BCC Minutes 01/13/1994 W (Immokalee Townhall Meeting)ORIGINAL
TO~
DATE:
TIME:
PLACE:
January 13, 1994
7:00 p.m. - 9:20 p.m.
Immokalee Middle School Aditorium
Reported by:
JACQUELYN D. MCMILLER, Deputy Official Court Reporter
Carrothere Reporting Service
Collier County Courthouse
Building L, 5th Floor
Naples, FL 33916
OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962
A-P-P-E-A-R-A-N-C-E-S
COMMISSIONERS:
Tim Constantine
Burt Saunders
Bettye Matthews
John Norris
Neil Dotrill
- Chairman
- Commissioner
- Commissioner
- Commissioner
- County Manager
SPEAKERS (ReDresentina~:
Steve Brinkman
** Parks and Recreation **
- Parks and Recreation Department
** Lighting **
George Archibald - Transportation Department
Tom Conrecode
Dwight Brock
Paul Brigham
** Courthouse Complex **
- county Courthouse Complex
- Clerk of Courts
- Court Administration
Sal Gardino
Doug Caperton
Jim Hansen
** Juvenile Crime/Justice ** - Mediation/Arbitration,Juvenile Arbitration
- Sheriff's Department
- Sheriff's Department
** Urgent Health Care **
Dr. Bill Ausdon - Isabele Collier-Reed Health Park
Greg Mahalik
** SHIPP Funds **
- Collier County Publio Housing
** Also Present **
Dr. Sam Levy
Lynn Maxwell
- Collier County Public Schools
- Seminole Gaming Palace
OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS, COLLIER COUNTY, NAPLES, FL 33962
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PROCEEDINGS
MS. SMITH: Good evening everyone, I'd like to
introduce myself. We're co-sponsors for this event
tonight. I'd like to introduce also Doctor Ryan and her
social studies group that has sponsored the event with
the school.
Next, I'd like to introduce our distingtlished
co~issioners. On the end here is Commissioner John
Norris. You must be Butt Saunders. I'm sorry, I'm not
familiar with the gentleman between you.
CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE= I'm Tim constantine.
MS. SMITH: Next is Bettye Matthews, our own
commissioner.
CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE= I would like to say that
Commissioner Volpe asked me to give his apologies. He
had a close friend die unexpectedly last night and he is
with their family tonight. He apologizes for not being
here tonight but obvious, he had other things to take
care of.
MS. SMITH: And, on the end is Nell Dotrill.
MR. DORRILL: Yes, ma'am.
MS. SMI~{: The way we're going to proceed with
tonight's agenda, we were supposed to have some extras
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tonight but we don't so I do apologize for that but we do
have specific agenda items w~ want to address the
commission with and we will be following that schedule.
Around 8=50 there will be an open period where any
of you who have any items that you want to address the
commission with, wa will have time at that period to
bring them up.
I will proceed by asking the commissioners general
questions as to each agenda item and from there it will
be open to you if you have any further questions on that
particular item. There is on~ schedul~ change in the
agenda. We have moved the Imnokalee Airport item up to
be the first one and everything else has been moved down.
So, my question to the commission is, would you
please update us to the progress of the new airport
authority and when improvements, in particular, to the
Immokalee Airport might be expected as well as how the
negotiations with Ebony Air are progressing and their bid
to locate at the Immokalee Airport.
CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE= I'll take the first stab at
that I guess. For those of you that don't know, aviation
is actually what brought me to Southwest Florida. I ca~e
down with a commuter airline. We operated out of the
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Naples Airport but we also held the lease on the Marco
Island Airport and operated that as well. So, I have a
pretty good familiarity with the industry and with some
of the potential we hold out here.
I Just flew into this airport Monday, had a look
around and there's certainly plenty to work with there
and we're all excited at the prospect of the two
companies that have expressed interest this week.
one of the most important things we need to do to
move that forward is to get an executive director on
board for our airpor~ authority and that item is on the
agenda for this coming Tuesday. The airport authority
has recommended a particular gentleman. Neil, he may
even be here to answer questions on Tuesday, I'm not sure
if we've arranged that or not but hopefully within the
next couple of weeks we'll have someone on board.
The airport authority has been very aggressive in
laying out a plan and before we get into speoifio
improvements on each airport, we want to lay out a short
term plan and a long term plan. Obviously, as these
businesses show interest they become, hopefully, a part
of that long term plan. I think they're going to make
this Immokalee Airport, really, excuse the pun, take off.
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It holds a great deal of a potential and most
importantly not only for the airport itself but to
diversify the economy here, not only when people think of
airports they think of planes flying in and out, and
that's it. That's not necessarily the case.
And particularly, with the environmental issues we
deal with, we can take advantage of that and the
Everglades type things and around more importantly and
probably the strongest key here will be the agricultural
connection and some of the connections between potential
cargo programs and the agricultural.
So, that's Just a little one minute synopsis, if
you will, of where we are now and hopefully where we're
headed.
MS. SMITH: Are there any questions? Bettye.
COMMISSIONERMATTHEWS: I'd like to add something
to that. Today, I did receive from Ebony Air their
package on the formation of a CDC, how it's done and what
it,s expected to accomplish and they laid they would get
it to us this week which they did and I've since
distributed it to each of the county commissioners so
that we can all come up to speed on that.
I also spoke today with Hr. Ne~lron (Sic) of the EDC
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and wa discussed bringing the co~mittees together again
that had met with ACA a couple of months ago to bring
them back together to also meet with Ebony Air and Hill
Air to get some further information on what their plans
are and get some hard facts as to what's going on.
The other thing, as to construction at the airport,
I think we all know it's been a permitting nightmare and
George, correct me, but I believe you told me you expect
to have permits in hand in July?
MR. ARCHIBALD= Yes, we do.
COMMISSIONER NATTHEWS:
MR, ARCHIBALD: Yes,
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS:
July of '947
So, I would expect that
things will get underway as soon as the permits are in
hand and the airport authority is ready to move ahead.
MS. SMITH: Anyone else? Okay, thank you. Moving
on to parks and recreation.
Would you please provide us with an update as to
the improvements that will be made as to the existing
parks in Immokalee and would you give us an outlay or
plan definition on the proposed pool for Immokalee.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS= Why don't we have Hr.
Brinkman do that. You've all received, or most of you
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have, this package as they talk. It'll kind of lead you
through it.
HR. BRINXMAN= Hello, I'm Steve Brinkman from the
parks and recreation department. It's my pleasure to be
here tonight, especially, to brag about some of the real
excellent parks and recreation facilities we're going to
be opening up very soon.
In fact, next year about this time, we hope to be
in the facility, the reo center and the pool expansion by
this time next year. So, if everything goes well by this
time next year we'll be having a ground break or actually
the grand opening for that facility.
The existing building that you know exists right
now is about 15,000 square feet. We'll be renovating the
gymnasium, replacing floor and the roof structures over
there. We'll be renovating the fitness room, the
wrestling room that exists right now, also renovating
existing locker rooms.
In addition to that, we'll be adding about 10,000
square feet to the building, a new lobby and reception
area, game room, a snack bar and kitchen, offices and
storage and if the bids will allow, two racquetball
facilities as well. Those plans are in your packet of
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information that we've handed out but you can also see in
this picture, this one has the rec center itself with the
existing gymnasium, wrestling room, these will be new
racquetball courts that will be added onto that.
A new lobby area, game room, the locker rooms are
up on the top and that actually, the locker rooms
actually go out into the pool area, as you can see on
this site plan and there will be a large main pool which
will be eight lanes by six lanes and an activity pool
which will be the sams as the activity pool at the Golden
Gate pool complex if you've been to that facility.
The, Just real quickly, the budget for that
facility is about 2.7 million, total budget construction
costs are about 2.3 million. There are four add
alternates in the bid, depending on how the bids come in
as to whether we're going to be able to add those two the
project, that is the activity pool, the slide, a sonar
adapter for the pool itself and the racquetball courts.
so, when the bids do come in and we see whsre we're
we may need to go back and try getting a little bit more
money to add on some things to the project.
The schedule, the pre-bid, will be the end of
February, bid open will be mid March, construction should
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start about mid May and then completion will be January
of '95, Just about this tins next year.
MR. FRED THOMAS: I ~ant to make sure I understand
Was that first add alternate the
the add alternate.
activity pool?
MR. BRINKMAN=
Yes. There's $130,000.00 for the
activity poo1~ $65,000.00 for the slide, $15,000.00 for
sonar adapter, and then $100,000.00 for the two
racquetball courts.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS= One question, I don't mean
to be naive, but what's a sonar? What does it do?
MR. BRINKMAN= If someone would enter the pool
after hours it triggers an alarm when someone gets into
the pool water itself.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: You have the existing Highlands
Elementary School on the side of this property, is that
in error or is that where it is?
MR. FRED THOMAS=
is temporarily.
MR. BRINKMAN=
That's where the Highlands School
It's the old middle school.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER= What will happen to that?
MR. BRINKMAN: What's going to happen to the
existing school facility at that site?
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UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Yes.
MR. BRINKMAN: To tell you the truth, I'm not,
someone from the school district might be able --
COMMISSIONERMATTHEWS: The head start program will
be located there, eventually, from the Bethune Center,
it's going to move there.
MR. BRINKMAN: I'll touch on real quickly another
recreation project which we're currently working on right
now and it's the Tony Rosbaugh Community Park, those
little league fields out there, and we're right now
hoping to complete before their season starts, new
lighting on field two, resodding the outfield on field
two, putting up a new entry sign, relocating the
scoreboard on field two also. We've redone the dugouts
on field number one, renovated, the in-field on number
one will be renovated, we're also repairing the entrance
gate and doing some site clearing up there.
The budget for that project is about $40,000.00 and
that should be complete by the middle part of February.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Will be complete?
MR. BRINKMAN= Yes, will be.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER; There's some other things in
there too, things we need to add in that we talked about
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earlier. Some relocatton of some of that that you've got
sketched out there, we need to move around but that's
Just a preliminary, right?
MR. BRINKMAN: Yes.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: You haven't any additional
lights, field lights for field number one?
MR. BRINKMAN: No. the funds that we have for this
year will light field number two, and then we'll have to
work on field number one as a future project.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I had a question about the pool,
again. I'm not familiar with Golden Gate Activity Pool.
Is any of it shallow?
MR. BRINKMAN: Yes. In fact it's called a zero
depth pool because it starts at the deck depth itself and
actually goes down to about a foot and a half deep in the
deepest section, maybe a couple feet deep, and there's
play equipment in that, play features, spray equipment
and that sort of thing for the kids to play with. It's
the most popular facility at the Golden Gate pool.
Anything else?
thank you.
MS. SMITH:
particular park, Airport Park.
appreciate being here tonight,
I do have a question about one
I received a letter from
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you, Betrye, last year. We have, for four years that I
know of, possibly more, requested the updating of the
electrical system in that sound stage and as of yet it's
not been done. You said construction or updating would
start November of last year.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS~
heard that it's not done. I'm going to have
Mr. Brinkman as to why it is not done.
Why?
This is the first I've
to defer to
MS. SMITH: You said it was budgeted for this year,
that it would start in November, it has not been done.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: That's what I was told, it
was budgeted and that it was being done.
MS. SMITH: I've got a copy of your letter.
MR. BRINKMAN:
started yet.
MS. SMITH:
That is something that hasn't been
Why?
MR. BRINKMAN:
ball fields as kind of a
open.
MS. SMITH:
We've actually been working on the
first priority, to get those
Well, I appreciate the need for the
priority on the ball field but this has been ongoing for
over four years. I would consider that a priority.
MR. BRINKMAN: We'll be on that pretty soon.
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MS. SMITH: I hope by April it will be done. We
have our harvest festival at that time.
MR. BRINKMAN: This is the deadline for the ball
fields. The harvest festival is a little bit later.
We'll be working that in so it will be done.
MS. SMITH= You'll working it in?
HR. BRINKHANs It'll be done before --
MS. SMITH: If it's not done by April you'll be
hearing from me.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER= Steve, one other thing that I
need you to bring up, over In the park now, in tow11 here
where the facilities are at, where the high school
baseball field is, between that and the softball field is
to the west, there was an area that was left out in there
and from old plans that I had looked at, that thing was
scheduled also for a little league field.
What is the plane for that or do you know.
MR. BRINKMAN~ Yeah. I think, ell of the community
parks have areas that are designated for future expansion
and that is Just designated as an aree for future
expansion of additional athletio fields. One more
softball or baseball field could go in that area.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER= If we're looking at expanding
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this year, we hope to have quite a few more teams because
of age differences now being noticed. We have the
Challenger Divisions starting up so I'm sure we'll need
more fields.
MR. BRINKMAN= We'll be happy to talk. In fact,
there is a field at the community park that we can go
ahead and let your group use,
fact. So, the existing field,
schedule that even this year.
Immediately, as a matter of
we can go ahead and
UNKNO~ SPEAKER: The only thing about the
Challenger Division, they couldn't use this field that's
The ball would be too
here now because of the play.
fast.
MR. BRINKMAN: What age group is that?
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: That ranges from eight up and the
Challenger Division is handicapped kids. That's the
reason I was saying it's too fast.
MR. BRINKMAN= Why don't I try to give you a call
tomorrow and we can work with you on scheduling where we
can schedule that program. So, I'm sure there's got to
be a field somewhere.
MS. SMITH: If that's it on parks and recs, we'll
move on to lighting. Would you please elaborate on how
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the new consolidation of the five lighting districts into
one umbrella with the Capital Improvements Committee
could possibly change the service to each individual
district area?
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS:
When that issue came before
the board, I specifically inquired about the Immokalee
Lighting and Beautification District and was told that it
had been separated and split out.
I talked to Mr. Archibald about that a few days ago
and he said that he has some explanation as to how it's
going to benefit.
MR. ARCHIBALD: Good evening, X've got a hand-out
that I'll leave in the back of the room and explains a
couple of things, most important of all, what type of
lighting activities are currently underway in Immokalee.
Currently, there's approximately 350 lights for the
urban area and the community is paying somewhere in the
neighborhood of $56,000.00 a year to operate and maintain
those lights.
Right now, your millage is in the neighborhood of
1200the of a mill. That means for a home that has a
value of about $50,000.00, you're paying about $30.00 a
year towards your street lighting activities.
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What the county does each and every year, because
keep in mind we have over 30 districts where we're
installing lights and maintaining lights. What we
attempt to do from the county and finance standpoint is
consolidate as many of those lighting districts as we
can.
Typically, we wait until a buildout occurs where
there's not going to be much of a change in the lighting
districts and when the millage of the various lighting
districts are very similar and Just recently we've
requested and the board has approved an ordinance which
would allow us to consider consolidating more lighting
districts in the upcoming year, not the current year
we're in but it would allow us to consider consolidating
lights for 1994 and '95.
So, as we go through our budget process, we're
going to be looking at the Immokalee district, taking a
look at your current millage, taking a look at the
millage that you may be paying in the future end I think
that's the bad news I need to relay onto y'a11 today.
In fact, if there is a consolidation, it's very
likely that the millage for the Immokalee district may go
up a very small amount. It may go up somewhere in the
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neighborhood of two to four hundredths of a mt11.
In regards to, agatn~ a $50,000.00 home, you're
looking at $10.00 increase over a period of a year. So,
as we go through our budget process and because you have
a street lighting district~ we're going to be discussing
and investigating further whether or not the
Street lighting District should, in fact, be consolidated
with the county-wide. So, that's one of the ~te~s that
you may want to take a look at.
The handout that I'm prov~ding gives you some
indication of current millage on different values of
homes and also gives you some idea of what the future
millage would be and what those comparable costs would
be. So, if you take a look at that and ~f there are some
questions I'll be glad to address them.
Let's keep in mind that during our budget process
in mid 1994 of this year, we're going to be look~ng at
those costs and making a final determinat~on of whether
consolidation is appropriate.
MR. FRED THOMASs If we don't consolidate out here
in Immokalee can we maintain the same service level on
lighting without increasing the millage?
MR. ARCHIBALD: Yes. Actually, ~f you maintain
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your lighting on status ~:o, ! thinkwe all recognize
that property values typically go up each year so it's
very likely that your millage for the upcoming year may
be about where it is this year or a little less. Keep in
mind, the actual millage we're talking about is in the
hundredths, again, 1200ths of a mill.
MR. FRED THOMAS: But Just incorporating us with
the rest of them makes it go up?
MR. ARCHIBALD: Yes, it could because of the
consolidating effect of not only the property values but
the number of street light~ that are in the community at
this time.
Yes.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I might be missing it but I
didn't hear any advantage to Immokalee in your
presentation. Why consolidation?
MR. ARCHIBALD: Again, we're looking at typically
consolidating all of the districts from a financing
standpoint. There's a lot of processing that goes on in
handling the bills and hand.ling the repairs of the lights
and there may be some service level maintenance or
improvement in those areas.
My report, what I'm telling you tonight, is that
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your millage will very likely go up but go up a very
small amount. So, what you have to consider is whether
or not there is any advantage from a processing
standpoint to paying a little bit more millage and being
consolidated within a larger district.
UNKNOWN SPEAKERs If consolidation of Immokalee is
included, the light request is on a first come first
serve basis?
MR. ARCHIBALD= In the Immokalee area, we've gone
ahead, and the district that we've got and the com~ittee
that handles it, have done an awfully good Job in going
ahead and establishing a master plan.
That master plan has been.implemented and as time
goes on there would be lights added to it. Those lights
would continue to be a recommendation of the lighting
committee and be handled in the same fashion they're
handled today.
MR. DWIGHT BROCK= George, what would be the
advantage of the entire county of consolidating the
lighting?
MR. ARCHIBALD= Again, t. he advantage would be in
the accounting and financing end of it. Again, there is
no advantage in certain districts, and Immokalee happens
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to be one of them, there is not an advantage from a
monetary standpoint for the ad valorem tax amount.
MR. FRED THOMAS= I hate to pursue this, but are
any other districts going to get a reduction in their
millage rates because of consolidation?
MR. ARCHIBALD= A numbe= of them will go up and a
number of them will go down. Typically, there's a range,
and it's very, very small. Again, typically, we're
looking not at mills but at tenths of mills. So,
obviously when they get fairly close it makes good sense
to consolidate, to be able to cut down on the overhead
costs and then in turn it may, in fact, as time goes on,
cut down the operating cost but we can't project that
over the next two years.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER= George, if I understand it
correctly, and I know you don't want to come right out
and say it but what you're really telling us is that it
makes it easier for you as an administrator to do that.
What you're really telling us is that we need not
to consolidate and we need to make sure these folks know
that we don't want to do that with the lighting district?
MR. ARCHIBALD: Yes, I believe that ~ou've got a
co~ittee that provides a forum for that information to
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be relayed.
~R. DORRIIE~: The overall incentive to the county
is one of administration and obviously the people that
are paying to administer 38 different lighting districts
are you.
So, until we get to the early part of the summer
and we actually see what the proposed budgets are there
may still be an incentive for us to do some consolidation
because it's very expensive and we incur and waste a lot
of staff time trying to keep 38 different budgets, 38
different funds, 38 different sets of purchase orders, 38
different schedules for repair and maintenance activity
and obviously if you consolidate those you have some
economies of scale in terms of the bureaucracy of trying
to run street lighting districts.
That was the initial incentive and only if can
prove that to the board this summer are we going to see
it actually go through that way.
MR. FRED THOMAS: Nell, I agree with you a hundred
percent but I think you need to look at is make sure no
district goes down. Do you understand? It doesn't make
sense for our district to go up and other districts get
less of a millage rate, do you understand, for the sake
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of trying to get~he economy scale. You see? It seems
you have to redistribute where the administrative
proration is for some of your districts.
MR. ARCHIBALD= Historically, what we're looking at
is when those millage rates are very much identical from
one district to another that it makes sense to
consolidate.
Again, we're looking at a millage that's w~thin &
few hundredths but still every penny counts and ! think
that's part of the analysis that will occur this summer.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I have a question for Neil.
Aren't you already charging the district an
administrative fee?
MR. DORRILL: We do and the concept though is if we
can consolidate districts and eliminate the multiple
number of budgets and funds and accounting systems and
purchase order and scheduling systems that we're going to
cut by the same function the cost of having administer
that many different programs.
But, that's what I said, unless we can prove to the
board that we can actually operate a consolidated system
at less administrative overhead then I don't think you're
going to see a great deal of that this sinmast.
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MR. ARCHIBALD: Thank you.
MS. SMITH: Can I keep these?
MR. ARCHIBALD:
MS. SMITH~
comments on the
County Courthouse Complex.
I've got many more.
If there's no more questions or
lighting, we'll move down to the Collier
MR. FRED THOMAS: Can we get an update on the
beautification down let Street, is that included in this
section?
MS. SMITH=
MR. DORRILL: It shoul~ be.
MS. SMITH: But we can do that for you.
MR. ARCHIBALD: The project on 846 let Street has
been completed and that's under a maintenance contract
that also is part of the Immokalee district at this time.
Right now, for the budget for this particular year,
the funding is for the operation and maintenance of the
medians that have been improved. The cost of that annual
maintenance approaches $48,000.00.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I think one of the things that
the beautification and lighting committee and that
improvement on 846 ~s there are no crosswalks allowed for
the pedestrians to cross that partic~lar highway, that
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four
lane highway there.
It needs to be added because as shrubbery and
the ability for those
who are taking short cuts
everything else grows there,
drivers to see those people
across the middle of what has been made a better area and
a median and to beautify that area is going to,
eventually, cause an accident down there if we don't put
some kind of crosswalk and pedestrian walks down there
for those people to utilize.
MR. ARCHIBALD: That's an awfully good comment. As
part of that contract activity, not only were the
sidewalks reconstructed and ramps provided but at each of
those crossings that are marked in the pavements, we do
plan on improving some lighting. We're working with Lee
county Co-Op right now to see whether or not we can
change some of our fixtures or maybe add some lights so
at some of the intersections there and along that
corridor, we can many provide a little bit better
lighting, not for the traffic and not necessarily for the
median but at least better lighting along the outside
lanes of the both the northbound and southbound movements
there.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: We still need to at least have
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some pedestrian crossings because If you haven't been
through there, they're walking right across the middle
and I'm not saying that to have It marked ie going to
cause them to walk through It but at least If an accident
does occur, if we have a designated pedestrian crossing,
it,s to the benefit of that driver and it's also a
benefit to the pedestrian to know that there is & marked
zone for the cross.
MR. ARCHIBALD~ Some of the painting that we've got
down at many of the intersections and the sidewalk ramps
that have been built are there for that very purpose and
we'll take a look at maybe restriping those.
MR. FRED THOMAS: I think you're missing his point.
There was a couple places where there was formerly a
street and that median cut closed it off. Now, folks are
not going to go a block out of their way to come down to
your nice crosswalk. He means, if you have walkways
there, marked and some way to get across the median at
that point because that's,
to lock into.
MR. ARCHIBALD:
think, is what he's trying
Yes, there's two locations like
that and what we're looking at is whether or not we want
to encourage that or discourage that and, of course, what
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we're hearing is people are continuing to use it no
matter whether we discourage it or not.
In those locations we're going to have to come in
and put in some type of markings or crosswalk.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS= Where it's continuing?
You're talking about where the people continue to use the
walkway, you're going to come back in and put in some
pavements or something to generate a crosswalk?
HR. ARCHIBALD= We may. Let's keep An mAnd that
there's a liability question that I thi~k that's been
brought up.
All of the crosswalks that we're provAding are at
the intersections. What we've attempted to do As design
and discourage crossing the roadway between open medians
or between intersections.
What we're finding now is thnt people are stall
crossing and walking through the landscaped medians.
Again, I've got to compare notes with your office and see
or make sure that we're aware of those 1ocatAons and see
whether or not we want to continue to dAsco~rage that or
whether or we want to go ahead and install some kind of
median crosswalk.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER= It's hard to enforce Jaywalking,
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so to speak, if you don't have a designated area. What
we're faced with in this community is that there Is no
designated area at this point in time to direct those
people to and that's the problem we're running into. The
sooner we can do that, an~ the time to evaluate that is
not in December when everybody's gone, it's now.
MR. ARCHIBALD= Could I meet you after this meeting
and possibly you could show ms on our drawings some of
those locations.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER:
MR. FRED THOMAS:
closed off the medians,
traffic.
that area.
I SUre
You got to remember, when you
you are controlling the vehicle
You got a high rate of pedestrian traffio In
When you're coming down those streets and you
want to get to the other side of let Street and you
haven't got a median cut, do you understand, you're going
to be hard pressed to get any pedestrian to walk two
blocks out of the way, one down and one back up, to get
across the street. They're not going to do it.
MR. ARCHIBALD: We know we've got two locations
like that, there may be more. I think from a safety
standpoint, we need to take a look at whether or not if
we provide for mid block pedestrian movements, whether or
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not there's appropriate lighting and markings,
Yes, ma'am,
mfimo~ SP~kKER: On Main Street, we do not have
the median and therefore we see the people coming. With
this new median, the people dart in and out of the
streets which is very dangerous, very dangerous.
MR. ARCHIBALD= $ome~hing that we've been concerned
about from the very design and concept of it, something
we're attempting to monitor and, in fact, one reason why
the type of median, landscaping you have is to in fact
discourage that indiscriminate use.
Overall, in some areas it's been good and in others
we've got some problems to address. Thank you.
MS. SMITH: As being on the member co~ittee for
the Immokalee Lighting and Beautification District, I
would like to invite any of you with concerl~s on this
because we have discussed It before at different meetings
and we have taken, at this time, the option not.to put
any in because of budgetary constraints, because of
liability reasons but our next meeting is for February
9th. If any of you with any further concerns would come
to our meeting we can look at our master plan and we can
make any improvements to try to solve this problem, you
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know, I welcome your presen.=e.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS ~
mathematical error, I guess.
I'd like to correct a
Earlier Hr. Archibald was
saying that the two, one hundredths of a mill increase,
it,s only fifty cents a year. So, the increase will be
somewhere between 50 cents and $1.00, not $5.00 and
$10.00. So, it's a very small and nominal Anttease Af At
occurs at all.
MS. SMITH: If there's no more comments or
questions on lighting, we'll move on to the courthouse
complex.
Would you please provide us an update as to
completion date of possible upgrading of serrates
provided to the community and where particular offices
will be moved around or if they'll stay where they're at?
CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I think Tom Conrecode from
our office at capital projects would do that best.
MR. CONRECODE: Good evening and thank you for the
invitation for the town hall meeting tonAght.
The improvements at the Immokalee Courthouse annex
site are numerous and they're going to occur An a number
of stages offering some improvements of service.
What I would do is offer the clerk of courts to
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speak to some of the specific services that he w111
address through the expansion of services and I'll Just
talk in more general terms.
The first phase of improvement, you've all seen
under construction out there, and that's Immokalee
Emergency Services Center, will house a transport EMS
unit, in addition to new offices for the sheriff's
department substation.
At the completion of the construction of that
facility in May, of this year, the sheriff's department
will move into the new facilities and we'll begin
asbestos abatement work on portions of the old courthouse
facility.
At the completion of that, the courthouse facilit~
will be expanded by 3,000 square feet with upgrades to
court facilities, offices for the tax collector, clerk of
courts and court services and in the case of the tax
collector and probation, warrants and civil, it's
essentially Just expanding existing services within that
enlarged facility.
In the case of courts, I would ask Paul Brigham, to
correct me if I'm wrong, but it essentially provides for
misdemeanor court from one day a week to possibly
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additional days per week to include Jury trials and
there's discussion of an extension of the Guardian Ad
Litem Program that currently operates out of the Collier
County Courthouse.
The clerk services, again,
to any of the specifics for you.
they're providing today, the court records for
processing, processing passport applications to
I would ask him to speak
The two basic services
include a
number of things like marriage licenses, some marriage
ceremonies and the filing of court documents in those
facilities.
So, subject to any questions or some elaboration by
the clerk or by the head of cottrt ad~inistrat~on
department. The completion of entire facility is
scheduled for a year from now.
MR. DWIGHT BROCK: My office LB Antending to expand
the services for the eastern portion of the county and
the Immokalee area to include all of those services that
we presently provide in the wtstern portion of the
county, that being, in Naples.
The first thing that we're going to implement is
immediately, even before the facility, the new facility
is completed, we're going to ~mplement the f~ling of
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domestic violence petitions here. I'm working with Judge
Blackwell currently to implement a program to put that
into place. That will take place, even prior to, the new
facility opening.
We're also going to expand the services to include
the child support trust program which is where we collect
child support and pass it on to the recipient. That will
take effect even before the new facility is open. Once
the new facility is open, we hope to, at that point in
time, accept legal documents for recordation, we hope to
accept pleadings for the courts in this county. Those
will be transported, then, from this facility to the
Naples facility for storage, except such times as they're
needed for court proceedings out in the .lastern portion
of the county.
My objective inthe very near future is to provide
all of the services in the eastern portion of the county
that we presently provide in Naples.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER= Would the recording of court
documents include notice of commencements?
MR. DWIGHT BROCK= That's correct. I'm talking
about the official records recordation which are the
things that you go to the courthouse for, such as notice
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of commencements, deeds, mortgages and things of that
nature as well as the filing of legal pleadings such as
complaints and things of that nature.
name.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER:
MR. DWIGHT BROCK=
I had a couple people ask me your
I'm sorry, my name is Dwight
Brock, I'm the Clerk of Court here in Collier County.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER= Is the recording of the deeds on
a real time basis where you would actually get your
priority established?
MR. DWIGHT BROCK= That's correct. We are
presently doing the program updating which will automate
the recordation process so it will make no difference
where you are in this county. When you 'walk into one of
my offices it will, at that point in time, go into the
system and be dated.
As well as opening, hopefully opening, facilities
in the Immokalee area, I'm also working in conjunction
with the tax collector, Guy Carlton, in trying to provide
as many services as I can in his outlying offices such as
Green Tree, Golden Gate and places of that nature.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Just on the law enforcement side
so that some of the people will know, that will also
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include filing for protection for injunction of the
people here, restraining orders and other things so they
wouldn't have to drive over there.
HR. DWIGHT BROCK= When I say that we are planning
on implementing domestic violence, that is exactly what
we're talking about, where you can get i___~__ediate relief
with a temporary injunction form by walking down to the
courthouse. Hopefully, we haven't formalized the process
but I've been discussing this with Judge Blackwell and
hopefully the process will take place through the Fax
machine, to the courthouse in Naples where the Judge will
immediately act upon the petition and issue a temporary
injunction which will be enforceable at that point.
Until such time as they start dealing with the
actual court proceedings in Collier Coullty and I~okalee
area, all of the activity of the Judges will take place
in the Naples Courthouse but because of the ability to
communicate through Fax machine, I'm hoping that won't
make any difference in real
Yes, ma'am.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER:
time application.
Is it foreseeable in my lifetime
that we would get civil ccitt hearings out here.
MR. DWIGHT BROCK: You will have to discuss that
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with Mr. Brigham but I see him shaking hie head in the
affirmative.
Any other questions? Thank you.
MR. BRIGHAM= Good eYantng, my name is Paul Brigham
and I'm the court administrator for the county. To
answer your question, specifically, the county Judges at
some point in the future will begin to handle a number of
the small claims actions he=e, the land condemnation
cases here or land taking cases and domestic violence
cases, where appropriate, will be handled out here in
Immokalee.
We're asking that this new facility be built in
such a way that it will be ready for Jury trials and a
number of actions need to take place before a Jury trial
will be able to take place here in Immokalee but the
building will be built for that purpose. So, civil
actions will be able to be tried and taken care of here
in Immokalee also.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: What is the poeeibllity of the
Guardian Ad Litem being expanded out here?
MR. BRIGHAM: In this new construction there will
be office space afforded for the Guardian Ad Litem
Program and other court services and we hope to begin
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some kind of coordination of that program from the new
facilities next year where the coordinator will be here
at least one day a week to help with training of
volunteers and inviting folks from the community to get
involved in these programs and to manage their case load.
Just like the clerk of courts office and all the
other county offices, we will offer as many services out
here as we do in the main courthouse complex.
MS. SMITH: If that's all on the courthouse
complex, we'll move on to Juvenile crime and Justice.
Could the commission please update us on the boot
camp facility and the role you will be playing in it as
to possible funding or what have you? We have a group
coming forward, I guess.
MR. BRIGHAM: For the actual presentation on our
boot camp facility, we have Sal Gardino, the coordinator
of mediation/arbitration and Juvenile arbitration for the
county here, Doug Caperton from the Sheriff's office and
Sergeant Hansen. They will talk about the activities of
the drill camp and a little bit on the Juvenile Justice
council.
We need to putthe drill camp in a wider context
though. The sheriff isn't Just out there promoting this
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idea. This is Just one the many servicee that need to be
offered and will be offered for Juveniles.
The involvement of Juveniles in the court system
often times begins in what we call dependency court where
the children are being taken away from the parents
because of parent's neglect or abuse.
The challenge for the courts and challenge for the
community is that ? out of lO of these children who are
dependents will become delinquents. Seventy percent of
the hundred or so dependent children we have in this
county, last year, will come back to delinquency court
and adult penalty court in the years to come.
The importance of the drill camp is at one end of
the spectrum but on the other end of th~ spectrum is the
Juvenile Justice gang council is their activity and their
activity is to examine all services that we offer for
children, to examine all activities that we have in place
for the rehabilitation of children from the time that
they are dependents until the time that they're adults.
So, I'd like Doug to say a few words about the
drill camp.
MR. CAPERTON: I'd like to thank you for allowing
us to Join you tonight for your town meeting. I'm going
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to turn it over, first of all, to Sal Gardino who is a
representative of the Juvenile gang council to give you a
little bit of an update as to what's going on with the
gang council and then we'll get
drill camp itself. Sal.
MR. GARDIN0=
into specifics on the
Thank you, Lieutenant.
Good evening commissioners, and county manager and
residents of Immokalee. One aspect of the Juvenile gang
counsel has been to develop a continuum of services for
the delinquency problem that exists in Collier County.
The gang counsel itself is composed of a number of
members of the community, many of which are mandated by
statute to be on this committee and we welcome any
community support and any member of the community to
become involved in the county program to help in
designing and maintaining a continuum of services for
Juveniles.
My role in the committee has been one of what do we
need to do. With my background in delinquency that we're
looking to input, my role is to input ae well. The key
to Chapter 39 on continuum services as been the word
evaluation. Up until this point, most of the Juvenile
programs that exist state wide, in and within Collier
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County, lack the word evaluation. Are these programs
effective, are they efficient in their service delivery,
are they rehabilitating, are they maintaining children in
their homes.
We have set up five committees to take a look at
each program in Collier County. What are they doing
specifically? We developed a prevention program, early
education program, that's one.
Number two, we developed a legislative plan so if
there's any legislation that needs to be looked at we can
help out with Chapter 39 and any rules of civil procedure
that may be required to change within the statute.
I want to touch on that briefly be~:ause if a
child's in trouble, there's very little the court can do
to a step-parent. In many delAnquencies that we have
come from broken homes. Not that that is the only
variable in delinquency, there's a number of variables
that are involved in delinquency.
I want to touch on what Hr. Brigham said about
delinquency. A number of years ago, I completed a study
for HRS, Health and Rehabilitative Services in
delinquency and almost 80 percent of the children that we
had in commitment facilities were directly from the
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protective services or a foster care home which means
that there was a abuse neglect referral that was found,
it was valid and these children were identified early on
in the system which makes a key for anybody in the
committee to keep in mind that we want to help our
children, we want to resolve the delin~uency problems, we
need to take a good look at what's behind the system.
If we can save many of the kids in foster care or
many of the children that are in protective letvices,
we'll end up committed to children in a delinquency
program. We need to take a strong look at that and
design programs to further then in the system in a
positive way.
We have a detention and commitment facility as well
and an Aftercare Program as well. Aftercare is really,
symbolically, a parole program. The kids are released
from a detention facility or commitment facility and
they're placed on a status called Aftercare.
Aftercare to me really begins when a child is first
committed or identified as apossibll commitment for
delinquency matter. Up until this point, really nothing
happens to a family when a kid is in commitment. When a
child is released from a commitment facility he's
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returned directly home. There's no interventions that
have been done with the family, no counseling procedures,
no follow-up with this child. So, Aftercare is crucial
as far as maintaining a child in its home and for the
community to believe in the word rehabilitation.
The boot camp, we're going to turn over to Sergeant
Hansen as well as Lieutenant Caperton, will explain the
boot camp philosophy. Collier County is in need of a
commitment facility.
Host children, now, when co-mitred to a delinquency
program by HRS through the court system will not be in
Collier County. The nearest commitment facility that we
have is the Price Halfway House in Fort Myers. The
second one is in Arcadia called Mayakka, they may have
changed the name recently so I don't want to be c/1/oted on
that, but these programs, if a family is involved in a
delinquency matter, the community's quite a ways away.
If anything, the court needs to take a look at
this. I've discussed this with Judge Blackwell, briefly,
but we need to maintain these kids in commitment with
parental contact.
I'm going to turn that over to Doug Caperton to
explain the boot camp as well as Jimmy Hansen.
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SERGEANT HANSEN: Good evening. It's a pleasure
for me to be here with you tonight. My purpose 1s to, in
the three minutes I'll spend with you, is to kind of
frame things into prospective on Juvenile crime so that
you have a better understanding of why the sheriff has
designed his boot camp to be the way it is.
If you look at a hundred kids that are arrested,
the recidivism rate is only 35 to 40 percent.
surprisingly, most kids that are arrested are not
rearrested. The kids that come back, though, the 40
percent that do come back, about half of those kids will
be arrested two to three more times but then the bottom
half, which is about 20 percent, will b~come serious
habitual offenders. They are the kids that will be
arrested anywhere from 10 to 50 times.
There are some communities that have children very
young who have been arrested over 70 times. So, the
message is clear is that the system, as it exists today,
is incapable of dealing with that kind of child.
The other study shows that when you take that small
group, that 20 percent, studies show that 99.9 percent of
those kids virtually every one of those children will
become career adult criminals. So, the pattern is clear
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early. The average age of first arrest for these kids ie
12 years old. That's the average time. Some of them are
younger, some as early as seven or eight years old.
In fact, X'11 tell you that Xmmokalee has a young
resident, a young man, who has been arrested S0 times.
He Just turned 11 and there are four or five kids that
are Immokalee area residents that are within that area,
12, 13 years old, that are up to 3S, 40, SO arrests.
So, your community suffers, all communities suffer
from this. It's clear that when these kids are waiving
that red flag and saying, #~ need help and if I don't get
help I'm going to do something bad.", we need to
respondent appropriately.
This boot camp is Just a part of ~hat program. The
boot camp in Mamatee County which has received quite a
bit of publicity on T.V., and newspapers and everything
is working and seems to be effective. The Jury is still
out on its recidivism rate. There hasn't been that much
time to study how many kids are coming back but it seems
to be effective.
The problem is, is that by HRS standards, it only
takes level eight kids. Level eight kids are averaging
between 12 to 20 arrests before they get to that boot
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camp. We think that that'n entirely too late.
What we would like to do in Collier County what the
sheriff has deemed as what he believes is appropriate, is
that if a child is arrested the first time, that's a red
flag. We know that he's got about a 40 percent chance of
coming back.
If he comes back, let's do some intensive stuff
within the community for the second and third arrest and
then if he's arrested a fourth time, that's when he needs
to go to the boot camp and that we feel should be the
last stop.
It should be a 90 day, highly intensive, program
that's designed, not only to teach him s.11f-discipline
self-reliance but to teach himself self-esteem and to
know that when he walks away from that camp that he's
accomplished something major and significant and that the
community will welcome him back. That's the overall
objective of this boot camp. But, we want to bring It
down to the fourth arrest. We think that that's
important and that's why our camp le going to be
different.
Now, for the actual specifics of that camp I'm
going to turn it over to Lieutenant Caperton. He's going
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to show you the design facility. I'll be holding up
posters so I won't be able to answer questions.
MR. CAPERTONs There's always a clown somewhere
isn't there? Always the clown.
Again, thank you for allowing us to be here. What
we'd like to do is give you specifics. We've been
working on this conceptual program for about a year and a
half now so it's not something that the sheriff's or your
county co~issioners are Just now thinking of.
We would like you to be aware of something that Jim
may be overlooking a little bit is that the Juvenile
crime rate in Collier County is skyrocketing. I don't
want to scare anyone but I do want you to realize that
about four years ago, in 1989, we made 727 arrests for
Juveniles in this county.
This year, excuse me the year Just ending, where
are we, somewhere around 1500, almost 1500 arrests. So,
you can see that we've doubled the Juvenile crime arrest
rate in Collier County.
I'd like to also make you aware of something else.
Again, not to scare anyone, but the type of crimes these
young people are getting involved in are also much more
serious. Traditionally, the Juvenile crime was a prank
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type situation or shoplifting or at the worse,
or excuse me, stealing
someone's car.
Now, the standard fair
stealing
something or breaking into
for Juvenile crime is much
more violent. We have a lot more auto thefts involving
Juveniles which end, in a lot of cases, in high speed
chases or some type o£ situations, in high epeed chases
but we see a lot more aggravated assaults, quite a few
more sexual batteries involving Juveniles, a lot more
violence.
Now, I don't know whether this comes from T.V.,
we're all fighting about this or arguing about T.V.,
violence and different things. We don't: k~ow exactly
what all the causes are but we do know something has to
be done about it. The sheriff, again, about a year and a
half ago asked myself and Jim and a few other people to
get together and really come up with ideas as to how to
improve things here in Collier County.
Our idea, we've run this by some of the county
commissioners, not all of them have heard the
presentation but for the most part I thir~k they have a
good idea what's going on, we made available pamphlets to
our proposals, is that we have continuum of services.
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Continuum of services meaning that from arrest number one
all the way through to the time they're going to drill or
boot camp and then if we feel that they've done the drill
camp, boot camp situation, they still are persisting in
their criminal ways then there's only one alternative and
that is to bind them over to adult court.
So, we certainly feel that it's time for the
community of Collier County to take a lead role in
dealing With Juvenile crime and showing the youth of this
community~ number one, we care and number two, that we're
not going to put up with Juvenile criminal acts. It's
Just time that we do something about it.
So, our proposal is that we, from first arrest
through fourth or fifth arrest deal with these kids and
if they get to the point being a fifth arrest, that's
what we're coming in tonight and giving you an update.
Our proposal, basically, is that for a number of
reasons, and I'll give you these reasons off the top of
my head and certainly ask q~estions as we go through it.
We decided to incorporate the drill or boot camp at the
Immokalee stockade.
These are primarily economical reasons. Number
one, we don't have to go out and purchase new property.
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~e can build the additional boot camp facilities rlqht on
the property owned by Collier County on the stockade
facility site.
Number two, is that we can duplicate some services
provided by the stockade, duplicate those services to the
drill camp will save large amounts of money and those are
the laundry services for the Juvenile cadets, the food
services, which can be provided by the stockade and
medical service which is already provided at the
stockade.
If we build this, have this concept and build this
facility somewhere else in a stand alon,a situation, we
would have to provide separate people working in food
services, medical and laundry services. So, we're
talking about quite a bit of money and savings. Also, of
course, if Collier County had to go out and purchase
additional property, it's going to cost, again, a lot
more money.
The most inexpensive way to get this, and the
fastest way I might add, to get this drill camp up and
running to use modular units and I'll show you blow up of
this, the actual concept. This is the actual stockade
facility, okay. Here's County Barn Road here in
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Immokalee. We're talking about putting a new entrance in
to the south of your current facility, I b~lieve it's the
south, if I'm not mistaken, and then put in -- actually,
you see the residence and office areas.
This residence and office area will be coming in,
in six modular units. It will be fastened together,
making 30 individual rooms for these drill camp cadets,
office space for the commander and the other office
personnel. That's a real simple concept. It's very
inexpensive and all we need for the actual facility to
house these young men.
We also need a facility to act as a classroom, a
visiting room on visiting days and a place where they can
eat. That will be three classrooms or three modular
areas put together to accomplish that. Then, a lot of
what the drill camp or boot camp concept is, it's a
military style where they have shaved heads, wear
uniforms, up at 5=00 in the morning and in bed at 9=00.
It runs very mandatory. They can't wait to get in'bed.
The main thing you need to understand, it's not
Just a military concept. It's not -- first of all it's
discipline, a change or break the spirit and rebuild the
spirit. The main concept of the Juvenile boot camp is to
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educate. One of things, of course, we would have to work
out is we're working very closely by the way with the
Collier County School System is to provide a teaching
staff.
We've already got an agreement with the Collier
county School System to provide all the staff we need for
education and counseling on an educational level. We're
going to have to come up with some type of computer
modular lab, however, to allow these children, young
juveniles to receive an education.
I spent two weeks at the Manetee County Boot Camp
on representing Sheriff Hunter Just get~.ing a better
idea. I must say before I went to Manetee County Boot
Camp I was somewhat skeptical as to how a boot camp may
work. I can come back and report to you that after
spending two weeks and seeing these people from the time
they came in to the time they were reacting to what was
supposed to be done, in two weeks, and they're there for
four months, I was quite impressed with the overall
operation.
We're talking about saving people's lives here.
We're not only talking about saving lives, we're talking
about saving you large amounts of money.
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You have to think for Just a moment, would you
rather spend a sum of money now in dealing with the
Juvenile offender that needs to be turned around, turning
them around or would you rather spend that money and
warehouse him for a long period of time, as Jim said,
once he becomes an habitual offender. Believe you don't
want to know the cost. What you do probably want to
know, you already know what we spend on housing people in
our state prison system today and it's not working. We
all can agree to that, I think.
Another thing we will have to have, of course, that
we're suggesting to build is an obstacle course. Strong
bodies, strong minds is one of the sayings they use in
drill camps. Men end women that have been in the
military, I'm sure, you remember obstacle courses. They
tend to do a lot towards making a person strong and
providing a sound mind.
Also, having what pole barn area (Phonerio), that's
open where you can have classes on the outside that has a
roof over the area, is the plan for this area. Now, we
don't have an exact cost as yet. We've done the mark up.
We've gotten preliminary cost estimates but we don't know
for sure. If we change this modular concept to a full
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blown concrete situation,
course, the cost will vary.
those.
something that's permanent, of
So, we're looking at both of
Another thing that we're doing also, of course, to
have this facility you're going to have to have a staff.
We're looking and are about to come up with the costs of
not only for the physical layout of the facility but also
what we call the operation costs, cost of staff, food,
medicine, cost of providing uniforms for these young
people and all of the variable costs that go along with
it, electric, water, whatever.
So, that's basically where we're at now. We're
making progress, I'm happy to report and we are working
very closely with the Juvenile gang council to make sure
that this project works.
I also would like to report that we've been working
very closely with Mike Dolan who is the district
representative for the Juvenile task force from HRS. We
have been certified, not only by the Collier County
Juvenile Gang council and HRS and the regional or
district gang council for a certification for a need for
the facility. They certainly say that Collier County
needs their own facility and that's basically the update.
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We can be more specific if you'd like on some subjects.
UI~ENO~ SPEAKER: Have y'all concept, alternative,
as opposed to going to concrete going to ~he tents?
MR. CAPERTON: We are looking at the tent side.
One of the ~hings that you run into a little bit of a
problem with tents is the problem of security, okay.
Although, I can say that the facility in Mariatee is
a very basic structure and the cost, which was pretty
minimal compared to permanent tents, we don't know if
that's really going to be a good concept.
Although, the sheriff's all in favor of tents.
These guys, you do need to remember, if we have tents
they need to be individually roomed tents and here's the
reason for that.
Primarily, if you put these people in the military,
the number of you, can I see a show of hands, remembering
back in the military, you were barracks for basic
training in boot camp so you could interact.with other
people.
~hat they try to do in a boot camp concept or drill
camp concept is to isolate these people 24 hours a day
from interacting with each other. They're certainly
welcome to interact with drill instructors, they're
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welcome to interact with the teachers but we've found,
and we've looked around at the different concepts, there
have been some that have been in the barracks type of
situation or tent situation.
What they're finding out is that they're having a
lot more failure rate because they can talk about their
criminal past. They can interact, even though they're
ordered by the rules not to be involved with each other
and talk about their criminal past, if they're left alone
in a barracks type set up or tent type set up with bunk
beds, you don't have enough staff to really control.
What we're trying to do is isolat~ them, put them
in an area where they're studying on their own, sitting
by themselves. They have their own private little area
that they're required to keep, believe me, keep spic and
span and it's a real hard concept to enforce in a tent
situation. So, that's why we're leery of that.
UNKNOWN SPEAKEr: Will this facility be female and
male Juvenile offenders?
MR. CAPERTON: Initially, no. We're talking about
Just males and that's because about 85 to 90 percent of
the people we would be servicing would be male. We are
talking about if we expand, and we have current area, we
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can expand that garden area, remove the fence, relocate
the fence and expand and put another housing area in
there for another portion of what we're trying to do.
HRS wants to go through a partnership with the
county commission, with the people of Collier County; we
work, we provide the land and then some money and funding
and HRS will provide also, much larger amount I might an.
They want to make sure that they're working as a
partnership and basically we Just, in working the numbers
ma'am, we Just don't see at this point girls should be
housed in an area like this. We J,~st don't have enough
people.
It would take additional number of
security for these young ladies and to be very honest
with you, the crimes by females are increasing but they
haven't increased, like the ones we were talking about
fourth and fifth arrests having more than one or two
arrests.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER~ At the present time then, the
only facility females is An Fort Myers, ie that true?
MR. CAPERTON:
Myers, yes, ma'am.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER~
staff to provide
The detention facility is in Fort
How many days will you keep them
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in there?
MR. CAPERTON; There's not a most or a least. When
they come into the camp, first of all, they're screened
through HRS and law enforcement to make sure they're
going to work out and be able to be in this camps that
means they have to be in good physical health. We're not
going to take people who have been convicted of sexual
battery, those go, they're not allowed under this program
to be there.
But, ~t's a 120 day program, no ~f, ands or buts.
Now, that's the minimum. They basically are co~itted
for one year. They're committed for one year to this
program. They spend four days An this intens~ve dr~11
camp. After that, they have Aftercare and that's
probably Just as important ~f not more ~mportant than the
dr~11 camp.
They come from an environment that needs to be
changed either through their home or people they're
hanging around with or whatever and so a good concept,
that's a strong concept, of Aftsrcars~ working with them,
working with their parents or guardians is necessary.
we will have to work through HRS and make sure but
basically what's happening An other boot camps is that
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they stay for four months, they're released from a
halfway type program for another 60 to 90 days where they
stay in that program from 7:30 in the morning and receive
their education Just like they received here, not through
their public school or their private school, and then get
home at about 9:00 o'clock at night, wear and ankle
bracelet, monitoring device, and stay pretty much in an
isolation situation.
After they've proven that they can do what they're
supposed to do, we're still talking six to seven months
now, then they're allowed to slowly simulate back into
their school but they're still required to be home at a
particular time, 9:00 o'clock curfew, maximum.
After that nine or ten month period, we give them a
little rope, if you will, and hopefully they're not going
to hang themselves.
Does that answer your question? Yes, sir.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: As a former police officer, I
don't think the community can afford to not get involved
in the concept. If the logistics can be worked out,
there's one other prospect that you didn't mention but
I'm sure you're very well aware of that probably wasn't
mentioned, the cost factor of victims of these crimes,
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how do you measure, I've seen it hundreds of time as well
as you, how do you measure the cost factor to the victim
whose mother's been run over by some kid who stole some
car? How do you measure the lost productivity of those
kids? There's so many cost factors to society by not
doing it. I think we have to seriously consider any
alternative. This appears to be a very good one.
MR. CAPERTON= Yes, ma'am.
MS. SMITH= What was your reasoning behind choosing
the fifth offense instead of going by the rule, three
strikes you're out?
MR. CAPERTON: Under the current system for
Juveniles, it's not three strikes, it's about 12 to 15
strikes you're out. We have to be able to work in
cooperation with HRS, ma'am. They will not go for a
drill camp situation, there's no way they would or
legislature would agree to three arrests.
Now, let me back up a minute and preface this. If
it's three serious arrests, three felony arrests, it's
very possible but we're talking about the average of,
they start out with misdemeanors, smaller crimes and move
into larger crimes. This is not always the case, Jim,
help me if I'm wrong here, but it appears to us that's
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the way.
Strictly saying that thres strikes you're out, no.
After five arrests, maybe not, maybe some of these kids,
they're first one or two arrests for shoplifting, it
seems to get worse and worse. So, it's really going to
depend on e group of people that review these young
people's records and see that because of some of the
things that they're into that it's rims, that some of the
things that they shouldn't be doing are being done and
it's time that they go to boot camp.
So, It may be three strikes you're out for some of
them.
MS. SMITH= I don't know if you mentioned it, I
didn't hear some of it, how would you get the fuAding?
MR. CAPERTON= How are we getting funding?
Basically, we can apply for funding through HRS if we
show a good faith effort through the sheriff, county
commission or any other funding mechanisms we can come up
with, to provide, let's say, land, which we're proposing
we do, provide some costs possibly the cost for the
actual, physical layout and then HRS, this isn't speoifio
because we haven't stricken an agreement with them yet,
have HRS provide the lion's share of the money, which
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would be operational costs. That's basically a
partnership between the local community and the state for
leaders of HRS to say, eyes, Collier County has proven
that they want to get involved Just like Lee County did".
Another example, Lee County is opening their
facility the First of next month. It will be a 30 bed
drill camp, also it will be a 60 bed commitment type
area. It's being run by a private organization out of
Massachusetts, I believe, if I'm, correct. I don't know
how that's going to work. I don't know about that
concept.
The concept I do know about is the concept that the
Manetee County Sheriff's Office is using and that is that
basically the sheriff's office, under the auspices of the
county commission, run the drill camp, staff the drill
camp and make sure it works.
All I can say is what I've seen from that concept
it is working very, very well. Their program has been in
effect for almost a year now and they've had 120
graduates. They've had, of that 120 graduates, I don't
know about today but I talked to the commander Just a
couple days ago, they've had three recldivisms. That's
unheard of, folks. They shouldn't have had any, I wish
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they wouldn't have had.
For the most part they keep then on the straight
and narrow. One way to keep them on the straight and
narrow, if they sneeze wrong, they're back in. A deputy
from the Mamatee County Sheriff's Office is at their
house, picks then up, and they're back in the drill camp
in the amount time the commander deems necessary.
A little story for you. A young man who had
graduated from the drill camp, had done his four months,
done pretty well while he was there, refused to live
where they told him he needed to live and that was with
his grandmother. Number one, she had a telephone so they
could contact him on a regular basis to make sure he was
doing what he was supposed to do and number two, his
mother let him do basically what he wanted to do, when he
wanted to do it, and where he wanted to do it and his
grandmother would not.
He refused to live with his grandmother so the
commander called him and told him that he should have
himself on the front doorstep of his grandmother's home
at a particular time and after about 20 minutes after the
phone conversation, he was coming back to the drill camp,
he was there. That's unheard of folks.
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We tall people stuff like that in Collier County,
we find them two years later after they finally decide to
turn themselves in. They've hooked into these young
people and it seems to be working.
MS. SMITHs It's my understanding in t~lking with
one of the people on the Juvenile Justice co~ittae that
the proposed funding was prepared to presented before the
commission, I believe it was last Tuesday, soma time in
the past and it was postponed.
MR. CAPERTON: It was because, I think, the
commission, and correct me if I'm wrong, the commission
wanted to have a better figure, a more exact figure from
US.
CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE= There was a request for a
specific amount of money to be set aside but there was
not proposal and no budget. We simply said when you have
your proposal and your budget, come back. I don't
anticipate any problem of funding, at least, from the
Any other questions?
When do you suppose this would be
Wall, God be with us, and the thing
county commission.
UNKNOWN SPEAKERs
in operation?
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works out, we're hoping, I'l probably speaking out of
turn here, the sheriff should be answering thie ~uestion
but we're hoping within the next yearl earlier than that
if possible.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER= Do you think the sheriff ~nthe
future would perhaps entertain spending dollars that he
needs to house prisoners, perhaps more on a concept like
this rather than the fancy motel rooms that we're
building at an astronomical costs?
I say that because as a past commissioner and
planning board, I'm a member of the planning board, I
recently saw the dollar figure ~t was going to take in
the future for this county to build more prison beds. At
the rate we've been spending on beds ~t'e Just a figure I
don't think any of us can live with.
You know, therefore, prison camps, there use to be
prison camps and we turned them into luxurious suites and
I was Just wondering if perhaps we might focus in the
future back to thie concept?
MR. CAPERTON: I think the fair way to answer your
question would be to say that if the federal goverrment
allows us to, I think that the sheriff in Collier County
and a lot of others sheriffs around this state and nation
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would be more than willing. The problemwe run into, and
I'm sure you have some knowledge of this, we are mandated
to do X, Y and Z with these prisoners.
We're mandated to serve them so many calories in a
meal and we get all kinds of lawsuits even though we're
serving them good food; to provide them with their
colored television sets, to provide them air controls so
it's not too hot. Believe me, we're not happy about
having to spend money to provide additional space than
you are.
If the federal government allows us to move back on
what we're required to do, I think, probably the sheriff
would be more than happy to build one similar to this.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Maybe you could say a shor~ word
about, with the third and fourth offenders. You said
something about the community being more involved, you
know, action, direct action in the community for
something like the boot camp.
Could you give Just a word on what that's about and
what we need.
SERGEANT HANSEN~ On the second arrest, we're
hoping for a teen court to be implemented. That seems to
be effective. We looked at a couple ¢o~unittes in Texas
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that has teen courts. The third arrest, we're 1ooktng at
something called CADET which is uniquely our ow11, it
stands for Collier Action for Delinquent Endangered
Teens. What we want is the complete co~unity
involvement for these kids. It's like the last step
before they go to boot camp.
Say you had a child who was interested in aviation.
Part of this program, not only would we have punishments
and those kinds of things, but the community would take
them in, they could work at the airport and get some
flying time and have mentors that would apprentice them
and learn values. Everywhere he went he would have a
role model to impart those values we know need to be
imparted. It would be like a co~unity parenting
concept.
So, it's kind of a broad program we're looking at
implementing. We have things in place for it but we
think that that kind of thing is what's necessary to
reduce the recidivism rate at that level. We'll mandate
sports programs. For example, if the kid wants to play
football and can't get there, we have the Kiwanis Club.
They would arrange to transport him there, have his
football gear bought for him and say, "Look, if you don't
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do good, if you quit, you're cominq back to court".
Those are the kind of thingel It's a whole broad
program to address all those needs, a variety. Amongst
those things too, it's like there's an old folks home in
Naples, I'm missing the name right now. We would put
them there, take care of some of the old people, interact
with some of the old people and that could be fair,
retarded kids, handicapped kids, those are beneficial to
both. We're looking at creating that.
UNKNOWN SPEAKERs Just one of the parts already
mentioned here in reference to victims and the cost of
what a victim's, as to someone being hurt or his property
being destroyed and going over the cost in-house, prison
to give them a color T.V., and some air conditioning.
One of the things you have this year that's put
before you is Juveniles who are offenders fifty times
within their system.
Now, where an adult becomes an offender, habitual
offender, after three crimes as co~itted as an adult, if
he's convicted of a crime three times he becomes an
habitual offender. Now, we're looking at price costs of
building new prisons and here you're looking at a system
of what you want to do is prevent those kids to getting
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into that system. If this system happens to be
successful then you're not going to have.the expense of
building other prisons. So, it's like a mechanic taking
care of your car.
later.
You either pay me now or you pay me
This program is like a pay me now thing where your
kids are within this system. You've got a prevention
here and it's called preventative maintenance and that's
what's being proposed to you.
You do preventive maintenance now and you won't
have this particular child that you have to build that
additional prison for him to go into. So, that's an
aspect you're going to be looking at.
MR. CAPERTON: Okay, we know that there's other
things that need to be said. Anything from the
commissioners? Any questions or anything?
MS. SMITH: Next, we'll move on to urgent health
care for Im~okalee. Could you please update us on the
planning and funding for the new urgent care facility as
well as the possible start and completion date?
DR. AUSDON: Thank you, Denise.
I'm Bill Ausdon and I direct the Isabel
Collier-Reed Immokalee Health Park and what I'd like to
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do first is explain exactly what that is, where we hope
to go and some of the obstacles that may be in the way of
where we'd like to go.
In the back is a model of what we see, the complete
complex, assuming we're able to complete all the facets
of this. The facility on the site towards the door over
there is the currently completed center, that's Phase
One, Phase Two and Phase Three, I'll explain & bit more
to you.
I think it's extremely important to point out that
although the Naples Community Hospital is strongly
involved in this endeavor, this project can not continue
and would not be where we are now without the
participation of Collier County, state government and
some of the federal funds that we're receiving.
We started this segment of planning about three
years ago with numerous efforts to improve the health
care situation in Immokalee bu~ the current, I became
involved in this particular effort in 1990.
What we've decided to do is to come out and help
the facilities who are out here to have more space, to
have more physicians, more nurses, to practice medicine.
The first facility that we have recently finished and
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moved into in July was done in con~unctton with the
Collier Health Services, Inc., which is now known as the
Mary E. Fetter Medical Center. We felt like the least
expensive way to provide health care is to start with
ambulatory care, preventive care, do up front those
things that try to keep patients from entering into the
system.
We're very fortunate to have had land donated, I
think most of you here would know where the land is,
Collier enterprises gave us 24 acres to build the entire
complex that we intend to build on.
The first building is a 45,000 square foot building
that houses Collier Health Services, Ino., on the bottom
floor. Our offices are on the top floor.
The Second Phase which will be in the middle in the
behind part of this project will be a 45,000 square foot
building on one level. It will house titgent care,
occupational therapy, physical therapy, x-ray, more
diagnostic and hopefully some subspecialty care out here
also.
The State has funded 2.7 million dollars to help
start the second phase. We have gone to the community
and will be going to the community more, there's
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building within the next month at least.
Immokalee, an I~mokalee group, many of whom are here now
who are attempting to help raise funds to not only build
the buildings that we currently have planned but
hopefully a small inpatient hospital down the line.
The 2.7 million dollars is basically less than half
of the cost of the next facility. The main reason for
the cost, we are building at hospital specifications so
it can be attached on to an in-bed facility so we'll be
able to get the appropriate permission and so forth to
move ahead.
As far as when the second phase which is, as I say,
already funded, will start, we basically have the funding
in place with the 2.7 million from the state with several
donors. Ms. Isabel Collier-Reed has been a major donor
and continues to be a major donor to this project. We
have the dollars to build the project and we will start
on it as soon as all the permitting is done.
Basically, we're held up, as you know, on the
current building about nine months, about six to nine
months by the Scrub Jay, an occasional tortoise on the
land. So, those held us up q~ite a while.
We are ready to build, we hope to start the
From the time
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of building until the time
talking about a year or so.
particular time of completing,
start the building.
of using and operation, we're
We're a year within this
depending on when we can
Now, Phase Two, we hope within a year of the
finishing of the building, to start offering 24 hour a
day services out here which you know are badly needed.
They're also extremely expensive. We have been able,
through a lot of help at the state level, to get the
dollars to build the building with.
Building buildings are difficult dollars but
getting operational dollars are even more difficult.
We're going back to the state this year for operational
dollars which we hope to be able to get more nursing
personnel and more physicians in the program.
The first effort was to provide access for those
people who did not have access to care. Second, we hope
to be able to provide quality medical care and assistant
medical care that avery citizen in Immokalee will feel
free to go to.
The third phase, will be a small inpatient
facility. We're looking, at the current time, at
approximately 50 beds. As many of you know, the health
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climate in the State of Florida has changed drastically
in this past year, due to new laws and it's going to be
changing in the federal levels. We don't know what's
going to happen on the federal level but we know what's
Manage competition is the
happening in Florida level.
name of the game.
That funding and
our plans. We, again,
several other entities can slow
can not progress without
cooperation from various entities. The county government
has funded and continued to fund the urgent care. It's
still open now only during day times. We're going to
look to continued funding when we try to open 24 hours a
day.
We also have various laws we have to meet. We have
impact fees we have to have. The impact and other fees
on this particular project by the time we build all three
of them is Just under a million dollars. These are
county generated type taxes of various kinds.
The first part, that is complete, cost $300,000.00
and it will be at least another 600,000 according to our
current process to complete the other.
There are other issues that need to be corrected
before a hospital can be built, the water pressure, the
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water system needs to be looked at to give adequate
pressure to a small hospita~ and to be able to have
adequate fire protection and adequate pressure to run a
hospital.
one of the major supporters out here, I don't fall
to recognize them, has been the First Bank of Immokalee.
I have been out in Immokalee now for over two years. Our
first offices were in the First Bank of Immokalee and we
moved out in July into the current facility.
The main point I want to reiterate is although the
hospital. is totally behind this project, they are an
affiliate of Isabel Collier-Read. We're going to need
funding many other areas to be able to complete the
project. We're going to need to look at the various
infrastructure questions in Immokalee to go any further.
I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may
have about this. Thank you.
UNKNOWN SPEAKERs One question. Mostly Just a
comment I'd like to extend an invitation to the community
on behalf of the fund raising com~ittee that's working in
conjunction as a private partner with this effort.
There's a meeting on Tuesday afternoon at 5:30 at
the new health park and every community, oivio
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organization and youth organization is invited. Some of
you, hopefully, have received your plant a seed for a
healthy future in Immokalea invitation. The idea being
that everybody be offered the opportunity to participate.
It's not so much the amount of money that any one
organization may be able to contribute but that everybody
be invited. So, please consider yourself invited.
DR. AUSDON= Thank you, Denise.
MS. SMITHs The last agenda item we have that we
wanted to get some response on is the SHIPP funds. I'm
going to show my ignorance here, they've been explained
to me twice and I still don't understand what they are.
So, could you please explain to me how the SHIPP
Funds work? I know they're doing something with
affordable housing.
MR. MAHALIK: Good evening, I'm Greg Mahalik,
Director of Housing and Urban Improvement for the county.
The SHIPP Funds are confusing. I think they're confusing
for everyone. SHIPP stand~ for State Housing Initiative
Partnership Program which is a documentary stamp tax
which is levied on all property tax transfers within the
State. That money used for affordable throughout the
state.
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The county will receive about $906,000.00 over the
next three years to support affordable housing. We have
filed a plan with the state to talk about how we'll spend
this housing money over the next three years and
basically we plan to assist 65, very low income and first
time home buyers with impact fee relief on their houses.
There some fliers and I'll put them in the back of
the room when we're done, but the yellow flier is
information about this program.
Basically, the income limits depend on the family
size, how many people are in the family but you do have
to be a first time home buyer, you have to occupy the
house as your permanent residence and homestead in it,
and you must live there for 15 years to be able to waive
the fees forever.
Plus, if your income goes up, if you become higher
than the limits that are allowed a present ordinance may
require you to pay back that money. If you're a family
of four and your income is $21,500.00 or less you can
waive your impact fees for 15 years.
If your income for a family of four is less than
about $25,500.00, you can waive 50 percent of your impact
fees, that is, not pay them at all, and defer 50 percent
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of your impact fees to be paid when you sell the house.
If you're a family of four and your income is up to
$34,500.00, you will have to pay 75 percent of your
impact fees and you will be allowed to defer 25 percent
of those impact fees.
We have done 22
impact fee waivers so far. It's a
popular program, we're getting a lot of phone calls on
it. I'll put the information in the back of the room and
please call my office with nors information at 643-4270,
the Department of Housing for the county.
That's 65 low and very low income household we're
going to assist under that program. We're also going to
assist 40 very low income home buyers with rehabilitation
and emergency repair on their houses. We expect to spend
about $200,000.00 on this strategy from SHIPP money. We
know that we have houses in poor condition and in need of
rehabilitation throughout the county and especially in
Immokalee.
We have never run a housing rehabilitation like
this within Collier County and it's been difficult to get
it going and get it started but over the next three years
we do expect to assist these households.
We are also discussing some of this rehabilitation
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wt~..h a nonprofit housing agsnc~ that is not located in
Collier County but has done work in Collier County in the
past. They have access to additional funding and there
may be a way to cosine ~heir funding with ou~ SHIPP
funding to assist home owners in a more leveraged
manner, for higher level, without additional SHIPP funds
being used. We're discussing that with them right now.
This particular loan will be a zero interest
deferred payment loan that you're required to pay back
when you sell your house. It will be for very low income
home owners~ for instance for a family of four you have
to have an income of less than $21,500.00 to qualify for
that program.
The third major strategy within the SHIPP program,
are closing costs and down payment assistance for first
time home buyers. We expect to assist 40 low income and
very low income first time home buyers with this program.
We expect to spend approximately $200,000.00 over the
next three years with these initiatives.
These will be handled through the financial
institutions in Collier County. They will have the paper
work. They will be able to assist you in filling out the
forms and qualifying you and in making reservations with
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the Housing and Urban Improvement Office for this money.
I also have sheets on this program, they're the pink
sheets. We'll place them in the back of the room and
you're welcome to pick them up. Again, call the office
at 643-4270 for more information.
questions. Yes, ma'am.
UNKNOWN SPEAKERs
I'll answer any
Grsg, has the county got any
other programs as incentives that would help multi-family
rentals or the first time mobile home purchasers.
MR. MAHALIK~ Yes, multi-family rentals are not
helped within the SHIPP program. There's restrictions on
how you can use the money~ for instance, we can not defer
impact fees for that. The county is looking into whether
we have to pay back impact fee deferrals on multifamily
rental buildings and that's being investigated at this
time. If we're required to pay back that money, when we
have to pay back that money, what can we use funding
source to pay back that money. So, that's being looked
at right now to assist multifamily rental projects for
impact fee deferrals.
Unfortunately, none of the SHIPP money can be used
for mobile homes at a11. The nonprofit agency that I
talked about does have some money that can be allowed to
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be used for mobile homes and I'd like to bring some of
that assistance to Collier County for weatherization but
at the present time we don't have any programs in place
to assist mobile home owners. Other with questions?
UNKNOWN SPEAKER= When will this take place, all
these programs?
MR. MAHALIK= The impact fee program is in place
right now. The down payment assistance and closing cost
assistance program will start shortly and the
rehabilitation program, we've been trying to get into
place, I would say probably 60 days away before that
program will be in place and may even be longer than that
on the rehabilitation.
I should say, we're also working with the Farmer's
Home Administration that does a lot of financing and
mortgages in Immokalee to combine the impact fee or the
closing cost and down payment assistance with their
program and Fred Thomas is assisting in that and we hope
that will be a particular benefit to the I~mokalee
community. Any other questions?
UNKNOWN SPEAKER= Greg, it might be advantageous to
mention, I'm sure a lot of people do know, to mention the
advantages of home ownership 'that many of us know, like
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the income tax, so forth, and the obvious advantage that
I'm sure you can elaborate on to the community, that home
ownership promotes pride and a set of improved
neighborhoods.
MR. MAHALIK= In the la:st two years, we've made
particular efforts to expand home ownership opportunities
throughout the county. It's been fairly successful.
Between 20 and 25 percent of the building permits
that are pulled now on single family homes have building
permit values of less than $70,000.00. This is indeed
affordable to families who make $25,000.00 a year and
don't have other debts that encumber their existence.
So, with the low mortgage rates available right now
home ownership is affordable and as Mr. Clark said, it is
a way to stabilize your housing costs, allow you to build
up equity in your house and give you a nest egg to move
on to the next purchase you want to make.
Most of the money that we are receiving is going
into home ownership programs because we believe that's
the correct approach to take. Anything else?
Thank you very much. We'll leave the fliers An the
back of the room.
MS. SMITH=
Okay. That was all our agenda items.
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At this time I want to give the floor to Mr. Sam Levy.
He wanted to make a brief presentation on substance abuse
in Collier County schools.
MR. LEVYt It's been a long evening and the key
word is brief. Welcome to Immokalee. If you're not from
Im~okalee but you have a television sat, you might have
seen back before Christmas ~e had an unfortunate incident
that happened to take place at the Immokalee Middle
School where there were seven youngsters who ingested.at
the time some unknown substance. They were all
transported to Naples Com~unity Hospital, one of them by
helicopter.
There's been a lot of speculation about what it was
they ingested. We now have a chemical analysis of that,
the active ingredient in the bottle that we retrieved
which we assume was the bottle from which all seven of
these young people drank, the active in ingredient is a
chemical call Scopolimein (Phonetic). It's & derivative
of the plant that is commonly known as the angel trumpet
plant.
That plant, I understand from botanist friends, has
its origin in India but it does grow here. It's an
ornamental shrub. In fact, one day this week I saw &
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plant, 8 or 10 feet high and had, I would g~ess, b~tween
40 and 70 blossoms on it and it happens to be on a route
I frequently travel, yesterday it had none. I can only
hope that the person who owned that plant took all those
blossoms off and destroyed them and then again I don't
know.
We're told by the toxicology people that taken in
the proper amounts, this stuff can be fatal. It's
hallucinogen. It is not, as I understand from our law
enforcement contact, it is not on the list of controlled
substances and therefore it is not illegal.
so, there's a new trick, a new game in town every
day but a little more research has discovered that this
particular hallucinogen was known in ancient times. If
you get an herb book, almost any good herb book will tell
you about this particular chemical.
As a matter of fact, it used to be used
deliberately against ones enemies to make them go crazy.
That's what the herb book that I read said. It was an
interesting, an interesting few hours we had there, we
had our fire chief, perhaps some other folks here who
made that response, it's my understanding we had every
emergency response vehicle in Immokalee available on the
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scene. It was an attempt to render proper and immediate
and urgent care to some young people in this community
who had done something that was very foolish.
For those of you who may not know , on an attempt
to educate or further educate our folks, we met with a
group of students that same week to try to give them an
opportunity to tell what they were feeling about this
incident and how it effected them, the students, their
school and their com~unity and to give them good
information. There was a lot of information in the media
and as generally the case, it was not all entirely
accurate.
We kept trying to tell folks we didn't know exactly
what we were dealing with, somehow the reporters seemed
to think they knew. The ingredient, however, was not
Deadly Night Shade, as was once reported. I think that's
something different I understand.
Anyhow, the schools have always taken from the
beginning of time when we had drug problems showing up in
schools because schools mirror the problems of soolety
that we serve so we have the same problems in schools as
you've got in society.
We've always taken a strong posture against drugs.
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We have very strong drugs education programs but it seems
like in so many instances, you've heard the Juvenile
crime reports and quite often, crime and drug use,
substance abuse go hand in hand.
It continues to be a problem. I, frankly, do not
believe, I Just finished my 30th year in public education
in Florida, I do not believe that the drug problem among
young people, is as prevalent now in the schools as it
was in the early '?0s. That's my own opinion. I believe
it would be based and could be verified by the instances
that we see in school. But nevertheless, it's still a
problem. It still exists.
Youngsters when you, law enforcement and others
tend to get a handle on a particular substance, it seems
they find something else, aluminum paint, you name it,
airplane glue. So, the latest in these are angel trumpet
plants and while that's been around for a long time,
apparently, something that perhaps our young people in
this community are Just beginning to be aware of.
As parents, you should be aware of that. They
would have to have, in order to make this drink that
apparently they do, they probably have to have access to
your kitchen, to a stove and utensils. So, it's not
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something that could very easily be done without the
knowledge of somebody that was going on.
I'd be glad to entertain any questions that you
might have about that particular instance or anything
else in general as it relates to substance abuse in
Collier County Public Schools, at least, in Immokalee.
Thank you.
He. SMITH: Briefly, we also wanted to introduce
Lynn Maxwell with the Seminole Gaming Palace. He is new
to this community as well an he hopes to, when they open
the new gaming palace on South First Street, to provide
at least 250 Jobs to this community.
Because of the time constraints, if you have any
questions of him, afterwards, I'm sure he'll make himself
available. This is Mr. Lynn Maxwell.
MR. MAXWELL: Do I get to say anything at all?
MS. SMITH: Say, "Hi".
MR. MAXWELL~ I think she's trying to tell me
something. I want to thank you very much,
commissioners, I appreciate it and appreciate your time.
I sat back there and listened to all the people who are
trying to take your tax dollars from you all we're trying
to do is put in 250 to 300 Jobs and I think that's kind
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of a refreshing to the community.
I must tell you that I used to teach school and
years ago, I never saw a building as nice as this one.
You folks have Just a modern school that is to be envied
by every community and speaks out for you and your
community.
We're located out on the south end of town on the
indian reservation. This is going to be a facility which
you can be very proud of and it will be an asset to the
community, that I can assure you.
If there are any questions, I will be An the back,
I appreciate your time. Thank you, very much.
MS. SMITH= Lastly, Mr. Archibald wanted me to
announce, I would assume by this list, this is the
priority? So, Lake Trafford is number one priority on
road resurfacing set for 1994 budgeting by the
transportation department, Lake Trafford will receive an
estimated $45,000.00 for resurfacing~ North 9th Street,
which is 29th to Jefferson Avenue, wtll receive an
estimated $18,000~ Stockade Road, an estimated $11,000
and Dade Street, New Market to Dixie, and estimated
2,000, and I believe that's all in the Immokalee area.
Is there any questions anyone has for the
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commissioners at this time?
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Not a questLon but Just a
statement and it's directed to the co~issioners and
George Archibald. I heard $2,000.00 improvement for New
Market Road and Dixie. I know four years ago, there was
a letter sent up asking for a study, engineer study being
done on New Market Road In reference to the location of R
and R Produce and a high hazard area that has to do with
the influx of people bringing fruit into the area to be
sold and a high potential of auto accidents and possible
deaths.
As to this date, I haven't heard any kind of reply
from any study or any commitment made to look at other
avenue to route that traffic into that particular area.
I would ask, if you would, consider that in this study.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: First of all, I've been resident
for ten years. What is distressing is to read in the
Christmas vacation times that Naples is considering
making an area around Immokalee the future landfill for
the coastal garbage and I hate to end a meeting, which
was really upbeat, I congratulate a lot of the
departments, the growth progress is in the room, there's
also, you all have to know up there, there's a real hard
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undercurrent in the community that says it makes no sense
~or y'all to spend money and gasoline to tluck the
coastal garbage over to somewhere around I~okalee and !
know that you're looking hard for where it has to go and
I wish you God speed, but there are a lot of us that are
saying, "Not in our back yards".
sense.
MR. FRED THOMAS:
It makes no economio
I want to take the opportunity to
thank all of you for coming down but to reiterate
something that was said at an earlier meeting that was
had between the commissioners and the Immokalee
Foundation and that is, the significant difference in the
growth or no growth attitudes of the Collier County,
Coastal Collier County as opposed to the Immokalee area.
There was discussion of setting up separate
standards so we can encourage that kind of growth. More
important, I want to say is, in order for us to recapture
some of the money that flowed very rapidly out of Collier
county that's earned in Collier County, we have to
attract a solid middle a class into Immokalee.
In order to do that, we have to invest in
Immokalee. The money's going to come back to the county
if we can Just get that money to circulate a couple times
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here and that means we're going to have to provide
incentives to keep major retailers from going to Lehigh
Acres as opposed to coming to I~okalee. They're going
to still get our dollars, do you understand, but we want
that money to come through us. You got to think in terms
of investment in Immokalee. Thank you.
MS. SMITH: Commissioner Constantine.
CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I Just want to thank you
folks. On behalf of the commission, I want to thank the
Advanced Research and Social Studies and, of course, the
chamber of commerce for having us tonight.
I think communication like this benefits us a11,
not only the commission and the county, but more
importantly the individual communities and we've made a
point to try to get to every co~unity and I think we
need to continue to do this, perhaps even more than Just
once a year.
So, thank all of you for having us. '
UNKNOWN SPEAKER~ I also want to thank you all for
coming over and in our community. Mr. Thomas came in and
thanked you all but you never answered the question about
the dump. We moved away from the dump. So, speaking
about money coming, we want money coming in and not
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garbage.
CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE=
The problem, the reason we're
I'll attempt to answer.
looking at relocating right
now is because the community of Golden Gate has grown
around the dump so it doesn't make much sense, and you're
absolutely right, to move it from one residential area to
another residential area and I think what we're trying to
achieve is find a place where it's not going to be in
anybody's back yard.
MS. SMITH= Anything else?
UNKNOWN SPEAKER= I'd like to address the board
about the school crossing at Lake Trafford Road and 29.
It's a state maintained road and the speed limit going
through there is 45 miles an hour, okay.
The state has told the sheriff's office that they
had to pull their cones out so we've got 45 miles an hour
speed limit and the sheriff has a school crossing guard
to help the kids across the road but we still got traffic
coming in there at 45 miles an hour stopping for a light.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER~ Maybe I can help you out there.
That's mandated by state statute. I know you don't like
to hear that. I addressed it four years ago. What it
is, is because it's a designated crossing and because
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it's a controlled intersection with a light, the speed
limit is 45 miles an hour and if you got kids crossing
there the lights on read, it's stopped and that's what it
was designated to.
I talked to Bartow, a couple, three, four years
ago, and George can support this, because it is a state
highway they won't allow cones on it because they're
considered dangerous with the speed limit on top of
one of the things that you may look at, and I asked the
state to do it when I was here with the district
lieutenant, there was flashing signs that were put at
15th and I believe it was Roberts Avenue, flashing for
designated school area crossing, it was never used as one
and I asked them to relocate it to tho north of Lake
Trafford and someone told me that it would be and it
never happened.
But, under state guidelines that are set, the cones
and the speed limit and the study and the engineering
that was done there, they can't reduce the speeds but it
is something that we could use if we could get George to
work with the state up in Barrow to get flashing lights
there as a warning that we do have school crossings.
One of the other areas would be out on Lake
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Trafford at Carson Road in that particular area with
flashing lights that I tried to address a couple years
ago and I didn't have a good answer on it either. Those
two particular areas are the main areas of traffic and I
really can't tell you what the study of rerouting for the
traffic, you'll have to speak to some of the people that
travel those areas, I'm in Naples now.
Those particular two areas, if you could help us on
it, we would really appreciate it.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I know that biking has become a
big issue in the county. I read a couple of articles and
my family, we like to bike a lot. I was wondering of the
resurfacing of the road of Lake Trafford and if bike
trails will also be refurbished and Just for you to know
that there are more of us out there that are going to
want to bike and want to make that better for us and
safer and more enjoyable. There's a lot of kids that
enjoy it too as well as in Naples.
UNKNOWN SPEAKERr I would like to ask you, because
I live in Naples, in Naples, the hispanic co~munity is
almost worried about that because the sheriff department
sometimes overcharge our community.
They told me, because Z look hispanic, they give me
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three to five tickets. So, X would like in some way work
and be more conscientious. We don't make a lot of money.
We don't make good salary and I know people in Naples
that working work in hotel, I work in hotel, that's 5.50
an hour. When I get a ticket, they go for 500, 600, you
know, we have no reason to pay plenty ticket.
All we need is more education, that's true but no
one give it. That's why the community make me stay and
that's why the com-unity doesn't have all they have in
the car or stuff like that.
So, please try to be more conscientious with us
because in our country we are scared of the police, now
we come to the United States where police is smiling at
us, they don't try to kill us but that's all I want to
say.
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: On behalf of CYCI, we concerned
about community improvement and parents on patrol, a
program adopted by parks and recreation in Immokalse, we
would like to extend and invitation to our meeting that
we have February 17th at the community center at 7~00
p.m.
These are the youth and parents that are concerned
about their community and they all got together and we
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need your plans on things we need to help our community.
:!:f y'all can attend, please come, thank you.
MS. SMITH: If there's nothing else, I'd like to
personally extend a thank you to each of the
commissioners. Mr. Dotrill, all the groups that came and
did their presentations and on behalf of the chamber.
We have little goody bags for each one of you.
There's plenty there, I hope you take them home. There's
home grown products there on behalf of the Tip Top
Packing, Tomato Man, Inc, Chapman Produce and Ayala
Farms. Again I thank you.
I want to thank everyone for coming out this
evening. If there's any questions you want to approach
the commissioners about personally, I'm sure they will
stay a few more minutes.
(Proceedings concluded at 9220 p.m.)
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STATE OF F~RIDA )
COUNTY OF COLLIER )
I, Jac~elyn D. M~iller, Deputy OffXctaX Co~t
Reporter, do hereby certify that the foregoing proceedings
were taken before me at
caption ~ereto on Page I hereof~ mat me foregoing
computer assisted transcription, consXsting of pages numbered
2 ~rough 95, inclusive, is a t~e record of my Stenograph
notes taken at said proceedings.
Dated
utyl fA lCour emo er
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