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BCC Minutes 06/16/2011 B (Budget Workshop) MINUTES BCC Workshop Meeting June 16, 2011 June 16,2011 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, June 16, 2011 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board( s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in WORKSHOP SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Fred Coyle Jim Coletta Donna Fiala Georgia Hiller Tom Henning Also Present: Leo Ochs, County Manager Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney Ian Mitchell, BCC Executive Manager Mark Isackson, OMB Page 1 NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING Notice is hereby given that the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County will conduct Budget Workshops on Thursday, June 16,2011 and Friday, June 17,2011 if necessary, at 9:00 a.m. Workshops will be held in the Boardroom, 3rd Floor, W. Harmon Turner Building, Collier County Government Center, 3299 East Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida to hear the following: COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS FY 2012 BUDGET WORKSHOP SCHEDULE Thursday, June 16, 2011 9:00 a.m. : General Overview Courts and Related Agencies (State Attorney and Public Defender) Growth Management Public Services Administrative Services Public Utilities Debt Service Management Offices (pelican Bay) County Attorney BCC (Community Redevelopment Agencies, Airport) 1 :00 p.m.: Constitutional Officers: Elections Clerk of Courts Sheriff Other Constitutional Officers requesting to address the BCC Public Comment Page 1 June 16, 2011 June 16, 2011 MR.OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mike. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you, County Manager. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Board of County Commissioners workshop is now in session. Budget Workshop. Will you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: County Manager? MR.OCHS: Commissioners, good morning. Welcome again. CHAIRMAN COYLE: It's been a long time since we saw you. MR.OCHS: Yes, yes. Commissioners, I'd like to start with just a couple of housekeeping items. You all have, and I believe the audience has, the agenda for today in front of us. If anyone would like to speak on the budget today, Mr. Mitchell will take your speaker slips. Ian, if you would just raise your hand so everybody knows who you are. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, I don't know if you'd like to hold public comment. We have that listed as the end of the agenda. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We'll do it after each category. MR.OCHS: Okay. Because several of the speakers may want to speak on a specific topic. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. Item # 1 GENERAL OVERVIEW - PRESENTED MR.OCHS: Okay. Commissioners, I'd like to begin this morning, if I could, with a brief overview of the budget. Today, as you know, you'll be reviewing what we consider a key component of our integrated agency level planning and performance management cycle, namely your annual county budget. Page 2 June 16,2011 When we met earlier this year in March to discuss your strategic plan and the board made some updates and modifications to that strategic plan, at that time the staff talked to you about a concept that would properly sequence and align our planning processes that follows this basic cycle that would begin with a high-level strategic plan laid out by the board. Staffwould come behind that and align their five-year business program and their annual operating plans in alignment with your strategic goals, and then, of course, we would come back to you with a revenue and expenditure plan that would be a reflection of those operating plans. And then, finally, once those plans were approved, we would execute and monitor our performance on a regular basis and report that back through our reporting mechanisms on a quarterly basis to the board. To remind you, again, this budget and this plan is basically developed and built around the pursuit of the board's established vision and mission and also around the six primary strategic focus areas that you outlined earlier this year in your strategic plan. Those being quality of place, Growth Management, Community Health, Wellness and Human Services, Infrastructure and Capital Asset Management, Economic Development and, of course, Governments. This time line is a visual representation of that sequencing of the key elements of our business planning cycle that I spoke about a few minutes earlier. It starts way back in February when the board provides staff with the budget guidance for the coming fiscal year. After that guidance is received, we also, in the intervening three months between March and June, update your strategic plan, and then the staff begins to align that update with their own five-year business planning and annual work plan operations, and develops performance measures that will tell us how successful we are in carrying out those plans. Page 3 June 16, 2011 And of course, in June, we have our budget workshops with the board that we're having today and tomorrow, and then next month the property appraiser will certify the final taxable values, and the board will meet on the 22nd of July to set the maximum property tax rates for the coming fiscal '12 budget. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Twenty-sixth? MR. OCHS: I'm sorry, 26th of July, yes, ma'am. Thank you. And, of course, TRIM notices will go out to taxpayers in August. You will then, in September, hold two public hearings, first on September the 8th, and the final public hearing to adopt the budget on September 22nd of this year. Once we have an adopted budget then, of course, the staff will execute their work program and performance management systems around that budget. In addition to your budget guidance, Commissioners, this budget is also, of course, a reflection of the very challenging economic conditions that we have all encountered in this community and in this country over the past few years, and I think this chart at a local level is representative of those challenges. You can see that your FY 12 budget represents fifth year of taxable value reductions which began in 2008. If there's any good news on this chart, it tells me that it appears that our taxable value reductions have hopefully bottomed out in 2011, and even though we were in negative territory in fiscal '12, at least we're trending, hopefully, in the right direction. When we talk about reductions in taxable value over the last five years, you can see that since fiscal 2008 through projected fiscal 2012, taxable property values in Collier County have been reduced by almost 30 percent; 29.4 percent representing over $24 billion worth of property values. It's significant. However, despite those deep reductions in revenues and loss of revenues in terms of the county's General Fund budget, this board has Page 4 June 16,2011 continued to reduce expenses over the past few years, therefore being able to hold the line on property taxes while still maintaining essential services for your residents and your visitors. Let's go over a few of the highlights of the proposed fiscal year 2012 budget. Again, the 2012 budget contains no proposed increase in property tax rates for either your countywide General Fund or your Unincorporated Area General Fund. There are no new service charges or user fees proposed, no significant reductions in front-line services proposed, nor do we plan any additional facility closures or reductions in current operating hours. Funded positions in the board agency will be slightly reduced in fiscal '12 by 8.75 FTE from the current fiscal year. And when you look at fiscal '07 through fiscal '12 projected, in the board agency there's a 19.7-percent decrease in FTEs representing 390 fewer positions. And, again, those are FTEs. If that was position count, including your part-time and three-quarter-time positions, you'd probably increase that 390 by another 100 part-time positions. There are no expanded position requests in the fiscal '12 budget in the County Manager's Agency, and we plan to continue the targeted hiring freeze on agency position vacancies. This is a high-level overview of the position count and the changes both in the Board Agency and in the Constitutional Officer Position counts between the current fiscal year and proposed for fiscal '12. You can see that there's a reduction of8.75 FTE in the board agencies, an increase of 8.5 from your adopted budget in '11, and the constitutional agencies and, essentially, a net zero change in total FTE count county government between FY11 and FY12. F or fiscal '12 we will continue to defer -- we're recommending continued deferral of any base salary adjustments or merit bonuses for the workforce. This will continue the trend that began in fiscal '09 and will represent the third year of freezes on cost-of-living and merit bonuses for county employees. Page 5 June 16,2011 I would remind the board that in addition to that freeze, all employees will effectively see a reduction in their salaries starting July 1st of this year as a result of the legislation passed this past legislative session that will, for the first time, require participants in the Florida Retirement System to contribute at a 3-percent level to their retirement system. Let's talk about your healthcare program for a moment. The board, in its budget guidance in April, directed that we maintain our historical premium cost-share level. Pleased to tell you that your FY12 budget is fully funded at an actual early determined premium level for your healthcare program, and it does meet the target directed by the board of an 80/20 cost share; 80 percent by the board, 20 percent paid by our employees. This is a significant accomplishment, Commissioners. And also, I would consider it a substantial cost-share burden for our employee that they continue to carry. And when you look at some of the -- what I call the comparable local public-sector employers in terms of the healthcare premium contribution and cost share, you can see that employees of the Board and the Clerk and the Elections Supervisor are paying certainly their fair share, if not more than some of the comparable public-sector employers here in Collier County. As a result of that, Commissioners, this budget does contain sufficient funding to provide a nominal pay adjustment in fiscal '12 to each employee that would offset on a dollar- for-dollar basis the incremental increase in their cost share for their health insurance premiums. And our estimate is that that incremental increase on an annual basis will range from 466 to $826 per employee, and that's a range, because your healthcare program has different rates for single and family coverage and also different rates for smoker and nonsmokers, and also there's three different plans that employees participate in. But I did want you to know that if you're so inclined, we do have Page 6 June 16, 2011 money in reserves that would allow you to offset the increase in fiscal '12 to your employees' portion of the health insurance without affecting your millage rate. In addition to that and in recognition of the 3 percent pay cut that employees will face on July 1 st, we're also recommending for your consideration a proposal to reinstate our vacation sell-back program. This is a program that's been part of your human resource policy and procedures for 25 years. Unfortunately, the last three years we've had to suspend the program because we haven't been able to provide sufficient funding to offer it to the employees. Again, this year your budget does contain sufficient funding to allow a reinstatement for one year of that vacation sell-back program on a limited basis. We are recommending to open that up to allow people to buy back up to 40 hours of their -- of their accrued vacation. This would be a win-win proposition, I believe, for both the board and the employees. For the employees, obviously, it provides a partial offset to the pay cut resulting from the FRS contribution, and for the board, vacations are long-term liabilities. You're required to pay those vacation balances out when people retire or separate out from employment. So if you can pay down some of that liability at today's rates as opposed to 10 or 15 years from now, it's a good deal for both the board and the employees. So how are we going to pay for some of this? Commissioners, this is a high-level breakdown of the savings that accrued to the board as a result of the reductions in the FRS rates for fiscal '12. Obviously, the upside of the employee contribution to the retirement system is that the rates that the employers paid have been adjusted downward. So the savings to the budget is $5.4 million in fiscal' 12. The increase in health insurance premiums for fiscal '12 affect both the employers and the employees' share. So to cover the board's share -- or the employer's share of that increase in healthcare cost, it's about Page 7 June 16, 2011 2.17 million. Employees' share of that health insurance premium is about 1.2, and then if you were to offer the vacation sell-back on a limited basis, that would cost you about $1.7 million. So you would have a net savings of $324,700 that we would recommend you move to reserves. There's also a new proposal that I'd like to offer for your consideration in fiscal '12. There's been a great deal of discussion about economic diversity and economic incentives over the past several months and, obviously, one of the challenges is finding a reliable recurring revenue stream to help fund some of these incentives that the board may find particular applicants worthy of qualifying for. I would like to suggest that the board give some consideration to a new dedicated funding stream to help supplement the board's current budget for economic incentives. The specific recommendation is you earmark the annual revenues from the casino gaming receipts that are allocated to Collier County from the gaming compact that was entered into last year between the State of Florida and the Seminole Indian tribe. There's a formula that says that the local counties -- the five counties in which these gaming casinos are located throughout the state, get 3 percent of the winnings based on a formula that's calculated once a year by the State Department of Revenue. We will begin receiving our first annual allocation in fiscal '12. We expect to receive that in early April, and our estimates are, based on two months receipts this year, that that would be an annual revenue stream of about $300,000. What I find appealing about this particular revenue stream, Commissioners, is that it's a new revenue stream. It's unrestricted. It doesn't reduce funding for any existing program or service. It's non-ad valorem. It's recurring revenue, so it's not a one-time and done shot. And, in fact, it's generated in part from non-Collier residents. Many tourists and residents from surrounding counties go to the casino, so it Page 8 June 16, 2011 is revenue that would, in essence, come not only from county residents, but generated outside the county as well. Let's talk about your General Fund. The proposed FY12 General Fund Budget is $307,292,200. It represents a 2.6-percent reduction from the FY20 11 General Fund. You can see from the bar chart that a decrease of more than 88 -- excuse me -- more than $88 million in General Fund revenues since fiscal 2007. That's more than a 22-percent drop in revenue in your General Fund. This is a high level proforma that shows the expense category changes and the revenue category changes. I would point out that your property tax ad valorem revenues dropped by $12.5 million in fiscal '12. Total reductions are 8.15 million so, obviously, we have some revenue increases primarily in sales tax and carryforward that will fund your $8.1 million reduction in your General Fund in fiscal '12. General Fund Reserves. The board established in your budget guidance in February that we'd try to achieve a target of 2.5 percent contingency reserves, 2.5 percent of your operating expenses. In the last few years we've been unable to reach that target. In fiscal '12 we have been able to reach that target of 2.5 percent in your contingency reserve. Why reserves are important, Commissioners. First and foremost, it makes the rating agency smile when you have a sufficient reserve, and we have been fortunate in this economic environment, unlike many other local governments around the country, to retain a very solid and high rating by the bond agencies. Our current GO rating is Double A Plus, which is very good. General Fund is obviously an important cash flow engine. Sufficient reserves protect your beginning cash balance. They also provide for unforeseen mandates and emergencies and allow -- provide the funding for the reserves for your Constitutional Officers. Your total outstanding debt through FYI0; these are audited Page 9 June 16,2011 numbers. You can see that your total outstanding debt is beginning to trend downward, and we expect that trend to continue when we get the audited numbers for fiscal '11 and, again, into fiscal '12. So that is . encouragIng news. Your audited debt service is certainly still compliant with your Debt Management Policy and continues to run -- again, audited numbers through FYI 0 -- at about 9.3 percent of total bondable general government revenues, well within your 13 percent cap. This is a broad overview of the primary sources of revenue that fund your General Fund. You see the ad valorem is 65 percent of that. Let's take a look at some of your revenues for General Fund purposes. Ad valorem is down over $12 million in fiscal '12 as a result of the 5.1 percent decrease in taxable values countywide. Your sales tax is projected to be up by about $1.6 million in fiscal '12 over fiscal '11. State revenue sharing estimated to be slightly above for fiscal 2011 activities. The gas taxes are estimated to run essentially flat with the current year. Impact Fees, Commissioners, have begun to stabilize. We project relatively flat revenues to 2011, revenues in impact fees. And despite the leveling off, it's obvious that impact fee revenues dropped 80 percent from the peak in 2007 when they were in excess of a hundred million dollars. Budgeted beginning fund balance. The board and staffhad established a target there of$45 million going into fiscal '12, and we're pleased to say that we've reached that target. Now your Unincorporated Area General Fund highlights. Your proposed FY12 budget, for your unincorporated area has been reduced by 4.2 percent from current levels. Those reductions are primarily as a result of 3-percent reductions in your operating funds, reductions to your reserves, and some drawdown on operating transfers. Again, this is the high-level proforma on your general -- Unincorporated Area General Fund. Page 10 June 16, 2011 And, again, Commissioners, there's -- this budget contains no increase in General Fund and Unincorporated Area General Fund property tax rates. What that means to your constituents and the taxpayers of the county is that they would see an average reduction of 5 percent in the county portion, and I emphasize the county portion of the tax bill, if you are non-homesteaded or you own commercial property . If you're a homesteaded property owner, you're still likely to see an average increase in your county portion of the tax bill of about one-and-a-half percent, and that is the result of the recapture provision in the state statute, something that this board has no control over. And, again, I remind you that would be a reduction in the county portion of your overall county tax bill. And I would remind the board and, of course, the public that the board's portion of that overall tax bill is less than 28 percent on average. These are the other local government agencies that make up the total tax bill in an unincorporated area, residents' property tax bill. Commissioners, there's still a couple areas of concern in this budget, as there were going into the fiscal '11. One of the primary areas of concerns for the staff is the continued deferral of fixed-asset preventative maintenance and equipment replacement. These deferrals began about four years ago. They have been manageable over this period of three or four years. But as you all know, like the old Fram Oil Filter commercial, you pay me now or pay me later. So we have been watching this very closely to make sure that this deferral of routine maintenance doesn't escalate into a position where we get into major replacement or renovation or repair costs, and that will continue to be a concern over time. As part of the effort to address that going forward, the board will be hearing a briefing from staff at your July meeting proposing an integrated asset management solution for the entire agency that would Page 11 June 16, 2011 be based on our SAP enterprise financial platform that would give us, going forward into' 12, an opportunity to develop a complete inventory of our assets, develop a full life-cycle cost analysis, generate a replacement schedule and associated cost, and then, of course, the challenge for us would be to find a way to bring back a funding plan for that ongoing preventative maintenance to the board as part of your fiscal '13 budget. And, finally, the other area of continuing concern, as we mentioned earlier, is base salary adjustments and merit bonuses are deferred again for the third consecutive year, despite some escalation in cost in energy, food, and healthcare that all of us are experiencing. The board has been, I think, very receptive and emphatic to the county employees over the years and the sacrifices they're making, but we want to make sure that when the market does improve, that we have the ability to maintain our best employees going forward. So, Commissioners, that's a general overview of your budget. I'm sorry it took a little longer than I planned, but I'd be happy to entertain any questions, or we could move on into the -- to the agenda, and we could handle questions as we go. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Ochs, you provided, I believe it was, four years of decreasing revenue due to property evaluation -- MR. OCHS : Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- in your first slides, and then carried that forward with other slides, that base estimate. Could you provide me with the same number of years decrease in prior years? Like I believe you started in 2007. So I'm looking for something like 2006, 2005, 2004, maybe. MR.OCHS: Sure, sure. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Just so I can get a comparable of the downturn with the uptick, and the associated slides that you used Page 12 June 16,2011 those figures. MR.OCHS: Will do. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And you're saying that the 3 percent that the employees need to provide to their FRS is a reduction in their pay? MR.OCHS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. MR. OCHS: They haven't been required to contribute to their FRS retirement in the past. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Their savings account? It's their savings, their retirement account? MR.OCHS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Well, I'm in -- personally, I -- the payback, vacation payback program is something that I think that can help in the short term and help us help the taxpayers in the long run. I think it's very good recommendations, personally. As far as the EDC Budget, I would like to -- what is that, in Nick's Budget, the EDC's Budget? I believe that's buried in his section. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. Yes, yes, it is. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Maybe it would be a good time to talk about that then. MR.OCHS: Great, thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. Thank you. Leo, you made reference to the fact that for the past four years we've been putting off maintenance repairs and how, in time, this is all going to catch up with us, and that the longer we forestall making these necessary repairs to our roads, parks, whatever, buildings, that eventually not only will we have to make those repairs, we'll probably Page 13 June 16,2011 have to do major renovations to be able to bring these things back into compliance to what's needed to be. My concern is, is there some sort of scale or chart that gives us an idea how this problem is escalating over the years where we might be able to make a decision, maybe not this budget year, but next budget year, what we have to do to start taking on the responsibility of the maintenance and repairs that we should have been doing on a regular basis, but in order to balance everything out, we haven't been doing? MR.OCHS: Yes, Commissioner. We do have an estimate of that. Unfortunately, it's been done on a division-by-division level. Some are more sophisticated than others, and that's why I suggested to the board that in your July meeting we're going to come and make a presentation on your agenda that would give us an agency wide approach to asset management. That would allow us to precisely define the gap in our maintenance program and our deferred equipment replacement program, so we could put a solid value on that and then identify over time the amount of funding that would be needed to catch up. And I don't want to give this board a false impression. You know, I'm not here telling you that we don't have a preventative maintenance program in place or that we're not properly maintaining our assets. Weare still funded for our road maintenance and our stormwater program at the same level in fiscal '12 that they were funded in fiscal -- or, excuse me, fiscal '11. All I'm suggesting is that some of the deferral in equipment replacement and some of the preventative maintenance has given way to, you know, break/fix type maintenance in certain areas. But certainly in any of the key asset areas our maintenance program is still fully sufficient. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you, sir. MR.OCHS: You're welcome. Page 14 June 16, 2011 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Appreciate that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. The first question I have is with respect to the accrued liability relating to the vacation pay. Why do we not require employees to take their vacation? I mean, that is a very important internal control feature to ensure that, you know, there aren't activities going on that would obviously become evident if there was an interruption. MR. OCHS : We certainly do that, Commissioner. And accrued leave is capped at a certain level to make sure that employees are taking it, and if they don't, when it goes beyond that cap, they just lose that time. COMMISSIONER HILLER: What is the cap? MR. OCHS: The cap is, I think, 440 hours. Yes. I see a bunch of heads going like that. COMMISSIONER HILLER: In -- over what period of time? MR. OCHS: At anyone time. So if you get to that accrual level, you no longer accrue leave. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So you do allow an employee not to take a vacation in an entire year's period? MR.OCHS: We encourage them to take at least two weeks of vacation every year, but we don't -- we don't require it. COMMISSIONER HILLER: You don't require it. And I think that's a problem from an internal control standpoint. The other question I have is with respect to economic development funding. You said that you were going to look to the gaming dollars as a source and that you were going to fund this program this next year with about $300,000. MR.OCHS: No. I suggested that as a supplement to your current funding of your economic incentives. COMMISSIONER HILLER: As a supplement? MR.OCHS: Yes, ma'am. Page 15 June 16, 2011 COMMISSIONER HILLER: And what is the total economic development budget? MR.OCHS: I'm going to turn to Mark. Make sure he gives you the exact number. MR. ISACKSON: I'll give you the property page reference. With regard to the Growth Management Division tab, if you would, under -- just a second -- page 35. Thank you, Leo. Page 35. The total budget proposed for economic development funded out of your General Fund is $790,500. And the notes on the bottom of Page 35 indicate how those dollars are distributed. MR.OCHS: Commissioners, the lion's share of that is the $400,000 allocation to your Economic Development Council PublicIPrivate Partnership with the EDC every year. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I assume that includes the impact fee incentive program? MR. OCHS: Commissioners, what that includes is your Annualized Commitments or Obligations for Economic Incentives that you've granted in the past. So you fund those -- those annual obligations in this budget. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. I'd like to come back and address the impact fee waiver program when we address that portion of the budget because -- MR.OCHS: Certainly. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- I have some questions about that and what the impact of that is on the General Fund. MR.OCHS: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And, in addition, I'd also like to address the impact fee reallocations between impact fee districts and understand the impact of that on the General Fund as well. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm assuming you're going right Page 16 June 16, 2011 into the Courts right after this. MR.OCHS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. We -- I want to talk about some of the MSTU rates. I see Forest Lake is going up almost 300 percent in their rate and spending. MR.OCHS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What is going on there? MR. ISACKSON: Sir, let me give you some background on that. The Forest Lake millage rate set by ordinance, reaffirmed by referendum, is four mills. The first priority within that four-mill cap is to pay debt service. Last year, because of the continuing drop in taxable value, last year their debt-service rate was very high, some 3.7, if I'm not mistaken. In the current year, because their Capital Improvement Program that they issue bonds for, some $6 million, the bids for those capital improvement projects came in significantly under the engineer's estimate of cost. So they have excess bond proceeds right now that they have not spent. Those excess bond proceeds are being deflected back to the debt-service fund, which is where part of the debt -- which is where part of their millage rate goes. By doing that, I'm able to increase their operating levy, lower their debt service levy, which is why you see that large increase in the operating component of their millage rate. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Their operating -- their annual operating expenses are going up; do they have capital improvement going on? MR. ISACKSON: Well, they have $6 million -- they had a $6 million capital-improvement project. We issued bonds for that. The total value of that project, because of the economic environment, obviously when bids came in -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: It went down. Page 1 7 June 16, 2011 MR. ISACKSON: That's right. So, no, the taxpayer within the MS TU is not paying any more or any less because they authorized the levying of up to four mills. At this point, over the course of the last four or five years, they're still paying four mills. It's just a matter of how those -- how that rate is parceled out between debt service and between the operating levy. That's all it is. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh. They have been paying four mills? MR. ISACKSON: Yes, for some time now, sir, that's correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Thank you for the explanation. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. County Manager, I have another question that has to do with forecasts for next year and the potential impact of recent legislation. Are you in a position at the present time to assess the impact of the legislation that is essentially moving non-homesteaded property tax values into the same category as homesteaded tax values with annual caps? That will have the overall effect of slowing the revenue growth to local governments. But to what extent have you been able to evaluate the impact for the following fiscal year? MR. OCHS: That would impact us in -- potentially in fiscal '13, depending on whether the voters approve that. Commissioner, I think the long-term implication of that is that when the economy improves and economic growth begins to tick up in Collier County, as long as it grows incrementally, I don't know that that will create a big hardship for us. If it begins -- if we take off, you know -- and that would be great for the economy. If that creates upward pressure on your expenses because of that particular legislation and the cap on the growth of assessments, it will only allow your budget to increase on a small incremental level going forward. We don't have the -- you know, the exact calculation yet, but Page 18 June 16,2011 that's a good question, and it is one of the things that we're looking at as an impact on your fiscal '13 budget. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Very well. MR. ISACKSON: I will offer this, sir, that about 60 percent of your taxable value is non-homestead. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, yes, but it soon will be apparently. Okay. Let's not keep the courts and related agencies waiting anything longer. Ladies and gentlemen, would you come up to the table, and we'll begin our work. I'd like to thank all of you for being here today. I know you have busy schedules, too. Item #2 COURTS AND RELATED AGENCIES (STATE ATTORNEY AND PUBLIC DEFENDER) - PRESENTED MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good morning. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Mark Middlebrook, Senior Deputy Court Administrator, Chief of Operations for the courts here in Collier. We have Judge Hayes, who is our Administrative Judge; Steve Russell -- well, I'll let the other constitutionals introduce themselves here. MR. RUSSELL: Steve Russell, State Attorney for the 20th Circuit, and my Executive Director, Ray Rhodes. MS. SMITH: Kathy Smith, Public Defender for the 20th Circuit. Nice to be here. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: As far as the courts go, we were able to Page 19 June 16, 2011 meet the reduction request from the county without reducing staff or services. We have initiated a new program this year when-- previously when people were unable to pay their County Probation Fees, which is money that goes to the General Fund, it was referred to a Collection Agency. Now, when appropriate, we take those individuals and we place them with Skip Camp, and they perform work for the county, which is a reduction to the cost to the county for services that they would be paying other individuals, either employees or contractors. We just began the program. We're still in the beta testing. But we have 39 people so far enrolled, and it's been very successful. So that's our newest program that we have begun that directly benefits the county. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Good, Thank You. Any questions from the board? Well, you're going to have to sit here for another 15 or 20 minutes so we can stay on schedule. Well, we really appreciate your efforts to abide within our general budget guidance. We think you do a great job and very much appreciate your help in containing the growth of our budgets and our property taxes. Thank you very much, and good seeing all of you again. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Thank you. JUDGE HAYES: Thank you. MR. SMITH: Thank you. MR. OCHS: Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Item #3 GROWTH MANAGEMENT - PRESENTED MR.OCHS: Commissioners, next on your agenda this morning is your Growth Management Division. Page 20 June 16, 2011 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Jamie. MR. FRENCH: Good morning, sir. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Good morning, Commissioners. Nick Casalanguida for the record, Deputy Administrator, Growth Management Division, along with the directors in our division. Commissioner, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank the County Manager and OMB for all the support and effort they've given us to this budget. Between the Growth Management Division staff and OMB, we've shared our fiscal folks back and forth to prepare this budget. It's been a lot of work. Growth Management Division, we cover almost three-quarters-- two-third, three-quarters of all your AIMS issues in the county. That's quite a bit. We're a very busy organization and quite diversified. It's been about a year and a half -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Nick, could you tell the public what AIMS is. MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's a system where constituents reach out to the Commissioners with concerns that they have regarding any Capital Project, Code Enforcement, Building Department, and the Commissioners reach back to the divisions, and we scramble together to come up with an answer or deal with issue typically within five days, and our division has been successful to reach almost an 80- to 90-percent compliance rate within five days. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: So when we talk about our division, it's quite diversified. We combined about a year and a half ago. And it's been about 18 months of what I would say a real common bond. We've worked together really, really well. The teams have done a great job with the limited resources. Jamie, could I get the next slide. One of the things about our division that's interesting is the Page 21 June 16,2011 funding sources, and I wanted to take a moment to talk about that because I think it's important for the public to understand. A lot of the funding we receive is restricted. When you look at Building and Permitting and Licensing Fees, Land Development Service Fees, Impact Fees, Utility Franchise Fees, Gas Tax, your MSTUs and Grants and Ad Valorem, the only one that's unrestricted is your General Fund or MSTD General Fund. And that's a challenge when you look at a budget that's almost $152 million. People think that it can be used back and forth. We do a good job of balancing that, and that's probably the biggest challenge we face with what we do. Your Capital Budget's about 71 million; MSTUs 18 million, the revenue centric is 23 million, and your general MSTD is 38 million. Some of the budget highlights. Your Operations Transfer is down 4.4 percent. Your net cost to the most direct operating budgets are down 3 percent. There's a little bit of variance. And why is that? One of the reasons is your code enforcement folks are doing a good job with the compliance. The board has made a cognizant decision that they're waiving compliance over revenues from fines and fees. So as many people come forward and come into compliance, you are waiving those fines. N ow Code Enforcement and Revenue, we don't like to put those two together because it gives the appearance to the public that we are a revenue generating department. Weare not. We do not get the revenues, but it shows up in our revenue funds in the budget, so that comes up, and there are questions sometimes regarding that. There's been an increase of transfer into 113. A question came up when Joe was here and it was CDES. Joe was strictly servicing 113 and 131. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Nick, it would be good if you were to describe the accounts, because the public doesn't know what 113 is. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Very good, sir. Your Building Page 22 June 16, 2011 Department and your Zoning and Land Development Services fund. Right now the way we're combined is I spend most of my time in that building but go back and forth with Norman in the other building as well, too. So the question has come up over the past year, how am I funded, how are some people funded in there. So there's been a little bit of an increase of a transfer into the Building Department from the 111 to make up that balance. We also do provide services to code enforcement, which is General Fund from the Building Department, so that makes up that offset a little bit. Now, working with OMB, one thing I will tell you is over the past six to eight weeks, every time Mark Isackson gives me a call I cringe. It's been a relationship; we've worked together extremely well, but you can see we've given back $8 million to the General Fund out of our forecast in 111. It's actually 8.2 million. We understand what that's for, and the County Manager's Agency has explained the fact that as a balance to the community, we have to make sure that we work for the good of everybody. And go to the next slide, Jamie. We've prioritized that money to fund infrastructure and maintenance. And the county manager agency along with OMB has sat down with our capital side of the house and our operating side of the house to make sure that we're still appropriating sufficiently for Bridges, Intersections Safety, Road Refurbishment, and Traffic Signals. So there is a priority there. I would be amiss to tell you that as the county manager pointed out, we are definitely deferring more than we'd like to, but we are getting to our core items in '12. Funding for leverage projects. The questions have come from several folks in terms of capital being up in fiscal impact year '12. One of the things you've approved just in the last board meeting was the Astaldi contract. If that contract was not brought forward, if ther Page 23 June 16, 2011 permitting wasn't ready, you'd see another big jump in capital in'12, because it carries forward. So it's an anomaly that happens year to year based on what projects are let and when they're let. But in that -- in this slide, the most important thing to recognize is we're leveraging our dollars. Every project here is in your approved CIE. Every project in here has significant leverage dollars, whether they're developer contribution agreements, state grants, trip grants, advancement reimbursement payback grants. Over $53 million of this money in your five-year program that shows up in your budget here in '12 is from leverage dollars, and that's important to know so the public doesn't think that these are General Fund dollars supporting this program. Your General Fund transfer to stormwater is up about $815,000. We recognize there are several projects that we need to pay attention to. There's a weir that needs to be replaced. There's the Forest Lakes work that's being done in that tieback that goes into the Lely project that we need to take care of, and also Golden Gate City. We recognize we need to start spending some time as part of the asset-management program looking at the Golden Gate City outfalls and drainage structures. They're made up of steel corrugated pipe, and they're quite old. We're looking at in-sourcing and outsourcing. And everybody says, what is in-sourcing? With in-sourcing what we've done is we've taken our project managers in-house and put them out in the field to do the CEI. When we do non-state-related projects, we can take some of these folks that are working -- that were managing the CEI before for several million dollars and actually put them in the field to do CEI. MR.OCHS: Nick, CEI. CHAIRMAN COYLE: CEI is? MR.OCHS: Use the acronyms for the public. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Construction Engineering Inspection, Page 24 June 16, 2011 . SIr. MR. OCHS: What do they do? MR. CASALANGUIDA: What these folks do is as the contractors are actually building the project, capital project, whether it's a bridge, a road, they certify that quantities are being put down to plans and specs, and they fill those out on a daily basis and authorize the payout. So our construction engineering inspectors are internal, being out there. We can't do that on state project. The state requires to have outside CEIs, so you will have a contract coming forward in the next board meeting to finish out that Collier project. Outsourcing. John Vliet has done an excellent job piggybacking of water-management district contract for herbicide and aquatics. That saved the county approximately almost a half a million dollars. That's part of that big reduction in your General Fund employee count, county manager agency, of seven FTEs. We're optimistic that we can relocate a lot of those employees into unfunded positions, but we do have several that may be displaced due to that contract. Your asset management program. As Leo pointed out, we're spending a lot of time with public utilities. They're going to be taking a lead on setting up the program. Weare providing what we've done in terms of asset management. We are moving to a more coordinated process. We're excited about that. We're -- I wouldn't say we're behind, but there's a lot of work to be done. The last time we've done a deep evaluation was in 2007 when we were on countywide, and looked at our assets, and we're about five years behind right now. Your TD program is facing increased demand and higher costs. You're going to hear a lot about that in the next two weeks. Today notices are going out to the TD service end users identifying that next Friday, June 24th there will be a workshop with the LCB, the Local Coordinating Board. Page 25 June 16,2011 On June 28th we'll come back with those recommendations. There'll be some hard decisions both in fiscal year' 11 and fiscal year '12. Ridership is up past the budgeted amount, and there are some programs in there that are required that we do and some that are discretionary. And so without taking that decision away from the board, we're going to bring you the full presentation. But it's going to be probably hard felt. People will be here on the 28th asking you to keep that program funded in both' 11 and '12. COMMISSIONER FIALA: TD, transportation disadvantaged. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, and paratransit. In planning and regulations, as Leo pointed out, we expect no fee increases in '12 with the enterprise or revenue centric budgets, building, zoning, and right-of-way permitting. We expect to be able to maintain our services keeping our fee structures in place the way they are. I will tell you, spending the last six years prior to coming to this side of the house with planning and regulation, I've gotten to know how we do things in transportation and I've gotten to know how things are done in planning and regulation, and keeping the fees where they are and people have come together actually increased services. That's right, increased services in both' 1 0, '11, and going into' 12 with less money. You recently approved in the last board meeting the Sire active review process. Commissioner Coletta, we took a trip over to Miami over almost a year and a half ago. This has been a long time coming. We're excited about this. Our customers will be able to come forward and submit applications 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and we'll expect to start to make that transition over the next three to six months. Enterprise Fund reserve strengthens. What we're looking at right now is CDES, formerly CDES, the planning and regulations side of Page 26 June 16,2011 the house, did not have a good reserve base. We were down to one month in a lot of the funds. Now we're at three-and-a-halfmonths in fiscal year '11, and we're shooting for, in fiscal '12, to be at six months, and that's where we should be. One of the things we're still doing is we are deferring replacements. We have budgeted three vehicles in fiscal year' 12, but that's going to be an issue going forward. What the challenge will be as we deal with CBIA and the Development Services Advisory Committee, they will see that we're at six months' worth of reserves and expect us to cut our fees. And I'll have to remind them that we still have a long ways to go in terms of deferred things we need to take care of improving our services. Strategies for addressing development in '12. We have definitely seen an increase in single-family homes, a decrease in commercial, but our business and our lobby is definitely up in '11, and we expect it to be up in '12. As the county manager pointed out, we expect not to be asking the board for FTEs. We're going to look at outsourcing over time and job banking. We'll have an outsourcing contract coming forward in the next couple months for the board to approve. That way we can react quickly if there's an increase. I don't expect dramatic growth that we saw in 2004/2005, but I will tell you there's definitely a lot more going on. With that, Commissioners, I will tell you, your GovMax books are not exactly the easiest things to go through and read, because everything gets rolled up. But here myself and department directors will answer questions as we go forward for the division. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Just one thing that might make the discussion or the questioning process a little easier. Would you take a minute to go back to that first slide that showed restricted and unrestricted funding and explain what that really means so everyone understands it. Page 27 June 16, 2011 MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. When you go down the list, building permit and license fees and land development service fees, those are enterprise funds. That's that planning and regulations side of the house. So as we collect fees to do inspections and reviews, those funds are kept in a segregated account that cannot be used in any other . servIce. So if someone says, well, building fees are up and your reserves are going up, can't you buy some equipment for code enforcement? No, I can't do that. I have to restrict those funds. When you looked at impact fees as well, the productivity committee suggested that we look at impact fees for maintenance. Explained to them that that's not possible, they're restricted only for capacity and replacement. So it's important when you look through our budget and start to ask questions is ask, in a sense, where is the money coming from, because that might give you a better answer of what we can and can't do with that money. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And what that really -- the effect that really has -- and it is true of all of Collier County Government, that there are so many restricted accounts. And we can have substantial surpluses in one account and deficits in another, and we can't cross-level those. MR. CASALANGUIDA: That correct, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You know, it's just crazy. But that's -- I wanted to make sure that everyone understood that. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: On Page 15, planning and regulatory administration, you're showing a net reduction of $6 million. Page 15. MR. ISACKSON: Commissioner, that's -- if I may just jump in here first off, that what you see on Page 15 is essentially, on a revenue side, a depository of all 113 or most of 113 revenue, which is your Page 28 June 16, 2011 building permit fund. That's just where we locate and how we present the revenues that are being received through building permits. If you go through the myriad of pages that related to 113, you won't see -- generally won't see any other revenue sources tied to that. So that's why you see that large -- that large variance. And now, Nick or Jamie, if you wanted to add to that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I don't recall seeing that last year. Is this a -- is this a new way we're doing it? MR. ISACKSON: Sir, I don't believe it's new. I think it's the same -- same presentation. MR. FRENCH: Commissioner, essentially under this cost center all of your revenues are rolled up for that entire fund into this cost center. So everything comes in through -- is recognized in administration, and then it's brought out through the rest of the cost centers underneath of the fund. You don't -- you won't see that type of revenue or those revenue lines in the other cost centers. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is this what we're doing with all the administrations, how we're presenting it, the revenue coming in and -- MR. ISACKSON: I think, sir, with your revenue centric funds, like Building Permit Fund 113 is a revenue centric fund. You'll see that primarily revenues that are better generated -- for example, 131 is also in growth management. You'll have probably the same type of presentation. But that will be -- might be spread over planning and engineering administration, things of that nature. But the notes, I think, should be pretty clear on how that's treated. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Nick, Page 26 is the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council. And you did a great job explaining how that's broken down dollar wise. My understanding, they are really gearing back. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, some of Page 29 June 16,2011 their employees have applied for jobs with us. They've laid-off a good amount of people. We may be reevaluating that once that's finalized through the Regional Planning Council. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I think that we really need to question that. You know, if their expenses are down, why are we paying -- actually, it's all over the board from previous years. I think it needs to really be analyzed to make sure that they're not banking monIes. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Commissioner, I have a note in my budget book to that effect, because I noticed the same as you did when we received the notice that the governor's office did not fund the Regional Planning Councils. We questioned that as well, too, so we will be looking into that going forward, and we will get back to you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Page 44, Code Enforcement. I hope we're not getting a perception that we're doing quotas per investigator. I got 40 cases per investigator. That's just reporting of their activities? MS. FLAGG: Correct. That's just reporting workload. Diane Flagg, for the record. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And you've got program funding sources, permitting -- licensing and permitting, $2,000. I don't understand what that revenue is for. MS. FLAGG: The $2,000 under licensing and permitting is when the community member chooses to use an investigator for a property inspection before they purchase it. We continue to encourage them to use a private-enterprise company, but there are times where they want a code investigator to do the inspection. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay, thank you. Jamie, I think this is -- this is yours. And maybe, you know, just explain about the revenues and the cost center. On Page 47 it shows a revenue of$5.5 million and negative costs of 5.2. Page 30 June 16,2011 MR. FRENCH: Yes, sir. And we work very closely with the Department of Revenue, Ken Kavensky and myself. This is tied to your address site-a-scene report that we update through our GIS unit, and that's primarily why that unit exists within our business because of -- all the addresses, of course, get assigned by our group. But essentially what this is, sir, is that this is your Communication Service Tax. That is state mandated. That is a-- basically, anybody who turns on their cell phone and uses it, there's a tower that that's hitting somewhere in unincorporated Collier County or in the City of Naples. Now, the cities also take in their fair portion of this, and the Department of Revenue works closely with our office to determine what those gross revenues were that were generated in Collier County, whether it be cable television, whether it be regular hard-line telephones. Essentially what happens is that the Department of Revenue then reports back to us. We do a comparison against our known number of addresses in Collier County, and that is actually one of the largest impacts to the General Fund that is not ad valorem based. So whether you're a resident, a business member, or a tourist just driving through town, if you're using one of these towers, you're actually getting charged from -- through the State of Florida on the communications service tax. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that goes back into 111. MR. FRENCH: Directly back into the General Fund. And what we do is we take a very small portion of that to cover just our admin costs for working with the state, and that's just basically what -- you notice last year, if you remember, we were involved in an audit that brought back in several million dollars back to Collier County where they'd actually shorted us. They'd overpaid some areas like the City of Marco Island, but in return Collier got shorted a couple million dollars, which we were able to negotiate those -- the terms as far as how we got that money back, and I think they've paid us all but about Page 31 June 16, 2011 200,000. MR. KOVENSKY: Actually, this went back about three years ago. We were the recipients of an audit, $3.4 million. And at the time, because it was a net sum zero from the Department of Revenue's perspective, because it was coming out of other counties' funds, they were able to pay us, I believe it was, $1.7 million at the time, and then they spread the remainder over a 36 months' period. So we're still getting monthly revenue back from that initial audit. The audits also are done every year, and every single year we've been on the positive side. Sometimes it's only $20,000. This past year was $175,000. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And these funds go in 001. MR. KOVENSKY: 111. MR.OCHS: 111. COMMISSIONER HENNING: 111, okay. I just heard General Fund -- are you going to cover your capital costs, capital expenditures? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. We're ready to talk about that, sir, if you'd like. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Okay. We'll talk about new capital, Page 6, on the capital side of the house. We can walk through and talk about what's changed in '12 and go down each one. Let me give you a second to get there, Commissioners. All set? Okay. We have $50,000 in advanced right-of-way. One of your GMP requirements is to have that. And if you notice, in '11 there was $4 million in there. We've pretty much knocked that down to a pittance. And those are opportunity buys. Typically if someone comes forward and does a development at an intersection, we're about to widen an intersection in a couple years but it's not a program, we usually negotiate that purchase at that time. If we have one of those opportunity buys similar to what we had Page 32 June 16,2011 in Heritage Bay a couple years ago, we would come to the board and do a budget amendment, because it can save us millions of dollars in the future not having to relocate a commercial building at a major intersecti on. You have $250,000 towards asset management. That's one of the things we talked about right now where we're trying to focus on developing an asset-management program. It has not been funded, as you can see prior, and we're getting back to that in preparation of our coordination with public utilities. You have bike pathways, $465,000. See the big difference between '11. We have a lot of local agency LAP plan program projects in Immokalee and other parts of the county where we do the design. Most of those dollars go to fund that design to leverage the state dollars for construction. Farther down, bridges, instructions (sic), and repairs. That's a critical one. We'll be coming to the board the next month or two for a bridge that's on Golden Gate Boulevard that's in -- not in good shape. Jay's got some pictures. I won't put those up. But you need to take a look at them. We've had six foot sections of concrete actually fall off the bridge. So OMB and the county manager have sat down with us and looked at our five year program, and they're definitely making sure that we're funded in that department. $6.4 million towards CR951, Golden Gate to Green. That's an $8.1 million leverage project in '14. That money there is part of the advanced construction. It's a multi-year construction project, so you start advancing in years '12 and '13 to get ready for '14. Your enhanced planning consultant services, $200,000. Every time we have an AIMS issue come, up or a new project come up, a new intersection improvement, we do traffic studies on the spot. DR! coming forward, we have two of them. Sometimes we do additional analysis to make sure the county's protected in terms of what's been Page 33 June 16,2011 promised by a developer versus what's required. Your Intersection Safety Program, 2.4 million. When you look at some of the capacity and safety improvements, we get quite a lot of calls. Jay's group looks at accident reports, data compilation of those reports and what needs to be prioritized. You know, also on Airport Road right now, as you travel north and south, you lose a lane at Davis Boulevard. You have to merge to the left. We're looking at recapturing that through lane, and that's quite a big asset we have that gets diminished because of that turn-lane takeaway. Your Marco Island project has committed funding into '17, an agreement that goes back beyond me. Required for a million dollars to Marco. Your Oil Well RoadlImmokalee Road to Everglades. That's your existing project right now. This covers CEI, some right-of-way expenditures in '12. The rest of the transfers are between the impact fees funds, and they just move around and change from year to year. And I won't tell you I understand how those transfers happen and why, but they are those restricted funds and they rebalance those accounts every year. On your next page you have both 500,000 and $3.6 million respectively. That goes into the road refurbishing we talked about. Our backlog right now is about 25 million, so we're dealing with what we call "poor" on our scale of what's required. We're at the point now where dollars spent now avoids $4 later, as we talked about. We'll be coming back in July for the county manager and public utilities to go in more detail, as Commissioner Coletta asked, demonstrating were those issues are, but that's being funded. You've got a federal mandate under sign reflectivity for $150,000. Our signs have to be modified through 2012 through 2018. It's a multi-year project where we're actually replacing signs and signs that don't meet MUTCB guidelines or safety requirements fore Page 34 June 16, 2011 reflectivity . Your transit enhancement planning fund, that's dollars going back in -- I'm sorry. Traffic signals, 1.3 million. We're hardening our signals in the urban area where -- the ones where we still have string poles. We're going to mast arms, and that's part of your operating maintenance budget that's in capital for signals. One of the things Productivity mentioned is that as part of our capital program, we have ONM in there as well. And as we talked about, we're going to get away from that over the next couple years once we have an integrated ONM system. But right now part of your capital has operation and maintenance as well. Your U.S. 41/State Road 951 consortium, 7.2 million. As we noticed on the leverage slide -- it's not up there now -- but there's close to $18 million of leverage money. So while it's showing as a new capital program, that money comes in DCA's SIGP grants going forward into '12. And then you have your reserves into 313, which covers the operating funds in the capital portion of the house. I think that covers the new capital in '12, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The -- you have one Tree Farm Wood Crest. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. That was a letter of credit. I'm sorry I didn't cover that. We called the letter of credit with the developer. He defaulted on a DCA. That right now is sitting in that fund. The county's expended about $1.2 million in right-of-way and design. And the owners have asked us for that money back. We'll be coming to the board probably the next 12 months with some sort of agreement. But those are segregated impact fee funds that are sitting in that account until we can resolve that lawsuit. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. So it's no construction. It's just engineering and right-of-way? MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's actually -- it's nothing right now Page 35 June 16, 2011 other than a placeholder, because they are impact fees funds that I can't spend in another district that were done by DCA with Summit Lakes. And when we called the letter of credit, we needed to park that in an account that we could define so people knew what it was. It wouldn't get swept into another capital project. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, wouldn't their PUD just go away, I mean, if we're going to do that? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Their PUD was tied to that DCA, and that's one of the things the developer was asked, to renegotiate that DCA and come in with a PUD amendment at the same time. So right now they have an impact fee credit of $2.5 million on that property, and we have $2.5 million that we can't spend right now. So we're going to have to come back to the board with a settlement on that 2.5 million. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's going to be a tough one. I think that we need to talk about the EDC budget at some time. But anyways, I wanted to defer some questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think that will be talked about separately, so we'll have a chance to focus on that alone, I hope. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Your pleasure, Commissioners. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I'd like a better understanding -- and this may tie into the EDC budget, although it -- I also think it stands alone with respect to what we're discussing now. Can you help me out with the impact fees? How have you in this budget accounted for impact fee deferrals, and how have you explained what is being proposed as a waiver and what is the legitimate basis for awarding impact fee waivers? I'm not -- maybe you can help me out on that. MR. KLA TZKOW: You've got a couple of questions here. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. So let's start with, just tell me how -- where is this all considered in your analysis? Page 36 June 16,2011 MR. CASALANGUIDA: When you have a -- sure. When you have an impact fee deferral or repayment, it comes out of the General Fund. It's usually budgeted. At one point in time, we had one for Arthrex a couple years ago for a million dollars. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That was a deferral? MR. CASALANGUIDA: That was a deferral. But it's paid for out of the General Fund. In other words, the impact fee is made whole with the General Fund contribution. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And then when the impact fee is subsequently collected from the developer, the General Fund is repaid? MR. KLATZKOW: Well, no, no. You have a couple of programs. You have an -- and Amy Patterson might be able to help you. She's really -- she does this every day. MR. CASALANGUIDA: She should be answering these questions. MR. KLATZKOW: But you have a deferral program for Affordable Housing, and then you have waiver programs for Economic Development, and there are two separate concepts. The deferral program, at the end of the day, we will get paid back. It's just deferred over time. With the waivers, we make that up through the General Fund. It's no different than a grant. So whether you give somebody an impact waiver of a million dollars or you give them a grant for a million dollars, at the end of the day, you get the same result. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, I understand the end result is the same in terms of the bottom line, but legally my understanding is we cannot waive impact fees. Now, you can give a grant. MR. KLATZKOW: We're not waiving impact fees. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. So there is no nexus between the grant and the impact fees? Because I can understand -- I mean, you do have the ability to give a grant, but where do you have Page 37 June 16, 2011 ability to waive the impact fees? MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's not waived, ma'am. What it is, is you are -- the General Fund is making the impact fee fund whole. So if someone comes forward and says -- through the impact fee program, you're taking actual General Fund money and putting what those impact fees that development would pay in our impact fee account. So the impact fee fund is whole. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So now general tax dollars are being used to cover the impact fee revenue that we would otherwise receive from the developer? MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's my understanding, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Is that what -- MR. KLATZKOW: You said "otherwise receive." You may not get -- but for the impact fee program, you may not get that development. COMMISSIONER HILLER: But we have the impact fee program. MR. KLA TZKOW: You have a developer that says, I can go several places. Some places don't charge impact fees. We charge very high impact fees. And one of the incentives we have is to say, okay, to make this more of a level playing field, if you go to this county, you don't pay impact fees. What we'll do is we'll waive our impact fees here. It's the -- we then make that up through the General Funds in the form of a grant, but that's really the concept here. We're putting ourselves on an equal playing field with other counties. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. Because it was my understanding you couldn't legally waive impact fees. So where are you accounting for projected impact fee waivers, slash, grant refunds or General Fund refunds to cover those impact fees in these budgets? MR. CASALANGUIDA: As Mark pointed out, there's some new money that they've set aside or want to set aside, and Leo pointed Page 38 June 16, 2011 out as well. MR. OCHS: Commissioner, Page 35 in your Growth Management Division budget. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Page 35. Right. And I looked at Page 35, but I didn't see anything related to these impact fees. MR.OCHS: Commissioners -- Commissioner, the expense and revenues on Page 35 are -- again, are your fiscal '12 obligations for previously approved Economic Incentive Grant Awards -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right. MR. OCHS: -- That this board has provided, and those are all provided to the applicants based on an understanding that they're subject to annual funding availability. So the board has this budget in place in fiscal '12 funded with General Fund dollars to pay for the incentive obligations that you've incurred for fiscal year '12. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I understand that, and I appreciate that, but this doesn't answer my question, because my question is specific to these impact fees that you describe could be waived. So where is the budget that shows me that the General Fund is going to reimburse for that impact fee, quote, waiver? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Existing or planned, ma'am? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, in 2012. MR. CASALANGUIDA: And what's happened in the past is we come to the board with a budget amendment and identify those funds. If a project was to come forward tomorrow, whether it was Haynes Corporation or -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: So you don't have it budgeted? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, ma'am, not -- right now the board has not budgeted additional dollars in '12 for impact fee waivers or grants. That would come on a case-by-case basis and have to come out of someplace else. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So in each future year you will Page 39 June 16, 2011 evaluate whether or not you have the funding. But -- so as of this time you don't have anything budgeted for anything like that? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Not that I'm aware of, ma'am. And other -- MR. KLATZKOW: You do not have a separate account for economic development that you can tap into, I mean, to answer your question. What you do is on a case-by-case basis you decide to do budget amendments and take out of other accounts. And sometimes, quite frankly, we may not have the money for that. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. So then, I guess, going back to these impact fees, I understand that there are different impact fee districts. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can you explain to me how these impact fees that are earned -- and maybe this isn't happening so you can, you know, clarify my knowledge based on that as well. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. COMMISSIONER HILLER: How do you take impact fees -- well, let me rephrase that. Aren't impact fees for each district limited to be used in that district? MR. CASALANGUIDA: And the adjacent district as well, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: How does that come about? Where does the "and adjacent district" -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's in your impact fee ordinance that defines that you can collect money in one district and use it within the adjacent district. The nexus is that those geographic boundaries, people travel beyond those boundaries at least into the other district and benefit from that. When we did our original impact fee ordinance, that was the discussion with our impact fee consultant, so -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: So if we have a district surrounded Page 40 June 16,2011 by three districts, we can pull all the impact fees from those three districts and shift it to the fourth district just because they're adjacent? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, ma'am. And we've done that -- if you'll look at our capital program over the last ten years -- and I've been here for seven -- we had at one point in time 11 active projects. So you were taking money from, say, Golden Gate Estates and you were funding Livingston Road. And you say Estates residents may not benefit directly from Livingston Road, occasionally from time to time. The same would happen, as Golden Gate Boulevard came online, you would take money from that area of Livingston and fund Golden Gate Boulevard. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So are you allocating a portion of the funds as it relates to the impact in the adjacent district? Because that would make sense based on what you're saying, or are you literally just taking all of the money and shifting it into that adjacent district? MR. KLATZKOW: The impact fee districts, is a limitation on what this board can do. COMMISSIONER HILLER: It's a what? MR. KLATZKOW: It's a limitation on what you can do, not an authorization. The idea is you don't want to take money that's been earned around Immokalee and spend it down in Marco because that development down there, there's no nexus. And what they did was they did the studies and they figured, okay, where can the board spend the money that is coming out of -- and then we divided the county into different impact fee districts saying, okay, when you get the money out of here, you can lawfully spend it here. But, to go any further than that is too attenuated, it's a limitation, not an authorization. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I understand exactly what you're saying. You're establishing the nexus. But the nexus, I would also expect, would be based on the impact; in other words, how much Page 41 June 16, 2011 -- or you can -- so you can basically randomly take all the impact fees from an adjacent area and allocate it to a single project in an adjacent area? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, ma'am. And it's not-- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Notwithstanding the fact that there's only a nominal impact-- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, ma'am. And what we do is-- COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- by that project on the other infrastructure? MR. CASALANGUIDA: The answer's yes. And what we do every year through our CIE process and the AUIR, we identify to this board what's a priority, and that's been a discussion in the past is, you know, why are we spending this -- you know, this money right now from this district on this project, but yet as a board we look at that road facility wherever it is and we only use the adjacent districts. But if that road facility is failing or expected to fail, that becomes a priority for the community. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So I guess my concern is is if I'm taking impact fees from District A and giving it to District B, and lets say I'm doing that 100 percent, obviously the developer who is paying that impact fee in District A is paying it because his proposed development is going to have an impact on the infrastructure that surrounds his project while I understand there's a tangential impact in the related area. So my concern is now we've got all these infrastructure impacts created by this development and we're shifting the impact fees to the other district, the General Fund has to somehow make up the demands for -- on the infrastructure as it relates to the proposed development. MR. CASALANGUIDA: There's no more General Fund going into these capital projects, as I understand it. What I'll tell you is this. I'll use 951 as an example, Collier Boulevard. When the developer -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah, but what about -- not new Page 42 June 16, 2011 projects necessarily, but maybe existing projects that have to be funded. You know, historical projects where impact fees were paid, diverted to other districts. Now I've got -- MR. KLATZKOW: They're not being diverted. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- districts over there that's lacking funds. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Let me give you an example that might help a little bit. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Let me just interject something. This is discussion that goes to the ordinance, and I think that if there is any concern about the ordinance, we ought to have a hearing on the ordinance. But the budgeting has been accomplished in accordance with the ordinance. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Is that true? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Then it's not a budget question. But it is -- if you're concerned about it the important place to talk about it is in a discussion about the ordinance that authorizes it. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Not really, because I've got -- I'm looking at the budgets here for those districts. Can you at least explain to me how it works? Because I don't really understand it, can you go to the various -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: I can defer a little bit to OMB, because I'll tell you when they do the transfers from the fund, they rebalance the fund based on demands, but they don't allow -- there's a pretty tight control between our fiscal folks and Susan and Mark that, when we do a capital project, they're broken down in SAP by impact fee districts. So we know -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: How many impact fee districts are there? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Five impact -- six -- well, five really Page 43 June 16,2011 that generate revenues, but six districts. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. I just could not understand, looking at these budgets, you know, how -- where the funds were coming from and going to, and that's really what my question is. MR. CASALANGUIDA: We can give you a more detailed breakdown. Like I said, GovMax does not do a good job. But every one of our capital projects has an SAP breakdown of which district it's funded by and how much money. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So what I would like to see then is, you know, every instance within this budget that you're proposing here where impact fees from one district are being actually shifted to an adjacent district. MR. CASALANGUIDA: How about if we give you a breakdown of our capital program with the capital projects and we show you where they're getting money from, from which district. We can give you a breakdown of that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I would like that. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That would work. Yeah, that would be fine. That would work also. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Very good. COMMISSIONER HILLER: The other question that I have relates to your fast tracking program, or I know we have a fast tracking program. One of the concerns I have is is it's limited to certain businesses based on criteria to incentivize those businesses, but there are a lot of businesses out there that want to come out of the ground and are willing to pay a premium fee in order to be fast tracked. And I don't want to see other permittees disadvantaged from a timing perspective, because I know you have limited staff. And I know you haven't contemplated this in your budget because I reviewed your budget. But what I would like to find out from you is if there's any way you could share with me what the cost would be to add staff, and Page 44 June 16,2011 however you would want to do it; you know, it may be contracting people on an as-need basis, or whatever means you would, you know, see fit, to provide fast tracking for any business that wants to pay a supplemental fee to be able to expedite whatever they want to do, be it, you know, refurbish existing space, build a new restaurant. MR. CASALANGUIDA: We talked about it a little internally. Right now we're the only county that offers a money-back guarantee on our permit reviews, which I think is amazing. I've got to give a lot of credit to our Building Department. They've managed to meet those time lines and not given back any money. Tell me I'm right, Jamie. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Which is really great. MR. FRENCH: I haven't returned any money, nor will I-- MR. CASALANGUIDA: On the fast track -- MR. FRENCH: -- nor will I give anyone a reason to ask for the money. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's even a better answer. MR. CASALANGUIDA: What we've talked about in '12 is if someone wanted to pay a premium service without adding staff -- and this is at the early stages of discussion -- is we have employees that, right now, I will tell you, are working over time, and I don't want to get into a lot of discussion on that, but they are putting in extra. And if they wanted to put in extra and get paid for it and still do their regular jobs during the 40 hours a week but wanted to add a fast track service and they want to put in some extra hours, there may be a premium service we could look at that. But we are really in the early stages of only discussing those options. But I certainly can bring this board back some options if that's -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: But I think it's worthy of consideration in light of many people in the community expressing an interest and a willingness to pay a premium, and so I don't think we should do anything to hinder their ability to move forward and, you Page 45 June 16, 2011 know, expedite a permit through the summer so they're ready for season, for a rehab or whatever the case may be. Let me just check. And the one other question I have -- and this relates, actually, to a discussion we had yesterday -- is the question of peer reviews for, you know, capital projects or even ongoing projects. I don't know if you have factored anything like that into your budget and if that is something you could, you know, possibly consider and what the cost would be, because we might actually achieve very significant savings for a very small investment in peer reviews and, you know, any savings is certainly worth pursuing. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Jay and I discussed that. I don't know if Jay wants to add a little bit of what we do. We do value engineering. It's almost like a peer review. Some of it's required under structural components of some projects. I don't know if, Jay, you want to add a little bit to that. MR. AHMAD: Yes. Good morning, Commissioners. Jay Ahmad, for the record. We do peer review periodically on projects. The best peer review, I believe, is your staff. We have engineering staff that are all registered professional engineers, and we have landscape architects. We have qualified staff to do your review for you, but we supplement that. On bridge projects, for example, we get into structural analysis. We hire a consultant to review that stuff. We also hire consultant engineering inspection for CEI projects to review constructability. For example, we've done that on Davis/Collier. We've done it on Oil Well Road. We have done value engineering through peer review for Oil Well Road, for example. They come up with recommendations on cost, and we've implemented some of those. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And when you do -- just one last question. When you do that value engineering, you adjust the contract Page 46 June 16,2011 cost or the contract price paid downwards by the value engineering results, or do -- what do you do with that? MR. AHMAD: Value engineering is essentially a committee of professionals that look at the project at a certain stage, usually about 60 percent or so, and they come up with recommendations. Those recommendations, we implement some of them, and some of them will be determined by staff that they're not feasible. I'll give you an example. They -- on Oil Well, they said bring the profile down. You know, we're going about six, seven feet high on some of those. And, yes, it will have some cost savings, but the permit required us to be at that elevation, for example. So a value engineering board or a committee all look at it in a cursory review. In about a week they come up with these recommendations based on their knowledge. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And when you identify, you know, value engineering, you go ahead and you reduce the contractor's award by the savings that would be achieved by the modified approach? MR. AHMAD: Correct. We implement -- if -- and the majority of the recommendations got implemented, we change the design in some cases to reflect those recommendations, and it reflects a lower cost, of course, for the proj ect. MR. CASALANGUIDA: We also have the opportunity, if a contractor comes forward after we've let ajob and he knocks on Jay's door and says, I've got a better mouse trap, we share in that savings. I don't know if you want to talk about that a little bit. MR. AHMAD: Yes. Part of our specifications is if a contractor has a better way of doing it, we split the cost of the savings that would come back to us during even construction. So, for example, on Collier South project, Better Roads had said, we produce asphalt in this county, but your specifications require certain aggregates from Miami. Can we use our aggregates? And, of Page 47 June 16, 2011 course, we use the specification from the state specifications. So we evaluated, we had professional engineers look at it, outside consultants as well, and they came up with that recommendation. We shared the cost of about a half million dollars during construction on that project. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We're going to take a ten-minute break. We'll be back here at 10:42. (A brief recess was had.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: We have quorum. MR. OCHS: You have a live mike. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We're back in session now. Thank you very much. And Commissioner Coletta has a question. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'll ask it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER HENNING: There's no money for Oil Well Road, right? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sir, I don't know how to answer that question in terms of when you say "no money for Oil Well Road." In what way? COMMISSIONER HENNING: To further build it from Everglades Boulevard to -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: The middle section? COMMISSIONER HENNING: The middle section. MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, sir. Right now that's not funded. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I didn't think so. MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER HENNING: How about limerock roads? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Will there ever be any money for Page 48 June 16, 2011 limerock roads? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I don't want to answer that question, . SIr. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. I just want to make a comment. I had the opportunity to tour Permitting and Building and Code Enforcement, and I was very impressed with what I saw. I met all the employees. I saw how it all works from the application of a permit, you know, through mapping, through code enforcement, and I think you guys are doing a fabulous job. And it's also really refreshing to see how you changed the color of the foyer, that it's a really very attractive bright yellow, so it's inviting to the public. But it's very clearly a streamlined, professionally run operation, so keep it up. Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And it gets universally high marks from the public. I haven't heard any complaints since you guys consolidated and started down this path. You've done a great job, and I'm trying to kill time until Commissioner Coletta gets here so he can answer -- ask his question. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Maybe, Commissioners -- Commissioner Henning and Commissioner Hiller asked about the capital with the impact fee district, and Terese from 0 MB was kind enough to point out on Capital 13 through Capital 17, we do have an impact fee district breakdown with projects. But certainly we can go into projects in detail if someone wanted to see historical. But that does give you an impact fee district breakdown of what proj ect is funded by that district. So thank you to Terese. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Good. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That is what I was referring to. That is what I needed help with to understand and reconcile how that Page 49 June 16,2011 all works and how the funding goes towards these projects. So if we could review that together, I would -- that's exactly what I was referring to, those -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Happy to. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- specific pages. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Happy to. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR.OCHS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: All right. Very well. Let's move on to the next category. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Are we going to talk to TDC -- or not TDC, but -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: EDC. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- EDC. MR.OCHS: Yes, sir, whenever you're ready. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I thought the EDC was going to be making a separate presentation. Were they -- are they or not? MR.OCHS: No, Commissioners. The budget for economic development is embedded in your Growth Management Division. We can take it now, or we can take it up -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, I think-- MR.OCHS: -- at a later time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- if it's here -- I had been led to believe the EDC was going to make a separate presentation. But if it's here, why not discuss it here if you've got questions? Okay, go ahead. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The board was sent an email. I hope the board was sent an email, but I'm going to refer to it. Duane Billington did a -- had an analysis done through public records, and it looks like -- I'm trying to think of the year that he's gone back to. But we expended approximately $5 million on economic development. Let me see if -- oh, he's going back all the way to -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: 2001, I think. Page 50 June 16,2011 COMMISSIONER HENNING: No, even further. It's going back down to '98. And he's showing the provided programs that was taken advantage of is $1.9 million. So approximately -- well, there's quite a difference of what was expended and what was taken advantage of. And that's -- I guess that's a little concerning to me. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, yeah. It's concerning to me, too, if it's actually true. And I'm not going to try to argue the EDC's case. The EDC case or you, Nick, you can argue that if you like, but I'm going to leave that -- that debate up to them. MR. CASALANGUIDA: I don't think I'm in a position to talk about the EDC, yeah. CHAIRMAN COYLE: They're asking for funds. If they want the funds, they're going to have to come here and justify them, and they will have to address those concerns that have been raised. So we'll have to see -- I'm not going to try to justify the money or the performance. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So you're saying if they want it, they're going to have to come ask for it? CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's what I figure. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Otherwise, it's going to go in another place. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's always been the case as far as we've been having budget discussions. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Commissioners, my understanding is -- and, County Manager, correct me if I'm wrong -- you're set to -- supposed to meet with EDC in some workshops -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. MR. CASALANGUIDA: -- potentially to talk about what the EDC should look like, what it should be. There are some obligations in these -- in this budget for prior commitments that are in here that are coming forward in '12 and '13 that we do every year, but the bulk of EDC funds -- my understanding is you're going to meet with the Page 51 June 16,2011 EDC, have a workshop, and you're going to make that on how that's going to look. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That is what I had expected we would do. But any funds you include for that purpose will be entirely contingent upon the decision made by the board following that workshop. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Is that your understanding, obviously? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. That's, I think, the way it ought to be. Commissioner Coletta, you've been waiting a long time. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, a couple things. But let's-- EDC, dealing with that first. The letter that Duane Billington sent to all of us, Tammie Nemecek responded to it, and I thought she did a very effective job of explaining the inaccuracies of Mr. Billington's letter to us, and I think that that's something that needs to be left for that point in time that we're going to have the EDC presentation, rather than taking bites out of people that aren't here, and then trying to defend them with material that they send, which is very difficult to do. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: At this point in time, I would recommend we leave everything intact, and we can always move it till that point in time they make their appearance. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I haven't seen Tammie's response, so could you forward that to me? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Sure. I certainly can do that right now. And I apologize. I'm looking at it now, and -- because I sent Mr. Billington's letter to her last night. She responded almost instantly. And I thought she copied everybody, and she did not. So I'm going to forward that on to you so you've got it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. Thanks. Page 52 June 16,2011 COMMISSIONER FIALA: You might as well forward it to all of us. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Then we'll have it in plenty of time -- we'll have it in plenty of time when EDC does come before us to be able to take everything into consideration. Can I go back to an issue that's very important in my district. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Sure. COMMISSIONER HENNING: We already asked. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We've already closed out the possibility of doing anything with limerock roads. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: By the powers vested in me by the State of Florida, I hereby re-open that particular segment. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, go ahead. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: This is one of Commissioner Coyle's favorite subjects that I'm going to bring up. It's called limerock roads. And the reason I'm bringing it up is for a very good reason. It's because I receive a number of letters every week. It's probably the most -- generates the most email that's related to one subject within my district than anything else going. There's great concern that's out there. Because we had a -- we had a very good program going when money was flush and we did have the money to be able to do it to take the responsibility that we had from years ago when we took over the roads from Avatar. We got the funds from them to be able to work with it. We spent the funds in other directions and left with a deficiency of money to work with. But still, this commission in the past was able to come up with enough money to pave 80 percent -- of all the people that live out there on limerock roads, 80 percent of them were satisfied with the paved road. That was a wonderful accomplishment. However, the last time a road was paved, the limerock road, was three years ago? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir, three years ago. Page 53 June 16, 2011 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. So the continuous letters that I'm receiving, why is it that I have -- we're not being considered for this, and then you go back and you say, because of the lack of money and the lack of support to be able to carry it forward. There's a couple of things I do want to bring up is, one, on the limerock roads that we're doing now, the maintenance of those roads, there's a -- Norm Feder used to give us these numbers all the time, and maybe one of you might have it at the top of your head, and I realize that today we can't do a lot about it, but I have to keep this in front of you at all times. The maintenance to these roads is over how many years? I think it's eight years would equal the price of doing the paving? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Travis is in the back of the room. He could probably give you a rough idea. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. Travis, could you do h . ? t at, SIr. MR. GOSSARD: Yes, sir. Travis Gossard, your Road and Bridge Superintendent. Currently it's costing us about $5,000 a mile to maintain a limerock road a year. If you were to times that out and try to contract that out where -- I think it's about $300,000 a mile to pave a limerock road with the drainage improvements, so you're talking many years of maintenance there. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. The numbers I had before didn't quite match up to it. That's a poor argument to use, so I'll drop that argument, and we'll forget that one. But, Travis, now that I got your attention, I have you up here, one of the issues that people throw at me all the time -- and I give them my explanation which doesn't really satisfy them, and I don't blame them. If I lived on a limerock and I had to endure the dust and the potholes and everything that goes with it, that's a big negative, and then I drive down through Golden Gate Estates and I see where they're paving __ Page 54 June 16, 2011 they're repaving existing roads, I'd be upset. I'd say, why are you putting the pavement back on one of these roads when my road desperately needs this pavement? What's your response to that? MR. GOSSARD: Just like the restricted/unrestricted funds, sir. There are two different cost centers, one's capital, one's maintenance. And we cannot use the maintenance funds in the capital side, per the Clerk's Office, for rebuilding and actually converting limerock roads to asphalt. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So it's the clerk's fault. Remember that. Tell your people that it's the clerk's fault. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I'll be honest with you; they're not going to like that answer, and I don't either. The problem being is that at some point in time we have to come up with a small dedicated amount of money so that people can start to see where they're going to be in the future. And now I got people coming to me -- times are tough out there. Depreciation of like 74 percent, in some areas of the Estates people unemployed, underemployed, foreclosures. It's very trying times. And I had a lady yesterday come to me and she said, when are you going to pave my road? Well, okay. Standard question, I give the standard answer, which is never acceptable, by the way. And she said, you realize I can't sell my house? I need to sell it so I can move on, get on with my life. Nobody will buy a house on a limerock road. Well, with the market out there the way it is today and property values what they are, I can understand that to be a true statement. Why would anybody want to buy a house on a limerock road? Now, I probably just destroyed a sale or two of homes that were taking place, but I want to be realistic, and I want everybody to know that this is a situation that's very dear to my heart, and I hope at some point in time that we can find something in the way of dedicated source of funds that will, over a period of time, working from top to bottom, being the Page 55 June 16, 2011 most populated roads first and then working right through it till that point in time that we can satisfy the least-populated roads, that we'd be able to start a program that would be able to meet some of this. Now, I know some of my commissioners don't feel this is their problem. But we've gone way out of our way to try to make amends for everything else in the county, everything that's important to the commissioners. We always try to make an outreach. And I can tell you, this is very important to me, and it's very important to my constituents. Now, that was one thing, and I -- keep that in your mind. We'll talk about it as time goes forward and see if there's something we can do when some magic pot of money appears to maybe be able to divert some of it to be able to meet some of the needs out there. The other thing, Nick, that's extremely important to the people in Eastern Collier County has to do with the Immokalee Road, the connection to Immokalee directly. And I need to clarify something. Somebody the other day had mentioned in an em ail or a statement, why are we wasting money on Oil Well Road when we should be concentrating on building a four-lane road to Immokalee? And I know the response, but I'd like to hear it in your elegant way of putting it. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Oh, God, Commissioner. I don't know if it's so elegant sometimes. I think your long range transportation plan and what we've done in the past kind of identifies the master plan of how to get to Immokalee and back to the urban area. We've already expanded Immokalee Road up to Randall Boulevard, and our intention someday is to tie Randall into Oil Well and them come up Camp Keais Road. And we've kind of made that as a priority now for the past seven years. That plan has been stumbled upon due to lack of resources and finances. But to go forward now on Immokalee Road where we're fraught Page 56 June 16,2011 with environmental issues along that corridor with also the FP&L roadway, sort of to expand that ahead of that right now would divert a plan that we've already put in place, I think, seven years ago or eight years. So the long-range plan is to take Immokalee existing to Randall, Randall to Oil Well, Oil Well to Camp Keais. That is probably the most feasible financial -- financially reasonable alternative to get from Immokalee back to the urban area. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And if you plot it out, the distance is almost exactly the same. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Which is pretty remarkable, but then Immokalee Road takes some weird turns as you go forward on it. MR. CASALANGUIDA: And if you go forward in our Master Mobility Plan or our long-range plans, you'll have to do both eventually, but that is our preferred route. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, sir. MR. CASALANGUIDA: You're welcome, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you, Commissioner Coletta. And I'll look forward to our discussion on limerock roads next budget session. I really do take your request seriously, and I really would support it if we had money. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I understand, sir, but I'm going to be bringing it up many times during the year -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: I know. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: --like I usually do, because I know our memories are mighty short around here. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. Are we going to be talking about the economic incentive budget, other than funding EDC? I mean, I thought that was the next item on the agenda, but I see that Page 57 June 16, 2011 we're talking about a lot of other things. CHAIRMAN COYLE: County Manager? My expectation was that the -- that the economic incentives -- that we had continued indefinitely the final decision on that until we had a discussion with the EDC, and at that time we can more clearly quantify the budgetary requirements. MR. OCHS: Commissioners, you have three elements to your economic development budget, if you will. You've got the annual $400,000 allocation to the EDC as part of your long-standing public/private partnership, you've got dollars allocated in fiscal '12 to meet your fiscal '12 obligations for incentives that have been awarded in the past by the board that are due to be paid in '12, and then you have a new allocation that I discussed or proposed to you during my overview this morning of a $300,000 fund from gaming receipts that you may want to consider as an additional source of funding economic incentives that you would award going forward. Now, I don't know which element, or if you want to speak about all those right now. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I'd like to speak about some of them, if I may. I'd like to start with discussing the allocation of the gaming monies towards economic development. MR.OCHS: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I think there are competing interests with respect to that pool of funds. Like, for example, I have concerns about the Immokalee Fire District. I mean, they're very shortfunded, and they serve the Seminole Indians. I believe that if there was a fire on the reservation, wouldn't the Immokalee Fire District help them? MR.OCHS: They are self-sufficient as far as I know. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Are they self-sufficient? MR. OCHS: They may contract with them for a fee, ma'am, but Page 58 June 16,2011 COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. I believe they may contract with them, but I think -- I think they actually provide the service. I really think that those monies really need to go to the Immokalee Fire District. I think that is a -- you know, if we have funds available and there's a real need -- because there's a shortage of funds in public safety -- that that really needs to be the priority and that those Indian monies go to the Immokalee Fire District rather than funding economic development. Quite frankly, if we have any supplemental funds, I think that needs to go to public safety first and foremost, because that is our most important function, or alternatively EMS. MR.OCHS: Commissioner, as you know, the Immokalee Fire District is an independent fire district that levies their own millage on their taxpayers to pay for that service, and that's certainly another option for them if they need to raise more revenue. I don't know if they're at their millage cap or not. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Or we could grant them the money. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. That's an opinion. Okay. COMMISSIONER HILLER: What about EMS? I mean, I just think there's -- if we have shortfalls, it really needs to go to public safety first, like, you know, EMS or our dependent fire districts, as the case may be, or as a grant to the Immokalee Fire District. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You want to say something? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, I do. CHAIRMAN COYLE: His was on first. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. And I really do appreciate your oversight on the Immokalee Fire District. I've been going to their meetings and talking to their board of directors. And what you don't know is the fact that they have an agreement with the Seminole Indian Tribe to be paid, which is very inadequate. It's, like, thirty-some thousand dollars a year when it should be Page 59 June 16,2011 something like about -- they estimate something like six hundred to be able to be able to do it. So at some point in time they're going to have to get together with the Seminole tribe. The Seminole tribe is far from poverty stricken, and I'm sure that at some point in time they're going to realize their responsibility and step up the plate. The only reason I can think of that they haven't pushed the issue is the Seminole Tribe, not too long ago when it was told about water rates possibly going up, withdrew from the Immokalee Sewer and Water and, at a great expense to themselves, formed their own water and sewer district, and the Immokalee Water District had to increase their rates considerably to make up for that loss. I think the fire department has also got that concern, and to divert money that's for economic development that would directly make an impact on the Immokalee area -- because that's where a good portion of the development's going to take place, in that immediate area-- would be a tremendous disservice. And, Leo, I commend you for finding those funds and offering them up as a dedicated fund to start the ball rolling. We keep talking about economic development in very hollow tones. We never really are serious. We all beat the drums, and when the time comes, we don't do the dance, and we say, well, next year we'll give it another try. Here's the start. Here's the start of something that's really wonderful. And I'll tell you something. The amount of work that went into capturing that $300,000 a year was unbelievable. It took many trips to Tallahassee. It took the Immokalee Chamber of Commerce to write personal letters. We spent a tremendous amount of effort getting it to where it was. And that $300,000 applied to that would be of great use. If you used it in transportation in the Immokalee area, it would only put the striping on the road, and that would be about it. It wouldn't serve much of a purpose. And $300,000 in this world of economic Page 60 June 16, 2011 development is still just a small contribution to where we need to be, but it's a darn good start. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Piggybacking off of what Commissioner Coletta just said, I think we have to keep in mind, although we're going to be meeting -- and I would love to participate in some of the talks that take place when we talk about economic incentives and funding of those economic incentives and the improvement of. You know, we have a ten-year-old plan in place right now that definitely needs to be updated. But we, number one, have to -- we have to let people outside of our community and inside of our community know that we're interested in attracting businesses, keeping businesses, and expanding businesses, because as businesses expand and are attracted to the area, if we have incentives and if we open our arms to invite them in, that is going to pull our taxes down, because we all know that commercial pays a lion's share of the taxes. But if we rebuff them, we, taxpayers, homeowners, are going to have to compensate for those things. So we must keep in mind that we have to make a strong initiative, and I'd like to be a part of that. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: I just want to confirm again that the impact fee waiver -- that there's no budget -- budgeted dollar amount in our economic development plan for any impact fee waivers next year. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Not future program, ma'am, that's correct. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. There might be some in future years, but as of next year, there's nothing. Thank you. Page 61 June 16,2011 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, County Manager. I think we've got it. MR.OCHS: Yes, sir. That would take us to the public services division that is next up. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Commissioners, thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you, Nick. Thank you all of you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good job, guys. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Commissioner Coletta, can you forward that email? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm doing that right now. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, thank you. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Sorry I didn't do it sooner. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, Marla got the message, too. Item #4 PUBLIC SERVICES - PRESENTED MS. RAMSEY: Good morning. MR. McALPIN: Good morning, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Give us some good news. MS. RAMSEY: Okay. Well, I'll give you an overview. Commissioners, the Public Services Division has brought you a budget that's within our budget guidance with a reduction of 3.7 percent in our countywide Fund 001 and 4.2 percent in our Unincorporated Fund 111. To achieve these reductions we have continued our 22 percent reduction in workforce achieved since 2008, and when additional vacancies have occurred this fiscal year, we have, when possible, downgraded those positions prior to filling them for additional cost . savIngs. We've also had a number of long term employees who have left Page 62 June 16,2011 and have been replaced by people in the lower end of the pay range. We have also had to defer as part of our budget 1.4 million in equipment or capital replacement. This is starting to be an area of concern for us, because this will now bring us to about 2.7 million in accumulated equipment and capital deferral items, and some of those capital items are things like playgrounds and court resurfacing and mowers and equipment in that regard. Some of the things that that does to us is that means that some of our equipment is down for longer periods of time when we take it to fleet because it breaks down more often, which then causes us a little bit of a concern if we have a tournament or something to get ready for. This budget does maintain our current facility hours and levels of service, though. And as you know, we are primarily funded by ad valorem taxes, but we are augmented by TDC and some user fees, especially in the libraries, DAS, and university extension. Parks has about 35 percent of their budget augmented by user fees, so user fees are very important to us. We have an understanding that recreation should pay for recreation, or some of those uses should pay for themselves. Our authorized FTE position counts are 365 at this point in time, but that is 22 percent down, as I mentioned earlier. So what we've done is we've used some temporary positions to support things like summer camp; lifeguards; our Summer Food Grant Program, as you know, started today, forty-nine different locations; and then we also use them for seasonal demands at the libraries during season. Volunteers are also heavily used in our Parks, our Libraries, our Museum, DAS, and University Extension. It's good to note that we have one really good success, and that is the Inmate Labor Program that we have with the Sheriffs Department who come in and clean the kennels at DAS. That has about $120,000 value to us at no cost to DAS, so that program is working really well for us, and we hope that we'll be able to continue to support that with Page 63 June 16, 2011 the Sheriffs Office. This budget also reflects no reduction in our program funding as it relates to Social Services which is, you know, for our frail and elderly, no reduction of program to David Lawrence Center or the Health Department, we've kept all of those whole. But there is one area that will affect them, and that has to do with our LIP program, which is the low-income program. Last year -- you know, we send funding up and then we get it matched back. Last year they matched it at 15 percent. This year it's expected to be at 8 percent. So there will be a reduction to David Lawrence Center of about $62,000, to social services about 22,000, and to the Health Department about $69,000. So that gives you just a really rough overview of where we're at. But we've come to you fairly whole in this fiscal year. And I have my staff here to answer any specifics questions that you might have. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. Barry, I seen in there at the Golden Gate Community Center they're looking to replace the playground equipment. MR. WILLIAMS: (Nods head.) COMMISSIONER HENNING: And considering a millage increase. Is it that bad that it needs to be replaced? MR. WILLIAMS: Commissioner, Barry Williams, Parks and Recreation Director. The playground itself was installed, I believe, in '98, and so it is one of our older playgrounds. We have done some repair to make it safe, but in terms of replacement costs associated with that playground, to do it right, you're probably looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 00,000. We have 51,000 budgeted in this budget, but that's part of the consideration the advisory board is discussing about whether a millage Page 64 June 16, 2011 increase might help them get that additional dollar. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Well, you told me the age of the equipment, but what I want to know is the condition of the equipment. MR. WILLIAMS: In a Florida Environment, 13-year-old playground, it's showing its age definitely. It's safe. We inspect our playgrounds regularly to ensure that. Esthetics wise, though, it's not as attractive as we'd like. So I don't know if that answers your question or not. But it -- could we get a couple more years out of it? Probably so. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Which park are you talking about? I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Golden Gate Community Center. Capital reserves are going up. MS. RAMSEY: Yes. And usually I turn reserves over to Susan or someone to talk about, especially as it does capital. So if you have a specific capital question, maybe I can answer. If not, I'll defer. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No, I'm just recognizing your capital reserves are going up. MS. RAMSEY: Yeah. In some regards, when you see the reserves, it's a little complicated, and sometimes it's just carryforward of projects that we have ongoing. F or example, the Gordon River Greenway is one of those where I have funding that we received from Florida Community Trust, and it will show up in the bottom line as a fairly substantial dollar amount, but it's because I've got it in a project allocated and not encumbered at this moment in time. But I do have it allocated toward a certain project. So even if it looks like there's a large amount of reserves, it may not be unrestricted or un -- or available, I should say. COMMISSIONER HENNING: We have 18 -- that's small Page 65 June 16,2011 dollars -- 18,600 for Goodland Boat Ramp. I thought we might have been finished. Obviously we're not? MS. RAMSEY: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have a few questions for you, Gary, if you don't mind. MR. McALPIN: Surely. The Goodland Boat Ramp, I believe that we are essentially complete with that. There may be -- that may be a lingering issue with some ladders and cleats, but I expect that the work on the ramp would be complete. What we haven't done at this point in time is we haven't installed the signage on the highway which would direct people when the park is closed so -- or when the park is full. And I believe that that money would be for that, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: But if you could forward me some information where that 18,000 is going, I would appreciate that. MR. McALPIN: Will do. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. New Clam Bay Facility turnaround and park. It's budgeted for a half a million dollar. New Clam Bay? MR. McALPIN: That is for Clam Pass Beach Park, Commissioner. And what we're looking at that that -- for that facility is that -- a facility with the dropoff point where the tram picks up the people that park, and the park is delapatated and in need of repair. It has to be replaced. Plus we've also looked at -- that's one of the parks where we looked at our parking, and with reworking our parking with a better sequence and a better -- a better usage, we can get an additional 30 or so parking spots in there. That parking lot is old, and what we want to do is -- as part of the program is upgrade the parking and upgrade that tram dropoff area at the same time. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, okay, good. Page 66 June 16,2011 Connor's Park Shelter and Bathroom, is that yours? MR. McALPIN: It is, sir. And what we were looking to do at Connor Park is just investigate the -- if we could, in fact, put a shelter and a bathroom facility in there. That is the dropoff location or the feeder location that would feed the new facility at Bluebill for the dropoff there, and that would be an investigation that we would like to undertake this year. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You know, somebody mentioned to me, because you couldn't get a parking garage at Wiggins Pass Park, the ideal place for a parking garage would be Connor's Park. You know, there's plenty of space to put that. Why don't we investigate putting, you know, like, a five-story parking garage at Connor's Park so we can alleviate some of those problems up there? MR. McALPIN: If that is the board's intention, we certainly could do that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. I would really like to see that, because it -- you know, it's a real safety problem down there, and then it's not an ongoing maintenance thing of shuttling people down there, is go ahead and look at building a parking garage there. You know, we investigated several places, and the last one was on the state properties, and they wasn't too gung-ho about that. But this would -- you know, that is the busiest beach since even when you was a kid going down there, the state park and Vanderbilt Beach. I would love to see that happen. MR. McALPIN: Okay. MS. RAMSEY: We will investigate that if that's the desire of the board. I will caution, though, that without some shuttling opportunity to move them down the beach, dumping that -- dumping that many people at that access point, they're going to have to go somewhere north or south, and people only like to walk about a quarter of a mile from an access point. So we would -- we would probably need to Page 67 June 16, 2011 provide that shuttle service. Then the philosophy comes in, can I drop them at an access point that doesn't have a restroom, which is something you've told me you didn't want me to do before. So we have some questions that we would need to answer as we went forward with that just as a cautionary element of it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And you have an obligation for neighborhood information meetings, too -- MS. RAMSEY: Oh, most definitely. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- when you get to the point where the headlines start saying that we're building a five story parking garage. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Just do it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: I'd like to build on what Commissioner Henning just pointed out. We actually have inadequate parking, public parking relative to the amount of beach we have, and as a result, the vast majority of our beaches are really inaccessible to the public. We're also losing out on state monies as a result. We're only getting 50 percent of what we should be getting in our allocation of beach renourishment dollars because we have inadequate public parking for the access points that we have, and we have a lot of access points. But for purposes of the state, the access is defined as having a hundred public parking spaces per access point plus the bathrooms. So if you look to the south of Vanderbilt, which is a very small beach and a heavily crowded beach because it does have that public parking, the other beaches don't have the parking amenities. And it actually is a win-win, because by building the parking facilities, for example, at Lowdermilk and other locations to the south -- Clam Pass Park is another example -- you would spread the population among the expanse of beaches we have, and that's really Page 68 June 16, 2011 what we need to do. There's a heavy concentration of usage in the north, and then we have these beautiful, expansive, unused beaches to the south because we lack public parking. And the great thing is is that we would receive state funds which we then can allocate to renourishment and reallocate those TDC dollars towards the building of those structures. So it's a win-win. We wouldn't actually have to increase taxes. We would be making it up in the monies that we're currently losing. So I think the issue of the public parking and, you know, promoting beach access as a result is really worthy of exploration, and it would be worthwhile having some sort of a workshop to address that, because we need to really promote that accessibility as much as possible. I have a question, Gary. You've got 950,000 allocated to Gulf Shore Property Acquisition. What is that? MR. McALPIN: That would be -- Commissioner, that is setting aside funds for -- as you know, we can purchase beach access, beach property. And we could use -- and we could also access or purchase property for parking. We have -- last year we had an opportunity to buy some property on the beach. We had -- we allocated funds for it at that point. And this is to complement the direction from Board of County Commissioners where beach access and beach parking were the primary -- were some of the primary goals. This would set aside some money so when those funds -- when those opportunities became available, then we would have funds available to make that happen, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, I don't think we can use that to actually buy land other than for purposes of a preserve. I think there's a very clear AGO on that. But, again -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Excuse me. Just a minute. You just made a statement that I think is disputable. Page 69 June 16,2011 Marla, go ahead. MS. RAMSEY: Well, I believe that in the past we have used the funding for beach access related elements, and this is -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, we didn't. MS. RAMSEY: -- what the TDC funding has been allocated for. COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, we didn't. Where I'm talking about land acquisition, we didn't. We actually used it for purposes of expanding the preserve. And the opinion that we got back from the Attorney General Office eXplained that, you know, we were actually making the acquisition for purposes of expanding the preserve. That's when -- you're referring to the acquisition of the land up at Barefoot, or was it -- MS. RAMSEY: Well, actually, I didn't use TDC funding for that. I used a -- some grant funding, Florida Community Trust funding for that, and it was a settlement agreement. So I'm a little unsure where the rest of it actually came from as it related to it, because it was a lawsuit. But I would have to turn to Jeff to talk to as it relates to the TDC fund and land acquisition for beach access. MR. KLA TZKOW: Can we narrow the question down? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Why don't we defer the analysis to a later point rather than introduce it right here at the budget. But I think it -- when this comes back, I think that has to be clearly explained so that we understand to what end these funds can be used. MR. KLATZKOW: The statute provides that these funds can be used for public access to beaches. But if we could narrow it down to, rather than general, a very specific question. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, I'd like to have the statute in front of me, and we could read the wording together, because there's also two opinions that explain exactly to what end -- and, no, it can't be used just for outright beach access. But we can -- like I said, I don't want to get into a legal discussion at this time. Page 70 June 16, 2011 But the point is, is -- so you're setting these $950,000 aside for potentially looking at developing additional parking? MR. McALPIN: It is -- as an opportunity to either -- for beach parking or for procurement of beach property, I think, is what we had envisioned that to be for, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Because one of the problems we have is we've got so many access points. But, again, the definition of accessibility is a function of the public parking. So, you know, it doesn't -- acquiring more access points without the parking is basically -- you know, it's a futile initiative. I mean, again, we've got access points. We need the parking so people can park their car and use those access points. I mean, if you look in the City of Naples, we've got all these little -- we've got so many access points, and the limited parking of 15 to 30 public spots in front of those access points makes it very difficult for people to use those beaches. So some sort of a parking facility to promote that would make sense. Lowdermilk Park, you know, you could expand the use of that if we had a parking garage. So I can see that. But -- and we'll get in the discussion of the other. I also wanted to talk about -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: I'm sorry. Could I ask you a question about that? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Do you believe that the county has the authority to build a parking garage at those beach ends in the City of Naples? COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, but we have the TDC funds, and maybe we could work with the city to help fund the acquisition. I'm not sure if that would be a possibility, but it's something definitely worth considering. I mean, their hotels contribute to the TDC funds as well. Page 71 June 16,2011 So -- and I'm just throwing it out to explore the question. I think this is all going to be brought back, and I just want to present it as something to consider. But we obviously have inadequate public parking, and in order to promote accessibility, it's not the acquisition of more land, but it's the necessity of building public parking spots so people can use the access points we have. I just want to change subjects and talk about museums. The TDC recently had a discussion about the funding of museums, and the TDC, across the board -- I think every member strongly supports the museums and the funding of museums. The question really was the source of funding of the museums. And several things were suggested. First of all, one of the things that I think is important to note when you compare how our museums operate to museums across the county, outside of the county, throughout the state, they charge an admission fee. And Ron Jamro, who's our director of museums, had indicated that the majority of his visitors are tourists. I think you said 70,000 tourists visit your museums a year? MR. JAMRO: Seventy-three percent. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Seventy-three percent. How much -- how does that -- how much does that translate to in people? MR. JAMRO: Of 86,000 people. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Eighty-six. I said seventy, I'm sorry. I mixed the two numbers up. So 86,000 people from outside of Collier County visit the museums (sic). That is a tremendous revenue opportunity . Most tourists expect, when they go to museums, as result of, you know, experiences in all these other jurisdictions, to pay some fee. If you, for example, charge these tourists $10 as an admission fee to visit all the Collier County Museums, right off the bat you'd be generating $860,000 in revenue that could go towards the operations of the museum. Page 72 June 16,2011 I think we're remiss not to do that. It's a source of revenue which wouldn't impact the citizens of Collier County. It's a source of revenue that comes from outside of the General Fund, and it is something we should definitely consider doing. We still could make admittance to the museums to the citizens of Collier County free, and we could look, for example, to the TDC for advertising and marketing revenues as opposed to funding all of the operations from that source. And, quite frankly, it's conceivable that, you know, that could very well cover the museum operations budget. A more detailed analysis would have to be done, but I think it's a realistic consideration and something that should be contemplated in light of this budget. MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that's obviously a policy decision that we would be directed by a majority of the board, or supermajority in this case, if you wanted to change your TDC ordinance to provide for that. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right. And I'm just mentioning something to consider. Again, we -- you know, we could sit down and talk about it and then, you know, bring back the alternatives and see how that would work out. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you very much. I was wondering where, in the parks budget, you have anything about the community park -- or community center for Eagle Lakes. I know we're hoping to get the CDBG funds. I don't know that we're going to get them. MR. WILLIAMS : Yes, ma'am. If you look on Page 71, I believe, in the Public Services Capital, Parks and Recreation Capital. And I believe we have the same page numbers. MR.OCHS: No. MS. RAMSEY: No. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. Mine only goes up to 35. Page 73 June 16, 2011 COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah, mine, too. MR. WILLIAMS: Let me get you another page number. Sorry about that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: It will be a page number under the Public Service Capital. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, if you have 75 pages of Capital Improvements, what am I missing? MR. WILLIAMS: No. I don't have any additional capital. This was just a numbering issue for us. MR. ISACKSON: Capital 5, that will work. MS. RAMSEY: Or 17. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Capital 5? MR. WILLIAMS: Commissioner Fiala, we have proposed for FY2012, $125,000 to be placed into a project that currently exists for Eagle Lakes Community Park. We currently have in that project, I believe it's $425,000. So this 125,000 would give us $550,000. We have applied for a Community Development Block Grant, and we're still waiting to hear the results of that. And that grant award, we're looking at $775,000. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And at one time in the Manatee Park reserve we had what, 1.3 million? MS. RAMSEY: There was about 2 million. And, as you recall in April I came and took most of those projects and I moved them into debt service reserves in order to make sure that we could make our payments until 2014. And so what you see on Page 5 -- if you'll look, you will be able to see that we put four hundred twenty-five into Eagle Lakes Community Park, and then we've added another 125,000. That extra 125,000 is coming currently from Growth Management Department. As you recall, we gave them a million-four when they had an issue a couple years ago, and they're paying it back a couple -- about 250,000 a year. So that payment is now being split, and it's being split between Page 74 June 16, 2011 Eagle Lakes Community Park and Big Corkscrew Island Park. So that's where we're putting the money this fiscal year. Last year we used it to expand the Max Hasse Community Park as a match to the Golden Gate Land Trust funding that we received. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I almost hate to enter into this -- or venture into this next question, but I'm going to anyway. Say, for instance, we were granted the CDBG funds and we had this little bit of money here to add to it, you had talked about something like 4,000 square feet community center, four to six thousand, which is, of course, very, very, very small for the busiest park in the entire system. And I was just wondering, will there be funds to actually build a substantial park to accommodate all of the people that use it, a substantial building to accommodate all the people that use that park? MS. RAMSEY: Well, Commissioner, originally we thought we needed about $1.7 million, I believe, for a 6,000 square foot facility at Eagle Lakes to do just the community center portion of that, and then we would add a fitness center and a pool in phases as we went forward. But you're hearing now I'm going to be about $400,000 short of that funding element, as I've got laid out today. So we have two things we can do. We can scale back the sizes of the facility, or we can try and find some additional funding elements. And I will tell you that Gordon River Greenway -- and I hate to put this on the record, but I will. The Gordon River Greenway has some funding sitting into it, and it's grant funding that came from Florida Community Trust to be put toward that particular project. I believe that the project will come in with a savings to what I have allocated currently. I will have an estimate of that this summer. So I should have some idea if there's additional funding there available that I could reallocate to another project, if the board so desired, in September when we bring the -- I guess -- are we bringing the grants Page 75 June 16, 2011 in September? MS. KRUMBINE: We are bringing it in July. MS. RAMSEY: In July. So it will be close, but it might be September before I actually have the actual dollar amount allocated, that I could give you idea that, yes, there might be a half a million dollars that I could move. COMMISSIONER FIALA: My concern -- when do you expect to hear about CDBG? MS. RAMSEY: Marcy will give you the date on that. MS. KRUMBINE: And, Commissioners, you actually have a draft of the five-year consolidated plan and the one-year action plan, and then we expect to -- we're in the 30 day comment period. And you will see it on your board agenda at the July meeting. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just feel real-- I know how desperately this community center is needed. And as much as I want to see it built, I hate to build it woefully short and inadequate before you even open the front door. And so I'm just -- I'm putting that as a challenge to you to build an adequate facility. Thank you. MS. RAMSEY: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, Commissioner Fiala, we have an MSTBU Taxing District in Golden Gate that funds the portion of the Golden Gate Community Center. COMMISSIONER FIALA: It would be wonderful to do that except, you know, you're talking about people that are extremely low income. You're talking Naples Manor, Whistler's Cove, the Habitat Villages. Those are the people that use it, and they don't have any money to be putting together in an MS TU. And people who have parks in their backyard, they don't have to worry about it, but these people don't have a place to go. And it's going to keep them off the street. And I feel it's very, very important. Page 76 June 16,2011 And, no, they don't have any MSTU dollars. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, just to add a little bit more to that. Golden Gate Community Center, how many other parks out there were financed with MSTUs? MS. RAMSEY: Well, the MSTU is not necessarily -- that's the only one that has one that's currently up against it. But recall that the first group of community parks that we put on the first four or five were from a general obligation bond, and then from that we've moved into impact fees to do funding. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But there's -- the majority of the parks have been financed by impact fees or general revenue? MS. RAMSEY: Yes, exactly. You know, what happened at Golden Gate Community Center is they were proactive and they put in their own -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Very much so. MS. RAMSEY: -- facility. And then at some point in time they decided that it should be, you know, open to more, I guess. And so the county took it over, and they retain some ownership in it through the 60/40 split. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Now, the -- next to the Golden Gate Community Center is a brand new library and also a skate park. I believe it's called a skate park, isn't it? MS. RAMSEY: Yes. We have a Wheels facility that has the BMS bike track and a skate park. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It's a beautiful facility. Was that also financed with the MSTU dollars? MS. RAMSEY: No, not the new facility. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Oh, okay. MS. RAMSEY: The new facility was through impact fees, as was the purchase of the land. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I mean, could they have been Page 77 June 16, 2011 financed with it if they wanted to? MS. RAMSEY: I don't believe -- the way that that was set up had to do with the size of the facility when we then added to it. So the facility of the old part of the building, when we added to it, it became, you know, 60 percent, and we kept that split when we moved into the new. So the MS TU is paying 40 percent of the expenses associated with operating the Wheels and the other stuff associated with it, but they didn't give us any funding for the capital side of that. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What's your point, Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, the point is, I'm just trying to draw comparisons across there. You got a unique situation in Golden Gate that really doesn't apply with anything that's taking place in the county now. We have impact fees that's in place that my people have been paying forever, and they still don't have a park. And when they do get a park, is the idea that all of a sudden now those impact fees they've been paying at everybody else's parks now they're going to have to come up with their own MSTU to be able to get to where they are? I commend the people of Golden Gate City years ago for coming up with their own way to be able to make it happen, because it would have probably been maybe ten years longer before they could have ever got there. And that was a wonderful thing. But today with impact fees in place and the fact that we have met the needs of the rest of the world out there, I just -- it's a fairness issue, fairness issue in the fact that, why should you have to pay twice for something? COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's -- it has nothing to do with Golden Gate Estates. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It has everything to do with Page 78 June 16, 2011 Collier County. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I was referring to Commissioner Fiala in East Naples. It is the same. The funds are not there or -- the funds are not there to build the park in East Naples, clearly. The funds wasn't there to build a park in Golden Gate at that time, clearly. The citizens decided to tax themselves. It's a comparable. Impact fees are not there. So, I mean, it was just giving an option out there. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And I apologize if I might have overreacted. I just wanted to make sure that, you know, we knew that there's more than one option out there other than the MSTU. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. Don't do it till you get the money. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We have six speakers, six public speakers. Let's start with the first speaker. MR. MITCHELL: The first public speaker will be Judith Tryka. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now, that's for this item only. MR.OCHS: This division. MR. MITCHELL: This is -- there is for this division, and all the public speakers are going to refer to the museums. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, good. MS. TRYKA: For the record, Judith Tryka. Good morning, Chairman Coyle and Commissioners. May I start by stating this isn't the first time I've been here to speak about this same issue. The Collier County museums are the official repository of the history of Collier County. Let's face it, Collier County doesn't have a long or extensive history; therefore, it becomes paramount to preserve what we do have. Collier County has seen fit to establish five separate locations to contain and maintain its history. As the county's elected officials, it is your continued responsibility to find the means to fund these museums. Page 79 June 16, 2011 Granted, we all want our community to grow and prosper, we want more visitors, but sitting on our beaches is not the only thing to spotlight. Actually, tourists do look for local cultural activity. The Collier County Museums have seen over 86,000 visitors this past year. Many of these are from out of state, out of town, and out of the country, as far away as China. In addition, the museum has scheduled its Olde Florida Festival, a wonderful two-day event. It's now scheduled during the height of tourist season. And this year, in the two days, 6,000 people attended the Olde Florida Festival. In addition, the museums provide educational opportunities for over 9,000 Collier County students. I volunteer in the research library at the main building. My job is to maintain and update the extensive vertical files that include over 500 separate topics. These files contain primary sources that document everything from -- it can't be over? Can it be over? MR. MITCHELL: You have a minute left. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's your one-minute warning. MS. TRYKA: That's my one-minute warning. From biographical information on Barron Gift Collier to biographical on you, Commissioner Coyle, from documentary information on the Immokalee -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, take it off. MS. TRYKA: -- Coalition for Farmworkers to the establishment of Galisano Children's Museum, from information provided by Commissioner Fiala on the Provincetown Boston Airlines to a pattern on how to sew a traditional Seminole patchwork dress. This exceptional and unique library also houses an exceptional collection of volumes of historical impact to our county, and many historians come to use it. The Collier County Museums have been established to house the official history of the county, a history to be enjoyed and utilized by Page 80 June 16,2011 residents as well as visitors. May I simply remind you that it is your responsibility to fund the County Collier (sic) museums. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you very much. MS. TRYKA: You're welcome. Thank you for letting me speak. MR. MITCHELL: The next speaker will be Mimi Watson, and she'll be followed by Harold, and I think it's Weeks. MS. WATSON: I am Mimi Watson. I have been in Naples since 1959, and I am on the board of the Friends of the Collier County Museums. We now have five museums, and one of our newer museums is the Depot. I actually took a train from the depot to up in Virginia one year, and the train left at eight o'clock in the morning whether you were on it or not, but we figured that we could beat it to Fort Myers if we needed to. I am concerned about the TDC because the original ordinance was passed on March 23, 1992, and it said -- it states that the TDC taxes pay for extensive beach re-nourishment programs in Collier County, along with Museums, Special Programs, and Events. In the visitor information section, it states, here you will find the quaint and historic, and we would like to keep that going and get it funded, and we should not be cut off from TDC. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Weeks will be followed by Lou Stickles. MR. WEEKS: Of course, I have to be different so I can get a better look at you folks. For those of you who don't know me, I'm known as the Buffalo Soldier. I'm a re-enactor for the Collier County Museum, and I'm also a volunteer for the board. Why do we need history? Well, during the Olde Florida Festival, for two days I'm up there in the hot Florida sun, and every once in a while it comes to me, "What am I doing here in this wool suit?" But as the guests come through to visit the Olde Florida Festival, Page 81 June 16,2011 they have many questions. Some of them seem out of place at times, and it makes me understand there's a lot of people who don't understand or know the history of Florida which has contributed to America, and that's what the Collier County does, not only Collier County, but the whole State of Florida. They serve. I, as an African-American, understand the loss of history. As a young man in school, my history was not addressed. And I -- as I grew older I became prouder of America because our contributions were recognized. So understand that the youth here also have that recognition to carry on and to believe and to want to be a part of Collier County and grow with it. The thing I've noticed here in Florida is that second generation, first generation, and no generation Americans exist here in America. We've given them their history and their culture. They speak their language and do their things without opposition. I say, let America go forth in the same -- in the same instance. So I say to you, Commissioner Fiala, Commissioner Hiller, Commissioner Coletta, Commissioner Henning, and I'll save the best for last, Commissioner Coyle -- Henning has a lovely smile, doesn't he? But stick with us, and as a volunteer and other volunteers, we will do our job and, hopefully, you will do yours. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you, Harold. MR. MITCHELL: Lou Stickles will be followed by Christopher Kimball. MR. STICKLES: Lou Stickles, for the record. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you this morning about the museums. F or the record, I am the current vice president of the board. And all I want to say to you this morning is that I have two items. One is a prepared statement, which someone has given to me. You probably Page 82 June 16,2011 know him, a young protege named Jacob Winge. And the other's pretty much in conjunction with what has already been said by the others. I would like to say I certainly enjoyed Mr. Weeks' presentation on the matter, but I'd like to add to that a community is first and foremost people. People. If you don't have people with the sense of their own personal identity, you've got a mob, but you don't have a community. What our museum does is to help to provide a central focus for the people who live here, for those who visit us, for those who come here, for those who will bring others to visit us. And for those who live here, it is to give them an idea not only of what they are, who they are, and where they came from. That is the purpose of a museum. That is why the board exists as friends to support the museum. I can go to a park and enjoy it. I don't have to care anything about where the park came from. But if I go to a museum, I'll have a much better appreciation for that park, what it represents, and where we got the monies and everything else for it. So I urge you, above all, let's keep our museums going so there is that central focus for all of the people in this county to know who they are and where they came from, and to invite their friends, come and see. In fact, I saw today on the Internet, when I got up this morning, the town of Marco Island is currently in the running for one of the five best towns in the country. Why? Because we have the beaches. And one of the foremost things mentioned was a museum, our newest museum, which I urge every one of you to go and visit. I'd like to pause at this point and quickly read the prepared statement, if you'll afford me just a moment, from Mr. Wingy. I've said it once and I'll say it again, history is the cultural and educational fiber of our community. Without it, we have nothing. The only way a democracy or republic can exist is that the citizens be informed. Youth have to be educated. The only way we Page 83 June 16, 2011 can know of our history is via a museum. I urge you, therefore, to support history and education and to dismiss the entire idea of reallocating TDC funds from museums. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. Commissioner Hiller? MR. MITCHELL: Sir, we've got -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller's got her light on. She wants to ask a question, I guess. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Did you want to speak first? MR. KIMBALL: I can. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Sure, go ahead. I just had it on for after the public. MR. MITCHELL: Christopher Kimball will be followed by Lodge McKee. MR. KIMBALL: Good afternoon. My name's Chris Kimball. I'm a past president of the Friends of Collier County Museum. I work at Collier Seminole State Park. I've been there for eight years. I've volunteered for parks and museums all over Florida in the southeast for the past 25 years. And the Collier County Museum has to be one of the best museums that I've seen, and that's why I've volunteered for the museum. The Olde Florida Festival has to be one of the best historic festivals. And I've been doing the re-enactments for 25 years. I've really enjoyed being with the museums and hope to as long as I'm down here in Collier County. Museums are always tricky on funding. They always end up as the stepchild of funding and usually end up last when the funds are doled out. So it seems like we're fighting for our very existence each year even though everybody loves us. It's kind of an interesting dilemma. It's also very hard that if people think that we're going to be Page 84 June 16,2011 closed down or lose our funding, it's hard to get people to support the museum. Say, oh, they're going to close down. Why should we go to them? But I just thank the commission for their past support of the museum and hope that to continue. We do receive a lot of money from donations. And working at parks, I've seen people turn around when they see that, oh, they charge admission. Even when it's been three dollars, people tend to turn around. And -- but as the museum is now, we have a great gift shop. We have a lot of support. People enjoy visiting us from all over the world, and also our Friends group, we provide funding for buses for school groups to come and do programs, which I think is very good cooperating with the schools, because the schools are very tight on their budget getting around. Also looking at some of the other communities, like St. Augustine, a friend of mine who works up there, a lot of their tourism commercials promote the cultural sites and the history. I'll disagree that we have a short history here in Collier County. Collier County has 10,000 years history. I've added some of the historical and archeological sites on the site files in Florida, and it's certainly worth continuing, worth supporting of our great cultural and natural history in there. Thank you. MR. MITCHELL: The next speaker is Lodge McKee, and he'll be followed by our last speaker, Craig Woodward. MR. McKEE: Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the commission and staff here. Thank you for letting us speak. I'm Lodge McKee. I'm the president of Southwest Heritage, which is the nonprofit organization that owns the Naples Depot property and the structure which is leased to the county for a dollar a year. The facility has been open to the public this winter season. Some of you attended the opening that we had earlier. And, we've had a Page 85 June 16,2011 wonderful reception so far in terms of visitorship and appreciation, and it's something that we've been waiting for for a long time. I feel at somewhat of a disadvantage this morning in that we did not, as we have in the past, hear from the TDC first because of the public input, but it's -- I think it's important to point out that the speakers here are concerned that the TDC has, once again, recommended that the museum operational funding be removed from the tourist development tax, and they seem to forget every year, as has been pointed out, that the people of Collier County voted, provided a mandate for that funding when the tourist development tax was created. And I wish that we didn't have to come back and reiterate this every single year when this comes up. I would also like to caution you in the discussion of a fee for the museums at this time. I think if we apply that mentality, we might also want to have a beach-use pass or a charge for the pier, or perhaps to use the sidewalks in our community. I mean, it can -- it can get out of contro I. If you ask the tourist who comes to Naples, why they're -- why they're paying all these things when they pay a Tourist Development Tax, a Bed Tax at the Hotel, it gets a little burdensome after a while, and I do agree that people will make a decision not to visit a facility if we charge, and so I hope that we can resist that in the future. I think everyone has spoken very eloquently about this issue. We're just all concerned and wish that we didn't have to come back each year and try to defend the viability of the museum system. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. Was that the last speaker, Ian? MR. MITCHELL: No, sir. The -- Mr. Woodward's the last speaker. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. WOODWARD: Good morning. Craig Woodward, past Page 86 June 16, 2011 president of the Marco Island Historical Society, and I'm currently the chair of your Historical and Archaeologic Preservation Board. As you all know, down on Marco we raised four-and-a-half million dollars to build the museum, and I appreciate the compliments we heard earlier about the museum. And I also encourage you to come and see it if you haven't. Currently we are still operating with temporary exhibits and traveling exhibits because we don't have permanent exhibits; however, that is in progress, and we are currently going through the design and soon the construction of that. So that's really moving along real well, and we're working with your staff on that. But even with temporary exhibits and traveling exhibits, we've had 8,000 -- over 8,000 visitors to the museum since we opened. And our gift shop is actually first year, which is sort of remarkable, showing a profit. Of course, it helps dealing with volunteers, you know, as staffing. But, anyway, so we're very excited about how things are going. We've gotten great compliments on the museum, and we've certainly gone out of our way to try to make it a cultural center for the island and a real draw. One of the things that happened early on regarding this was we decided to put -- bring -- our first exhibit in was the Florida Cowboy Exhibit, which was a series of really incredible photographs from Carlton Ward of Ranches in the State of Florida. And why we did that was because the Marriott was having its Annual Cattlemen's Association at the Marriott. It fills the Marriott every summer. And we did that because we knew those people were going to be at the Marriott, and we did get quite a number of them who came over to see the exhibit. We also kept the exhibit for a long time so all of our residents here got to see it, and it really got great acclaim. But that's a situation where you see a museum that's, you know, Page 87 June 16, 2011 connecting with the Marriott and the hotel industry and the tourist industry, and it really worked out well. I do want to conclude and just say, I also know that Marco is running in this contest for the beautiful city, and it is true that the museum on Marco is a factor in, you know, what makes a community, and we're really proud of it. So I urge you to continue to support it with TDC monies. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have no desire to change funding of the museum. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I don't either. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Me neither. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. It's almost unanimous. Commissioner Hiller, go ahead. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. I actually was a Member of the Board of the Friends of the Museum, so I support the museums very strongly. I think they're a tremendous asset to our community. So, you know, my sentiments echo what the citizens here have said today about the invaluable contribution museums make to our community, not only the county museums, but all the museums in the county that are operated privately outside of those operated by the county, and we have to remember those as well. I think in defense of the recommendation made by the TDC, their suggestion in no way -- and they made that very clear at the public meeting where this was discussed -- feel any less about the museums and the value of the museums than I do, and the other members expressed that. But what I think they're suggesting -- and I think it is a very fair suggestion, especially in this economic climate where there are alternative sources of revenue, be they a fee that is not a fee on the taxpayers of Collier County or a grant from sources outside of Collier Page 88 June 16,2011 County, we are remiss as a community not to consider those alternative revenue sources. And if you consider that the private museums in Collier County charge fees and that our neighboring county museums -- and, quite frankly, most counties, as I understand -- and I'm researching this to verify this -- don't have county museums, don't have county owned museums. And I'm, again, verifying that fact, but it was shared with me, but most of the other counties have privately operated museums. So to give up on an alternative source of revenue such as a $10, for example, charge to be able to visit all five museums, which is a very small dollar amount when you consider how great our museums are, it is something worthwhile considering when, you know, you're talking upwards -- close to $900,000, which is a lot of money. And, again, it wouldn't be a tax or a fee on the residents of Collier County. So I would ask that staff consider exploring that and, you know, bringing back that as a consideration, and the use of TDC funds is intended to draw in tourists. So we can't use those funds if those funds are actually intended to benefit our locals. But most certainly to the extend that it's promoting tourism and museums, you know, there reasonably can be an allocation for the advertising and marketing. It wouldn't affect the General Fund, wouldn't affect anyone in Collier County, and it allows, you know, either for a reduction in tourist taxes or a reallocation of those taxes to another category by a percentage change. So it's an alternative, and we need to consider it. I don't think it would hurt the museums at all. In fact, it potentially could increase their revenue stream because you could potentially get more revenue by way of those $10 charges. We have a lot of divisions in the county that are fee driven. Community Development Services is a fee driven operation. We have parks. Our parks charge fees. And even when -- you know, the gentleman was talking about fees to tourists, when a tourist parks in our garages, our residents have that for free. We get a free parking pass, but tourists Page 89 June 16,2011 have to pay to use the garage. And these are very nominal costs. But, you know, you add the pennies up, and you've got a great source of alternative revenue there that potentially could actually, in my opinion, increase the pot available to the museums, and I think you're shortchanging yourself if you don't want to see the potential of increasing your revenue stream. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I agree with Commissioner Henning, by the way; I don't want to see the funding sources changed. I voted for that back in '92, and one of the reasons I voted for it was because I felt that we ought to be showing our tourists what we have here in the town. And when you come to town, you shouldn't be the one that's being taxed and then the residents go free if your tourist tax dollars are paying for the museum in the first place. So I just have a little bit of a problem with that. I think it's admirable that you wanted to take a look at it. I think it -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, it was the direction of the TDC to bring it forward and consider it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, we haven't voted on it, though. COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, no. That's why I'm bringing forward what was discussed. COMMISSIONER FIALA: You know, we can discuss it and see how it would work with the -- and you can tell us how the visitors feel about it, especially some of the other people that also attend the museums. But on to another thing, Commissioner Henning was saying something about the Golden Gate Community Center built with MSTU funds. That's also very admirable. I want to say that we have a lot of community parks here in Collier County. There's only one community park that has no community center, and that's the Eagle Page 90 June 16, 2011 Lakes Community Park. That's the only one. And yet all of the other park community centers, other than Golden Gate, were paid for by impact fee dollars. So the park that caters to very, very poor children shouldn't have to try and pay for itself when all of the other parks that cater to a different economic class have not had to pay for it. So that's my response to you, Commissioner Henning. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. We are-- MR. OCHS: That's all we have for this division, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We are finished with this division. Thank you very much. And we're going to break for lunch. We'll be back here -- should we consider that the first constitutional officer budget as a time-certain, or are they somewhat flexible for maybe six minutes? MR.OCHS: I think we're flexible for six minutes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Why don't we get back here at 1 :05. MR.OCHS: Very good. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. OCHS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you very much. (A luncheon recess was had.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now we have a quorum. MR.OCHS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now it will take longer. COMMISSIONER HENNING: If only I were king. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. That's the way it was for about five minutes. Item #5 Page 91 June 16, 2011 CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS - ELECTIONS - PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Commissioners, you're starting your afternoon off with the Supervisor of Elections. Ms. Edwards and her staff are here. MS. EDWARDS: Good afternoon. Jennifer Edwards, Supervisor of Elections, and I'm here to present to you our budget. We have two cost centers in the budget, in the elections budget, and one of those cost centers is just our operations. That includes our permanent staff as well as our operating budget. And I am pleased to tell you that we were able to meet your targeted reduction goal. We actually exceeded it in that cost center. The second cost center, however, is the elections budget. And every four years we're required to conduct an additional election, which is the presidential preference primary, and because of that we have an increase in the cost center for elections. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Ifwe told you what our presidential preference was right now, would that solve a problem? MS. EDWARDS: Well, you know, we're even waiting now for the Legislative Committee to tell us the date of the Presidential Preference Primary. We don't know that yet and won't know it until possibly October the 1 st; however, because every four years we are required to conduct that election, our budget is increased. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MS. EDWARDS: Any questions? CHAIRMAN COYLE: And we don't really have any choices with respect to funding it. It has to be done, right? MS. EDWARDS: That's correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: This is not something that's left up to us. MS. EDWARDS: It's mandated. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yep, and so we've got to do it, right? MS. EDWARDS: That's right. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Can you do it any more cheaply than Page 92 June 16,2011 you're doing it now? MS. EDWARDS: We're always working to do things to save money. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. And you'll return any excess funds to us? MS. EDWARDS: We always do. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's right. That's right, you do. Okay. Any questions by commissioners? Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: I think you do a great job, Jennifer. MS. EDWARDS: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HILLER: You're wonderful. You all are. MS. EDWARDS: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I reviewed -- I had the opportunity to review your budget with you ahead of time, and all your requests seem very reasonable. MS. EDWARDS: Appreciate that. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And they always do. You do a good job. Thank you very much. And I have no other questions from any other commissioners. Thank you for coming here today. MS. EDWARDS: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Item #6 CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS - CLERK OF COURTS - PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Commissioners, the next Constitutional Officer Budget is the Clerk of Courts. Ms. Kinzel. MS. KINZEL: Good afternoon, Commissioners. It seems only Page 93 June 16,2011 yesterday we were here. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We've been here every day. MS. KINZEL: Exactly. I have with me today Raymond Milum. He is the Operations Manager for the Clerk and prepares the accounting. We are here to hopefully give you good news. We did meet all of the budget guidance. We would like to thank the County Budget Staff, as usual, for working with us. We follow the board's insurance policy and plan, and we believe that we have come in cost effectively. We always -- as you just asked the Supervisor of Elections, we always look for ways to streamline and cut costs. We know that everyone's facing the tough economic times that you've been working with, and we're here to work with you on those. And with that, we're here to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Any questions? (No response.) MR.OCHS: Run, run. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good presentation. MS. KINZEL: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thanks again. Good. We appreciate your adherence to the guidance. Thank you. MR.OCHS: Thank you. Item #7 CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS - SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT- PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Our next constitutional, Commissioners, is the Sheriffs Office. MR. SMITH: Isn't technology wonderful? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, it is, yes. You know, maybe we Page 94 June 16,2011 might want to take a couple minutes to explain why you and the other constitutionals are here. We're obviously not asking many questions concerning your budgets, and perhaps the public wants to know why you are even required to come here. The Board of County Commissioners has an obligation to fund Constitutional Officers. We do not have operational control over any of the constitutional officers. The Supervisor of Elections, Clerk of Courts, the Sheriff, the Tax Collector and Property Appraiser are all independent constitutional officers, and they manage their own financial affairs, but we do have a statutory responsibility for funding them. So it is customary for them to come to us, present their budgets. We have all -- I presume we've all talked with them independently about their budgets. We certainly have reviewed their budgets, and we don't get involved in trying to micromanage how they run their offices. As long as they have met the general budgeting guidance, which the Board of County Commissioners has established, we are almost always completely satisfied with their budgets. So are we about ready? MR. SMITH: I think so. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. SMITH: Good afternoon, Commissioners. On behalf of the Sheriff, I'm Chief Greg Smith, Chief of Administration for the Collier County Sheriffs Office, and with me today is Andrea Marsh, our Finance Director. We're here today to present on the budget. I am happy to report that we were able to meet the budget guidance of a 3-percent reduction. I'm also happy to report that we've been able to live within the budget reduction that we budgeted for last year with no ill effects to the county. Page 95 June 16, 2011 We have a couple of slides here that I'd like to real quickly run down, if I could, for the benefit of those in the audience and those who may be watching on TV. But the sheriffs philosophy has always been community, safety, and service. These three words are emblazoned on our logo, and they're adhered to in all that we do. What we've done over the past year and what we will continue to do with the budget that's been submitted is increase youth programming, enhance community outreach, we have lowered crime, we increased traffic safety, and reduced the budget. How have we been able to do this in a downturn economy? We created community safety teams, we've partnered with the community to launch Summer Fest, which is a CCSO program that deputies have made over 50,000 youth contacts through the summer months, keeping those kids engaged so they're not otherwise predisposed to issues regarding truancy or delinquency. We've increased our neighborhood watch participation to unprecedented levels. We've increased the use of agency volunteers, which is even more important now than it ever has been. We've created a monthly on scene TV broadcast. We've reorganized the agency . We've streamlined. We've consolidated functions. We've offered early separation. We've partnered with merchants to share intelligence and to attack retail theft, which has a good benefit for all of us in the retail trend. We've partnered -- continued our partnership with the 287(g) program with ICE to remove dangerous felons from our community, and we've also invoked other programs that have attacked blight and enhanced safety with neighborhood cleanup in our partnership with Code Enforcement regarding otherwise vacant homes. Notable accomplishments over the past 12 months, Sheriff Rambosk now serves as the -- on the DARE American National Board and sits on the Governing Board, Chairman, for the Region Six Fusion Page 96 June 16,2011 Center, which are two very notable achievements as well. But we really want to talk about the men and women of the agency and what they've done, their steadfast adherence to fighting crime at all levels. And it's through their innovation and their dedication and hard work that have really helped us to achieve what we've achieved, and we don't, by any means, want to neglect that. With that said, they're also going to be dealing the 3-percent net loss to their family incomes. We realize that. And everyone is working hard to minimize that impact as much as possible in relation with fiscal governance. How do we measure up? Only 11 other counties have a lower crime rate than Florida. And if you'll go to the second page -- we've show this in the past, but it's also important to understand, if you look at Collier County, it's the only green county that's down in the metropolitan, south of the peninsula. We are surrounded by counties of higher crime-rate incidents. And it's only through the work of our men and women of the agency and the commitment of our sheriff, our community partnerships, and this board's commitment with continued funding to allow us to develop things to keep this the way it is. I think that's very important. We always tout the amenities here in Collier and that that's what drives our economic engine, and that's what attracts people. And I think that's more important than ever now that we maintain a healthy and sound organization. With that said, we'll stand for questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: The -- that slide of the state is very impressive. I mean, it's not only good for our citizens; it's also good for our residents and hopefully future businesses that we do have a safe community. When the sheriff presented that to me, I was in awe. Page 97 June 16, 2011 My question is, anticipating any turnback this year? MR. SMITH: We are anticipating some turnback. We're still having to do some projections. Of course, our FRS contribution rates are going to decrease the first of the month. We don't know what that will yield. But certainly we are -- we're going to look at possibly having some turnback. Whether it's been as much as previous years -- it's probably going to be down from that, but I do think we'll have some. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. What is really surprising here is that, generally speaking, when a community has an economic recession, the crime rate goes up, and it hasn't happened here in Collier County; the crime rate has gone down. And that's indicative of structural changes in the way law enforcement is performed here in Collier County in education programs and vigilance. And Sheriff Rambosk has been particularly effective in implementing those kinds of programs, and that's one of the reasons why we have had a downturn in crime, even though we've also had the worst economic recession any of us can remember in this part of Florida. So, again, thank you very much, Chief Smith, and please convey our appreciation to Sheriff Rambosk for the wonderful work your agency does. MR. SMITH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thanks. Appreciate you coming in to visit with us. Oh, Commissioner Hiller has a question. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you, again, for your presentation. It's my understanding that one of the reasons you were able to do what you did from a budgetary standpoint this year is because you're not using one of your jails; is that correct? Page 98 June 16, 2011 MR. SMITH: That's one of the things that we've done. We are using the jail, and it's still operational for a booking facility. And right now it's housing female inmates while they do some rehab with regard to our aging primary structure over here on this side of the county. So it is being used in that regard, but it's not -- with the population downturn that we've had in the jails, it's allowed us to leave some positions vacant, and that's really how we've made the budget work. We have 212 vacant positions today at the Sheriffs Office. Now, we're fortunate that we don't need those because a lot of our call generators left when the economic downturn occurred. But at some point in time, if recovery continues, those call generators are going to come back onto the screen, and we're going to have to staff up. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I just want to point that out, because I don't want there to be a misconception that if incidents start increasing for any reason and you start to need that jail, that, you know, you're not held to where you are right now, because, obviously, that would be problematic. And I would be concerned that people would think that you're able to maintain this budget notwithstanding that happening. MR. SMITH: Yeah, and that's an important point to make, that at some point, you know, factors are going to drive us to look to increase our budget, and we're going to have to either look for a budget amendment, or hopefully it will occur in a cycle so that we can have some advanced planning and present within a budget cycle, but it's always something that's laying out there. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you for highlighting that. MR. SMITH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And to what extent do you feel that future Cops Grant Program money will be coming to you? We've got, what, four positions programmed for this fiscal year. Do you expect more later on or even more in this upcoming fiscal year? Page 99 June 16,2011 MR. SMITH: Well, I think the better person probably to answer that is the Finance Director. MS. MARSH: We've applied for four positions. Whether we'll get that, we're not sure. That was the directive the sheriff gave us. We'll know more in the coming months when they make those awards and we turn in a final budget for it. So we're hoping for four. It could be that many or none or something in between. CHAIRMAN COYLE: How frequently do you have the opportunity to apply for that program? MS. MARSH: We have had Cops Grants in the past, and over the years we've kind of gotten away from grants that fund positions and gone more for grants that focus on capital items. But with the change in the economy and us not hiring, we felt like this might be a way to get a few more deputies on the street in hopes that three years down the line when the grant ends, that we're in a better financial position to support those positions permanently. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. Just as an explanation for the public who, perhaps, is not familiar with the program. It's a federal program called the Cops Grant Program. The Federal Government will provide grants to hire Law Enforcement Deputies for three years, and they will pay the cost for three years as long as we agree that we will pay the cost for those deputies for 12 months after that period ends. So on the fourth year, it would become Collier County Government's responsibility to pick up the cost for those. That is a good way to begin ramping up for the future growth if and when the economic recession turns around without having to fund it ourselves initially and without taking the risk of being behind the power curve, so to speak, on having those people on board when the growth does occur. So in this -- it has a particularly good application under these circumstances. So appreciate you applying for those, and hopefully everything __ by the time it becomes our turn to pay their salaries in 2015 or so, we Page 100 June 16, 2011 will be in much better financial condition. Thank you very much for being here. Have a good day. MR. SMITH: Thank you. MR. OCHS: Thank you, Chief. Item #8 ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES - PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Commissioners, your next division is Administrative Services. CHAIRMAN COYLE: The division is over half the audience. MR.OCHS: Yes, sir. MS. PRICE: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record Len Price, Administrative Services Division Administrator. I did not prepare a big presentation for you. But sitting in front of you is the group of people who provide all of the internal services that keep the organization running and provide the resources necessary to get our jobs done. We were able to come in this year at the -- at budget guidance. We've been able to do that through a lot of smart working, through cross training, strategic use of outsourcing versus in sourcing and by -- to some extent by deferring some things down the road. Fortunately we were able to do that more easily and more strategically because we were in a very good situation when the economy changed. Obviously, we're concerned that too much of that might put us in a situation where we have maj or breakdowns that would be unbudgeted. Primarily we are funded by General Funds and by internal service transfers and that's really all that I can tell you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MS. PRICE: We're here to answer your questions. Page 101 June 16, 2011 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Questions, Board Members? Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: You have an increase of two positions, grant positions. MS. PRICE: Two positions were transfers from other departments within the agency and moved into a centralized grant unit. Those are to help the organization with grant compliance. COMMISSIONER HENNING: To manage the grant? MS. PRICE: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Now, that's billed out to the different Administrations or Divisions? MS. PRICE: No. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's not? MS. PRICE: Those-- COMMISSIONER HENNING: The grant pays for that? MS. PRICE: No, sir. Those were General Fund positions. One was in transportation, one was in OMB, and they were transferred from those divisions into our division. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Doesn't most grants pay to administer the grant? MS. PRICE: Some grants will allow up to 10 percent for administration. That really wouldn't completely cover those costs. And we're using these positions primarily for compliance to make sure that we we're -- when the auditors come in, that we've got all of our records correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, that's great. Correct me if I am wrong, your division of the administration is really fee generated, what it -- you bill whoever the user is, right? And actually they budget it. Purchasing does the same thing? MR. CARNELL: We have selected items that we recover revenue for, but our entire operation is not supported by fees. We're a General Fund Department. Page 102 June 16, 2011 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. And Human Resources, is -- is that billed to -- MS. PRICE: No, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. That just comes out of the General Fund. And I know fleet does, and I know -- I know the guy at the end, he does that. Okay . Well, fleet billing, that's Page 7. Fleet revenue billing -- no, I'm sorry, one down. Fuel Sales Revenue is $5.3 million? MR. CROFT: Could you say the page again, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have Page 7 of the Administration is Funding Sources. MS. PRICE: Yes, sir. That takes into account the expected increase in fuel. I believe we billed -- we budgeted this year at -- correct me if I'm wrong -- $4.50 so we would be sure that we didn't have a shortfall at the end of the year. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Correct. If you go to Fleet Management's tab on Page 16, Fuel Services it is -- you're allocating $6.1 million for those services. MR. CROFT: Yes, sir. Dan Croft, Fleet Management Director. They're -- included in that is a 15-cent a gallon markup to cover overhead for fleet operation or for fuel operations. So that's probably where you see the difference in -- in what Len said, that 4.50 a gallon. The actual-- with the exception of the school board, which we have a mutual agreement that we don't have a markup, we have a 15-cent-a-gallon markup to cover all of the costs of the fuel operations. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Well, what I'm seeing is you've got a cost of $6.1 million to ensure -- the cost, the effects, and dependability and timely fuel service to provide for county vehicles, equipment, and generators. It's costing you to provide that service $6.1 million, and I'm looking -- that your revenue is $5.3 million. So somewhere you're Page 103 June 16, 2011 making up the cost of that -- providing that service. I just don't know where that is. MS. PRICE: When we charge back the -- I do believe that the fleet -- the fuel sales includes the 4.50. The full revenue would be including the 15 percent charges. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So where's the 15 percent at in your sources, funding sources? MS. PRICE: Why is there a difference there? COMMISSIONER HENNING: You know what, I don't need that now, but if you would-- MS. PRICE: We'll get it for you. I'm sure it's an accounting issue. You'll see that our revenues and our expenditures are in balance, and so there's got to be an accounting thing that's just not coming to my mind right now. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Statutorily they need to be in balance -- they need to be balanced. Actually, the total budget does. Dan, vehicle replacement, do you have a -- what kind of formula do you go by when you have to replace vehicles? MR. CROFT: When we're looking at vehicles, we look at three different things. We look at the maintenance cost on the vehicles, the age of the vehicles, and the mileage on the vehicles. And it's a -- I mean, it's a data automation system that we set up, and the county gives me a way to look at those vehicles every year, and then I advise the different departments as to what they should budget for or what they should replace. And to answer your question, the criteria -- different criteria is set up for different types of vehicles. We're running six-cylinder vehicles at 90,000 miles, eight years, and -- I'm sorry -- 90,000 miles, six years; eight cylinders we run 110,000 and seven years; and diesel engines __ with the small diesels we're running 135,000 miles and eight years. When it comes to large vehicles, heavy equipment, it just -- it kind of depends. And we take a look at it as we go. But a lot of it has Page 104 June 16, 2011 to do with how much it's costing us to operate that vehicle. How much -- maintenance costs. That's about twice the effects of other-- of the age or the mileage. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What about ambulance? MR. CROFT: Ambulances we have set up at no later than 250,000 miles and eight years. And we are starting a new program, 2014, where we will start doing remounts and refurbs of the ambulances where we'll remount the boxes onto a -- onto a new chassis, refurb the box, and we're expecting to save forty to sixty thousand dollars per ambulance on those when we start that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Now, how many are you recommending to replace this year? MR. CROFT: I had originally recommended ten, and then we -- it was decided that they could reduce the number of front line ambulances they need, and we reduced by two, and then there's one that I decided to offset to another one, so seven ambulances, to answer your question. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Now, do you -- as far as your cost center, what would your laborly -- labor hourly rate be? I'm sure you've figured that out. What would it be if you was to bill it out? Oh, you do bill it out. MR. CROFT: We do bill it out. For next year it's going to be 71.50. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Seventy-one fifty. MR. CROFT: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that includes all the cost of MR. CROFT: All my overhead. I've -- in my overhead, I've got parts. I have a 28 percent markup on parts, on sublets I've got a 20 percent markup, and then on fuel I've got a 15 cent a gallon markup, and those markups cover exactly what it costs to run those particular Page 105 June 16,2011 operations. And anything that's left over -- you know, I got the power, I got data automation, all the different things, they're all folded into the labor rate, the remainder of it. So next year it's 71.50. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. That's far below market rate. MR. CROSS: Yes, it is. The market for small vehicles right now is around $89 an hour. When you get into large vehicles, it's up to about $109 an hour. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think it's a little bit more costly around here. I think -- that's what I'm being told anyways. I just have one more question. Nope, I don't. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, thank you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: No other questions. I'd like to thank you for being here. Thank you. Item #9 PUBLIC UTILITIES - PRESENTED MR.OCHS: Commissioners, your next Division is Public Utilities. Go ahead, George. MR. YILMAZ: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, George Yilmaz, Public Utilities Division Interim Administrator. I have a very brief presentation, then I will have our Chief Financial Officer for Public Utilities and the Water/Sewer District to give you a brief summary, executive summary of financial outlook, where we are, where we have been, and potentially where we might be going, and we'll go through that process. Thereafter, every single director for the -- each commodity area Page 106 June 16, 2011 is ready to make a brief presentation and ready to answer your questions. At the time it will be your choice to either directly go to questions or hear the presentations. So with that, I'd like to start my brief presentation, and it's short, and then Tom Wides, our Financial Operation Officer, will follow. Commissioners, as you know, we deliver best value, quality, life sustaining services that meets our customer's expectations for 24/7, 365. Most of the commodity areas, as you-all know, it is really -- it's 24/7, 365 operations. It's not eight to five, water service, sewer service, even our solid waste services that continues all the way to Saturday and on. The life sustaining infrastructure and services includes reliable and compliant drinking water service, reliable and compliant wastewater service, reliable and compliant irrigation water service, one of the leading solid waste services in the state and the nation, including twice a week garbage municipal solid waste collection, once a week single stream recyclables collections, which we're leading the state, as you all know, yellow top single stream bins. Through that process we were able to decrease amount of waste going to our landfill and preserve precious landfill space. And also we have box service as requested by our customers case by case included in our service profile, and we currently manage one active regional landfill, provide services, not only Collier County, but also municipalities and cities within the Collier County, such as City of Marco and City of Naples . And we also have two close landfills that we have to closely monitor and make sure that, from the environmental and regulatory compliance standpoint, they are in good shape and that they meet all the standards associated with regulatory framework. And, of course, we do have one active transfer station at Immokalee Landfill that operates 24/7 except Sundays. We have our utility billing and customer service fo'r water, sewer, Page 107 June 16,2011 and solid waste to address and meet customer expectations, and the feedback we have received so far, mostly we are exceeding customer expectations, and we'll continue to do so in that process. Lastly, we have one of the -- one of the essential functions in our division planning and project management for best-value solutions for sustained compliance with concurrency requirements and implementation of compliance-driven CIPs, Capital Improvement Projects. As you know, what that means is that the -- about a decade ago we used to issue dry permits. What that means is we don't have the capacity nor collection capacity to allow development to come in. Currently, I'm pleased to report to you that we have positioned ourselves not only for the near future but the next five and ten years, given the AUIR process, that every permit we issue through FDEP is wet permit, that means, yes, we have the capacity, we have the collection network for the wastewater and, yes, we do have the network for water distribution. Finally, I'd like to end my brief presentation, is that we have met binding and guiding principles that was given by the board and our county manager, and we have met budget guidance, and our proposed budget is revenue centric, cost contained, and includes no rate increase to our customers for fiscal year' 12 and '13. And we will continue to proactively manage our revenues to maintain optimal bond rating and avoid negative impact of the rates chart and lowest interest rates to our customers so that mismanaging our financial outlook -- that our financial officer is going to briefly tell you about -- if you don't do this right, we're going to end up with paying more interest fees coming from our customers than we could prevent. With that, I'm going to request Tom Wides, our Financial Operations Director, to brief you. MR. WIDES: Commissioners, again, for the record, Tom Wides, Page 108 June 16,2011 Operations Support Director for Public Utilities. To follow up on what Dr. Yilmaz said, as you've heard us in the past, we've been cost containing and revenue centric since basically the fall of'07. We looked for opportunities starting back then, and on a quarterly basis test ourselves not just verbally, but also in written format to make sure that we're looking for best value and also spending where we need to spend as opposed to not. In addition to that, as you're aware, our division has multiple restricted funding sources. Of course, we have water and sewer impact fees, we have water and sewer user revenues, which would be for a subset of the entire county population, of course, and we also have the solid waste piece, which is really servicing most, if not all, of the county, and in there you have both the fees for tipping at the landfill and also the collection fees, which you reviewed about -- just a couple weeks back. Finally, we also have approximately a $2 million budget, little bit over $2 million, in the Pollution Control Cost Center, and that revenue source is a mix of ad valorem revenues and other generated revenue sources. From a high level as you, -- as you look at our operating budget -- and I'll refer you to a moment -- Page 6 of the Public Utilities Division. If you just look at the line towards the top, net operating budget for FY12, you'll see a number of approximately $90.7 million. It's 90,697,400. The major components of that is the water/sewer district, which is about 58.5 million; the Goodland Area Fund, which is about a half million; the Solid Waste Division, which has two components to it, which is 28.9 million; and, finally, the Pollution Control Cost Center, which is $2.8 million, that all add up to 90.7. That is spread through the document, but I just wanted to give you a quick hitter as to how that spreads. As far as the water/sewer district in particular, we do have a Page 109 June 16, 2011 series of revenue bonds and other forms of external financing. And what we are watching constantly, as Dr. Yilmaz mentioned, is we're being monitored by the rating agencies, Fitch and Moody's in particular. They have a number of benchmarks they look for that we try to ensure that we meet in order to retain our rating. Given, we have no borrowing plans as it stands today, but we know at some point in the future we will be back out in the bond market, and we're trying to maintain our rating there. But they look for things such as coverage on bonded debt, outstanding debt per customer, days of available cash. They look for -- one of the things they look for that you've been very supportive of is literally the support of the governing board for program funding and necessary rate increases or adjustments. And as this program is set for FY12, we look at both the current budget year and we look at the outyears in setting our reserves, as you've recently gone through our rate study with us in February of this year. In that rate study, we made assumptions in terms of CPI among other -- among other items, and at this point in time we seem to be seeing that we're pretty solid there, although there have been some changes that we'll talk to today as you have some questions. That's basically all I have, unless -- and turn it back to you or Dr. Yilmaz for questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Hiller? I'm sorry. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. This is the division I haven't really studied, but I do see you still have two reserves; one reserve, capital, and one slush fund, which exceeds the guidance. May I have in a spreadsheet your capital replacement plan as updated? MR. WIDES: Yes, sir. We have it here today, if you'd like it. Page 110 June 16, 2011 COMMISSIONER HENNING: You can just email it to me. MR. WIDES: Sure. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So I'm going to hold my questions until the adoption. I do have one question for Ray. Ray, we -- last Tuesday the board considered a fertilizer ordinance? MR. SMITH: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can you assist us in that and educational to the public? MR. SMITH: Okay. What -- we're already going to meet on Monday to discuss that, find out, number one, what type of educational or public education we're already providing, and then to take a look at the pollution control budget to see where there's funding available to assist in that approach of educating the public. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay, thank you. MR. SMITH: Yes, I did hear you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you. George, I think it would -- MR. YILMAZ: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- be helpful for the public to understand your capacity to absorb future growth before major capital improvements are necessary. You have anticipated growth in the past, you have built water processing facilities that will provide substantial additional capacity. It would be good to have a review of just how long that will carry us when we begin to recover from the economic recession and hopefully begin to grow, and also a projection of the life cycle of our solid waste facility and how much reaction time you have built in for us to anticipate to closing out of that facility and/or getting another one. Are you prepared to do that for us today? MR. YILMAZ: Yes, sir. In executive summary format; if the detail is needed, we will follow up. Page 111 June 16,2011 CHAIRMAN COYLE: You have a very good graph on both of those. MR. YILMAZ: Yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And if you could just show us something like that, it might be helpful for the people to understand. MR. YILMAZ: Will do. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Because here's my point. Most -- a lot of your expenses are capital improvement expenses. MR. YILMAZ: Yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And the maintenance of those capital assets is very important. There have been suggestions that we extend our maintenance program beyond the limits where we would normally replace capital assets. So it would be good if you were able to just briefly show us those graphs that will give us an idea about the capacity that you've already built into our systems and how much growth that will accommodate over the future period. MR. YILMAZ: Yes, sir. And if I might, we go through, as you all know, on an annual basis the AUIR process which talks to our current capacity, how much we need to build for water/sewer as well as solid waste capacity, and it's a long-term as well as short term program layout. And, for instance, in our solid waste program, we need to be ready at any given time, two years of lined landfill capacity ready. And under AUIR terms and conditions, at any given time we need to have at least ten years of unlined landfill capacity. Our last A UIR presentation we were concurrent with those, and our A UIR presentation coming up this year will show that we will be concurrent and that we will meet those two lined and unlined cell capacity. In terms of life of the landfill, with the board's general guidance and direction and executive execution direction for the policy we have Page 112 June 16, 2011 received from our county manager, moved us in a path where we are in a much better position than many other municipal or county governments where they are running out of landfill space and they are running out of contingency capacity. So with that, I want to just request then to speak to, with your permission, for the next few minutes more specifics to -- in terms of our two year, ten year, and 30 plus action items that the board has approved and expect us to execute effectively. Dan, please. MR. RODRIGUEZ: Thank you, George. F or the record, Dan Rodriguez, your Solid Waste Management Department Director. Commissioners, we basically have 29 years of airspace capacity left in your landfill. You've gained the majority of that over the last nine years, thanks to your board directed and supported integrated sold waste management strategy, which calls for four components: Waste reduction, recycling, reuse; diversion strategy. With your support Tuesday, we're able to divert even more material for the next ten years; as well as the development of our existing infrastructure, maximizing the resources that we currently own as a county. That includes your current landfill. Back in the fall you approved staff to direct Waste Management to pursue a permit to gain elevation at the Collier County Landfill to take it up another 78 feet, which would provide disposal capacity for another 10 to 15 years, worth several hundreds of millions of dollars. In addition to that, as part of that strategy, you've authorized the staff to expand the landfill in its current footprint into an adjacent 40 acres, which will add another eight to ten years of capacity. Probably most importantly is the fact that you've committed to recycling. Back in 2005 you brought on single stream. That has really saved a tremendous amount of airspace to the tune that Collier County is one of the best recyclers in the State of Florida, if not in the Page 113 June 16,2011 top ten nationally, where residents recycle about 80 percent of the material that they put curbside. That's tremendous. What did that mean in tons? That's -- 100,000 tons a year does not go into our landfill but actually gets reused, recycled, and protects our natural resources and our dependency on natural resources. We're just warming up. Our commercial businesses -- though you approved it five years ago, it's mandatory for commercial businesses in Collier County to recycle. We have a lot of work to do. In fact, if you visit your favorite restaurant, your favorite store, many of them are still not recycling, but we're getting after them. And that's where the big advantage is. We believe -- you're currently bearing about two hundred and nine thousand tons -- that we could probably take off another sixty to eighty thousand tons by getting after those commercial businesses. And thanks to the direction from the board we've signed interlocal agreements with the City of Naples -- they were the first -- as well as the City of Marco Island and Everglades City, where it is now mandatory to recycle in those commercial businesses in those communities as well. MR.OCHS: Commissioners, I believe that's the graph that depicts essentially what Dan was describing to you in terms of permitted useful life based on your AUIR level of service in solid waste. MR. RODRIGUEZ: That's correct. And you can see out to 2039 you have capacity. And that's where it's most important to understand. That ten year window -- it will take ten years to build a new landfill, providing you can find the property, providing you get the permitting. Estimates from our engineers that specialize in landfill construction, estimate that cost to be in the neighborhood of $300 million, if not more, tied to inflation. But thanks to your direction, guidance, and support, not only in direction but also of our budget, we've put in place the many Page 114 June 16,2011 initiatives that we need to move that waste into markets and partner with private business. We in Public Utilities, where there's an opportunity to get the private business owner to do the majority of that work at best value and at market pricing, well, that's what we ascribed to do, Commissioners. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thanks, Dan. MR. YILMAZ: And, Commissioner, as a follow up to second and third pieces of your question on water/wastewater, I'm going to request our Engineering Director to place a chart for the water, and I'm going to request our water director briefly talk to our proactive future outlook and positioning ourselves for what might be coming our way as we go through and out of this recession. MR. MATT AUSCH: Commissioners, for the record, Paul Mattausch, Water Department Director. I'd like to have you look briefly at this chart. We completed our last increment of capacity development in 2008 with the addition of 12 million gallons a day of reverse osmosis capacity at our South County Regional Water Treatment Plant. We have a small incremental increase planned in 2017 of two million gallons a day at the North County Regional Water Treatment Plant, and then according to our AUIR process and our projections on both water consumption per capita use and population, our next increment of capacity development won't be necessary until 2027, which will be the northeast facility. We already have plans for that facility on the shelf. As you know, we were -- we were actively engaged in the design of that facility, and so that would be the next. And I'd be glad to answer any questions regarding water, if you have them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just a quick one. Is that the Orangetree one that you were just speaking of? Page 115 June 16,2011 MR. MATTAUSCH: That would be located in the northeast, yes, adjacent to the fairground site, yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good. And I had a question for Dan, also just a simple question, and that was, how many years does it take to permit a new landfill? I'd heard -- MR. RODRIGUEZ: Roughly, it's ten years, Commissioners, from securing the property. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. Paul, if I may, things have changed out there dramatically as far as what the Florida Legislative body is expecting, what the Florida Statutes are governing what we do. They're trying to make it a little more business friendly for the most part. One of the issues that we've talked about in the past had to do with reverse osmosis and the cost that we have. And my understanding is that the more freshwater that we can use to mix with our brine water that we bring up from greater depths will bring down the cost of the delivery system for water. Is that still correct? MR. MATTAUSCH: That is still correct. Ifwe can blend water from the two sources, it brings our total treatment cost down. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And I realize that we need special licenses from South Florida Water Management to be able to do what we do. Is that -- and that's still correct, I assume. MR. MATTAUSCH: That is correct. We need permits. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We talked about this some time ago about the allotment that we get and the fact that when we go into rationing, that it really doesn't make an awful lot of sense here because of the fact that we don't have a fluctuation that's too remarkable as far as our water table goes. Most of the water ends up in the Gulf of Mexico eventually, bleeds on through, and we can't take advantage of it. Page 116 June 16,2011 Because of the fact that the East Coast of Florida, where water management is primarily concerned about, has serious problems as far as a usable supply of water, is there a possibility we could go back and make an appeal through the governor or someone to be able to have access to more freshwater that's just going to waste in the Gulf of Mexico so we could bring down our cost of operations? MR. MATTAUSCH: One of the problems with that, Commissioner, is the cost of storage, capture and storage, of that freshwater that's going to tide. Storage of that water is fairly expensive. It is also very seasonal. The water going to tide goes to tide mostly, primarily, for five months out of the year, and so you have to have facilities either to capture and store or to take advantage of that seasonal fluctuation of the availability of that water. MR.OCHS: Paul, you may want to touch on the Consumptive Use Permit Authorization that we received very recently and what our efforts are to extend that going forward. MR. MATT AUSCH: Yeah. Thank you, County Manager. Appreciate that. In June of 2009 we did receive additional allocation of freshwater up to the amount of water that's required to provide for the full amount of water for the two facilities that were already constructed. We had -- we had stranded constructed capacity out there that we were unable to use year round for -- on the freshwater side. It was already constructed. We just didn't have enough raw water to go to that. In June of2009 we received an additional allocation of water so that we can use the full capacity of that. Currently we're at approximately 50/50 on our use of freshwater and our use of brackish water. In fact, we're at about 53 percent of constructed capacity for the use of seawater -- not seawater -- saltwater, deep brackish water, and about 47 percent of freshwater in our constructed capacity. Our goal is to remain around that 50/50 mark. Page 11 7 June 16, 2011 We need to -- we need to balance the management of our resources against where we live and how much freshwater is available to us year round rather than the seasonal fluctuations that we get. So we have to -- we have to be really aware of the environment and making sure that there's sufficient freshwater. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And, Paul, I hear you, but let me go -- let me rephrase the question just slightly different just to make sure that I totally understand it. What you're saying is that when we need our water capacity, our aquifer's already on the decline just because of the natural conditions of the lack of rain; is that correct? MR. MATTAUSCH: Yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And if we were to draw from that aquifer more freshwater, we could endanger the stability of it? MR. MATTAUSCH: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And possibly have saltwater intrusion? MR. MATTAUSCH: Yes, sir. We have to very, very carefully manage our resources and balance how much freshwater we withdraw and balance that with brackish water as our demand increases, because we can cause, through the withdrawal of freshwater, saltwater intrusion in our freshwater aquifer. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Now, that chart we're looking at over there, does that anticipate an upscale water use as we go forward? I mean, we don't expect our population to remain where it is indefinitely. It's going to increase. At that point in time, do we still have enough reserve within the aquifer to be able to meet that need? MR. MATTAUSCH: That additional capacity that's on that chart, Commissioner, is a blend of fresh and brackish water and continues to try to meet the goal of the 50/50 use of freshwater and brackish water, yes, sir, a balance use of resources. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But, meanwhile, we're required Page 118 June 16, 2011 to do this, but like the City of Naples, they can just draw all freshwater; is that correct? No, I'm trying to point out some of -- the rationale behind this doesn't make too much sense in some cases where we are, and I still would like to see at some point in time -- because I've talked to people from your department before, and what I've heard didn't quite mesh with what we're talking about as far as how the aquifers were drawn down and the amount of time for recovery and everything. We'll do that offline, because it's not quite meshing with what I got a couple years ago. Possibly I misunderstood it then. Appreciate your time. MR. YILMAZ: Commissioner, Vice Chair, if I might. For the record, George Yilmaz. We do have upcoming meetings scheduled with the new Executive Management Team with South Florida Water Management District, along with our Coastal Zone Management Team, and also jointly with FDEP. Next 30 to 45 days proactively we will meet with them and go over our strategies not only for Collier County, but how Collier County fits in the regional and south regional regulatory framework from a comprehensive water resource management standpoint. The point being, one third of our water supply is already reclaimed instead of being deep injected or discarded. So everything we're getting from our water department, big part of it, over 90, 95 percent of it, is being reclaimed as the freshwater and used for irrigation water. And then the other one third of -- approximate numbers -- other one third of the water that our water department produces being used for irrigation, and we'd like to put that on the table and clearly make our point that 50/50 maybe should move to 75/25. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Now you're talking my language. That's exactly what I'm trying to achieve. Page 119 June 16,2011 MR. YILMAZ: And that is a strategic approach, and our department directors and our management team very briefly talked about it. But we will follow that strategic approach due to the fact that we are one of the very few Water/Sewer District and county government making best of every drop out of wastewater being converted into reclaimed water as irrigation water. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And bully for you, George, because we already heard some things that were a little inconsistent. One, we do recognize the fact we're going to need more water. Ifwe maintained the 50/50 going into the future, we're still drawing more freshwater. So if we can draw that freshwater now down and bring down our costs that's going to be passed out on the Gulf of Mexico even during the dry season, then we're better off for it. And you're going the right direction. If you can go there and make a case with our reuse water -- and possibly they'll see the logic behind it. But I wouldn't hesitate, that if you reach an obstacle there where they're not going to move, bringing it back to us and maybe we might want to go for a different approach. MR. YILMAZ: We will. And also we will bring signs. We will bring stochastic signs from hydrology and comprehensive water resource management standpoint, and we'll bring modeling so that they will also support. If you put one third of freshwater mostly in our coastal zone, that is a recharge. That changes the hydrology and dynamics of hydrology above and beyond rainfall. Without getting into details, I think that I answered your question and concept. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You certainly did. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you very much. Excellent presentation, good information. Keep up the good work. Thank you. MR. OCHS: Thank you. Page 120 June 16, 2011 MR. YILMAZ: Thank you. Item #10 DEBT SERVICE - PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Commissioners, the next item on your agenda is your Debt Service Budget, and Mr. Isackson will go through that. MR. ISACKSON: Thank you, Mr. Ochs. MR.OCHS: Go ahead. MR. ISACKSON: Thank you, Mr. Ochs. Your Debt Service tab, Commissioners, if you can turn to that, that section. And I'm speaking off of Page 3 right now. This is your general governmental debt section. It essentially pertains to the repayment of debt on your Sales Tax Bonds, Gas Tax Bonds, Our Commercial Paper Refinancing, Conservation Collier, your CRA Debt, MSTU Debt, any subordinate debt that we have like Loans, SIB Loans, Loans from the State, things of that nature. The top portion on Page 3 talks about the debt service payment, both principal and interest that are going out to amortize that debt. The bottom portion essentially details out the transfers, as well as the reserves. You'll note that the principal and interest on the before mentioned debt in '11 was $50.7 million. In '12, that principal and interest payment now drops to 46.8 million. That's a variance of almost $4 million. Another noteworthy number on Page 3 is the reserve for debt service, that $20 million number that you see on the bottom of the page. Commissioners, you'll recall that when we had to fund up our debt service surety in order to accommodate the collapse in the bond market and the bond covenants that we have in our sale tax bonds, we had to generate some $18 million in order to fund that up; 15 million Page 121 June 16,2011 of that 20 million has to do with that fund-up, and that's where that money's sitting right now. It's in a separate fund. The Pages 7 through 21 of the debt service tab essentially talks about, in specific detail, the debt service that's connected with the sales tax bonds, the gas tax bonds, our commercial paper refinancing, Conservation Collier, et cetera, et cetera. Those are the highlights. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Questions? Okay. I would -- I would just like to read something from a completely independent third party agency. It concerns the recertification of our bond rating by Fitch, and they say the county's double A plus implied general obligation rating is based on its history of sound financial management demonstrated by generally consistent surplus results yielding a healthy unreserved fund balance. The debt burden in future capital needs are manageable, as are the county's pension and other post employment liabilities. So the people who rate our bonds feel that you have done a very good job of managing. MR. ISACKSON: Well, sir, there's a lot of credit to that. We work very cooperatively with the Clerk of Courts Finance Division in terms of our debt service schedules, our ratings, and there's a lot of people that go into this, so -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. MR. ISACKSON: And we'll continue to prosecute the management of our debt. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And the -- by the way, our independent auditors have also made the observation that our debt burden is well below the 13 percent that is allowable. As a matter of fact, it's roughly 30 percent below the allowable debt burden. It's 9 percent now versus the 13 percent maximum, if I remember correctly. MR.OCHS: It's 9.3 audited in '10, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, good. Thank you very much. Page 122 June 16,2011 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Where's the total debt? I was looking for that. What page is that on? MR. ISACKSON: You're looking at total outstanding debt. That wouldn't be in here, sir. This is just a budget year snapshot of what you have. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It was in our last years, previous years. MR. ISACKSON: Well, there was -- you want to throw up a chart for him that shows that, total debt outstanding. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You had it on your introductory remarks, Leo, and it showed declines over the past couple of years. COMMISSIONER HENNING: But it was a part of our budget book if I recall, at least it's part of this one. MR. ISACKSON: What you have, sir, is only your annual requirements to offset that larger debt component that was previously in the overview slides that Mr. Ochs showed. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. Am I wrong; it wasn't in previous -- didn't show previous? MR. ISACKSON : Your previous budgets did not. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Did not? MR. ISACKSON : Your debt service tabs are consistent from fiscal year to fiscal year in terms of -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: In the overview. I thought it was in the overview. MR. OCHS: It was. MR. ISACKSON: If you're looking for the total debt outstanding at the end of any particular fiscal year, we can provide that to you, sir. That's not a problem. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I know we're trending down. MR. ISACKSON: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. Now, the -- we have more -- do we still have more General Fund monies going to debt Page 123 June 16,2011 compared to fees? MR. ISACKSON : You are still providing a General Fund transfer to help augment the lack of impact fees that are coming in to help offset that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that -- how's that trending? MR. ISACKSON: Well, we've been fortunate over the last few years, sir, to actually go into the impact fee funds and manage those funds so that we're freeing up dollars to pay that debt service gap. That can only last so long. And I suspect in '12 -- in '13 and '14, you're going to see a spike up in that. This year it's about $3.8 million that we're moving from the General Fund to help offset that gap. That's going to grow, I suspect, in '13 and '14, provided impact fees keep at the level that they're at right now. And it may double. It may double. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oof, Oof. You want me to spell that for you? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. How do you spell that? Is it O-O-O-H or O-O-U? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No -- O-O-F. No, it's not P-H. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Be careful now. Okay, all right. Thank you very much. Item #11 MANAGEMENT OFFICES (PELICAN BAY) - PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Commissioners, your next office is the Management Offices. CHAIRMAN COYLE: They don't want you sitting beside them. Who's going to go first? MR.OCHS: I guess I'll go first, sir. The County Manager's Office is budget compliant. The budget is reduced 3.1 percent. That's Page 124 June 16,2011 on Page 7 and 8 of the tab. If there's no questions, I'll start moving down the table beginning with Mr. Torre. MR. TORRE: Good afternoon, Commissioners. The Communication Office Budget is on Pages 19, 20 and 21 under the Management Office's Tab. The budget's divided between the Public Information Office in the North Collier Government Services Center and the overall proposed budget for year is down 5.3 percent, and I'll be happy to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: No question. Drop it by another ten percent next time. MR. TORRE: Next time. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Nice man. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can I ask? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. Can you explain what you do for the one and a quarter million? MR. TORRE: Sure. I have a PowerPoint if you'd like to see it. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Sure. John, don't get scared, but I was thinking that might be a great source of funding for the museums. Just kidding. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We could combine the facilities. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I think we should. CHAIRMAN COYLE: John could become a museum exhibit. MR. TORRE: At the rate I'm going, I could be. I don't see the PowerPoint on there. Well, Commissioner, I'll just explain to you. I don't see the PowerPoint I thought it was loaded. We have two functions; Public Information and Customer Service. Public information office generates press releases and meeting notices, manages Collier television, is responsible for the Page 125 June 16,2011 Annual Report, Community Newsletters and Employee Newsletters, Website Management, Emergency Information, which we are the primary public information points when the EOC is activated, Advertising and Marketing Support For Different Departments, Media Relations, State And Federal Legislative Affairs, and we have dabbled into -- started dabbling in social media sites in the last couple of years. Public information office also is responsible for customer service functions, including the first floor switchboard here in this building, public records requests, and we also are responsible for processing and handling the AIMS system. We have a person that is responsible for that. And we have three employees that provide BCC services at the North Collier Government Services Center. The public information office budget, I can tell you the operating expenses are down 32 percent since when I first arrived. The operating budget's been reduced eight straight years in the public information office. Collier Television, we have three and a quarter people assigned to that. As you know, it runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We provide more than a thousand hours of live programming annually, including board meetings and a variety of advisory committee meetings. The switchboard downstairs handles 55,000 calls annually . We have one and a quarter people assigned to that. Now, they also are responsible for beach sticker distribution for this building. We have a graphic specialist on staff who is responsible for, you know, developing, designing, producing print publications for the various departments, printing services for county departments. We design the annual report in house. We used to outsource that. We started doing that in house in the last few years. As you know, we write, edit, and distribute news releases, meeting notices daily; we update the website. We have -- the graphics specialist is also responsible for basically being the official Page 126 June 16, 2011 photographer for the county. She's here at the board meetings. She's also one of two lead PIOs, in addition to myself, or the emergency activations in the EOC. Our citizen liaison, as I mentioned, handles AIMS, public records requests, and she's backup for the switchboard operation. Just as a point of reference, we handled 479 AIMS issues last year and 215 public records requests through my office. The North Collier Government Services Center, we have three full time employees up there that provide BCC services. They staff the main information desk, they distribute beach parking permits, CAT passes, Collier Area Transit passes. They also accept water bill payments. In the past -- in FYI 0, 130,000 people visited North Collier Government Center, and of that amount more than 20,000 were serviced at the BCC counter. News releases, 725 issued last year. The website has more than 1.3 million visitors annually. The department budget as I mentioned -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I'm sure -- John, I'm sure they're all watching our board meetings, right? MR. TORRE: The-- COMMISSIONER HILLER: The visitors to our website, Collier TV, I'm sure. MR. TORRE: Perhaps, perhaps. And as I mentioned, the budget this year that I've submitted is a reduction of 5.3. All of that was on a very snazzy Power Point that I just couldn't find right now. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. Thanks for the explanation. MR. TORRE: Okay. MR.OCHS: Jack? MR. WERT: Okay. Thank you. For the record, Jack Wert, your Page 127 June 16, 2011 Tourism Director. Our budget is Pages 12 through 18 in your book. Just a couple of brief points. We do have and continue to have, as we have in the last few years, 7 FTEs on our staff, and we are funded 100 percent by the Tourist Development Tax. We don't use any General Fund dollars at all. And we actually contribute to some of that gas tax revenue and certainly the sales tax revenue. Our visitors bring in about $80 million of that revenue, so basically that's taxes that our citizens don't have to pay, and that resulted in a savings to our homeowners last year of a little over $630 that they didn't have to pay because we had visitors coming to the area. Our budget is flat for -- in comparison to the last year; however, we are back to pretty much a very basic marketing budgeting plan for next year. The last two fiscal years we have had the opportunity to invest some dollars from the -- first of all, from the beach-renourishment reserves in FY9, or in FYI0, and this year we are using a million dollars from the beach park facilities' capital reserves. And so we're back to our basic budget. We don't have those opportunities anymore. So we'll probably be back to about a six to seven month marketing plan, as we were several years ago. We have four funds that we operate through the tourism department. That's our Fund 184, which is Category B. That also includes some marketing grants, $90,000 in marketing grants that goes through our regular grant program. We just reviewed those. Those are part of the budget. Fund 194 is our operating funds. That's our salaries and our basic daily operating expenses. Fund 196 is that emergency advertising fund, the one that has certainly helped us the last few years when we had hurricanes, that type of thing, but also in the economic slowdown, we've really been able to use those dollars effectively. And last summer we certainly Page 128 June 16, 2011 used them during the oil spill to try to mitigate that misinformation that was out there. And Fund 193 is our Category C2 non-county owned and museum grants. And those this year total eight hundred -- excuse me -- $287,300. Within that grant process, we have one grant that is in Category C currently. Weare going to review it again with the TDC next month. It may be that instead of a museum grant, it will a Category B grant, but we have allocated those dollars so we can cover that if that does, in fact, change, and we'll know that next month, and we'll certainly keep that as part of the final budget. The Tourist Development Council did review our budget thoroughly at the May 27th meeting, and they unanimously have recommended this budget to you. I'll answer any questions if you have them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just a quick one. I have this brief concern with the La Nina weather category upon us this year, and we've seen all the effects because of La Nina in other areas, I mean, devastating effects. Do we have enough in our emergency fund in case we get hit with a devastating effect of La Nina? MR. WERT: Commissioner Fiala, yes, I do feel that we have sufficient dollars in our Emergency Advertising Reserve Fund. It will be funded at a million dollars, which is what the current ordinance indicates, so we will have those dollars. And although we've never had to spend all of the budget in the past, we certainly do have some contingency dollars to use them if we need them. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thanks. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. What I'm going to do is introduce a copy of the minutes on the record where the Tourist Development Council addressed Mr. Wert's budget and the other Page 129 June 16,2011 discussion about, you know, the grant funding and so forth so. You know, people can directly see what was concluded by the TDC with respect to these budgets. Jack, would you comment on how the tourism industry is currently working under capacity? You know, the -- what we discovered, that, you know, the occupancy is at 60 percent, and we basically have 40 percent of unsold beds? MR. WERT: Yes. As Commissioner Hiller points out, our research indicates, and has for the last few years, that on an annual basis, our average occupancy and paid accommodations in the county is in the low 60s. And right -- last year because of the oil spill, we were at 60 percent, which means at anyone point in time during the year you could have up to 40 percent of our available beds unoccupied, which certainly means that that's -- leaves a lot of room to grow. It's certainly one of the things that we measure on a consistent basis is the number of visitors coming to the area, the monthly occupancy in those hotel rooms or any of the condos, any of those things. So it is an opportunity. It's something that we've been able to address the last couple of years. It's going to be a little more difficult this year to grow that number much. That certainly points out the reason -- we seem to be back to you often talking about funding and the fact that we can bring a very nice return on investment. When we invest a dollar of advertising, last year it returned $20 in spending from visitors that we can directly track from being attracted to the area by the advertising. So we know we can do it. It's just -- there are certain years we don't have the funds to do all that we'd like to do. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. And the reason I ask you to bring that out is that the budget that you administer is, in effect, an economic development budget, because what we are trying to do is promote the tourism industry by attracting tourists. Page 130 June 16,2011 Tourist development dollars are limited to bringing people from outside of the county . We can't use tourist development dollars for any other purpose. It can't be used to benefit local residents. So it is an economic development source of funds, and it needs to be looked at that way. And we are definitely under our development potential, and it is the largest economic driver in our county. I think it contributes, what, over a billion dollars annually -- MR. WERT: Yes, it does. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- to the -- MR. WERT: To the economy. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- to the economy. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Jack, could you please provide the commissioners with the data on a seasonal basis of occupancy rates? MR. WERT: Yes, sir, certainly can, certainly can. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Both in season, shoulder season, summer season. If you'll break it up into those categories, please, and take it back probably -- well, at least before the recession, it would be good to try to understand how the recession has impacted the visitor patterns in Collier County and what that has meant to revenue, okay. MR. WERT: Back to, like, '07, something like that? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, no. Oh seven is when things started -- started trending off. Let's go back to, I don't know, 1964. No, 2001, 2002, if you've got it that far. But certainly pick up -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Two thousand. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- some of the data that was relevant during the big runup on the economy. Okay. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's actually an excellent question, to look at the trend, and to also, at the same time, look at the trend in the growth in the number of rooms as well for -- you know, for that last, you know, ten-year period going back to 2000. MR. WERT: Sure. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Because what we have is we've Page 131 June 16,2011 had, you know, a growth in the capacity as well. And so to the extent that we've had a growth in capacity and we have 40 percent that's not being utilized, we need to do everything we can to maximize the return on the investments that have already been made here by the businesses. Thank you. MR. WERT: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thanks. No more questions. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, one last one. Has tourism begun to improve over last year and the year before? MR. WERT: Yes, ma'am, it definitely has. Starting really the last quarter of'10, we started to see some change. The summer, last summer was certainly disastrous; June, July, August, September was really down, but it did start to come back. First quarter this year, season, was very strong. First calendar quarter was definitely about 6 percent above where we had been. And it does continue. We're obviously getting in the slower season now, but the numbers still are staying up. And so we anticipate a pretty good summer. And we'll tell you, the international market is really helping to drive that. The -- you'll hear a lot of German spoken here this summer, I believe. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Which is good. It's bringing them back. MR. WERT: It is. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Because they used to be heavy visitors. MR. WERT: Very much so. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Who's next? Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Just one point. The euro versus the dollar has changed, and that's going to affect our state. I mean, I thought the direction from the TDC to use those funds to do some Page 132 June 16, 2011 marketing in Europe at that time was wise information, and I think it paid off. But those -- the gap is tightening between the euro and the dollar. So I'm sure that's going to playa factor in how many visitors that we get. MR. WERT: It certainly could, Commissioner Henning. One of the things we've found out from our tour operators that we work with in Europe, UK and so forth, they're indicating -- yes, in fact, the euro exchange rate was pretty unfavorable over the winter months so our visitation was down some then; however, it has improved, and it still fluctuates every day, but it's better than it was in the winter months. So as we're talking to them now, they're anticipating pretty good ticket sales for the summer months. And the other thing that they do, they buy dollars at different times, and most of them invested very well, so they're able to really offer some very attractive rates to their travelers. So I think they'll get here. They may spend less when they get here, but I think we'll have them in market. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And one more thing. I don't know if the board is aware of this, but I was told Monday from Clark Hill who has the Naples Hilton, Arthrex -- Arthrex alone this month is going to provide 700 night stays at his hotels -- it's amazing -- just from the doctors and others that he brings in to demonstrate his stuff. MR. WERT: Yes. It really does point out the importance of that medical field for Craft. It's a big business. We're definitely going to grow it. We're certainly going to be talking to Arthrex and others, NCH as well, who does a lot of that kind of medical education, that type of thing. It's big business, and so we want to grow that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I didn't know Naples Community Hospital was involved. I'd like to know more. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We're going to have a ten minute break for the court reporter. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can I ask just one last question of Page 133 June 16,2011 Jack or just ask him to bring one very small point up? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Sure, if we can just get it done quickly. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. Jack, I want you to -- I think it's really great that Arthrex, you know, brings in these visitors, and that's a very big positive. Could you address how the Marco Island Marriott is going to be building a convention center at their own expense? I think that's a very important factor, because that is something that could have been funded with TDC dollars, and they have decided not to go for any sort of public funding, and they are building a convention center which will service our whole community. And I believe the Marco Island Marriott is the largest hotel in the county, isn't it? MR. WERT: It is, and it has currently the most amount of meeting space of any of our other meeting hotels. The plans that the Marriott has, they've discussed it with their owners. It really is another ballroom and added meeting space. It certainly could be considered a small convention center, but it really is going to primarily benefit Marco Island. There will be some spin-oft: obviously. If they're able to do a huge meeting and use up most of their meeting space, that's going to drive a lot more people into our community. They're going to get certainly into Naples and other places to spend money. It will help a lot. But I think that's one of the big reasons that they really shied away from calling it a convention center for the community which, yes, that would be something we could consider for tourist tax dollars, but it really is primarily a benefit to their property and the other properties on Marco Island. And although that's a plan, they certainly have a lot of hurdles to overcome with going through their permitting process and so forth on Marco Island. I know that there are some -- Page 134 June 16, 2011 COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. We're breaking for ten minute for the court reporter. Be back here at -- let's make it 2:40 -- 2:50. (A brief recess was had.) MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mike. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. The Board of County Commission meeting is back in session. We're going to go where? MR.OCHS: Commissioner, we're still on Management Offices. Before we go to the Emergency Services Bureau, Mr. Dorrill is here representing the Pelican Bay Services Division. And as you know, you have a separate public hearing on that budget in September, but he's here to certainly answer any questions the board may have on the Pelican Bay budget. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Does anybody have any questions on the Pelican Bay Service District budget? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Isn't that going up? Revenue going up? I forgot. MR.OCHS: Neil. CHAIRMAN COYLE: If revenue's going up, it's their revenue, right? MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir. Good afternoon, Neil Dorrill. There is an increase, a modest increase in the millage in order to establish a historic First Capital Recovery Fund to replace their streetlights within the next ten years, and the finance committee in full board voted unanimously to recommend a small reserve for future capital in order to replace those streetlights, and that's it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that 59 percent and change-- MR. ISACKSON: On page 45, sir. MR.OCHS: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, 45, okay. MR. ISACKSON : Yes. The answer to that is yes. Page 135 June 16, 2011 COMMISSIONER HENNING: It is? MR. ISACKSON: They're in Fund 778, which Mr. Dorrill pointed out is their Pelican Bay streetlighting fund. They're requesting an increase in their property tax rate to be levied within the property owners within their MSTBU to support what Mr. Dorrilljust mentioned on the capital improvement side. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What about the Foundation? Was it mentioned in any of their meetings? I know it's separate. MR. DORRILL: This was a joint venture project. We originally did a master plan with the Foundation a year ago. The services division paid half, the Foundation paid half, and this was -- their number one priority was to construct pedestrian crosswalks along Pelican Bay Boulevard. That is fully funded and will be undertaken later this summer. And this was Priority No.2, to begin to establish some future reserve funds to replace their existing streetlight poles that are nearing 20 years in age within the next ten years. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Hiller, this is -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Mr. Dorrill and I have not reviewed the budget yet. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And we are going to sit down and separately review the details. So I don't want to comment on anything until he has had the opportunity to go over everything with me in detail. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Always a pleasure. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. DORRILL: Thank you all. See you in August. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. Thank you for being here, Neil. Thanks. MR.OCHS: Commission, that takes us to your Bureau of Emergency Services. Mr. Summers will begin. MR. SUMMERS: Good afternoon, Board. Dan Summers, Page 136 June 16, 2011 director of the Bureau of Emergency Services and Emergency Management. To my right, Chief Page, Chief McLaughlin, and Chief Rodriguez. Just to give you a short synopsis, we have met budget guidance and in some cases improved that budget guidance with additional reductions. And there are some areas, however, that contractually we're bound or state mandated to meet certain numbers there, such as forestry operations et cetera. Ochopee, Capri, Emergency Management, Medical Examiner, Emergency Medical Services' MedFlight. There is no substantial capital request. You're aware of some discussions we've had on replacement ambulances, but there is essentially no new capital other than routine replacement of medical equipment that might be necessary for our continued operations, but no new -- no new vehicles within emergency management, Ochopee, Capri, et cetera. The effort that we have put forth this year has probably been unprecedented in terms of analysis and review and looking at things at service. We're supported by Ms. Bay and Artie Bay and Barbara Shea and Christine Bonai (phonetic) from my offices. So we've been working very, very hard in this process, and I want to thank the effort of OMB as well for us to continue meeting all of our necessary obligations and service costs. Remember that our organization responds to almost 29,000 calls a year for assistance, whether it be the current increase in caseload at the Medical Examiner's Office or the calls for pre hospital care, and you can only imagine what the last eight weeks have been like for fire service operations. So I'm here to answer any questions that you might have. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner -- who was first? Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Sir, we have one speaker. I was Page 137 June 16, 2011 wondering if it might be possible -- the speaker's going to be discussing a topic that's very dear. And before I got into it, I thought you might like to hear from her. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Let's call the first speaker. MR. MITCHELL: The speaker is Jean Kongle. MS. KONGLE: Jean Kongle, I guess, for the record. I just wanted to keep this on the minds of everybody. Port of the Islands, graciously you did purchase the marina there for the parks. The marina building was slated for -- most of that building was going to be a fire station for Port of the Islands, which is almost -- it's not half the size of Ochopee district, but half of the people live at Port of the Islands. The revenues come a lot from Port of the Islands. We need about $450,000 to complete that project, to get that fire station. They've done all the legwork to get it ready to just put the money up and they can build. So I just want to keep that on your minds that we do need that money. I know it might not be this year, as much as we hoped it would be last year. So if you could keep that in your minds, if you can find a little extra money, we would certainly appreciate it. It's a big area down there. We are 14 miles from Everglades City . We do have a temporary station right now, a carport and a couple of guys staying in a hotel room, so that does definitely help us a lot down there. But we would like to have that fire station completed. So thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: All we've got to do is just increase the tax rate for the people there, and we'd have money to pay for it real fast. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And if I -- MS. KONGLE: Well, we're at a four mill right now. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I'm just joking with you. MS. KONGLE: We don't want to go higher than four mill right Page 138 June 16, 2011 now. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. And if I may be-- inquire of Dan Summers. What is the plans for this as far as when this might all happen? MR. SUMMERS: Sir, we have aggressively looked, since the acquisition of that property, for grants. We worked intensively with FEMA. We worked with USDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture, in terms of rural infrastructure, grant resources in order to try to find enough capital to make that renovation. Jean mentions construction. Let me make sure you understand that this is a renovation of an existing facility, not new construction. The little reserve resources that we had since the acquisition of that property, we did, in fact, go through design review, adjustments to the Site Development Plan, et cetera. So we are ready -- we are essentially remodeling-ready, meaning the architecturals are done and that type of thing, should funding become available. But the last several years, with the impacts, have just not let that -- those resources become available. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Is there a possibility there might be some money from state or federal that we could put in one of our legislative initiatives? MR. SUMMERS: Sir, it might be an opportunity to review that at the state legislative level. I will tell you that I'm a pretty good bird dog when it comes to those grant opportunities. We've also worked with our state and federal lobbyists in terms of trying to find any grant opportunity that would be appropriate there. And honestly, it's just a very tough fit for that environment for grant dollars as you relate to renovation. So it's difficult, but I would certainly encourage any other opportunity that we could have for resources. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. We'll work on this over the next couple months or so. Page 139 June 16, 2011 MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir, we will. We are providing basic service there. We would like very much to get that station established for lots of reasons, but we are, indeed, providing the basic service. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Before we leave that question and go on to the other commissioners, what -- can you give us a probability of getting grant funding for this? MR. SUMMERS: Sir, I think where we have really run into the challenge in this particular grant -- hold on here -- is flood review. And I think, you know, it's really ironic in that, as you look at the elevation of that site, and you get into federal dollars, I think we -- one of our roadblocks in addition to demographics being income and that type of thing, part of the other challenge might just be simply the elevation. And I think in this -- in this case with a fire station, should that opportunity come up again, as your emergency manager, I still think that was an appropriate purchase. It's an ideal location. There's substantial infrastructure there and substantial savings for renovation. But I think where we really get into the weeds with the grant opportunities might be just because of the elevation at that location. And as you well know, sir, that kind of -- that pushes that off to the side every time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We've been working on elevation in other areas for 13 years. COMMISSIONER FIALA: How much is needed to build -- to do these renovations? MR. SUMMERS: Chief McLaughlin had done some preliminary budget analysis with our Facilities Department. Let me let him quote that last number. Chief? MR. McLAUGHLIN: Good afternoon, Board. We did some non bid -- or non bid construction costs to a couple companies, and the number that came in -- the highest number we had Page 140 June 16, 2011 was 471,000. After discussion with facilities, we could probably, oh, get that down by another fifty to sixty thousand dollars. They were a little on the high side. But with the engineering all done, the architecturals done, we currently have about $68,000 into the project. So after talking with the facilities management, they're looking at somewheres between four hundred and probably and four hundred thirty thousand dollars to finish this project. And like Mr. Summers said, one of the problems is this is a retrofit of an existing building, not an existing station, and a lot of those grants he was talking about are retrofits to existing stations. And the FDA, of course, our mean income is higher than they allow for rural grant assistance. So we've run into some roadblocks. We've actively sought those grants. I've been in West Palm several times trying to work those out, and we've kind of run into roadblocks, so we've come to a dead end on that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I could flip some pancakes. How many ambulance do you run? How many ambulance are on the street? MR. PAGE: For the record, Jeff Page with Emergency Medical Services. Commissioner, it does vary, but there are 23 and a half -- one's a 12-hour unit -- ground vehicles that are always up -- the helicopter makes it 24 -- and I've got two additional units during the season that I put up, and they may be up, you know, based on the call volume one day and down the next. So 25 are full line all the time. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And it's being recommended that almost half of your fleet needs to be changed out, you need to replace it. MR. PAGE: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: But yet we're not doing anything about it. Page 141 June 16, 2011 MR. PAGE: In order to meet budget compliance, I really haven't been able to replace units other than -- I believe it was last year we came back to the board. We had exceeded what our revenue amount was to be that year. And what we're hoping to do is, is that again this year, any money that we exceed the budget by, that we really -- that would roll back into the General Fund, we would probably come back to the board and ask that you allow us to use that money. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, what's surprising to me is -- the right page -- that a list -- not funded in this budget is three ambulance at a cost of approximately half a million dollars for those three ambulance. But in your side of it it says, states, that ten need to be replaced, four of these units exceed 250,000 miles. These are the roughest miles that any vehicle can be put on it by far. MR. PAGE: Well, in addition to that, due to the nature of their work, miles are not really a good indicator because of the idling time involved. I'm sure Mr. Croft probably has an ap on his iPhone that helps him convert that, but I bet it's closer to three hundred. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, this is -- this is going to be a disaster. There's no question about -- somebody is going to be affected by not replacing these ambulance. There's no question about it. And to me, I think this is one of the most important services that we provide. Either we provide it or we let somebody else do it, because this is -- this is not going to cut it, and we need to find the funds to make sure those vehicles are running, because they're 24/7. You're the only game in town. Thank God we have some firefighters out there doing some ALS. But as far as transport and some of the rural communities that doesn't have ALS, oof. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's another oof moment. MR. PAGE: Well, I would just say this. I mean, we're currently working with my colleagues here to try and get to the point where-- one of the reasons we need to have as many as that -- that we do is that we're responding as a first responder type agency to calls, whereas in Page 142 June 16,2011 some agencies or some counties they would have actually a fire department unit on a lesser-type call go and evaluate the scene to see if there's a unit actually -- or a patient needs to actually be transported. In the first two quarters of this year -- typically, I've told you in the past, only 65 percent of the time do we actually transport. In the first two quarters of this year, that's down to 49 percent where we're arriving on scene and really weren't needed for a transport at all. So if you can ever arrange it to where fire departments are providing that first response and evaluating the scene and then calling the unit if it needs to be a transport -- certainly there are calls you know you've got to transport. If it's a cardiac arrest, we're all going. But if you take alpha and some of the bravo calls which are lesser, typically -- or what you would want to see -- like on Marco -- it's that you make send an engine for someone that gets hit by a stingray, and then evaluate to see if you really need a transport or not. Typically you don't, so -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: You need to fix this. MR. OCHS : Yes, sir. We'll take a look at some other options, and when we come back in July when you see this budget again to adopt your maximum tentative millage, we'll report back to you on some options for you to consider. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. And when we bring that back, I think what we need to do is look back at the AUIR level of service standards and how this is all working and really review it in its entirety, because obviously there's a problem. Particularly in light of the fact that our ALS response time standard is -- what is it, eight minutes? MR. PAGE: Eight minutes travel time. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. Which -- I mean, you really should have an eight-minute -- you know, actually you should have what Seattle has, which is a four minute call to shock time, which is Page 143 June 16,2011 not what we have by a long shot. In fact, the BLS standard for Seattle is, I believe, like eight or nine minutes. So -- and considering travel time really doesn't cut it when you're looking at, you know, critical-care cases. But I don't want to delve in that because that's for another discussion. I have a few comments I'd like to make. Going back to that compact money, that's exactly where it needs to go. I mean, I think we -- obviously, you know, public safety is the priority if we do have available funds for expenditures. And, you know, if you have a shortfall of $400,000, we have an existing building that we have acquired that we are not using, and we have a public-safety purpose for using it, and we don't have the funds, and suddenly we have 330,000 -- 328,000 available, I mean, that is where that compact money needs to go. I mean, you have clearly identified that -- you know, a priority source for that funding. So, I mean, that this is personally what I would support is you getting it for, you know, that station. The question I have for the districts is, you know, there are different levels of consolidation, if you will. I mean, you can consolidate 100 percent, but you can also consolidate at a lower level, for example, by, you know, pooling your purchases, because you obviously will have common types of purchases, and take advantage of volume discounts. I just want to make sure that you are doing that. MR. SUMMERS: Commissioner, as director over of those departments -- and I'd certainly get some feedback from the chief, but that's essentially what the Bureau of Emergency Services does. Now, granted, we have different authorities under the MS TU and those funds are, in fact, siloed according to their organization. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Of course. MR. SUMMERS: But I review those purchases. That purchasing authority by the -- by virtue of the team effort that the four of us do, five counting the Med Flight pilot, that's a constant program for us. Page 144 June 16, 2011 So rest assured, those efficiencies are in place just by virtue -- if we can bulk purchase, we, in fact, do that. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Good. MR. SUMMERS : We jointly review -- we as a team even jointly review apparatus and equipment for consistency, maintenance and repair opportunities that we can do as a group. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Great. MR. SUMMERS: So I don't want to use the word "functional consolidation," but I will just tell you that all of those business processes, to take advantage of every cost efficiency, is well engrained within the bureau and our division. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And you don't have to consolidate as a unit in order to have consolidation benefits from those kind of -- that's super. I'm so delighted to hear that. MR. McLAUGHLIN: We currently do that, Commissioner. We buy our uniforms from the same company. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Super. MR. McALPIN: Our hoses, our nozzles. COMMISSIONER HILLER: You can share your common mechanic, you know, things along those nature. That's a great way to save costs. MR. SUMMERS: Commissioner, the buzz word for us really is "inner operability." We work very hard to make sure equipment is laid out the same, so although we don't exchange personnel per se, but as we work as a unit, everything down to placement of equipment on the apparatus has as much consistency as possible just to bring that uniform approach and uniform policy procedure to the organizations. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Great. I commend you for doing that. It's the right way to do it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. MR. SUMMERS: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Goodjob. Page 145 June 16, 2011 MR. OCHS: Commissioners, your next area is the BCC agency offices. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Did we skip the county attorney? MR. OCHS: I'm sorry. County Attorney. Sorry , Jeff. Item #12 COUNTY ATTORNEY -PRESENTED MR. KLA TZKOW: I thought I got off easy there for a second. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You wouldn't have a budget. MR. KLATZKOW: That's true. Commissioners, we've met your guidance this year. The bulk of your cost, in fact almost all of our costs are personnel related. And I think we're down 9 to 10 percent from last year's budget, and we're here to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Questions? Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, you're going to be down one staff member? MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, one attorney. Robert Zachary left. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You're not replacing him. MR. KLATZKOW: No. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You know, speaking with one of the deputy county attorneys, on some of these human resources issues, some guidance is given by the attorney's office, and they're not taken by the director, agency, or whatever, for whatever reason it is. And there's a liability factor in that. And I don't know if there's a -- if there's somebody in between -- naturally Human Resources Department is, correct? MR. OCHS: In between who, sir? COMMISSIONER HENNING: In between -- working with the Page 146 June 16, 2011 county attorney, when you have a human resource -- human relations MR. OCHS: Sure. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- issue. But when guidance is not given, it's putting -- it's putting us at risk or it's, you know, using a lot of county attorney's time. How do we -- how do we measure whether it's not worth taking advice and taking that risk? Do you -- can you evaluate that, or do you evaluate that with your human resources people? MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. And, you know, it's difficult not knowing the specifics, and I'm not sure -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm not going to give you specifics. MR.OCHS: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HENNING: But I think it's a general thing that happens in the agency is sometimes that recommendations or that guidance is not carried forward. And you're aware of those, each and every one of those -- every incidence. MR.OCHS: No, no, I'm not. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. MR. OCHS: I'm not. I don't know what you're referring to, but maybe we could talk some more offline. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, let's say it's a discipline, employee discipline. County manager's -- County Attorney's Office is recommending something different like a -- you know, a time period of review for that employee instead of dismissal. You don't get -- you don't hear about any of those? MR.OCHS: No, Commissioner. Frankly, the way our rules are set up, there's a post termination appeal provision. And if I get involved prior to that, then our office is compromised as a hearing officer at that point in the process. So division administrators make those recommendations for Page 147 June 16,2011 disciplinary actions. And then if they get appealed, they can get appealed up to the County Manager's Office for a hearing. So there is a certain amount of arm's length that is kept there, although I know that county attorney and our division administrators consult closely on those types of personnel issues. They may not agree 100 percent of the time, but I know there's close coordination in counsel between Jeffs office and my senior management staff on personnel items. COMMISSIONER HENNING: When you say "division administrator," you're talking about the three -- what is it, three, four administrators? MR. OCHS : Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: On each and every case where there's a recommendation for -- not termination, but some -- MR.OCHS: If there's an employee counseling, written reprimand, something like that, that could be handled by the department director or the senior supervisor under our rules. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. How many -- how many attorneys did you have when you started out and how many -- you have, like, 23 now? No, less than that. MR. KLATZKOW: No. We have -- I've got seven assistant county attorneys. We've lost around five or so, five or six over the years. Your business is down too, though. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. MR. KLATZKOW: I mean, the board business is down. So, you know, we've basically been tracking the board business. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Enough said. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. You've got a budget now. MR. KLATZKOW: Thank you, sir. Item #13 Page 148 June 16,2011 BCC (COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCIES, AIRPORT) - PRESENTED MR.OCHS: Now you have your BCC offices, sir, CRAs, Airport Authority, come on up. Chris. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Who is going to go first? David, you or Penny? Both of you. MR.OCHS: Make some room for the Airport Authority, too. Grab a chair. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You want to go from left to right, and we'll start with the Airport Authority? Chris? MR. CURRY: Sure. CHAIRMAN COYLE: By the way, congratulations on getting positive results from your FAA inquiry concerning lease rates at the airport. Excellent job, verified your judgment in the first place, and keep up the good work. MR. CURRY: Thank you. I had "good morning," but I guess good afternoon, Commissioners. Chris Curry, executive director of the Airport Authority . I would like to introduce some members of my staff. Debbie Mueller, to my left, Accounting Supervisor, and Bob Tweedy, Airport Manager Of Marco Island Executive and Everglades Airpark. We have brought you a budget based on your guidance to reduce our reliance on the General Fund by 3 percent in 2012. When I was hired by the Board of County Commissioners last year, the direction from the board was to make the Collier County airports as self sustainable as possible. This direction is consistent with grant assurances received from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Department of Transportation. If it's okay with the board, I would like to briefly explain our Page 149 June 16,2011 primary sources of funding for the airport and highlight activities that have occurred at the three Collier County airports since October of 2010. Primary funding sources for the Airport Authority are the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration; FDOT, Florida Department of Transportation; and Collier County. In general, the FAA normally funds 95 percent of airport related projects, 2.5 percent is normally funded by FDOT, and 2.5 percent is the county match. There are some cases whereby the airports are funded by FDOT at 100 percent. Collier County airports generally receive 150,000 per year of FAA general-aviation entitlement funding. Although these funds are allocated for the three airports, with prior approval we can use some or all towards any of the three airports in our system. Some additional funding has also been provided by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The primary source of revenue for general aviation airports are fuel sales and land leases. In October 2010 airport management had land value appraisals performed by the county and a third-party appraiser. This is how we establish land values for Immokalee Regional Airport, and those appraisals are on file with the FAA. As you are aware, the Airport Authority recently reduced fuel costs throughout the entire system. Using a comparable time frame from January to May 31 st, fuel sales in gallons have increased from 2010. Everglades City Airpark has increased 62.4 percent, Immokalee Regional Airport increased 8.1 percent, and Marco Island Airport increased by 5.2 percent. Revenue generated from leases has increased overall by 19.5 percent. We have also received an analysis of a recent staffing study conducted by human resources to determine the appropriate staffing levels for the Collier County airports. It is my belief that the staffing study supports the minimum staffing level that we have to provide a Page 150 June 16, 2011 safe, secure, and operable airport system, which are requirements on the federal and state grant assurances. January 2011 the Board of County Commissioners approved a new rates and charges policy. The last policy prior to this approval was 2002. Landing fees were established for Marco Island Executive Airport with the new rates and charges schedule. We are expecting to garner approximately $20,000 in new revenue that can be used as county-match contributions for capital improvements projects. Marco Island Executive Airport apron expansion and parking lot relocation completion, $800,000, November 2010. Start of the $7 million taxiway project, estimated completion date possibly January 2012, although we've been told they could be finished by Christmas. This project will significantly increase capacity and enhance safety. Without a taxiway, there are several aircraft companies and schools that are prohibited from using the airport due to safety concerns. New leases with Marco Aviation, which is an air charter service at the airport, Enterprise Rental Car, and a concessionaire agreement with Corporate Jet for aircraft detailing. As you're aware, the Enterprise Car Rental agreement has incorporated Immokalee Regional Airport and Everglades City Airpark. We have a security enhancement grant from FDOT funded at 100 percent for $60,000, and Marco Island has 100 percent T hangar occupancy rate. At Immokalee we're now constructing a 20,000 foot manufacturing facility partly funded by the USDA and Collier County. We have a runway lighting project funded by Florida Department of Transportation and Collier County. New construction with Turbo Services; a lease was finalized in April 2011. We have negotiated new leases with Mr. Hester with the Immokalee drag strip, with Executive Air, and working leases with DC Air and Greg Sheppard of South Florida Defense Museum. Page 151 June 16, 2011 Immokalee has a 90 percent T hangar occupancy rate. Everglades City Airpark, we're working towards the completion of the south end taxiway project. Still waiting for some funding for that. We've done some concrete seal work around the T hangar buildings, and we're in discussions with Mayor Hamilton for consideration of possible transfer of the airpark to Everglades City. Everglades City Airpark has 100 percent T hangar occupancy rate. My staff and I are available to answer any questions that you may have. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Questions from the board? Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can you explain to us a little bit about the debt the airports carry and where we stand on that, the debt to the General Fund, how the airports are being subsidized? MR. CURRY: Well, last year the airport was subsidized at about, I believe, five hundred twenty seven thousand, and this year it's about five eleven, so we're trending downward. I know there's a substantial amount of debt that the airport has accumulated prior to my arrival that must be paid back. COMMISSIONER HILLER: What is the total amount that's currently owed to the General Fund? MS. MUELLER: It's a little over 20 million. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Twenty million? MS. MUELLER: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And that's the three airports collectively that owe that back to the county, to the General Fund. MS. MUELLER: It incorporates the three airports' operating fund and the capital. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. You're not paying -- yeah, that's fine. You're not paying anything -- this is what you're Page 152 June 16, 2011 paying back on that? Is that -- I just -- MS. MUELLER: No monies to date have been paid back on the loan. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. And so this is another advance from the county, is that what this is? The five hundred-- MS. MUELLER: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- is another advance. So you're actually growing? I mean, you're not borrowing as much as you were, but you continue to borrow from the General Fund to subsidize your activity, and you haven't repaid anything back? MS. MUELLER: Correct. MR. CURRY: Correct. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I just want to summarize my understanding. Thank you so much. MR. CURRY: That's correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: All right. You're done. MR. CURRY: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. You've been doing a good job. Thanks. Okay, Penny. MS. PHILLIPPI: Penny Phillippi, the Immokalee CRA Director. To my right, two people, Marie Capita is our new manager of the Immokalee Business Development Center, and this is Brad Muckel. He's our Project Manager for the CRA. In Immokalee we have good news and we have bad news, and so I'll tell you the bad news first. Our TIF is all the way down to $390,000, as you see. So in July the budget that we bring back to you will look a little bit different than this one. We've reduced our -- reduced our budget substantially to operational costs all the way down to five eighty-five. Page 153 June 16,2011 We're able to do this because, for example, our Business Development Center is 100 percent grant funded, so we have a two year grant with CDBG and a new grant with USDA. So we're able to go on generating new businesses without using any of our TIF funds. We also have our huge three and a half million dollar stormwater project going on that Brad is operating, and we've applied for an additional four million dollars to continue that grant, and hopefully we'll chase down some of the $2 million worth of the DR! money that the county just received, or will receive $5 million. So we're hoping to shore up all of our work by charging personnel and operation costs to grants and thereby not using our TIF money, continue with our carryforward. And I think we're being pretty successful with all of our projects. But we'll answer any questions you want to ask. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. I just want to point something out. You were able to bring in how many jobs, 172 jobs? MR. MUCKLE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HILLER: How much? A hundred and seventy two for $92,000. That is really great. I mean, that's so . . ImpreSSIve. MR. MUCKLE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I read an article recently where I believe they were, like, recruiting 100 jobs or in Boca -- and this was Rick Scott -- for a million bucks. So, I mean, just proportionately, you could give Rick some lessons. You guys are doing awesome. I'm really impressed. I wanted to talk a little bit -- I wanted to point that out, because that really shows the value of what you're doing. But also I wanted to just get an understanding. In your TIF, you're limited by the statutory guidelines for tax incremental financing, correct? You cannot -- the monies that you accumulate in Page 154 June 16, 2011 that TIF can only be used in that TIF; is that correct? MS. PHILLIPPI: In Immokalee, yes. COMMISSIONER HILLER: In Immokalee. So you can't allocate it over and vice versa? MS. PHILLIPPI: We could borrow from him. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. Well, the reason I was wondering -- the reason I was wondering is because we had some discussion about innovation zones, and I can't remember -- one of the commissioners, I can't remember which one, mentioned something that these innovation zones were identical to TIFs. But my understanding was that in the innovation zone, that you could basically allocate the funds in any innovation zone anywhere, which obviously, you know, will affect the funding and the budgeting within those innovation zones as compared to a TIF where it's restricted to the benefit of that TIF, and obviously that is a big deal and -- pardon me -- a material difference. So I just wanted to clarify that, because I wasn't -- when someone said that the TIF and the innovation zones were the same, I was having a hard time reconciling. MS. PHILLIPPI: We're very familiar with that ordinance that was kind of being passed around last year, and we were pretty specific that the CRAs would have to be kept out of that innovation zone -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. MS. PHILLIPPI: -- TIF for that very reason, at least CRA funds. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. So they will be independent; those funds won't be commingled with those innovation zones? MS. PHILLIPPI: No commingling, no. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And the innovation zone is not a TIF, is it? MR. KLATZKOW: The innovation zone was crafted to mimic a CRA, and it is based on TIF financing. It's based off the Strand case, Page 155 June 16, 2011 which -- where the Supreme Court allowed TIF financing for economic development. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Where you can use money between funds, between -- like, between the TIFs? MR. KLATZKOW: That would -- we gave the board as much flexibility as we could in that ordinance. Among the menu items you had was the ability to do that. You didn't have to do that. You could keep it within the separate innovation zones. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And the only reason I'm wondering is because if that -- I haven't read that case, but could they share funds, like -- MR. KLATZKOW: No. They're under a Florida Statute is how they operate. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I see. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that and make sure I understood what was being discussed. MS. PHILLIPPI: We have an adequate budget to move forward and, in fact, to fund our Business Development Center for three years all told currently. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's really great. MS. PHILLIPPI: And as I said, we're aggressively chasing down the stormwater funds for a couple reasons. There are some really bad things floating down our streets every time there is a storm. But we just cleaned up Lake Trafford. We just got it going. And so part of what we're doing is doing a stormwater mitigation bank to try to clean up that water before it goes back down into the slough and into Lake Trafford. So that is our most aggressive infrastructure project that we're doing, although Brad recently garnered a $140,000 grant to do some really aggressive lighted crosswalks since we've had quite a few fatal -- well, injuries and fatalities on our First Street and Main Street. So those -- other than our big infrastructure projects, the biggest push, the biggest initiative we have, is economic development. If you Page 156 June 16,2011 like, Marie could talk to you about some of the kind of stuff she's done just over the last couple months. She -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: I would love to hear what you have done, because you have been very successful. MS. CAPITA: Well, our Business Development Center, we have initiated an entrepreneurial school whereby we enroll-- enrollees are people who are interested in opening business in Immokalee. We show them how to become entrepreneurs. And from that point they enroll into our incubator, our business incubator, which we give them technical support into how to become self-sufficient. It's a two year program. And now we have two current enrollees, and we have four other participants who are interested in coming into the program. We have a young lady who wants to open a dance studio, which we don't have in Immokalee, because currently the people in Immokalee have to go to Ave Maria or LaBelle to enroll their children into a dance class. We have a graphic designer who wants to open -- come into our program, and we also have a daycare center, who -- she's been operating for 11 years, but 11 years she's been operating without proper licensing, without proper operating facilities. So we're helping her to get on her foot to become better self sufficient and to -- she's looking into getting a bigger facility, thereby she can hire more people, which is job creation for the people in Immokalee. And we are also having -- partnering up with different community organizations. We partnered up with SBDC, with SCORE, with ITech, which is a technical institution, and a lot of the ITech students are interested in becoming a part of our program. So we're doing a lot of progress in Immokalee with the center. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's very commendable. MS. CAPITA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala? Page 157 June 16, 2011 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. You were going to build those two focal points, and wasn't it, like, Golden Corral or something -- I don't remember who it was, really -- but was going to come in and provide all of the work and everything for it. MS. PHILLIPPI: That's true. You're talking about the Texas Roadhouse. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Ah, that's it. Yeah, yeah. I knew it was -- MS. PHILLIPPI: The Texas Roadhouse did come into Immokalee and do a lot of initiatives, and what they've indicated to us is that they're actually conducting a fundraiser right now to help us raise funds to do the soft costs for the 9th Street Plaza. Is that what you're referring to? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. MS. PHILLIPPI: Because it is probably about a $1.5 million project, start to finish. So we could probably get a grant to build the park, but the soft costs are not usually funded by -- I mean, the construction piece can be done with a grant, but the soft costs can't. We probably need some assistance with that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I was wondering about that, because with your TIF having been reduced so much and without all of those sources of funds coming in, I was wondering if that delayed this wonderful proj ect. MS. PHILLIPPI: It didn't delay it, but -- and I think to put the whole thing in perspective, from 1999 to 2012, our total TIF has just been over $5 million. We've got more money in grants this year than our total TIF has been for 11 years. So we are doing well. We're okay. And we anticipate we may double that next year. So we're not really concerned about that right now. We would like more TIF, and we certainly will take all David wants to give us, but the fact is, we're going to continue doing our work through our eight goals that we've outlined in the master plan. And as more Page 158 June 16, 2011 businesses -- that's how we're going to get more TIF . We're going to get more tax-generating businesses and build our TIF back up. So that's the strategy, and I'm confident that it will-- we'll be fine. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, we're all rooting for you. MS. PHILLIPPI: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much, Penny. Great job. Thank all of you. MS. CAPITA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: David? MR. JACKSON: Good afternoon. David Jackson, executive director of the Bayshore Gateway Triangle CRA. This month your local advisory board reviewed the budget and they approved it for forwarding to you through the budget office, and it's been reviewed. On Page 16 you have the Bayshore Gateway Triangle Redevelopment Fund 187 summary. In there I could not have written it any better. Thank you to Mark Isackson; it details all the pertinent points of where we are today. One of the things that we are working with is a continuing decrease in property values. In 2009 we had a decrease of 5.9; 2010, 13 percent; FY 11, it was 9 percent. This year it's 11.6 percent. So what we've done is we think we're reaching close to the bottom. In the last paragraph, Mark has done an excellent job in summarizing the decrease in our funding over the last few years since 2008, a 41 percent decrease. Also in there he points out that this year we're taking a decrease of$313,600 in TIF. Okay. That's a significant decrease. The question is, where is it coming from, or what's happening? Well, the large decreases we saw in FYI0 and '11, the 13 and 19 percent reduction was residential, okay. That goes first. What follows residential? Commercial. Page 159 June 16, 2011 So if you look at the numbers, the 11.6 percent, the reason we took such a large hit this year and not somewhere close to where other properties are is we had in the Gateway Triangle -- Commissioner Fiala, your district -- the Gateway Triangle, where all the C4 and C5 property is, we had a $33 million deduction (sic) in property values for a 16.5 percent reduction in the triangle, okay. It's normal course. The commercial properties are lagging. What have we done to try to stem the tide on that? Well, we offered grants to businesses to improve and move into the area. We've given 12 grants this year, an amount of $236,000. Of that, we've got five new businesses; a couple small restaurants, and we have a couple pharmaceutical pill making operations, and we're in the neighborhood of 80 to 100 jobs that have been created with that $236,000. Of that $236,000 of our TIF money, it was doubled by the private sector, so they had $500,000 of their own investment in it. So it's a 2-1 advantage, so that's what works for us. There may be some concern -- I know Commissioner Hiller has asked questions more than once about our debt. There in Paragraph 4 on that Page 16 it is nicely detailed by Mark. It talks about our current debt, $11.9 million. We've tried to -- we sent an invitation to bid. It failed, and we're going to negotiate with Fifth Third Bank. We have three more years on this loan. One of the good things, though, is working with the Clerk of Courts is that the interest rate has gone down, so that's been good for us. But who knows how long. So we're looking at that. Currently we have 12 residential properties that are going to go RFP for bid for builders to buy and build, and that should be coming back to you in some form in late September when we find out what the bids are. I'm here and available for any questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Any other questions? COMMISSIONER HILLER: I just wanted to ask a question. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Hiller, go ahead. Page 160 June 16, 2011 COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. Thank you very much for highlighting the issue with the debt. You know that was a concern of mine, and I appreciate you bringing that out. In light of that and in light of the fact that we're not seeing the sales that we anticipated to pay down the existing debt, we're not planning on purchasing additional properties in the next year, are we? MR. JACKSON: No, ma'am. With the $313,000 decrease, we have set aside and deferred several projects. And one of those was the expansion of the gateway pond, purchasing property . We can't afford to do that now. But we'll see what happens. We feel the residential market's flattening out there. We haven't had any storms, so we'll see what happens in the next few years. We're doing a major $2.7 million drainage project in the triangle. Again, it's the same type of grant that Penny got. We applied for it, and it will be completed hopefully by the end of this hurricane season to improve drainage in the area, and then we'll see if we need to go after the properties. But buying more right now, it's not on the radar scope. It's been pushed out to future years, along with a couple other smaller projects that we've got. Basically, we've got a balanced budget. We get so much money, we balance the budget, and we stay within it. We've done that for seven years, and we've continued to do it. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Great. Thank you so much. MR. JACKSON: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. Ian? It's your turn. MR. MITCHELL: Yes sir, for the record Ian Mitchell, Executive Manager to the Board of County Commissioners. Commissioners, this year we have managed to reach what you'd asked us to do with the budget, so we're seeing a 3-percent overall Page 161 June 16,2011 reduction. The difficulty with our budget is, it's just over a million dollars. The personal services side, which includes your salaries, pensions, health insurance, covers $974,000, actually $975,000. The expense side is a little over 90,000, and of that there are elements of it that are really just -- they're frozen which, unless the commissioners decide differently, there are areas that I can't touch. I've got to tell you that your staff are incredibly proactive. They've really sort of come up to the wire as regard to everything we can do in the office to sort of maximize the resources that we have. This year we've successfully brought a new commissioner on board, and with that commissioner we've set up a new office in North Naples, which has been very successful. And we've -- we've worked, and we've worked as a group, to see areas where we could actually save money, and they've done that very successfully so that you have a budget that has, this year, been able to reach the criteria that you asked for. So if there's any questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is the travel budget equal amongst the five commissioners? MR. MITCHELL: Yes, sir, it is. You each have a travel budget of $4,000. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. That's it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. I believe we were going to discuss the salary of our director for the office. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I didn't know if it was -- it was the next meeting. MR. OCHS: That was at the next meeting, the board meeting. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Forgive me. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, BCC meeting. Page 162 June 16,2011 MR. MITCHELL: Sir, it's at the board meeting. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I think you're doing a wonderful job. MR. MITCHELL: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Coletta -- Hiller? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's me. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Hiller, Commissioner Hiller. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Ian, I want to thank you so much for, you know, what you did to help welcome me to the board, and you were very helpful. And the office in North Naples, which we established in January, given that we had the space in the government center and it wasn't being used by the commission, has worked out really well. I think the constituents of North Naples really appreciate not having to drive all the way down to the East Trail. I think it goes to work to Mr. Casalanguida's goal of -- what's the name of that mobility plan you've got going? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Master mobility. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah, the reduced -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Vehicle-miles traveled, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Whatever, right, reduced miles traveled or whatever. So it's been very positive. And I know that people appreciate it. And I know Commissioner Fiala and Commissioner Coletta both have satellite offices to serve their constituents in a similar fashion, which is very positive. When we have the space available, we should use it to benefit the citizens. So thank you again for your help. MR. MITCHELL: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I really appreciate it. MR. MITCHELL: Commissioners, I will reemphasize, we've got a very, very good working group of people now in the office that's-- it's really quite exceptional, and I think the relationships within the Page 163 June 16, 2011 county government have really strengthened, and that's been very positive. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And being new, I would like to say that I notice that it's a very positive office environment, and you really have a wonderful staff. Thank you. MR. MITCHELL: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Are we finished? MR.OCHS: You have public comments, sir. MR. MITCHELL: Oh, sir. We have public comments, sorry. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You have to leave now, Penny. You cannot stay here. Item #14 PUBLIC COMMENTS MR. MITCHELL: Sir, we have five people who wish to speak to the board. The first -- the first speaker will be Debby Ramirez, and she'll be followed by Darlene Detweiler. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Are both speakers here? MR. LANHAM: Darlene Detweiler had to go pick up her children. I'm her father. She gave me her time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. LANHAM: And plus I have my own time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Why don't we use both podiums. The first speaker use this podium, the second speaker position over here, and then we'll-- MR. LANHAM: We've actually got, like, four or five people. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, all right. We'll just take them in sequence. MR. MITCHELL: Sir, and the subject is paving roads. CHAIRMAN COYLE: One get there and the other one get over Page 164 June 16, 2011 here, and we'll just take you in sequence. MR. MITCHELL: The subject is paving roads. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Are these -- MS. RAMIREZ: Good afternoon. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Are these his roads? MS. RAMIREZ: All right. MR. LANHAM: Yes, it's Mr. Coletta's roads. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. All right. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you for giving me possession of those roads. CHAIRMAN COYLE: They're his roads, okay, go ahead. MS. RAMIREZ: Good afternoon. My name is Debby Ramirez, and I'm not the best speaker, but I'm going to do my best. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You're doing fine. MS. RAMIREZ: I'm going to be sweet, short, and simple. My neighbors and Ion the 39th Avenue Northeast have a big problem with our road. It's not paved, which means that it is not healthy for any of us, plus our cars are getting ruined because of all of the dust that it creates every time that I go to work, everybody goes to work, and come back home. I have two sons, a 9-year-old and 13-year-old, and they never used to sneeze so much like they do now. And I strongly believe it's because of the roads. We moved there a year ago in June, and I called the county to find out when our road was going to be paved, and the answer was, there was no budget for our road yet, which I do not think is fair and -- because we do pay taxes like everybody else. The road across from us is paved, and last year they were paved again, and -- like our road that has never been paved, at least once. And the road, the Oil -- Oil Well and Everglades is being expanded as well right now. I don't understand why there's no budget for this -- for one street Page 165 June 16, 2011 when everything is in one county. It's Collier County. So that's just a problem that we have. And we've been calling-- it's not just me -- and we never get a good answer of when we have -- you know, when that's going to be done. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. MR. LANHAM: Okay. Basically, just -- MR. MITCHELL: Sir, could you identify-- MR. LANHAM: We live on that road, and we have five children. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Could you state your name just for the record. MR. LANHAM: My name is Rod Lanham. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you. MR. LANHAM: I actually live with my daughter and my son-in-law, and there's five children there. And since we've moved in a little over a year ago, year and a half, my wife has developed chronic bronchitis, which she never had before, and it's the same thing. All the children -- we've got two children now that are on breathing treatments and the inhalers. Basically this is caused by this road. My daughter travels that road, like, three to four times a day. She has to wash her van to clean the windows to see every day. It's not once a week or something. And if I leave my truck, which sometimes sits for three or four days at a time, I have to clean my windows before I can leave the driveway. The road is -- basically what they've come in -- I used to build roads. They came in and they've got limerock, which is the worst roads in the world. They could even come in with gravel and what is called pavement sand and mix it up -- which we've done with our driveway . You cut down 90 percent of the dust. The road lasts longer. I understand the reason for limerock. It's a lot cheaper. But, basically, what they have done, they have paved the road, Page 166 June 16, 2011 repaved the roads directly north, directly south, and directly west of us, which is actually the same road, 3 9th Avenue Northeast. They were already paved, and they have repaved them within the last year. We still haven't got any pavement. We have more than the requirement of homes, which I understood was ten. There's 13 homes on there. And we can't even hardly get people to come and visit us because they don't want to come down the road. I have a few people -- I have an antique motorcycle, and we're all -- there's a bunch of us that ride antique motorcycles. They don't want to even come down the road because of the -- and I don't like taking mine up and down the road, but I don't have any choice. That's just -- that's just some of the things. But I think the biggest thing is the health issues. Like I said, my wife is just within the last year got the chronic bronchitis. If nothing else, pave it and let her live a few more years so she can nag me a little longer. But that's our main concern is trying to find out why our road hasn't been paved when everything is being paved around us. And they're paving roads out there right off of Golden Gate Boulevard now, today, as we speak. And we still-- some reason or another we keep getting the same response, we don't have any money in our budget, but we go down the road and watch roads being repaved all around us. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. LANHAM: And it's just a -- you know, it's just a real concern. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. LANHAM: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. Yes, sir. MR. MITCHELL: Mr.-- CHAIRMAN COYLE: State your name, please, for the record. MR. MOMBLACK: Yes. Good afternoon, Commissioners. My Page 167 June 16, 2011 name is Luis Momblack. I'm a neighborhood and friend. We have, like, 13 houses over there, more than 50 persons altogether as families, and we have the same problem. We have issues, too, with the problem, the people throw garbage, because that street looks like nobody lives. If you see it from the outside, from the Everglades, it's like nobody else. But at the end we are 13 houses. So the people take advantage in the nighttime throwing garbage, dead animals, a lot of -- I found one time a vandalized car there, old tires. So the people think nobody lives in that street, so they throw everything. When we call, the -- I don't know that division, they send the tractors to fix the street, which leave it worse than before, because they just a rag (sic) the street, throw a few trucks of limerock, and we just have it worse than before because we have to start running again to make a little better. So -- I have two daughters, very good students. I have my neighbors there. They never do any activity outside of our houses because the road. We find snakes. And it's really bad to live in there. We have a problems with -- as homeowners. We decide, still living there, we fix our mortgages and hoping still there some day they fix the streets, because we have two houses, they are really -- they sold because the road -- and the value of our houses is really bad. I-- when I buy the house, my house, they cost 185,000. Now it's 70,000 because the road. It's not value. So, please, thinking about that. Probably we're not the only ones. We are many, many, many houses. We are close to the beautiful expansion road. If you -- when that finish, I'm sure they're going to go and open -- opening that new road. You're going to see the first -- very first street after the beautiful expansion, you're going to see 39th Avenue, unpaved road, ugly. Please thinking about that, and thank you very much. Page 168 June 16, 2011 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. Yes, sir? MR. PENA: Yes, hi. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Your name? MR. PENA: My name is Guillermo Pena. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. PENA: And my concern is 39th. I also spoke to Mr. Jim Coletta several times about the problem we are having with the unpaved road. And I also brought to his attention that it -- as many roads as being paved in Golden Gate Estates right now, I think they should have enough money to at least pave the unfinished roads that are not paved today. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We've been trying to convince Commissioner Coletta for years to do that, and we just can't get him to make a decision to let us do that. But I'm going -- I'm going to bring Nick Casalanguida -- he really is the guy who's responsible for not getting these things paved, and so he's going to tell you why you can't do it. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Commissioner Coyle, I always enjoy the time that you bring me up here. Thank you. Probably the hardest part of our job is dealing with situations like this. And to answer your question, we had Travis up here this morning, and we talked of the difference between restricted and unrestricted funds. We get a certain proportion of gas tax every year, and you see the resurfacing projects that we spend those dollars on, and they're restricted towards those maintenance procedures. When you add that lift of asphalt, it become not maintenance anymore. Right now the board -- and we had a program going back about four years ago, we were doing limerock roads where you hit that limit of ten homes, you were put on the list on an ongoing basis, and we had that funded. Page 169 June 16, 2011 Right now we're in a position where you're seeing that resurfacing, and it's gas-tax dollars. It's not General Fund dollars. Your tax is being used for that. So that's the challenge that we face right now is, you're getting that answer. I don't like to give it to you. It's frustrating for us when we get those calls, but there are a lot of other things right now that -- you know, weirs, structures, bridges that those General Fund dollars are going to that are health, safety, welfare, not that dust is not, but that's been the priority right now for the board. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, thank you. And although I've been joking with him about this, we understand this is not funny, and we made a commitment earlier today that, with Commissioner Fiala (sic), we'll continue to evaluate this. When we get some money, we'll try to allocate it for that purpose. The thing is we're at the bottom of one of the worst recessions in our memory . We're just trying to keep essential services going in Collier County, and it's difficult for us to come up with money for the projects. But there are other commissioners here who want to speak. And which of you was first? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I was first. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Wrong one. Hit that one. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: There you go. Thank you for coming out. I know many times when people would call me up -- and like I mentioned earlier today, I've had numerous calls. If you want it boiled down to one issue that the phone calls come in or the emails come in on the largest number over a period of time, it has to do with limerock roads. I haven't met one person on limerock roads that likes the situation and finds it tolerable. I -- back before we got to the present economic recession that Page 170 June 16,2011 we're going through -- and we never realized that we were flush with money . We just thought -- we always thought we were a poor county. We were able to get 80 percent -- of all the people who lived on limerock roads, we were able to get their roads paved; however, with that said, that left 20 percent still out there that haven't gotten done, and there hasn't been anything done for three years or four years now? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Three and a half years, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Three-and-a-halfyears. And the reason is very simple. It all has to do with dollars. Every year I make my appeal to the County Commission for more money. And when people call me, I say, please, come to our budget hearings when the time comes up so people can see the face behind the problem that they're suffering, be able to feel their pain. And that's why it's so important for you to be here today. As we go forward and we do find any money, I got to be honest with you, the way it will be structured, it won't be a street that will be identified until we can take a new census of what's out there. The way we do the roads when the money is available is we take the most populated road for the number of residents for the amount of feet of the road, and that's the one that gets the first road, and then it goes down that list until you get to the point you got everybody satisfied. And that's going to be quite a while before we get to it. There's no sense in doing the list over until we have a reasonable chance of getting funding, because it changes dramatically from one year to the other. Every year we were doing a resurvey because more people would move on a road, and it would grow. One road one year might be 30 on the list, might move to 20 the following year and be-- when the growth was going fast, there were some streets that were right up there at the top that fell to the back side as you went forward. So that will happen, but you're going to have to keep asking the questions. But the hardest thing to understand is why can't these roads that you're repaving -- and I think they repave them every 12 years? Page 171 June 16,2011 MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's rule of thumb, sir, is 7 to 10 on arterials, and up to 15 years on local, so seven to 15. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. And if they don't pave them, you've seen old asphalt when it gets old how it starts to cake up, takes on a very white color; when it gets to a critical point, that you lose the whole investment. So they repave them at the last minute, and we do that with our highways, too, only a little more often because of the fact the roads will start to deteriorate. And when they start to deteriorate too far, then you have a major investment restoring it. You have to go down to the base rock, in some cases even past that, to get there. So that's one of the reasons why, over limerock roads. However, with that said, limerock roads do cost money to maintain. Now, there was one thing that I never heard of before, and it brought back some memories of when I was living up north back in the '80s and the '70s and '60s. And they had dirt roads back there, and they used to have the problem in the summertime when it was dry and the dust, and they -- the county or the municipality would come around -- and I know you can't do it anymore, but they'd spray them with oil in front of the house going for some distance going back and forth. I don't believe that the D EC would ever allow us to do that; however, I just heard something about paving sand that I never heard before. Is there a possibility we could look into paving sand or gravel, and in some cases, maybe just get the front part of them by the houses themselves like they used to do in days of old? It might be an expense that's affordable -- I have no idea -- so that you could hold the dust down about where the houses are. You wouldn't be able to stop it, but it would be able to reduce it. And paving sand sounds very interesting. I don't know anything about it. MR. LANHAM: Like I said, I used to be in paving. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, you can't talk from the Page 1 72 June 16,2011 audience, sir. They can't hear you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: No, we can get you on the mike. If you get on the mike, we can get an answer to his question. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Commissioners, a couple of things we used to use was recycled concrete, mica, things that, once they got wet, they settle in and knock the dust down. I certainly can get with Travis and ask him to look into a couple options when we go back to re-grade and we put those limerock roads back to the condition, if there's any material we could put on top that might knock the dust down. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. Well, anything would be great for a temporary fix if it's, you know, of course, affordable. If it's going to cost as much as asphalt, then it's not worth it. But there might be something we can do. And I'm glad you brought it up. It's surprising how we can deal with the same problem year after year, then all of a sudden somebody will appear and drop something -- new information to us that we never had before, and we might be able to come up with a solution. Do my fellow commissioners have any problem with us looking at that? CHAIRMAN COYLE: No. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. I got three nods, and so that means that you got staff direction on -- or commission direction to staff. Sir, please, go ahead. MR. LANHAM: Yeah. Like I said, I used to pave roads. I did it for about ten years up in Ohio, same thing you're talking about. We just done our driveway on 39th Avenue with paving sand and 57 gravel. Now, it's not a whole lot more expensive than the limerock, and it creates more of a base that -- even when you do decide to pave it, and you have nowhere near the dust. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Could you work with staff on it? Page 1 73 June 16,2011 And it sounds like you already have an understanding of what this is all about. MR. LANHAM: Sure, be glad to. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. Commissioner Henning, I think, was next. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. We -- it was a surprise to me that we didn't fund ten ambulance. And I know this is important to you, but I want to make sure that we have an ambulance running to get down to your street in case you need it. Besides the -- I really don't need to comment. I just want to comment. Besides, our budget director told us that years to come, more and more of your tax dollars is going to go to debt service. So I'm afraid it probably is going to be quite a while before we pave streets, and we have them in everybody's districts. It just so happens we have more out in Golden Gate Estates. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: A lot more. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. I was just wondering, when we do have them resurface a road or even pave a street -- I remember that -- from the olden times they used to have material left over, and a lot of times they had to dump it because they couldn't let it just harden on the machinery itself. Is there a way to take whatever is left over to at least begin to start lining that street, even if it's just stuff that we pave -- not pave, when we reline our roads, just going in -- maintenance, and if we have stuff left over, could we take it -- and I know it's not making the swales and the drainage and so forth, but at least it would give them a surface on there. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Commissioner, why don't I do a little comprehensive analysis, rather than a couple fixes. Why don't I get with this gentleman and talk to Travis and see if we can't come up Page 174 June 16,2011 with several ideas of what we can do maybe to eliminate some of the dust, maybe to -- you know, as you talked about, if there's any extra material, just placing it down without extra cost. Maybe that could be something we could look at. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. When you do that analysis, Nick, what I would like to know is, you know, what is the cost to maintain a limerock road, what is the incremental cost to do this different type of surfacing, and what is the incremental cost to pave? I want to know what the differences are and what we're really talking about in terms of dollars to understand, you know, what the issue is. The other thing I'd like to know is how you're prioritizing these roads and how these people keep getting bumped in the pipeline because of the addition of homes being built. As far as the survey goes, that should be very easy. I mean, we've got the GIS. I mean, you should be able to -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's very easy. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- go in and very easily, by looking on the aerial, see how many houses have been added on these various roads. You know actually which ones are limerock and which ones are not. So, you know, the inventory update should be relatively simple. I want to understand how this is being prioritized to see what's going on, because there is a big problem. I mean, if you've got people who's been living on roads for 30 years and they've been paying tax for 30 years and all of a sudden, you know, one developer builds one road, and he gets paved, but these guys, you know, get pushed back in the pipeline as a consequence. , I mean, it -- I can see -- I mean, it's difficult to balance the interest, but at the same time I think there has to be an element of fairness, and it seems that by getting bumped consistently, that that's Page 175 June 16,2011 obviously a problem. So I want to know where these people are in the pipeline. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I want to know how many times they've been bumped. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Commissioner, a couple points of clarification. If a developer does a road, they fund it and we accept it later. That's -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, they fund it completely themselves? MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I see. MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's not with county dollars. And maintenance is about 5,000 a mile. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Five thousand dollars a mile? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yeah, that's what Travis stated this morning, and about $300,000 a mile to pave. So we had said how many years it would take to do that. So those are the numbers he quoted this morning. MR. OCHS: Commissioners, Nick, just to interrupt. You have 47.8 miles of unpaved limerock road. COMMISSIONER HILLER: How much? MR. OCHS: Forty-seven point eight miles remaining. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's yesterday in Golden Gate Estates. MR. OCHS: According to the information on Page 69 of your budget book. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Page 69? MR.OCHS: So if you look at 300,000 a mile to convert that, you're looking at $14.4 million to convert them all to paved surface. That's out of your 111 funding. And you have about $825,000 in contingency reserves funds. Page 176 June 16,2011 COMMISSIONER HILLER: And these people, when they built their homes, all paid impact fees? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, ma'am, but impact fees doesn't go to paving roads, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: It doesn't? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: For -- the transportation impact fees don't go into new paving -- into new roads? MR. CASALANGUIDA: They do for capacity replacement, but not to put a lift of asphalt down, because it doesn't add, really, capacity on there. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, I see. But in other words it goes to the creation -- to the building of the limerock road, but not to putting the asphalt on it? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, ma'am. It's -- when -- that impact fee is for replacement capacity, if we widen a road. It's those new lanes that you're paying for and that reconstruction of the old lanes, but the new lanes that are there, I couldn't use impact fees. COMMISSIONER HILLER: You use the gas taxes for that? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Not on -- I mean, not an example of a residential road, but, like -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Just for clarification -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- just a regular road? MR. CASALANGUIDA: -- gas tax is for ongoing maintenance and operation. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Impact fees is for capacity replacement, and then your General Funds could be used for -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: For the construction. MR. CASALANGUIDA: -- putting pavement down on existing roads. Page 1 77 June 16,2011 COMMISSIONER HILLER: I understand. Thank you for the clarification. MR. CASALANGUIDA: You're welcome, ma'am. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Are we done with this topic? I've got other questions. MR. PENA: Excuse me. CHAIRMAN COYLE: No. Yeah, go ahead. MR. PENA: I had a question. Didn't we have money allocated for these roads years ago? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, you did. You did. MR. PENA: What happened to the money? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Before this commission came on, they spent it on another road, for 951. MR. PENA: Well, I think that is -- for fairness, I think it's now time for them to pay ours. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You know, that is not a true statement. That is not a true statement. The board -- this board budgeted monies for years to pave those limerock roads in Golden Gate Estates. The problem is we're, like, $80 million less than what we had in the previous years when we did have that money. That's where your money went. Your value of your property is not what it used to be. And let me go back -- MR. PENA: Why are we keep -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Sir-- MR. PENA: Why do we keep paving roads? CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- just a moment, just a moment. That question's already been answered. It comes out of a different pot of money. We don't have any control over that. So let's not get into an argument about this. Commissioner Henning, go ahead. Page 178 June 16,2011 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, you know, the only way -- the scenario that I just gave out, ten ambulance need to be replaced and it wasn't even budgeted. Now we need to find money to budget for that, ten ambulance. All right. I think that's very important. The other issues is our budget manager said that we're going to be using more property tax dollars to pay debt. It's like paying your mortgage. There's things that you need to do, and one of them is pay your debt. Now, I know this is not popular with the District 4 commissioner, but we're guiding -- we're going to have a resolution, a voters' resolution on our ballot for people who want to landscape their road, okay? They want it done, so they're going to tax themselves to get it done. We have a community center that people taxed themselves to provide that service. We also have in Golden Gate another MSTU that people decided to tax themselves to get it done. It's because those people feel that government is not all to all, all right? They understand that, that they're going to tax themselves to get that done. Now, are these influential people? No. They're Golden Gate residents. They don't have the money for that, but they understand they want a service, and they're providing that service. The only way to be honest with these people is for Commissioner Coletta to get together with them and find out if they're willing to pay a few more taxes to pave those roads. That is the only way; otherwise, we're going to just keep on talking about this. The money is not there. We have priorities. My priority is getting those ambulance up, okay? But I -- we're still not done with the budget, so if we can get Commissioner Coletta to do the right thing and talk to these people about taxing themselves, I'd like to get to the rest of the budget. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, sir. Page 1 79 June 16, 2011 Okay. What you just heard, I want you to disregard, and I'll tell you why. When you seen us direct staff a few minutes ago, you seen three commissioners here in the middle who are very sympathetic to where you stand, understand where you are, and are willing to try to come up with something. You paid your taxes. You paid for other people's roads. Now, there isn't money to do it right now. But this idea that you should have an additional tax on yourself to pay for the roads is totally erroneous. Don't listen to Commissioner Henning. He might want to do it to his own constituents, but I'm not going to do it to mine. As far as the ambulance go, you told me you had some breathing problems for your wife, and your wife's live expectancy, the way you were describing it, may be short. I don't -- I hope you weren't -- I hope you were joking. MR. LANHAM: No, that was my wife. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Your wife. MR. LANHAM: I'm not joking. She has developed -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. Your road -- okay. Your roads are a health hazard, number one. Also they're a danger for ambulance and for different people at certain times of the year to be able to get to where they need to be. They don't like to travel on those roads. In fact, there used to be -- I don't know if it still is. There were some services you couldn't get on private roads or limerock roads that weren't kept up. You would have private vendors that wouldn't come down there to service you. I hope these roads are kept up well enough today so you at least get mail delivery. So you have some rights. And there was money there, and we will go back and explain what it is, and my understanding -- now it's a real long time -- that the rest of that money was used in justification to be able to build 951, and the rationale that they did at the time made total sense to the people that were working with it, that it was going to benefit everyone that lived out there, so that money from the Avatar Page 180 June 16, 2011 Trust was expended. They were drawing down the interest for years. That interest was building just a small portion of roads forever. But they expended the money. We can spin all the stories we want in the world about it but, meanwhile, the thing is, you do have three compassionate commissioners here that are going to listen to the different things that are out there. So please be patient and let's see what we can do. Please stay in contact with staff working with it. Please report back to me as you're going through it. And if we have to we'll call a community meeting, and I'll invite all my commissioners to come, and we'll see who shows up. But I thank you so much for being here today, and I apologize for the torment you were put through. MR. LANHAM: That's fine. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you very much. Commissioner Hiller? MR. PENA: Thank you, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Nick, I have a question. When you do maintenance on roads, do you have to maintain with the same material that's on the existing road? Is that the -- is that a qualifier? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, ma'am. You can do maintenance with different materials. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So why can't you maintain with different material on these roads? MR. CASALANGUIDA: You're not using any material. You're just regrading and putting the same material that's there. When you say maintaining, maintaining and putting asphalt on it are two different things. By Florida Statutes, and I'll check -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, that's what I want to know. I'm not familiar with these statutes. I haven't looked into this, so I'm Page 181 June 16,2011 not -- I'm just looking for an education to see what options there are. MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's been about four years since I read the statute. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, the option is we've already given him the guidance to take a look at other surfacing materials to see if they can put something down on the roads other than asphalt that will solve the dust problem. So he's already committed to doing that. MR. CASALANGUIDA: And the cost increments, if there are any. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, that's right. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And the only reason I'm asking is -- and what I want to understand is if you can use other materials to maintain. Asphalt is another material, and this goes to the source of funds for the maintenance. Because if you, you know, classify the maintenance as being, you know, with material X as opposed to Y, I mean, I don't see the difference. If you're using different material, you're using different material. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So could you use those gas tax dollars as maintenance funds for something like this? That's what -- I just -- I want an understanding of why you can't. If you can use one type of -- if you can use a different material to maintain why that different material cannot be asphalt. MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's been at least four years since I've read the statute in detail, but I'll read it again. Your Florida gas tax and the federal gas tax is limited. And there are certain things we can't spend the money on. Occasionally we sit down with OMB and our budget folks and say, are we within guidance for those dollars? And I'm going off of memory, but one of those things was when you went from a rural road unpaved to paved it was considered an expansion project-- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, I see. Page 182 June 16, 2011 MR. CASALANGUIDA: -- not a maintenance project. COMMISSIONER HILLER: All right. I understand. So it's because it's considered a rural road, yeah. And I just -- I'm just looking for an education -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- to make sure I understand. MR. CASALANGUIDA: I'll double check that and get with those -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Sure. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Getting back to the budget. Page 8, Naples CRA, $1.5 million. I don't recall that, or I've forgotten that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Page 8 of what? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm sorry. Page 8 of the Board of Commissioners, just a few pages in. One, two, three -- elected officials, commissioners, other general administration, Naples CRA. MR. ISACKSON: Commissioner, the county every year, out of its General Fund 001 budget, makes a contribution to the Naples CRA. This year it's about $1.5 million. In totality, over the course of time, we've contributed almost $18-plus million to the Naples CRA. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, there's your limerock road funding right there. COMMISSIONER HILLER: What is that? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I mean, it's $14 million. Either get it from the casino, or you pick it off the money tree. But I think we're being really dishonest to those people out there who feel that their commissioner's going to pave these roads for $14 million. Where's it coming from? I'd rather be -- prefer to be honest with constituents instead of giving them hope and dreams. And it's going to come up every year. When is that going away? Page 183 June 16,2011 MR. OCHS : We were just talking about that, sir. We believe it's about 18 years left still on that -- MR. ISACKSON: I have a chart. MR. OCHS: -- on that CRA. MR. ISACKSON: I don't have it with me. I can provide it to you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The CRA's a TIF. MR. OCHS : Yes, sir. MR. ISACKSON: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that has been going on for quite a few years. So those expanded (sic) monies -- or property valuations stays in there, so that's kind of like a double dip, isn't it? Or am I wrong? MR. ISACKSON: Sir, we regularly, from the property appraiser, we receive annually what the increment is for the Naples CRA. We apply our General Fund tax rate to that increment and calculate a value which is -- which is provided to the Naples CRA. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Then we probably do the same thing to Bayshore. MR. ISACKSON: And we do -- the only difference between Bayshore, Immokalee, and Naples is Naples only receives General Fund dollars from 001. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. MR. ISACKSON: The other two CRAs receive both 001 and 111 monies. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I see how it's done. It's not a double dip. It's just -- their valuation is what their valuation -- we receive the money for it, and we must give it back. MR.OCHS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. But there's limerock roads to pay for that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Page 184 June 16,2011 COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can I? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Is there a reason we don't get a report on the Naples CRA, like, you know, Commissioner Fiala gives us a report on -- MR. ISACKSON: We could ask the city to come and speak before you, ma'am. That's not -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: I think it's only fair. I mean, Immokalee does it and Bayshore does it. I think it would be appropriate. I mean, I think, unless I misunderstand their role. MR. OCHS: They publish an annual report, Commissioner Hiller, but they don't present it, at least historically they have not presented it. COMMISSIONER HILLER: It would be nice if they did the same way like the other CRAs do. I think it's very informative to know what's going on, if it's coming out of the General Fund like that. MR.OCHS: If that's a consensus of the board, we would be happy to write a letter. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think it would be interesting. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Got three? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Commissioner Henning, do we have three nods? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. I think we could maybe figure out if they want to -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Terminate it earlier. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Terminate it early, yeah. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Fat chance, but nevertheless. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You got three nods. MR.OCHS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER HILLER: It would be nice. Page 185 June 16, 2011 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. We're finished with the budget. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to adjourn. MR. OCHS: Commissioners, if I might, I just -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: No. We have a motion on the table here. MR. OCHS: This will take me one minute. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I don't have a choice. I've got to act on the motion, Leo. MR. OCHS: You don't have a second yet. COMMISSIONER FIALA: You didn't get a second. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Second. MR. OCHS: There you go. I just want to -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Go ahead. MR.OCHS: Okay. Real quickly, going over my notes, I have consensus direction from the board to come back with alternatives for replacing ambulances and also that there'll be no decision on economic development incentive fundings and EDC funding until they come back to the board with a report. I'm not sure if I have three or more of the commissioners interested in investigating a parking garage at Connor Park. I know that was discussed. I just wasn't sure if there was consensus. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Not at this time. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, you know, if -- can I mention one thing with respect to that to consider? You know, we have a major renourishment project coming up worth multi, multi millions, and we're only getting 50 percent of what we could be getting in state-matching funds because we lack adequate public access in the state definition, and the state's definition for public access to the beaches is an access point that is serviced by 100 public parking places plus restrooms. We don't have that. We need -- the accessibility is not defined by having a physical access point. It's defined by the public parking statutorily . We're Page 186 June 16,2011 missing out on millions of dollars in state-matching funds and, that's something that the county has been wrestling with over the years. So I would ask you to think about that and where those parking -- public parking spots should go and whether it's a parking garage or, you know, a parking lot, whatever the case may be. All of that could be analyzed. But we're missing out on significant public funds, state funds, that could be coming to us. And this has been a debate that, my understanding, Mr. Mudd and Mr. McAlpin had with the state, and they were hoping to try to convince the state that we actually had more spots than the state thought we had, but it didn't work. So it's a worth -- I think we need to do it, because a physical access point without the supporting parking is not a good access point. It doesn't serve the purpose of making parks -- you know, the beach parks accessible to the public. MR. OCHS: Commissioners -- Commissioner Hiller, I believe, is mostly correct, but I -- in talking with Mr. McAlpin, I think that formula is just a little bit more detailed. We'd probably need a little bit more analysis at the staff level to tell you definitively how many more parking spaces were needed to cover whatever sections aren't covered now -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I'm quoting -- yeah. And that's what we need to do; that's why I think we need an analysis, and that's what I would like to see. What I'm citing as the 100 parking spots is the statutory definition of public access. MR.OCHS: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- at a -- you know, for beach-access purposes. MR.OCHS: I understand. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And that's where I'm coming from. You know, where those access points currently exist and how much we really have is an inventory that we need to compile. And then make a determination. Page 187 June 16,2011 MR. OCHS: I'd be very happy to bring that report back to the board -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, there's an area in Pelican Bay where we could put a very large parking building. COMMISSIONER HILLER: In Clam Bay, in Clam Pass Park. CHAIRMAN COYLE: In Pelican Bay that would provide access, but -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, Clam Pass Park-- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Nevertheless, that's all right. I'm just joking with you. COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, but I'm not. I mean, I think it's a very good point. Clam Pass Park is an option. We've got Lowdermilk Park that's an option. I mean, there are a number of different -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: You don't have Lowdermilk Park as an option. It's not your property, and it's not our responsibility, and we don't have the authority to do anything there. COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, but it's something that we could work with the city on because it wouldn't be out-of-pocket cost for them. It wouldn't be paid for by them. It would be paid for by TDC dollars. It would be an amenity to them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Who was first? COMMISSIONER HILLER: It would be a benefit to them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Who was first? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Me. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I just want to respond. I spoke too quick. Yeah. No, I'm supportive of parking garages. It's just that I don't want to go through that process of filling this room about five or six times to try to get something going forward when we have no money to be able to finance it. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, but we do. Page 188 June 16,2011 MR. OCHS: Might I suggest a staff report back to the board that analyzes -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's a great idea. MR.OCHS: -- this issue in more detail? And we'll have the maps and -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: That would be wonderful. MR. OCHS: -- we'll lay out all the areas of the beach and how many spots are required to get our maximum cost recovery from the state. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's wonderful. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But Commissioner Henning does have a good idea. COMMISSIONER HILLER: He does? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It's just that I don't want to go down the route until I know we can actually build the darn thing. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Exactly. And that's the beauty of it, that it would come from TDC dollars, so it wouldn't be from the General Fund. No city would have to pay, you know, out of their own pocket in any way, and it would be an amenity for their citizens. So it's -- we want to promote accessibility, and that's the way to do it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. It's Commissioner Henning's turn here. Go ahead, Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. It wasn't too long ago that we -- I believe we had some budgeting, or maybe it was just discovery, to put a parking garage -- partner with the state in the state park, Wiggins Pass. The problem is -- and I'm sure -- well, maybe you haven't been down there. It is a mess. It is an absolute mess. Those people want to go there, and you're not going to stop them. So the only property available now that we have control of is Connor's Park, and what a perfect place. It's right there. All you have , to do is walk across Gulf Shore Drive and you're right there, you know. So that would be a really good service for the residents up Page 189 June 16,2011 there, and probably, you know, complete what Commissioner Halas tried to do back then, is get that parking garage up there. So let's do it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. We're going to get a report from staff on -- MR.OCHS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- the state requirements for matching your -- maximizing matching state funds and an analysis of the various access points and how we can maximize them, right; is that what you're going to do for us? MR. OCHS : Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER HENNING: There was enough support for looking at Connor's Park to put a parking garage there. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Sure. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. CHAIRMAN COYLE: There was? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Any possible locations. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You know, you're really making a big mistake. We make this mistake every time. Before you do the groundwork, you're announcing that you want to put a park somewhere. You haven't had a neighborhood meeting. You're going to have people all upset about what we're doing, and we're not going to have any details to explain it to them. And you really should, in my opinion, go about it the right way. Talk with the people of the neighborhood and find out what they think before we get way out on that limb, spend months and months of debate and getting people all upset and then decide we're not going to do it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. So I'll take that back. It's not at Connor's Park, all right? Don't say that to anybody. CHAIRMAN COYLE: It's Lowdermilk Park, remember? Page 190 June 16,2011 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, it's one of those parks. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And if I may. I'd like to add to that. I just want to -- Chairman Coyle, may I speak? CHAIRMAN COYLE: I'm not sure yet. I'm still reconsidering. Go ahead. But it's time to give the reporter a break. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right. And let me just say this. I think one of the things that's really a disservice is when the Naples Daily News publishes articles that suggest, you know, an exploratory question is, in fact, fact, which is absolute nonsense. And an editorial was just published by Brent Batten which was just ridiculous where he took an email where I said I was going to research something and turned it into an absolute. That's an example of really bad reporting, or bad editorializing, whatever he does, as the case may be. So I agree with you, Commissioner Coyle, it's very important to make sure that we have the research. And this is something that deserves to be researched, and it's something that I started researching because there have been lots of complaints that the beaches at the north end of Collier County are very, very crowded, and we don't have a lot of beach at the north end. And we have a lot of beach going south that seems to be underutilized. And what we need to do is promote beach access by making it as comfortable for as many people as possible. You know, the intent is not to sardine people at a single location. And we want to promote that in a fair way. So I really look forward to seeing your report, and I know you've given me some information to start with at my earlier request to start educating myself on this. And I would ask the Naples Daily News change their way of reporting, because they do tend to agitate the public unnecessarily with very one-sided stories, if you will. And fair and balanced reporting does have a place. But what was done today really was unfair to the public. Page 191 June 16, 2011 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Call the question. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. All in favor of dismissal, adjournment? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Aye. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Aye. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Aye, aye, aye. We're out of here. ***** Page 192 June 16, 2011 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 3:34 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ~w.~ FRED COYLE, CHAI N These minutes apPfoved by the Board on 8 ~ 2(", 20 II as presented ~ or as corrected / TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICES, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS, COURT REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC. Page 193