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BCC Minutes 05/31/1994 W (Strategic Plan)DATE: TIME: PLACE: COLLIER COUNTY STRATEGIC PLANNING MEETING ORI61NAL May 31, 1994 9:00 a.m., Collier County Library REPORTER: Jacquelyn D. McMiller Deputy Official Court Reporter Collier County Courthouse Naples, FL 33962. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 Ill _ A-T-T-E-N-D-A-N-C-E BOARD MEMBERS Timothy J. Constantine - Burt L. Saunders Michael J. Volpe John C. Norris Chairman ~TAFF: Mike Smykowski Dick Clark Norris IJams Mike McNees Tom Olliff Bill Lorenz Paul Brigham Tom Conrecode Leo Ochs George Archibald Jennifer Edwards ALSO PRESENT: Professor L.E. Martin George Flagler John Drury 2 OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 PROCEEDINGS MS. EDWARDS: Nell asked me to tell you that he had better things to do. His wife is in labor. She went into the hospital probably about 1:00 o'clock this morning, wasn't it Tom? So, there will be a new Dorrill. MR. IJAMS: Did you check the pool? MS. EDWARDS: I haven't checked the pool yet, we'll call the office and check during the break time. What I want to do now is welcome Professor Martin and thank him for being here. MR. MARTIN: Good morning, once again. I want to have a few opening remarks here this morning and then you can get going and run the show. I had some time, since our last meeting to do kind of an unofficial conversational research prospect with the citizens who live and vote in the county. Since this subject is often talked about in almost all social circles, we really don't get a lot of input from the public coming in here even though all the announcements have said, "Open to the public". So, it's somewhat of a disappointment. I went out and talked to 25, 30 people Just in broad terms, kind of following what John Nesmith said in OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 4 his book, to find out what the costs were and this is kind of a consensus of what most of them talked about. I think most of this is already in your planning prospects, it kind of reinforces what you already decided on as major topics. A lot of them, the people were saying they wanted a planned approach to county growth to ensure the good life in the county. That's a very big subject. These people are concerned about what they read in the paper, hear on television about all the people moving here today. I've heard a number of figures. One figure that I heard was 28 families a day, I don't know if that's true or not. Another one I heard from the real estate people on the radio last week was 6,000 a year. So, I mean, it's happening and they're concerned. Number two, is the comprehensive long range plan to provide adequate water, solid waste disposal, adequate sewer treatment, roadways and traffic control. You selected those are some six major control areas, to control the growth of them and limit kind in the county. Number four, economic development in keeping with county growth to ensure jobs that contribute to the tax base to control desirable business development. I think OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 you're right on target as of now, do you agree John? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes. Where is Tim, is he here yet? MR. MARTIN: Commissioner? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yes. MR. MARTIN: Anyway, I thought that would be a nice way to kind of compliment your planning efforts to this date. It sounds like you're on target. We met so long ago, I was kidding Jennifer, I almost forgot who I was. If you recall we had selected the eight major planning areas and we discussed in great detail the first four and we had them on the board here at the last meeting and then we gave staff members an assignment to provide for us the plans that were already in effect for those areas for the coming year starting October 1st and with some extensions into the other years beyond that where they were going to be completed over a period of time. Without -- it's at your pleasure of course, but I think while we ought to start this morning is for you people who are the planners, to talk to your administrators about what they have put in your report for the first four areas to see if you have questions or OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 discussions that's necessary to clarify what was handed to you. It's a big assignment because you got it such a short time ago. We did have technical difficulties to try to put that on paper to make it easier to read and easier to use. If that's the way you'd like to start out this morning, I suggest that's what we do; talk about those first four and talk about whatever expenses that were on the report that was handed to you and then we can go on from there and if we have time we can develop input from the commissioners on the second floor of the major planning areas. So, whoever wants to be first, you can Jump right in there now and we can go along. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Are you suggesting that we start with, for example, central services? MR. MARTIN: The first four, yes, which would be the very first page. Knowing that many these have already been planned and already been approved, but if you have any questions or want any discussions or anything, that would be the time to do it. MR. OLLIFF: You want to Just walk them through, walk through these? OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 MS. EDWARDS: MR. OLLIFF: fiscal year '95. MS. EDWARDS: Excuse me? Do you want us to walk through the I don't know if the Commissioner's 7 have had an opportunty to read them. We don't want to belabor it, to be sitting here reading to you. We'll ask the commissioners, would you like each of the administrators to talk you through each of their presentations? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes., COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I was going to say that I skimmed through this. We've seen all this material before, this is not new stuff. If it would be helpful to get the discussion going and walk through it. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I don't think we need line by line, I think basic overviews about concepts, about water and sewer. MR. MCNEES: On the water side, starting with fiscal '95, there's only two major issues, the first being the update of the water master plan which is something that's sorely needed, we'll be recommending to you for fiscal '95, the overall plan to be rewritten and updated. We don't see anything in the upcoming years, OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 8 fiscal '98 and '99, and that's the reason because the plan is so old that it needs to be brought up to date. COMMISSIONER VOLPE= When was the plan developed? MR. MCNEES: About six years ago, i believe. Actually, more like seven years ago. It's well outdated. The other major issue for fiscal '95, you're going to see us talking about the expansion of the North Regional Water Treatment Plant and eight million gallon per day expansion. Our flows for this season were high enough to go ahead with that expansion and all the things that go with that, well field expansion, new ingestion well at that plant, those would be the issues for 1995. The next couple years, then, the development of the ASR program, the Auqa, Storage and Recovery Program for potable water given. You'll see the testing for that is in fiscal '95 as well. So, in the outer years, then, that will become a developing issue the Aqua, Storage and Recovery, those would be the major water projects that you see. Also in fiscal '95, a major line construction to fill in the backbone of the system and that will be relatively well complete, and that's really all we have on the water side. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Can I ask a couple questions OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 on the master plan, water master plan. sewer separate master plans? ' MR. MCNEES: Yes. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: by Mr. Montez, about the same time? Are the water and The sewer and the master done MR. MCNEES: I believe the south county master plan was done by Mr. Montez. The waste water is broken into north and south county plans. In fact, there's been a south county master plan update completed that's being reviewed by staff at this point and it will be brought to you within the next couple months. I haven't personally been through it at all myself. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Who did the water master plan? MR. MCNEES: Counselor (Phonetic) Townsand, I believe, did the water master plan. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: That has not been updated since '86 or '877 MR. MCNEES: That's correct. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Does Marco Island fit into that because Marco Island in terms of the waste water side, that's, it's kind of -- MR. MCNEES: They're a different district. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Marco Island has some of which OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 l0 the county has responsibilty for and some of which SSU does. MR. MCNEES: In terms of the old plan, I don't think so. In' terms of the new plan, that's something that still has to be decided, what you want the scope of that to be, whether you want to include Marco Island as far as providing some capacity for them, that's an issue you all will have to give us direction on. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Two sides of that issue, number one is, on the water side, as a water master plan, I'm not sure whether Marco Island SSU has solved their short term potable water issue. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: on that if you'd like. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: can give you some insight I guess, the only thing, John, is whether it fits into master planning. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, that's a policy decision we're going to have to deal with at some point, ! whether we feel that the county should assist SSU in their efforts to provide water for Marco Island. Right now, they're supposed to be handling. If they don't handle it then I guess we'll have to. To let you know what I've been doing, I've been OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 11 working with Big Cypress Basin Board and some of the engineering firms to develop a system of providing raw water for the county for the future so that we don't have to be concerned with where our water supply comes from. Just, very briefly, it'll involve redirecting some of the canal waters, most probably into a system of resevoirs, flow through resevoirs which will then provide the raw water supply for the county for the future and in doing so it'll address a number of environmental concerns at the same time. Of course, the Marco Island water supply will be addressed in that plan. The problem comes, that Marco Island needs something in place by December 31st of this year when the lease for the Collier pits expires. The plan that I'm talking about and I'm working on is going to take much, much longer than that, of course, to build. So, if we can get over this December 31st hurdle with SSU somehow then we'll have some time assumedly, to go ahead and work on the plan to solve the problem permanently. ~ COMMISSIONER VOLPE: COMMISSIONER NORRIS: COMMISSIONER VOLPE: That's on the water side. That's on the raw water side. On the sewer side, there are OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 obligations as I recall that the county has as to a certain number of customers come on line that the county is supposed to provide sewer to people within a certain distrists on Marco Island. MR. MCNEES: The county, there's a question of whether there's even capacity to treat. We don't do the treatment there, SSU does the sewage treatment so we can only put in collection that they have in their capacity to serve and that's at issue at this point. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: What we're talking about, this is part of our strategic planning, you've got central services and Marco Island is part of the county and so somehow it needs to be fitted into the plan and when you talk about the master plan, whether on the water side, it probably doesn't include Marco Island, based upon what commissioner Norris said. When we talk about on the sewer side, which is not a part of this, you've got an issue where you say that the county does have certain obligations to provide waste water treatment services or facilities to Marco Islanders. MR. MCNEES: COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Collection services. Collection, but we're not OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 13 doing what we're supposed to be doing. MR. MCNEES: No, that's not correct. Densities aren't, there are areas now they're Just reaching the densities, The rule of thumb was 50 percent density would be required, anything beyond that would require collection systems. The health department, I spoke to Larry Leukin (Phonetic), and they are not seeing any empirical data saying there's a problem, you need collection systems in any of those areas. They're saying, sure they'd like it if there were collections systems and took out the septic tanks, but they're saying there's no mandate, there's no requirement for that. So, given the treatment capacity problems and the simply the cost of the collection system, there's no compelling need at this point to sewer into those areas at.this time. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: My only suggestion is we need to somehow fold that into the overall plan relating to central services. Going back to point number one which is voter's expectations having to do with us meeting their, central services to meet with the growth and obviously there's a fair amount of growth occurring. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 14 COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I certainly agree with you. Of course, one of the options that we need to look at seriously on this board is, Mike touched upon the point that the little treatment plan down on Marco is fairly close to capacity. I'm not sure exactly where it is but it can't expand to serve all the island build-out, surely. There's land constraints, they Just don't have the room down there, I don't think to make they'll make any kind of a major expansion. So,..as a long range policy decision we also need to look at building sewer plant somewhere down there that would handle Marco, off island somewhere and perhaps allow us to phase out the plant that's in Lely over time, also. need to look at. COM~IISSIONER VOLPE: I think that's what we The other part of that, I think the 1300 acre parcel that used to be Marco Shores which is apparently going to move forward, I don't know how they're going to go sewer that community. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, that's part of the problem that we need to be addressing now. All of that's going to have to come on line at some point. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Probably in the next five OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 15 years. It seems to me like, under that item, that somehow is part of that overall scheme. We need to package all of that in there. MR. IIARGETT: In terms of servicing, would the county and water sewer district be a preferred alternative in terms of providing services through third parties such as this? I think that's the general policy issue. As we look at it, do we look at it in terms of phasing out the existing plant that exists? Do we look towards, on the water side, of providing additional water to SSU or do we look at, perhaps, more of a regional approach to solving some of the problems in that? It's kind of a policy decision I believe we kind of kicked around. How do we come to this? COMMISSIONER VOLPE: My recollection is that these are called the regional waste water treatment facility. I think that's how it's described. I think it's based % upon a region as opposed to the alternative. That would be my personal preference. MR. CONRECODE: Mike, are there still territorial issues that relate to what Mr. Volpe's talking about? MR. MCNEES: Absolutely. It's not just a decision that the county has to make, there's still the OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER~COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 territorial issues, they have ongoing business that, territorial issue of SSU certificate areas. Absolutely. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Well, Commissioner Norris is working with SSU presumably and Big Cypress Basin to try to work out some part of a short term solution to raw water supply for Marco Island SSU. I would think that if not at the same time that those discussions about territorial issues should be handled sequentially. I mean, it's something that's going to back us up as it relates to concurrency at some point. If the treatment plant at Marco Island is at capacity, at some point it's got to relate to some sort of concurrency issue. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's why we're in the process of extending the line down. How much can we pump in that line? How big of a line is that? MR. HARGETT: It's supposed to be ten. issue. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: COMMISSIONER NORRIS: COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Is that water or sewer? That's fresh water. Mike's saying there's a sewer COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, fresh water supply is what's time critical to us right now. They're very OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 l? close,, I think they exceeded their capacity several times during this season so I'm not sure what they're planning to do about that at the moment, neither are they. How much water can we supply at that distance? MR. HARGETT: That I can't answer off the top of my head other than to say, based upon the direction that the board might provide for the near term, we had planned to design that line but not to install. Water's being purchased from SSU into the Goodland System in which developments are being supplied with the existing tank and new pump station. The thing that we've been talking about recently is the need to excelerate the installation of the feeder line to provide the county water not only to those areas but an alternate supply source for SSU, as a matter of policy the board will provide that water. MR. MCNEES: In the short term, we don't have the treatment capacity to give them the water they want any way so they've already asked us can we commit a million gallons per day. We have an agreement with them now to provide that on as available basis, and they've asked can we commit that on a guaranteed basis and we can't. We don't have the capacity. So, that the line is somewhat a OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 18 moot point, we don't have the treatment capacity to give them a million gallons a day. That's in the near term. MR. HARGETT: But as far as the five year plan went, that becomes very much a part of it. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I understand, and I guess probably just to rap up on the water side, you mentioned the north county waste waters treatment plant and the expansion, it.seems to me, it's part of the same thing, it's part of the strategic planning, that we need to encompass or include within the strategic planning specific issues that have been identified with respect to Marco Island, a very important part of our community. Aren't we already under expansion at the North Collier Waste Water Treatment Plant. MR. MCNEES: Yes. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: So, that's already in process? MR. HARGETT: That's true, but remember what Mike said in terms of looking at the county when it came to waste water. It's a little bit different water system. We're actually looking at the south master plan, you're looking north. We're not saying whatever we do up north will solve the problem down south. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I understand that. Again, I OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 19 thought that the challenge in the north regional waste water treatment plant had been met, that we had committed to going forward with the 24 million gallons per day, and we changed the treatment methodology, we've done all that. I thought that decision had been made. Is that not the case? I'm just asking if the decisions about what needs to be done at the north county, if the board has already made those decisions. In terms of changing the treatment MR. CONRECODE: type, yes. MR. MCNEES: You'll see, it's a phased expansion, there's another expansion schedule for fiscal '97 to that facility. You're not building 24 million gallons today. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Right. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So, the question is what we want to do today as far as long range planning on both the water and the sewer side. MR. MCNEES: The question seems to be, with what I'm hearing is, how do we get past the county water sewer district master plan from county-wide strategic planning, and how do we deal with those Jurisdictional areas. I'm not sure what the answer is. It's kind of a policy issue as we stated, what you want to state as the preferred OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COb~TY, NAPLES, FL 33962 20 provider and how you want to consider the SSU and other utilities. MR. CONRECODE: I think some of those also become tactical or operational type issues, policy decisions and not strategic planning issues. From the strategic planning perspective, we need to be looking at the sewer master plan and water master plan, some of the major plant things. Certainly those issues are going to come up, but I don't think on the strategic planning perspectives should be with the operational, tactical issues. CO~ISSIONER VOLPE: But, they're a part of the overall strategic plan, that you have to address those operational aspects of the master plan for the south county or for the water master plan for the overall county. MR. OLLIFF: I think what Tom said, when the work plan comes to you for the master plan update we'll have a discussion at that time about how do we incorporate utilities into our master plan. We don't want have a plan that puts the county in a position of what if, if those things occur, we want position ourselves better to be in a position to deal with providing those utilities. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 21 I guess that's the discussion. Rather than putting it here where it says master plan update, we come to you with a master plan update work schedule and put that in and if you tell us how far you want us to go with that master plan. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, yes, but, I think where the two integrate is that under normal circumstances we shouldn't have to plan for anything that SSU is doing but it appears that we are going to have to include in our plans something to supply them with water and possibly sewer in the future and that's where it all integrates into what we're doing here today. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: The other part of that too is that we have an action plan which was two years or three years old when we were down at Marco Island as part of our Townhall meeting, we had discussed taking that plan off the shelf, dusting it off and taking a look at it, and it includes not only SSU but also includes Golden Gate and with the issues that arise in terms of treatment capacity at Golden Gate in the .city itself, I mean, that seems to me that somehow that too is part of a regional system. The board has to determine whether we want to be OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 the back stop in case these private utility companies aren't able to do what it is that they want to do or do we want to get more aggressive, which was some discussion some time ago, Commissioner Matthews isn't here, but the discussion was that there were some recent cases that have changed, that the method of determining compensation when you acquire private utility companies. MR. MARTIN: Let me interject something here, going back to the responsibilities that we talked about four or five months ago. It's the commissioner's responsibility to write a plan and you hit the nail on the head, what are you going to do about the need for more water and the need for more sewage waste treatment. It's up to the administrators to put that into operation. That's their responsibility, you write the plan and they carry it out and they report back to you on what's happening. Is that what were getting at before commissioner? COM/~ISSIONER NORRIS: Pretty much, yeah. MR. MARTIN: In a nut shell, the county commissioners need to agree on a plan, to address the subject and then turn it over to the people that are going to do it. COMMISSIONER NORRIS= Anybody got a pencil? OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 23 COMMISSIONER VOLPE: My plan is, I'd like to see us go back to the action plann that we had two or three years ago and dust that off and bring it up to date, and see it as a part of an overall plan and strategy for the next five years is that the county incorporate the private utilities into an overall regional system with both waste water and water management. That's what I'd like to see. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Let's give a direction to get that started. I think we're going to have to make sure that the county deals more directly with these private utilities because I think we've perhaps ignored them a bit expecting them to handle things on their own. Now, it's getting kind of tight again in this one situation. MR. CONSTANTINE: Commissioner Volpe, I don't have any objection to dusting off those action plans. That plan, that study, that was done three years ago to look at the potential cost impact and so on out in Golden Gate, we were looking at above $7,000.00 per household by the time all was said and done, if the county was to purchase the Golden Gate system. Even if you spread that over a period of time, there are a number of homes in that four square miles OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 24 that are $60,000.00 homes, $65,000.00 homes, that people are living month to month right now. So, an extra 30 bucks, 40 bucks, 50 bucks, breaks them, takes them out of their house. While it fits nice in the big picture, the reality is there's an awful lot of 9eo91e out there that don't have a lot of choice. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I guess as 9art of the plan as far as the residents of the community we have to look at what the alternative is for them, you're saying $7,000.00 back two or three years ago, if the county were to approach it on a regional basis and acquire the system, the alternative is what's it going to cost them if Southern States Utilities does increase in capacity and is it going to be $6,000.00 versus $7,000.00. MR. CONSTANTINE: We did that analysis three years ago, I have no objection to doing it again now, but we did that analysis and actually costed it out over 20 years. It was more expensive for the county than it was to keep it as it is. That's by no means to indicate that everyone's happy about Florida City Utility. Golden Gate system has the highest prices anywhere in Southwest Florida. Taking that into account it was still more expensive. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 25 COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I'm not insensitive to that, but I just would remind you that we Just dealt with that issue in the south county and those $60,000 homes in the four square mile Golden Gate City are probably $50,000.00 homes over in south county. It's a reality. It's a fact of life and we have to be sensitive to that. I don't know that cost alone should discourage us, and again, I don't think you're saying that. MR. CONSTANTINE: Again, I have no objection to looking if it's more expensive, it kind of defeats the purpose, I guess. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: to looking at it either. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't have an objection I think we're going to have to do something because we found out that we have situations popping up here that have a potential to be critical. So, we need to do something about it. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: We kind of danced around acquiring Southern States as well as the Golden Gate Utility. The Florida City Utility is probably within reach. I don't believe SSU is within reach and for us to build a plan around that, it's Just not going to happen. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think you are probably OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 26 right. We would be in a position buying the utility twice and they're not happy with what they're paying now so I'm not sure they'll want to do that. I think we do need to plan to help them with their capacity problems to help them with both sides, water and sewer. That's what we need to do down there. So, is that the direction we're giving staff to do, is to start to making a plan up? MR. CONRECODE: In terms of a strategic plans, could you elaborate further on that one particular line item, the master planning system to include or -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think looking at feasibility, I think we want to look at to include everything so we know. Update the three year old plan. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yeah, the people involved in making that master plan for Marco Island have gathered enough data and they could tell you what the water supply needs would be at build-out. I think we should plan on assisting SSU to renew that particular need. I'm not sure that they've done the same thing on the sewer side so we may have to develop our own information on that to see what kind of capacity we need to assist down there but certainly those should be a part OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 27 of the plan. When you say dust off the plan, what you mean is to bring the plan back, and Just update all the information. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Yeah, yeah, I think Commissioner Saunders is correct. I think we concluded the last time, SSU, I think at that time what was looking at 15 million dollars or maybe more. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: It's going to be four or five times that. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: In terms of what comfortably could be afforded whether we could do it, the answer was, "No". The change in how you determine compensation, I have no idea what impact that may have. It may be something worth looking at. The emphasis may be as it relates to Marco Island as part of our strategic planning to provide assistance to the private utilities primarily on Marco Island as it relates to'both the water and on the sewer side and also if not aggressively looking at an acquisition with southern states -- with Florida Cities, they've had some capacity problems on the sewer side as well, don't they, and they're not building. They've got a water storage tank that's on Green Boulevard that they were supposed to have built a year ago and they've got an OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 extension on that so they have must have some issues that they're trying to deal with as well that we can provide some support for. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Several years ago, to my recollection, we were in the process of negotiating acquisition of those utilities. That put us in a conflict. They set their rates at the same time that we were trying to negotiate a purchase price. One approach is for us to take back the rates setting jurisdiction of the public service commission as well as the areas of services. That would put us directly involved if there's any deficiency in their service areas or their quality of service, that would put us directly in an ability to regulate them at that point. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's a great idea. I spoke with Fred Dudley some time last year about that and he said if we wahted to pursue that let him know. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I don't think really he needs to drag anything through Tallahassee it's state's statute that there's some notice periods. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, there's some weird window, the first five years we could take it back, the OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 29 next five we couldn't or the next two we couldn't. I can't remember how that goes. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: The law may have changed, I haven't read it in many, many years. It used to be simply that with certain amount of notice, counties can take back jurisdiction after the expiration of a couple of years. That date has expired. There may now be additional restrictions. That Would be a matter Ken Cuyler can advise us to. So, that's probably the answer to our dilemma here, how do we get involved with SSU and Florida cities? We're involved in rate regulation as well as their franchise area. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I think as part of, that's a part of the strategic plan, I think, as well. It's Just that a part of it. It seems to me what Mr. Norris was suggesting wasintergrating them within the overall regional system or providing whatever type of assistance. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's what we need to do, you're suggesting updating the master plan, then we need to intergrate into that what we feel that we're going to need to provide private utilities that normally wouldn't be a part of that plan. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, MAPLES, FL 33962 8 30 COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Picking up what Burr says, in terms of accountability bringing in the issue of reasserting jurisdiction over their rates. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: i think that sends a clear signal that we're not looking to acquire these utilities. From a legal standpoint we've attempted to set their rates from day one, attempted to argue that we were setting their rates arbitrarily low. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I think that's what we're hearing, Commissioner Constantine raised an issue, I think, Marco Island. If one of the utilities wants to enter into negotiations for the sale then at arms length I assume that can happen, I think condemnation, we're not interested in going out and condemning that utility. If you want to talk to us about it, you know. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Exactly, but in the interim we're addressing the problem. If we plan for supplying, for example, Marco Island, we could supply them with either raw water or we could supply them with finished water if we feel they're going to have a treatment capacity problem in the future. We could do it either way or both. It may turn out we need to do both, both raw water and finished water. We could certainly do OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 31 that. If it turns out they find themselves with a capacity problem at some time in the future, then we've got it planned and we can step in. I think that's the sensible thing to do. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: The down side to that is rate setting hearings. That can be time consuming. The SSU would have to pay for all of that. In terms of THE · length of time it takes, that would make the APAC hearing seem like a short lunch recess. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Its unhappy residents to boot. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That's always the case, as long as we understand that. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Isn't that what we talked about, though, meaning the actual users of the system, it would be easier for them to come to the government center to voice their concerns than it would be for them to travel to Tallahassee before a meeting of the public service commission. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The public service commission methodology is terribly flawed in trying to take care of the customers. They come down, have a public hearing, two or three members of the public OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 32 service commission show up. They go through the motions. It's very frustrating to the customers. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Once last point on the utitlity issue and that's the City of Naples, two issues there, number one, I know we talked about the the interlocal agreements that have not been updated as far as I know and I'm not sure what our time line is as to whether we'll ever get them updated, I think that was no less than two years ago, we've had a change of administration in the city. I'm not sure whose current with that. As the city begins to talk in terms of annexation in a different context, seems to me the that the question of these service areas, right now, I'm getting my water from the city of Naples. I live east of Airport Road, so I'm not sure how much further, you know, they may want to take the service. We've got the area across from K-Mart that are still on septic tanks. The city doesn't want those customers. Someone's got to take them. It's an issue that I'm not sure how it's being addressed, if it's being addressed at all. In terms of interfacing with the private utilities OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 33 it's part of the same thing that we have to somehow work with the City of Naples and try to redo those interlocal agreements. Somehow we need to be a part of that plan. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me just suggest that we give the direction today then for the master plan that are existing to be updated and integrating all the criteria and the things that we've talked about here this morning that need to be added to that which probably a lot of these conditions weren't, either didn't exist or weren't critical at the time those plans were formulated in the first place. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: You agree, Commissioner Norris, that in addition to the private utilities with in the area as well we would also include whatever additional, "public" utilities. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Not only do I agree, but I assumed that as matter of planning we've always included the City of Naples. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: the county attorney as to what the procedure would be with the ESE and what that means in terms of our authority. -~ COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Mike, is there anything else I'd like to get a memo from OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 34 as part of this discussion? MR. MCNEES: No, sir, not from my point. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Garbage, solid waste. MR. MARTIN: Was there an assignment to be made here that is well defined? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: By the board? MR. MARTIN: Yes. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yes, I think so. MR. MCNEES: We'll add some language here in our master plan discussion to talk about a couple of bigger issues here to put that into the plan. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Are you going to then bring it back, Mike, with a goal and then our objectives and measurables; is that how you're going to break that out in terms of implementation. Is that going to be next? MR. MCNEES: for all of them. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Yes, we'll have to determine process Okay, fine. MR. MARTIN: Does that, that should conclude water and solid waste for now and sewer. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: It doesn't include solid waste but water and sewer. MR. MARTIN: Do we have any discussion on that at OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 35 this time? MR. LORENZ: Yes, I'd like to go through with the board. The plan here on pages~two and three, basically reflects some operational decisions but to a large degree some strategic issues. As kind of introductory types of questions, that I think the board is going to be faced with are key questions, strategic questions, within the next six to nine months basically. One of the questions is whether the solid waste disposal is even going to be in the county or outside the county. If it's going to be inside the county, I think you have questions of where it will ultimately be located, what's the nature of the processing? And if it's locatd in the county, another issue, major issue, is whether it's going to be done by the county or privatized. Those are the types of questions, let me walk down some of the areas that we've put together. On page two, as kind of a head's up look at it, F¥ '97, '98, we recognize that the collection contract is going to expire and give the county a possibility for renewing the collection services with waste management and Immokalee disposal so just in terms of looking at our five year OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 36 window, the board will be faced with that in the latter part of planning session. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: supposed to be. MR. LORENZ: When are those negotiations Is there is provision in contract? It allows for us to evaluate whether we want to renew the contract. I backed it off a year in FY '98, FY '97, is basically bringing the discussion topic to the board regarding whether you want renew the franchise agreement and pursue those options. The other items on page two, item number one, use of sythetic cover. Staff has evaluated, done the analysis and feel we should be going with the synthetic cover and that could save us some additional space in the landfill and that was consistent with the two proposals that you heard talking about their plans. Staff has evaluated that independently and I feel that is the way to go. One item that -- COMMISSIONER VOLPE: How about the cost though, I realize it'll save space. MR. LORENZ: The cost of some of the synthetic cover that you see is going to be comparable to purchasing soil. That's like what we're currently doing. So, we can not only save space, we're either going to be OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 37 at the equal or maybe even less than what our cost of soil cover is. It does bring up the question as to whether or not we should continue our landfill mining operation, because the biggest benefit of our landfill mining operation is to produce cover. Part of what we've looked at in terms of recognizing, we're going to be evaluating the private sector in terms of cost proposals. Staff has done some analysis and if you will, some of the strategic planning, what I call kind of Plan B, in a sense that if we don't go with some privatization offer, we still laid out here a plan that we think can give the county at least ten years of capacity at the existing Naples landfill. Part of that will be the use of the synthetic cover. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: You said the biggest part of landfill mining is to produce cover. I always thought it was to use for additional capacity. MR. LORENZ: It does give us additional capacity but the one question that we have is whether we can go ahead and line over the existing cells one and two, that actually closes those cells out. Our indication from the state is that we can do that. If we can do that, and we don't need to produce cover, we can then take the site, OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 38 regrade it, what we currently have which was those cells one and two, do some, some additional engineering that would have to be done in terms of stability, that's not pushing the envelope out and that's the type of plan that we could develop on for cells one and two to give us that additional capacity. And we can still mine over the existing cells. So, that in fact, if you step down to number six, in the year FY '97, showing beginning constrution of Naples Landfill cells one and two, that would be part of the strategy. If don't go with a private firm that Staff would recommend that we begin to do that construction at that point in time. Item number two, is I guess management system at the Naples Landfill. It is incorporated in the RFPs that we'll be having going out on the'streets or privatization. Again, if that doesn't happen, our staff is recommending, and they even have it as part of the budget for this year, to put soil and gas management system in the Naples Landfill. The other items that pretty much are listed on page two are more operational in nature. Items that are part of the existing capital improvement program that the OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 39 board has already seen. On page three, the key item there is item number 9, which is looking at a new site. We are already working on some of the site selection parameters. What I've shown throughout the five year planning horizon is to continue to look for a new site'in Collier County and F¥ '97 would be about the time frame where you would want to select a new site. Now, I have scheduled this, if you will, as an early finish in a sense that we wouldn't need to have a new site selected if we're looking at a ten year additional land fill capacity at the Naples Landfill for maybe about two or three more years. I've chosen to show it as an early finish so that we can identify new landfill site as early as possible so that to get it into the future land use plan, it actually should be part of the growth management plan development that we're going to be looking at into FY '96, you can always decide -- all that staff would recommend is to try to identify that site as soon as possible. as FY '97. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: That's why we're showing that Doesn't staff already have direction to begin identifying? OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 4O MR. LORENZ: Yes, and that's what we're doing. The question will come to the board in FY '95 and '96 to actually select a new site and to spend monies to do some cost analysis for, to do preliminary engineering work, to be able to identify two or three sites so that you can select from because there's some sites that may be have different trade offs. So, that's why we're showing in here anticipation of having to do that type of analysis. That's consistent with what the board said several months ago. The other item, number ten, is the board's consideration of'volume reduction. Basically, if you go to some type of composting facility, something that's going to give you 16 to 17 percent volume reduction you'll essentially triple the life time of your landfill. That's an item that has a separate RFP, that will be coming back to the board. I've shown that coming back to the board basically at the end of November of this year, '94. One of the cautions I want to bring up to the board, although the composting technologies have improved, the composting still in Florida history is, still has that problem with overflow and one of the OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 [1 41 things that we're looking is the composting facilities in about two years, we'll have about a year of experience in Florida and it would be worth while to analyze their history in the next couple of years. so, what I've shown here is the strategic plan is in FY '96 is a specific commitment that we look for of cost proposals at the end of the year for your consideration. Item number eleven basically is a privatization issue, is if you continue with the Naples Landfill, who you want to do that work, staff or a private firm, we'll have those cost proposals brought to the board October 1st. That will you give you a better sense of exactly what the proposals are in terms of time at the Naples Landfill and also what the cost will be. Item number twelve, if the board so directs staff to negotiate a contract for privatization, then we'll be back some time in March of '95 with the contract. It's not going to be an easy contract to negotiate. The cost proposals that we bring out should give us a real good feel on actual cost to give some sense of what the proposed terms and conditions will be. There are a lot of complexities involved in that. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 42 We've backed off showing the at least six months there in terms of hammering out a contract to come back to the board. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Seems to me that an important consideration here today is that as far as the landfill operation goes, we're in the process of gathering all this information and we really need to have that information so we can set out a strategic plan because there's too many questions that this information will answer. We don't know the answer to them at the moment. It seems to me that this is one that needs to be on hold for a while until we get some of these answers back. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I'm not sure I agree. Part of the plan, that's the plan is we're going to address the issues relating to solid waste. There's certain decisions that will have to be made. This is an implementation to an overall goal as it relates to addressing the solid waste issue within Collier County. I mean, I'm not sure, Commission Norris, you should put it on hold, I think what Bill was saying is that these are, that the measurables as we move through, are planned. They're critical decisions that are going to have to be made during the course. This is the next five OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 43 years these decisions are going to have to be made. MR. LORENZ: What I tried to reflect within the next five years was if you didn't do anything, if you didn't get a private firm involved in it, will at least put us in a position that we have properly addressed our solid waste needs. However, by the end of this calendar year, you will have specific cost information to make a decision as to whether to go in that direction, what I call Plan B, or take a specific direction of which we can't forcast it now in terms of who's going to do what and by when. So, you should have the basis for that information by the end of this calendar year. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: What would happen if the decision was made by the board to privatize the landfill? What would happen if the decision was made in 1997 by the selection of a new landfill site. away? MR. LORENZ: that decision. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Does that Just go No, I think you still have to make Right. I guess from the dialogue that you used, you said you ought to Just put it on hold. I didn't know what that meant, are we going to OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 44 address it or how we incorporate that into our strategic plan. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I guess another way of expressing it would be if that we set goals today, they're going to have to be a lot broader goals and not as specific as we would like because we have too many unanswered questions. If you want a broad goal, solid waste problem solved in five years, we can make that goal today but that's pretty broad. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Do we have the plan, the discussion that we had last time together, how did we address solid waste; what was our four line statement about solid waste? MS. EDWARDS: I didn't bring that with me. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I didn't bring it either. MR. LORENZ: We had, this was one document here, a recapitulation of commissioner's goals, maintain low cost to consumer, a safe, effective environmental secure method of disposal, and develop and implement long range solutions for collection of disposal. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: That's the vote. MR. LORENZ: Yes. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 45 MR. HARGETT: I think the way that you get there is just a number of ways. It depends upon your ultimate policy decision, long range disposal goals will vary between whether you do it in the county or out of the county, where you do it, depending on whether you continue to operate the existing landfill or find a new one, so forth, through the various things they're talking about. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I guess where I'm getting a little confused in the process, because as far as the strategic plans, it was kind of an overall goal, and then we've got a certain objective to at least identify and I'm kind of looking at that overall goal. I think Commissioner Norris was saying that's a very broad goal that we have. What you said, Bill, as part of the process, is that there are a number of objectives in order to achieve that goal but depending upon if we decide to privatize, we go in one direction, if we decide to keep it in-house, we go in another one. I'm trying to visualize what the written document would look like. MR. LORENZ: As I said, I tried to set it up so that if you don't do privatzation, and that goes by the OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 46 wayside for whatever reason, if you take that out, you still have a five year plan that's going to provide you adequate solid waste disposal in that five year window. On the other hand, you make a decision during that privatization discussion, certain things could drop out or get pushed out in time. Obviously, that's the fine tuning of a strategic plan that we work for. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I agree with Commissioner Norris, I don't think there's a lot else that we can do with this. I would like to suggest that we take numbers ll and 12, move those up as numbers 1 and 2, so I think the commission made, at least preliminary decision, to privatize this landfill, put that up in the beginning, if we are not not able to privatize the landfill, the other plan that you have out here really becomes our plan. Probably, the only thing that would keep us from privatizing the landfill would be the potential cost to the user. I suspect, from what we've heard, we're going to be able to privatize this, keep the rates fairly close to what they are, plus eliminate some of the concerns in terms of liability, clean up, I think that puts emphasis on privatization by moving it to number one. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I agree. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: COMMISSIONER VOLPE: already. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: So, do we want sewer? I think we've done sewer Bill. Bill, as part that 47 discussion, is there something more that you need from us? MR. LORENZ: No, I think that would, that's clear. I mean it's a step down through the plan. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Is a part of that discussion, Commissioner Saunders, in terms.of reordering if that becomes important we might, in any case, we still need to continue the process for a new site selection. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I think all that activity continues, that may change, our plan would change once We'll continue with those efforts. with we privatize. MR. LORENZ: We did sewer as part of the On page four, we begin the COMMISSIONER VOLPE: discussion. MR. ARCHIBALD: discussion on roadways. I'll be. relatively brief. The CIE has pretty well dictated an inventory update. Those documents from a concurrency standpoint drive our road program and the program that was recently approved really OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 48 addressed 32 major projects that were identified and as you've seen, we've tried to outline some of those projects which we would reconstruct, recognizing you're looking at a time frame from five to ten years to take a project from conception to completion of construction. So, we've listed them there to give you some idea of the number of construction projects that begin by concurrency. On item two, we've got a listing of design projects, they're relatively new and ongoing so that we'll have some idea of the dynamics of the growth of the county, recognizing that as the county grows in different directions the growth program has to respond. A good example is North Naples growth. The growth right now that is undergoing in that area and the projections continue to dictates the needs for the four lane of Immokalee Road and the future expansion of Airport Road, north of Pine Ridge, the extension of Vanderbilt Beach Road between 41 and 31 and then the improvements of Goodlette-Frank. Many of those will be in some sort of planning, design or construction and this outline is simply a summary for reinforcement of what already is in our AUIR. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 49 The funding issue is probably the most important one here, that's why under item three, we've got a listing of funds in our current approved CIE element. As the board will recall, what we're doing here is reallocating gasoline tax from the road operations to road improvements. So, we're going to be showing you in your current budget years changes in revenues. That's probably one of the issues from a policy standpoint that the board has already addressed in approving CIE as it's currently in place, and recognizing it's not only will the gas tax be reallocated but any shortfall in a given year may also be subsidized by new revenues or the reallocation of sales tax. You will see that in current budget process. I have thrown in a number of other items that we typically don't see in the CIE. Road operations is one. It's a fairly large ticket item. I've thrown that in there primarily from a strategic standpoint of addressing the change in road systems, not only in the number of miles that's being added to the system but we're adding urban miles in lieu of rural miles. Urban miles reqires different levels of maintanence~operations. You'll be seeing that in your budget process also. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 5O We also have to recognize that as North Naples grows, we also have quite a bit of growth growing in Golden Gate Estates from single family residential units that's where the majority of the growth is occurring. That road system out there addresses over 200 miles of lime rock roads. It's a program that has to continue to be fortified from a revenue standpoint and the way that we plan on doing that is to continue the GAC trust to supplement that with the municipal services taxing district, unit five. That's been done in the past and done to a greater degree in the future as those needs occur. Item six, I included landscaping. We prepared an agenda item to give the board some idea of what the different policies may be if the board may want to consider addressing and adopting in the future. That agenda item, I held pending completion of a study done being done by Naples Scape (Phonetic). When Naples Scape completes their study, I'd like to see both the staff policy issue come before the board and also provide at the same time Naples Scapes, Collier and Naples Scape program so that there will be two different views of how we may not only address landscaping but also OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 §l how we may fund it in the future. Again that funding will be either county-wide or district wide. That, again, can carry a large price tag as we look at both the landscape improvements and landscape maintenance. We need to recognize that that policy overtime does bring value to the community but will be a policy item that will carry a large cost in both those aspects. Under item seven, page six, I've got a number of MSTD's growing. Streetlighting is over a million dollars on an annual basis. We'll be addressing and consolidation that in the current budget year. That will be a policy issue to some degree. There's some items that I left out, they include state roads. Right now, the state has gone to a degree of funding our concurrency requirements and as a general rule we don't have a concurrency problem on state roads if the state can follow through with implementation of programs that have been identified in the TIP, and it's approved by MPO, transportation improvement program. If that continues to be funded as it currently is, the majority of state road improvements will be forfilled on time or at least within the concurrency window OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 52 available to us. Two other issues I didn't include involved mass transit, those studies are under way. Those will be future policy issues, the same thing holds for airports and finally, the one issue, Gordon River Bridge. The second Gordon River Bridge crossing is an example of a project that may not be concurrency driven in our current five year program but it's a project that the board may want to visit from the idea of taking a look at some of the early planning functions and make sure that that roadway, as in the future, will be available to the county for the transportation system. I think that pretty well summarizes what we've got outlined here. If you need us to include or discuss some of those items including mass transit, airport or state road system we can. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: second Gordon River Bridge. I'm a little confused on I don't want to misinterpret what you're saying, it's almost sounds as though if the board decides to consider this to be looked at, then we have an opportunity, even though it's not concurrency driven, I think the MPO has already voted. It's composed of five county commissioners and two city counsel OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 53 members. The MPO decided to proceed with that road as priority. I think we need to continue. MR. ARCHIBALD: I think that the project has been approved. The contract hasn't be issued but very close to it. That will indicate to us more precisely if the lightings are available to us. The point that I was making, if we decide that through those studies, and keep in mind we want to take the benefit of that study in '95, those studies will indicate to us a lot of information as to timing cost, such things as right-of-way preservation, and those decisions will ultimately come back to MPO or the board. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I think it would be appropriate to put that second Gordon River Crossing into our strategic plan just preliminarily. If we find out from the study that it's not feasible, we made the decision, follow the decision and then we move forward with that road as expeditiously as possible. I would suggest to the county commission that we do that. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: statement, I believe. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I think that's an accurate I concur. The issue of mass transit, OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 54 that's a different story altogether. That's going to be reviewed by the Metropolitan Planning Organizations, I suspect within the next month or two. It's been delayed several times. I think most of the plan is prepared for it. don't know if it would be appropriate to put that in the planning document now until a decision has been made to move forward. We're trying to breathe some light into that issue, I would think it would not be appropriate to put that into the document at this point until after the MPO has made some decision on it. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Could I raise something else? Mr. Archibald, you mentioned about the growth occurring in North Naples, North Collier Planning Community, can we stop and focus for a moment, east and south county area, Sable Bay is still out there. Did Sable Bay ever get started? Have we anticipated what impact that may have on such roads as Thomasson? MR. ARCHIBALD: Yes, we have. Part of Thomasson Drive and improvements it from two lane to four lane but includes realignment of that. We've also followed through with U.S. 41 division to see that design element so that when we see the six laning in U.S. 41, it will OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 55 accommodate and allow for the realignment of Thomasson drive. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I don't care very much of discussion about that. You know, how that's going to impact, you're talking about four laning the Rattlesnake Hammock. Now, Thomasson to Bayshore, seems to be an alternate to U.S. 41 and I guess it's not in our five year plan because what you just said was that in the DRI, that they have a commitment to four lane it. I assume you're talking about Collier Enterprises have committed to four laning it? MR. ARCHIBALD: They have a commitment to participate in the four lanig which would involve right the of way and realignment of the roadway. I think the issue is one that comes in the AUIR every year, that's an issue of what's the level of service on Thomasson drive and does it in fact, is it growing in such a way that warrant some planning and design work now in a five year plan. And, as long as Sable Bay continues to be delayed then your staff is saying we don't have a concurrency problem on Thomasson drive but obviously we see something occurring out there that triggers the need for capacity improvements then that would be the appropriate time to OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 56 include that link within our CIE, COMMISSIONER VOLPE: As a part of our strategic plan which is separate from the AUIR and some of the others, it seems to me that within the next five year planning horizon we ought to be thinking about what's happening in that area. If we're talking about a second bridge over Gordon River, and we're talking about U.S. 4! and that are going to six laning, the state is going to six lane U.S. 41 from the Four Corners, right, all the way up to Airport Road. MR. ARCHIBALD: Yeah. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: So, before I get to Airport Road, if I could hang a right, go to Bayshore, go down Thomasson, I could go right out to 951. It seems to me there's a part of the planning that, somehow -- it seems to me that somehow we ought to be thinking about it in our plan other than just the AUIR. That's just my thought. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm not sure we should be planning on hypotheticals though, if we don't know what's going on in Sable Bay or what the plan is or anything else. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I understand. All I'm OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 57 suggesting is that even as a part of that, though, and I realize it is hypothetical, but there are certain things that are happening in that area of our community. The four laning of Rattlesnake Hammock, and people aren't going to be able to demostrate and that's going to -- you're talking about realigning the intersection there, when does that occur? MR. ARCHIBALD: The realignment would have to be driven by the Sable Bay project. Our recent meetings with the developer with regards to the six laning, are in fact considering going ahead and making the right-of-way donation in advance so that the opportunity may be there at the time that U.S. 41 is six laned to initiate a portion of the escrow that would realign Thomasson Drive. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I think it's something more than just the what if's because the other concern that I have, that that alignment at Thomasson and U.S. 41 and Rattlesnake Hammock is difficult at best right now. It seems to me that if we can get some advanced dedication of the right-of-way, at least we can, as a part of the design at Rattlesnake Hammock. Like we did at 111th or Vanderbilt Beach Road, you design the other side and I think it's at the intersection now. I think OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 58 in the next five years, it's an important issue that's going to have to be addressed and should be a part of the process. Maybe it falls under the items tht you didn't discuss but at least we discussed it now. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: One other comment on the -- I think what you put here is excellent. The numbers are a little confusing. You have in some areas expressed in thousands of dollars, number three, CIE funding. It doesn't say that's in thousands. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Maybe we're going to get away with these figures. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: when you look at it, it looks like it's awful cheap. Maybe we can. COMMISSONER NORRIS: So, what is our goal? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: To keep ahead of the game. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think you hit it right on the head. I think our goal should be to continue to update that five year plan annually with the goal of meeting our level of service needs on a pay scale basis. Is that our goal, do you agree with that? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah, that sounds good. MR. DRURY: Can I add something to this category here? As to roadways, I'm wondering if the appropriate OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 59 category might be transportation and in transportation we're talking about roads, rural, we talked about airports, international airports, emergency service airports, reliever airports, roads and bridges, things of that nature. I'm wondering if the appropriate category of this should be transportation and that you address all transportation issues. From my perspective, and you know I'm associated with the airports, 30 percent of the people that visit this community come from your international airports, your next county. I think it's something that needs to be addressed, what they do up there affects your visitors and residents here. From the reliever airport system, I think it's an important part of the transportation system. It may be better in economic development but I think it's a transportation issue especially when you consider that more people enter and exit this state by air transportation than by all other modes of transportation. Aviation is a real important element of your economic base and transportation base. I'd just throw that out for your discussion. If it's appropriate. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We've just made a fairly OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 .6 6O big commitment this past week, and we made a big commitment over the past year so as to not include aviation anywhere in our strategic planning. I think it's probably a mistake. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: So, we would have transportation and one segment of that would be roadways, one segment would be airports and whatever else. Is that your suggestion? MR. DRURY: Yeah, the other thing I suggest is if you're going to be silent on issues of mass transit or other issues, from my perspective, when we hand these planning efforts out to large businesses that aren't from this area or this state or this country, they want to see what's going on down here from an infrastructure and planning standpoint, this is a document that would be very helpful in letting them understand where they invest. Even if you're not going to invest in mass transit it's probably my opinion that it would be a good idea to at least address the issue in the plan, that you have looked at it, and these are some of the things you are or aren't going to do. If it's completely absent in the plan, then people looking at this community will look at OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 it and say they don't have any outlook, especially when you're talking about Europe, a lot of European countries are looking at the United States investment but they rely on mass transit and that's important to them, whether it's important to you or not here, it seems to me we ought to be making suggestions but not just being silent on it. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I agree with Mr. Drury in terms of the Collier transportation and adding airports. If the commission, once they had a statement concerning mass transit I can certainly support that. We're not doing that yet but if we simply want to say that the commission has at least tentatively gone the other direction, if we want to put that in the plan, I would support that. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Considering that its pending right now, we could put in that, yes, last November or whatever it it was, we voted not to move forward on mass transit, but considering the items that are going to be coming back to the MPO. It's pending so now is not the appropriate time to put it in because we don't know. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I think it's an excellent OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 62 suggestion. But just help me out, your comment that 30 percent of the people that here in our community land at the International Airport in Fort Myers. What would you envision as part of that strategic plan that that's a fact? How do we incorporate that fact and what does that mean? MR. DRURY: I think you need to look at it and see what role you're going to play in some of the decision that are made up there. I also think you need to look at it at the Naples Airport and your reliever ports. I think in your planning process which is what this is kind of saying what you're going to be looking at, I think you need to look at at those. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: That's fine, but again are you saying well maybe we should then, the focus should be that Collier County should have representation on, that's the goal, Collier County should have representation on the port authority, or whatever it's called in Lee County. That's the goal. We want to have representation there, 30 percent of the people that are coming into Collier County we should have to say something about it. MR. DRURY: That's a policy issue that I think this board would need to make a decision on. My point is that OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 63 if you're talking about -- I didn't see transportation as a whole in here, I thought it should be broken up into four modes. I think that we need to look at the entire transportation system. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I hear that. So, Commissioner Norris, in different context said we should be interfacing with the private utilities, public utilities, and we should be working together. Are you suggesting that, obviously, lots of these things are policy decisions but should we, as a result of your suggestion, should we be talking about that under transportation that Collier County should be working with Lee County or the Lee County Port Authority as it relates to international airport, is that a part of our goal? MR. DRURY: I would think it would be very important that Collier County be involved in the process. How it's involved in the process, is an outcome of the planning process. Definitely, if 30 percent of your tourism industry or business industry is dependent upon that service, that's a pretty big portion. I think that this county should be involved in some way in how that's being he brought up. For instance, Lee County goes over to Europe, does OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 64 marketing and promoting for it's international service. I think that may be Collier County, that would be a vehicle, that would be, maybe an outcome of the whole process. I'm just suggesting that this county should be involved in air, the transportation, air transportation services. Naples Airport, is an air carrier serving airport. That's probably involved in that. Then you've got your reliever airport that's not involvd in air carrier. It will be a lot more important today, and in the near future as far as diversifying our time. MR. MARTIN: Let me make a point of information, here, the reason roadways was used that's part of the legal description of their responsibility and therefore it has to be addressed in terms of what their responsibilities are; not the meaning, the other forms of transportation, I'm not sure where they would go, it would be for the commissioners if they want to include that to put it under an appropriate place. Part of it would be in economic development. MR. DRURY: It may be that air transportation has to be economic development, if that's the way we review air transportation. MR. MARTIN: Gentlemen, it's 10:35, now, it would OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 65 be time have our 10, 12 minute break, relax a little bit and come back. (A recess was had and proceedings continued as follows:) MR. MARTIN: Well, I have to assume that we've finished our discussion of roadways and we're going to move on to section two, which was safety and I think Commissioner Norris wants to speak. Also, for those of you who asked, we set forth the notes from our previous meetings that are here in case you want to review what was written down at our last meetings, relative to selecting these topics. . MR. IJAMS: The map that I've got up here will take a little explaining; OC is Ochoppy, EC, that's Everglades City. Let me add, this is Plantation and over here is Chokoloskee, Port of the Isles and the Isle of Capri. The whole theory behind what you've got in front of you is to, I think eventually close down this station. It's a very rural fire department. It's been that way for years. It needs to, when I say improve, we can improve our service. I find nothing wrong with the people or the operation but this will take us into fire prevention activities and such. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 66 Here is the bulk of the people, right around Everglades City, in Everglades City and around Everglades City that these people are responsible for. We have a station here. There's nothing here at the present time, this is a developing area. If any of you haven't been out there recently, it's worth the time to see the impressive development started. Over on this side of the present Port of the Isles, there's streets in an area that's going to be one of our growth areas. The reason I bring Isle of Capri into this because eventually, even though it does not say in the plans in front of you, that to consolidate both this department which is volunteer I'll remind you, and this department which is paid. Also in this next Marco Island Airport, you all have reasonably taken a very positive action in that regard, I see this as it is now our responsibilities or if you want to focus it more, my responsibility, to make sure they have adequate fire protection for that area and over here it's the Everglades City Airport which is my own personal opinion will probably develop faster than the other two. That's just a quick explanation. One other thing, OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 67 as I think about this, as we talk about this this morning, I purposly, this is farther from here to here, because this is the, I can't think of the name of that intersection, this is 41 and this 29, this is 951. MR. CONRECODE: Carnstown? MR. IJAMS: Yes, Carnstown. So, in relocating here, that's what we're going to do, that's my suggestion that we did, this is closer here than it is here, that is is an ongoing argument that I'm having right now with all these folks, nevertheless, the distance here becomes an important factor when we talk about response time. I appreciate using that. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: questions, Commissioner Norris? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Are we supposed to ask It's not required. MR. IJAMS: %,.~s is such a logical thing, you probably won't have any questions, but if you do. now? COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Where's the ambulance station MR. IJAMS: In Everglades City. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Is that advanced life support system, that's what they've been asking for. MR. IJAMS: Not yet but we're hoping it will be in OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 68 October. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: So, you envision consolidation as not only being fire/medic but also emergency medical services? MR. IJAMS: Yes, sir, we do. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: What's Everglades City now? Where's the ambulance housed now? MR. IJAMS: It's housed in Everglades City. It's in a carport between the roller skating rink and the fire station. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Is it part of the consolidation that you're discussing? MR. IJAMS: Yes. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Would you move them all as the plan to move it to the intersection of Carnstown and 417 MR. IJAMS: Actually, the advanced life support won't be moving except a matter of a few feet. I would put them in the Everglades Station. To me it's important, psychologically perhaps, the people in Everglades City see an advanced life support vehicle as well as a couple of fire trucks. Most of you know, certainly the staff does, we discussed this frankly we've got more fire trucks than we OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 69 have people. We need to get rid of some of them. That seems to be a little emotional issue but nevertheless has to happen. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: So, the plan is to consolidate the operations but not necessarily the facilities, specifically -- MR. IJAMS: facility as well as the operation. No. I think we're consolidating the Fire consolidation. It has to begin some place. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: COMMISSIONER VOLPE: MR. IJAMS: Perhaps you're not getting the answer to your question, Mr. Volpe. At the present time, the only plans really is to move the chief's office from here along with the secretary to here. We'll do a little expansion here, something in the $5,000.00 neighborhood, to accommodate what we think will be the advanced life support. Personally, it's basic life support. So, we're upgrading that. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Northwestern gateway is currently at the Everglades? MR. IJAMS: The ambulance? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. MR. IJAMS: Yes, that's it's location. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 70 COMMISSIONER VOLPE: At the airport, is there going to be a fire truck at the airport? MR. IJAMS: No. This is not very far. This distance from here to here is maybe less than a mile, I would say more like a half mile. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: How many people at the Port of the Isle? MR. IJAMS: Nobody. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: You said that's where the growth is occurring. You've got 350 people in Everglades City, how many people -- MR. IJAMS: Oh, I think my figures are, and I can't tell you exactly on people, I believe there's 50 homes, part of them are condominiums. I can get those figures for you. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I'm wondering in terms of consolidation, what's the distance from Everglades City to Port of the Isles. MR. IJAMS: It's closer from here to here than it is from here to here. · COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Really, I think of terms of structure fires, thinking about the magnitude of homes that are being built are whatever it is. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 71 MR. IJAMS: The growth, if you looked at this as one big fire district, the growth in this situation is west instead of east. What's happening out here, this area's not growing in population, so we need to adjust our personnel, as low numbers as they are, we need to adjust in this direction to accommodate this. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Commissioner Norris, where is the new or the old 1300 acre piece of ground which would be west of, I guess, 951 in relation to the Marco Island Airport. How much further to the south? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: ground? COMMISSIONER VOLPE: It's north of the airport. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: The 1300 acre piece of The Marco Shores PRI. You're talking about the development part, the portion that can be developed, nothing west of 951 can be developed is my understanding of that original area. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Is it west or is it east? MR. ARCHIBALD: Marco Shores is east of 951 and north of airport. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: that is that a part of the consolidation suggestion, is I guess the only relevance of OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 72 you could at some point in time have a significant population in the immediate area of the Marco Island Airport. MR. IJAMS: Yes, sir, I certainly agree with that. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I think it's a good idea. MR. IJAMS: That's, I guess, neither here. Obviously, weave already started some preliminary discussions and things of this nature with all these folks and I guess if you don't all tell me, you know, I'm really off track here and need to go in some other direction, I think you'll see this proceeding in the next, couple, three years and it may come together faster than I first anticipated. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: It requires interlocal agreement in Everglades City? MR. IJAMS: I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: It requires an interlocal agreement in Everglades City. MR. IJAMS: No, I don't believe so, it's all the same fire district. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: There's probably an interlocal agreement already for us to provide services to them, right, which this wouldn't affect. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 ,9 73 MR. IJAMS: I don't think it's an interlocal agreement. We have a contract. It's not covered under ordinance form. I don't think it requires anything additional to what we already have in place in order to move forward with this idea and push our personnel to the west to accommodate the future, the growth that's already occurring, plus the future growth that's undoubtedly is going to occur. The other one, utilizing the single emergency vehicle responses, as I'm sure you all recall, this service and our consolidation efforts that we had earlier in '93, it's a sweetheart deal. It's good for the independent district. this? It's good for everybody. Do they support No, but they're coming around. We've met with, I used Marco Island as a positive example. They have said down there that they want to give this a try. All this amounts to is that on an ambulance where we have two personnel, we'll add a third one, there will be a firefighter, cross training and all those things will be taken care of and we'll be responding one emergency vehicle to an accident scene or an emergency medical call and there will no longer be a need for a fire truck or a rescue, whichever it is to OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 74 respond. We'have continued to push~this and discuss this with everyone that will talk to us and I just encourage you all to let us go ahead and pursue this. It's starting to come around, I believe, and I think once, if we get one department such as Marco to give it a try, I can't see any possibility for it not working. Now, I can implement this idea with the Ochoppy Fire Department, those both belong to us. If we don't get some satisfactory movement with the independent districts, I suspect that will come before you, I'm sure, but I suspect I may implement it just with the Ochoppy Fire Department and the advanced life support unit that will be in Everglades City at that time. To me this is an issue that once we try it, we're going to save some day. I don't know why we haven't done that before, but it's been difficult for us to get this, to bring about this, working with the independent districts. As you can see, fiscal year '96, I bring up the megahurts, that's moving along well. Our deadlines that we've got out there are, have become more optomistic that we're going to be in good shape as those approach. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 75 There's a little thing that we spent some time yesterday with a consultant and have adjusted some dates and our adjustment of dates are all in the direction of improving our position for FCC as far as our September deadline. As we get in '97 we're going to start talking about manpower for the Port of the Isles and 41 and 29 are obviously routes and then it takes us in '99 to district one which is the contractural area that basically lies just east of 951, the East Naples Fire Department or the Golden Gate Fire Department contract with us, and this I have responded to this, but during the budget hearings that we had with you folks, I've gone back and discussed this with them and we have a contract with these folks and what they're providing for us, we're getting a bank for a buck. We really are. There's 140 some responses in that area. It's our responsibility to contract with these people to do it. I think in time, perhaps in 98, 99, we'll be able to bring about some kind of a consolidation there. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: What part of that district Does district includes the south blocks, district one. one include the south blocks? OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 2O 76 MR. IJAMS: Yes, it does. I'll tell you, I get the south block and the -- I believe it does, Mr. Volpe. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes, it does. Vince is always complaining about having to go out there and cover these fires, no access, and that sort of thing. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: How about Belle Meade, that's all a part of district one, isn't it? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't know if district one extends down to that lower part of Belle Meade. I don't know. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Has the state contributed any part to what it is that are, the service that's being provided in that area? MR. IJAMS: The division of forestry, you may not have it yet, but we discussed that with the division of forestry. We're, through state law, obligated to pay three cents an acre, and there's 250 some thousand acres, that we're paying for and that comes to about 20 some thousand dollars. That goes to the division of forestry to enhance the fire protection of Collier County. Each county has that. Those figures will be coming down probably the next year because we're going to re'evaluate the amount of OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 77 acreage that we're presently responsible for, or paying three cents an acre for. If that goes to answer your question.. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: for the division of forestry to provide fire protection in the same area? MR. IJAMS: The county's paying the state Yes. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: How'much are we spending under contract in Golden Gate and East Naples? MR. IJAMS: It's 150, 40 total, that's equally divided three ways between Ochoppy, Golden Gate and East Naples. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: So, you had 134 calls? MR. IJAMS: No, I'm sorry, that was 130 or 40 thousand dollars that we pay and is split up. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: No, just part of the district one plan again, you said we're getting the bank for a buck what we're paying to these three independent fire control and rescue districts is well worth what we're At the present time. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: We're paying $134,000.007 MR. IJAMS: In total, yes. paying. MR. IJAMS: OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 78 COMMISSIONER VOLPE: in that area. MR. IJAMS: In total. How many calls were I'm sorry, 140 something. MR. HARGETT: One of the points, I think he's trying to make, for example, yesterday, there was a fire along 75, on the state right-of-way, natural forest about as far as east as you can go in Lee County and Ochoppy responded. In fact, they were the only ones on the scene. If we're paying, what we're paying for is having them to respond brush fires. MR. IJAMS: You say the only ones on the scene or they were the only ones you could see. MR. HARGETT: They were the only ones on the scene at the fire. MR. IJAMS: I can't explain that but Big Cypress also has a, were we far enough east of 29, I'm not familiar with the location'you're talking about. MR. HARGETT: Way out there is all I know. MR. IJAMS: Way out there. Big Cypress also has a government subsidized fire department and the division of forestry, to my knowledge, always responds to, they have the bull dozers and things of that nature. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 79 MS. EDWARDS: Any other discussion on EMS related? Any questions? COMMISSIONER VOLPE: When do we have to bring on the next ambulance, we've already got them all, we've got nine of them. MR. IJAMS: We're in the process of bringing one on which is funded for this fiscal year, six months of this fiscal year. We don't have it on yet because the location, locating it is a problem right now but it looks like the details are worked out and we'll be stationing it on Immokalee Road, east of 1-75, North Naples on that lot. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: For a dollar a year? MR. IJAMS: Y'all did good. MS. EDWARDS: The next one is building codes. We haven't supplied anything here. MR. CLARK: I could give a little caption. Generally speaking, our building codes are updated periodically to reflect the amendments, statutory amendments. The current ones, the more recent ones, were the hurricane related with ones. Hurricane Andrew, after reviewing that, they strengthened some the structural requirements in the building codes. Those have been OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 8O incorporated. There is and will continue to be an updating requirement of all of our building codes. We're currently on 91 on one of our codes. In addition to that, we have in draft form now, we're workshopping it, it's called an amendments to administrative code in which responding to the county manager's concerns and the board's concerns we have prepared a draft version of the amendment which would allow for increased requirement for design professionals to design plans for certain houses of certain design complexities. are. Actually 15, 20 years ago, most of our houses down here were 800, 1200, 1500 square feet, without a lot of design complexities. Now, we're getting in Grey Oaks and some other subdivisions, 11, 12,000, 15,000 square foot homes with extremely complex design criteria in which you may have a 30, 40 foot span, some of the roofs go up to 30, 40 feet high. When you have a span of 30 or 40 feet in a single room, design complexities like that become very critical. We're reflecting that and adressing those concerns. It almost gets to the point in some of these design criteria without, and I'll say it with humor, it's almost factual, OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 they almost need a pair of field glasses to look 30, 40, feet in the air to see if all the hurricane clips and all the required safety issues are addressed. What we're proposing and I might add with overwhelming support from the industry, is that design those professionals be required to design houses that have certain design complexities, not only required to design them but those same design professionals be required to inspect those house to ensure that they're built, that they're built in accordance to the plan. I might add that some of the design professionals are extremely concerned, as well as some of the contractors, who are currently having the design professionals inspect those houses because of the liability of a 11, 12 or even 6 to 8 thousand square foot house with that design criteria, the possibility of failure when you have that much exposure to the wind, in which we do have a considerable amount even on the edge of a hurricane, the liability and the safety concerns are considerable. So, to that end, many of the bigger contractors or contractors of bigger homes, are now employing design professionals to inspect the house. What we're doing is OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 82 by ordinance requiring design professionals to inspect the houses of that design complexities -- COMMISSIONER VOLPE: What's the break point? MR. CLARK: We're looking at five thousand square feet but that's square a footage areas. There's also a other critical areas, certain up-lift capabilities and the loading of certain critical members of the house, in other words, if you look at the plan, those have to be pointed out and if it meets that the design professionals would be required to do that. Obviously, that would increase the cost of the house by a very small percentage point, I might add but when it gets to 5, 6, 8, 10, 15,000 square foot house, the safety concerns are extremely critical. In addition to that area that we're trying to address, we're also proposing at that some privatization opportunities be available. The state now requires that our inspectors be certified by the state, that they meet certain experience criteria, that they have certain educational and training criteria and there are professional designers in the fields who also can meet and get those licenses from the state. So, in order to facilitate the option, the OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 83 availability of privatization, .we're also incorporating in that proposal, that inspections may be conducted, they'll be working on contract basis for the county. So they're responsible for us, not to the builder. We could utilize the services of design or inspection professionals so that the possible fluxuation of spike periods in building, we could utilize the services. It's probably better than hiring two or three inspectors and laying them off or not having the capabilits of meeting the inspection scheduals that are now about 95 percent current within 24 hours. That's kind of an update on where we're at with building codes. MR. FLAGLER: Mr. Clark, you mentioned that the design professionals would become also inspectors; licensed inspectors? MR. CLARK: There's two different areas, the design professionals would be required, in other words, there's two different areas, one is the design professional such as an engineer would be required, the builder would be required to obtain his services to design that house. The builder would also be required to obtain the services of an engineer to inspect the house to ensure, in OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 84 addition to what inspections they do. The second point was the design and inspection professionals, which could be design professionals as well, we could utilize the services of those, we would have the availability of utilizing those to supplement our inspectors should the need arise. It's two part. MR. FLAGLER: Can you envision down the road, considerable savings by having all of them required to become licensed as inspectors themselves and make them responsible for their own work and held them responsible to it and if they didn't, provide the proper work. MR. CLARK: There is that concern. There are some economic factors involved. For instance, if you take a low income housing, or lower income housing, a say a 50 or $60,000.00 house and add a design professional requirement, we may get to that point eventually but at this point we're looking at the higher end or the more design complex areas of houses, to see how it works out and obviously, too, we could expand that if the commission so desired at a later date. MR. FLAGLER: I'd like to see the design professionals and perhaps in the long run, the inspectors to be accountable. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 85 MR. CLARK: They are required to be accountable now as well as the builders. At this juncture, until we sort through this and until we have some experience with that, there's always a concern that person, in other words, who is my employer and my loan is to my employer so we're not suggestion that it would happen we're suggesting that it could happen. So, we want to phase into this and say, if I had an employee and he's accountable to me as a private individual, in other words, we're not replacing our inspectors now with private people, they're supplementing it to have a higher degree of inspection. So, could we do it down the road, yes, but a private employee to a private employer, could it become suspect, yes. At this point, we're not suggestion that all inspectors be elimimated, we're say we want a higher level of scrutiny in houses who have a higher level of complexities but your point is well taken and it i~ something we'll be looking at, the expansion of that. MS. EDWARDS: building codes? MR. BRIGHAM: act, you brought that up, Mr. V01pe. Anymore questions or comments on How about the safe neighborhood's Does that fit under OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 86 this category? COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I don't think it does, I think this is more technical in terms of the building code but the safe neighborhoods in terms of security for environmental design really doesn't fit with the number of straps, as I understand it. MR. CLARK: But the concepts certainly might be, the conceptual idea certainly might be, if not endorsed or at least reviewed by that department and perhaps discussed with some builders. I'm saying there may be room for discussion of that. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I think that that's occurring or it has occurred. MR. CLARK: Yes. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: To that extent it has someplace but not in the context of which I think you're discussing in terms of design. I think in terms of design professionals and actually signing off on plans and specifications that they have done. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Is that it, Paul? MR. BRIGHAM: It seems it should required inspections in that area. MR. CLARK: We may, but today there is not a OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 87 mandate. There may be a mandate and then it would be required inspections. I think we're in phase one of how can it; is it feasible; and then at some point it may get to the point where it would be a required inspection. If it's required, certainly it's required to be inspected. At this point it's not required so we don't have a required inspection. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Does that come up in the context with your work with the sheriff, doesn't it? MR. BRIGHAM: I think the discussion has gone around in circles here. I believe there's programs set up for the Fall, it needs to be flushed out more. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We're going to have a symposium in september on the Safe Neighborhood's Act. MR. MARTIN: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Who would it collectively be in that case. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: The county, the city and the sheriff. In terms of the overall planning for it, I've been working the representatives from the sheriff'$ office, city police, cry manager and a designee from contractor's office to try to put it together and some other interesting groups. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 88 SO, I think the thought is that some time this Fall and it'll tie into the kinds of things that Paul and Dick are talking about, but overall, I hope to be able to bring something back to the board a little bit more definitive later in the summer, by that I mean probably in July, a program. MR. MARTIN: Can we move on to the court system at this time? Are there any remarks, questions, or discussions about what has been'put under for '95, as it relates to the court system? MR. BRIGHAM: I just wanted to, as a generally as possible state our personal goals. That the first four goals, these basics, changing alternatives to pretrial, post trial, that our jail is quickly filling to compacity. The house arrest program is currently run by a private vendor and needs to be expanded so a year from now we would like to take that over. The work release restitution center as its backbone the concept that while these criminals need to be detained, we constantly take away their ability to perform court orders or something that's less than jail. The third item is pretrial intervention that the state attorney's office is going to bring on line in October. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 89 This is for first time offenders that can work certain activities. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Paul, we talked time to time about with jail expansion, is there a proposed date for that? MR. BRIGHAM: It has not been put out and hardened. This year we're going to be talk about design, presumedly in the next fiscal year. projects last year, MR. CONRECODE: We'd also reviewed capital Commissioner, something that might be worth while in pointing out the board is adopting a policy, the place funding for the jail project at some point for their support. We haven't had any clear direction as to when we want to put that to the board, I'm sorry, put that to the voters. That will have an impact on their budget. MR. BRIGHAM: Yes, development of the atrium of the courthouse. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So that we could continue on rainy days. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: As follow-up to Commission Constantine's question, I thought the sheriff was before the board in connection with the boot camp. He indicated OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 4 9O there may be a need additional 140 beds. Currently we're not at that capacity. We're under contract with the federal government because our facilties being under utilized. MR. BRIGHAM: In the last six months, I've been told that the jail no longer excepts federal prisoners. We know long he participate in that program. MR. CONRECODE: Commissioner there's a couple of issues, one the corrections committee of which the chairman is a member are addressing the jail issue. There's a couple other issues that affect our jail specifically, one we had proposed for the last two years that with we start some preliminary design work. There are a number of items that drive our population. We may have empty beds in certain areas of the jail because at the current times there a lot of women detainees, there are a lot of men. We may have an increase in juveniles, decrease in Juveniles. We're at capacity in the jail. We need to better allocate those resources if the female operation closes up. We may be able to expand portions of the jail. issues. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: There's really a the lot of Then the issue for me becomes, OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 91 it's not a part of the strategic plan. If it is that big of an issue then we should not only be talking about the house arrest programs but issues releasing pressure on the jail, but we've got to be talking about that is a part of the 5, 10 year plan. to thevoters, they'll know. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If we're going to take it The next logical question, why are we doing the design work before take it to the vote? COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I just heard that in the last few months. That money should 'happen when you bring some, work release program, you're talking about a halfway house, how does the boot camp fit into that, where is the stockade, Immokalee Stockade, fit into all this? MR. BRIGHAM: That's why the correction planning commission is made on a monthly basis. All of these components are part of the criminal justice deal and they all need to be addressed. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Should we, in talking about the court system, really, the court system and the correctional system may be different like roadways and transportation. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 92 plan. MR. BRIGHAM: It's a separate part of our strategic MS. EDWARDS: MR. BRIGHAM: all in our discussions. basis does. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: on correctional committee? MR. BRIGHAM: MR. MARTIN: An area under safety. The sheriff doesn't participate at His representatives on a monthly The chair is representing us Public safety committee. Commissioner we had nothing under safety, part A., crime, on this planning documenting and maybe some of this would be more appropriate would be added to that, we failed to discuss that. We jumped right into our discussion because there wasn't anything under crime. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: that I wanted to get back. I've got a list of things Discussion of drill cramp, juvenile justice. The commission says the priority is to deal with juvenile problem. I think that should be listed under crime. neighborhoods act. September on that. Commissioner Volpe raise safe There's going to be a workshop in That should be listed under crime. The issue of jail construction potential future OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 93 construction. I think that's part of crime prevention in order to deter crime. We have to have adequate facilities so we don't have to release one offender to house arrest and another offender. Maybe it doesn't fit under there but I think the question of jail expansion as driven by the state and federal courts and the guidelines we to live on. Commissioner constantine you raise the question of why would we have to go through the planning process or design work. This is going to be voter approved or something that's going to be presented to the voters, why do we want that process before we get voter approval. I think the answer is if we don't get voter approval then we will have to find another way to fund it. We're going to have to build jail facilities, when and if they're needed. I think that issue should be listed under crime also. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I agree. You're saying that that the jail, that issue should be under crime as opposed to under court? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: are entity that determines who goes to the jail but it's really, you're out of the court system at that point. I Yeah, I agree. The court's OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 94 think it fits better under crime prevention or controlling crime. I don't think it makes a whole lot of difference, but, there may be other issues under crime that we need to focus on. Another example may be that, we all try to cooperate with the sheriff in terms of his goes, try to get more men on the street, more patrols. The objective may be to reduce crime in all categories. We need to educate these people and try to deal with that criminal situation, about when going to do with that information, when they MR. CLARK: We're looking at five thousand square feet but that's square a footage areas. There's also a other critical areas, certain up-lift capabilities and the loading of certain critical members of the house, in other words, if you look at the plan, those have to be pointed out and if it meets that the design professionals would be required to do that. Obviously, that would increase the cost of the house by a very small percentage point, I might add but when it gets to 5, 6, 8, 10, 15,000 square foot house, the safety concerns are extremely critical. In addition to that area that we're trying to OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 95 address, we're also proposing at that some privatization opportunities be available. The state now requires that our inspectors be certified by the state, that they meet certain experience criteria, that they have certain educational and training criteria and there are professional designers in the fields who also can meet and get those licenses from the state. So, in order to facilitate the option, the availability of privatization, we're also incorporating in that proposal, that inspections may be conducted, they'll be working on contract basis for the county. So they're responsible for us, not to the builder. We could utilize the services of design or inspection professionals so that the possible fluxuation of spike periods in building, we could utilize the services. It's probably better than hiring two or three inspectors and laying them off or not having the capabilits of meeting the inspection scheduals that are now about 95 percent current within 24 hours. That's kind of an update on where we're at with building codes. MR. FLAGLER: Mr. Clark, you mentioned that the design professionals would become also inspectors; OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 6 96 licensed inspectors? MR. CLARK: There's two different areas, the design professionals would be required, in other words, there's two different areas, one is the design professional such as an engineer would be required, the builder would be required to obtain his services to design that house. The builder would also be required to obtain the services of an engineer to inspect the house to ensure, in addition to what inspections they do. The second point was the design and inspection professionals, which could be design professionals as well, we could utilize the services of those, we would have the availability of utilizing those to supplement our inspectors should the need arise. It's two part. MR. FLAGLER: Can you envision down the road, considerable savings by having all of them required to become licensed as inspectors themselves and make them responsible for their own work and held them responsible to it and if they didn't, provide the proper work.anticipated to be in addition to regular meeting. MR. FLAGLER: I'd like to see the design professionals and perhaps in the long run, the inspectors to be accountable. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 97 MR. CLARK: They are required to be accountable now as well as the builders. At this juncture, until we sort through this and until we have some experience with that, there's always a concern that person, in other words, who is my employer and my loan is to my employer so we're not suggestion that it would happen we're suggesting that it could happen. So, we want to phase into this and say, if I had an employee and he's accountable to me as a private individual, in other words, we're not replacing our inspectors now with private people, they're supplementing it to have a higher degree of inspection. So, could we do it down the road, yes, but a private employee to a private employer, could it become suspect, yes. At this point, we're not suggestion that all inspectors be elimimated, we're say we want a higher level of scrutiny in houses who have a higher level of complexities but your point is well taken and it is something we'll be looking at, the expansion of that. MS. EDWARDS: building codes? MR. BRIGHAM: act, you brought that up, Mr. Volpe. Anymore questions or comments on How about the safe neighborhood's Does that fit under OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 98 this category? · COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I don't think it does, I think this is more technical in terms of the building code but the safe neighborhoods in terms of security for environmental design really doesn't fit with the number of straps, as I understand it. MR. CLARK: But the concepts certainly might be, the conceptual idea certainly might be, if not endorsed or at least reviewed by that department and perhaps discussed with some builders. I'm saying there may be room for discussion of that. -~ COMMISSIONER VOLPE: I think that that's occurring or it has occurred. MR. CLARK: Yes. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: To that extent it has someplace but not in the context of which I think you're discussing in terms of design. I think in terms of design professionals and actually signing off on plans and specifications that they have done. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Is that it, Paul? MR. BRIGHAM: It seems it should required inspections in that area. MR. CLARK: We may, but today there is not a OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 99 mandate. There may be a mandate and then it would be required inspections. I think we're in phase one of how can it; is it feasible; and then at some point it may get to the point where it would be a required inspection. If it's required, certainly it's required to be inspected. At this point it's not required so we don't have a required inspection. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: Does that come up in the context with your work with the sheriff, doesn't it? MR. BRIGHAM: I think the discussion has gone around in circles here. I believe there's programs set up for the Fall, it needs to be flushed out more. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We're going to have a symposium in september on the Safe Neighborhood's Act. MR. MARTIN: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Who would it collectively be in that case. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: The county, the city and the sheriff. In terms of the overall planning for it, I've been working the representatives from the sheriff's office, city police, cty manager and a designee from contractor's office to try to put it together and some other interesting groups. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 lO0 So, I think the thought is that some time this Fall and it'll tie into the kinds of things that Paul and Dick are talking about, but overall, I hope to be able to bring something back to the board a little bit more definitive later in the summer, by that I mean probably in July, a program. MR. MARTIN: Can we move on to the court system at this time? Are there any remarks, questions, or MR. BRIGHAM: I just wanted to, as a generally as possible state our personal goals. That the first four goals, these basics, changing alternatives to pretrial, post trial, that our jail is quickly filling to compacity. The house arrest program is currently run by a private vendor and needs to be expanded so a year from now we would like to take that over. The work release restitution center as its backbone the concept that while these criminals need to be detained, we constantly take away their ability to perform court orders or something that's less than jail. The third item is pretrial intervention that the state attorney's office is going to bring on line in October. This is for first time offenders that can work certain activities. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 lol COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Paul, we talked time to time about with jail expansion, is there a proposed date for that? MR. BRIGHAM: It has not been put out and hardened. This year we're going to be talk about design, presumedly in the next fiscal year. projects last year. MR. CONRECODE: We'd also reviewed capital Commissioner, something that might be worth while in pointing out the board is adopting a policy, the place funding for the jail project at some point for their support. We haven't had any clear direction as to when we want to put that to the board, I'm sorry, put that to the voters. That will have an impact on their budget. MR. BRIGHAM: Yes, development of the atrium of the courthouse. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So that we could continue on rainy days. COMMISSIONER VOLPE: As follow-up to Commission Constantine's question, I thought the sheriff was before the board in connection with the boot camp. He indicated there may be a need additional 140 beds. Currently we're not at that capacity. We're under contract with the OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 102 federal government because our facilties being under utilized. MR. BRIGHAM: In the last six months, I've been told that the jail no longer excepts federal prisoners. We know long he participate in that program. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962 103 STATE OF FLORIDA ) COUNTY OF COLLIER ) I, Jacquelyn D. McMiller, Deputy Official Court Reporter, do hereby certify that the foregoing proceedings were taken before me at the date and place as stated in the caption hereto on Page 1 hereof; that the foregoing computer-assisted transcription, consisting of pages numbered 2 through 105, inclusive, is a true record of my Stenograph notes taken at said proceedings. Dated this ~ J 2 of June, 1994. ~quelyn D. McMiller ~ty Official Court Reporter ~ Judicial Circuit STATE OF FLORIDA COUNTY OF COLLIER~ The foregoing certificate was acknowledged before me this /~ day of July, 1994, by Jacquelyn D. McMiller, who is personally known to me. N~ary Public State of Florida at Large OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962