arcadia National Park
is the second most visited national park. And as a kid and growing up
there, very much took it for granted. Didn't understand why people
would want to go see that. It just seemed like a bunch of rocks to
me. Going back now, having been away, it's a beautiful, beautiful
place. And I think sometimes because we're here every day, we take
for granted the beauty that nature offers here. But if you do not
live here and don't see the wildlife and don't see what it has to
offer here, it's the same idea. People who don't have an opportunity
to see something like the Everglades every day value that opportunity
and will come here to do exactly that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I didn't see it in her budget, but I do
understand Commissioner Berry will be offering personal tours of the
Everglades, so you want to sign up early for those.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: And I know all the good spots, particularly
good places to eat.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Chairman, I received another comment card
from Frances Barsh who wants to speak on this item.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: On this item? Okay. Let's go to that, and
then we will take a short break.
MS. BARSH: Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you for giving me
the opportunity to speak to you. I'm Frances Barsh. I'm a citizen,
taxpayer, and voter of Collier County. I would like to address all of
the requests in this one little piece of time that I have with you. I
would ask that you not invade the disaster fund. Please do not invade
that fund. I think you can accommodate all three requests by reducing
them each by $52,000, and that will bring them within your budget. I
think that if the communities themselves want these projects very
much, the communities themselves can raise funds.
I had experience a number of years ago with the Stratford
(phonetic) Festival in Ontario, Canada. When it first began, the
people in Stratford on Avon in Ontario pitched in. You cannot imagine
the wonderful community binding and the spirit where people had cake
sales. They opened their homes. They raised money in all kinds of
way, and they started the Shakespeare Theatre Festival, which is one
of the major festivals in the world today. They did not depend on
government. They did it themselves. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Mrs. Barsh.
We are at a point where we normally take a break for the court
reporter. If you would join me, there's going to be a brief service
between our building and Mary Horgan's office for Ernie Cousineau.
during this break, if you'd please join me down there at a brief
ceremony, we'll do that, and we'll return in, I would say 15 minutes.
(A short break was held.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Good morning. We're going to reconvene the --
we're going to reconvene the Board of County Commissioners meeting.
We just completed public comment on the Everglades National Park
anniversary rededication. Let's go ahead and go to a presentation on
the Marco Island Sports festival.
MR. RICE: Good morning. I'm David Rice, R-i-c-e, from the Marco
Island Sports festival. I'm the volunteer director. I'll be as brief
as I possibly can and pretty much allude to written information you
probably already have had time to digest. But I would like to point
out a couple of things in particular based on some of the former
speakers.
First of all, we are budget specific as you will note on page 37,
so just to point that out. Regarding our initial request for the
funds, we did break it down as specifically as possible. We are
possibly unique at least this year with the three that are asking for
tourist development dollars in the fact that we already have an
experience in using them. And we do have hard numbers of which we had
recorded. So our uniqueness, if any, is simply I think in the
expenditure and revenue side.
I also would like to point out that -- the one lady that did
speak was mentioning about community involvement and community
support. If you would notice in our master budget proposal, in-kind
services, we said we were getting $75,000 in that, and in fund raising
$20,000, and in in-kind services, $4,500. We have already exceeded
the in-kind services to the tune of over $80,000 already committed,
and our fund raising is just about at the $20,000 range with one
commitment coming in. Our in-kind goods, we do not usually do that
until just prior to our event, so -- that is what we raised last year,
so I'm sure we will at least do that.
So I'm speaking for an event that is community supported. We
have some experience in dealing with it, and we did have a couple of
problems that I mentioned at the TDC meeting regarding the opportunity
and the correct way to verify room -- room work, room sales. This is
an area that I think all three of us, and probably everyone that asks
for TDC dollars, will struggle with, number one, and pie-in-the-sky
numbers unfortunately fly a little bit out of proportion. But you
have to experience running one of these events before you can actually
realize the difficulty it is in trying to determine who is staying
where.
We had over 14,000 people come to our sports festival this year.
We had 1,660 paid participants that competed. We had 487 volunteers
to put on the program. And why are we asking for money again? We are
asking for money again because we believe strongly that we are an
annual event that is closing in on the quest to be self sufficient in
the future. We're not a one-time event. We hope to be here for a long
period of time.
As you are all aware and have heard this a hundred times, it does
take a certain amount of experience and a number of years before you
develop your clientele base to make these things self sufficient. We
have been cited by the Governor's Council on physical fitness in
sports, Mr. James Carnes, where has taken the sports festival
information and sent it to every community in the State of Florida as
an example of how communities can have an event such as this for the
benefit of sports and physical fitness.
The most recent one has already taken place on Hutchinson Island
on the east coast, and I was in communication with those folks to
help them get theirs on the way. So the festival in general is well
looked upon in the statewide group. We are certainly well looked upon
in the Marco Island area. And our emphasis this year was going to be
on expanding geographically our venues into the Naples area and also
down as far south as the Port of the Islands.
It is has been our intention this year within our budget to make
this a -- truly a countywide program and not just a Marco Island
festival. We are bringing such events to the Naples area such as a
statewide bowling tournament for the obvious reasons we have no
bowling alley on Marco. If we wanted to have soccer, flag football
tournaments, of course, we would have to have those competitions at
larger field areas, which we do not have, obviously, in the Naples
area. We intend to have a statewide clay pigeon shooting contest at
the Florida Sports Park, and we're going to also have skeet shooting
and trapshooting down at the Port of the Islands.
So these are some of the events we're hoping to add. Last year
we had 22 venues. This year we're hoping to have 30 plus venues
throughout the Collier County area.
We've been in communication with the -- Linda Rice, who is, I
guess, the managing concessionaire over at our new Sanctuary skate
park, hoping to upgrade our competition in the aggressive in-line
competition in in-line skating and also to piggyback what they already
have done over there recently with the ASA national competition. So I
think these piggybacking of different things and opening the
geographic areas in the future is what we are attempting to do.
As a volunteer director of this thing and also as, I guess, as a
taxpayer, I guess I'd have to say that living on Marco Island, I'd
like to see everything happen and support everything that can bring
tourists to our area, number one, and also more importantly for me
personally to bring more activities. I think that we are a diverse
county. Our differences are our strength so to speak, and the
diversity of which we provide guests and our own population with
activities to participant in I think is best for the entire county.
We are one such thing, however, we are in the sports end and the film
festival being in cultural end. Of course, we embrace an organization
like that, of course.
Back to costs of room -- rooms. This is as -- we've struggled
with it. There's no question. We have done a lot of homework before
attempting to find out how many rooms, and yet we didn't -- we didn't
come close to meeting the necessity of getting the information from
people where they are staying. I mentioned it this at -- to the TDC
council, to the TDC board, and asked for their help, not just for me,
but for all of us that are endeavoring to be honest in our numbers.
It is a very difficult thing to try to do to have people tell you
where they're going to stay. If I had 1,616 participants of which 45
percent of them were outside of Collier County, they were staying
someplace; I know they were. But it was very difficult to get them
even to write it on the application where they were staying. So we
all have to do more work to provide you with more factual information.
I'm definitely trying to get to the point where I'm saying to you
folks don't take pie-in-the-sky numbers as being gospel. Give us --
those of us that are putting these things into operation, give us the
opportunity to work with the TDC board to get the proper documentation
to see if, in fact, these events that we're all trying to put on are
really meeting your needs. And if they're not, we'll be the first
people to say they're not. But I really think they are. And I think
that our sports festival is; I just can't always prove it. I would
like to all of you I would love to have 2,000 rooms that we can sell,
and I really think we should based on the numbers we've provided you.
But I can't factually say I did it, even though I know that if we had
15,000 people there for the weekend on Marco Island, which probably
doubles our summertime residents, I know they were there for some
reason, and I know they were staying someplace. But, by gosh, I just
can't tell you right now that they were there.
But, yes, I think that we are a growing and ongoing program that
needs this seed money in order to make sure that we get the
opportunity to be self sufficient in the very near future. Some of
our publications and our advertising that we have suggested that --
that's on, for example, on page 37, these are factual things that we
have learned the hard way by doing it. We know what works in our
target market.
We also know that there's a tremendous need for all of us who are
asking for TDC money to take advantage of promotions that are ongoing,
presently done by other associations. We need to piggyback with each
other. We need to take advantage of each other's mailings in order to
make sure that all of our programs are broadcast to the largest number
of people possible at the lowest possible cost. So I think this is
also very important.
I think it's also very important in looking at the Marco Island
people who really are the ones at the moment who have come out of the
woodwork to make sure that this is a success -- I think it's important
at least to remind everyone that 40 percent of all of our TDC dollars
does come from the Marco Island area. Unfortunately, this year we
have, you know, too many people asking for all of it, I guess, and
they're all worthwhile causes, but I definitely feel very strongly
that that is an impact that you-all probably would like to look at the
history of it to see where all of those dollars had gone, if much of
it had ever gone back to Marco Island. And we're happy to say that
some of it did, obviously, last year, and hopefully more will come
with that.
What would happen if there was a reduction, and it sounds like
there's -- it's like it's a very real possibility; so let's address
it. If there was a reduction in what we're asking for, I think we all
would go onward and upward with our activities. I think what -- how
it would affect the sports festival is probably in the nature of the
scope of it. And we would probably revert to back to where we were
last year instead of trying to increase the geographic areas and
making it county organized. But, yes, could we actually do it? Would
we want to do it? And the answer, of course, is yes.
What would it impede? I think it would impede the opportunity
for us to make this the event that I think that we organizers of the
event are trying to make it in the future. It would just simply be a
little cog in the wheel and take a little longer before we could
probably be as self sufficient as we really need to be.
I think that's about all I wanted to tell you. I hope I hit on
it, and I'll certainly be happy to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just a couple. First of all, I have so
much respect for volunteers like you who put together these events.
So my questions are about the event and certainly not about -- because
I know there have some personalities in the past. I basically have
two problems. One is that this, if I'm recalling correctly, would be
the third year for TDC funding?
MR. RICE: It is the third year for TDC funding for the event but
not the third year for TDC funding for this specific event. The first
year it was put on by the Marco Island Sports Festival, Inc., which
was a group that were private entrepreneurs or promotion people. Those
people had left it influx, and the YMCA of Marco Island adopted it
last year as their -- as a sponsoring agency and just took up for it
so --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's your second year?
MR. RICE: Correct. For us it's the second year, yes.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: And do you know how much the funding has
been in the prior two years? Has it been one sixty each year?
MR. RICE: No, it hasn't. The first year it was one fifty-four
five, around there; and last year it was one hundred and twenty.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And this year it's --
MR. RICE: It's one sixty.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: One sixty. See, I would like to see it
going down instead of up, because hopefully you're progressing --
MR. RICE: I understand that. I certainly would, too, because
when I stood before the TDC board last year, I said that I was going
to get 40 percent more participation on 20 percent less dollars. And
we exceeded that. However, some things have changed, as you know. By
only being able to utilize those funds as they are right now for
promotional activities, you simply -- at the business end of this --
you really have to promote it a lot heavier right now to make up for
the dollars that you were not able to spend on other ways -- on other
manners outside of promotion.
So we're kind of in a transition year, as a matter of fact. So
we're looking to spend a little more, but not really. We're looking
to spend a little more in order to compensate, shall I say, for not
being able to spend TDC dollars on, let's say, equipment or, you know,
things that we used to be able to spend it on.
We are -- like I said, we are matching basically our funds dollar
for dollar and already have committed a large portion of that as we go
into the event.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: My last problem -- and I appreciate that
you said that the numbers are very hard to determine as far as room
nights, and you're not the only person that said that. I've heard
that from hoteliers. I've heard that, you know, it's very hard to
measure, and so it's just not your problem about how difficult that
is, and it's a real problem. But just using the best numbers we have,
your numbers were that -- assuming about 750 of the participants were
from out of county and that most of them came with a person and a half
to watch them or family or whatever, that we had about 1,850 -- or say
we even had 2,000 out-of-county people and --
MR. RICE: Well, actually we had -- 45 percent of our
participants were from out of county, which is about, let's say, 800
roughly. Those were the paid participants. Those weren't people that
just came to the event. The people that came to the event, the
15,000, we don't have a clue, because we have no way of actually
finding out. We were able to hard justify 350 rooms that were sold to
the various hotels that we had shown on our report to the actual paid
participants, which meant the competitors. That's -- but those were
the only people, unfortunately, you have any kind of ability to -- to
find out. So that's why those numbers are rather difficult. We would
like to say more, I mean, obviously.
But I'm dealing in facts. I'm, quite frankly, as you all, are
tired of dealing in fiction, okay, and I have heard some fiction on
our last TDC meeting, and checking on it, it was truly fiction. But
anyway, we're trying to deal in hard facts, and I'm a numbers person
and don't want to inflate anything. Where those 14,000 thousand
people came from, okay, and where they stayed, I'm not sure. We have
to really have a way of finding that out and that's why we're --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But we know that 350 were sold and --
MR. RICE: Just from the people that paid to get in.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So if we tripled that and said there were
a thousand rooms --
MR. RICE: Right.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: -- then -- I'm not a numbers person, but
doesn't that mean that we are spending about $160 a room night if
that's what we repeated this year?
MR. RICE: That's exactly right.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And that's my biggest problem.
MR. RICE: Right.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I think that's too much money to spend on
a room night. I think we ought to be spending 40 or 50 bucks a night.
And that's why -- I'm going to be more -- to be blunt with you, I'm
going to be interested in a greater reduction in your budget because
of the disparity betwe -- you know, the cost per room night.
Assuming as generously as we can that you've got a thousand room
nights, we're still talking about 150, 160 bucks a night, whereas, for
example, the Everglades Festival, we're talking about either 21 or 42.
MR. RICE: I appreciate that. But I also want to point out we're
talking fact and we're talking fiction.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well --
MR. RICE: And that's a possible a fiction. Not meaning to
demean anyone.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Hac'Kie.
MR. RICE: Supposition.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you. I was just trying to move this a
long.
MR. RICE: But I know that's a main contention of our board here
and --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't know that it's fiction that in
a seven month period we'll draw 3,500 people.
MR. RICE: No, it's not. Supposition.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That's better.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And probably not a very good one. I
got a couple questions. I too -- I appreciate your candor and your
willingness to try to come up with an accurate number, but 400 room
nights -- and you've been so kind as to triple that, but 400 room
nights, you know, we're coming out at 400 bucks a night that we're --
MR. RICE: Well --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You don't mind if I finish my
question. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Equally of concern
to me is in-kind services, and we have $80,000. As we look at what
we're trying to match the government funding with, a big chunk of
that -- and 75,000 is listed here. You said you're either approaching
or had just surpassed $80,000. Can you detail for me what is included
in in-kind services so I have some idea of what that $80,000 is?
MR. RICE: Yeah. Pretty much almost all of it is in-kind services
that we have received from a local media for promotional activities as
is demonstrated in our annual report. These are display advertising,
complimentary television, radio. Pretty much all of that $80,000 was
last year in promotion and is right now categorized in promotion.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I need a little more detail than kind
of radio and TV and print. What exactly do you mean when you say
80,000? Because you said you had already expended $80,000 in in-kind
services so --
MR. RICE: Correct.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- to date what have you done?
Specifically on the radio, whether it's $30 or 40 or even $65 a pop,
what do we get?
MR. RICE: No, we haven't spent it -- for this year, you mean?
You mean last year? Okay. Last year, for example, the Naples Daily
News provided us with $20,000 worth of display advertising. Yes, they
did. We also had --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Rice, those comments are not pertinent.
MR. RICE: And our program booklet, which was distributed
throughout all of Collier County in every newspaper, and television
was complimentary. TV spots for our commercials, public service
announcements. Radio was public service announcements as well as K
Rock radio was a sponsoring the organization, $13,000 there. Our
Marco Island Eagle also matched that with $13,000 worth of display
advertising and full-page ads for several months. So that's how those
things were developed.
We have also the -- another example is we had an east coast
billiards tournament that included such things as all the billiards
tables that were brought to the Radisson Hotel for the billiards
tournament. That was all complimentary from the organization who was
putting on the billiards tournament. So those things are the
accumulative effect of the dollars. I believe those are also broken
down in our final report.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Rice -- and I need to preface this -- I
was in the minority on the TDC. I did not vote to support the level
of funding of 160,000. One of the reasons I think the TDC did support
it was it is an event with some history. It has been done before. Mr.
Rice has done a very good job and particularly last year in holding
the event. I think there is some confidence there. You know, I can
speak for my reasons individually, but I think the TDC as a whole felt
this was a good event to continue in the community, and that was
really the dominant reason for supporting it.
My concern comes in -- I try and look at these TDC dollars as
many ways that I can to determine actual value of spending that money.
And I have kind of come up with a way that occurred to me that really
puts things in perspective. When I look at $160,000, I can go out and
buy -- let's say, I can buy airline tickets for 250 a pop. I could
bring them 320 couples for $160,000. Now, if you're in -- in
anywhere. I don't care. Anywhere in the U.S. and I say, I'll give
you and your spouse two airline tickets to Naples, Florida. All you
have to do is book five nights at one of the area hotels. Do you
think we'd get 320 takers? And if they each booked five nights, we'd
have 1,500 room nights.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Much more effective use of dollars.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And that's buying airline tickets and giving
them to somebody. I could go do that tomorrow. You could give me the
$160,000, and I could produce you 1,500 room nights with no doubt, no
question, no issues, period. So when I look at what we're spending --
per room night is a good way to look at it. But when you look at --
if the goal is to get people in hotels, we need to raise the bar a
little bit on the expectation of getting them in there.
The event that you have held Mr. Rice -- you know, and I used to
travel all over the state to go to triathlons so, you know, a lot
longer ago than I care to think about, but some of those athletes
traveled --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How long could it have been?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I wish it were last summer. That's the
problem. You age quickly in this job. I just want to point that out.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, you have no gray hair.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: He hides it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You know, some of the people travel in what I
would call moderate accommodations, but a large number, you know, get
a room and pile six people in there, particularly if it's a team
event. And, you know, it's not exactly a high-end tourist. I mean,
these are people that are athletes and typically travel on shoestring
budgets.
So my concern is not with the event, not with the administration
of the event; it's return for the dollar. And I want -- I believe
that you can promote the event successfully on a budget of some 35 to
$50,000. I think $160,000 includes expenditures that we cannot
approve. Sports celebrities, $10,000; we can't approve that. We
can't pay for that. $28,000 in printing. I assume that's printing
for the majority of the event.
As I break it down, what I would like to see is I would like to
see this board take a -- a stab at a funding level to try and enable
the event to occur, but as much as you are doing a good job in trying
to grow the event, maybe it's just going to have to grow a little
slower than expected.
And I think that's where I'm going to come from and how this one
settles just because with $160,000 -- and I know I can go out and get
you 1,500 room nights, I'm not settle for anything less. And this
event is not going to draw 1,500 room nights. So I think we need to
bring the funding down and allow the event to grow over time instead
of trying to make it grow by leaps and bounds in the first couple of
years.
I appreciate your enthusiasm and encouragement, but that's where
I think I'm going to come from on this particular event. Commissioner Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, it looks like I'm starting to get
into the minority on this one, but I think when you look at the
experience, which is something that we have with this event that we
don't have with a lot of the requests, we have a body of experience.
The second year under the able guidance of Mr. Rice was substantially
better participated than the event before. There was quite a
substantial number more people in town. If there were 15,000 people
as spectators during the event, you need to keep in mind that there's
more to tourism than room nights. And if 15,000 people are spending
money in restaurants and shops and rental cars and everything else, I
have always been object -- an objector to trying to base everything
simply on room nights alone. That's a little narrow focused for me.
There's a lot to more to tourism than that.
But I think the point to me is that Mr. Rice has proven that he
has the ability with his organization to make this event grow into a
much larger event. And to hamstring it now by not properly promoting
it this year, I think would be an unnecessary detriment to the
program. I would be more in favor of trying to fund it at a higher
level, maybe the full -- full request so that we can have at least one
more year of experience under our belt and do this similar to what we
did at the golf tournament and say we're going to give you this money
this year, but you need to understand that when you come back next
year you're going to need to be self sufficient or nearly so. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Hac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just one more brief little comment that in
trying to come to -- because I'm going to support some funding for
this, but something significantly less. I'm trying to get some idea
if -- if at $40 a room night, assuming 400 rooms, which Commissioner
Constantine did, we would fund $16,000. Assuming my more generous
thousand rooms, we would fund $40,000. Just thought I'd throw those
numbers out there.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. Commissioner Norris, you're
correct that it's a proven event, and it's a very good event, but the
number, whether it's beds or otherwise, the number of folks that are
here and spending money are limited -- even by their own projections,
they're limited.
So I agree with you that we don't want to hamstring the event and
we don't want to suggest you can't properly promote it, but the bottom
line is return on the money for county and the county's economy, and I
tend to agree. I think a number maybe in the vicinity of the $40,000
is going to allow -- with some very good promotion allow a lot of
things to happen but give us a lot better return.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Further questions for Mr. Rice?
Seeing none, Mr. Rice thank you very much.
MR. RICE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Do we have speakers on that individual item,
Mr. Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: We have none.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Let's move to the final item for
consideration under E-2 (sic) which is the under Marco Island Film
Festival.
MR. DAILEY: Good morning. I'm Haury Dailey. I'm with the Marco
Island Film Festival a Marco Island for twelve years and this is Nick
Campbell from Marco Island also, and appreciate the opportunity to
speak to all of you this morning.
We also agree before you had the break with the idea of not
dipping into the emergency funds. We concur with that and appreciate
your concern for that. So a challenge here this morning, but -- and
we are also willing to share in a reduction to accommodate that. So
kind of in a negotiation session it seems like here.
This event when we presented to the TDC was the first time that
we were able to present or first time for the TDC to have a chance to
see a first-class cultural event coming to -- coming to Collier County
targeting to an upscale spectator. The event itself, as you notice in
your packet, is an October 1998 event. It's an annual event so this
is the first year. This is, in essence, investment of seed money to
build this event over time, and we're excited about that.
This is a Collier County event, even though it's hosted on Marco
Island, and I think you will see that in the package. We do describe
that, but as a Collier County event, we are also looking at having
some venues off of Marco Island, not just all of it on Marco. We
project in our room nights, which the conversation seems to be
gravitating towards, nearly two-thirds of the lodging needs will be
handled off of Marco Island. So that's an interesting point for you.
Our presentation showed a conservative viewpoint. The event
itself is a four-day event in October. It starts on a Wednesday night
with a kickoff rally event of festivities. It goes Wednesday night,
Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night and into Sunday. So we
actually -- that's really -- it's a four-day event. Our proposal and
presentation to the TDC showed it as being an event for room night
count as being only a one- or two-night count. We really expect there
to be more people staying for the four nights, so that would -- we are
expecting out of that to be a room count now at nights of between
2,000 and 4,000 based on that range there.
In speaking on the costs for those room nights, the numbers are
based on 2,000 room nights, looking at $118 a night if that math is
correct. If we go up to the high end on the room nights of 4,000 room
nights, that would be at $60 per room night. That might be helpful
for you to know that.
We're really excited about the grass roots support that we've
had. There's over 200 volunteers. Those volunteers come some from Lee
County, but also from Naples, Bonita areas. We have quite a bit of
corporate sponsorship support so far and likewise individual
membership support with people spending money and becoming members of
the film festival.
With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might
have.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't know if you have a copy of the
application there with you, but I want to go through a number of
questions I have on that. Let me start -- we had a conversation
Friday where we talked about this in some detail Friday, and you
talked about having the student competition. I see in here on page
four of your application, 42 of our packet, film industry competition
as well. And you'd been fairly specific on Friday during our
conversation that there would be no competition for the industry
itself. And I'm wondering why the discrepancy between what's given to
us in writing and our conversation last week.
MR. DAILEY: Yes. When this packet was put together, we were
looking at the possibility of doing a competition. There will be a
certain extent of competition in the sense of audience voting a yes or
no that they really liked this movie or not. But as far as going to
the extent of any kind of financial, anything beyond that, we have
really chosen not to do that.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. Directly below that it says
we're working with an advertising company on best time and placement
of media buys. Is that still being determined? We have -- you have
one of the local advertising firms working with you; is that right?
MR. DAILEY: I'm sorry. Excuse me?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Advertising company. We're working
with an advertising company on best time and placement of media buys.
You have a local firm working with you on that?
MR. DAILEY: Yes, yes, Weeks and Associates.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And the details of that are being
worked out now?
MR. DAILEY: Yes, some of those details. There's actually more
involved in the actual TDC package here that shows a little more
detail for you.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The page you referenced there -- that
you held up shows December, January, February time frame, I believe,
in the middle column, and it shows a number of publications. Have you
already purchased those spots in those publications? I just know with
most printed media you need a little lead time to get those, and it's
getting into November already, I wonder if we're haven't missed the
opportunity for December?
MR. CAMPO: Nick Campo, Naples. One of the reasons why we
haven't made the contact with these publications is because we're not
quite sure of what our funding is, and it's difficult to sign a
contract with a magazine or TV or whatever type of media --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: They won't do it on your word alone, Nick?
MR. CAMPO: -- without knowing the kind of funds we have
available -- the level that we can participant in that advertising.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So I'll go back, then, and, I mean, if
we haven't purchased those and we're not on that schedule, and I'll go
back, then, to the point that we're working out the details on that?
MR. CAMPO: We're working out the details. We're working with
Weeks and Herr -- Weeks and Associates.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Old habits die hard.
MR. CAMPO: I've been on Marco a long time. And, yes, we are
working out the details as we speak, actually.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The -- on the next page, page five of
the application, 43 of our packet, it talks about funds for
operations, insurance salaries, and all other expenses outside of
advertising, promotion, and marketing are being sought. Do we not
have -- we don't have a clear picture of where all that's coming from
yet? Underlined portion near the top of page five, second line. I'm
just reading "are being sought." And that's concerns me if we don't
already have a dedicated source.
And I'll continue in that paragraph, because my next question is
the same, and that is, corporate friends are being sought at a certain
level, and then two more lines down it says, special events are being
planned.
My concern and my point with all that is, it's a great plan.
It's just perhaps premature if we don't have any of those. I
appreciate the fact you're seeking those, but if you don't have any of
those in place yet, it's very tough for us to make a commitment of
dollars on what we hope will happen. MR. CAMPO: Sure.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We've been burned a few times on that
before with TDC dollars, and so I think the plan here is very, very
good. I'm just wondering if this -- if we're not a step ahead.
MR. CAMPO: If I could address that, thus far we have -- in our
budget here in the private sector funds, we have $130,000 that we have
allocated toward corporate sponsors and event sponsors. And we are, I
believe, last count at $70,000 at this point, and if I could please
emphasize, we're a year a way from the event. We have commitments
from the Naples Dailey News, the Marco Island Eagle, obviously the
Marco Island movie theatre, from Media One, from the Hilton Hotel.
We're in the process of getting a commitment from the Radisson Hotel
and the Marriott. We haven't firmed them up yet. We're still in talks
with them. And we haven't even started with the national sponsors at
this point. That's -- I'm sure you can appreciate the type of
dedication it takes to put this package together. And we've really
been working very hard at putting the package together to present to
you, and starting tomorrow is when we start with our corporate sponsor
push.
Also, individual memberships, we are more than halfway there. I
believe we're at the sixteen to seventeen thousand dollar range in our
star and superstar package, which is local people signing up to be
members of the film festival. They're 150 and $300 sponsorships.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Page 51 of our packet; it doesn't have
a page as far as the -- it says a synopsis of the event. Coffee with
blank. Will offer an intimate chatty atmosphere with various
celebrities. And we had this conversation on Friday, but I need to
ask you again; that's kind of vague and --
MR. CAMPO: You know, you could proofread these things to death.
Sometimes you make the mistakes. But the coffees with and the
conversations with are morning conversations with the celebrities that
we bring in. A year off from the event, it's very difficult to tell
you who we're going to bring in, but part of our entire plan is to
bring in top -- top scale celebrities in, and the public will have an
opportunity to discuss and talk with them and hear symposiums from
them as to what it takes to be in the industry. It's -- it's
something that we found from other film festivals that we have
visited. Cannes has it. Sundance has it. Telluride has it. All the
major festivals have it, and it's a popular venue, and we want to have
it at our festival.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I understand that a year out is tough.
A couple weeks is tough for me to commit to, but do you have a time
frame on when you would anticipate knowing who some of those
celebrities might be?
MR. CAMPO: No, we don't. From our experience talking with other
festivals, it could be as short as three weeks out. The schedules of
these people are unbelievable. They really can't nail them down. We
are in negotiations with some of them. We're talking with Rosie
O'Donnell's office as we speak right now. That type of -- but we're
looking at that for a different type of commitment.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Can we get Scope as a sponsor, then or --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I thought after today we could sign up
coffee with Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The -- I guess my --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Local media mogul.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Two tickets. We'll need two tickets.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: My real concern there is where we're
talking about advertising and promotion and trying to draw people in
from outside the area, if we may not know till three weeks ahead of
time who those people are. I'll give you a great example. I went to
a rock and roll fantasy camp this past year, like based on the old
baseball fantasy camps. And they had a difficult time selling enough
seats to make money on it mainly because they couldn't commit until a
couple of weeks ahead of time who those people were going to be. And
to just say, well, there'll be some great rock and roll stars there is
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Who did you get?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Actually, we had some very good
people, but it was very hard to get people to get excited about an
event with just the label rock and roll star as opposed to specific
celebrities. And I've got to imagine it's hard -- I just got to think
that that it is a particular -- it's not the only, but that is a
selling point.
MR. CAMPO: It is a selling point and obviously one of the
largest selling points. And three weeks is misleading, and I probably
shouldn't have used that. I am using the worst-case scenario.
Obviously, when we bring in an independent film or a film of some
type, we have that booked far in advance. We're talking with
filmmakers right now as far as projects that they are doing for next
year at this time and planning on bringing it to our film festival.
They will bring their stars and their movies with them. We don't know
who they are at this point, and they usually -- you know, upstarts and
some of the middle range. What we're concerned with is bringing in
the majors, and we want to bring major stars in, major directors, and
those are the ones that have the real tight commitment. The other
ones are here to promote their movies, and they're going to make this
part of their commitment because they're here to promote the movie.
And we can book them whenever we have a commitment from the movie.
However, the major stars, when you get into the A list, it's a little
more difficult to nail them down unless they are coming here to
promote a movie. But we aren't really going into the first year at
that level, so we don't really anticipate anything but a negotiation
process of bringing them to Marco Island.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And my point is just that if we have
all this advertising and various things going out and may not know
until three or four weeks before, that's a lost opportunity if we
don't know who the celebrities are.
MR. CAMPO: I think that'll be a minimal amount of the whole
packet.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Page 55 of our packet we talk about --
again, these phrases concern me -- funding for the Marco Island Film
Festival is being sought on many levels. So we're not sure yet where
it's coming from. In-kind contributions are being pursued locally and
on a national level, and some grantors that will receive applications
-- and I see we're included in there -- all of these are great things
to be doing, but just -- my point in all these questions is that it
seems as though we may be a little premature being here today.
I love the idea of the festival. I think the potential for this
thing is fabulous. I think the location is great. I think it's an
industry that people are fascinated with and would attend, but I'm
hard pressed to make a commitment for $300,000 for something that a
lot of things are being sought or might happen or applications are
being filed. Just for me -- I don't know what the rest of the board
thinks. What I might suggest is if this -- rather than turn this down
today, if we withdrew this. If you -- this is only a suggestion, but
if you withdrew this and we saw it in six weeks, eight weeks, what
you've had a chance to get some of these response -- responses filled
in or see what some of the other grants are, or particularly you said
you were cooking well pretty well on some of the sponsorships, and I
think that makes it much easier to make a commitment from the board.
But we have had two or three bad experiences with great ideas
with a lot of potential. And so for one anyway I'm a little concerned
about jumping on something immediately that has a lot of potential but
doesn't have a lot of the detail filled in there yet. But I don't
want to just turn the thing down and say, sorry, it's no good, and I'm
trying to find a medium range here. Maybe there is a way that if it's
withdrawn or continued or tabled or something for a short period of
time, that it allows you to still pursue what you're pursuing and it
allows us to give it another look when some of those blanks are filled
in.
MR. CAMPO: If I could say something on the personal level here.
I've been a resident of Marco and Naples for 11 years. I've raised
three children in the community. I'm president elect of the chamber
of commerce. I give a lot of volunteer work, most recently in Naples
Support Group for the Alzheimer's. I'm involved in a number of things
and positive things, and I look to promote Marco Island and Collier
County. That's what I do. I'm a businessman and the promotion
directly helps me.
I look at this as one of the best events to come before the TDC
that I've seen so far. Yeah, we have a lot of blanks, and that's
because it's a first-year event. Yes, we're asking for a lot of money
and that's because it's a first-year event. We will not come back to
you next year and ask for this kind of money. I guarantee you that
today. This is a seed money type of thing to get us into the level
that we need to be.
There are approximately three hundred film festivals around the
count -- around the world at this point right now. Some of them have
been around forever. They're doing a wonderful, wonderful job. If I
can allude to one, the Telluride Film Festival; the three days, four
days that they had that film festival is the busiest time of the
entire year in Colorado for them, and that's in September. And we're
not talking about the ski season. These are the type of events that
bring in the dollars, they bring in the upscale tourists, and they
bring in the culture that we're looking for, I believe, in Collier
County and Marco Island.
We do have a few blanks in here, but I think the presentation is
strong. And we are pushing forward on our corporate sponsorships.
But in all honesty, a lot of them are waiting to see what happens
with the TDC, you know, to be very honest with you, because they want
to see that we also have promotional background before we can fill in
the other events. It's a double-edged sword for us.
And we're new to this. We'll be the first one to admit to that
we're new to this. But we have the heart. We have the know-how. We
have the people involved. We have tremendous support from the
community. We have tremendous support from all around the country at
this point. We have been getting phone calls from L.A., from New
York, from Chicago wanting to been involved in this. It's the kind of
event that I feel we want in Collier County and Marco Island. That's
my personal feeling, and I just wanted to throw that out. I am a
little bit of a cheerleader when it comes to the film festival. I'll
be the first one to acknowledge that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Mr. Campo.
Commissioner Hac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Commissioner Constantine, you might recall
last week when he said it's not often that I agree 100 percent with
Commissioner Hac'Kie, and I get to say that now this week, because as
much as I hope that this event comes off, I am nowhere near a comfort
level of being able to commit $300,000 when you have raised what
sounds like 87,000. You have commitments for 87,000. I couldn't
think of doing it, and that -- that's even before I get to the
analysis of how many beds per buck, you know, and that kind of -- it's
what we've talked about in the previous two.
I hope you'll do this, and I hope that maybe you can get -- you
can get your sponsors to make contingent commitments, that their
commitment is perhaps, you know, $50,000, contingent on approval of
specific TDC funds for promotion or something. But I'm just afraid to
get into this one. I just don't think it's right for the tax money to
come before the general public support kind of money, and I'm afraid
to do that. And I, like Commissioner Constantine, hope that this
isn't a denial, but is a please go fill in some more viability gaps
and come back. Because we know that you can pull this off, but when
you are the steward of public money, you have to, you know, it's --
you have to be way more careful than even with your own money. And in
this case, I'm not comfortable that we -- you know, that I can write
that check of public money until I see that it's more of a viable
event.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The -- again the TDC -- I was in the minority
in not supporting this event. I think it was a five-to-two vote
supporting the full funding of $295,000. There wasn't a heck of a lot
of discussion. It just seemed to be a consensus among the TDC that
this was a very good event, which I have to admit, I'm at somewhat of
a disadvantage because I -- this is not in my area of interest. You
know, at least in the sports festival, hey, you know, I know -- I know
sports. I don't know film festivals. So I'm hamstrung a little bit in
trying to understand, to be honest with you, the attraction. I mean,
I just -- I don't get it, but obviously people do.
I guess what I would like to do is, I'm concerned that -- I would
like to see the event go ahead, and I would like to see some level of
TDC funding assist in moving that ahead. The concern if we say good
application, go back and get information and come back another day,
for me is that it's going to -- you know, they have been waiting for
this in order to go get the other pieces. And it's going to push
those pieces out into the future. I don't think there's going to be a
point in any deliberation that I'm comfortable with $295,000. I have
to seek a comfort level with the funding based on the concept of the
event, because even if they come back with those blanks filled in,
it's a first-year event, and we're still going to be funding more or
less a concept with our fingers crossed. And where we've gotten in
trouble in the past is being the dominant funding source in those
types of events as opposed to, if you will, a promotion partner.
So when I look at the breakdown under expenses for a marketing
plan budget, there are expenses in here I agree with and some I don't.
And what I would like to see us do is move ahead in the area of print
media buys for industry competition, print media buys for film
aficionado attendees, public relations campaign, electronic media
buys, celebrity promotional advertising and film industry marketing,
slash, promotion agencies. Group those together and attach a funding
amount --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What page are you on?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm on page 45 of the application. Put those
together and attach a funding amount that to me is true promotion
dollars, something in the area of seventy, seventy-five thousand
dollars. That is a lot of money. It's not $295,000. It's way short
of that, but it still is a ton of money for promotion.
The reason I selected those things such a print media buys for
student competition. A press release to student newspapers on
campuses of schools that have significant departments in the area of
media arts, those hit the papers. I mean, you know, the student
competition is going to see it. I find a comfort level in that amount
in the presentation that these gentleman have made and that everyone
has put together in this and the dedication I see. With the funding
that's already been committed, I think we will have a successful
event. I don't know if we'll generate the room nights we would like,
but I think it could at least have a successful start. And that's
where I can find a comfort level, in that arena.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I just want to understand, the total
budget for the event, is that on page 49, and it's about a
half-a-million-dollar event? The number is 496,000. Okay. And of
that, about $300,000 is the promotion, so that your actual -- the
balance -- the non-county funding portion of the event is 196,0007 MR. CAMPO: Correct.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Of which you currently raised eighty-seven
thousand, so you're about a hundred and ten or say a hundred thousand
away from being able to put on the event if you didn't -- you know, I
guess what I'm wondering is, can you -- if you can -- I think you're
going to be able to raise another hundred thousand dollars. If you
have a $50,000 promotion budget --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You may want to ask her for a check now.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah -- out of county TDC money -- yeah,
rubber, but you're welcome to one. If you -- I think you're going to
be able to raise your other hundred thousand dollars, which is what it
apparently takes to put the event on, in addition to this almost a
hundred you have already raised. Can you put the event on with that
two hundred thousand and another fifty of promotion dollars, or will
the event fail if you only have $50,000 to spend on promo?
MR. CAMPO: I don't feel the event will ever fail. We may have
to go with a lower level. What we wanted to do from day one is put
ourselves in the upper level. If we go at reduced funding, we're
still going to -- we're going to do the Marco Island Film Festival;
it's going to happen. We just want to get it to a level that we feel
that we can next year not come to back to you for this amount and the
year after never come back to you again. If we don't, we may have to
continue a funding along the lines of some of the other events,
because they weren't as large from the beginning as they hoped to be.
But we're going to pull it off. We're going to do the film festival.
It's going to be a first-class event, and Collier County is going to
be very proud of the film festival. And, yes, if we have to come
back with reduced funding, then we have to come with the reduced
funding. We're not against that. I feel $50,000 is a little small,
though, because when you're talking a national campaign for a year out
-- and that's what we need to do in order to the industry involved and
to get the aficionados to take their vacations here at that time. I
think $50,000 is a little bit of a low level, and it may hinder our
ability to pull off the other end of it if we don't have the
participation with the attendees.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I just want to say, too, that unlike
Commissioner Hancock, I wouldn't know what happens at sports
festivals, but this one I would be very interested in attending and
think it's exactly the kind of thing that we want to promote in the
community and I appreciate your work. I just wanted to say that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I hate to pick an arbitrary number
today that may be too little, may be too much, but just pick a number
and say that's what we ought to do. It goes back -- and I think
Commissioner Mac'Kie brought up the point very clearly -- it goes back
to we're being asked to -- there's actually a sentence in there that
says financial funding from the TDC will insure that other corporate
sponsors come on board, and that just seems a little backward. And I
don't know if 295 is the right thing. I don't know that 50 or 75 is
adequate. I look at the kind of money that -- or the publications,
the industry publications we're looking at. I'm wondering if there
are 300 film festivals a year -- that's an average of almost one a day
-- then how do we stand out? I suspect they all buy in Moviemaker and
Screen magazine, and I don't know what the answer to that is, and
maybe Mr. Weeks can do his magic and make sure that we do. But I'd
just like to have -- regardless of what amount we have, I think it's
important to have some of the specifics filled in on some of the
things we don't have now. I can't stress enough it is a really,
really neat idea, a great event but -- MR. CAMPO: If I can interject.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm just concerned if we go ahead and
pick a number at random that we're not doing the event a service. I
think we ought to have those blanks filled in, and come back, and give
it a thorough discussion as to what is the appropriate dollar amount.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Campo.
MR. CAMPO: As far as what we have, we have Marco Island and
Collier County and the Everglades. That's what we feel is our biggest
draw for this film festival that puts us above and beyond the Fort
Lauderdales and the Hiamis and the Orlandos. We have paradise to
sell.
But if I could at this point -- and I don't know if this is the
time to do it. We have two other speakers that we would like you to
hear from. One of them is Beverly Fox from the Florida Film
Commission. The other is Edge Edgerton from the Florida Motion Picture
and Television Association. And if they could give you a little
background as to the importance of a film festival, we would
appreciate you hearing them out.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What I would like to do is in addition to
those two individuals, do we have any other registered speakers?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Those are the only two we have registered.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Let's go ahead and go to the registered
speakers. And then I'm going to ask if there are no further questions
that we begin motions to wrap up these three items.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I just want to respond. You know and
I know Naples is a different place. The rest of the world may or may
not know that, and that's the whole purpose of buying advertising and
promoting. And my point is that if we have limited number of dollars
and you have every place else who's convinced that their home --
although they're wrong -- who's convinced that their home is as nice
as ours, we need to have a way to communicate that effectively.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Quote Commissioner Constantine, they are
wrong.
Okay. Let's go ahead and call the two speakers on this item, and
then we will begin deliberations.
MR. FERNANDEZ: The first is Edge Edgerton and then Beverly Fox.
MR. EDGERTON: Good morning, honorable Commissioners. My name is
R. C. Edgerton. I'm known in the industry as Edge. I'm here to
support the Marco Island Film Festival. I'm executive vice president
of the Florida Motion Picture and Television Association's southwest
chapter -- excuse me -- I have a frog in my voice. The FHPTA, the
Florida Motion Picture and Television Association, is the umbrella
organization for the industry in Florida. We speak for, directly or
indirectly, somewhere around 8,000 performers in the various
disciplines within the industry.
I want to thank you for your consideration of this important
tourism issue as it pertains to the film and TV industry and the
enormous impact it has on the area of economics. I have attended
several film festivals. The most notable and the most recent in this
country is Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival held at Park City,
Utah last January. The draw of the out-of-state professionals in
these events have been most impressive. The towns are always
brimming. The rooms never go for less than $100, and everything
always seems to be twice as much as what it should be. But they keep
on coming.
The bottom line, of course, is what TDC is buying -- your bang
for the buck. And I think it's obvious. I understand last year over
$600 million of out-of-state dollars came to Florida for film and TV
production. I don't know the specifics, but it's my understanding
that based on the demographics of the community, a dollar turns six or
nine times before it leaves town depending upon the demographics of
the town.
So whenever you're thinking in terms of 295,000, I guess -- this
is going to seem a little shallow, but before I was 100 percent in
this business, I was a former CEO of an electronics company, and I
realize five cents can be a lot of money if you don't have it. Two
hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars doesn't seem like that much
money to me, and I realize that you've heard figures like fifty
thousand dollars, which you ought to be able to get from your
brother-in-law.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'd like to be in your family.
MR. EDGERTON: But I wish you would consider that very, very
strongly. Every film festival I've gone to, the number of corporate
sponsors' placards I see all over the place from Sony, Panasonic,
Hitachi, Universal, Warner Brothers, and so on and so forth.
Everybody that gets on likes to be part of a winner, but nobody wants
to be part of a Mickey Mouse operation. They're the same -- they're
going to treat you the same way as the county commissioners are going
to treat you. They're going to say, well, once you get your act
together, come back and see me. Well, you don't stay to the stove,
give me some heat and I'll give you some wood. You put in the wood,
you get the heat. And I think that first we need the spark in the
fire, and that's exactly what the Marco Island Film Festival and the
volunteers have done, and if we can get your support, we can really
showcase Southwest Florida. We must do those things that promote
Florida tourism. We must multiply our efforts, not divide them.
The Florida Motion Picture and Television Association -- and I
spoke to our state president just last night on this -- strongly urges
the Collier County commissioners to promptly support this most
worthwhile endeavor by approving the request of all $295,000, which I
understand is going to be spend over a period of time based on
documentation of legitimate expenses.
Thank you for hearing me, and I'll be glad to respond to any
questions that you might have.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Any questions from the board?
Seeing none, thank you very much.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Last speaker is Beverly Fox.
MS. FOX: Good morning. For the record, Beverly Fox, director of
the Southwest Florida Film Commission. And as you all well know, the
TDC funds my office to promote film and television production for the
area. And I would like to talk a little bit about the Marco Island
Film Festival and why I think that it is definitely a worthwhile
effort worth funding.
The Marco Island Film Festival is going to work hand in hand a
lot with what my office does. In terms of our clients that are in Los
Angeles and in New York and in Chicago and Minneapolis, they know
where Miami is. They know where Orlando is. They have no idea where
any other production center is in the State of Florida. And the Marco
Island Film Festival will compliment what my office does in trying to
promote the area to filmmakers by helping to put us on the map.
All of the major film production markets in the country have film
festivals. And I think Southwest Florida has a tremendous amount of
potential. Our proximity to the major film center of Hiami is a
tremendous advantage for us. And anything else we can do to help
compliment and promote that in terms of getting us on the map and
drawing attention to our area is going to be a great benefit.
I wanted to just address a couple of things. As you know, we have
a film advisory council that I work with very closely, and at one
point a couple of years ago a film festival was something that the
advisory council had checked into. And because it didn't really fit
in with our goals for the council, the council decided not to do it,
even though it's a very worthwhile event. But we did quite a bit of
research. We flew in consultants. We talked with film festival
directors. And let me say that since that time, I have been invited
to go and talk with four different groups who had the idea to put on a
film festival. And the folks at the Marco Island Film Festival are
the first group of people that even have a clue of what it takes.
And, believe me, they have much more than a clue. They have done a
phenomenal amount of research, and I was very impressed in my first
meeting with them how much of a good grasp they have on what it takes
to actually put together a successful event. A lot of people have an
idea that they want to do a film festival, but when you get into the
nitty-gritty of it, that don't really understand what it takes. These
folks do have a real clear understanding and have done a lot of
background work to decide what it really takes.
The other thing that I wanted to mention, too, I know a lot of
what's in the TDC application is very preliminary because the event is
a year out. I would encourage you not to let that throw you off too
much because, again, we're really -- we're 11 months away. And what I
wanted to urge you to do is at least approve some seed money funding
today because the research that we did when our film advisory council
looked into this said that really a year's time is the minimum, the
minimum you need to -- for the first year to put on an event like
this. We're 11 months away from a festival at next October, and I
feel very strongly that if we're going to have this event, we need at
least some funding approved now to at least get the process started.
Maybe you might feel comfortable approving some now and some
contingency money later with some of the more blanks filled in in the
proposal. But whatever you decide to do, I would just encourage and
ask you -- because I think it's going to be a tremendously wonderful
event, not only for Collier County, but also it's going to compliment
very well the mission of the Southwest Florida Film Commission.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Miss Fox.
MR. FERNANDEZ: That's all your speakers, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. All right. We have heard the
applications-- all three applications, again, recognizing we only
have $440,000 plus or minus without going into the reserves. What I'd
like to do is take them in the order they were presented and request
that a motion be made on each one individually.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'd like to move approval of the full
$148,800 for the Everglades rededication. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second. Any discussion?
Seeing none, All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I make a motion that we fund the
sporting event at $40,000.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: There's a motion and a second.
Discussion on that motion?
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: I'm not going to support that. I think
it's shortsighted to not support that at least at the level we did
last year. Last year's event was greatly improved over the year
before that, and I think we need to keep that trend going.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm supportive of an increase over the 40,000.
I don't -- you know, again, looking at the budget, I'm not coming up
with a real solid number. I can't support $120,000 either. You know,
if it's forty or nothing, I will support the forty, but I was thinking
more of in the area of fifty to sixty thousand dollars personally.
COMHISSIONER BERRY: I think forty is a little light myself, but
I don't have "the" number, but I think that's just a tad light from
the hundred sixty requested or the hundred and twenty from last year.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Let's call the question on the motion.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Aye.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Opposed?
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Aye.
COMHISSIONER BERRY: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Aye.
Motion fails. Is there is a substitute motion?
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we fund
it to a level of $95,000.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Going once.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I seem to remember a mangrove issue where I
negotiated down and down and down and finally got some support. Is there a second for the motion?
COMHISSIONER BERRY: Yeah. We can vote on it, so I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. All those in favor signify by saying
aye.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Opposed?
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Aye.
COMHISSIONER BERRY: Aye.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Aye.
All right. Somewhere between forty and ninety-five.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, you suggested 50 or 55,
and I'll go ahead and make a motion we approve it at $55,000.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second. Any discussion?
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: How much was that?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Fifty-five thousand.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
COMHISSIONER BERRY: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries four, one, but it's $55,000.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A wacky group, that commission.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Next item, as I look at the tally,
we're at about two hundred and three thousand dollars, so there is
approximately two hundred thirty-five or forty left in Category C,
reminding you that it doesn't all have to be spend.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Thank you.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me ask a question. If we -- if we grant
funding to the film festival today at a low level, do we have the
opportunity at a future date to increase that or add to it?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Weigel, I'm going to direct that to you,
because if we approve it based on the application that comes in the
individual agreement, there's nothing that really prohibits them from
requesting in the first quarter of next year additional funds for the
event, is there?
MR. WEIGEL: I think that's a correct understanding. I don't
know if Jean or Miss Ashton have any dispute with that statement?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: It would become a separate agreement.
MR. WEIGEL: They indicated no so that is a correct statement.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: But we would have the opportunity to add to
it at some point.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Correct. But it would have to go through the
application process again as a new application is my understanding,
because otherwise we would be modifying a contract approved by the
board.
MS. GANSEL: According to your guidelines, we do receive
applications for special events in October and in April, so that would
be the next time.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If the board wants to do that, I guess
I'll be in the minority because, again, I think it's not just, okay,
what level are we going to be at? I think that question becomes much
easier to answer if we have a lot of those blanks filled in that
aren't there yet. And I may be more comfortable with a higher number
if I can have that information and -- not higher than the two
ninety-five, just higher than what we're talking about now. And I
don't want to say no, but I will vote no to something that we don't
have complete information on. I would much rather see us bring this
back in a month or bring this back in six weeks and have more
information.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: My reasoning on asking that -- that line of
questioning is that we heard from the applicants that if we have some
grant in hand that it would make it easier to obtain more private
grants, and so perhaps if we start at one level and have the
opportunity if necessary -- perhaps it won't even be necessary -- but
if necessary we could increase it at some later date.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I stated earlier that I would support a level
of funding. As I looked at the expenses that are shown for the
different media buys and public relations campaign and the marketing
and promotion and whatnot, understanding that the real immediate
market here is probably south of Sarasota. I mean, people may come
from all over the country, but I think realistically we're talking
about people that live within driving distance. If there are 300 all
over the world, for you to pay for an airline ticket to fly into one,
you have got to be in that upper tier, a very small percentage of
people that attend these. So I think we're really dealing kind of a
local -- not local, but regional effort here.
So in order to get it on the floor, I'm going to move that we
approve 75,000 in funding under the areas of print media buys for
industry competition and film aficionados attendees, public relations
campaign, electronic media buys, celebrity promotional advertising,
and film industry marketing and promotion. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second.
Is there further discussion on the motion?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. I'm not going to support it. I
support the event wholeheartedly, but I have already made my point
clear as to why I am not supporting it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Seeing none, all those in favor signify
by saying aye.
Opposed?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Aye.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries three, two. The event receives
$75,000 in those areas from TDC fund B-2.
That is the three that were before us. We stayed beneath the
$430,000 like good kids leaving our savings alone and actually have
funds to look at, you know, smaller or lesser events in the future; so
it's not -- not all bad news.
To all the applicants, thank you. I wish everybody could get
what they want, but that rarely happens in life. I don't remember the
last time it actually happened for me but that's -- we don't need to
go there.
Item #8E2
DIRECTION FOR COUNTY ATTORNEY TO AMEND ORDINANCE 92-60 TO PERMIT NATURE
CENTERS AS AN AUTHORIZED TOURIST DEVELOPMENT FUND USE AS PERMITTED BY
FLORIDA STATUTE - FAILED
Next item under 8(E)(2), direct county attorney to amend
Ordinance 92-60 to permit nature centers as an authorized tourist
development fund. This was recommended by the TDC on the basis of
looking at offshore artificial reefs.
Ladies and gentlemen, if I could ask your indulgence that
conversations need to occur out in the hallway. Thank you very much.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Motion to approve.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to support
a motion to approve this because it seems like it's an item where we
are changing an ordinance for a specific purpose as opposed to
changing an ordinance for the overall good. This particular item
might be great but, again, we continue to tinker with the expenditures
of the tourist tax. It's not what the public voted on.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. That's a pretty much standard comment.
You could just write that down when you look at these.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Comment number 121-A.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Consistent if nothing else.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The reason I like this one is, we did hear
from some of the charter fishermen and so forth, and I just think it
makes sense; so I'm going to support the motion. How's that for
logic? Because it makes sense.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The fishermen like it.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Mr. Chairman, I think it's a bit of a
stretch myself to take it under this one designation. And God knows,
I'm not opposed to fishing. I love it, but I just feel like this --
this is really a reach to go in this direction. So I find it's going
to be very difficult --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I wanted to do this, too, but I just
can't stretch that far.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'll second the motion to get it on the floor.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Aye.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion fails.
Item #8E3
FUNDING FOR BEACH MAINTENANCE ACTIVITIES FOR $481,300 TOURIST
DEVELOPMENT BEACH RENOURISHHENT CATEGORY - APPROVED
Next item 8(E)(3), approve funding beach maintenance
activities.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion by Commissioner Constantine. Second by
Commissioner Hac'Kie.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: A fine presentation, Miss Gansel. Thank you
very much.
MS. GANSEL: Thank you.
Item #9A
SETTLEHENT OF STRINGER V. BCC - CONTINUED TO 11/18/97
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We are to Item 9(A) under county attorney's
report, recommendation the board consider and approve a settlement of
Stringer v. Board of County Commissioners of Collier County, Florida.
I see Mr. Pettit making his way to the front.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Motion to approve the recommendation of a
settlement.
MR. PETTIT: Good morning, Chairman Hancock and Commissioners. I
do -- there is a glitch before we move forward. If you look at page
or paragraph 10.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Your name for the record, please.
MR. PETTIT: I'm Mike Pettit for the record, assistant county
attorney.
If I look at page -- paragraph 10 of the settlement agreement
that was provided with the executive summary, you'll see some
boilerplate that I've incorporated, and I use word "boilerplate," not
disparagingly, but it's a standard kind of contract term in this kind
of a settlement in which we've requested that Miss Stringer agree not
to apply to the county for future employment. And we have done that
in other settlements that we have had.
Miss Stringer has indicated an objection to that which I didn't
hear about until last night. I have not had an opportunity -- because
I was at a mediation for most of the day yesterday -- to speak with
Miss Stringer and her attorney.
My recommendation would still be to support this settlement, but
to authorize the chairman to execute the settlement agreement after
this issue has been resolved. I feel that I do need to consult with
staff on this matter and also with Miss Stringer's attorney and Miss
Stringer.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm going to support the -- what we had before
on the basis that -- you know, Hiss Stringer has been offered a
position in the past and chose not to take it as I understand from our
discussion. So if that's changed, I think that would affect the
settlement.
MR. PETTIT: That's not quite accurate.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. PETTIT: There was discussion early on after the lawsuit was
filed about reinstatement for Hiss Stringer. And at that time there
was an expression of disinterest. As I understand it, she may be
interested not immediately but in the future applying for this well
inspector's position should it come open again.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: She's -- I would not support prohibiting
her ability to apply for a job that she is so qualified for and has
obtained all the appropriate licenses for. What we would be telling
her is if you want to do what you're qualified to do for a living,
you got to go do it another county practically.
So my motion is to approve the settlement eliminating the
prohibition for future employment at Collier County.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm not going to support that. I think if her
intent was to be employed by Collier County, that would have surfaced
and been a part of the settlement agreement other than what we have
before us. I think what you're doing is you're presenting a
have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I think she's entitled to her cake and to
eat it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, you can think that, and I can disagree
with it.
MR. PETTIT: If I could comment. This may be something that can
be worked out among -- between the county and Hiss Stringer and staff
and her attorney in a way that addresses the concerns that we may have
regarding this provision and also gives her an option to apply at some
future date.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Do you want to continue this so that you
can work it out?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I prefer to continue it, because seems
kind of silly to approve something open ended. If we're going to
have a settlement, we ought to have a very specific settlement.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'll withdraw my motion and make a motion
to continue for two weeks since we don't have a meeting next week.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that motion.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Any problems, Mr. Pettit, with that?
MR. PETTIT: No. Actually, that's probably a good way to go. I
felt -- often we put this language in here substantially in the form
attached to the executive summary, but I thought this was a
substantial change from the settlement agreement and felt I had to
bring it to your attention.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We have a motion and a second.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Pettit, thank you very much.
Item #9B
CHAIRMAN TO WRITE A LETTER TO FEDERAL LEGISLATORS INQUIRING THE
AUTHORITY OF THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS WITH REGARDS TO THE EIS AND
CHAIRMAN TO WRITE TO THE CORPS INFORMING THEM THAT THE BCC HAS NO
POSITION ON THE EIS AT THIS TIME BUT WILL BE BETTER ABLE TO RESPOND
AFTER UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ARE ADDRESSED
Next item, 9(B), I need a motion to untable.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Hotion to untable.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'll try and make this short and sweet, which
is tough on this issue.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have some comments for you here,
too.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I've had discussions with
representatives of the Corps of Engineers and Lee County. Lee County
has to date taken a twofold path. One is to a vote not to sign the
MOU, and the second is a -- kind of a different direction that --
regarding their involvement in any way, shape, or form. And I think
they've taken a stance against even being involved. And the second
point I'm not entirely sure about. The first point I am. The second
point I think is still a little -- from the motion that was made and
what occurred in their meeting, I'm not sure it's clear that they are
saying that their staff will not have any involvement in the course of
the study at all, but that was a concern.
I have just a straightforward request. I still believe that the
Corps of Engineers, if they have the authority to do the study -- and
we're in the process of getting their citation of that authority --
that we are in a better position at the table than not. What I would
like to ask this board to do is not take a vote not to sign the MOU,
but to ask that the MOU be either revised or brought back in its form
at the end of the scoping process that will identify the geographic
boundaries of the study and the goals of the study so we know exactly
what it is the study is intended to do. With that, I think we're in a
very, very strong position to either sign the MOU or not.
The reason I ask that is at that point Lee County may also be in
that position, but I think we are better served by being -- not
requesting that the study be done, but offering participation in the
best interest of our constituents and do it in that fashion.
COHHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I like the direction
you're suggesting a great deal, and I think it goes hand in hand with
what I'm going to suggest. And -- because to the best of my knowledge,
we still have no response to the detailed questions of the Army Corps,
which I'm disappointed by. It makes me a little nervous that they not
only haven't answered the question after three weeks -- or the
questions after three weeks, but in that same time frame decided to
move on without us. That is disheartening.
Contrary to reports in the news, that was the after -- what my
recollection is about two months of conversations with them, not a
year. It was only when we raised some objections and concern did they
come to us. So I know for me anyway, I haven't had any conversations
with the corps for a year. We've all said we should participate --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: It seems like a year.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. It sure seems like it. We've
all said we should participate, and I think we should. We should be
active in this. We can't just bury our head in the sand and hope it
comes up well. But along with your point, I think it would be
irresponsible of us to sign off on something when we don't know the
details.
And I would suggest we do a couple things. That you transmit a
letter doing exactly what you just said to the Army Corps expressing
our interest, expressing our -- we still are interested in getting
answers to our questions as well, but our interest in participating,
that we would like some answers not only to our questions, but to the
details at the end of the scoping session.
But also I would ask that the board allows me to contact
Congressman Goss and enlist his assistance in getting the answers to
the questions. As we are required to provide information when someone
asks within a reasonable amount of time, so is the federal government.
And the Army Corps after three weeks has not provided answers to our
questions. I think with the assistance of Congressman Goss, we will
probably hurry up that situation a little bit and at least have that
information to review in the meantime.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Before we label them -- at least that element
as unresponsive, according to Mr. Hall, as I discussed it with him,
some of the questions asked -- and by the way, when Lee Coun -- when
we were talking about having questions, the corps still had not
received a copy of those questions. But whether it be two weeks or
three weeks, it's not as important as the fact that there should have
at least been a letter back saying it's going to take us X amount of
time to respond to these, you know, and a date, because many of the
questions have to go through their legal department. And no offense
intended, but let's face it, when it goes through the legal review and
comes out the other end, the level of scrutiny is far, far higher than
it would be just on the administrative side. So I don't know that
they have been intentionally unresponsive.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well the point being, no response and
a declaration that they're going to move ahead without us, and neither
one of those show the cooperative spirit that we've all talked about.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, the only hedging in there is that we
have to remember we read that in the paper.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Well, that --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Mr. Chairman, that gives me even more
concern, because I did support us being at the table as being a
participant and at least knowing if they're going unto us, at least
what they're going to do and maybe raise some objection if it got to
that. But it appeared and became very clear -- and, again, the fact,
number one, they didn't contact you, regardless of what Lee County
did, I feel that the Corps should have at least communicated with you
of their interest in our continued participation, and I don't believe
they did that.
And the second thing, I think it becomes very clear that all
along no matter who participated, it is their thrust that this study
is going to be done, and this gives me great problem with what is
their real intent here. And as I said, I supported the other because
I thought we ought to be there. But now I'm beginning to really
question what their motive is behind this whole thing, and I still
think they need to answer some questions before we ever decide to go
down the road with them.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: You know that from the first day that the
idea, you know, presented itself, I've been in support of our
participation, primarily because I think what you just said,
Commissioner Berry, is perfect. If they're going to do unto us, for
God's sake let's be there so we know ahead of time, we know, you know,
we participant in the process. On the flip side, you know, God
protect me for saying this, but there may actually be some good that
can come out of this. There is actually some positive. We lose track
of it in our distrust of the federal government coming to help us with
our problems, and I understand that. But there is actually the fact
of -- a powerful agency reviewing on a global and -- some people don't
like the word, but I do -- holistic approach to what are the effects
of all the growth and the permitting that's happening in Southwest
Florida. And I think that's a good thing, that we need to have
somebody to step back and look at what is the overall impact because
of the piecemeal way that permitting is done in Southwest Florida.
I wish that we would at least write a letter that says we are
interested in continuing to be involved and that we'd like -- although
we wouldn't be a signatory at that point, because I can count to three
-- but although we wouldn't be a signatory of the MOU, we could also
participant in defining the scope both geographic and technical of the
-- of the undertaking so that we have staff representatives or somehow
we participant in defining the scope and then decide whether or not to
go forward if that's the way this board wants to do it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We really don't have an MOU to sign, because
it was Lee County, Collier, and the Corps. But ironically,
Commissioner Berry, you said it that you questioned their motives if
they're going to go ahead anyway. That was the main reason we were
going to be involved, because they were going to go ahead anyway. So,
you know, know the enemy from within if you want to look at it in the
most cynical way possible. So if you consider them the enemy, the
best place to understand their motivations is to be in the inner
workings of what's going on.
So if you want to look at strictly from a defensive standpoint, I
think the case to be made for, if you will, participating, for lack
of a better word, is stronger now, not weaker, because we do know the
study is going to go ahead, and to do -- and I'm not criticizing the
commissioners in Lee County, because they are responding to their
constituents, and that is their job, but I feel a little differently.
I do feel like we would be sticking our head in the sand by saying go
ahead without us. And so I don't want to do that. So I think
Commissioner Constantine has outlined a very, you know, reasonable
process by corresponding with them in a manner that says, you know,
sorry the MOU didn't work out. We're still here. We still want to be
a part of what's going on. And at the termination of the scoping and
goals of the study have been established, that we would like to sit
down and review the MOU for its application at that time. That's, you
know --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So we're holding open the possibility of
participation pending the definition of the scope?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: But from our perspective, we're going to
participate in the scoping process. We'd be silly not to, but as far
as --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE:
to sign off on, if anything.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Right.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE:
regardless.
It's a question of what are we going
But we can be a participant
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The application of the MOU at the termination
of the scoping period is what we're holding off on.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: And our participation in the scoping would
be through you as chairman? Through staff people? How would we --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: It would have to be done through Mr.
Fernandez's office, because the people we have both in comprehensive
planning and environmental are staff members, which only he can
direct, so it would be a coordination between my office and his to
have the appropriate staff people providing what information is
necessary. This is not going to be one of those deals where we have
eight staff people at every little get-together on this item --
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- but that we have the appropriate people
providing the information to help the Corps make their best scoping
decision they can. And that's really the limit that I see us being
involved, but that's what I would like to ask the board's support in
doing.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I could support that if what we're
looking for is consensus today. I don't know if you need a motion or
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think it would be better if, because there
is an item on the agenda, that we have motion that would include
direction and the status of the MOU.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion after
we go to the public.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Speakers, Mr. Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: You have three speakers, Mr. Chairman. The first
is Ty Agoston, then Gil Erlichman.
MR. AGOSTON: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is
Ty Agoston. I live in Golden Gate Estates, and I'm speaking for
myself. Some of us TAG members have visited Commissioner Quarry
(phonetic) yesterday from Lee County. I have spent approximately an
hour discussing this issue. And Mr. Quarry had expressed -- had very
strong disagreements on both the poise of the Army Corps of Engineers
as well as their presentation to them and as well as a whole slew of
other problems. He was very much against this holistic aspect of the
study that Miss Mac'Kie enjoys. I personally don't particularly want
to have any, quote, unquote, powerful federal agency dictate my
spiritual -- whether that it exists or doesn't -- involvement with
God, earth, or whatever the parent words that's being used in the
spirituality aspect of the holistic.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Ty, as much as I appreciate what you're
saying, this is well-traveled ground.
MR. AGOSTON: It is not well-traveled ground, because apparently
we did not make the point. And to be perfectly honest with you, it
has been an established fact that the Army Corps of Engineers will do
what they want to do.
Now, for you to presuppose that you're going to be able to alter
their will, obviously, by their refusal to even listen to your
questions, they indicate that they're not going to. The only thing
they can do at this point is sucker the county into a participation.
With your participation you're going to have the whole hoard of
environmental groups clamoring for a broader scoping, and I'll
guarantee you that the Army Corps of Engineers will be there giving in
to the public clamoring and will very happily expand the scoping of
this process. And all you're doing at this point is giving them the
opportunity to do so. Thank you very much.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Next speaker is Gil Erlichman and then Judy
Leinweber.
MR. ERLICHHAN: For the record, Gil Erlichman. I reside in East
Naples. I'm an elector and taxpayer in Collier County speaking for
myself.
I don't know why the present Board of Commissioners are so eager
to walk in lock step with the Corps of Engineers or say they want to
be riders on the bus or participate at the table so that they know
when the Corps of Engineers are going to give us a sucker punch. It
seems as though the -- the Lee County commissioners submitted 46
questions back on October 21st, I believe, to the Corps of Engineers.
No answers as of today, I don't know, or yesterday were forthcoming.
I haven't heard of any answers yet.
We -- you addressed the fact that questions were submitted to the
Corps of Engineers, and you haven't heard any answers yet. You know,
I heard an excuse made that, well, it takes time for them; they have
to submit them to their legal people, et cetera, et cetera. But they
didn't even knowledge the submittance of those questions.
I think the agency is arrogant. It doesn't care whether you
submit your paper saying that you're willing to participate. They
don't care. They went ahead. They're going ahead. The article in
the paper last weak said that they're going ahead without Lee County
and Collier County. And I don't know why the insistence is of the
commissioners that you want to submit another paper or submit some --
a message to them that we're willing to participate. To me it's
beggaring the question.
And I don't care -- I don't care what they are going to do,
because what they are going to do they are going to do regardless of
whether you are sitting at the table or not. And for us to waste time
here considering submitting a message to them that we're willing to
participate is a waste of our time. Thank you.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Judy Leinweber and then Frances Barsh.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Is Hiss Barsh the last speaker on this
item?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you.
MS. LEINWEBER: I am Judy Leinweber. I'm representing myself.
Last night I was at a town hall meeting with Porter Goss. I asked
Porter Goss about the EIS. He looked pretty blank at me. He had to
turn around to an aide and ask him what I was talking about. He told
me it's not too often he gets upstaged. He said he will be talking to
the county commissioners after his aide explained to him what the EIS
was all about. And he did tell me that the federal government cannot
jam this down your throat if you don't want to. All you have to do is
say no.
Then when I find out that Carol Brownet (phonetic) from the EPA
and environmentalists has $110 billion behind a Clean Air Act, and
then John Hall from the Army Corps of Engineers wants to implement the
Clean Water Act, how many billions of dollars is that going to be?
far from the figures, Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act are about even
Steven. So we're talking about a hundred billion dollars that's going
to be spent on the Clean Water Act.
Like President Reagan's wife said, all you have to do is say no.
I hope you folks are brave enough to stand up to Big Brother. It's up
to you. It's in your hands. And I think what's going to happen in
this state is going to happen in many other states. The nation is
looking at us. Last week the environmentalists -- one of the
environmentalists mentioned that the nation is looking at us. It's
time to be pioneers again and quit riding the fence. Just say no. MR. FERNANDEZ: Frances Barsh.
MS. BARSH: Frances Barsh. I am a citizen, resident, and voter
of Collier County. I think entertaining the idea of signing the HOU
is almost an implication of an endorsement of something that you
really don't want. I think that -- in reading part of the HOU, where
it says in -- on page 10 of Article 9, dated October 21st, and it's .3
-- 3.1.3 -- where it says the CAs and POs commit to the following.
Making a sincere effort to develop a consensus alternative to an
extent which is consistent with their governing laws and regulations.
Are those their governing laws or your governing laws? Are they
taking charge? Are you giving up charge? This is what this HOU is.
It goes on. Conceptual basis for other general permits of the
study area region developed for administration by an appropriate
agency. You should be the appropriate agency, not anybody else.
You're the bosses here. Don't give up that right. In Article 5.3, it
says a public in Southwest Florida that possesses increased confidence
in their government. Which government? The federal government? If
it's the county government, then we have confidence in you that you're
not going to give away your right and your duty as representatives of
this county and its citizens to give up your right and power over the
area of this county.
It goes on in Article 8.1.3. It says the principals, in
concentration with CAs and POs, determines the tasks and establishes
an alternative development group. Who is that alternative development
group responsible to? The Army Corps or you? It's not defined.
If you ever do anything, anything, you should be the people that
write the agreement; and if it's not what you want, don't sign it, and
don't endorse it. Don't give up your right that we have fought for all
these years to keep this country in an atmosphere where you, the
county, represent the people and you govern the area that you
represent. And nobody should take that right away from you, nor
should it take that right away from the people. And this is the whole
crux of the argument. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Miss Barsh.
(Applause.)
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I do find a little irony
in Ms. Barsh's comments talking about the rights we fought for,
because I'm pretty sure that it was the federal government that we've
represented in the military each time. But I do agree with her
wholeheartedly that we shouldn't sign or endorse something we don't
believe in. I may be the only one up here that thinks this, but
everyone keeps saying the Corps will do this regardless. And the
gentleman who was here a couple of weeks ago -- was that Mr. Hall?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yes.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- said they are required by law to do
this. Well, among the questions we have asked them is, pinpoint for
us where in the law they are required to do that. Now, if they are
required to it, clearly we should participate. That doesn't mean
signing off and agreeing. But we should be at the table. I got to
disagree with you, Gil. We can't turn our back and pretend it's not
going on.
However, if they cannot demonstrate where in the law they are
required to do this, then that opens an opportunity for us to object
to it. And I think we did a very good thing by not signing the HOU a
couple of weeks ago, because it was so vague, but because it didn't
address those things.
So I think we should transmit a letter -- ask our chairman to
transmit a letter reiterating the questions and concerns. I think we
should pursue all avenues to get the answers to those questions, not
limit ourselves to simply waiting for the Army Corps to provide the
answers, and I think we should offer to them that if they can answer
these questions appropriately, then we do desire to be a part of the
process and at least have some input into it.
But I think we need to be careful to reserve our ability, if they
cannot show under the law where this is required, to object to it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think I'm going to propose that we go one
step farther than that. I've heard several people, some here in this
room, propose that the Army Corps can't do this unless we allow them
to do it. In other words, we could -- we have the authority to block
them from this by simply saying we don't want it and we don't agree to
it. I don't know if that's true or not. But I think before we do
anything, we need to find the answer to that question. Miss Leinweber
mentioned that Porter Goss alluded to that very fact last night. If
that's correct, then we need to know that before we do anything,
because you know that might be the simple answer. Because I keep
getting the feeling that we're just being reeled in on this one.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I agree.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't trust this agency at all. This is
the group that for months has held up Pastor Mallory's homeless
shelter because they want to claim jurisdiction on something between
the sports park and the road and they're holding up a valuable public
project here. And it gets worse than that. I had -- a private
family agreed to donate mitigation property, and when the corps found
that out, they went from 17 acres of mitigation property to a hundred,
and they're still going higher and they still won't sign off on it.
And it's just -- at this point, it's just blackmail and robbery from
the federal government. These are the people that we were dealing
with is my point. And if the statement that we have to allow them to
do this is correct, we need to now that.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, at the beginning of the
conversation I made the offer and I would reiterate it, I would be
happy to communicate with commissioner -- Congressman Goss and see if
we can't get those specific details, because I think Commissioner
Norris is right on the money.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I have been in probably one of the most
uncomfortable positions through all of this that I have had in my
chairmanship for the simple reason that unlike anyone else on this
board and unlike every speaker who stood at that microphone today, I
have had to deal with the Corps as a permitting agency on behalf of
clients. I've had to work through areas to try and get permits for
individuals in some of the most ridiculous situations I've ever seen.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Actually, I've done that, too.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, okay. And I have had to hold off on
action on something till the Corps could come down and stand in a
mangrove forest to prove to themselves the manatees didn't swim where
there was no water. The list of ridiculous things that go on in the
permitting world we can all talk about, and we can use them as
examples not to trust the Corps. To be plain and simple, I don't
trust any environmental permitting agency. I don't trust them,
because I think their motives are unclear more times than not. The
motives to protect the environment sometimes -- somehow get clouded
along the way and become a regulatory nightmare for anyone that has to
go through them. I guess I'm the only cautious optimist when this
study -- as this study presents itself. And the reason I'm an
optimist is because we have a system right now that is ridiculous. As
you cited, Commissioner Norris, it makes no sense and the hodgepodge
manner in which environmental protection is bandied about by the Corps
of Engineers. If we let -- and Ty said it. If we let the Army Corps
of Engineers sit down with only those people who are waving the
environmental banner and make new policy, do you really think we'll be
better off?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I'm surely not suggesting that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: No. My response is to some of what -- you
know, I wonder if this microphone's been on the last three meetings
because, you know, I said this before, and I keep hearing people say I
don't understand why. Well, let's make it very, very clear. The Army
Corps of Engineers can take your land, period. They do it now. They
do it just by leaving you enough to build on, and you and Porter Goss
and anyone else can't do a single thing about it. They have the
authority. And until the federal government changes that authority,
we can stand here and strut like we're roosters and talk about how we
should be the governing body and we should make the decisions and the
Corps should listen to us, and it will have absolutely no impact on
the way they do business. And if we let the future whatever study
does or doesn't occur -- I agree, if they don't have the authority to
do the study, then fine; they shouldn't be here in the first place.
But if the study is going to move ahead in some form, and we don't
participate in it, we have no right to sit and complain about the
results.
We tell people out here all the time, if you don't like
something, we have an open forum. Anyone can come tell us what they
do or don't like about county government, and it's our job to listen
and our job to act in the best interest of the community.
This MOU was an attempt to form a partnership, if you will, of
people that wanted just that, wanted the public, the constituents to
be heard. And I see our involvement as a necessary step to protect
the private property rights and interests of people in this community.
It's not a love affair with the Army Corps of Engineers. It's not an
environmental position. It's common sense. You can either deal from
within, or you can get dealt to. And for us to take any other
position -- and I know it's not being entirely suggested by the full
board, but I have heard it today -- to take any other position is to
say we are going to leave these decisions solely in the hands of the
Corps of Engineers and unknown parties who are willing to participate.
If you want to that, be my guest, but I'm not going to be a party to
it.
I think our job to -- is to protect the interests of our
residents, and my goal is to find the best way to do that, and I've
tried to outline that so, you know --
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Would you repeat that outline that you had
in mind at the beginning of the meeting?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The intent -- my intent is that we
communicate with the Corps of Engineers and tell them that although we
have not voted to sign the MOU, we have not voted not to sign it. We
are going to hold off until the scoping of the project is completed
and the goals are established to determine whether it's appropriate to
sign it or not.
In the meantime, we will direct our staff to provide the
information necessary, as requested by the Corps, to assist them in
the scoping process. In other words, we will sit at the table in the
scoping process and have input. That input is directly based in what
our constituents want, expect, and hope for. Not what we do, not what
four people here or five people over there do, but what our
constituents as a whole hope for.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd like to have a motion to that effect.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Chairman, I don't think anybody is
disagreeing with your position, but it presupposes something that we
don't know the answer to and that is what Commissioner Constantine and
I have talked about, is perhaps it may not be a hundred percent sure
that they can go ahead. And until we answer that question, I don't
know that we want to take any action which indicates even passive
approval from this board.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I don't disagree entirely with that. The
problem comes in that if they don't do the study, the individual
permits for the individual property owners will bear what they're
seeking anyway. They will force it on the individual property owners
if it's not done in total. I know this. I mean, I've seen it happen.
So I'm already looking down the road and, you know, if the study
doesn't happen, what's the alternative. And the alternative is
further restriction of private property rights for those people. I'm
not sure there is win-win situation there.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I disagree with your premise. I think
-- I disagree completely when you say it doesn't matter what we do or
Congressman Goss does or anyone else; they have the authority to do
this. We don't know that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Not the study. That wasn't what I was talking
about.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It doesn't matter on any of this. A
year ago they were involved -- the Army Corps was involved in
litigation with a land developer here in Collier County because they
tried to tell that particular developer what he could and couldn't do
with dredge and fill, with clearing of his property, with excavating,
and that developer won in court.
Everyone else had rolled over and said, well, the Army Corps has
that authority, and no one dared stand up to the Army Corps except
this one individual who did, and it turned out two of the three items
they didn't have the authority to do. They had just forced that on
everyone.
And so I don't think it's strutting like a rooster if we say we
want to know where in the law you are given the authority to do this.
First and foremost, we don't know that. And, secondly, if we're
looking at the long-term picture, and you say there's nothing anyone
can do about that, well, Porter Goss is the one --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Stop mischaracterizing my statement. I was
talking about the individual permit authority on an individual
property owner in those statements, not the study. Do not
mischaracterize it, please.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, perhaps I misunderstood, and I'm
not purposely trying to mischaracterize it. But the point is, if the
Army Corps is doing something inappropriate, our federal
representative does have the authority to do something. He's -- has a
great deal of authority, some impressive positions, and can get a lot
of things done in Washington. Ultimately, the Army Corps responds to
what the federal law is, and the federal law is set by our United
States Congress and by our United States Senate.
So if we're looking at the big picture, then they do have the
authority to that. But I don't think that -- I completely disagree
with you that they have the authority to do this, they have the
authority to that. I think they are alleging they have that
authority. No one has shown us in writing where that law is that
allows them to specifically do this. And I think -- I mean, my
suggestion was four steps, and it was very clear, and it included your
suggestion that if it progresses, we should be an active and verbal
participant. Because you're right; we can't ignore it. But all the
other steps I think are equally as important. We need to reiterate to
them our questions and concerns. We need to pursue on our own the
answers to those questions in addition to waiting for them. And we
need to enlist the assistance and support of our federal
representative.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Let me try a different motion, then. I'll
withdraw the first one and make a motion --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I just ask if anybody disagrees
with any of those items?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't think so.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's good.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Because I didn't mean to
mischaracterize it and --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You know, I was simply talking about they do
have some authority, and I've seen where the authority -- you know, we
can't take property without remuneration. We can't tell you you can't
use land without writing you a check for it. But the federal
government can. And that's the scary part, is that our state, our
representatives, our senators, know they have that authority and have
not altered it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, I don't think that's exactly
true, in that those who have taken the time and spent the money to
challenge them have won. Not only in that instance -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And lost.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- but time and time again.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd like to make a motion that we ask our
chairman to write a letter to the Corps reiterating that we urge them
to answer the questions posed to them by the Lee County Board of
Commissioners and that -- this would not be a part of the letter, but
that at the same time we ask our county attorney to investigate the
jurisdictional authority of the Corps and whether or not they have the
authority to go forward with the EIS.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And as they allege they are required
to do.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It would just be interesting to see
both of these questions.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nothing wrong with getting the answer to
both of those questions. Put that in the letter to the Corps,
encourage them to get answers to the Lee County questions, indicate
that we have not made a decision to accept or reject being a signatory
on the memorandum of understanding, but that we have directed the
county administrator to have staff participate in the scoping and
goal-setting portion of what they have advised us is going forward at
this point. I think that incorporates everything all of us have said.
And also -- certainly not in the letter, but I would encourage you if
Congressman Goss would be more responsive, whatever methodology we'd
use to get our federal representatives to help us get answers to the
questions.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yes, Commissioner Berry.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: The only suggestion I could make to that,
Commissioner Hac'Kie, is, number one, I would start with the first
letter going to find out about the authority of the Corps.
(Applause.)
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I would do that the very first thing. And
depending on what the answer is to that, then I would go with what
Commissioner Hancock -- I believe what he outlined, which was very
similar to what you said, in terms of the rest of it. But before we
go through all this other exercise with the Corps, let's -- let's
check on the authority first and foremost before we go in that
direction.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just to take a big risk here, I'm going to
do this -- but, Mr. Weigel, do you have a question about whether or
not the Corps -- there's two questions: One, do they have the
authority? And the other is, are they required? But do have an
opinion today about whether or not they have the authority to do the
EIS?
MR. WEIGEL: No. I don't have an opinion today. You know, we
just provided an opinion in regard to three words, "sustainable South
Florida," which is a 29 page opinion looking at that, in regard to
this one. Also to correct the record here, the questions that were
submitted to the Corps of Engineers were not submitted by the Lee
County Commission but, in fact, were tendered by staff by -- either
by staff or by directly Commissioner Albeon working for Lee County
there. At their board meeting last Tuesday -- and I communicated with
the Lee County attorney this morning -- their board to -- his
understanding to me was they didn't direct to disapprove the
agreement. They didn't direct to approve the agreement. They didn't
direct to approve the agreement. They didn't direct as a board to send
the questions to the Core. It appeared from his discussion with me
that they did not reach a consensus to do any action or make any
direction from last Tuesday's board meeting. He will keep me apprised
of anything new that comes up. They don't have anything scheduled at
the present time.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Despite the fact that those aren't
official Lee County Commission questions, I still think that they were
good questions and should be answered, and there's nothing wrong with
requesting the answer to those inquires. So I'm going to leave my
motion just like it is. If anybody wants me to say it again, I will.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Pam, would you, please.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yep. That we ask the chairman to write a
letter to the Corps urging them to provide a prompt response to the
questions outlined in-- I think it was Commissioner Albeon's 47, as I
recall, lists to them, one of the primary questions being regarding
their jurisdiction and authority.
So that -- that will cause that threshold to be crossed. So we
would ask them, please, to answer those questions. We will tell them
that we've taken no answer -- no position to date on the HOU, whether
or not to sign, pending responses to those questions and
consideration, but that we have asked our county administrator to have
staff participate in the scoping and goal setting of what they are
beginning -- the process of the EIS that they are beginning.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: If they choose to perform the EIS.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: If they choose to go forward, that we have
directed our staff to participate.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: There is a motion.
Is there a second on the floor?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Seeing none, the motion dies for a lack of a
second.
Is there a substitute motion or a second motion on the matter?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Chairman, I think Commissioner Berry
brought up a very good point, that is we should the answer the
questions first and then go through the steps outlined by you later.
I think I'd like to make a motion that we inquire of our federal
legislators, or any other source that is appropriate, the answer to
the question, does the Corps have the authority to do this under
federal law, and are they required to do it under federal law.
At the same time, we have the chairman write the Corps informing
them that we have not at this point either approved or disapproved
their EIS and that we are resubmitting the questions previously posed
by the Lee County Commission, and that we will be able to better make
a determination when we have those answers from the Corps.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second it.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just a question on the motion.
Understanding that the Corps is going forward, is there any direction
for staff to participate in the scoping --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't think so. I'm not comfortable with
that.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Because it's going to happen without us.
The scope and the goals will be set before we get to participate.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No. I don't think so. We're just trying to
answer some legal questions; that shouldn't take that long. And we
should have those answers by our next meeting.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And members of the -- if they do move ahead,
every meeting is open to the public, although without some of the
things in the HOU, they're not subject to the Sunshine Law the way we
are or the advertising requirements that we are. So I'm not sure what
their advertising requirement exactly is.
I have to give Hiss Leinweber credit. At least she asked the
question. I feel like the Corps' authority and questioning that
authority is placed on this commission by the people in this audience.
And you know what; it's wrong, because we don't control it. I share
your concerns, but the appropriate place to address the authority of a
federal agency is with those that set their budget and make their
rules.
And so I guess part of my frustration is I feel like -- I feel
like I'm operating on a line of consensus that this -- the study was
going to happen. And now, we the board, are being asked to answer the
question do they have the authority? At least Judy asked the right
person. Ask someone who sets their budget and affects their
authority.
You know, so we can ask the question, but if you aren't willing
to involve-- and we will involve Porter Goss, but you have to involve
the people that at least make the decisions in those arenas to give us
that assistance. Otherwise, we can only go on what we know. And I'm
basing my assumptions on my experience.
So understand, you know, if you have a Hate the Corps Club, you
know, send me an application but, you know, it's -- it's just trying
to figure out the best path here. And I'm just a little -- you know,
the path here is frustrating me, because it's like getting 99 yards
and getting told there is no end zone. You know, I mean there's --
it's not fair. So I apologize. Holding, 10 yards. And I apologize
for the frustration, but I'm just concerned I'm not going to like the
answers, but let's get them if that requires everyone to be
comfortable.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Did we have a second?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I thought we did.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second.
Further discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries four, one.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just out of curiosity can I ask the
nature of the objection, because I didn't it was that different from
yours.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I wanted to make a point that I think that
we should be participating right now on a staff level. And that's my
objection.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And if we get notification that they are
moving ahead or having meetings, we can bring that back, asking if
there should be a staff presence at those meetings and do that
individually, but right now we don't know any dates or times in the
study.
Item #9C
REPORT PRESENTED TO THE BCC REGARDING TOURIST DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
MUNICIPALITY REPRESENTATION/CITY OF MARCO ISLAND
Next item, report to the board regarding Tourist Development
Council municipality representation, slash, City of Marco Island.
This was asked to be placed on on the basis that as of Thursday of
this week, there will be a city council on Marco, and the TDC makeup
did not envision a City of Marco, as we did place a representative
from the City of Naples on there, so -- what we have here is a
response to that question.
MR. WEIGEL: Good afternoon, Commissioners. What's being passed
out to you is really just a courtesy to have or carry with you, if you
wish, for further use. The answers are actually fairly self-evident.
Both the state statute, Section 125.0104 of the Florida statutes and
the Collier County ordinance in regard to the Tourist Development
Council, Ordinance No. 92-18 mirror -- the ordinance mirrors miles the
language of the statute which provides that there shall be a
nine-member council chaired by the governing board of the county by
its chairman or other designated member. It specifically provides
that two members of the council shall be elected municipal officials,
at least one of whom shall be from the most populous municipality in
the county with some detail thereafter which really isn't important to
us here. Beyond that there are six members of the council who are
persons involved in the tourist industry and who demonstrated an
interest in tourist development. Our ordinance continues to mirror
the statute indicating a specific three and three break out, where
three members are owners or operators of motels, hotels, recreational
vehicle parks or other tourist accommodations, and three other persons
members of the council shall be persons who are involved in the
tourist industry and have demonstrated an interest in it.
Therefore, what they have is the current ordinance follows state
law. It must follow state law and is valid as written. There may be
and presently there are three municipalities -- three municipalities
in Collier County. Arguably, the statute doesn't care how many that
there may be once you get beyond two, and that it's just up to the
discretion of the board of county commissioners who creates the
council pursuant to law and appoints its membership to meet the
confines of the statute and its implementing ordinance.
Therefore, there's no requirement. In fact, the -- there is no
requirement for a Marco Island city council member to be on the
tourist development council. Conversely, it would appear when the
council was at full compliment that there is, in fact, an inability to
put more persons on by virtue of their being council members of
municipalities, however, there can be a kind of a fold over where
serendipitously city council members may meet the requirements of the
three and three membership that is also a part of our ordinance and of
the statute.
Currently Mayor Barnett from the City of Naples is on the council
and a Mr. Landrum from Everglades City are fulfilling the functions of
council, city council members' municipal participation on the
nine-member tourist development council.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Weigel, it's within our scope to
-- those positions are set aside for municipal officers and if we have
applications from Marco and Everglades and Naples, fill them
appropriately, obviously, the one being from the most populous.
MR. WEIGEL: That's right. You do have that caveat for the one
municipality, the most populous, always been represented. The other
two could be represented at the choice of the commission when a
vacancy occurs, whether it be a natural termination of an office or
termination by operation of the ordinance.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It seems like a fairly natural fit
because I know with our TDC dollars, Marco and Everglades work
together and work on projects together, so I would assume they can do
the same here.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, we do need to recognize that this
ordinance was crafted long before there was a City of Marco, and at
the same time we need to recognize that Marco Island generates
probably twice as much TDC income as does the City of Naples.
perhaps we need to consider a dedicated seat at some point in time.
But I think that's really a discussion that could be held after
there's a city council seated and see what their feeling is at that
point.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: It looks like the Florida statutes don't give
us flexibility to dedicate one to the city and one to Marco. We would
be inconsistent with the state statute, then, wouldn't we?
MR. WEIGEL: We would be would be my opinion.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Really the concern I have there, too,
is there are a number of areas that are going to be required at some
point to have cityhood choices; Pelican's Marsh, Lely Resort, Pelican
Bay area. If they get their stuff through the state, they could have a
vote. And I don't want to get in a situation where all of a sudden
all of them are dedicated to the cities. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I just wanted to get a background -- I
thought the board needed a background to field the questions on
representation from Marco Island, and I think it served it's purpose.
No board action necessary.
Thank you, Mr. Weigel.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Are we going to switch court reporters?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have three items left. One is a public
hearing. I'm sorry -- four items left. One is a public hearing. I
still think we're going to be done before two o'clock.
Is there anyone that feels otherwise?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Keep going.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Let's move forward.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Do you want to switch? She needs to
switch.
Item #9D
SETTLEHENT OF HOORE V. COLLIER COUNTY - APPROVED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Item 9 -- okay. Let's go ahead and take a
five-minute recess.
(A recess was taken.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Good afternoon. We're going to reconvene.
are to item 10-D, request settlement of Moore v. Collier County.
Mr. Pettit, back up again today.
MR. PETTIT: For the record, Mike Pettit, assistant county
attorney.
We
Chairman Hancock, Commissioners, this item was put on as an
add-on. I have had occasion to speak to several of you individually
about it, not in great detail. We did have a mediation in this case
on Monday that Jeff Walker and the risk management director and I
attended on behalf of the county. The mediation lasted four and a
half to five hours, and we did achieve a proposal we wanted to bring
back and recommend to the board.
But because I don't think some of you have a lot of factual
background in this claim, I do want to give you some background.
Kermit Moore is a current employee of the county. He right now
is a temporary electrical inspector in our building department. He has
been an employee of Collier County for 14 plus years.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me do this, Mr. Pettit. I know you didn't
have a chance to brief each commissioner individually on the merits or
lack thereof in this case. Let me ask, are there -- are there any
additional developments different than what was presented to each
individual commissioner in your meetings with them?
MR. PETTIT: I think I only probably spoke with you, Commissioner
Constantine and Commissioner Norris. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. PETTIT: I didn't speak to Commissioner Mac'Kie. And I
frankly don't recall if Commissioner Berry and I spoke about it or
not.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay, I apologize then. By way of background,
I guess what you're --
MR. PETTIT: I need to give you, I think, five minutes at least
on this.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Try to keep it to three.
MR. PETTIT: He is an employee now. He's been an employee for 14
years. He has been a good employee for the county in terms of his
competency as an electrical inspector, there's no dispute about that.
That's not what this case is about.
He was injured in January of 1994 while at work, and went onto
Warker's Camp. disability for a year and a half. He returned to work,
and at that time his doctors would only allow him to work two to four
hours a day. And this went on for approximately a period of three to
four months.
He reached what's called maximum medical improvement for purposes
of Warker's Camp. determinations, and at that point a decision had to
be made as to whether he could perform the functions of his job as a
building inspector. And the doctor made it clear that he could only
work four hours a day.
There is a notation in county documents indicating that the
initial approach to the situation was to try to hire another
four-hour-a-day electrical inspector. We did not post that position
and we did not advertise that position. There was some attempt made
to locate a person for that position at the Electrical Council of
Florida, and through some solicitation of some contractors, but there
was no posting. And in November, a recommendation was made that Mr.
Moore be voluntarily demoted to an office assistant II position, which
resulted in about a seven dollar drop in his pay.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Did you say voluntarily or involuntarily?
MR. PETTIT: Well, the record would show it's a voluntary
demotion, because he accepted the position. This is not what he
wanted and he obviously objected to it, because he lost seven dollars
an hour in pay.
He shortly thereafter in the February, 1996 period was released
to come back to work six hours a day, and the initial position was
that he would continue on in this office as assistant II position, but
by coincidence, one of our other electrical building inspectors was
made an acting plan reviewer. Mr. Moore was a logical candidate to
fill that slot, but only as an acting electrician -- electrical
inspector.
Because of the way the pay classifications work, however, he did
not go back to his former rate of pay as a building inspector; he was
given a ten percent increase, as I recollect, up to about $12.00 an
hour, which still fell short perhaps five dollars an hour of his
former rate of pay.
He continued in that position at six hours a day until about
March of 1997. In the interim he of course filed this lawsuit
claiming that he had been discriminated against in two ways: One was
based on his disability, and one was based on a retaliation for filing
a Workers' Comp. claim. And of course the key pieces of his claim are
that one, we made no legitimate effort to find a part-time building
inspector; and two, we then made him a building inspector again but
didn't pay him what he had been paid before when he was a building
inspector.
He was made a temporary building inspector in March of 1997, and
that occurred for a couple of reasons: The fellow who he had been put
in the back of the building department in place of came back to the
building department from his other county job, and Mr. Cautero and his
staff determined the inspections -- and the numbers clearly support
this -- have skyrocketed over the past three years. We're doing
thousands and thousands more inspections now than we were doing in
1995. And it got to the point where we felt that -- and Mr. Cautero
felt that he had could legitimately have a temporary inspector and
even approach the board about a fifth inspector for this budget year,
which has happened.
At the mediation -- and that pretty much in a nutshell is the
history of the case. Mr. Moore today remains a temporary inspector.
We do have a vacancy for a regular building inspector's position,
which he has applied for. If he would not receive that position, he
would necessarily have to go back to the office assistant II position
with a corresponding drop in pay, which obviously he would add to his
claims in the lawsuit as being discriminatory.
At the mediation, Mr. Moore agreed to resolve this claim for
$26,750, and -- provided he receive this vacant position at six hours
a day. And as I said, the mediation went on for five hours. He had
dropped his claim substantially from where it was the last time I
presented it to you. I think it was around $57,000 was the demand at
that point with the same demand regarding the job.
And Mr. Walker and I have brought that to you, and we recommend
it based on a couple of factors: I think that the likelihood is that
if Mr. Moore were successful at trial, his attorney could recover 50
to $60,000 in fees. I've already explained the cap under these
employment discrimination cases is $300,000, so there's kind of an
open-ended window there for an employee if the jury sides with the
employee.
And for those reasons, we felt that it was a reasonable
settlement; it would make a reasonable business decision to settle on
that basis.
The reason this was put on an emergency basis, in effect, is that
the trial is scheduled this Monday. We don't have a date. The federal
court keeps mum. They give us 24 hours notice. We have to scramble
to get our witnesses. The likelihood of a trial occurring this month
is probably not high, given what I know of the docket, but it could
happen. The Federal Court told both Mr. Moore's attorney and me
yesterday that they were not going to take us off a trial docket
unless we truly have a notice that the matter has been resolved.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Questions for Mr. Pettit?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Motion to approve the request to settle.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and second. Any discussion of the
motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Aye.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Opposed?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Aye.
Mr. Pettit again, thank you.
MR. PETTIT: Thank you.
Item #10A
COMHISSIONER NORRIS TO WORK WITH COUNTY ATTORNEY RE ADVISORY BOARD
GUIDELINES TO BE PRESENTED AT A FUTURE BCC MEETING
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Next item on the Board of County
Commissioners, 10-A, recommendation concerning advisory committees,
requested by Commissioner Norris.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is my item.
Let me just start out with a little bit of history. When I first ran,
actually Marco Island was a big part of district one. And I don't live
on Marco Island. I was the first person ever elected in that district
that did not live on Marco Island. So I knew that it was probably
important for me to have a citizens advisory committee, so I set that
up during my first election.
And what the purpose was is to have citizens to help me not only
identify issues specific to Marco Island, but then we could research
and develop data and facts concerning these issues, and that would
help me better serve Marco Island.
One of the things that I instituted as a policy for that
committee is that those people who are either officers or directors of
those major civic associations on the island -- the Chamber of
Commerce or realtors or board realtors, that sort of thing -- would
not serve on that committee. And the reason is twofold: First of
all, we already get the significant official input from all of those
organizations officially from their board of directors.
And the second reason is simply that that would be a conflict,
because how could they have an objective point of view if they are
also carrying the official position of the board of directors of
whatever organization they're representing, so that it would be a
redundancy and a bit of a conflict.
And what I'm proposing is that we carry this policy forward into
our own county advisory polic -- advisory committees that -- there are
several committees probably that may have outside organizations that
deal in the same subject, whatever they may happen to be. And I'm not
picking on any specific one, obviously, but just as a general policy.
And so what I'm proposing is that we simply make as a policy of
the County Commission that no one who's either an officer or a
director or a paid employee of an organization that deals with the
same subject as an advisory committee can sit on that particular
advisory committee. That way we will stop the inherent conflict
behind those I described. These people have to carry the specific
official position of those organizations into their advisory
committee. And second of all, they cannot be objective. So that's
what I'm proposing today, and I open it up for discussion. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What do you mean by -- I was trying to get
it and I didn't remember to bring a copy of your memo with me; I
apologize for that -- but no officer, director or paid employee of an
organization who deals with the same subject for --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, let me see if I can bring out a
couple of examples.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: There was -- well, let's say we have
several private utility companies in the county. Florida Cities, out
in Golden Gate, Florida Water Services now, down in Marco Island.
Would it be appropriate to have the vice president of that
organization be on our county utility authority? Of course not.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Real world example. The Florida Home Builders
Association opposes impact fees. I believe in the past we had an
officer of FHBA sitting on the development services advisory committee
which advises us on fees and fee structures.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But that's exactly my question. For
example, that -- I always forget the name of it, but sort of a taxi
committee, public transportation committee, or the development
services advisement committee, or any committee -- EPTAB. How are you
going to have -- I mean, who will be on development services advisory
committee if not people who are directly involved in development?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I see what it is, and the distinction is
this: Development services advisory committee, obviously you're going
to need people in the development business who have the disciplines
that can give you learned advice on those committees. What we're
saying is the executive director of CVI should not be on there.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: In other words, that board member would not
serve on that particular type of a committee. It should be people
maybe in the industry, but --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Sure.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But how could a person who's a paid
employee of a development company serve on the development services
advisory committee?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Once again, that's the distinction. I'm
talking about organizations whose sole purpose it is to deal with
matters that the advisory committee itself --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Basically lobbying --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: -- organizations.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Very good, yes, lobbying organizations.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How do you define --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Because we get their input anyway. I mean,
they always give us their input, and very welcomed, by the way, and
usually very helpful. But we get that as a matter of course. They
can't be on the board and have an objective position at the same time,
though, because their board of directors has said this is our official
policy on issue A, and this is the way we want you to handle it. And
so how can they be objective? They can't.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: They can be, but they don't.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So -- and this -- I'm still on this same
-- just a point of understanding and then I'll move on and let
somebody else talk.
Now, the EPTAB example, Mr. Simonik is -- I apologize for not
knowing your title, but something at -- an employee of the conservancy
and therefore would not be eligible to serve on EPTAB. But the
environmental permitting specialist at Wilson-Miller would be allowed.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't know. Do we -- I don't know what
the constitution of the EPTAB is.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Or John Asher would be allowed as an
engineer to serve, but an engineer who works for the conserv -- I just
think it's got good motivations but bad ideas in the application.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The question before you, Commissioner
Norris, is how would we define group or organization, and I ask that
specifically because East Naples Civic Association -- you know, what
if you have an officer who's actually -- when we did the sewer plant
change a couple of years ago and we had some specific people serve on
a committee there that we created to deal with that issue, I think
they were primarily out of Lely, which is clearly directly impacted.
And I just -- I don't know how we define group or organization without
really crossing an awful lot of paths there that are tough to define.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, it's going to take a little bit of
thought, perhaps, but the -- I don't know that I -- see, you can make
a distinction on a civic group like the East Naples Civic Association,
for example, because they are a broad spectrum civic organization,
they're not a narrow focused specific issue type organization.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Like second district association --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Same thing.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- that deal with a variety of issues.
I think everyone is wrestling with -- or at least I hear everyone
wrestling with -- an agreement that there are currently inappropriate
relationships. I mean, if you're the president of organization X and
you're supposed to sit as a constituent advisor to this board, you're
going to carry the organization's water. I mean, that happens and we
see it happen all the time.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And I'm not sure that's a bad idea, so
just --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: -- as you're characterizing it, I don't
necessarily think that's a problem.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. Well, let me -- you mentioned EPTAB
earlier. When I first came on the board, and Commissioner Constantine
did, there was a member of that board that was an employee of the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, and there was a member who was an employee
of the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission. That is totally
inappropriate.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Agreed. So --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The concern I have -- and I appreciate
the intent of what we're trying to do here, and I think we could
probably cite some specific examples where it could be appropriate,
but I just have a concern if we start limiting who can or can't
participate in our governmental process. Ultimately they're all
advisory boards anyway. The decision is made --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: But we already do limit them. A number of
these committees have specific requirements.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We do, but they are looking for some
expertise in that field as opposed to excluding people because they
have expertise in that field.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: More qualifying than disqualifying.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I know where you're headed, but I just
-- I think it sets us up for a difficult situation where we're telling
people no, we don't want you, even though, you know, you're trying the
particular field. I can understand the law being concerned, but
realistically, we're going to get lobbied from both sides on most
issues, both through our committees and --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And that's part of the point. And they're
certainly willing to -- as you know, on the regional planning council
we have a member of FDOT and a member of the South Florida Water sit
there for informational purposes as ex officio members. I see nothing
wrong with that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What I'm sensing is -- I happen to agree with
you, that there are situations and circumstances I can point to now
and previously that should not have existed. I think what we're
looking for is -- or what you're requesting really is a way to
recognize those situations as inappropriate and act on them, not to
root a problem out, you know, just begin rooting things out or have
some finite definition, but something like this in the form of a
guideline, in the appointment of advisory committee members seems
appropriate. Because I don't think we should have Fish and Wildlife
Service employees on our environmental advisory board. I don't think
we should have the executive director of CBIA on the development
services advisory committee. I don't think those things should exist,
because the sole purpose there is to -- the representation of an
organization, not as an industry, you know, either recipient or an
element, so --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But ultimately, don't we have a
discretion over that during the appointment process? We don't have to
accept every applicant.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And don't we have the discretion? And I
know that all of us do this: That when -- if development services
advisory committee makes a recommendation to us and we know that the
president of Florida Home Builders was one of the -- was the chairman
of the committee, then we have the good sense to be able to discern
that some of that Florida Home Builders' official position has worked
itself in, and you know how to factor that in and to account for that.
I just don't see what's broken that needs to be fixed. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I do --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: So your suggestion is that we continue with
whatever conflicts exist and the advisory board can just let them go?
You didn't seem to have the same position before when we were talking
about former county employees coming back and lobbying the county.
And even though it's a very thin definition of a conflict there, you
seemed to have no objection to that. But when you have a direct
conflict sitting right in front of you, you --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: See, I don't see it as a conflict. I see
it as a --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You've objected to both.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I see it as if we want advice from
environmentalists -- and that's why we have the EPTAB -- or if we want
advice from people in the development industry, that maybe we're just
one of the most qualified people in the community to serve on
development services advisory board, and maybe Michael Simonik is one
of the most qualified people in the community to serve on EPTAB. And
that I can factor into their recommendations the understanding that
they also have official policy positions.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm just -- I simply support it as a guideline
in the process of appointing people. Because if we have one vacancy
and one applicant, what do we always do? We plug them in. But I've
never heard us have the discussion of what their affiliations are and
what -- and it would be nice to know those. So I like it as a
guideline; not a hard and fast rule, not a black and white rule, but a
guideline that says this should be a consideration in the appointment
of board members. I don't have a problem with that, and I'll support
it.
Commissioner Berry?
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I definitely think there needs to be a
question in there in that regard. Affiliations, or who -- let's know
what they really do.
But further than that, I'd -- I'm the new kid on the block still.
I'd like to take a look at our advisory committees. We've got a ton
of advisory committees.
advise committees.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE:
COHMISSIONER BERRY:
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE:
COHMISSIONER BERRY:
buck stops here.
I mean, you've got advisory committees to
Welcome to county government.
Well, that may be true but -- We've all said it, Barbara.
Well, but, you know, the bottom line is the
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You come back with a list of which
ones you want to eliminate, and we'll consider it.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Well, let me count the ways, all right? Do
you want to start today, or do you want to wait?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Bring a list next meeting.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: It won't be popular, I'll tell that you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Folks, the last time we did this, I think Pam,
you and I were new on the board?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: We were the ones making the list then.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And so we started off on it. I think we
eliminated one. We started with about 14.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Who had asked to be eliminated.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The one who had asked to be eliminated.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Because I'll warn you now -- and I think it's
a good exercise. You know, even though we --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: It's a good exercise.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You know, we get a lot of phone calls and a
lot of mail. But the people on the committees begin fighting
valiantly, you know, for the committees, but we have a couple out
there that are consistently -- again, are not meeting quorum, so --
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Well, that -- it's funny because we're up
here and we're laughing and everybody's having a pretty good time over
this, but --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm not having a good time.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm hungry.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: But there's times that the committee that
meets briefly to take care of an issue at hand and then is dismissed,
I think there's a lot of benefit to that. But to have an ongoing
committee that meets on and on and on for the sake of meeting, what --
for what reason? Until that's clearly defined, I -- and I know this
is another issue, and I don't need to belabor this point, but I really
think you need to take a look at what is the purpose for each
committee and then determine whether it's a one-shot deal or to
address a particular issue and then move on. But in terms of this, I
-- I fully feel like, you know, it's a question that needs to be
answered and we need to know. Because I don't know every single
person that appears on our list here. I mean, yes, we know if they're
an elector and we know if they're this and that.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Get their resume. And I think a good idea
would be to require disclosure of any, you know, organizations in
which -- although -- well, never mind. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But we do have their resumes, and usually
that does provide that information. But I have no objection to
disclosure. Disclosure is great. And then we can factor it in in
making appointments.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me suggest, I do support some level of
guideline. I know Commissioner Norris does. Commissioner Berry seems
to. Let me suggest, Commissioner Norris, if you would work with Mr.
Weigel to determine where and most appropriately that guideline could
be placed and then bring it back specifically for either adoption or
not, an up or down vote, then we're -- you know, we have something to
decide. Right now we're just dealing with a concept.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's right.
MR. WEIGEL: I'm honored.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And Commissioner Berry, we'll be looking for
that cut list.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can't wait.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And if you would like to put that in the form
of agenda item and place it on the --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Just before I leave on vacation.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: If you'd like to put that in the form of --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Get out of town.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- an agenda item or a request to be placed on
agenda for discussion with specific organizations or specific advisory
committees you think need looking into, then I think we should
consider that also.
Okay, all right. Have I passed the buck to everyone that's
appropriate?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: You've been very kind.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Very good.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Very good example of --
Item #10B
VACANCY ON THREE ADVISORY COMMITTEES DECLARED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Next item is item 10-B, declare vacancies
on free advisory committees.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Post that recommendation.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Just a second. Before we do that, I will
point out that in two days, this may be moot.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That's true. But I asked that it be placed on
the agenda for consistency purposes, but we should have done it
earlier. Once we have individuals declared as candidates, we need to
remove them from committees, because that's our policy and we need to
be consistent.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me ask this, then: One of the people
that are on this went through this when he ran for fire commission,
and he was allowed to stay on. Has something changed in the interim?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: No, that's because by the time we got the
answer, the election was over.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Oh, okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: How's that?
Is that about right, Mr. Weigel? We were looking at it and then
the election was over and it became a moot point?
MR. WEIGEL: I'm thinking that was the previous county attorney,
but I'm not sure.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Blame it on Cuyler. Cuyler's not here. Blame
it on Ken or Neal, one of the two.
So we have a motion. Is there a second on the motion?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Did I make the motion or did I second it?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine made the motion.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I made the motion.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Then I second it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed?
(No response.)
Motion carries five to zero declaring those vacancies.
Item #11A
COURT ADMINISTRATION EXPENSES - APPROVED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Item ll-A, request to approve court
administration expenses.
This resulted from a meeting that Mr. Fernandez and I had with
the clerk of courts while we were working on some contract issues. We
basically have to approve in essence a one-twelfth payment of the
court costs that were associated with what we approved this budget
year, because there's some language issues that the clerk is working
on. Really, it's just a way to make sure people get their paychecks
until we can get the contract language worked out.
Did I miss anything there?
MR. CROSS: Jay Cross, executive assistant to the clerk of
courts.
Almost.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Almost.
MR. CROSS: They've always gotten their paychecks.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay, we just need appropriate --
MR. CROSS: These are expenses that have been incurred by court
administration. And basically until we get the language of the
contract cleared up, we need a resolution from the board or direction
from the board to pay these.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Move to so approve the item.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and second. Any discussion?
(No response.)
Seeing none --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman? Are we getting
ourselves into difficulty doing this?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Not if you look at the way we've done it the
past, which is really kind of a lump sum. They come in, they request
a certain amount from the county, that amount is then given, if you
will, a lump sum, and the clerk keeps it on his books and works it in
and out. We don't have individual line item approval on their annual
budget. You know, every time they go to spend something, they're --
COMHISSIONER BERRY: Right.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: All we're doing is we're saying these
expenditures can be paid. I mean, that's really all we're doing. They
still have a responsibility to be consistent with their presentation
to this board in the amount of funding they receive. Kind of like the
sheriff's office. He gets his money and then he spends it, and when
he comes back next year, if there are questions about how it was
spent, we address them at that time, rather than putting the board and
the clerk in a line item veto position on every expenditure that goes
in and out.
So the court administration is very much the same way as the
sheriff in how we -- how those budgets are spent and how they are then
answered the following year. It's a weird situation, because they're
state employees --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Right.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- you know, yet we have to fund a portion of
them. And did you say article five? I mean, these are article five
court costs that should be borne by the State of Florida that are
borne by the local taxpayer, you know. And we have that catchall. We
have to fund them, we don't have a choice.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: No, I -- and I'm not questioning whether we
pay it or not. That isn't the point. The point is, other than today,
what have we done prior to today? Why is today any different?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, because --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Has this come up before is my question.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yes, the clerk -- because the clerk's --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: He's trying to do a line item.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The clerk has a legal opinion that the way in
which we've been doing it is incorrect, and he's trying to fix that.
So --
MR. CROSS: It's a conflict with the statute that requires pre-
and post-audit responsibility from the clerk.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Okay. Are other counties affected by this
as well?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Other counties are doing it the way we've been
doing it for a couple of years now. They don't have a problem with
it, but, you know --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: We do.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- our clerk does, and we're trying to help
him get those answers and --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: And how are we going to help him get those
answers so we don't have to do this again in the future?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think there are a couple of alternatives
that they're exploring that we can either treat this like we do some
other expenditures where we pay it into the state comptroller, who
then has that pre- and post-audit and can send it back down, or we pay
it into the lead clerk who is the --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Court administration.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- you know, of the circuit. And it's
really just some technical statutory compliance that seems to me there
are a couple of really straightforward alternatives.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: It's just really too early to determine which
one is going to be the easiest path. But, you know, if the clerk says
he statutorily cannot do this or shouldn't do it, then we have to
respect that and find a way to get it done. And we're in the early
stages of doing that, and Mr. Fernandez is working with the clerk.
We have a motion and a second on this. Is there any further
discussion?
(No response.)
Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
Thank you very much.
MR. CROSS: Thank you for your time this afternoon.
PUBLIC COMMENT ON GENERAL TOPICS
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We are to public comment on general topics.
I understand we have two registered speakers.
HR. FERNANDEZ: Hr. Ty Agoston and Hr. Gil Erlichman.
MR. AGOSTON: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name time
is Ty Agoston, I live in Golden Gate Estates, and I'm speaking for
myself.
I have attended a number of landfill meetings over the past year,
and we at TAG are very interested in any large expenditures of money,
and we like to pride ourselves of our interest and we would like to
get as much information as we can provided to our members.
And to be honest with you, the last meeting kind of reminded me
of the preamble of sustainable America. That is a little section
there -- and I'm just paraphrasing -- but it refers to citizens either
too selfish or too stupid to govern themselves. I have personally
asked county staff last year at a given point in time just how much
money have we spent on searching and engineering and what have you.
Let me just say that I never received a satisfactory answer.
As the year went by, a number of us have requested current
information -- current at the time of the request. We have never
received a satisfactory answer. We have had -- we have attended
interviews with the director of the landfill. But last Tuesday night
-- Tuesday night in these chambers, Mr. David Russell really took the
cake when he kind of contemptuously threw out a ten dollar a ton
figure at me, and then he told me that it was going to be for the next
50 years. Well, I am not that smart, but on the other hand, we have
some graduate engineers, we have some graduate degreed accountants, a
good number of number crunchers among our organization who assure me,
which I surmised at the time I heard it, that there's no accurate way
to predict what something is going to cost you after 50 years. I
didn't think so either. And frankly, I resent when someone patronizes
me. I'm an old man, I have three grandchildren. I'll even show you
their pictures, if you'd like.
But the fact of the matter is, is that we're taxpayers. I know
that we are -- we have been excluded from a number of meetings like
that scenic 41, we got excluded, and a number of others. And I also
know that some people in government do not really like us to attend
their meetings.
On the other hand, we are talking about a great deal of money. I
believe that the taxpayers are entitled to know what's the current
position of the spending, what is the projected cost and how much have
we spent so far, where are we going, rather than keeping this in a
very vague and condescending information flow.
Guys, I speak the language well enough to understand if somebody
tells me a hard figure, and I can assure you, I can run a calculator.
Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Mr. Agoston.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Gil Erlichman.
MR. ERLICHHAN: Good afternoon. Gil Erlichman. I reside in East
Naples, I'm a tax payer and elector in Collier County.
I'm 75 years old, and I'm a veteran of World War II, ex POW. I
never thought that I would sit in these chambers and listen to someone
tell me that a government agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, can
come in and take my property. That was stated by Tim Hancock,
Chairman.
I'm frightened. Well, I'm frightened more so at this time
because of previous events and things and organizations that are out
there taking and eroding my personal liberties. Your anti-gun lobby,
in Washington. Why do they want our guns? Well, so that the Army
Corps of Engineers or some agency can come in and take our property.
All right, let me get back -- let me get to the point.
Commissioner Berry said, and previous to the motion that was made,
about finding out the legality of the Corps of Engineers in their
action, that they're supposedly -- that they're taking -- with this
EIS, et cetera. Well, I took the liberty last week of going to
Congressman Goss' office to ask them to furnish me with the enabling
legislation through the years that had to do with the Corps of
Engineers. And they -- here's the cover letter that I received
yesterday. "Dear Gil and friend. We were glad to be able to furnish
you with the information that you requested regarding federal laws
which authorize U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operations. I hope that
you find it useful. If I or my staff can provide any additional
information or assistance on this or any other federal issue, please
be sure to contact any of our offices. Kindest regards, Porter."
Okay, I have here all the public laws enabling legislation going
back to 1802, which was an act fixing the military establishment of
the United States. From 1802 on, all the way down. And I asterisked
these various items, and asked them in Porter Goss' office to give me
the enabling legislation, the copies of the public laws. So one of
the most dangerous things I think that exists now is this act in 1971,
Public Law 91646. Uniform Relocations Assistances -- assistance, and
Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970. I'm waiting with
bated breath to see what that is. Now, remember, the EPA was
established under the Nixon administration, Rucklehouse was the first
EPA administrator. Sorry to say, it was a Republican administration.
And subsequent to that, each year, practically one year after another,
you had the Endangered Species Act, Water Resources Development Act.
You had one, two, three -- you had about seven Water Resources
Development Act, Clean Water Act. It's all Water Resources
Development Act. I'm waiting to see what all these -- these acts are.
Now, for you commissioners to take the action you did this
morning or early this afternoon, it was very good, because I just
don't think that by getting at the -- sitting at the table with the
Corps of Engineers or even hinting that you would be willing to listen
to them is going to help us. I'm pretty sure that this is the only
county, Lee -- only two counties in the country that this is a test of
the power of the Federal Government using the Corps of Engineers to
try and do what they want to do with this EIS. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you.
Item #12B1
ORDINANCE 97-69 RE PETITION PUD-97-9 JOHN P. ASHER, P.E., OF COASTAL
ENGINEERING CONSULTANTS, INC., REPRESENTING THE CLUB ESTATES, L.C., FOR
A REZONE FROM "A" RURAL AGRICULTURAL TO "PUD" PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT
FOR A PROJECT TITLED THE CLUB ESTATES PUD LOCATED ON THE WEST SIDE OF
C.R. 951 CONTIGUOUS TO NAPLES NATIONAL GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB - ADOPTED
WITH WITH STIPULATIONS
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We are to the public hearing portion of our
agenda. The one and only public hearing this afternoon, item 12-B-l,
petition PUD-97-9. John Asher, of Coastal Engineering, representing
The Club Estates, L.C., requesting a fezone from "A" Rural Agriculture
to "PUD" Planned Unit Development.
As soon as you get done passing this out, John, I'm going to ask
you and Mr. Bellows and any member of the public here to speak on this
item to stand and raise your right hand. John, you can do it from
right there.
Madam court reporter, would you please swear them in.
(Witnesses sworn.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. With that, Mr. Nine, good afternoon.
MR. NINO: Yes, Ren Nine, for the record. The petition --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm sorry, Mr. Nine. I have met with Mr.
Asher once on this, but I've had no other contact on this project. Is
there anything else, any disclosure element a board member needs to
make?
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: No con--
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I have the same disclosure.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: But I'm going to base my opinion based on
what I hear here today.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry to interrupt, no contact on this
one.
MR. NINO: The petition --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I've had contact with Mr. Asher on this
particular project.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have no recollection of any contact;
however, I'll base my decision as required by state statute. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Nine, please continue.
MR. NINO: Thank you, sir the petition that's before you would
have you rezene -- ask you to rezene 156 acres, more or less, of land
now zoned agricultural to the PUD classification for the purposes of
facilitating the construction of 28 single-family homes on 28 lots
within the 156 acres of land. Obviously, considerably below the
maximum density otherwise allowed under the future land use element of
the growth management.
In fact, the density in this case is 0.16, whereas, the density
rating system would authorize up to three dwelling units per acre.
The property is being developed in a rather interesting way in
the sense that as iljustrated by the agent's master plan on the wall
around each building site, which will be 30,000 square feet, there
will be an oasis of open space. It's obvious that the development is
for an upscale single-family development, given the fact that the
minimum size home in this PUD will be 3,000 square feet.
The matters have been reviewed by the Planning Commission and the
Environmental Advisory Board, and both have recommended approval
subject to certain conditions which are all included in the PUD
document, with the exception of one: The Planning Commission
recommends that the -- that the provision be made for an east-west
right-of-way reservation along the south side of this property in
order to ensure that this approval is consistent with the traffic ways
element of the Growth Management Plan.
That provision is not reflected in this PUD, and the petitiener's
agent will advise you why they are opposed to that inclusion during
their presentation.
That is the major outstanding issue here. I think otherwise you
all agree, this petition is certainly consistent with the -- the
feelings of the county board and most people in terms of the density
issue.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Great.
Commissioner Constantine?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How many more years will we refer to
County Road 951 by its name that existed for about eight months from
the end of 1992 'til early 1993, Isle of Capri Road? It's not Isle of
Capri Road, and I'm curious as to why that keeps appearing.
MR. NINO: Mr. Commissioner, I have to apologize for that. That's
an error on my part in terms of proofreading. I can assure you that
Isle of Capri is not part of my vocabulary. However, there are other
people that are involved in the preparation of --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I just hope our general --
MR. NINO: -- our petition descriptions. And I can assure you
that those people who do not appear before you and are not sensitive
to that issue, that that Isle of Capri will be stricken from their
vocabulary as well.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you, you're very kind.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The power of government.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: There.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Any other questions for Mr. Nino?
Before Mr. Asher makes his presentation, I do have questions for
Mr. Heatherington from a transportation standpoint. I think Mr. Nino
is absolutely correct, the only issue here -- when you look at the low
density and the location and everything, the only issue is the
potential reservation for right-of-way. Now, you guys know I'm like
mister keep all the roads, build -- build more smaller roads, and
that's my -- that's my thrust.
My question, Ken, is -- is really, the petitioner has made a case
that this roadway will never be needed. I guess my question is, the
boards in the past have made, you know, previous to probably anyone on
here, some really bad decisions between U.S. 41 and Goodlette-Frank
that resulted in losing potential right-of-way. I don't want to have
the label as making that same kind of bad decision between County Barn
and 951, as I explained to Mr. Asher. I need to be assured that this
roadway is not a necessary part of our roadway network, that it is not
required to eliminate deficiencies on parallel segments before I can
even really consider its either removal or reduction in
cross-sections. So I'm going to ask you as our HPO guru, where do we
stand on that?
MR. HEATHERINGTON: Thank you, Commissioners, Mr. Chairman. I'm
not sure I can provide all the assurances. My name is Ken
Heatherington, staff director and HPO coordinator.
All the assurances that this roadway will be complete without
detailed analysis and survey of the potential corridor, there is some
ultimate potential connection between Whitaker and Dean to this
reserved right-of-way, and ultimately to 951.
Given the growth in that part of the county and the proposed
improvements to County Barn Road, it may in fact provide some ultimate
connectivity to residents and persons trying to transfer said area.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Isn't the Santa Barbara connection
that we talked about due to come down and kind of take a little turn
over toward one side and ultimately connect through Rattlesnake into
41 and to 9517
MR. HEATHERINGTON: Yeah, I do have the 20-20 Heades assessment
maps story boards in the back, if you want to look at them. But yes,
that was another proposed link that is also running into some
connectivity issues as we continue to permit through those proposed
right-of-ways.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just seems to me that's one that the
board has reviewed in great detail.
We actually looked at four alternatives from that and I think
we've natrowed it down to one. I don't recall ever looking at any
alternatives for this. And it seems to me if we're going to pursue
some sort of connectivity in that area, it ought to be the ones we've
already spent a great deal of time and money on. And so I hate to --
I understand, and I appreciate your trying to make sure we don't do
anything that the board will regret in 15 years, but considering what
we've laid out in the plan with the connection from Santa Barbara down
and ultimately to 951, I think we've taken care of that particular
traffic circulation concern.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Isn't it -- I'm sorry, if I may.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Even if, though, we have taken care of it,
maybe we could keep that one at four lanes longer if we had another
two lanes available further south. That's -- that's my interest, is
-- as Commissioner Hancock stated, not just more, but nattower, less
pavement, more community feeling roads and less highway feeling roads
and --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Even if we only reserved enough right-of-way
for a two-lane road there, at least --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I couldn't --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- you haven't given it away as an option.
And, you know, nobody's crystal ball is that good, but I just -- I'm
very, very reluctant to --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A sense of irony in that we were
having the conversation on government interfering with private
property rights just an hour ago --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: There you are.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We don't have a particular plan or any
particular usage for this, but we're going to reserve it anyway. And
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I ask a question of the petitioner
about what it -- what would be the impact on your development of
reserving the right-of-way, even if just two lanes -- I assume you
just move everything in, your lakes would be a little smaller?
MR. ASHER: Certainly. First, for the record, my name is John
Asher, I'm an engineer with Coastal Engineering, and we represent the
applicant or the petitioner in this case.
The biggest concern is, as you talked about, these are going to
be very expensive lots and homes. And we -- the developer does not
want to proceed knowing the fact that what your right-of-way today --
you're setting aside in reserving a right-of-way. I mean, there's a
lot of precedent and bad situations right now --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Talking about Livingston and Wyndemere,
aren't we?
MR. ASHER: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah.
MR. ASHER: Knowing that, they've got a good conscience. They
don't want to go ahead and proceed knowing that we're setting aside
this right-a-way or this area today. And their -- they have a strong
feeling, as well as me as their consultant, that it really isn't going
to be needed. And I've gone through kind of a very brief, very
general outline here, not getting into the nuts and bolts to speak,
other than at the very end, we've got some numbers that Mr.
Constantine had asked for. But, you know, the bottom line is that
they put this road in the model and it really didn't generate a whole
lot of trips.
And this is coming from -- I spoke yesterday with Ron Tallone,
who is the planner for -- transportation planner for David Plumber and
Associates. And they put this road segment in to basically -- to look
at the grid system and see if it would help improve circulation. And
the bottom line was, he said that it really -- it didn't take that
many trips away from the other segments.
I think on the second page, I've got some of his quotes here.
There was limited success in relieving volumes on the major roads,
which in this case would be Davis to the north and Rattlesnake to the
south. I just -- there's so many factors from our standpoint where we
don't think it's going to be practical to put a road in there. I
mean, I touch on some of the environmental and the drainage, that --
those areas that are all colored bright green on the top map, those
are platted, dedicated preserves that will remain that way forever.
If that road were to go through there, you're going to be basically
severing them, blocking up drainage and going to have a permitting
nightmare trying to do it.
And, you know, Mr. Heatherington just mentioned about growth in
the area. Well, this is one of the areas in the county where the
densities really aren't achieving what the LDC will allow; that whole
area in there, you know, the Whitaker Road and the Polly Avenue and
the Cope Lane. A lot of those roads are unpaved today. They're shown
on the map because they are -- are dedicated, but a lot of them aren't
paved. There's -- there's not that many residents in there, and
probably won't be.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Mr. Chairman --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That Naples Heritage and all that stuff
going on in there, I think that's about to change.
MR. ASHER: But the density in Naples Heritage is probably less
than two units an acre.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right.
MR. ASHER: They started out at 500 plus acres for 800 units, and
they keep adding acreage to dig lakes to -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Sure.
MR. ASHER: It's reducing the density.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, and the models take all that
into account, too. And we're not -- MR. ASHER: Right.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- just doing it with stagnant
numbers.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: My question is, Mr. Chairman, is what -- if
you were to have this easement through here -- and I'm concerned as
anybody about roads in Collier County, but what does it link up to?
And if I look on my map, it takes us over to Sunset Boulevard.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Or Whitaker, which takes you to County
Barn.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Well, you've got a -- in other words, you
hit a T at any situation. But are there home sites already in that
area? If you come over, John, just to the left of that green area and
down in there, right. Are there already home sites in that area, or
what -- what is the development at this point in time? In other
words, if we were to use this right-of-way, would we be trying to go
after people's property there? Not right now, but sometime in the
future. Would we have to obtain property?
MR. ASHER: Yes, you would. There's scattered housing in there.
Some of them are, you know, larger estate type lots. And there's a
few nice homes. A lot of them are older homes that are built low and
below the flood elevations. But it's -- and there's a lot of vacant
land in there. It's just kind of a mix. It's -- I'd probably
describe it an estates nature maybe five years ago, before, you know,
a lot of those streets started filling up as they have. That would be
my interpretation of the area. But again, many of those roads are
unpaved. So they're -- they know they're in that type of atmosphere.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Heatherington, what practical -- and
practical being the key word -- chances there that this roadway is not
-- will not only be needed but would be buildable without the
condemnation of existing homes?
MR. HEATHERINGTON: I really don't know that, sir, without a
detailed analysis. Looking at it, it may be a connection to Whitaker
into some proposed right-of-way ultimately around Shadowwood. That
was doable. But I don't have the engineering expertise to make the
determination in front of you this moment.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Here's my -- my beef of the week. When these
kind of things come before us, we do have a recommendation from the
staff to secure a 100 foot right-of-way. Somebody ought to be able to
tell me whether that's a practical solution or not, whether there's a
good chance it could occur or not, so that I can make an informed --
hopefully an informed decision that may affect the -- you know, that
will affect the density of that project.
And that's what I'm looking for is that comfort level one way or
another. To save segments of roadways that will never be built
doesn't do me any good. And that's the concern I'm trying to get
over. I don't want to give up potential right-of-way for a needed
roadway. I just don't -- I need an answer. Is it needed?
MR. HEATHERINGTON: Yes, Mr. Chairman, our staff's problem is
really one of -- there is -- there are maps in the growth management
plan that call for us -- that demand that we preserve right-of-way.
Those alignments are conceptual, obviously, as you know. And nine
times out of ten, they tend to follow section lines. However, simply
because there's a black line on the map doesn't necessarily mean that
it's not going to meander to hook up to the existing road system so
that we minimize the necessity to buy developed properties. And I'm
sure in this instance when somebody put a map on a -- on a road that
they were obviously thinking in terms of -- I would hope they were
thinking in terms of Whitaker, and with some connections to getting us
back and forth to the section line where you usually put roads.
And I would remind you of our issue with the Island Walk where
the residents wanted -- really wanted Logan Boulevard to be located
200 feet east of the section line. And -- and you prevailed and said
no, you know, section -- they usually go along section lines. It's
where they've traditionally gone and that's where we're going to put
it.
Now, that was, again, based on the traffic ways map. We have a
reservation -- although most people don't realize that, we have a
reservation through Quail Woods, Quail West, based on the traffic ways
map. Its the North Brook Drive extension that doesn't follow the
conceptual line that's in the traffic ways map, but meanders to take a
-- to take advantage of the -- where we can actually and physically
eventually get that road. And in the Quail West situation, we
reserved 100 foot right-of-way along -- along and immediately
contiguous to 1-75. But all of those were responses to the traffic
ways map. And to ignore the traffic ways map in essence is taking an
action inconsistent with the growth management plan. Commissioner Norris?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Asher, I've got a question for you
here. You don't want to dedicate the 60 foot easement because there
will be a road built there at some point, perhaps.
Okay, let me -- let me just propose this to you: Suppose that we
say, okay, fine, you don't have to give us a road dedication, you're
going to move as shown on your map your property X number of feet --
or your road X number of feet from the property line. Suppose in the
future we want -- we decide we are going to put a road there, we take
it off of the north side of the property to your south, all of it,
your property, your developed property still ends up the same distance
from the road, whether it's coming out of your half of the dedication
or whether it's not. I don't see the difference other than the
60-foot strip that you're not going to be able to use for the moment,
but acts as a very nice buffer for future purposes, assuming, as you
do, that the road is not going to be built.
MR. ASHER: Well, I think it's really from the developer's
standpoint that if he -- if he concedes and says, yeah, let's set it
aside and when we do our work -- going to turn around and do the
construction plans and plat. We're in the process of doing that right
now. And we're going to go ahead and leave that land vacant and
reserved, and the -- he's going to have to tell the homeowners in the
-- or they'll find in the PUD where that's been set aside. And he
doesn't want that on his record. He needs to go through and say that
he's done the best job that he possibly can and trying to acknowledge
that that road isn't going to be there.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: No, I think -- I think I understood John's
point there. Let me just be sure if you do, is that -- and that is
because of the design of your subdivision that the road is external,
not internal, your homes will never be any closer to -- they're going
to be fronting on this road and then they'll be -- your -- your road,
your private road, then a buffer and then, if ever, a public road, or
if you're right and it's never built, a great buffer. Why is that a
negative that he would have to disclose to his potential buyers?
MR. ASHER: It's a negative because he's reserving that land
today for that, knowing that the county is saying it could be there,
they don't really know --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But even if it were there, your homes are
still set back from it.
MR. ASHER: It would be -- we're 100 feet in all areas except the
one area where it dips down. The configuration came from basically
the environmental permitting. We have all our south Florida and Army
Corps of Engineer permits in hand.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Commissioner Hac'Kie, I think if you
asked the people in Wyndemere or in Briarwood, they would tell you why
it's a negative. They would enter into a home and all of the sudden,
golly, they're going to be X number of feet from their home and the
interstate and the noise that goes with that and everything else that
happens.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: The point is they went ahead and bought.
And that's what Mr. Asher is saying they won't do. But in your
instances that you've brought forward, the people did indeed buy.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The -- I don't know how far the
consideration was with Wyndemere at the time, but --
MR. ASHER: Well, the one thing, if I could, I'd like to point
out that Mr. Nino said that it's -- you know, this road shows up in
the growth management plan and the traffic ways map. It did in the
old one. It is not in the one you just approved last week. The only
plan that shows up in there is the financially feasible plan of which
this road segment is not included.
MR. HEATHERINGTON: The transplant update is referred in the
comp. plan amendment that it was approved. The entire document is by
reference.
MR. ASHER: But it's not included in the traffic circulation. Or
it's not called that, it's just a transportation element. Those maps
aren't referenced or -- that road isn't. I couldn't find it.
MR. HEATHERINGTON: It's in the 20-20 and the 20-10 plan, both.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Asher, the problem I have is -- I
completely understand the marketability issue you've brought up. I
mean, to people who are going to buy along that side, the difference
between having residential 100 feet away or having a roadway 30 feet
away or 40 feet away is problematic. I understand that. What I'm not
getting is from our staff a relative degree of comfort that tells me
this roadway simply isn't going to be needed, and without that, I have
to act conservatively to make sure we don't overly burden our road
system.
Now, I don't think this is ever going to be a four-lane facility.
It may be two-lane. And if that's the case, why are we requesting 120
feet of right-of-way? You know, maybe a -- instead of 60 feet on your
side, maybe 50 feet makes more sense.
But, you know, as I told you, I need to be comfortable that the
roadway simply isn't needed, and, you know, one of your -- MR. ASHER: Can I?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You know -- well, I mean, I've read what
you've presented, and Davis Boulevard, from Radio to County Road 951,
under the original service volume of 521,000 in the urban area instead
of 429, you know, shows that the roadways function fine. But we're not
going to be built out then. And all the people who then live in the
-- that doesn't -- that urban population doesn't really count the
people in the estates --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: In the Picayune Estate Forests.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You know, I'm just -- I'm concerned -- I'm
just concerned that we're going to be a little short-sided here, and
it will be a long time before it materializes, whether we're right or
wrong.
MR. ASHER: Right.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: But I can't get comfortable with it.
MR. ASHER: But in speaking with you, you said, you know, show me
the numbers, you know, the trips and how the other major roads being
north and south would be affected. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Uh-huh.
MR. ASHER: And you can easily see that the -- you know, the peak
volumes generated on Cruise are easily absorbed in the other two roads
and not having any impact on them. You know, they put Cruise Road in
the model to see how it would react, and basically it did not load up
with these trips. With the reduced population, you've only got on the
one segment 150 trips. And --
MR. HEATHERINGTON: I might -- I might point out, Mr. Asher, that
it's difficult to micro-analyze based on a by-county model which this
includes. The model is not designed for analysis of individual
arterials or links on this system without some other software involved
in this. Again, looking at the adjustment of speed and capacity
tables on associated links within the area, you -- you can change the
attractiveness of some of the parallel facilities by looking at speeds
that may be in the individual models without bringing some of the
consultants up to really look at them on a link by link basis. And
with speeds and capacities and some of the other variables that are
implied in it, it's hard to use the model for micro-analysis in this
particular case. I'd just like to point out that --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You said you don't have a lot of faith in it.
MR. HEATHERINGTON: I have faith in the model. I don't -- I
wouldn't suggest using the model to analyze individual links as to
whether or not only 4,000 vehicles or 140 vehicles would use it in a
particular case given the changing scenarios, the development patterns
in that area. It is our only potential link to 951 from County Barn
Road in some near future scenario.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I don't happen to
think we should reserve the space, but I also know we need four, and
it appears we don't, and unless there's new information to be offered
at this point, perhaps you would entertain closing the public hearing.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Asher, if there is not support on the
board to go ahead without some reservation of right-of-way, do you --
is there anything you can offer at this time that would allow your
project to move forward and still reserve some right-of-way for a
future roadway there?
MR. ASHER: I guess the one thing we're comfortable with, if it
ever were to come about, is it does match up -- there is 100 feet
dedicated to the bottom of the Naples Heritage. And that's the one
key thing you're talking about Whitaker, and so it would have to swing
up to get that. And then it would probably come across our property
and then swing down. We could obviously reserve the area through the
wetlands up to a certain point in the development and give you the
full width that you're looking for there, but then with the
understanding then that it would swing down away from the residential
area. That makes the alignment easier to tie it in with the existing
100 foot that's already reserved as part of Naples Heritage.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What about 50 foot on his property and 50 on
the property to the south, that's --
MR. NINO: That would be a reasonable solution. Let me advise
you that the property owner to the south was at the planning
commission meeting, and he certainly didn't take very well to the idea
that the entire 100 feet should be on his property. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I bet he didn't, either.
MR. NINO: But there's wiggle room between this property and the
property owner to the south. If you decide to apply 40 feet here and
60 feet to the property owner to the south, then those are -- that's
the way we'll review a petition, when and if it comes in for the
property to the south.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. ASHER: If anything, I would prefer 30 feet, because that's
the way we have all our permits. That's what the setback is at the
very close part where it swings down there. I mean, if we have to
give more, then it's basically a matter of going back to those battle
guys at the Army Corps of Engineers, and the South Florida Water
Management, which in this case was more difficult.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Until -- I guess it's not a bad compromise,
because until I can see that the roadway would have to be four-laned,
30 feet on either side gives us 60 feet, which is a two-laned typical
cross-section.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So if we would reserve 30 feet along the
property boundary, that gives us at least the half we need for a
two-lane roadway. If we have to go four lane we would want to assess
that before any development permits are issued to the south.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That seems to me to be a fairly good
compromise step.
MR. NINO: Would you include in that, Mr. Chairman, that it be
wider to the west so that the geometry would align to whatever the
road is in Naples Heritage?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, as you said, Mr. Asher, 100 feet in the
wetland area doesn't really --
MR. ASHER: That doesn't faze us at all.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: No skin off your nose.
MR. ASHER: Good luck getting the permits.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Let me close the public hearing.
With all that on the record, does someone wish to either crack
the motion for approval or approval stipulations or whatnot? Okay, I'll try one.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Very good.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Norris, I'm sorry, go ahead.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: I was just going to --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Go ahead, please.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I'll make a motion to approve, with the
stipulation that there will be a 30-foot right-of-way easement
dedicated on the south border of the property, and that will increase
to -- is it 60 feet or 50 feet in the wetland area?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: If we're going to split it on the section
line, it would be 50 feet for a total of 100. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Be 50 feet, yes.
MR. ASHER: Is it a dedication or just a reservation?
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Reservation.
MR. ASHER: They're only asking for a reservation.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Reservation.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS:
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE:
COHMISSIONER NORRIS:
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE:
COHMISSIONER NORRIS:
through the wetland area.
Okay, reservation.
Second.
And it will expand to 50 feet -- At the wetlands.
-- after it passes the developed section in
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay, we have a motion and a second.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Any further discussion? Seeing all those in
favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
Mr. Asher, thank you.
MR. ASHER: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: All set? Nobody's happy. Great. Good
decision.
We are to staff communications.
Mr. Weigel?
MR. WEIGEL: Nothing, thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: No, thank you.
Item #15
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE TO DISCUSS ETHICS COHMITTEE ON NOVEMBER 18, 1997
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Board Communication. Commissioner Mac'Kie?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just one question as far as status on
agendas, since we don't have a meeting next week. We talked about
staff ethics, committee ethics, we've gotten responses from Everglades
City about our request for participation in an ethics committee. We
got a response from the school board, although it wasn't yes, we'll
agree to a point two, and I think we ought to consider expending that.
But -- and I know that at city council in Naples tomorrow they're
going to discuss a response to our request, and I wondered if we don't
want to put the formation of that committee on the agenda for our next
meeting, which would be two weeks from today.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: To actually form it, or to -- I
thought we were going to advertise once we got to --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm sorry, to create it so that we can
advertise it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What I was going to do is wait until all those
responses were back and then on the next available agenda include
those as an agenda packet so we can discuss the balance formation of
the committee and how to advertise for it. So --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That should happen at the next meeting, in
any event.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: It should, if you will allow me the discretion
to determine if we have appropriate responses and then do that at the
earliest possible meeting.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's fine. Can I just ask what --
what will change it -- I thought we already had done that and given
you the discretion to pick when that advertising would begin once we
get those. I didn't know we needed to discuss it all over again.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, okay. The schools board's response was
not definitive.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: As far as I'm concerned --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What does that mean? I'm not privy to
what the school board said.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: They wanted more --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: They want more --
COHMISSIONER BERRY: -- people placed on the committee rather
than our allocation of two --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Rather than sending names.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And I think that was a great idea,
frankly, because probably -- what I've heard criticism in the
community is, oh, yeah, but you guys get to staff the committee. You
know, you get to pick a majority. Well, so okay, let every -- the
school board appoint five and we'll appoint five, and, you know, let
it be a bigger committee.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Yeah, let's get 50 people in there and try
to get them all to agree.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Hake it as insufficient as we can.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Let's go ahead and schedule that as an
agenda item for discussion two weeks from today. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let's just do that, because --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thanks for that clarification.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That's a lot easier.
Commissioner Norris?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry?
COHMISSIONER BERRY: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Two items.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: All right. Groan.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE REGARDING GROWTH NLA/~AGEMENT PLAN AMENDMENTS
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One, I'm a little frustrated with the
language of the objective 2.3 last week when we had asked to see
copies of it be transmitted. Several times at the podium, Lee Lane
tried to soften our language. Several times I know Commissioner
Norris and I both said it verbally -- I can't remember if others did
or not -- but that we did not want to soften that language. The
language is about as fluffy as it can get. It says Collier County
recognizes the EP's work plan and time frames as follows --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Did it have that tone of voice in there?
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah --
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Sorry.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- it's been a little marked for
emphasis.
And Policy 2.3.1 says if either of the reappraisal purchases are
not completed by the date specified in the work plan, the
commissioners will consider deletion of this goal and its related
objectives and policies, blah, blah, blah.
Lee specifically asked if that's how we wanted it worded and we
specifically said no. And we can go back and pull those minutes, but
I remember it crystal clear. And so I'm very frustrated. We went
through this a year ago, we transmitted something, and then a week
later or two weeks later said well, can't we -- COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- translate a different page. That's
why I had asked that we see a copy of this before it went. And this is
soft and fluffy and it doesn't achieve, I think, what we set out. And
it's clearly not with what the direction of the board was a week ago.
MR. CAUTERO: Vince Cautero, for the record. Commissioner, my
understanding was that that language was not going out until you've
looked at it. And I would check on that, so I would be happy to --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Great, because I was told we had to
within five days to understand --
MR. CAUTERO: Well, I understand within five days, but my
understanding was that she was going to try to coordinate with you to
determine --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I hope it hasn't gone.
MR. CAUTERO: Well, I hope it hasn't either, because my
understanding was that it wasn't until after she spoke with you. So
this is the first time I'm hearing that there's difficulty with it.
I'd be happy to draft it with you right after the meeting and send it
up if it hasn't been --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Great, let's do that.
MR. CAUTERO: -- sent up.
COHHISSIONER CONSTANTINE REGARDING THE WEB PAGE
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Second item, much nicer item, was
compliments to Bob, or whomever was responsible. Our Web page is up
to date regularly now.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes, it sure is.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I actually referenced the commission
agenda for a couple people via that this weekend.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you.
Miss Filson, can we go?
MS. FILSON: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You're a nice person.
*** Commissioner Norris moved, seconded by Commissioner Mac'Kie,
and carried unanimously, that the following items under the
Consent Agenda be approved and/or adopted: ***
Item #16A1
CONTRACT GW157 WITH THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
(FDEP) TO PARTICIPATE IN A GROUND WATER QUALITY MONITORING EFFORT -
FDEP FUNDING IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $3,000.00
Item #16A2
CONVEYANCE TO THE CITY OF NAPLES WATER UTILITIES FACILITIES INSTALLED
IN UNIT SIX OF GREY OAKS SUBDIVISION, WHICH FACILITIES WERE CONVEYED TO
THE COUNTY BE MISTAKE - SUBJECT TO QUIT-CLAIM DEED AND BILL OF SALE
Item #16A3
RESOLUTION NOS. 97-417 THROUGH 97-429 REGARDING WAIVER OF ROAD IHPACT
FEES, LIBRARY SYSTEM IMPACT FEES, PARKS AND RECREATIONAL FACILITY
IMPACT FEES, EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES IMPACT FEES, WATER SYSTEM
IMPACT FEES, SEWER SYSTEM IMPACT FEES AND EDUCATIONAL FACILITY SYSTEM
IMPACT FEES FOR THIRTEEN (13) SINGLE FAMILY HOUSES TO BE BUILT BY
IHMOKALEE HABITAT FOR HUMANITY, INC., IN NAPLES MANOR LAKES AND TO FUND
SAID WAIVERS FROM AFFORDABLE HOUSING TRUST FUND, FUND 191
Item #16B1
RESOLUTION 97-430/HWS-97-4 RE EFFLUENT SYSTEH FOR THE MARCO WATER AND
SEWER DISTRICT, PHASE II, RESCINDING RESOLUTIONS NEWS 86-3 AND NEWS 86-7,
AND REPEALING THE ASSESSED COST OF THE EFFLUENT IRRIGATION SYSTEM
AGAINST BENEFITED PROPERTIES WITHIN THE MARCO WATER AND SEWER DISTRICT
Item #1682 - This item has been deleted
Item #1683
LEASE AGREEMENT FOR THE IMPROVEMENT, OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE OF
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PARKING ON COUNTY PROPERTY UNDER THE GOODLAND BRIDGE
Item #16B4
AWARD CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT TO GULF STATES, INC. FOR A REDUNDANT
TELEHETRY SYSTEM, AT THE NORTH COUNTY REGIONAL WATER TREATMENT PLANT TO
HATCH EXISTING CAPABILITIES AT THE SOUTH COUNTY REGIONAL WATER
TREATMENT PLANT, BID NO. 97-2734, PROJECT NO. 70124 - IN THE A_MOUNT OF
$297,570.00
Item #1685
FINAL FUNDING, IN THE A_MOUNT OF $46,500.00, FOR CONSTRUCTION OF A
RESIDENTIAL NOISE ABATEMENT WALL SYSTEM AS PART OF VANDERBILT BEACH
ROAD CHANGE ORDER NO. 8 WITH APAC-FLORIDA, INC., CIE PROJECT NO. 023 -
WITH STIPULATIONS
Item #1686
ANNUAL BID 97-2735 FOR ROADWAY PAINT, THERHOPLASTIC MARKINGS AND RAISED
PAVEMENT MARKERS - AWARDED TO VARIOUS FIRMS LISTED IN THE EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Item #1687
ADDITIONAL ENGINEERING AND RELATED SURVEYING WORK NECESSARY TO CONTINUE
THE ENVIRONMENTAL PERMITTING OF THE LELY AREA STORMWATER IMPROVEMENT
PROJECT (PROJECT NO. 31101) - ADDENDUH NO. 3 WITH LAW ENGINEERING AND
ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES, INC., IN THE A_MOUNT OF $95,975.00 WITH
CORRESPONDING INCREASE TO P.O. 100081 AND WORK ORDER NO. WH-98-01 WITH
WILSON, MILLER, BARTON & PEEK, INC., IN THE A_MOUNT OF $37,240.00
Item #16D1 - This item has been deleted
Item #16D2
SATISFACTION OF LIEN DOCUMENTS FILED AGAINST REAL PROPERTY FOR
ABATEMENT OF NUISANCE
Item #16El
ENGINEERING SERVICES FOR THE IHPLEHENTATION PHASE OF THE CLAM BAY
RESTORATION AND MANAGEMENT PLAN AWARDED TO LEWIS ENVIRONMENTAL
SERVICES, INC,; TACKNEY & ASSOCIATES; DR. SAMUEL SNEDEKER; AND
UNIVERSITY OF HIA_MI. INCREASE IN RATES AND WORK AUTHORIZED FOR WILSON,
MILLER, BARTON & PEEK APPROVED
Item #16H1
SHERIFF'S OFFICE AWARD FOR EXPENDITURES AT THE IHMOKALEE JAIL CENTER
RELATED TO THE ACQUISITION OF EQUIPMENT AND APPROVE BUDGET AMENDMENT
Item #16J1
BUDGET AMENDMENTS WHICH INCREASE RESERVES FOR DEBT SERVICE AND GRANT
REVENUES
Item #16J2
AIRPORT AUTHORITY CAPITAL FUND BUDGET AMENDMENTS
There being no further business for the good of the County· the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 2:30 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL
ATTEST:
DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK
TIMOTHY L. HANCOCK, CHAIRMAN
These minutes approved by the Board on
presented or as corrected
· as
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC.
BY DEBRA DELAP AND CHERIE LEONE, RPR