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CEB Minutes 07/27/2000 RJuly 27, 2000 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE CODE ENFORCEMENT BOARD OF COLLIER COUNTY Naples, Florida, July 27, 2000 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Code Enforcement Board, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Clifford Flegal Roberta Dusek Don W. Kincaid Kathryn M. Godfrey-Lint Peter Lehmann George Ponte Rhona Saunders Diane Taylor NOT PRESENT: Darrin M. Phillips ALSO PRESENT: Jean Rawson, Attorney, Code Enforcement Board Michelle Arnold, Code Enforcement Director Maria Cruz, Enforcement Official Page I 07/21/00 11:02 FAX ~41 403 2345 COM~UN!T¥ ~EVELOPMENT ~ CLERK OF .CODE ENFORCEMENT/NUI$$ANCE ABATF--MF~gT BOARD OF COLLIER ~n,~ F~nR~DA A G EN~ D~; July 2~, ~n~.~. _, 9:00 ~'~ A.M. NOTE: ANY PERSON WHO DECIDES TO APP-~2iLA DECiSiON OF T~i$ BOARD W~ ~D A .... ~,,~ ~!!D~ ~]P~M ~ICH TH~ ~PP~ I$ TO 8E BASED. NEITHER COLLIER CO~Y NOR THE CODE ~NFORCEMENT BOARD SHALL BE R~PONSI~L~ FOR PROVIDING THIS RECORD. 3 Ju~e 22, ~"~ 4. ROLL CAbn A. ~CC rs. ~an=~ Shelf o~ immokalee, B ECC v=. Capri ....... ~ ..... ~ Inc. D. BCC rs. ~arold A. E. ~C v~. John & Rita GooCh, TK. F. BCC rs, Joa~ & Tho~s PancRney inc · C~ ~o. 2000-02! CEB No. 2000-022 CEB No. 2000-023 CES ~o. 2000-024 A. ~CC rs. Terence L. Fitzgerald, Tr., aad Philip O'Connor A, BCC va. K. O. Vaug~ ~E~ NO. 99-032 B. BCC rs. Dale & Cheryl A. ~0~'~I C~ }~o. 99-069 C. BCC rs. Pencecos~ul Churc~ o~ God R~O~T$ A. BCC rs. DOUglas E. & Cassandra b. jimmo Auguse 24, 2000 CEB NO. ~^ ~n July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Good morning. We're going to call Code Enforcement Board to order, please. Before we begin, if anyone has pagers, beepers, cell phones, radios, turn them off, please. Please make note that any person who decides to appeal a decision of this board will need a record of the proceedings pertaining thereto and, therefore, may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. Neither Collier County nor the Code Enforcement Board shall be responsible for providing this record. Roll call, please. MS. CRUZ: Good morning. For the record, Maria Cruz, code enforcement investigator. Please let the record note that Darrin Phillips informed our office that he was going to be absent. Roberta Dusek? MS. DUSEK: Here. MS. CRUZ: Clifford Flegal? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL'- Here. MS. CRUZ: Katherine Godfrey? MS. GODFREY-LINT: Here. MS. CRUZ: Don Kincaid? MR. KINCAID: Here. MS. CRUZ: Peter Lehmann? MR. LEHMANN: Here. MS. CRUZ: George Ponte? MR. PONTE: Here. MS. CRUZ: Rhona Saunders? MS. SAUNDERS: Here. MS. CRUZ: And Diane Taylor? MS. TAYLOR: Present. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a full board. Ms. Godfrey is an alternate. She will participate in everything but the voting. Approval of our agenda. Are there any changes, additions, deletions? MS. ARNOLD: Yes. For the record, Michelle Arnold, code enforcement director. Item No. 4-D will be deleted. The respondent is in Page 2 July 27, 2000 compliance. And we're adding under Reports, an affidavit of compliance, the Board of County Commissioners versus C. Roger and Antonio Biles. And that was CEB Case No. 2000-015. And then we're also adding under 6, old business, Item D, which is Board of County Commissioners versus Homer and Diane Betancourt. They're requesting reduction of fines. And that was CEB Numbers 99-026, 027 and 028. I also am giving the board a report -- or a note -- a memorandum from the county attorney's office, and that's going to be added under Item C, and that's related to notice of hearings on orders to impose fines and liens. So that would be C, under Reports. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any other changes or additions? I would entertain a motion to accept the agenda as changed. MR. LEHMANN: So moved. MS. DUSEK: Second. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion and a second to accept the agenda as changed. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Those opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Approval of our minutes from June 22nd. Are there any changes? MS. SAUNDERS: I move for acceptance. MS. DUSEK: Second. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion to accept the minutes of the June 22nd meeting as submitted. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you. We'll now open our public hearings. First case, CEB Number 2000-020, Pantry Shelf of Immokalee. MS. CRUZ: That case, Board of County Commissioners versus Pantry Shelf of Immokalee, Inc., Case No. 2000-020. The alleged violation before this board is the placement of a structure overhang of approximately eight foot by 20 feet without first obtaining the proper Collier County building permits. Page 3 July 27, 2000 The address of record is the Pantry Shelf of Immokalee, Inc. The representative is Lenore Roque. Address of record is 106 South Third Street, Immokalee, Florida, 34142. The first violation -- date of the first -- the violation was first observed was May 12th, 1999. A notice of violation was given to the respondent January 6th. The last one was given January 6th, year 2000, with a compliance date of February 5th, 2000. The final reinspection was done yesterday, July 26th, revealing the violation remaining. We provided a packet to the respondent, to the board and to the clerk of board, and we request that this packet be admitted into evidence and marked Composite Exhibit A at this time. I do not believe that the respondent is present. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Was proper notification given, proper notice? MS. CRUZ: Yes, sir, notification was given via certified mail, posting at the subject property and at the Collier County Courthouse. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Package may be submitted as evidence. MS. ARNOLD: Is there a motion? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Can we have a motion on that, please? MS. DUSEK: To accept the package? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes. MS. DUSEK: I make a motion that we accept Exhibit A. MS. TAYLOR: I second it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: All those in favor of submitting the package as Exhibit A, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.} CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you. MS. CRUZ: At this time I'd like to call Investigator John Marsh to the stand. MS. ARNOLD: I just would like to note for the board's information, the investigator that initiated this case is on leave with the department and was unable to make this hearing. So Mr. Marsh, who was reassigned the case, will give you only the testimony for that portion that he's aware of. (Speaker was duly sworn.} MR. MARSH: I made two or three visits to the location out Page 4 July 27, 2000 there. The one on June 3rd, I visited the property, and the overhang structure was still present. I talked to an employee inside, I gave my card and a copy of the ordinance violation to that employee, asked him to give it to his manager, owner of the property. Also on that, I asked him to have them call me. I received no calls from the owner or the manager of the property. I made subsequent visits. In fact, my last visit was yesterday. The building was closed. There was a sign on the door, for repairs -- closed for repairs, and the overhang structure was still there. And I still received no calls from the owner or manager. MS. DUSEK: I have a question. If they get the building permit or the permit for this overhang, will that -- do you know whether that overhang will be allowed with a permit or -- MR. MARSH: I've talked to planning, and planning says it would have to go in to them first, because it's a commercial building. And they would have to go through the process there to make sure it meets all their standards, because it being commercial. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Mr. Marsh, do you -- did you have occasion to check to see if anything had been submitted to try and obtain a permit? MR. MARSH: Yes, sir, I checked the computers this morning, last thing before I left, and there was no permit submitted. I talked yesterday to permitting and they had nothing either. Just to make sure that, you know, there was nothing out of the computer, but there's nothing. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you. MS. TAYLOR: It appears that they don't intend to do anything. This has gone on for a year and two months and -- MR. MARSH: It's gone on for quite a while. MS. TAYLOR: -- nothing has been done at all. MR. MARSH: Right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any further questions for Mr. Marsh? Thank you, sir. MR. MARSH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Comments from the board, finding of facts, or otherwise? MR. PONTE: I think it's pretty straightforward, Mr. Chairman, that we can go immediately to the findings of fact Page 5 July 27, 2000 here. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You have the floor, sir. MS. SAUNDERS: I agree. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Would you like to make a motion? MR. PONTE: Well, I'll make a motion in the finding of fact that Lenore Roque is the owner of record of the subject property, that the Code Enforcement Board has jurisdiction of the person, of the respondent; and that Ms. Roque was not present at the public hearing; and that all notices required by Collier County Ordinance No. 92-80 have been properly issued; and that the real property legally described as 120 North Third Street, Immokalee, Folio No. 0008168116003 is in violation of Sections 2.7.6 and 1.5.6., the Ordinance Number 91-t 02 of the Collier County Land Development Code in the following particulars: The placement of a structure, overhang or canopy, it's approximately eight by 20 feet, without obtaining a permit. The conclusion would be that the Pantry Shelf of Immokalee, Lenore Roque, is in violation of Sections 2.7.6 and 1.5.6 of Collier County Ordinance No. 9t-t 02 of the Collier County Land Development Code. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion that there in fact is a finding of fact that there is a violation. Do we have a second or a comment? MR. LEHMANN: So moved. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So we have a second from Mr. Lehmann. MR. KINCAID: I'll second. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any comments? All those in favor that there in fact is a violation, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Tell me what the next item is. MS. ARNOLD: We have to get a recommendation from the board regarding -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Recommendation from the board, please? MS. DUSEK: I recommend that we follow what the staff has suggested, that the violation be corrected, all necessary permits, or remove the violation within 30 days, which would be August Page 6 July 27, 2000 27th, or a fine of $150 imposed each day the violation continues past said date. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I would like to ask you to amend your recommendation that it be $150 per violation. There are in fact two violations. MS. DUSEK: I will amend it to that, 150 per violation. MR. PONTE: Will you also amend it to add that the respondent will be ordered to pay costs? MS. DUSEK: So amended. MR. LEHMANN: I'll second the amended motion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion that has been seconded that the respondent be ordered to correct or remove the violation within 30 days, which is August 27th, or a fine will be imposed of $150 per violation. And the respondent will be ordered to pay costs of prosecuting the case before this board. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Motion carries. Next case, 2000-021, Capri International, Inc. MS. CRUZ: This case is Board of County Commissioners versus Capri International, Inc., Case No. 2000-021. Let the record show that the owner representing Capri International, Inc., Homar Hassam, is present. We have again provided a copy of the packet to the respondent, to the board and to the clerk of court. We'd like to request that this packet be identified as Composite Exhibit A and admitted into evidence at this time, please. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Mr. Hassam? Did you receive this package, sir? MR. HASSAM: Yes, I did. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Do you have any objection to it being submitted to us? MR. HASSAM: Would you repeat the question? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Do you have any objection of that package being submitted to us? MR. HASSAM: No. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You may sit down, sir, we'll call you in a moment. You can sit down, sir. We'll call you. MS. DUSEK: I make a motion that we accept the package Page 7 July 27, 2000 as Exhibit A. MS. SAUNDERS: Second. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion and a second to submit the package as Exhibit A. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. (Unanimous votes of ayes.) MS. CRUZ: The alleged violation before this board is the construction of an addition to the main structure without first obtaining the proper Collier County building permits. It would be a violation of Section 2.7.6, Paragraphs I and 5 of Ordinance No. 91-102 of the Collier County Land Development Code. The alleged violation exists at 111 Fifth Street North, Immokalee, Florida, as more particularly described as Miller's Park, Lots 6, 7 and 8. The owner of record of this location is Capri International, Inc. The address of record is 505 West Main Street, Immokalee, Florida. The violation was first observed on September 27th, 1999. The notice of violation was given to the respondent on November 15, 1999, with a compliance date of December 10th, 1999. The final reinspection was conducted July 26th, year 2000, revealing violation remaining. The notices were sent via certified mail, posted at the subject property, and also at the Collier County Courthouse. I'd like to at this time call Investigator John Marsh. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MR. MARSH: John Marsh, code enforcement investigator, Collier County. I got involved with this case -- again, this was another investigator's case. I got involved on April 26th, 2000. The case started back in September of 1999. I've made numerous calls out to the property and to the owner's place of business, which is on the corner of the street. He does talk through an interpreter, which most times when I did see him and talk to him or attempted to talk to him, there was somebody present that did speak, I believe it's Spanish, and interpreted. I've taken pictures of the property. I've measured the property. It comes down to the point that I believe there's a problem with the variance. He needs a variance. He's short on getting his permit because of that and never seemed to apply for the variance. I've talked to permitting, and they say that's the Page 8 July 27, 2000 whole thing, that he has to, you know, get in and get a variance. My last visit to the property was yesterday, and the violation still exists. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Does he just need a variance, or will the variance permit him to get the proper permits that he needs? MR. MARSH: Well, that would be a start, to get the variance, considering that the building is already constructed. Then after that, I would imagine he'd get the permit. And then through the permitting, the different inspectors would take their course from there. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MS. SAUNDERS: Can you tell if there are any violations other -- inside the building in the way it's constructed? Did you observe any? MR. MARSH: No, I can't. I haven't actually walked onto the property itself because of it being fenced in and gated. I've done all my measurements and observations and pictures from the other yards adjacent to the building. MS. SAUNDERS: Okay. MR. LEHMANN: Investigator Marsh, again, the case basically boils down to the fact that we have a structure that was constructed without a permit, correct? MR. MARSH: Yes, sir. MS. GODFREY-LINT: Investigator, was a contractor-- did a contractor build this, or did he build it himself? MR. MARSH: I'm not sure who built it. I was under the assumption a while back that a contractor was going to attempt to get the permits for him after the structure was built. So I really don't know who built the structure. MS. GODFREY-LINT: Who's responsible if a contractor does build the building? Is it the owner or does the contractor have to pull a permit? MR. MARSH: Well, if the contractor builds it, I would think that it's the contractor that would get the permits. But he would need the authority of the property owner to do so, you know, who signed the contract with the property owner to build the structure. MR. LEHMANN: Could you explain the involvement of Jackie Williams? MR. MARSH: There again, it's my understanding that the Page 9 July 27, 2000 owner of the property had contacted Mr. Williams to get the permits. Now, I don't know if Mr. Williams is the one that built the structure or not. That was before my time. I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Any other questions for Mr. Marsh? Thank you, sir. Mr. Hassam, if he would come forward, please. You can go over here, sir. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: What is your name, sir? (Speakers were duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Does Mr. Hassam wish to tell us his side of the story through you? THE INTERPRETER: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. THE INTERPRETER: I was innocent. Okay, he said that he lives in that property, that in the back of the property, there was a structure that was in very poor condition, and he tore it down and rebuild it. That's what he said. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. And that's all he did? THE INTERPRETER: Okay, he said that he -- he put down the property, he build in something. Then an inspector came and told him that he was in violation, that he didn't know. So he got in contact with Jackie Williams to get the permits for him, and Jackie Williams told him he was too busy and didn't have the time to do it. He said he -- you know, he build it. Jackie Williams had nothing to do with building it. He says it's insignificant what he did, you know. He said he also talked to someone named Mireya Louviere, who used to be in the Chamber of Commerce. She used to be the director of Chamber of Commerce over there. And he paid her some money for her to do. I don't really know what, but he got some receipts in here to get permits or something. But apparently she hasn't done much of anything. I know she filed something, but I don't know what it is. She did pay an architect to do some drawings, that I know. He said he's turning all the plans to the architect and whatever Mireya did. And he's saying all the documentation. And he said he was just waiting for the outcome of it, but he just doesn't know what happened. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: He submitted all this to the county? THE INTERPRETER: He said he enter -- he turn it in, in Page 10 July 27, 2000 Immokalee to an office, I suppose the county, to some individual name Lamar. Anybody familiar with him? I don't know who he is. MS. BETANCOURT.' No, it's Alamar. THE INTERPRETER: Alamar. It's in the county building in Immokalee. Okay, and Alamar said that there was one document missing and he was going to get in contact with this Mireya that he hired to do all this work. He said that he was under the impression that he had attorney and everything he needed. He said he's ready to do whatever you would like. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MR. PONTE: Did the respondent ever try to attempt to call Ms. Louviere to find out what had happened? THE INTERPRETER: Yes. As a matter of fact, I made the call last night, you know, to her place and told her that since she was the one that was in charge doing all of this, she should be present here. But he hasn't heard anything from her. MS. SAUNDERS: Did you speak with her or did you talk -- THE INTERPRETER: No, I speak to her daugh -- to a lady. I don't know if it was her daughter or not. But I did leave a message for her to call him. And I did just call myself, so I know what I'm saying. MS. SAUNDERS: Okay. THE INTERPRETER: And no contact from her. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. But he has submitted all this paperwork -- THE INTERPRETER: Over to Alamar -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- to Alamar in Immokalee. THE INTERPRETER: In Immokalee, that's correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MR. PONTE: Do you know when that paperwork was submitted, approximately? THE INTERPRETER: He says it was February or March of this year. MR. LEHMANN: Did you receive a permit application number? THE INTERPRETER: He says no. MR. LEHMANN: So the application wasn't formally submitted? Page 11 July 27, 2000 THE INTERPRETER: No, no. There was no -- he didn't receive any application form, as far as he knows. He says that Alamar told him that there was some document missing, and then he would pay a fine or something, and then they'll give him a permit. MR. LEHMANN: Did Alamar return the documents? THE INTERPRETER: No, he's got them, or he turned them to the county. I don't know what he did with them. He said he's got his own copies here. But the ones he turned to Alamar, Alamar still has. MR. LEHMANN: And Alamar is still waiting on that document, the missing document? THE INTERPRETER: He says Alamar is going to talk to Mireya and Mireya was the one that was handling all that. MR. LEHMANN: Investigator Marsh, if I could ask another question. Do we have any record of any permit application for this particular project? MR. MARSH: I talked to Alamar myself and she said she has talked to the gentleman and there's a problem with the variance; that on the one side of the house, I believe it's six inches short of meeting the setback requirements. And that was part of what he submitted, I believe, was his drawing of his property. And what she related to me was that she would not give him a permit because he needed a variance because of the six inches. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Do you know this piece of paper that's missing, is it the variance that's missing? I mean -- MR. MARSH: She didn't state that. All she stated is that she has talked to the gentleman, she would not give a permit because of the setback. MR. LEHMANN: It sounds as if we have an informal permit application process where it was never formally accepted by the county because of missing documents. And those documents may include the variance or something else. The respondent apparently is trying to submit the permit. The county is telling the respondent that certain documents are missing, and that instead of accepting it and rejecting it because of this, we'll just hold it until you get the documents. And that's only a supposition. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I feel the same way. It's just I don't think they've told him what the paper is, because he's obviously Page 12 July 27, 2000 confused as to what he has to get yet. MS. DUSEK: Excuse me just for a moment, but can you relay to him what we're saying now? THE INTERPRETER: Yes. May I say something that I just overhear him say? He said that he -- as far as his building is concerned, he built the building exactly the way that the old one was, so the old one may have been over -- the six inches over, you know, but it's a very old building, so maybe that didn't exist at the time. I'm just saying what I overheard him say. MR. LEHMANN: Unfortunately, that's regardless of the fact. It doesn't help the situation if he just rebuilds something that was wrong, in essence. THE INTERPRETER: Okay. MR. MARSH: If I may, my last conversation with the property owner here, I talked with him through an interpreter, and I did mention that since it was the six inches short, or whatever, in order to get his permit, that he would have to get a variance first. I mentioned it many times, the word variance, through the interpreter. So it's just been an ongoing problem. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I get the feeling that he may not know what a variance is. THE INTERPRETER: No, he doesn't. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And I think that's part of the problem. We're telling him to do something, but he doesn't understand what it is we're telling him to do. At least that's the impression I'm getting. He's trying, but he doesn't know what to do, because we're not telling him in enough detail. We're just saying get a piece of paper, and he doesn't know what that paper is. I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying we seem to have, from what I'm hearing, a gap of interpretation. And what we need to do is get him the right interpretation of this is what you must do, this is the kind of piece of paper, show him the piece of paper. Somebody's going to have to instruct him, not just say go get one of these, because he doesn't know what "one of these" is. I think that's the problem here. MR. MARSH: Part of the problem I think was that he was unhappy with the answers he got in Immokalee. I told him then to go to Horseshoe Drive and talk to planning down on Horseshoe Drive and they could explain these things to him as far as what Page 13 July 27, 2000 he needed to get a variance to get his permits. So I think it has been explained to him. MR. KINCAID: Could we ask him if he went to Horseshoe Drive? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Did he come down to Naples and go to Horseshoe Drive to the -- THE INTERPRETER: No. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: He hasn't gone there. THE INTERPRETER: No. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Any questions for Mr. Marsh or Mr. -- any more questions for Mr. Hassam? MR. LEHMANN: I have a question for Ms. Arnold, if possible. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Marsh. MR. LEHMANN: Ms. Arnold, in staff's recommendation, they recommend obtaining an administrative variance within 15 days. Is that doable, of a variance of this type? MS. ARNOLD: Yes. The administrative variance is one that the planning director can approve, rather than going to the Board of County Commissioners and the Planning Commission process. MR. LEHMANN: Okay. And again, obtaining the building permits within 15 days? MS. ARNOLD: Yes, because he's -- the only thing -- my understanding, the only thing that's absent is this administrative variance. He's got all the other documentation that's necessary for the permit. MR. LEHMANN: Okay experience in the building department is the backlog is about two weeks or so. Is that with this particular permit also? Would it experience the same backlog? MS. ARNOLD: If it goes out to the Immokalee office and Alamar is the one that takes it in, the backlog out there is not the same as within the -- MR. LEHMANN: Got you. Thank you. MS. DUSEK: Michelle, what would you suggest? Should he come to Horseshoe Drive and get the variance, or should he do it through Alamar in Immokalee? MS. ARNOLD: The information should have been explained to him by Alamar. She is bilingual. She does speak Spanish. So I'm not really sure what information was relayed to her. I know that she's got a lot of experience in the building department. And it's something if there is something missing within the Page 14 July 27, 2000 application process, she's very clear as to what needs to be done. Now, if he wants to come into our office and then we'll walk him through it, we'd be happy to do that, but that hasn't been done to date. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: With all the paperwork being in Immokalee, if he comes to Horseshoe Drive, does he need to get that from Alamar to bring it or if -- MS. ARNOLD: No. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- he just comes, can you help him with this process? MS. ARNOLD: Yes. He can just come to our office and we'll make sure that he requests a variance the way he needs to request a variance from the Planning Department in order to get the permit. And he doesn't have to -- unless another copy of the document is needed, he doesn't have to -- he can bring his copies and we can have it copied for him. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MR. LEHMANN: Mr.-- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes, sir. MR. LEHMANN: Are you open to more discussion -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes, sir. MR. LEHMANN: -- or can I make another -- can I make a motion? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You can make a motion, sir. Do you have any more questions for Homar at this time? MR. KINCAID: Maybe he should explain it to him. I don't think he understood what Michelle said. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: What we're trying to do, sir, is find a method to help him. And that's why we're asking these questions, as to what we need to get done to get him the information to get rid of this problem. That's shortened, but that's what we're trying to do. THE INTERPRETER: Okay, thank you. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Are you ready for your motion, sir? I'm going to ask him to sit down. There's no need to have him standing there. You can sit down now, sir. Thank you very much. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Chairman, I would make a motion that in the case of the BCC versus Capri International, Incorporated, CEB Case No. 2000-021, that we have a finding of fact that the Page 15 July 27, 2000 respondent, Capri International, Incorporated, is the owner of the record subject property, and that the Code Enforcement Board has jurisdiction over the person or the respondent, and that the respondent was present at the public hearing. Third, that all notices required by Collier County Ordinance No. 92-80 have been properly issued, and that the real property legally described as noticed in the statement of violation, is in violation of Sections 2.7.6, Paragraph I and 5 of Ordinance No. 91-102, Collier County Land Development Code, in the following particulars: Construction of an addition to the main structure without first obtaining the proper Collier County building permits. MS. DUSEK: I second the motion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' We have a motion and a second that there indeed is a finding of fact of a violation. Any more discussion on it? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.) MR. LEHMANN: And Mr. Chairman, I would further extend a motion to -- that the CEB order the respondent to correct the violations by obtaining an administrative variance within 15 days. That would be August 10th, 2000. And obtain all necessary building permits within 15 days upon variance approval, or remove the violation within 30 days of the variance denial, or a fine of $50 be imposed each day the violations continue past said dates. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Could we amend that to include costs, sir? MR. LEHMANN: Yes, sir, I would so amend my motion. MR. PONTE: I'd like to, before we vote on that, suggest that we give the respondent a little bit more time. MS. DUSEK: I agree. MR. PONTE: And I think, too, that the efficiencies would be served if the routing of the information in the application was to continue with the Immokalee office. After all, that's why the county established it, to serve people in that area. It's a 35-mile drive. And I think it's reasonable that with all the paperwork being there, that that's where the variance application should be made. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Time-wise, I have no objection, if Mr. Page t6 July 27, 2000 Lehmann has none, to change the 15 days to -- Mr. Lehmann, did your -- did you just say 15 days for the variance and then the additional 15 days for the permits? MR. LEHMANN: Correct, 15 days for the variance, and then an additional 15 days for the -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Mr. Ponte, which days would you like to change? MR. PONTE: I'd like some guidance from Ms. Arnold as to how frequently the Immokalee office communicates with Horseshoe Drive, so how long it would take that to go back and forth. MS. ARNOLD: The administrative variance needs to be approved by the department director for the planning department, so that's at Horseshoe Drive. But we communicate on a daily basis. The person that's out there is in the Horseshoe office at least two days out of the week. MR. PONTE: Does Ms. Alamar have a form, a variance form, if such form exists, so that if the respondent goes to her and asks for the variance form, she can give him a piece of paper that he can then complete and return to her? MS. ARNOLD: Yeah, there should be a document -- a form that can be completed by the applicant. Or if there's not a form, it's simply a request via letter to the appropriate administrator to get that letter completed or executed. And we can provide him with that information right after this meeting. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Mr. Ponte, what I would probably suggest is come up with something other than the 15 days, and once we decide, we will request staff to lend assistance to Mr. Hassam to see that this gets done in whatever manner it is so it doesn't fall by the wayside again. I think we can do that. MR. PONTE: Very good. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Other than the 15 days, what would you like to see? MR. PONTE: Well, seeing that being the case, I think 15 days. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You'll live with the 15 days? MR. PONTE: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So the motion still remains at 15 days. To get the variance in 15 days. After that, to get the permits. If neither of those occur, then we have 100 -- or we have, I'm sorry, Page July 27, 2000 $50 fine to be imposed for the violation. MS. DUSEK: Does he understand? MR. KINCAID: Yes, I think he's trying to understand you. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I was going to explain it to him once we make our decision. We don't need his approval to make the decision, that's why I was waiting. Okay, So we have a motion, do I hear a second on the motion? MS. TAYLOR: I'll second that. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? MS. ARNOLD: I think the interpreter is requesting a clarification, if it's $50 per day. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes, it is $50 per day. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.} CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Do you understand what we've just done, sir?. THE INTERPRETER: I know, yeah. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That he has 15 days to get a variance. After that, he has 15 days to get the permits. If that doesn't occur, he's going to be fined $50 a day until it all happens. I would recommend to staff that they make an effort to assist Mr. Hassam, because I do think some of this has been what's come across as a communications problem. Rather than just say you need an "X", if somebody would show him what that "X" is, I think it would assist him. Next case, CEB 2000-22. MS. CRUZ: Board of County Commissioners versus Shad Davis, Inc. Let the record show that the respondents are present. The alleged violation before this board is the -- several housing code violations, consisting of major electric code violations, as defined in the Code Inspection Report, attached in the composite exhibit, provided to the respondent, to the board and to the clerk of court. Before I proceed, I would like to ask the respondent if there's any objection to admitting the packet into evidence. Page t8 July 27, 2000 MR. GARBER: My name is David Garber and I am an attorney for the respondent in this case. May I address the board for a minute about this? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Come on up, sir. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MR. GARBER.' Yes, and I'll try to limit it to not testimony, but maybe a summary what I think the testimony might be. Members of the board, my client received notification of this hearing on the 18th of July. The packet was sent out on the t0th of July. I saw him yesterday for the first time. And we have not had an opportunity to prepare a response or even consider what the appropriate response would be. If you would permit me, I could give you a general overview of some of the things that we believe we could show the board that I think would mitigate these proceedings. But we would like to have an opportunity perhaps to appear at the next board hearing, if we cannot work it out. I believe that we possibly can work everything out, if we have the time. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Ms. Rawson? MS. RAWSON: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Tell me about proper notice, please. He says he didn't receive this package till the 18th. MS. ARNOLD: Can I add that we have both green cards stamped, one with July 15th, which is nine days, and the other one, July 14th, which is t0 days. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Okay. MS. RAWSON: On the executive summary it states that the certified mail was received of the notice of hearing on July 7th. And, you know, so that's 20 days ago. So he knew that there was a hearing. He may not have received his materials on that date, but according to what staff says, he had his materials in time. I do believe, however, he probably didn't see Mr. Garber till yesterday. And so I guess I need to know whether, Mr. Garber, you're asking for a continuance? MR. GARBER: Yes, I am asking for a continuance. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. We'll handle them one at a time. The first item of business for the board to consider is the respondent is asking us to continue this case. Any comments from the board? Page 19 July 27, 2000 It seems obvious, if I'm correct, Ms. Rawson, that he has received proper notification. MS. RAWSON: I would agree. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Would the board -- MS. SAUNDERS: I have a difficulty with a continuance, not because I -- I think the attorney certainly deserves time to review the case. My quarrel is with the -- Mr. Davis, or Shad Davis, Inc. who did receive it and delayed it. And it's not the attorney's fault by any means, but I think that's a delaying tactic, and I don't like it especially. My recommendation perhaps would be that we go ahead and hear this case. If the -- there is something that comes up, you know, we can give a continuance and continue hearing it next month, if that's necessary. MR. PONTE: Additionally, I'd like to just point out that there -- according to the county inspector, there are life safety issues at stake here. And I think the fact that the attorney didn't receive the information until yesterday is one factor, but the more important factor is that the life safety issues exist. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, the question before -- MS. SAUNDERS: And this has gone on since December 1st. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: The question before us is, would the board consider granting a continuance, and the obvious answer is either yes or no. MS. DUSEK: I make a motion that we deny the continuance. MS. TAYLOR: I second that. MR. GARBER: May I address some of the concerns that were just raised? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Not yet, sir. MR. GARBER: Okay. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion and a second that we deny the request for a continuance. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So you understand, sir, there's no continuance. The case is going to be heard today, period. MR. GARBER: Okay. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay? MR. GARBER: Yes. Page 20 July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Very good. MS. ARNOLD: There was a request to enter in to -- Exhibit A for evidence. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And we have a request -- our initial started by saying do you have any objections to this package being submitted as evidence to this board. MR. GARBER: Exhibit A is the packet that we have received labeled at the top table of contents and then -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes, sir. MR. GARBER: -- it has some 20 pages? Yeah, we have no objection. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you, sir. MS. DUSEK: I make a motion -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You can sit down, sir, until -- because we're going to go through the county's portion first. Thank you. MS. DUSEK: I make the motion that we accept the packet as Exhibit A. MR. LEHMANN: Second. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any question? We have a motion and a second to accept the package as submitted. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.} CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you. MS. ARNOLD: Excuse me? I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You're on. MS. CRUZ: Again, the alleged violation in this case before this board is several housing code violations consisting of major electric code violations as defined in the code inspection report attached in the Composite Exhibit A. These violations depict minor electric code violations, consisting of missing electrical cover, receptacle covers, exposed wires throughout the entire interior of the structure, heating system, stove not provided, missing and damaged window screens throughout the property, broken front door window, evidence of water spots in living room ceiling area, and discarded items around the pool area. The violation of the property located where the violation exists is 2820 Davis Boulevard, Naples, Florida, and is more particularly described as Rock Creek Pines, Unit 2, Lots 6 Page 21 July 27, 2000 through 14. The owner of record is Shad Davis, Inc. The address of record is 280 North Collier Boulevard, Marco Island, Florida. The violation was first observed on December 16th, 1999, and notice of violation was provided to the respondent, to the property owner, on January 7th, year 2000. And the compliance was to correct the violations immediately. A reinspection was conducted on July 26th and revealing the violation -- some of the violations remaining. I'd like to call at this time Investigator Cathy VanPoucke. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MS. VANPOUCKE: For the record, my name is Cathy VanPoucke, code enforcement investigator. This case was initiated as a result of a citizen complaint on December 14th, 1999. On December 16th, an initial investigation was conducted by former code enforcement investigator, Leo Lemalus. And his name is spelled L-E-M-A-L-U-S. Prior to his leaving the department, Mr. Lemalus and I visited the site. It was -- I don't remember the exact date, but it was either on or around December 27th, 1999. On January 5th of 2000, Code Enforcement Investigator Dennis Mazzone and I conducted a minimum housing inspection, after obtaining a signed entry consent form. The inspection disclosed serious housing infractions to include electrical that appeared to be life-threatening. As a result of that, on January 6th, at my request, Collier County Electrical Inspector Kurt Luedtke -- and his name is spelled L-U-E-D-K-E (sic) -- visited the site with myself and Mr. Mazzone. His inspection did confirm that there is in fact life-threatening situation with one of the electrical panels, along with several other electrical violations. On January 7th, Mr. Mazzone and I met with the property's registered agent, David Szempruch. And his name is S-Z-E-M-P-R-U-C-H. We met at the site and explained the violations, and we obtained a signed notice of violation for immediate compliance and -- by compliance by employing a licensed contractor. On February 29th, I contacted the agent again by phone and requested a list of the work that had been done, along with the name of the contractor that had performed the work. And I asked him to also provide a schedule for me of when the Page 22 July 27, 2000 remaining work would be performed. I did not receive that information from him. On March 24th, a site visit with the property owner, Sal Riina, to explain the remaining violations and that the electrical work had been performed without permits, and to obtain information as to when the remaining violations would be removed. And I went to the property yesterday. I was not able to get into the location because the tenants have been evicted. The place is currently boarded up. I did -- was able to observe the swimming pool area, which has been cleaned up. Still as of today, I checked the computer, no permits have been pulled for any of the electrical work that has been done. MR. LEHMANN: So at this point in time we don't know that the electrical work that was done was even done per code. MS. VANPOUCKE: Yes, sir. MR. LEHMANN: And still may represent a life-threatening situation. MS. VANPOUCKE: That's correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Do we if in fact know that any of the electrical work was done? MS. VANPOUCKE: Yes, sir, there has been some work done. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL'- Okay. In reading this report from Mr. Luedtke -- is that the way you say his name? MS. VANPOUCKE: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I found 10 items in his report. So we are pretty well concerned here, besides all the other things. I mean, we have 10 electrical violations, I get a little gun shy. MS. VANPOUCKE: And also just to add, even though the tenants in the front part of the building were evicted, there are still people living in other parts of the building. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Is this a multi-residence house, or what is it, exactly? MS. VANPOUCKE: There's tenants in the garage, in the garage area. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Using the garage as a living space? MS. VANPOUCKE: Yes, sir. MR. LEHMANN: I assume that's not a permitted use either. MS. VANPOUCKE: That's correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: All right. Okay. Page 23 July 27, 2000 MR. PONTE: Inspector, have you seen the interior of the garage? MS. VANPOUCKE: Yes, sir. MR. PONTE: And are there any bathroom facilities there, or washing facilities of any kind? MS. VANPOUCKE: There is a toilet and a sink. MR. PONTE: Operational? MS. VANPOUCKE: I would question if the toilet is operational. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Just one big room with -- or has it been partitioned off or something like that? MS. VANPOUCKE: There -- it's not a large room. Actually, it's a smaller area with -- they have a tent and probably five cots. There's no -- there's nothing other than that in there, other than the toilet and sink and a refrigerator. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MR. PONTE: Were some of the electrical violations in the garage? I mean, I'm not clear on that. MS. VANPOUCKE: The garage is actually -- it appears that it has been separated. And the place that I'm referring to, we were unable to do an inspection in there, because the tenants at that time would not let us in there. In the part of the original garage, there were many electrical violations. MS. TAYI,OR: Was the Health Department called in on this? MS. VANPOUCKE: Yes, ma'am. I believe that you should have a copy of his report. MS. TAYLOR: This is one of the worst things I've ever seen. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any other questions for our inspector? Thank you, ma'am. MS. ARNOLD: We do have a report from Mike Morrow, with the Health Department. And if the board wants testimony from Mike Morrow, he's available. And if you are inclined to review that report, we need to enter it as Composite Exhibit B. We received the report after all of the mailing was done. So we'd have to show it to the attorney. CHAIRMAN FLEGAI.: I guess from my standpoint, Ms. Rawson, I need to ask you a question. Since we have the -- the violations were housing code violations of various natures. I don't know the proper word. Is it to our -- is it advantageous to us at this point, since it's this far down the road, to get Page 24 July 27, 2000 something from the Health Department? I mean, we're really interested in code enforcement, Health Department being another department, what they find. MS. RAWSON: Well, that's at the pleasure of the board. It's -- I mean, you're not going to make a finding about a health -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Right. MS. RAWSON: -- violation. Although, as some of you have already pointed out, if you think there's a serious health and safety issue, it might affect your final decision in terms of how fast you ask that the compliance be brought to date and so forth. So for that reason, it might be relevant. Now, since that wasn't part of the packet, nor has it been provided to the other side, we would have to do that and see if they have any objection to the introduction of that evidence, if you decide that you want to read the report. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. I would just probably explain to the board that my feeling is based on the electrical alone, I think you have a -- on this board, a large enough hammer. I don't know that the health violations would help you, or the health determinations. I think the electrical alone are serious enough that time can be shortened. I mean, there's great cause for alarm that someone can get killed or the structure could catch fire or whatever, based on what I've read in this report. So it's at your pleasure whether you want to see this, understanding that we must submit it to them first. I don't specifically know that that's really reasonable. MR. PONTE: I think you're right. I think in order to expedite the proceedings, that we should follow the course of action that you suggested. MS. SAUNDERS: I agree. MR. I,EHMANN: I concur. CHAIRMAN FI. EGAL: I'm sorry, sir, your name? MR. GARBER: David Garber. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: All right, Mr. Garber, it's your client's turn. If you're representing him and you would like to speak for him, come forward. MR. GARBER: If I could briefly address the board. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And you've already been sworn in, sir, MR. GARBER: I'd like to address now some of the concerns Page 25 July 27, 2000 that have been raised. Number one, with respect to the issue of timing, I have here a copy of the certified letter that was sent to my client. I'd like to point out to the board that this is a corporation that has a registered agent who is an attorney, and that attorney may have received notification on a certain day, but he is not a member of the corporation and he has no responsibility for it. My client, who is Salvatore Riina, he is responsible for the corporation, and he did not receive this until July 18th. Can I come forward and give a copy of this to the -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I don't need to see that. MR. LEHMANN: May I ask a question, Ms. Rawson? Am I not correct in assuming that a registered agent -- service on a registered agent is the same as the service on the individual corporation? MS. RAWSON: You are correct. That's why we have registered agents for corporations, so that we can serve process. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Right. MR. LEHMANN: Thank you. MR. GARBER: If we would have had time to have the proper party here, I have here a stack of bills from a Rick Schmidt, who's a certified electrician. It totals $3,500 and it's work on the property. And I think that all of the violations, electrical violations, the major violations that have been reported, if Mr. Schmidt were here, he would say that they have been repaired, that they have been repaired according to code, and that they are satisfactory. Now, I could tell the board, I was at the property myself yesterday and I did see some hanging wires. And I think if you had witnesses here, they would say as of right at this instant there's some hanging wires. But having reviewed the report, those are reported as minor violations. And those hanging wires, my client would tell you, came about because the tenants, who he had a great difficulty getting out of the property, ripped out the fixtures before he was able to get them out. And he was only able to get them out within the last week. And in the last week he has made substantial strides to try and improve this property. I have here a package of pictures that show the pool area. When you review the package that was submitted to you by the county, you will see just horrible pictures of the pool area. It's Page 26 July 27, 2000 really disgusting. And you can see that my client has done virtually everything he can to clean that up in the few days that he's had since he was able to throw the tenants out. Can I submit the pictures to the board? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I have no objection if you'd like to submit them as evidence. MR. GARBER: Okay. They are pictures of-- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: What's the pleasure of the board? MS. SAUNDERS: Sure. Take a look. MR. GARBER: They are pictures of the pool area and also some of the other surrounding areas, that you can get an essence of the flavor of the property. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's fine, sir. MR. GARBER: Thank you. MS. RAWSON: Mr. Garber, did you say you took those pictures yesterday? MR. GARBER: My client did them in my presence yesterday. I also have a copy of the electrical bills that have been paid. This was done primarily in February and perhaps March of this year. If I could submit that to the board to be considered. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Garber, has a permit been pulled for the electrical work? MR. GARBER: I don't have any knowledge of that. I have to believe -- MR. LEHMANN: Has an electrical inspection been passed from a county inspector?. MR. GARBER: I don't have any knowledge of that. If I would have had an opportunity to talk with Mr. Schmidt, I would certainly have reviewed those things with him, because I think that's part of his job. But I don't know the answer to that. MS. DUSEK: I think that's what we're looking for, not bills. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: If -- understanding how the system works, we have these electrical problems, and if someone goes in to solve them, based on the major status of them, I would have thought he would have had to have a permit to do this electrical work. MR. GARBER: The substance of our case then would be that we have corrected all the major violations out there. If we had an opportunity, we would have Mr. Schmidt here to tell you what he's done and how he's done it. If he has failed to pull a permit, Page 27 July 27, 2000 of course that's something he should have done, but I don't think that necessarily would negate the fact of the problem of the electrical safety violations has been corrected, which I think is one of the main issues. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: In looking at your pictures, sir, you know, four pictures of the pool, which are fine, the other pictures are of a lot of buildings outside. Doesn't really address the interior problems that we're -- which got you to this point. Nice pictures of the outside, and somebody cutting grass and all that, but no pictures of the inside showing that violations have actually been taken care of, other than you cleaned up the pool. I'll pass them for the rest to see, but that's all I'm noticing in those pictures. There were some plumbing problems. Has that been resolved? MR. GARBER: I don't know the answer to that. I would have to ask my client. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: There was a bunch of broken windows. I saw pictures of those. MR. GARBER: I can tell you when I went over there yesterday, I saw some broken windows and some screen kicked out. My client told me that he had repaired those since February of this year, and that these tenants that were in there -- apparently it was a woman that rented this property and she sublet it to 10 or 12 other people and they came in, kicked out the windows -- or kicked out the screens, broke windows. And I think if you were to visit the premises today, you might agree with me that they left the premises in a horrible condition. And my client is in a quandary, because although what I might think of to be trash, old couches, clothing, that sort of thing laying around, she might claim to be valuable personal property that he has to care for until she's able to secure it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understand. The electrical violations, in addition to the ones listed on the report, which I'm sure you have a copy of, because it was in the package, anyway, it talks about a stove that doesn't work, no heating system and like that. I don't know, maybe the tenants did all this. I mean, fixtures actually missing from the bathroom, sinks that empty into buckets rather than connected to the sewer. I mean, I can't believe tenants took out drain pipes and Page 28 July 27, 2000 such. Sorry. Just not what a tenant normally does, even if they want to be malicious. And then put a five-gallon bucket under there to collect everything, so -- MR. GARBER: I don't know the answer to that. Perhaps my client could answer the question as to whether that's been repaired. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And this started back in December. And understanding that you may have had a tenant in there, being a landlord myself, it's your property, you can go in and make repairs. I mean, yes, you can leave today and they take all this stuff apart, but like I say, it's kind of inconceivable that they would take pipes out and take fixtures off of walls. That doesn't even seem reasonable. So I'm a little concerned that we're saying some things have been done, but yet these things have been there since December, and now all of a sudden, you know, we've had somebody spend some money on electrical and clean up the pool. MS. TAYLOR: Who turned the garage into a dwelling area? Who did that? MR. GARBER: I am told by my client that there is one person still living in the property. Is he living in the garage? MR. RIINA: No, he's living in the -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: He's not sworn in, sir, so we need to ask you or else bring him up to swear him in. (Speaker was duly sworn.} MS. RAWSON: Sir, would you start with your name and how to spell it? And then also, I'd like to know what relationship you have with the corporation. MR. RIINA: My name is Salvatore B. Riina. The last name is spelled R-I-I-N-A. I live at 280 South Collier Boulevard, in Marco Island. My relationship to the corporation, I believe I'm secretary or president. It's family owned, and it's totally owned by the family. When I bought that project at the beginning, I had, subject to approval -- I got some approval of the property. And at this time because of financing, I'm not able to bring the building down. The intention is to knock everything down, eventually, and I haven't done so. Page 29 July 27, 2000 But in pertaining to the allegation and to the specific unit that we're talking about, I think I'm the only person who's very close to the situation, to explain to you what really has transpired. The violation -- that building was occupied by, originally when I bought it, by Daniel Drapery. And Daniel moved out of there because he didn't pay the rent. It was like he neglected the rent for two months, so naturally I had to move him out of there. And he left me, for example, garbage that I'd never seen in my life. Which the record shows, which I have here, proof of paying four containers, 30-yard container removal from that premises when Daniel moved out. Subsequently, there was another gentleman, which was White. He seemed to come over, he looked at the unit, "It's charming, I could do a lot with this unit." By the way, the house is in great structural condition when it was built. The pool has a pool that some of the bigger houses, 3, $400,000 doesn't even have. Has a fireplace. So this gentleman, he made believe that he was going to take care of a few odds and ends, make it charming. Which it could, it still could be done. He came in. He stayed there maybe a month. He gave me the first month rent. And then there was like I had to get -- I had to dispossess him out of there through the attorney, a lot of cost, a lot of involvement to get him out. So he left a lot of garbage behind. Again, another container of garbage, which is record. It cost me money. I cleaned it up. There was another woman right after that that she wanted the unit for her own use, and she was crying and complaining that she had a son and this would give her an opportunity to get on her feet and live there. So I agreed to it. She gave me one month's rent. And then because it had nothing to do with the rent, this one was subleasing it somehow through other people that -- it's hard to describe these people. There would be 15, 20 people hanging around, making noises and pollution. And they were literally discrete (sic); they're outside, in the pool. And because I got other tenants and other people living there, it was a nuisance. So I said, "Please," I said, "you don't have to" -- at that time she owed me two month's rent. I said, "Please, don't bother to give me the rent, just move out." So my main objection was to Page 30 July 27, 2000 get her out of there because of the nuisance they were creating to the neighbors, to my property. And because I had bad experience -- not that I had bad experience, but because I did dispossess the other person before, it cost me money through a lawyer. You know, everything's money. So she promised me that she was going to move out. So my wife said, "Please, get the attorney, get her out of there. That's the only way you're going to get her out." And every day, every day. Meantime, you know, days and months go by and she couldn't get out. She didn't want to get out. Meantime, through all the encounter she said -- they're right, okay. The screens were not there. I had the men put the screens. But they would break it. Every time -- she never complained about any back up toilets, she never complained about any sink, because she didn't paid any rent. So what I had to do was, I didn't try to make her comfortable. I went to the attorney to throw her out. That took time. You know, it takes procedure and time. That alone took another two months. But meantime, I never -- my attorney suggested stay away from her, we've thrown her out. This one said, don't go near her. So that was my intention. But since these people like collecting garbage, garbage, garbage, and beer cans -- I describe them as animals, but that's an injustice to the animal system. One day somehow I got like fed up and I went in there for the first time and I see all these people, about 10, 15 people, all drunk, beer cans all over. And I happened to look in the pool area. When I saw that pool area, I almost died. I says, no way that the human system could create a situation like this. I was never used to anything like that. So right away, I had my phone, boom, boom, boom, I says -- I call the county, says, "Send me the county police." I said, "1 want them arrested. I want these people arrested." They were all drunk and they're all sprawled all over the place. And it's part of the record. The two officers came by. I said, "Look, this situation, take a look at that pool." They had everything smashed up inside. Literally destroyed. And he's looking and he's looking. There's about 10, 15 people laying in bed, just like that. You know what his answer Page 31 July 27, 2000 was? "1 can't do nothing." I said, '~Nhat do you mean you can't do nothing? These people are destroying my property, okay, they're violating everything under the code, too many people in the building, and you can't do nothing?" That was his answer. He says, "Are you renting to somebody?" "Yeah," I says, "1 rent it to that woman right there and I can't do anything about it." You know what he said? He said she could have as many people as she wants. So that was his answer. And I said, "You mean to tell me that I call for these people creating all this situation and you can't do nothing about it?" And that was the gist of it. They walked away and that was the gist. After that, naturally we pursued it with the lawyer to get her out. So we finally got her out. We boarded the house so nobody could get in. Because these people are like rats, okay, they sneak in at all different times of the hour. It's an unusual situation. My wife and I, we don't understand it. Okay. And the thing is, that the enforcement can't do nothing. Meantime, the county's coming down on me, okay, for all these violations. I can't even go inside the building and take care of these violations. And basically, in other words, she never complained about the toiletry, she never complained about the backing up sink, she never complained about the shower heads. Which she took out, by the way. And then I realize why she took it out. Because she was wasting too much hot water. And the people were taking a shower under the hose by the pool. Okay, that's the reason why she ripped out the shower heads, because she didn't want to waste -- because she's paying for the electrical for the hot water. So basically I'm -- it's a catch-22. Here I am, you know, ready to do, but I can't do. As a matter of fact, when I wanted -- the county -- the state, the health department -- are they still here? They left. Okay, anyway, they gave me a notice of violation for the pool. And I could understand that. There was no problem with that, because like I said, feces, they were just literally -- there was out of the pool one container, 20 yards of garbage and tires and everything under the sun. As a matter of fact, I had to Page 32 July 27, 2000 disinfect the pool with 20 gallons of Clorox before we went in to work. So I said to the man from the state, the health department, I says, "I've got to ask my attorney if I have the right to go in there, because he recommend me not to go near it." So when my attorney said yes, you could that but don't get into a confrontation, I was elated to the fact. Right away my wife ordered a container which came not instantly but the next day. We went to work. It took us almost six days to work steady to get the pool to the shape you see in those pictures. So it's not just a violation, it's not what, you know, she thinks it's all about. First of all, going back to the electrical, when the -- when I saw the spaghetti that was in there, because I was never in there before really, to pay that close attention when I bought it. I couldn't believe that place existed all those years. So I went to a reliable person, electrician, I said, "Look, this is the violation, and this is the code." I didn't even ask them for a price. I said bring it up to the best you know how. So I spent $3,500 of my own money to get it up to code to get it the best that the man could do. And I went in there and I know what's out there and I did a lot of buildings in Westchester County, to me, all of the code, 100 percent. If somebody could challenge that electrical, I want to know, because I paid the man, and I want to know what I paid for $3,500. So basically safety is number one for anybody, for me or anybody else in this room. So I responded right away. My other attorney, we walked through it and we addressed all the violation. For example, I think they were a little picky, but that's okay. They were talking about ground wire, like GFI's in the kitchen. I live in a $600,000 building, okay, right here at the Summit House. I don't even have those in my kitchen. But we put them in, though, we put them in. So they requested certain things beyond what is norm, all right, and we put them in. I don't have those in a 600,000 -- and a lot of you don't even have those in your kitchen, those ground proofs. So I think I did everything that is humanly possible to protect the life and the safety of the people. So at this point, I don't know, I feel I'm being persecuted, but yet, it seems like the other way around, so that's -- MS. TAYLOR: Excuse me, may I -- Page 33 July 27, 2000 MR. MS. about-- MR. MR. RIINA: -- the gist of it. MS. TAYLOR: -- may I ask you a question, please? MR. RIINA: Yes, yes. MS. TAYLOR: How did this lady get all this plumbing ripped out of the walls? MR. RIINA: Well, she-- MS. TAYLOR: Excuse me. She would have to be a very, very strong lady or have really good plumbing tools. MR. RIINA: No. MS. TAYLOR: Because I've tried to do some plumbing myself and I can hardly turn these things. MR. RIINA: Well, okay. MS. TAYLOR: For a woman to do this, that's outstanding. RIINA: Let me -- all right, let me -- TAYLOR: Another thing, the first question that I asked RIINA: Well, can I answer that question? MS. TAYLOR: Excuse me. The question that I asked about 20 minutes ago, who put this garage into a dwelling area? No one has answered that yet. The woman? MR. RIINA: Go ahead. Just go ahead. MS. TAYLOR: Answer me. MR. RIINA.' Well, let's go one question at a time. MS. TAYLOR: Okay. MR. RIINA: The plumbing that you're talking about, that she has a picture, I haven't attested to, because I really haven't been in there looking at it. This is the last item of the plumbing, okay? I didn't even go in to see what they're talking about. But normally the plumbing, for example, it's all plastic, PVC pipe. Any child can break that, okay, if they want to. Listen to me. But she was not a woman. She had 20, 30 people around every time. Okay, these were animals. If you see the place inside, I said~ how could it be possible? Forget about the woman. She's not like a helpless woman. She's a woman who has power and control over people, okay? So how do they bring these, all this garbage in? She had to be a strong woman. But she did it. So to rip the fixtures off the shower, anybody could do that, okay? So basically she never complained. This is a fictitious way of her to say, "Well, look, I'm not going to pay the rent. Look, the Page 34 July 27, 2000 plumbing is broken, the toilet." I can -- they go in the -- and she admitted to somebody else that they were shitting in the pool, excuse the expression, okay, and pissing in the pool. And you know what she said? Now she say, "Oh, my toilet's not working." Do you know anything about toiletry? All right, to give you an example, I've been in the business many years in building construction. Even in your own house, you could get a toilet and have a comb stuck in it, okay, or some little debris. Do you know they have to take the whole toilet apart to get it out in order for work it? So with all these people in the house, who the hell knows what they threw down there. So that's obvious. Okay? The toilet could get clogged up even in your own home. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Let me get -- MR. RIINA: So that's not an excuse -- that's not an excuse for them to go to the bathroom, because she never notified us. MS. TAYLOR: Go to the garage now. MR. RII NA: Yes. MS. TAYLOR: Go to the garage. MR. RIINA: Yeah, the garage. MS. TAYLOR: Who turned that into a dwelling place? MR. RIINA: The what? MS. TAYLOR: The garage. MR. RIINA: Yes. MS. TAYLOR: Who turned that into a dwelling place? Who did that? Did you do that? MR. RIINA: The garage is a golden place? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Who made it -- MS. GODFREY-LINT: Who made it so people could live there? MR. RIINA: I can't hear, ma'am, I'm sorry. MS. SAUNDERS: Who allowed people to live in the garage? MR. RIINA: There is nobody living in the garage. Who said there were people living in the garage? MS. SAUNDERS: We've had testimony that said there were people living in the garage. MR. RIINA: Well, that's not true. That's a false statement. MS. TAYLOR: Were you in the garage yourself, sir? Did you see it? MR. RIINA: I never saw anybody living in the garage. The Page 35 July 27, 2000 only thing I had in the garage was a detail place. These kids want to go to work. As a matter of fact, they went to the county to get all the proper permits. They required gravel. They required disability sign for the parking. These people were not living in the garage, they were doing detail work, okay, in the garage. MS. SAUNDERS: Let me just clarify one thing. MR. RIINA: Yes. MS. SAUNDERS: You are testifying that no people lived in the garage or -- MR. RIINA: That's true. MS. SAUNDERS: -- lived in the garage? MR. RIINA: That's true. MS. SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. RIINA: Okay? That's true. I never saw anybody living -- people used to work there, but they never lived there. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: At this point, sir, you have control of the property? MR. RII NA: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's all I want to know. MR. RIINA: I do have control at this point. I still don't let them in. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's all. You just said the magic answer. That's fine. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Chairman, if I could just cross-examine, so to speak, the -- our investigator. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any more questions for Mr. Riina, please? MS. DUSEK: Yes, I do. I have. Mr. Riina, when did the tenant move out? When did you finally have her evicted? MR. RIINA: Through the courts, the sheriff. MS. DUSEK: How long ago? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: When? MR. RIINA: They -- I believe it was only recently, right while I was working on the pool. Had to be like a week ago. MS. DUSEK: Okay. MR. RIINA: Okay? In other words, they were out, put out by the sheriff. He had to come in and knock the door down. MS. DUSEK: And did you and your electrician realize that Page 36 July 27, 2000 you have to get permits? Even though the electrical work may be correct, it has to be permitted. MR. RIINA: That part, I don't know, okay? Not that I -- I shouldn't be ignorant of the law, but this was all repaired. It was not new construction, okay? That part I might be ignorant. And my wife says ignorance of the law doesn't make it right. Okay? That's what I got -- but I'll tell you what, it's a class number one job. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, thank you, sir. Mr. Lehmann. MR. LEHMANN: Investigator, in the -- you had testified on July 26th you had conducted another inspection of the property and that inspection revealed that violations remained. Would you define which violations remained? MS. VANPOUCKE.' On which date, sir? MR. LEHMANN: On the 26th. MS. VANPOUCKE: Like I said, I was not able to get inside of the building because it is boarded up. The front door is still -- the window in the front door is still broke. It does not appear that any of the -- the roof was leaking into the living room. It doesn't appear that any roofing was done there, and there has been no permits pulled for that. MR. LEHMANN: And on the 11th? On July 11th when you did gain access? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: While we're waiting for a response, I think the board needs to keep in mind, the purpose of the case is for us to either find that there were in fact violations or there were not. The fact that some may have been corrected at this point is immaterial. Even though they were corrected, under the statute, we can still find that there were violations. Which is, I think, our purpose. And then if we so desire, to give them some period of time to correct. And they will have to satisfy the county that the proper procedures were gone through to correct the violations. And if that means permits and so forth, that's for the county to determine and come back to us and tell us that everything has been corrected. So let's keep in mind that what we're to do is to find yes, in fact there were or there were not violations of the nature presented to us. MS. DUSEK: Mr. Chairman, I have a question there. If we do Page 37 July 27, 2000 find that there are violations and then we want to impose fines, do we do it per violation or do we do it violations? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You can do it -- under the statute in the ordinance, you can fine them per violation, or you can fine them as a, quote, violation. That's the pleasure of the board at that point. The statute gives you the right to do it, fine for a violation. And if there's one or 10, you can fine them for 10 violations. That's the pleasure of the board. Okay, we're waiting for an answer from Mr. Lehmann's question. MR. LEHMANN: And Mr. Chairman, that was primarily the purpose of the question. I wish to get on the record the fact that we do have violations that exist and to define what those violations are. MS. VANPOUCKE: Yes, sir. When I obtained access to the building on July 11th, the swimming pool -- I was informed they were using a swimming pool for a bathroom because the toilet didn't work. The shower -- because the shower knob was broken, they could not use the shower, so they had run a hose to the outside pool area and attached a tin can with holes in it to run a shower. Also, there were still electrical violations as far as wires, exposed wires, wires hanging from the ceiling. I am not an electrical inspector, so I don't know if in fact a life-threatening violation still existed. I could tell, however, that there had been some electrical work done, but again, with no permits. Still broken windows and broken door. The roof was -- I mean, you could stand in the living room and watch the water drip off the ceiling. People, again, in the garage. MR. PONTE: Inspector, what -- MS. SAUNDERS: People in the garage? MR. RIINA: Yes, ma'am, sleeping in the garage. MR. PONTE: Do you recall whether or not the refrigerator in the garage was connected and operating? Do you know that? MS. VANPOUCKE: It was, sir. There were items in the refrigerator. MR. LEHMANN: Can you testify as to witnessing tenants sleeping in the garage? MS. VANPOUCKE: At one time, I remember on one of my visits, there were individuals sleeping on the cots. Again, this is Page 38 July 27, 2000 not -- it's like a separation of the garage. It's not an existing garage at this time. It appears to be part of the garage that has been turned into a dwelling -- or attempted to be turned -- MR. LEHMANN: So it is a non-habitable space that was turned into a habitable space? MS. VANPOUCKE: Yes, sir. MR. PONTE: It is no way connected, physically connected to the house, it's separate? MS. VANPOUCKE: It appears that it was at one time, because on one of the walls there's a piece of plywood nailed up that looks like it may have closed off that area. MR. PONTE: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: The board needs to keep in mind that what we should be addressing on the violations is the violations as written up back in December and signed for in January, okay? Again, the fact that some may have been addressed on the way getting to today is not a good choice of words, but a little immaterial. We need to find in fact that there were violations existing and that maybe on the course of events, some were repaired. But that's okay. I think you should stick with the fact that there were in fact violations, and don't try to reduce them as we get -- trying to get to a decision. MS. DUSEK: So-- MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Chairman? MS. DUSEK: -- what you're saying, as long as there were violations on the date that is specified, in December, that's what we're actually addressing right now? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Correct. As I understand the statutes, that's permissible. The fact that they existed and now they're corrected and the people are just now coming before us, you can still find that there were in fact violations existing. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Chairman, to expedite the process, I've heard enough testimony. I would make a motion for a finding of fact in this particular case. Case No. 20000-22, Board of County Commissioners versus Shad Davis, Incorporated, respondent -- MR. PONTE: Mr. Lehmann, before you continue, I just want to clarify one question in my mind. My concern is the occupancy of the garage. And I just have to ask the question whether or not the garage is at the same address as the -- stated here in the Page 39 July 27, 2000 complaint. MS. VANPOUCKE: It is, sir. MR. PONTE: Thank you. MR. LEHMANN: And the purpose of that? MR. PONTE: I wanted to make sure that the garage was being addressed here. Because occupancy of the garage is playing a part in my thinking in coming to a decision in this case. MR. LEHMANN: I agree. MS. RAWSON: But if I could just say that the occupancy of the garage is not cited. We only cited Section 5 of Ordinance 89-06 which has to do with housing code violations. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So if they -- if in fact the housing code violations exist in a garage structure, i.e. the electrical and so forth, that's what you address. The fact that people are living there is different. You've got to remember, the violations are the electrical in the garage, maybe the stove in the garage and the other things that are addressed. The fact that people are living in the garage isn't one of the items, okay? In other words, take the people out and worry about the structure. Forget the people. What we're addressing is the structure. That may sound strange, but that's really what the violation is. The violation is the structure and problems with the structure, not the fact that people live in the structure. MS. RAWSON'. And if you look at Section 5, it's huge. Sanitary facilities, hot and cold water, water heating facilities, heating facilities, cooking equipment, garage disposal facilities, light and ventilation, bathroom, electric lights in outlets, light in public halls and stairways, electric systems. So you've plenty to choose from. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, there's about -- as I went through and counted, there's about seven violations, as I went through the ordinance that's cited. So we've got plenty to -- on our plate right now. Yes, sir, Mr. Lehmann, continue. I'm sorry. MR. LEHMANN: Finding of fact, as a continuation, that Shad Davis, Incorporated, respondent, is the owner of record of the subject property; that the Code Enforcement Board has jurisdiction over the person of the respondent; and that Shad Davis, Incorporated, respondent, was present at the public hearing. Page 40 July 27, 2000 All notices required by Collier County Ordinance No. 92-80 have been properly issued; that the real property legally described as 2820 Davis Boulevard, Naples, Florida, more particularly described as Folio No. 0000070820080007, Rock Creek Pines, Unit 2, Lots 6 through 14, is in violation of Section 5 of Ordinance No. 98-0 -- excuse me, Ordinance No. 98-06, the Collier County Minimum Housing Code in the following particulars: Several housing code violations consisting of major electrical code violations as defined in the code inspection report attached to the statement of violation; minor electrical code violations consisting of missing electrical cover receptacle covers, exposed wires throughout the entire interior of the structure, heating system stove not provided, missing and damaged window screens throughout, broken front door window, evidence of water spots in the living room, ceiling area, and discarded items around the pool area. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Do we have a motion that there -- MR. KINCAID: I'd like to make -- MR. PONTE: I'd like to make a comment. The recommendation from staff included not only the correction of violations, but also that the premises be vacated. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Let's first find that there is a violation, sir, if we may. Okay? MR. PONTE: I want to make -- I guess what I want Mr. Lehmann to do is to amend the listing of violations that he's just cited to include occupancy, because -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I don't know if that's an item in the -- MR. PONTE: -- the recommendation from staff -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: But the recommendation doesn't have anything to do with finding of fact that there first is a violation. We must do that. Then in our order we can do something else. MR. PONTE: I guess I'm back to the garage and the fact that it's occupied. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: As I read the section that's cited, that section, Ms. Rawson, doesn't give me anything to do with occupancy. MS. RAWSON: The only thing that section has to do with occupancy is required space. If it was a dwelling, it has to have at least 150 square feet. We haven't had any evidence about that. Page 41 July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Correct. MR. LEHMANN: So my motion was based primarily, I wish to find -- or I wish to have voted upon a finding of fact first. Let's establish a finding of fact. And secondly, it was based upon the violation itself. The board cannot hear other issues that are not brought before it in front of the violation, or that is not brought by a violation. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Correct. MR. LEHMANN: So again, the motion is to repeat in essence the violation itself. MS. DUSEK: I second. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion and a second that there in fact is a violation of the cited section of Ordinance 89-06, which is Section 5. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Chairman, we do have a colleague who wishes to speak. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I'm sorry, any comment? Yes, sir. MR. KINCAID: Yeah, I have a comment. Just for correction for the minutes, it's Ordinance No. 89, instead of 98. And I would also like to propose a second on his motion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion and a second. Any further question or comment? This is a finding of fact that there is in fact a violation. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.} CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Now, order of the board. MS. SAUNDERS: I would like to ask if we have the authority to condemn a property or to -- as part of our motion to have a property condemned. Is that something we can do? I mean, I don't think we want to -- I'm not inclined to give any time to correct this. I'm inclined to close the property, evict anybody, if they're still there, board it up and then talk about correcting it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I would -- MS. SAUNDERS: I don't know. I -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- venture to say that -- MS. SAUNDERS: -- always give things to Jean that she's never heard before. MS. RAWSON: Well, the condemnation proceedings obviously require due process, and they're filed and you go to Page 42 July 27, 2000 trial and you have a jury. That's -- MS. SAUNDERS: How about in the case of -- MS. RAWSON: -- that's one of the times you get 12 people on a jury, by the way, in a condemnation action. For health and safety reasons, you can certainly say it should be boarded up until it comes into compliance. I believe the testimony from the gentleman was that it is boarded up. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, that's what I heard. MS. SAUNDERS: But that's his testimony. That isn't verified by the county that it's completely boarded up and effectively boarded up. And I'm a little bit leery that since he hasn't been successful in keeping his tenants out in the past, perhaps his boarding up methods aren't as good either. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Ms. Rawson, could we -- if the board issued an order to come into compliance or be fined by a certain date, could that order also state that until you are in compliance, this property could not be habited? MS. RAWSON: Yes, I think you could, sure, because of the health and safety concerns. Certainly. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So we can't say we want to tear it down or we want to board it up, but you can't habitate (sic} it in any manner until you come into compliance with the code. MS. RAWSON: You certainly have that right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have that right? Does that help you? MS. SAUNDERS: Yes, that's good. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MS. DUSEK: I have a question then. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes, ma'am. MS. DUSEK: If we do that in our recommendation and these ex-tenants come back without the knowledge of the owner, who can't police it every day, is he going to be in violation? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: It's his property. As I understand the law, it's your property. If you go on vacation and somebody breaks into your house and trashes it and tears all of the electric out, while that may be a cause to give you some leniency to correct the problem, you would still be in violation of an ordinance by having all your electrical ripped out, unfortunately. MS. TAYLOR: He needs to post it also. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, I mean -- and surely he's not Page 43 July 27, 2000 going to get the same tenants back. I think he'll probably be more prudent on who he gets in there. But does that help you with your question? MS. DUSEK: In a way. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's probably not the answer you wanted, but-- MS. DUSEK: Well, I'm trying to think of a homeowner and protecting his property when he's not -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: There's really no way we can do that. Yeah, he's responsible. It's his property. He has to make whatever -- MS. DUSEK: Right, I understand that. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- you know, to protect his property. And if that means he hires a manager to check it every day or once a week or twice, whatever, you know, that's what he'll have to do. That's his problem. MR. RIINA: Mr. Chairman, I don't believe that's right, because I don't have any rights. The owner don't have any rights to the property at all. Even if I want to control it, I can't control it. So I disagree with that statement. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, now we're down to order of the board. MS. SAUNDERS: I would be inclined to give him a very short period of time to vacate the premises, maybe 24 hours. That would assume it's already vacated. And board it up. So that if there's any conflict there, if we said in our order 24 hours, that finishes it. And then I would give again a very short time to either correct the -- basically to correct the violations, because I think the whole thing is a safety hazard at this point. So that's my opinion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Based on the violations, and I think I said there were seven, there was -- there's plumbing, electrical, roofing, windows, looks like he may have already solved the pool problem. I'm not sure. They haven't put water back in it yet, so -- probably not realistic to get those kind of people out to correct the problem within a short period of time, knowing how long it takes to get someone to come to your house to do something. MR. RIINA: What would I have to do, get him out -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Excuse me, sir, your part's done. Thank you, sir. Page 44 July 27, 2000 You're going to have to give him some time to -- MS. SAUNDERS: Okay. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- hire these people and -- MS. SAUNDERS: How about -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- get them to show up. MS. SAUNDERS: I agree. How about if we said something to the effect of he had 24 hours to correct, vacate -- make sure the premises were vacated and secured, and the property -- the second part of that would be that the property could not be occupied without an occupancy permit and without -- until all of the violations are corrected. And the third part would be to give him a reasonable limit of time in which to correct the violations or remove the property. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Now, the time. Do you want to give him, what, 15 days? Again, he's going to have to deal with at least five, probably, different trades, plus whatever permits might have to be gotten. So we need some time limit affixed to that. MR. PONTE: But I think what Ms. Saunders is attempting to do here is to split -- MS. SAUNDERS: Yes. MR. PONTE: -- the process. Say 24 hours to vacate the premises, and "X" number of days -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. She just -- her third item didn't have a date on it or a time limit. So we need a time limit. MS. SAUNDERS: I guess I would say something -- it sounds to me the violations could be cured in about 30 days. Or the permits obtained to cure all existing violations within 30 days. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Chairman, could I ask Michelle Arnold a question? Michelle, staff had recommended a 14-day period to correct the violation, or to vacate the premises? MS. SAUNDERS: Vacate. MR. LEHMANN: Could you explain why staff chose 14 days? MS. ARNOLD: I think that we thought that at least the magnitude of the cleanup effort would have been resolvable within that 14-day time period. And with consideration that notice had been given to the property owner prior to this board hearing, some action should have been taken prior to the board Page 45 July 27, 2000 hearing. But, you know, the board has the ability to extend that time period with consideration for hiring people like you've indicated. MR. LEHMANN: No, my -- the emphasis in my question really was in -- did the -- did staff tie the vacation of the property and the corrective work together, or did staff have an indication of trying to separate the two, as the board obviously is intending to do? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think if you look at staff's recommendation, to interrupt, Mr. Lehmann, is they wanted the property vacated, and then they wanted us to authorize them to abate the violations. Which to me means they want the property vacated, and then if we give them the okay, then they will do all the corrections and whatever it cost charged back. So dealing with trades is kind of out of the question. It's just we authorize the county to solve all the problems. They go do it. Whatever it costs, they send him a bill. If he doesn't pay it, they put a lien on the property and so forth. That's why you don't see any other time period. They wanted us to authorize them to do it. MS. SAUNDERS: Is that what you're looking to do? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's the way I read your recommendation. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah, if -- we gave them a 14-day time period, and the 14 days was based on prior notice and what, you know, we thought was fair for them to clean up, especially the garbage type things. And if the board gives us the -- if they did not abate it within that time period, then we would go in and do what we could to secure those buildings. We wouldn't have the ability to correct the plumbing problems because we would have to have authorization from the property owner to correct those plumbing problems. So -- MS. DUSEK: Michelle, if you were to go in -- let's say within 14 days it wasn't corrected by the homeowner. Can you go in and then eliminate the health and safety concern? That's my main concern in this decision on time. I want this corrected immediately because of health and safety. So if we give the homeowner 14 days, if the homeowner does not correct and you go in and correct, whatever you do, will that eliminate any worry about health and safety? Page 46 July 27, 2000 MS. ARNOLD: The biggest health and safety problem was the electrical violation, because of the hanging wire, the exposed wires and the box. Because according to our electrical inspector, they were a potential fire hazard as well. So according to the testimony that was given by the respondents today, those things have been corrected. We, I don't believe, have verified any of that. So we would have to go in and see whether or not the corrections have been made by an electrical contractor. If not, what we would have to do -- and I would have to consult with the building department to see what we would have -- we could do on the government level to make that safe, which could include removing the electrical panels and those types of things. MR. PONTE: Within your authority, you believe if the violation were to continue, the electrical violation, to shut off the electricity as well? MS. ARNOLD: Right. MR. LEHMANN: Michelle, it's my understanding that not only does electrical work have to be done, no permit was pulled for the electrical work. MS. ARNOLD: Yes. MR. LEHMANN: So what is the process of going back now and pulling that permit so again we'd come back into compliance with the code? MS. ARNOLD: Well, they would have to pull permits for the electrical work, and they would have to get after -- there would be an after-the-fact penalty applied to that when they obtained permits. MR. LEHMANN: What about time period to apply for that permit and receive the permit? Because the inspection work will not be -- the inspection work, unless it is for life safety issue, will not be done unless a permit has already been pulled; is that correct? MS. ARNOLD: Well, if it's determined a health safety issue, we can get inspection done prior -- you know, immediately, rather than having to wait the normal course of action for review and submittal and those types of things. So it's not a timing issue. And if we deem it's a health safety issue, the inspection of that could can be done right away. MR. LEHMANN: Okay. Page 47 July 27, 2000 MS. TAYLOR: I like Rhona's motion, because this gives them time. And if they don't have all this done in 30 days, I would like to see a fine of $250 per violation. That's what I would like to see, per day, because he deserves it. MS. SAUNDERS: Well, what we might say is that the first part of the order is that respondent vacate and secure the premise within 24 hours, or a fine of $250 a day will be imposed, each day that the property is not vacated and secured. I think that also covers if somebody comes in and breaks in and starts living there again, that's the property owner's problem for not having secured the property, as far as I'm concerned. The second portion of that, I guess, would be if the property is vacant and secure. And secure would mean that there's -- to me, that there's no fire hazard, wouldn't it? No, maybe it means taking out the electrical permits -- the electric, or cutting off the electric until occupancy permits have been given or the inspections have been done. That's what I would mean by secure. MS. ARNOLD: Usually when secured is referred to, it's secured so that there's not access -- MS. SAUNDERS: Right. MS. ARNOLD: -- to the building. MS. SAUNDERS: So we can't deal with the fact that there's still electric there that we don't know if it's safe or not. MS. ARNOLD: You can deal with that, but when you're referring to secured, it's mainly for access purposes. MR. LEHMANN: Might I recommend to my colleague that if you choose to do that, make a second point of saying all life safety issues have to be resolved by a certain time. MS. SAUNDERS: Okay, that's fine. MR. LEHMANN: That may cover that issue for you. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So Item I of your motion is that we just want to get it vacated -- MS. SAUNDERS: Vacated and -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- secured. MS. SAUNDERS: -- secured within 24 hours. That's right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MS. SAUNDERS: Item 2 would be that all life safety issues be resolved, I would say then, within seven days, or that the county be directed -- or that the county be asked to abate the Page 48 July 27, 2000 violations within seven days. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. At the end of seven days, you want the county to abate them. You don't want to fine them, you just automat -- MS. SAUNDERS: No, I want the fine to start incurring from the -- 24 hours from now. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. But you have the fine -- you put the fine on the vacate and secure. MS. SAUNDERS: The second fine would go on -- if the life-threatening violations are not resolved within seven days, the county is authorized to abate those violations, and a fine of $250 per day incurs for that portion of it. MS. ARNOLD: Can I ask for the respondent's clarification to -- would it be simpler to say that if the violations are not corrected? Because there's violations for electrical, there's violations for plumbing, and then there was roofing problems. And all those types of things needs to be corrected -- MS. SAUNDERS: My only concern there is if I were the property owner, I might be tempted to say I'm going to tear down the building at this point, I don't want to finish it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think when you said life safety, and the only life safety I'm aware of is the electrical. I mean, that's the only thing written in the report that's life safety. The plumbing and the roof was not quoted as being a life safety issue. MR. LEHMANN: As consideration for the board, when we refer to life safety issues, simply by vacating the property have I then complied with your order? MS. SAUNDERS: No, because- MR. LEHMANN: Or I have eliminated the life safety issues simply because I don't allow people into that area? MS. SAUNDERS: No. In my mind you haven't, because if a fire starts, that's a life safety issue to other people. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: It creates other problems. MR. LEHMANN: Correct. And I think it just needs to be stated clearly. Because I agree 100 percent with your line of thinking. I think we need to state it clearly that simply by stopping access or vacating the property we have not abated the life safety issues. MS. SAUNDERS: That's correct. Page 49 July 27, 2000 MR. PONTE: That's correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think to be fair to the respondent, when we talk about your Item 2 and you say life safety issues within seven days, you should say the life safety electrical issues. Because that's really the only thing presented to us in a life safety nature. You know, let's be fair to him. It pertains to the electrical. MR. LEHMANN: Let me consider that also. At issue within the violation is the pool itself. We now have a pool that has no water in it. Anyone could go in there and fall. Is that not a life safety issue covered under the normal violation? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Well, she wanted the county to have the right to go in and abate the issue, so -- and again, what was presented under testimony and in paperwork to us, quote/unquote, the only life safety item was the electrical. If we want to address the pool, I think when you get Item 3, which is going to be everything else, we can order that the pool be -- I mean, even if he fills it, as we all know, pools are still a public nuisance, or -- I can't remember the proper word, where -- MS. RAWSON: Attractive nuisance. MR. PONTE: Attractive nuisance. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Attractive nuisance. Kids can climb over your fence and drown and you're still responsible. So the fact that you're there or not there is immaterial, you're still responsible. I'm just -- I feel that when we say life safety, it may be too broad brushed, and we need to understand what was presented. And electrical was touted as the quote/unquote, the life safety issue in the paperwork presented to us. I don't like broadening that when that wasn't given to us that way. MR. LEHMANN: Well, on the other side of the coin, I wouldn't want to restrict ourselves either. And we talked about a leaking roof. Is that a life safety issue from a communicable disease avenue, or some other avenue? What I don't want to do -- now, I understand 100 percent what you're saying, and I agree to a degree, but what I don't want to do is to restrict the order to the point where the intent of the order would circumvent it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think if-- I'm trying to lean ahead and I remember her Item 3 before. I think we could probably solve Page 50 July 27, 2000 your problem when we get to the next item, I believe. At least based on what she told me before, I think that's where she's going. MS. SAUNDERS: You mean you want me to restate this? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, I kind of remember, but that's okay. Let's finish Item 2. My only thing with your life safety issue on Item 2 is we should state that the life safety electrical issues, because that's the way it was presented to the board. We need to be fair to the respondent. If nobody has any objection to saying the life safety electrical issues, I think your Item 2 is fine, if the rest of the board agrees. MS. DUSEK: And that's within seven days? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes, ma'am. MS. DUSEK: That's how you stated it? MS. SAUNDERS: Yes, that's how I stated it. MS. DUSEK: Within seven days. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, the electrical. MS. SAUNDERS: Or the county can go in and abate those issues. And irregardless of the first vacate and secure fine, a fine of $250 a day occurs based on -- starting on the eighth day, if the life-threatening issues have not been resolved. MR. LEHMANN: May I amend that to include the cost of the abatement be added to that particular fine? MS. SAUNDERS: Absolutely. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes. MS. SAUNDERS: All costs, all the way through, I think. MR. LEHMANN: So in essence what we have is a directive that says within seven days we want all of the electrical life safety issues abated. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Correct. MR. LEHMANN: If at the end of seven days that is not done, first off, a fine of $250 a day kicks in. And secondly, the county is immediately authorized to commence abatement themselves. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Right, and -- MR. LEHMANN: Is that a correct understanding? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' And he pays for the county to abate it. MR. LEHMANN: Correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. That's the way I understood it. Okay. Page 51 July 27, 2000 MS. SAUNDERS: And at any point if vagrants or anybody else breaks in and are living there, that is a separate violation of the first part, and that is also a fine of $250 a day. MR. PONTE: I think that's going too far. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We can't -- MS. DUSEK.' Call the sheriff, that's all. MS. GODFREY-LINT: Breaking and entering. MS. SAUNDERS: Vacate-- THE COURT REPORTER: Excuse me, I hear five people speaking at one time. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' You have to -- don't think ahead. When you think ahead, you get in trouble. You vacate and secure the property today. That's all he can be responsible for, because that's what was presented to us. So we're going to order him to vacate and secure today. If tomorrow he hasn't done that, the fine kicks in. If a week from now somebody breaks in and starts living there, he needs to call the sheriff. That's really a new violation. It doesn't fall back that gee, you didn't vacate the property. He in fact did vacate the property when we told him. So don't jump ahead and try to get him in trouble. We really can't do that. MS. SAUNDERS: All right. MS. DUSEK: And then you have a third part? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes, now we have to -- we've only covered the electrical. Now you have all the other violations to cover, which will be your Item 3. MS. SAUNDERS: Okay. Then the Item 3 would be that all code enforcement violations be abated and all proper permitting be obtained for occupancy within -- well, now I'm stuck, because I was going to say within 30 days, but I think the property owner has the right to not ever have that property occupied again, if that's what he chooses. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think what you need to do is just say that all code violations be abated within some time period, 15 days, 30 days. And that be from today. That can run concurrently with the electrical. It's not after. He can do all this together. MS. SAUNDERS: My concern there, though, is the property rights, to some extent. If I decide I'm going to tear down that property, he doesn't have to fix the plumbing violation. Page 52 July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, we're not -- We don't have that right to tear it down. MS. SAUNDERS: No, but I don't think we have the right to order him to fix the plumbing violations if he has no intent to have the property occupied again. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, all we want him to do -- you must remember that when you tell somebody to abate a violation, how they do it is their concern. He can fix it or he can tear the building down, but he's abated the violation. How he does it is immaterial. MS. SAUNDERS: Okay. Then I'll live with that he has to abate the violations within 30 days. And further, the property cannot be occupied at any time until all violations are corrected. MR. LEHMANN: I would argue that that last sentence may be a little bit overboard. I don't think this board has the right to tell a landowner or a tenant whether or not they can occupy a building, if life safety issues do not exist. Am I correct, Ms. Rawson? MS. RAWSON: I think so. Because we abate violations all the time when people are living in the structures. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Right. MR. LEHMANN: It is our position to achieve code compliance. It's not our position to tell them how or what they can do with the property in the meantime. MS. DUSEK: Just eliminate the last sentence. MS. SAUNDERS: Okay, I'll eliminate the last sentence. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So you're going to give him 30 days to abate everything else or-- MS. SAUNDERS: Remove the property. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' No. Or is he going to get fined? MS. SAUNDERS: Oh, absolutely. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MS. SAUNDERS: I'd go with the $250 per day fine after 30 days. MR. LEHMANN: I would argue that once we have achieved life safety issues, and those are off the table now, I would say a $250 a day fine for the remaining violations, which are relatively minor, possibly relatively, may be a little excessive. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, we're dealing with plumbing, roof leaks, broken windows, the pool, which I think he's probably Page 53 July 27, 2000 already solved, which is -- you know, so that problem won't happen. So if you want -- envision your fine in the essence of what is left, i.e., the plumbing, the roof, the broken windows and screens and that type of thing, if it's not 250 for those type of items, what do you feel comfortable with. Mr. Lehmann? MS. DUSEK: Before he answers that, I go back to a previous question. Can we lump all of those violations as one? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You can, if you'd like, or you can make them individual. Right now we've handled the electrical, which is one of, when I counted them up, seven violations. So there's like six remaining. And in the electrical itself had, I think I counted, 11. So the electrical we handled as one. Now you have about six remaining. MS. DUSEK: Well, that to me was the most significant. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Correct. MS. DUSEK: And the others, I have a tendency to want to put them as one. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's fine. The board has a right to do that. MR. LEHMANN: We have addressed the electrical life safety issue. And I assuming that you were referring to it as addressed by-- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: By the report. MR. LEHMANN: -- by the report, correct. So that is one aspect of the electrical systems. There are other violations of the code and other electrical systems, and they're quite numerous. And we're lumping all of those together under this third item. MR. PONTE: I think Mr. Lehmann's right. I think that the life-threatening should be regarded separately and the fine separate and distinct from the fine that will be imposed for the other minor -- relatively minor infractions. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: It is. That's Item 2. So we're away from life safety. Now we're down to everything else. MS. SAUNDERS: So the question we have is, for fixing all of the other violations, what do we think is fair? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: What do we think is a fair fine if he doesn't come into compliance. And how he does that is his choice. Fix or tear down. That's his purview, not ours. Page 54 July 27, 2000 MS. TAYLOR: Just looking at Page 23 with this window, someone could become impaled on this piece of glass sticking out. If that's not an endangermerit, I've never seen one. Just that one alone, I would say $250 for all the rest. Just this alone would confirm it. MR. LEHMANN: Ms. Arnold, might I ask, staff's recommendation again was to impose a fine of $250 for each day the violations continue past said date. And your thinking behind that? You obviously combined them together? MS. ARNOLD: Yeah, we didn't get as detailed as the board's getting. And if one is corrected and others continue, then the fine would continue until all of them are corrected. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Let me throw out something for the board to consider. I think the respondent has voiced that he's -- I think he's trying. He's got some electrical work done. He's obviously, based on pictures, done something with the pool. I don't get the feeling that he's just going to walk away and let the problem stay there. I think he's going to try to do something to solve all these problems. I personally, as an incentive for him to do that, would think for the balance of all the violations to be abated in 30 days, the fine of $250, I think, is reasonable. Because you have a lot of violations. That gives him the incentive to do that, because it's not going to take long. I mean, he's got three items staring him in the face at 250 bucks a day. I mean, you know, he's now looking at a possible $750 a day if he doesn't get his act together real quick. MS. GODFREY-LINT: He can always come back to us. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: He can come back at some point if he does Item I and Item 2 and say I'm working on the 30 days, I need a little more time, can you do that? And, you know, we've had people do that, and that's fine. But I think the incentive needs to be with him to get this done and to solve the plumbing and the balance of the electrical and the roof leaks and the broken windows and the pool. I mean, it's just phone calls to people to get them out there and go to work. I think 30 days is a lot of time and I think it all can be done. And we'll probably never fine him anything. So I wanted you to consider that. I think it is a reasonable number for everything that has to be done. Page 55 July 27, 2000 MS. DUSEK: I have a tendency to agree with you, except about the roof. That's the only thing that I think would make it -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, it's a leak. It's not replacing the whole roof. So to repair a leak is not a big item. You can get somebody out there, you know, and assuming it's -- I don't know, maybe one square or something, not knowing how big it is, you know, if it's five foot square, that's not a lot of shingles to tear off and replace. That's a short one-day project. MS. SAUNDERS: Or it's reasonable to come back and say it needs a new roof and here's the estimate and here's when they said they can do it. And then I think we're -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, he can always come in and ask for more time. But I think 30 days is reasonable to get all these trades out there and have this work done. And he's probably got some of it done that we don't know about, which is to his advantage, so -- MS. SAUNDERS: Okay, Mr. Chairman, if you'll summarize my motion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I knew you were going to do that. Okay, the motion is, if I wrote them down correctly, Item 1 of our order, that the respondent vacate and secure the property within 24 hours. If that does not occur, there will be a fine of $250 a day until he accomplishes that. Item 2 of the order will be to abate the life safety electrical issue within seven days. If that does not occur, we authorize the county to go in and abate such violation. And the respondent will pay for such abatement to the county, and he will also be fined $250 a day. Item 3, all remaining code violations will be abated within a 30-day period, or a fine of $250 a day for each day past the 30 days. MS. DUSEK: Question. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes, ma'am. MS. DUSEK: Going back to the second part. If the county abates the problem, they send the bill to the homeowner? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes, ma'am. MS. DUSEK: Why would we be charging him $250 a day after that? I have a question -- I mean, I don't think we should be doing that. I think once it's abated and he pays for it and pays for the cost, then that part of the fine is -- I mean, there shouldn't Page 56 July 27, 2000 be a fine there. MR. LEHMANN: My understanding of the order the way it's written is that the fine would terminate at the same time the violation was abated. So if the county took three days to actually abate the violation, then the fine would only be in effect for those three days. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think the intent of the item put that way was -- and I'm going to try to paraphrase the statement, so she can correct me. It's again an incentive for him to get this problem solved in seven days. If he doesn't, then the county's going to have to come in, and not only is he going to have to pay the county, but he's going to have to pay a fine for not getting it done within a seven-day period. MS. DUSEK: So the fine is going to be from the time the county takes over until they complete the abatement. MR. LEHMANN: No, the fine will start at the end of the deadline. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: The seven days. MS. DUSEK: Seven days. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And it will stop once the county solves the problem. So if the county takes a day, $250. If it takes 10 days, that's $2,500, you know. So the incentive on him is to get this problem solved right now, because I don't want to pay the county and a fine. MS. DUSEK: I understand. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think that was the intent. Okay, Item 3 is -- I already said Item 3. MS. DUSEK: You did. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I'm getting lost. Okay, that's the motion. MS. SAUNDERS: One more addendum to that, that all costs are involved in this fee. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Yes, all costs for prosecuting the case before the board be the responsibility of the respondent. So we have a motion which has four items to it. MS. TAYLOR: I second it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you. I didn't want to say that again. We have a motion and a second to -- the order of the board -- I'm trying to think how to paraphrase all of this -- to put the four items in the order of the board for the respondent to Page 57 July 27, 2000 comply. Do we have any further question? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Sir, do you understand what we're doing? MR. GARBER.' I think with your summary I do. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Thank you, sir. Yes, let's take five minutes, please. (Brief recess.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, we'll re-resume. Re-resume. Let's do Case No. 2000-024. MS. ARNOLD: I guess I'll start. This is Board of County Commissioners versus Goodman Trust, John and Rita. Code Enforcement Board Case 2000-024. I believe the petitioners are here, and we request that we enter into evidence Composite Exhibit A, which is a document that was mailed to you all, if you have no objections. MR. GOODMAN: I have no objection except for possibly I'm not real clear where those pictures were taken from. I don't think they were taken from our property, because I don't recognize them. So I'd like to clarify where they were taken from. MS. ARNOLD: The photos -- the investigator's here, and we can have her explain to you where those photographs were taken from. MR. GOODMAN: Very good. MS. ARNOLD: If she could just do that informally? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, that's fine. MS. ARNOLD: And then we'll continue, because I understand he said he had no objections. MS. DUSEK: I make a motion that we accept the packet as Exhibit A. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Do I hear a second? MR. PONTE: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: A motion and a second to accept the package as submitted. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you. Page 58 July 27, 2000 MS. CRUZ: Let the record show that the individuals present are representatives of the owner, Linda and Larry Love. The notices were sent certified mail. Both representatives and owner have received the packet, the Composite Exhibit A. The alleged violation before this board today is the illegal accumulation of prohibited exotics consisting of -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Wait, you've lost me. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah, we skipped. MS. RAWSON: Goodman. MS. ARNOLD: We're on 24. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Sorry. I didn't recognize any names. I was getting confused here. My fault. I stand corrected. Proceed, please. MS. CRUZ: Okay. Again, the alleged violation before this board is the illegal accumulation of prohibited exotics consisting of Brazilian pepper and earleaf acacia on improved residentially zoned property in the rear yard and the drainage easement. The section of the alleged ordinance violating the -- being violated is Section 11, Paragraph 5 of Ordinance No. 99-51, which is the Collier County Weeds and Litter Ordinance, and Section 3.9.6.6.6 of Ordinance No. 91-102, the Collier County Land Development Code. The property is located at 9199 The Lane, Naples, Florida, and is more particularly described as Edgewild, Lot 58. Owner of record is John and Rita Goodman, Trust. The address of record is 9199 The Lane, Naples, Florida, 34109. And also, an additional notice was sent to the address where the owners are residing, which is 757 Calle De Respondor, Santa Fe, New Mexico. The date that the first violation was observed was September 27, 1999. A notice of violation was provided to the owner on November 22nd, 1999, requesting compliance by December 13, 1999. I believe a final reinspection was conducted yesterday, July 26th, revealing the violation remaining. At this time, I'd like to call Investigator Susan Mason, please. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MS. MASON: For the record, my name is Susan Mason. I'm an environmental specialist for Code Enforcement Department. Page 59 July 27, 2000 This case was generated by a citizen complaint and was opened in September of '99. From the complaint's rear yard, I did observe prohibited exotics including earleaf acacia and Brazilian Pepper in their drainage easement and rear yard of 99 -- or 9199 The Lane. Upon checking with stormwater to make sure the county didn't have any responsibility for maintenance of the drainage easement, I spoke with Steve Preston and Bruce McNoll of Stormwater, Collier County Stormwater Department, and the county does have no responsibility for maintenance. According to the plat book, both the property owner and homeowners' association are responsible for the maintenance. However, there is no active homeowners' association, and the property owner does have ultimate responsibility. The house was CO'd in 1995, so there is a requirement for exotics to be removed and maintained in perpetuity. And there was a -- as part of the inspection, there was approval that all the exotics had been removed at the time in 1995. I've had frequent contact with the Loves, since they are residents of the property. And they told me that there were relatives of the property owners. They had concerns about removing the plants, because they were acting as a buffer between their property and the property to the rear. And I explained to them the exotics need to be removed, but offered some suggestions on planting to offer a buffer between the properties. In November, the Loves did request an extension, due to financial requirements, and I -- since I had not had any contact with the actual property owners, I requested and did ultimately receive an address in New Mexico for the property owners, and noticed them as well. I wanted to make sure that everyone knew the status of the property. In December I was informed by Larry Love -- I did also get a -- receive a letter in the beginning of December from Ms. Rita Goodman that they -- that Larry Love was acting on their behalf. And when I talked with Mr. Love in December, work was scheduled to begin in January of 2000. In February, I was -- there was no work that was completed, but in February of 2000, I was able to gain access to the property and there was some work done. Some of the Brazilian Peppers were cut and the debris Page 60 July 27, 2000 remained. None of the acacias and most of the Brazilian pepper, however, did remain on-site. He said that -- I said I would be back in a month to recheck the property and check on the progress, and as long as steady progress was made, it wouldn't be a problem. In March of 2000, when I phoned to check on the problem, Mr. Love stated that there had been no more removal and requested a hearing before the Code Enforcement Board. I did talk on the phone with Ms. Goodman in New Mexico and informed her of the request, and wanted to make sure she understood that the violation still existed. She did not seem to be aware that the violation existed and said she was going to talk to Mr. Love about the status. I did tell her that I needed to hear from them within one week for the schedule of the removal, or we would schedule the hearing before the Code Enforcement Board. There was -- no word has been received from either the property owner or the Loves since that time, and I had observed -- yesterday I was in the rear yard of the complainant's property and indeed, no more work appears to have been done, and all of the exotics remain. And I did also observe from in front of the property yesterday, from the 9199 The Lane, that actually the Brazilian Pepper is spreading and there's some now growing in the front yard as well. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Ms. Mason, you have spoken to Ms. Goodman -- MS. MASON: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- on a couple of occasions, and she understands there is an existing violation? MS. MASON: The last time I talked with her was in March, and I informed her the violation had existed, and that minimal progress had been made. And she said she would talk with Mr. Love. And I just told her if I didn't hear from her within a week with a plan that we would indeed go before the board as he had requested. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: back in November-- MS. MASON: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: But you also informed her in writing -- of '99 that there was a violation? Page 61 July 27, 2000 MS. MASON: And she did actually return a copy of the notice of violation with her signature on it and also a letter stating that the Loves were acting on her behalf. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MS. DUSEK: Question. The way to eliminate these exotics, is the only effective way to cut them down, or is there some sort of a poisonous insecticide type of thing you can put on them? MS. MASON: There are a couple of options. One of them is a physical removal. There's also you can cut them down, but you still do need to poison the stump that remains in the ground, because they will re-sprout. Or you can do what's called poisoning in place or where the girdle of the tree and actually inject the herbicide into the plant and the plant will die. It will remain standing, but it would be dead. There are a few options that the county accepts as a removal. MR. PONTE: At any point did either the Loves or the Masons (sic) give you or suggest to you a reason that the work had been stopped? MS. MASON: They did state that they had hired someone back when they had some of the work done in January, but he came and did -- they came and did some work and did not return, and were unable to get them to return to complete the work. MR. PONTE: I'm sorry, I meant the Goodmarts. MS. MASON: That's fine. MR. PONTE: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any other questions for Ms. Mason? Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Love? MR. LOVE: Yeah, I'm Mr. Love. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, let the young lady swear you in, please. (Speakers were duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: All right, whichever is first, go ahead. MRS. LOVE: Excuse me, I feel a little bit like David in front of Goliath. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: No. MRS. LOVE: I didn't want to have to come before you and expose my medical problems, because I didn't want it to be part of a record, but-- MS. ARNOLD: Excuse me, could you move the mike a little Page 62 July 27, 2000 bit closer? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Pull the mike down a little. Thank you. MRS. LOVE: Shall I repeat that? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL'. No, we understood that part. MRS. LOVE: I'm fighting two very serious illnesses right now that chemicals cannot -- I can't be near any kind of chemicals because of that. Poisons, and the removal of -- the amount of money that it would take to remove these things that have regrown would just make it impossible right now. The plants obviously preexisted. Although Ms. Mason said that they weren't here at the time when the house was first built. It was -- so what I'm finding is that wind and seeds and nature are making these plants grow throughout the county, throughout everywhere. Trucks that drive and have them on their tires. Cars. I mean, it seems to be an impossible task. Let me just -- may I start going through my notes? And if I -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Sure. MRS. LOVE: -- come off a little bit out of order, you'll excuse me, In a way this is almost considered selective prosecution, because some people are asked to do this, other people are not asked to do this. Golden Gate Estates is not asked to do it. It's in the record that they don't have to do it. They're exempt from it. Their seeds are going to spread everywhere and they're not going to be -- I don't understand why that exists. We were caught in the crossfire between two neighbors in Regent Park, which is the people, the Downeys, that made the complaint. They had another neighbor that now is my neighbor, moved into our area, that were constantly fighting with each other. And we got caught in the crossfire of that. When one moved next door to us, we were cited with them. The woman right next door to us was cited first and then we were cited. And they've had an ongoing feud about it. Before these areas had started growing in the back that faced the Downeys, the complainants that drew this up, they have an upper window in their part of their house that there were always -- I don't know who it was, but there were always people looking like Peeping Toms, and it was a very creepy feeling when we first moved in, so we were kind of excited when these trees grew, because it gave us some privacy. We didn't know what Page 63 July 27, 2000 they were, we just figured nature had done it. So their children are call the terrors of Regent Park. This is according to our next door neighbor. They have a name to them. They trespass all the time. There are firecrackers going on. They're fighting, they're screaming, there's loud music. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Ma'am, let's stay with the trees, please. MRS. LOVE: Okay. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's all we can address is the trees. We can't help you anywhere else. MRS. LOVE: These trees in a way helped abate this, so it wasn't happening that much to us constantly. I just wanted to read a letter from our neighbor. This is from our neighbor. "A man found lots of evidence of kids back there. In addition, he went back to look around and found a boy who lives behind me. I told him to leave and he mumbled and stayed. I left as I already had my plan in action. I had a deputy come out yesterday for the record. Kids are here snooping. I live alone. I don't bother anyone. Don't bother me. He said if I agreed to prosecute and posted the lot, he would go talk to the families. They fixed the fence. I now have a camera there and signs. I still find broken beer bottles." Anyway, these are the people that had made the complaint about us. That's what -- MR. LOVE: Their kids were constantly trespassing, coming onto the Quail Woods properties. MRS. LOVE: I'm sorry, I don't think I made this clear. This is our neighbor who is arguing with the people that made a complaint against us. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: What we're interested in, unfortunately, is -- the violation is the trees on your property. The fact that you have some neighbor-type problems, we can't do anything about and it really doesn't make any difference, unfortunately. MR. LOVE: Okay, let me just make a statement that in the conversation with Susan Mason, the only reason we have to remove those exotics is because we were cited, there was a complaint against us. If there was no complaint, then we would not have to remove those exotics, okay? MRS. LOVE: The only reason why I'm bringing up the Page 64 July 27, 2000 neighbors is because it became a site, sound and safety barrier. That was -- that's what the plants became for me. And because I needed some kind of tranquility -- we work at home 24 hours. We're there 24 hours a day. And it's actually -- we're fighting for a lot of different things. There -- we found out that if we took out these things, they would need to bring trucks in, and trucks would have gone through our neighbor's yard, because the properties aren't wide enough. They needed to go all the way through with the trucks and remove these things or cut them down and put them in the large trucks. They couldn't do that without destroying part of homes and lawns and everything else that -- MR. LEHMANN: Mrs. Love, could I just interrupt you for a second? MRS. LOVE: Please. MR. LEHMANN: Although the board is very compassionate regarding the problems that you have with the neighbors, that's not within our jurisdiction. And I feel that what you're asking the board is to grant a variance to the ordinance. And that is not within our jurisdiction either. We don't have that power. We cannot say ignore the ordinance. That you would have to take up to the Board of County Commissioners. The only power that this board has is to review the issue, review the case and to determine whether or not a violation did or did not occur. And if it was found that it did occur, to effect some manner to achieve some compliance with that. MR. LOVE: May I ask you a question? MR. LEHMANN: Yes, sir. MR. LOVE: Would the violation have occurred if the neighbor did not cite us with the county? Would there be pepper trees there? MR. LEHMANN: The violation would have occurred whether it was cited or not. MR. LOVE: Is the violation only there -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: When it's brought to the attention of the county. MR. LOVE: When it's brought to the attention of the county. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Whether they drive by and see it or -- MR. LOVE: Well, if it's not there -- well, I don't know if you're correct about that. Maybe Ms. Mason can answer that. I was Page 65 July 27, 2000 told that even if she sees it, correct me if I'm wrong, unless there's a specific citing, if I -- you know, like a complaint by somebody, then it doesn't exist. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's not my understanding of the ordinance, but-- MS. ARNOLD: No. MRS. LOVE: Excuse me, Mr. Lehmann. Before you said what you said, I was just trying to make it known that there are a few reasons why I was saying that in order for trucks to come in. When you say that it doesn't matter about other neighbor's properties being destroyed by these trucks, I think it does. I think it does matter that other people's homes and their privacy is-- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You have to understand, ma'am, that when you would contract with somebody to remove these trees, if the only way to get there is drive over your neighbor's yard, included in the price would be to put their yard back the way it was. That happens almost every day when people build pools. They drive between and they mess up both yards and then it must be replaced the way it is. That's part of the deal, so -- MRS. LOVE: Do they destroy -- are they supposed to destroy everything in its way? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: They don't destroy it, but whatever they have to do to get to that point, they drive over it or whatever, but then they have to replace it. That would be -- MRS. LOVE: So we're talking about -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- part of the contract. MRS. LOVE: -- they have to kill all of the living plants in order to get to the -- it doesn't make sense to me. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I don't know-- MS. TAYLOR: Excuse me. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- what you're talking about there. MS. TAYLOR: Excuse me, just a minute. Excuse me, but I'm very confused here. You are not the owners, right? MRS. LOVE: No, it's a family trust. MS. TAYLOR: Then why do you feel financially responsible for this? MR. LOVE: Well, because we're acting on behalf of the owners. They are my family. It's a family trust. It's my mother and father and a trust that's involved. Page 66 July 27, 2000 And to get back on point -- I appreciate you bringing me back on point -- there is, due to illness in our family, there is some financial problems right now to where 2 or $3,000 is very hard to come up with and take care of the situation. Also, the other -- getting back on to point would be in order to treat this properly, poisons and herbicides would have to be used in which she, Linda, would not be able to -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's not correct, because as I understand it, you cut them down. You don't have to put them in the ground, right? MS. GODFREY-LINT: You girdle them. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.- That was one method. Cutting them down is the other. MS. MASON: Not just cutting them down, you'd have to remove the root bulb. But you could remove them without any chemical treatment. And that would -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, that's what I thought. MS. MASON: -- have to be an entire physical removal. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We've had enough trees removed where I live and we don't put any chemicals out, so -- MR. LOVE: I'd just like to make this statement. I believe that Collier County is in an impossible situation in trying to get rid of these peppers. Even on the way here this morning, I saw numerous pepper plants on the way down Airport Boulevard. In order to get rid of all these, because of the wind that spreads these seeds for miles and miles, you would have to hire an army of Susan Masons to start marching into the back yards of everybody's homes to see whether they have these prohibitive exotics. It's not working, and I don't feel that selective prosecution is causing anything but hardships on certain people. MRS. LOVE: How did they allow it to be in one part of the county and not on another part? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' You're asking the wrong people, ma'am. MRS. LOVE: Well, who makes -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You need to go to the Board of County Commissioners. MRS. LOVE: Well, I did speak to Mr. Constantine, and he said -- he was very understanding, and he did say that this is on such a low priority of what they feel is important, but he does Page 67 July 27, 2000 understand how strange it seems. And they will be -- you know, they will be going through these -- we just spoke to him the other day, in fact. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You just must understand that this board, our only purpose is that when a violation has occurred and it's brought before us, we try to come up with a method to get the violation solved. That you have to change a county statute, a county ordinance, a state -- that's not us. We're here with -- MRS. LOVE: Please excuse our ignorance then. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- one specific little problem, unfortunately, that there is a violation. Is there or isn't there. If there is, we've going to tell you what we want you to do about it. Now, in doing that, you need to go to the county Board of Commissioners and try to get them to change the county ordinance that gee, you know, Brazilian peppers can stay everywhere. You can do that. But we're going to tell you what we want you to do. If you want to go to them and get it resolved, that's fine. But right now our interest would be you have a violation, if we find that, and we're going to tell you what we want you to do about it. MR. LOVE: As far as the financial hardship is concerned and medical reasons -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We may take that into consideration and, you know, on time -- I can't speak for my fellow members. We haven't got that far yet. But normally we try to understand all of these items. But the bottom line is, you must remember, we're in a little box, and that little box only deals with the violation. The fact that it's happening across the street, that's not before us. The fact that it's happening down the road, that's not before us. We can't -- that's not this judgment. The judgment is your piece of property for a problem, period. Unfortunately, rightly or wrongly, that's the way it is. MR. LOVE: But you do understand what I mean about selective prosecution? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understand. Most people say gee, I'm doing it, my neighbor across the street is -- MR. LOVE: I don't want to turn in my neighbor because they've got the same thing on their property. That's not the kind of person I am. I don't want to do that. Page 68 July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I can't tell you what to do. You make your own judgments. You're before us and that's what we have to consider. MS. SAUNDERS: What we can do, though, is work with you, if you show good faith effort to work with us. Which doesn't mean take out every Brazilian pepper in five days. If you say we're going to take down two trees a week or a month or whatever, I think Ms. Mason will work with you very comfortably if you give us -- or you and she work out a plan, and as long as we see that you're making an effort to do this, we are probably not going to be inclined to say we want you to spend $10,000 to get it all done this week. What we -- so we can listen to what you are saying and try to make an effort, but what we need from you is, I think, some kind of a thing that says okay, I can only chop down one tree a week, is that -- can we start with that. Here's what I'm -- you know, something to that effect. MS. MASON: If I may interject, please. I did on numerous occasions request a specific plan and did attempt to work with the Loves, due to the various reasons they had cited on the removal, and I was never able to get anything specific and only a minimum amount of work was done. And when I called a month later after the original work was done, Mr. Love was rather curt with me on the phone about I was harassing him, and that he didn't want -- he refused to do any more removal. MR. LOVE: I'd like to comment, if I may. MR. PONTE: Mr. Love, I just have a question for you. MR. LOVE: Yes, sir. MR. PONTE: How much damage was incurred to your property, your neighbor's property when the trees were removed in January? MR. LOVE: There was no damage in the trees that we removed in January. It was done in a way that there was no damage to anybody's property. MRS. LOVE: MR. PONTE: same way? MRS. LOVE: front area. But it wasn't in the property -- So it's possible to remove the other trees in the May I please say something? It was only in the They couldn't go back into the back areas to remove Page 69 July 27', 2000 anything. And what happened was, which Ms. Mason didn't include, is we wound up prepaying. We finally saved up this money and we wound up prepaying them to come back the following week, when they couldn't finish everything. They never came back. And Ms. Mason wound up giving us a lecture on you don't pay people until after they -- you know. And we thought we were doing a good thing, and we didn't do the right thing. The other thing was that -- MR. PONTE: I'm sorry, I just want to be clear on this. MRS. LOVE: We can't get to the back area -- MR. PONTE: -- the remaining trees cannot be reached without accessing through the neighbor's property. MR. LOVE: That's correct. MRS. LOVE: All neighbor's property, from every side; from the back side, side to side, from our side as well. MS. SAUNDERS: But they could be reached by using the chemicals to destroy those; is that right? MS. MASON: Well, I would also disagree. The property that was referenced earlier, their neighbor that is to the south, they did have the removal completed and they did not need to access anyone else's property. All the lots are of similar size and configuration. And if an individual went back there and brought in smaller equipment, I do believe that the trees could be removed without damaging neighbor's property. It may require, though, if they really insist on no chemicals, that larger equipment would need to be brought in. The other people did do some poisoning -- or not poisoning in place, they removed -- cut the stumps and treated the stumps. But there are ways to remove the trees without entering anyone else's property. MS. GODFREY-LINT: Is this in a swale area? MS. MASON: Some of it is in the swale. It's a rear yard. It goes down into a rather significant drainage ditch. MS. GODFREY-LINT: So the equipment could go through that drainage ditch. MS. MASON: They'd have probably -- you know, depending on the type of removal. I don't know exactly they'd want to get down into that ditch. But most of the larger trees are on the Page 70 July 27, 2000 property and kind of growing over the ditch and into the rear property. MS. TAYLOR: Does the root system affect this drainage system? MS. MASON: I don't believe I really saw any evidence of it being affected. The drainage ability seemed to be functioning fine. MS. DUSEK: Ms. Mason, are there other properties along that same street with this -- with the exotics on their property so that this could be a perpetual problem, unless all of them take care of it? MS. MASON: Yes, there are some exotics in the general area. The Brazilian pepper and the earleaf acacia seem to be the major exotics in that area. It is a problem with reseeding. And that is why in '91, when they updated the Land Development Code, they added the provision that it needs to be maintained in perpetuity, because a lot of the older properties, it was removed at the time of construction. There was no maintenance. And if there is no maintenance, you can see what happens. Because the earleaf acacia, for example, grows at the rate of six to eight feet per year, and that's the Department of Agricultural statistics. And they also had -- melaleuca, for instance, grows at a rate of 13 feet per year. So these trees get out of hand very fast if you don't do the maintenance. If maintenance had been started in 1995 after the CO, you could conceivably do your entire property with hand pulling, if you did it on a regular basis, to deter the use of chemicals. But it does require constant maintenance. MS. TAYLOR: These trees are dirty to some extent, aren't they, in other people's lawns? MS. MASON: Yes. There's actually a photograph I have in there from the neighbor's yard of all the seed debris and the leaf litter from the earleaf acacia that's on the Goodman property. MR. LOVE: Ms. Mason, the picture of the debris was on whose property? MS. MASON: It was actually on the complainant's property. MR. LOVE: The complainant's property. That sounds kind of strange, because they have a crew coming in every week that cleans up their whole property. It sounds kind of strange that Page 71 July 27, 2000 they would have anything, because I hear them and see them cleaning up all the time. MS. MASON: Well, I took the photographs myself and I did it unannounced so they didn't know when I was coming. I don't know their schedule with their lawn service or maintenance. MR. LOVE: May I ask you also, you stated I believe to us, and it's in the record, that when you went over there to see the complainant and see their complaint, that you had also told them that they had a violation on their own property and that she went sort of ballistic on you. Have they taken care of that already? MS. MASON: No, that is -- that's not what happened at all. They were upset when I informed them that any Brazilian pepper that grew onto their property was their responsibility to maintain. MR. LOVE: Okay. They didn't have earleaf acacia that you said was a violation? MS. MASON: No, they do not. Their neighbors do. However, that is not a violation, because that house was constructed and CO'd before 1991 when earleaf acacia was added to the exotics list. MRS. LOVE: to our property. MS. MASON: important. Which means that the seeds can always spread That is true. That's why maintenance is so MR. LOVE: There's a lot of contradiction and hypocrisy involved with the peppers and the earleaf acacia. The earleaf that is on our property is very large. I'm going to guess, since we didn't live there until '96, that when the CO was given to the property, that that tree must have already been there, because it's huge. MS. MASON: Evidence does show that the trees actually could be the size that they are. The acacia normally reach a mature height of 40 feet. I believe your trees were mostly at the maximum of 30 feet tall. And growing at the rate of six to eight feet per year from 1995, they could be 30 to 40 feet in height. So they could be mature at this point. MR. LOVE: I think the county's fighting a battle that cannot be won. I -- and we're caught in the middle of it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's the county's problem, unfortunately. Right now we're concerned with you. Page 72 July 27, 2000 MR. LOVE: Okay, well -- MRS. LOVE: I'm going to go ahead and -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We need to keep coming back to that point. MR. LOVE: I'm here -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You, not with the county. MRS. LOVE: -- fighting for two reasons. Because of what I'm going through, my throat has been cut from here to here. I have a very bad breathing problem. I can't be near chemicals, I can't be near flying debris, I can't be near anything like that. I've been fighting it. Our expenses -- the reason we weren't able to make an agreement with Ms. Mason about when we could pay for things was because we don't know when we can pay for things. We have expenses that are beyond our own control because of the medical problems. And she knew about this also. We didn't get involved with her because I didn't want to expose it. But now I feel that it has to be exposed. By removing these things, we're going to have a lot of debris, and I'm going to be forced to be breathing it, to be taking it in. I'm already on file with the code -- not the code enforcement, excuse me, with the pest control in Florida to get in touch with me when they're doing certain things, for all spraying. So there is everything. I wear a bracelet saying certain things. This is not something that can easily be taken care of. And if there's any way that you could help us, that's all we're asking. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: As long as you understand, we can't give you authority to continue to be in violation. We don't have that authority. We're going to give you probably some kind of time limit to resolve this problem, but we cannot give you the authority to continue the violation. That's not within our realm. Somebody else has to do that. So you need to understand that. We will probably try to do what we can, but we cannot give you approval to continue to be in violation of an ordinance. We can't do that. MRS. LOVE: Not for any kind of health reason or any -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Not for any reason. We don't have that power, okay? You need to understand that. We do not have that power. Page 73 July 27, 2000 MRS. LOVE: Please excuse me for not understanding that, but -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: This board -- you know, you need to go to the Board of County Commissioners. Those five people have that kind of power. We do not. You need to go there and see what you can do. I strongly recommend you do that. MR. LOVE: I think we will. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Not with just one commissioner, I think you need to go to all of them. But that's where you must go, not here. Okay? MRS. LOVE: I understand what you're saying. MS. DUSEK: Ms. Mason, if they were to clear all of their exotics and there are still exotics in the neighborhood, would they be able to keep it under control by hand pulling or whatever the -- MS. MASON: Yes, it's possible, but it's harder. The closer your seed source is, the more likely for re-invasion. But I live out in the Estates and there is a requirement, once the property is developed, then the Estates are to be maintained in perpetuity. I'm surrounded by two undeveloped properties that have Brazilian pepper on them, and I go out about every two to three months and hand pull. It's work, but it's possible. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any further questions? Thank you, Ms. Mason. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Love. MR. LOVE: Thank you very much for your time. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, first order of business, finding of fact that there is or there is not a violation. MS. SAUNDERS: Mr. Chairman, I think we need to find in fact that there is indeed a violation, then we can work out the rest of it. But -- oh, I never do the motions right. Somebody else do the motion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You're going to try to get me to do this for you again. MR. PONTE: MS. DUSEK: colleagues did. Do the findings of fact. I'll do it in a simpler form than my earlier And I make a motion that in the case of the Board of County Commissioners versus John and Rita Goodman, CEB Case No. 2000-024, that a violation does exist; that the violation is of Page 74 July 27, 2000 Section 11-5 of Ordinance Number 91-51, the Collier County Weeds and Litter Ordinance, and Section 3.9.6.6.6 of Ordinance Number 91-102, the Collier County Land Development Code. The description of the violation: Illegal accumulation of prohibited exotics consisting of Brazilian pepper and earleaf acacia on approved residentially zoned property in rear and drainage easements. And the location of the property is 9199 The Lane, Naples, Florida. MS. ARNOLD: Can I just make -- MR. PONTE: One amendment. It's the wrong ordinance. It's 99" there is in fact findings of fact for a violation. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Those opposed? (No response.) MS. DUSEK: That's right. MR. PONTE: -- not 91-51. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MS. SAUNDERS: I'll second that. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion and a second that Any question? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Order of the board? MS. DUSEK: Well, I think all of us are in complete sympathy with the homeowners. And as our chairman has said, we're limited on what we can do. So I think the best that we can do for the Loves is to give them a long period of time in which to resolve this. MR. PONTE: I think that's right. But I also want to just communicate this feeling to the Loves, that the fine -- or the findings of the board can be used by you to your advantage. I mean, if you do go to the commissioners and tell them, you know, it's not what it was, Tim, a few days ago when I talked with you, we've now been fined. And so the remedy that we're seeking from the commissioners will go up in the threshold of attention. So we're working with you and you can use it to your advantage. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think what we need to understand is the time limit should not be so far out, understanding their plight, that it's more or less okaying the violation. I think there needs to be some kind of evidence of trying to abate the violation. Otherwise, I can envision "X" months from now, whether it be six Page 75 July 27, 2000 or 10 or whatever, then the fine would kick in and nothing's being done, and then all of a sudden, the next thing you know, we're looking at foreclosing on somebody's property because we're still in the same boat that they have all these problems and therefore, they couldn't resolve it. We need them to -- our order should include whatever time limit, plus they must demonstrate to us some type of good faith that they are in fact trying to resolve this problem. I don't care if it's one tree a month or whatever. I know that would be a lot more expensive, and I say that with a tongue in cheek. But just to give them a time limit and then ask nothing in return, especially a long time limit, I think is a big disadvantage. MS. SAUNDERS: I agree. I would like very much to see a plan that they work out with Ms. Mason that's reasonable for all parts that doesn't get her going back there every two weeks to inspect but that says, you know, with whatever given period of time, I can notice some progress made, and that they do it. And it may be something that they can do as an individual without hiring somebody else. I don't know. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Let me ask Ms. Rawson a question. I understand that we cannot increase fines. I don't have a problem with that. Can we, if the order of the board is for you to do something within a time limit, and during that time limit you must show good faith by doing certain things, if you fail to show that good faith, can the board then amend its order to shorten the time period? MS. RAWSON: That would be very difficult. And also, good faith would require different interpretations by different people, what you mean by good faith. You'd have to very specifically define that. If you give them steps to do along the way that are concrete, you could structure your order that way before the fines kick in. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: What I'm trying to get to is -- and I'm just going to pick numbers off the wall. If we gave them 10 months to do -- to comply but during the intermediate that every 30 days they have to meet with the county to show that they have either came up with a contract to remove some trees at some point, so we could get -- I don't want to wait till the end of 10 months and say well, you know, we didn't anything and now the fine kicks in. If I see you're just going to say well, hey, we've Page 76 July 27, 2000 got 10 months so the heck with it, no, I'm going to move the date closer. You've got to be doing something, too. I don't want to be the only one giving in this. MS. RAWSON: I think you can structure it like you did your last order, or the one Ms. Saunders did. In steps. You know, step one would be that you meet with us in so much time and this is what we've expected. In step two we've expected this. In step three we've expected this. And by the end of the time limit, we expect all of them to be removed or the fine would abate -- kick in. Sorry. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. I just don't want to be in a position where we give a big block of time and then we get to the end and nothing's done and riobody's talked to anybody and, I mean, we've wasted the time. I mean, I want to be fair and understanding their circumstances, but at the same time, I don't want the board to be taken advantage of. MS. DUSEK.' Maybe what we could do is ask them to meet periodically with staff to give a progress report. Because to say specifically well, you must remove a third of the trees, we don't know really how many a third of the trees there are out there. So I think it's hard to be too specific. But if they met regularly to show some progress, if the staff comes back and says well, everything is status quo, then that's the way we would structure whatever it is you were trying to say there earlier, Cliff, to get them to perform. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: What I'm looking at, for my other board members' information is, I'm leaning toward based on what we have done in the past. I don't have a problem giving them six months to do something. But during that six months, you know, they can go and try to get the commission to change something. But at the same time, they've got to be doing something; either meeting with the county to come up with a schedule to remove them, having them removed, show the county a contract that they've -- they're getting something done. I don't have a problem with doing that. We've done that with other folks and, you know, that's worked. So I tend to try and help them that way. But I want some action done. The object of the committee -- the board is to get into compliance. Now, how that's done, all we can do is say come into compliance. You can either remove the trees or get the Page 77 July 27, 2000 county to change the ordinance, I don't care. MR. PONTE: Before setting parameters of the order, I think Ms. Dusek raises a very important point, it's a lot clearer in my mind, how big a job this is. I mean, how many trees approximately are out there? What would be the approximate cost of removing them all? What was the cost of removing the first third of the trees? MR. LEHMANN: We have, as part of the evidence package, a letter from Rita Goodman stating that -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: It's $3,000. MR. LEHMANN: -- after several estimates to do the complete job, being in the range of $3,000. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah. MR. PONTE: For the complete job? MR. LEHMANN: For the complete job. So apparently Ms. Goodman herself has already undertaken that task. MR. PONTE: Ms. Mason, how many trees are there, or bushes? MS. MASON: I did not count the actual trees. The area that's affected is approximately 150 feet by 50 feet. And there are probably a good half a dozen mature trees. The rest are more shrubby Brazilian pepper. It's fairly well invaded with the peppers. But normally that's a pretty easy thing to remove, because it's just a shrubby thing. MR. PONTE: Would you care to just give me an estimate as to how long you think that kind of job would take? I mean, is it a two-day job, a three-day job or a one-day job? MS. MASON: I would say probably, depending on the size of the crew that came in, it could go anywhere from two to three days, once they started, and to remove all the debris. MR. PONTE: Okay, thank you. MS. SAUNDERS: I have a suggestion in my step-by-step again. I would like -- I propose that we give them 15 days to agree to -- to work out a plan of action on removal of the exotics, and have -- and gain county approval on that, or code enforcement approval on that. And then we give them three dates, that the plan will say by October 15th you will have done so much, by December 15th, you will have done this step, by February 15th, it will have been completed. And that means that Page 78 July 27, 2000 you'll do, I guess, three inspections. My reason for doing it that way is I think they need some time to figure out how they're going to do it, or what. There's an election coming up. You've got prior to the election a chance to talk to some people. After that, you've got about three or four months of County Commission meetings to talk further. We're very much in sympathy with what you're saying. If the County Commission can't be convinced to do something by February 15th, it's got to be out of there. You know, that's up to them to change anything. But I want to give you enough time to be able to lobby effectively, if the law is going to be changed. And I think that's a pretty generous time frame to raise $3,000 or find a way to do it by yourself without, you know, putting an undue burden on it. MR. LEHMANN: Might I suggest that although the time frame is fine with the commissioners, with the election coming up, this might not be the top priority on their plate. MR. PONTE: No. As a matter of fact, you have to take into consideration here that there'll be a different board sitting after the election. MS. SAUNDERS: Yeah. MR. LEHMANN: Right. MR. PONTE: And that to petition the commissioners at this point -- MS. SAUNDERS: Oh, I agree. I wouldn't petition the commissioners. If -- my suggestion would be petition the candidates and get your neighbors to join with you. Now, that has nothing to do with this board. But I think it's an appropriate time, if you feel you have some -- you see an injustice being done in the county, to work with your potentially to be elected officials to do something about it. MS. TAYLOR: I really don't think it's appropriate for this board to even be suggesting these things. I really don't. This is not up to us to even suggest these things. We have a violation in front of us, we need to act on that, and that's it. And whatever they do from there on is their affair and their business. But for us to suggest that they do something with the commissioners, we're really overstepping it, I think. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Ms. Saunders, on your three dates, what would you tie those into? Page 79 July 27, 2000 MS. SAUNDERS: I would put a fine into place -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: No, I mean, what do you want them to accomplish by those dates? MS. SAUNDERS: I want them to work out with Ms. Mason what is a reasonable program to accomplish within that period of time, based on what their budget is, what they might be able to do by hand, whatever they're proposing that they can accomplish, but I want it basically finished by February 15th. If they feel that they want to remove all the shrubs by hand and at the -- and February 10th, when they've saved up some money have somebody come in and remove everything else, that's fine. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, would it be -- what bothers me, I guess, on the dates is we don't have anything specific to tie it to. I would rather -- your first item of 15 days for plan of action sounds reasonable. I think your second item would sound more reasonable if it were that by February 15th the violations be abated, period. MS. SAUNDERS: Without giving the -- CHAIRMAN FI. EGAL: Without the other intermediate dates. Because I don't see anything to tie the other dates to that I can get my hands on, and that kind of bothers me. MS. DUSEK.' It does me also. I'd like to see one date, frankly. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So I don't have a problem. Because that gives them about six and a half months, roughly, from today, February 15th, which doesn't bother me. But I think that should be the only date. MS. SAUNDERS: Okay, I think that's a valid point. I would hope that in working out a plan with them, we'd have some stages that would make it as easy as possible. But I can agree that the order needs to include that. MR. LEHMANN: So my understanding of your motion at this point in time is that we have a 15-day period to arrive at a plan, and then we have a second time period which ends February 15th for the complete compliance. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Abatement of the violations. MS. SAUNDERS: Correct. And if the 15 days is missed or the February 15th point is missed, that the fine be $50 per day, if no plan is accomplished within 15 days, or a fine of $50 per day be imposed starting February t5th, if the exotics still remain. Page 80 July 27, 2000 MR. LEHMANN: And your definition of the plan of action would be what? MS. ARNOLD: We typically have removal plans that we ask for from property owners or developers, and that was something that Investigator Mason asked the property owners for earlier this year. So that's something that we can discuss with the properly owner. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I would think this plan, Mr. Lehmann, could probably be -- you and I probably are thinking of a very detailed plan, but I suspect that's not going to happen, based on their situation. MR. LEHMANN: No, I was just trying to define what the order was going to say. And my understanding of it is that the respondent and the county would get together and come up with something. I don't care what that plan of action is. But I just want to have it defined. Is that what we're talking about? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, within t5 days the Goodmans, through the Loves, if they so choose, come up, work with the county on a plan of action to resolve the problem. Now, what that is, again, we don't know. But it could be a one-line statement, we will get it accomplished by the 15th of February, or it can be detailed. I really don't care. But they have to get together within 15 days and have some type of a plan. If in fact that doesn't happen and the county says gee, 15 days are up and they never called, they never came in, fine, it's going to cost them 50 bucks a day until they do. At the same time, the clock's running on the February 15th date, so -- MR. LEHMANN: But the -- I'll play the devil's advocate for a second. Let's say I as a respondent go to the county and say my plan of action is take care of it by the 15th. The county says fine, that takes care of the first issue of the board's order. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Correct. MR. LEHMANN: Now I can sit until the 15th and not do a single thing, and I'm still within the board's order. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Correct. MS. DUSEK: That's right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's right. MR. LEHMANN: So what I'm saying is that I was hearing from the board that you wanted to see continual process. There is a loophole in that order that allows the respondent not to give Page 81 July 27, 2000 you continual progress. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, I'm trying -- my original thing was on a long-time limit. But based on what we have done in the past, we have given people six months to accomplish things based on a plan of action, and never got very detailed about it. So I don't want to be harsher on one respondent than another. So I can live with just a straight plan of action, whatever that statement is. If they choose to just say I'll get it accomplished, fine. They're not going to get fined $50 there. But come February 15th, if they haven't done anything, the hammer drops. And believe me, I won't sit here and listen to any more excuses. MR. LEHMANN: No, I don't have any objections. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You've had six and a half months, I'm sorry, you know, go to the bank, do something. Go to the wherever. But that's about as lenient as I can get. MR. LEHMANN: No, I don't have any objection to the motion. I just wanted the members to be clear about what they're stating. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So we have two items, 15 days for a plan of action -- MS. SAUNDERS: Correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- or $50 until they come up with a plan. Item 2 being abate the entire violation by February 15th or $50 a day for that. MS. SAUNDERS: Correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And we're going to add -- MS. SAUNDERS: And all costs. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- costs? MS. SAUNDERS: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Everybody understand the motion? Do I hear-- MS. DUSEK: I second. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a second. Any question on the motion? Okay, all those in favor of the motion as submitted. It has three items, 15 days, plan of action, February 15th for complete abatement, $50 on each, plus costs. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? Page 82 July 27, 2000 (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Mr. and Mrs. Love, do you understand? MR. LOVE: Yes, we do. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Thank you. Last item under public hearings, 2000-025, Joann and Thomas Pinckney. I don't know if I'm saying that right. I apologize if I'm not. MS. CRUZ: This is the Board of County Commissioners versus Joann and Thomas Pinckney, Case No. 2000-025. Provided the respondent a packet, also as well as to the board and to the clerk of court. Before we request that this packet be admitted into evidence, I'd like to make a correction. On Page 2 and 4, description of violation, which should remove No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4. Those violations have been abated. MS. DUSEK: Which are those again? MS. CRUZ: Description of Violation No. t, No. 3 and No. 4. I'd like to request of the respondent if there's any objection into admitting that packet into evidence. MS. RAWSON: Just so I'm clear on this, so the only remaining violation that's alleged is the Collier County Weeds and Litter Ordinance? MS. CRUZ: We also have the placement of accessory structure. That would be the 9t-102, the two -- MS. RAWSON: I see. Are you under No. 3 on the affidavit? MS. CRUZ: I'm on No. 2. MS. ARNOLD: Statement of violation under No. 2, there's five descriptions provided. And Items 1, 3 and 4 are removed. MS. RAWSON: Thank you. MS. ARNOLD: And then -- MS. RAWSON: I'm with you. MS. ARNOLD: Is the board clear on that as well? MR. PONTE: Yes. MS. DUSEK: Does that affect any of the sections of the ordinance that you have stated above? MS. CRUZ: No, it does not. MR. KINCAID: Can I clarify what Ms. Rawson said? Are we talking about the violations on the first page, or on the statement of violations? MS. CRUZ: On page -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Statement of violations. Page 83 July 27, 2000 MR. PINCKNEY: No. about. No. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: package as evidence. MR. KINCAID: Then you've got five violations. MS. CRUZ: Right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes. MR. KINCAID.' You only covered four. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: No, they've covered three of them; 1, 3 and 4, right? MS. ARNOLD: 1, 3 and 4 have been abated. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: 2 and 5 still exist. MR. KINCAID.' 2 and 5 still exist then. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes. MS. ARNOLD: Right. And it still applies to those sections cited. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: General information, I understand what you're doing. MS. ARNOLD: Does the respondent have any objections to entering this information? MRS. PINCKNEY: No. I don't understand what they're talking Okay, we have a request to submit the MS. SAUNDERS: So moved. MS. DUSEK: Second. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. (Unanimous vote of ayes.) MS. CRUZ: Okay, alleged violation before this board is violations of Sections 2.6.7.1.1, 2.7.6, and 2.6.7.2.1 of the Ordinance No. 91-102, the Collier County Land Development Code, and Sections 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of Ordinance No. 99-51, the Collier County Weeds and Litter Ordinance. The alleged violations are accumulation of wood, metal, plastic, tires, wheels, tools and appliances. And also placement of an accessory structure without first obtaining the proper permits. This violation exists at 104 Glenwood Street, Immokalee, Florida. Is more particularly described as Palm Ridge Unit 1, Lot 22. The owner of record is Joann and Thomas Pinckney. Address of record is 104 Glenwood Drive, Immokalee, Florida. A violation was first observed on January 18th, year 2000. A Page 84 July 27, 2000 notice of violation was given to the property owner on February 1st, year 2000, with a compliance date of March 3rd, 2000. The re-inspection was done yesterday, July 26th, revealing violation remaining. At this time, I'd like to call Investigator John Marsh, please. (Speaker was duly sworn.} MR. MARSH: For the record, my name's John Marsh, code enforcement investigator with Collier County. This case was generated by an anonymous complaint in January, 2000. I was addressed first by Investigator Soldano. At that time there were five original violations. Three have since been abated, leaving the litter violation and accessory structure violation. On March 31st, I made my first visit to the property and observed efforts had been made to clean up the litter. Quite a bit of what was there had been cleaned up and picked up, but it hadn't been cleaned up entirely. I talked to Mr. Pinckney about it, and he said at that time he was working on the problem, which I could see. And he was going to try to get it all taken care of. And also at that time the accessory structure still was on the property, in violation with no permit. I believe Mr. Pinckney had talked to the permitting people about getting a permit for it. Maybe at that time he didn't understand that I was told by permitting that they won't permit that type of a structure there, a metal container box off the back of a truck that's been placed on the ground and is being used for an accessory storage building. Also, part of the violation would be the setbacks. It doesn't meet the setbacks. Since then I've made a couple of visits to the property. Some of the litter still remains and still the structure is there in violation. And my last visit was 7-26, and I observed that there again, some litter still remained. Not a lot, but some. And the structure was still there. And as of this morning, via the computer, there was no permit. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Mr. Marsh, the -- are all the trailers gone off of this property? I mean -- MR. MARSH: Basically. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I'm looking at a picture that has one, two, three different trailers plus a boat on a trailer. Are they all Page 85 July 27, 2000 gone? MR. MARSH: The boat is still there. But the red container box that you see, there's a small trailer somewhere. That's gone. What basically remains is a -- when I saw it yesterday was a trailer full of tires. In other words, the tires had been picked up and they were in the trailer and probably getting ready to be taken out. There was, along the back of the house, still some debris. A canister for propane, a CO2 canister, some miscellaneous debris of metal and wood, some I-beams along the side of the property. But there again, I'm saying that there has been an effort to clean up. Quite a bit of what you see in the pictures has been abated. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Were you -- did you have access to the property? MR. MARSH: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. The boat and trailer, is it licensed? MR. MARSH: I don't know. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Mason (sic)? MS. ARNOLD: Marsh. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Marsh, I'm sorry. MR. KINCAID: Yes. Can I ask you about the -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: The Masons and the Marshes are getting me here. MR. MARSH: Yes, sir? MR. KINCAID: Is that the silver shed that's shown in here, in the pictures-- MR. MARSH: Yes, sir. MR. KINCAID: -- on No. 2t, for instance? MR. MARSH: Should be to the left side of the property. MR. KINCAID: Turn to Page 2t. Is that the one in the back of the El Camino? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Mason, the setback -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Marsh. MR. LEHMANN: I'm sorry. Mr. Marsh, I apologize. The setback requirements are -- the setback issues are relating to the accessory structure? MR. MARSH: I'm sorry, sir?. Page 86 July 27, 2000 MR. LEHMANN: Are they relating to this structure? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Setback issues. MR. MARSH: Yes. Here's another picture of it here. I guess it's green now, has a green door in front of it. But that's the structure itself there. MR. LEHMANN: That's the one I was referring to. MR. MARSH: Yes, sir. MR. KINCAID: And that's your setback problem as well. MR. MARSH: Yes, sir. Well, on the map here, this is a layout that I went out and walked out with a measuring wheel and did myself. And as you can see, over in the corner of the property here is where the structure is, the dotted lines. That's the structure we're talking about in relationship to the house and the property. MR. KINCAID'. Thank you. MR. LEHMANN: And what's the setback requirement at that location? MR. MARSH: I believe it's seven foot six. MR. LEHMANN: I can't read this map. Could you tell me what that says? MR. KINCAID: Looks like eight feet on there. MR. MARSH: I think it's 10 feet on -- yes, it is 10 feet on the requirements. And according to what I measured out there was eight feet. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any other questions for Mr. Marsh? MR. PONTE: Yeah. Just so I get a better view of this, on Page 29 of the packet, is that structure, or part of a trailer, is that the same piece we're talking about? The one with a -- looks like the back of a refrigerator truck or something. MR. MARSH: Yes, sir, that would be looking down the back of the property, from the right side of the property to the left side. You're seeing the side of it, yes. MR. PONTE: And you were told that this could not be permitted; is that correct? MR. MARSH: Yes. I talked to them at permitting in Immokalee, and the clerk there told me that a structure like that couldn't be permitted. MR. PONTE: Thank you. MR. MARSH: Which I think is part of the problem, that maybe the property owner didn't understand that and, therefore, Page 87 July 27, 2000 didn't understand why he couldn't get a permit. MR. PONTE: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any other questions for Mr. Marsh? Thank you, Mr. Marsh. Mr. Pinckney? Yes, sir, if you'd like to come up, please. (Speakers were duly sworn.) MR. PINCKNEY: Okay, number one on that shed, I sat that shed there in '80. And I tried to get a permit to put it up there and they told me I didn't need none. Because what it was is just a cover of a body of a truck I bought. And, you know, I was in the trucking business. I had a lot of tools. So then I put a wood the back end, the front end, I set it there. And it's supposed to been set on the legal limit then in '80, where it's supposed to be sitting at. So I never moved it. And so I went and -- when they came by, give me -- you know saw me, I went to get a permit then. They wouldn't give it there. They didn't tell me why, you know. So on that shed, that's what else I could do, because I got probably $20,000 worth of tools in that shed. You know, what am I to go do with them? MR. PONTE: Excuse me, did you say the shed has been there since 19807 MR. PINCKNEY: Yes, sir. I didn't just put it there. It's been there. I mean, not '80. '90, I'm sorry. It was '90, I'm sorry. It was '90 when I put that shed there. So, you know, on the shed part, I don't know what -- MR. KINCAID: May I interrupt you a second? Is the shed moveable? MR. PINCKNEY: I've got it sitting on blocks. It's sitting on concrete blocks. MRS. PINCKNEY: But we wasn't told that it wasn't -- you know, it was too close. MR. KINCAID: I understand. I just wondered if it was moveable. MR. PINCKNEY: Yeah, I can move it. It's -- you know, I get a forklift or something to move it. It can be moved. But the problem is, I got all my tools in there, because I got out of the trucking business a year ago. So I got all my tools in there. MR. LEHMANN: Maybe the issue is not just the fact that it's sitting in the wrong location, but the issue may be the fact that Page 88 July 27, 2000 you just don't have a permit for it; that it's not a permitted type structure to be allowed to be placed like that. MRS. PINCKNEY: Yeah, if she had of told us that, we could have moved it and got another shed. MR. PINCKNEY: I probably could have done had another shed by now. MRS. PINCKNEY: We just found that out this morning. MR. PINCKNEY: You know. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Other than the shed, sir, everything else is-- MR. PINCKNEY: Everything else is -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: --cleaned up? MR. PINCKNEY: -- taken care of. And, you know, the pieces on the back there, the bicycles, one for me and one for her and I got two for my grand kids left there. And my air tank and, you know, a couple of tires. And I did have my spare tires, really. But the other tires, I got them in the trailer, but I just ain't had time to take them off the truck. It cost me about $90 to take them to the dump. You understand? So they is up off the ground in a trailer. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And ready to be taken off. MR. PINCKNEY: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Pinckney? MS. SAUNDERS: Sir, how long -- if you do -- since this shed that is there is not permittable, even though it's been there for a long time, I understand that, if you needed to go get another shed to put -- that you could get a permit for and put on your property and demolish or throw out this one, how long do you think that would take you? MR. PINCKNEY: To get a shed? Well, I'd probably have to get somebody to come in there and bring the shed in and set it up and all that. So, you know, I could say one day and pay somebody to, you know, come in and do it. It might take two months before they come in and do it. You know, I really couldn't answer that question. But I would -- today I'm going by Builders Square and check on a building now when I leave here. MRS. PINCKNEY: Only other problem would be is getting a permit in Immokalee. MR. PINCKNEY: Well, I'm going to have to get it up here. Page 89 July 27, 2000 It's impossible. I mean, it's not impossible, but -- MS. SAUNDERS: If you get one of those sheds from Builders Square or something like that, do they need a permit to be put down? MS. ARNOLD: Yes. MS. SAUNDERS: And does Builders Square get that for you, or is that a relatively simple -- MS. ARNOLD: No, that's something the property owner can get and meet the tie-down requirements and that type of thing. MR. LEHMANN: And Michelle, a shed like this, a V-type shed, doesn't go through the full review process because it's a pre-engineered building, right? MS. ARNOLD: Yes. MR. LEHMANN: So it's almost an over-the-counter type? MS. ARNOLD: Urn-hum. And he should be able to get it in Immokalee. MR. LEHMANN: And it should be a one-day task to actually get the permit, same day. MRS. PINCKNEY: Therefore, we're going to have to get the permit in Naples. It's more than one day in Immokalee. Believe me, I know. I tried to get a permit to put my air conditioner put in, to do my sewer. MR. PINCKNEY: And that's what that is -- MRS. PINCKNEY: It took forever to get it, till finally I ended up over here. MR. LEHMANN: It might be worth the trip down, so to speak. MRS. PINCKNEY: It's worth the ride. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any other questions for -- MR. PINCKNEY: Not trying to come down on nobody, but it just -- sometimes it's just impossible to get anything done around there. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understand, sir. Any other question for the Pinckneys? MS. DUSEK: I just want to ask, the only violation we have right now then is the structure -- is the wood, the metal, the plastic, tires, all that? MR. PINCKNEY: Yes, ma'am. All that stuff. I got all the pictures I took last night. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: From what he's saying, most of it's in Page 90 July 27, 2000 this trailer waiting to be toted off, as I understand it. MR. PINCKNEY: Right. MS. RAWSON: He's got some pictures I think he'd like to show you. MR. PINCKNEY: Yeah, this is what I took last night. MR. MARSH: Most of the litter has been abated. As he says, the trailers are in the -- the tires are in the trailer being ready to be taken off. And anything else that's around there, he could get it taken care of. MRS. PINCKNEY: He did that yesterday. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's what I thought. Any -- MR. KINCAID: You still have to address the trailer, though. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, he's got to tote that off to the dump. It's a licensed trailer, right? MR. PINCKNEY: Yeah, I mean-- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, it's a licensed trailer. MR. PINCKNEY: Oh, yeah, I got the stickers and all that for the boat. But I just ain't never put them on there because I had to motor (phonetic} itself. But I just got it out last week. So I got all -- everything for the boat. You know, there's no problem on that. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You put those on, sir, because an unlicensed boat and trailer in your yard is a violation. So you need to put your stickers on. MR. PINCKNEY: Okay, all right. MS. ARNOLD: We can show you what's on the property. He's testifying that these were taken off last night, and -- MR. PINCKNEY: Yeah, that's the air conditioning unit there. That's what runs the house. That there and the air compressor. See that's the front of the house. That's the left side -- the south side of the house. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Looks like you got a tag put on the El Camino. MR. PINCKNEY: Oh, I had the tag all the time. MRS. PINCKNEY: It was on there then. MR. PINCKNEY: It was on there then. That tag all the time, even when I brought it home I had a tag. MRS. PINCKNEY: The day the man came on that, he didn't even go out there. MR. PINCKNEY: You know, that's the back of the house Page 9t July 27, 2000 again, the shed, the boat. There it is there again. And those -- MR. KINCAID: When were these taken? MR. PINCKNEY: Last night. MR. KINCAID: The boat's still there then? MR. PINCKNEY: Yeah, the boat's still there. MS. ARNOLD: It's okay for the boat to be -- MR. PINCKNEY: Everything you see on there is sitting there right now. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You can have the boat, just get your tags on it. MR. PINCKNEY: Okay. All right. I got those in the house, so I can put them on. That's my barbeque grill. That's from the other end. That's the trailer. It's got -- see, it's full of stuff now. Tires are all on it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And that's what you're going to haul to the dump? MR. PINCKNEY: Yes, sir. MS. ARNOLD: That's it. Those are all the photographs. MR. PINCKNEY: Now, that tank on this, butane and the acetylene tank, go to my tools. That's what those is. I use those frequently. See, on the weekend, I do a little moonlighting, junk iron and one thing to another. So that's what I use cutting on junk iron and stuff. As of now, them two, there's nothing in them, so they can be moved real easy, if you want them moved. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I would say when you get a new structure, I'd make it large enough to put those in. MR. PINCKNEY: Oh, I will. I will. I'm trying to get me one about 14-foot, because I only need one 14 to 12-foot wide to get all my tools in. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any further questions? Thank you, you may sit down. Thank you very much. Okay, as always, we're down to findings of fact that they're -- keeping in mind that even though they have -- Mr. and Mrs. Pinckney have worked to abate some of these violations, we need to find that does in fact or did the violation exist. And Page 92 July 27, 2000 that's why the case is here. Approach it from that standpoint. MR. LEHMANN: You want me to take a stab at this? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Sure. MR. LEHMANN: Real quick and short? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes, that would be great. MR. LEHMANN: I will make a finding of fact that the violation does exist, period. MS. SAUNDERS: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We can cite all the proper paragraphs and numbers. MR. LEHMANN: Exactly. You can take care of that for me. As far as the recommendation, I'm open for the board's discussion. I think the respondent's been very cooperative in trying to comply with the requirements of the code, so open for discussion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. First, let's make sure we have a finding of fact. Any question on that? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.} CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Fine. Order of the board. I agree with Mr. Lehmann, Mr. Pinckney has been, I think, diligent in trying to resolve this problem. He's made great effort. There's only one item left, which is the structure. I think that's probably an easily solvable item, by either moving it and getting a permit or getting rid of it and getting something larger, which would probably be to his advantage. And I don't think there's a great time limit involved. I would throw out for consideration trying to -- going and picking out the proper structure, running down here to get the permit and all that, a reasonable time. I don't have a problem with 30 days. MS. SAUNDERS: I agree with you. I think 30 days is reasonable. Hopefully he'll do it before, but it's a long trip. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Understanding he's going to have to do some running around first and picking out a structure that he wants and then going to get the permit for it. So I think 30 days is reasonable. And I would not be against taking the staff's recommendation, since he's worked so hard, that at the end of the 30 days, if he doesn't resolve the violations, that the fine of Page 93 July 27, 2000 $50 a day be imposed. MS. DUSEK: Second that wonderful motion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Any question? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You understand, Mr. Pinckney? We're giving you 30 days, sir, to resolve the outstanding problems, you know, get another structure, get a permit, whatever it is that you have to do. At the end of 30 days, if you haven't done that, you're going to be fined $50 a day until that's resolved. MR. PINCKNEY: I hope I'll have it done in 20 days. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: All right, sir. Thank you. MR. PINCKNEY: I thank you all. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That closes the public hearings. We're down to new business. Imposition of fines. MS. ARNOLD: This item is Board of County Commissioners versus Terence L. Fitzgerald, Trust, and Philip O'Conner. The item was heard by the board back on August 26th, 1999. At that time the board found them in violation and ordered the CO and obtaining permits and all necessary permits or remove the structure in violation by February 29th, 2000. That was not complied with. The board's order also said that $150 per day would be imposed each day the violation remained. And we're here to request imposition of fines reflecting the dates July 10th, 2000 to -- I'm sorry, March 1st through July 10th, 2000. And the total amount of fines would be $19,650. Plus $878.70 for operational costs for prosecution of the case. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Any questions by members of the board? MS. SAUNDERS: I don't see any reason not to impose the fines. MR. PONTE: I agree. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Would you like to make a motion? MS. SAUNDERS: Sure. I move that the filing of affidavit for noncompliance and imposition of fines on the case of Terence L. Fitzgerald, Trustee, and Philip O'Conner be accomplished. MR. O'CONNER: Do we have an opportunity to speak on this at all? MS. ARNOLD: Oh, I'm sorry. I was just going to note that Page 94 July 27, 2000 the -- Mr. O'Conner is here, and if the board wants to hear any discussion from him, you can do so. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MR. O'CONNER: The imposition of fines, I'd like to discuss -- not discuss, but at least debate, because of the circumstances that have happened throughout this whole permitting process. The last meeting that I attended was November the 29th, when I was given three months or 90 days to have this situation permitted. It didn't get permitted until April the 14th, through no fault of my own or my builder. Having had it permitted on April the 14th, I thought that that was basically the end of it. My contractor told me that he had a year to finish the permit off. There were various other circumstances involved, and we did not get it CO'd as such. The next I hear of it, without any phone calls from any county members whatsoever, is on the 14th of this month, when I'm summoned again here. There's been no correspondence since, between April the 14th and a week ago. I received it on the 14th. On the 17th, I contacted Theresa Beck's office. She returned my call on the 19th, two days later, and told me that the permit that was pulled on April the 14th should not have been pulled because they can't find the copies of the revised site plan. I have a letter here from Lance Miller of Wilson-Miller, which is a transmittal letter as such that he sent six copies, six revised copies, together with the insubstantial change letter directly to the planning authorities. So they're basically telling me that they've lost these plans and therefore, you should not have gotten that permit in April. The same day I go down to planning and physically take them six more copies to Cheryl Souter, who said that planning didn't have them. There you go, there you have them, now the permit is good, is it? The next day she said that it would be good if I came down and paid another $100 to go with the permit. I've always paid $12,800 on impact fees on this building. When can I possibly comply? I've done everything in my power. This file is two inches thick. The buildings cost $38,000 to install. The company that installed them later went bankrupt and never pulled a permit. And now I have another $28,000 Page 95 July 27, 2000 trying to comply with Collier County. 28,000. Perfect example of miscommunication and incompetence, I feel. Yesterday I was told to go down by my contractor to get a final building to get this whole thing behind us. He's out of town on vacation. I go down to Collier County to get a final building, and I'm now given four more tasks. And this is his argument all along. Every time I go to Collier County, he sees a different person, something changes, he never knows what he's got to do. I now -- this is -- and Teresa Beck's been the only one that's helped me through this whole thing. She's code enforcement, she's not a planner. She's the only one that's helped. An hour and 20 minutes in Collier County's planning yesterday, with Teresa Beck who helped me, I am now supposed to get a steel building certification. The company's out of business. That's what's caused this whole problem. I'm not going to be able to get one. A 10-day spot survey. Wilson-Miller has been out to this property five times now to put on a fire hydrant that ! had to buy for $7,000, to -- setbacks, et cetera, five times. Johnnie Gebhardt wants me to have them come out again now to show a mean high water mark on the river bank. She wants the mean high water mark there to determine the setbacks on the rear of the property. There are no setbacks on the rear of the property. I spoke to a planner last night, a friend of mine, and he faxed me over the information that, if I may give you it -- I guess I'm doing this just to show you the type of time-consuming, ridiculous things that have just been thrown up at this whole plan. If I may give you this, this is an ordinance. Minimum setbacks for the property, 25 feet, but not if you're a marina -- I'm sorry, you couldn't hear me. Minimum setbacks, waterfront property on the rear are 25 feet. But zero if it's a marina. So why would I now have to bring out Wilson-Miller again at $560 to put in a mean high water mark on the river bank? Well, the next contingencies that were thrown at me yesterday, final roofing. Final roofing on a steel building, prefabricated building. Site drainage. We haven't touched the drainage. That was all done on the SDP four years ago. They have no record of it. Page 96 July 27, 2000 Landscaping. We haven't done any landscaping. That was done on the SDP four years ago. I spoke to the SDP people -- or the landscaper last night at home. He assured me that he pulled permits for the job and that they were all cleared and done on the SDP. Parking. SDP four years ago. Exotic tree removal. We haven't done any work. But I have now got to call in for these CO's. One, two, three, four, five, six, all of which are totally unnecessary. MR. LEHMANN: Can I interject here just one second? And Michelle, correct me if I'm wrong. The inspections that you're calling for all fall into the same category of a final inspection. When you call for a final building inspection, you're calling for all of those inspections. It's not as if the county has all of a sudden just heaped a bunch of new inspections on you. It is all part of receiving this final certificate of occupancy to pass all of those final landscaping, drainage -- MR. O'CONNER: Even though we've done none of this work? MR. LEHMANN: I understand that. MR. O'CONNER: That was done years ago. MR. LEHMANN: That's correct. You may not have touched those issues, but the inspector still has to come out and at least sign off on it. MR. O'CONNER: Okay. Well, then it's a moot point at this stage. But I do feel this business of a 10-spot survey, when I've had Wilson-Miller out there five times, and it's right there in the ordinance that there is not zero -- that it's a zero setback for marinas. And we debated it. We debated it last might for 15 minutes. I asked what the setback was. She didn't know. But she wants a drawing on the plan -- she wants another survey. And this is the type of thing that we've been up against for two years. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, I think -- understanding what you're saying, and I in some respects feel for you, what we're here to do -- and I'll try to put some words in your mouth. Are you asking us for a reduction in fines? Because that's all we're here to do is -- MR. O'CONNER: Definitely. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- impose the fines we set some time ago based on the parameters. Now, for various reasons, you Page 97 July 27, 2000 couldn't meet those parameters, so we're about to impose fines based on that. So are you asking us to reduce the fines, this $19,650 that we're about to do, to some other number based on these circumstances? MR. O'CONNER: Yes, I am, sir. Let me further that and justify the reduction, possibly. The engineering department in Collier County took two and a half months to sign off on it. But the fire department took three months to sign off on this. And that's how we missed our deadline of the 90 days. Within that 90 days, or within the three months that the fire department refused to sign off on it, they came up with certain conditions, contingencies. The names escaped me at the moment. Bob Salvaggio, Judy Thatcher, I believe, is with East Naples. We had several visits by them. They found that as much as I had one fire hydrant on the property, they wanted a second fire hydrant on there to come within their 200 feet situation to the building. Having negotiated -- or it took at least 10 days with Judy Thatcher, wasting all this time, to enable us to put the fire hydrant in a sensible position on the basis that the buildings that all of this is about are a temporary situation. I have a set of plans and a cost situation from Houchin Construction, which is the long-term goal of that property. If she had put the fire hydrant where she wanted to do it when this real building is erected, it would be a total waste of money. It's got to be moved. It's going to be right in the middle of a concrete slab. MS. ARNOLD: Can I interrupt for a second, just to help lay some of the facts out on the table for the board's consideration, if they're looking at a reduction of fines? They did apply for the permit back in September of '99, and it wasn't issued, as he indicated, until April 26th of 2000. But a part of the board's order is that they obtain Certificate of Occupancy. So the permits were obtained, as ordered by the board. Inspections need to be requested and, you know, those checks are done once requests are made by whomever pulls the permits. And Certificate of Occupancy is then issued once all of the inspections that are required, based on that permit, are done. But according to our research, there were no requests for Page 98 July 27, 2000 inspections that were made. MR. O'CONNER: Correct. Mainly because my contractor told me that we've got a year to get the CO. I guess my point is this: Within the county planning, from April the 14th to July the 20 -- no, July the 14th, couldn't somebody pick up a phone and ask why are you not pulling your MR. LEHMANN: Well, again, that's not staff's responsibility, because you have -- go ahead. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Let's fall back to something, okay? Just so we understand each other, this board gave you an order back in -- MR. O'CONNER: November. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- November, I guess it was-- MR. O'CONNER: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- said that you had to do certain things. MR. O'CONNER: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And for you to do them, from my standpoint, doesn't mean that the county has to call you and tell you what to do. MR. O'CONNER: Correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' You have to do what we told you to do by a certain date. MR. O'CONNER: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay? Nobody has to remind you. It's like paying your mortgage. It's due. The mortgage company isn't going to call you, okay? So I don't have a problem with nobody notified you. I'm looking at you as to do this by a certain date or you're going to get fined 150 bucks a day, period. Now, what I see you coming to us for is we're about to impose a fine because you didn't do it on time, and you're asking us for some leniency based on some things that got in the way. I don't have a problem with that, okay? I just need you to understand that I'm not looking for excuses because somebody didn't call you. I'm looking at you -- we mailed you this order, you stood before us, we told you what to do. You're responsible, period. MR. O'CONNER: Agreed, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Nobody else, you. And that's -- so you Page 99 July 27, 2000 tell me why you didn't do it, and you've been doing that, so that's going to muster into would I or would I not recommend we change the price. But I'm not interested in the county didn't call you. Not my problem. MR. O'CONNER: Okay. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You know, you were responsible, bottom line. MR. O'CONNER: I agree in that sense. However, I do want to bear the fact that this isn't a case of pulling up some pepper hedges, gone. Moving a shed, gone. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Your excuse is your contractor told you you had a year. This order said you had to do something by a date. MR. O'CONNER: Correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Your contractor ain't in this, you're in this, okay? He could tell you, you could have 50 years, I don't care. We told you to do it by a certain time. MR. O'CONNER: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Period. Now, let's go from there, okay? MR. O'CONNER: I just think there's an awful lot of circumstances where it's out of my control. The very fact that he advised me or led me to believe that the pressure's off. Now that we've got the permit, you can take your time with it, especially if you're doing this type of cost finding as to a feasibility. That is my fault, as you said. Black and white, there it is in that findings. You've not only go to get your permit but CO'd also. The very fact that we did not get permitted on time, I've tried to explain. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understand. MR. O'CONNER: Out of my control. But my mistake, yes, is paying all that money, paying the permitting fees of $12,000 and then dropping the ball and not picking up the CO within the next two or three days, it doesn't make any sense. If you look at it from that standpoint, why would I spend all that money, go to all that trouble and not get a CO? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understand what you're saying. And, you know, what we're here to do -- MR. O'CONNER: It's a genuine mistake on my part. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You didn't do what we told you so Page 100 July 27, 2000 we're going to fine you, and now you're saying well, we'd like you to forgive us the fine for these reasons, and the bottom line is you messed up. MR. O'CONNER: Pretty much. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Just so we understand. I mean, that's how I'm hearing all this. That's the bottom line. I'm not saying we won't help you. I don't know. It's up to the board. But just so we both understand each other, as I'm hearing all this, the bottom line is you dropped the ball somewhere. MR. O'CONNER: I thought that the -- having received the permit and paid the impact fees, et cetera, I thought the pressure was off. It was not. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MR. BASS: Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ray Bass, and I represent Mr. Fitzgerald. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: One moment, sir. (Speaker was duly sworn.} MR. BASS: Again, my name is Ray Bass, and I'm a lawyer in private practice here in Naples and I represent the property owner, Terry Fitzgerald, Trustee. And you may recall that obviously our interest in this matter is the fact that our tenant is in trouble with the board, which gets us in trouble. The -- I guess I think Mr. Fitzgerald will tell you that he's been in communication with Mr. O'Conner about this matter over the months, and was being assured by Mr. O'Conner things were going along and so forth. If it is -- and I think it is, if it is the board's intention to impose a fine, I would simply suggest that if the building permit was applied for back in September of last year and it was not issued until, as I understand it, sometime in April of this year, then I would suggest to you respectfully that any fine that you impose should not run from -- there should be some point beyond the issuance of the building permit. If you find that there's been some lack of diligence on Mr. O'Conner's part, then that you may find it's appropriate to impose a fine. But my point is the permit's not issued until sometime in April of this year, it would be some point after that, 30 days or whatever it should be, that the CO could have been obtained. I don't know what that time period is. But a fine of some 19 or so thousand dollars, which would run -- which is a -- running from the last day of February of Page 101 July 27, 2000 this year I think is inappropriate under those circumstances. And I'm just really saying that as a -- as the representative of the property owner who is in trouble as a result of the tenant being in trouble with the board. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, they're both on this order, so it applies to both of them. If they want to divide the 19, that's not our problem. But what you need to also understand is, and hearing what you're saying, the clock hasn't stopped running yet. This is only through July 10th. The clock will stop running when the problem is solved. MR. BASS: That's correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Now, whether that's this month, next month, a year from now, doesn't matter. That's when the clock will stop. My recommendation probably to my colleagues is that we impose this fine as is, and when it's all done, at some point, because the 19's going to keep growing, it's already growing. Then you come back before us and say gee, I have this, hypothetically, $50,000 fine staring me in the face, I'd like some relief because of all these factors. To relieve it now, we would have to change the order of the board. I'm really not for doing that. I don't know about my colleagues. I'm for letting it lay as it is until the whole thing is done, and then let's do it one time. MR. O'CONNER: That's the Certificate of Occupancy that you're talking about. It cuts off there. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: It gets our order, which we issued back in December 2nd, when that's all abated, whatever that takes to get there, and if that's the CO, that's what you've got to do and show to the county code enforcement, and they agree, yes, you've done everything you were ordered to do. Then it's over and done with. Then you should come to us, is what I would recommend, and say gee, I'd like you to reduce my fine from whatever this number grows to, to something else. MR. BASS: I have just a -- perhaps it's even just a legal question, but does the board -- once a fine is imposed, does the board then have continuing jurisdiction to reduce the fine? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yes, we can reduce any fine. MR. BASS: All right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Anybody like to say anything else? Any Page 102 July 27, 2000 questions? I guess I would say to my colleagues that as far as a reduction in fines at this point, I would not recommend it. We very rarely do it until the very end. So I would like to see us continue that practice; that we impose the fine as recommended and let it just keep running until the clock ends and there's full compliance. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Chairman, I would concur with that recommendation. MR. PONTE: I would, too. I just would like to get some kind of clock on it in terms of estimated time of when we -- when is it all going to come to an end? When can it all be completed? MR. O'CONNER: As far as I understand it, I need a licensed contractor to pull a permit on commercial property. Unless I'm wrong now, I can go ahead individually on a one-to-one basis to get this thing finished, not being a licensed contractor. Am I correct on that? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's a question we can't answer. We don't have that knowledge or that authority to tell you yes. So I'm sorry, it's a question we can't answer. MR. O'CONNER: Well, again, I'm trying to get to the stage to get a grip on this situation. As long as I can go ahead now and pull these CO's individually myself, I can do it in a short time. It's only when we start involving other personalities and other departments within the planning areas that we seem to lose any sense of timetable. MR. LEHMANN: You already have a contractor that applied for the permit. MR. O'CONNER: Correct. MR. LEHMANN: And what prevents that particular contractor from pulling the CO? MR. O'CONNER: I feel I could be more efficient. MR. LEHMANN: I think you may have some trouble there. I think you may have to resort to the contractor. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You may want to take him by the hand and take him with you. MR. O'CONNER: Thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, we have a motion to impose the affidavit of noncompliance reflecting the fines -- imposition of fines as presented. Page 103 July 27, 2000 MR. LEHMANN: Second. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you, Mr. O'Conner. Old business -- well, we'll take a five-minute break, please. (Recess taken.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Old business. BCC versus K.O. Vaughn. Request for removal of fines. MS. ARNOLD: Okay. This item was heard by actually not this board but prior-- the north board on June 24th, 1999. And at that time, Mr. Vaughn was found in violation. And the main reason for that violation was the failure to obtain permits for the improvements that were conducted on the site. And we were -- he had attempted to make -- to obtain permits on his own as an owner/builder, but was denied by our building department because of our ordinance that states for commercial buildings you cannot be an owner/builder, you would have to obtain a permit from a contractor. We have since obtained an opinion from the county attorney's office, which is provided for you. And according to the opinion, he is able to pull a permit as an owner/builder and conduct the improvements, and has since been granted a permit from the building department. And staff is recommending that we remove the fines based on the fact that the reason why he was in violation to begin with is because he -- it was based on an ordinance that indicated that he couldn't do what he was trying to do. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Do you have a copy of the order? MS. ARNOLD: Yes, we do. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: May I see it, please? Okay, so you're now telling me that respondent did in fact get the permit to do the work, and in getting that permit, it's all been done correctly, as I remember. I went back and read old notes, because I was on the board then. Everything is in compliance. MS. ARNOLD: I think the permit's still running. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MS. ARNOLD: And I don't believe the order mentioned, you Page t04 July 27, 2000 know, Certificate of Occupancy similar to the previous order that was just discussed with the O'Conner case. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: No, I don't see that here. It just says major renovations to the exterior and interior of the property, new walls, plumbing, electric, concrete doors, windows, structure, all work on property without Collier County building permits. We ordered him to correct the violations of Section 2.7.6 of 92-80 -- or of 91-102, Paragraphs I and 5. I don't off the top of my head know what those two paragraphs state. But I guess what my question is, you're telling me he's got the permit and all this work that's being done is in compliance? MS. ARNOLD: What I'm telling you is that the board's -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Under those two sections, part of our order was he had to be in compliance with those two sections. MS. ARNOLD: Right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I don't know if that just means run down and get a piece of paper that says I have a permit and you're in compliance. Is that what it says? MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. Basically the section of the Land Development Code that I believe is cited is the one that refers to any improvements being done needs to obtain a permit. And so he's obtained a permit. And the board's order says that within so many days he would -- is to obtain all required permits, and he has obtained required permits. He hadn't done it in the time frame that the board ordered, but my comment is that we were -- he was attempting to do that and denied repeatedly by the building department because they were going with an ordinance that said that he couldn't do it himself. And now since then, we've obtained an opinion from the county attorney's that says that he can obtain it himself, and he's done that. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Chairman, if you want to reference those sections for your own benefit, if you'd look under Case No. 2000-023, that would be BCC versus Harold Carlson. It's the case that we didn't hear. There's a copy of that particular section in there. And those sections do reference the obtaining of a permit. They don't reference any requirement to obtain a CO. Page t05 July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. But is the permit just for the building or is it -- I mean, our order says permits, required permits. So, I mean-- MS. ARNOLD: We did have reference to a site improvement plan or site development plan, and according to the building department, that wasn't required for that structure that he was doing. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I guess what I'm leaning to is when the order says permits, if you just get a permit to build a building but then -- I mean, does that permit include if you're going to do the plumbing and the electrical? I mean, you just need one permit? MS. ARNOLD: His permit would include all the improvements that would be required for the, you know, construction that he was doing. So if he was doing an addition and electrical was required, plumbing was required, that would all be covered under that permit, and then it would be assessed accordingly. So the fee would be based on how many different inspections or trades were involved under that permit. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Because based on the beginning case, he had -- he was doing all these things. He wasn't just -- you know, he was doing plumbing, electrical and so on and on and on. He was doing a lot of things, as I remember, and as I'm reading the order. So I just want to make sure that if we're going to reduce the fines, that he got all the permits, he just didn't walk in and get a permit. And we're satisfied, because we wouldn't give him A, but he also needed B, C and D. MS. ARNOLD: Right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So he's got everything he's allowed to have. MS. ARNOLD: That's correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. I believe Mr. Vaughn's here, if I remember his face. Would you come up, sir? I have a question or two for you. (Speaker was duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Almost near the end. In all this work that you had done, are you the person that supervised everybody? MR. VAUGHN: I did the work. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You did the work yourself, the Page 106 July 27, 2000 plumbing and electrical? MR. VAUGHN: (Nods head affirmatively.) As I told you in the first meeting, that I went to the county building department to obtain a permit. They told me that I could not do it under owner/builder, because it was commercial building. I went there three different times and questioned them. The last time I went there I started at one end of the building, I went all the way through the building to the other end. Then the final answer I got was no, that I couldn't do it. So then they requested a ruling while I showed them under Florida statute that I could do it. Then they decided to get a ruling from the county attorney. They got a ruling that said yes, he can do it. Which to me means if they had given me my permit when I applied for it, you people would not even be in the picture. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understand that. I'm just -- I'm trying to get enough information so that this thing will go away. So just bear with me. So you did all the work. MR. VAUGHN: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And looking at what you submitted to us before, I think you added on to your building, correct? MR. VAUGHN: No, sir. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You didn't? Okay. I thought in one of your drawings you added a room. A 30 by 40 room? MR. VAUGHN: The 30 by 40 is an existing building. What I did is redo the wiring in it, bring it up to code where it was Romex'd before I put it in conduit. I re-did the walls, brought them up to code. I re-did the bathroom, brought it up to code. Everything is brought up to code. I re-stuccoed the outside of the building to make it look presentable. There's nothing built there that wasn't already there. I just re-did it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MR. VAUGHN: I didn't contract it for somebody else. It's my building on my land. And that's what I did. MS. DUSEK: If I'm understanding everything -- and Michelle, correct me if I'm wrong -- when we imposed the fines, gave this order, it was because we thought he couldn't do the work as an owner, Page 107 July 27, 2000 MS. ARNOLD: Uh-huh. MS. DUSEK: Now we've since found that he could do the work. MS. ARNOLD: Correct. MS. DUSEK: And he's done everything he's supposed to do; is that correct? He's pulled all the permits? MS. ARNOLD: He's pulled the permits. I don't know if he's still working on the building or not. MR. VAUGHN: No. MS. DUSEK: But as far as we're concerned -- MS. ARNOLD: He's in compliance. MS. DUSEK: -- he's in compliance. MR. LEHMANN: And regardless of whether the future work is done per code or not, it's out of our jurisdiction and the building code department's jurisdiction. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Right. MS. DUSEK: I think it's fairly simple that we forgive the fines. MR. VAUGHN: Completely. MS. DUSEK: That's the way I feel. MS. SAUNDERS: I agree. I would like the building -- you know, the planning department was the one that caused the problem, and it's not his fault or ours. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Do you use the building, sir?. MR. VAUGHN: The day that they put the stop work order on that building, I quit working on that building until -- what your statement says was that I needed to obtain the permit. Stop work is what it said. Stop work. That's what I did. I have not worked on that building until the permit is done. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MR. VAUGHN: As of now, I'm not working on the building. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And the building is for your use? In other words, you're going to move your business or whatever you're in, in there? MR. VAUGHN: That's correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MR. VAUGHN: As to whatever answer you want there. I'm not answering that question under the Fifth Amendment. CHAIRMAN FLEGAI.-' The building was being used by you? MR. VAUGHN: Well, there's a little more to it. You have to Page 108 July 27, 2000 build the building for your own use or you can get another permit a year later. I'm a year and a half into the permit that they should have given me a year and a half ago. So if I want to lease the building, I may lease it. But I don't see -- I don't know where this comes into play. MR. LEHMANN: It's very relevant. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you. That's the only question I have for you, sir. MS. DUSEK: I make a motion that we forgive the fines. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Let me ask somebody else a question, if I may. Mr. Palmer? MR. PALMER: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. MR. VAUGHN: Could I ask you one more question? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Sure. MR. VAUGHN: Do I get a copy of this, or are you going to -- the copy of the minutes or something, a document as to where you're going to -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: If we issue an order to waive the fine, you'll get a copy of it. MR. VAUGHN: Thank you, sir. MR. PALMER: Tom Palmer, assistant county attorney. (Speaker was duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: On your memo telling about the code and the statute, just for our own information, if you'd explain it to us about an owner getting a permit to do the work themselves and how that works. MR. PALMER: All right, let's talk about the specific case, so we don't get in generalities, I think would be clearer. Let's talk about this application. This individual is entitled to come in and get a general permit, provided certain conditions are met. That is, provided when the whole thing is said and done, the cost to this individual does not exceed $25,000. If it does, this exemption is not applicable. If this work is to be done to get this building prepared for lease or use by others, and that happens within a year of the completion of this work, which hasn't yet happened, it's presumed that this is not a viable license and, therefore, he violated this section. Page 109 July 27, 2000 So I wouldn't be making any revisions of fines until such time as this building is not leased or is leased or not leased within an entire year of when this work is completed. That's the holding time. If in fact it is leased to a third party within one year of the time this work is completed, it's presumed that this is a sham and he's skirted this ordinance provision, for openers. The way this weeks, if you hire anybody to do this work other than yourself, you must -- they must either be licensed contractors, as required by state law, or county ordinance. For example, if you apply a local specialty contractor to do some landscaping, he must have that certification by Collier County. Now, he need not supervise that person, because the knowledge to do that kind of work is imputed to the licensed person. If he hires a state certified roofer or plumber, then he doesn't have to supervise. As to everybody else that does any work on this property, he must supervise them and employ them. He cannot retain them as independent contractors. He must withhold their pay, their federal withholding, and must provide workers' compensation insurance. Even the handyman. So if you're going to employ anybody else on this job, you must supervise them and withhold their wages. And the only people you can hire as a contractor are people who are licensed contractors, either by the state or by Collier County. And that in a nutshell. So if this work, when it's all said and done exceeds the cost of $25,000, and you don't put it in compartments, its total cost to him, then this exemption that he's applied for does not kick in. So these are conditions that must be met. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: The $25,000 must include something for labor, because his time is worth something. MR. PALMER: It's silent about imputing value to his own services. The statute is silent on that. I construe the statute to mean out-of-pocket costs. I compute it to mean either money or some other barter. Let's assume he trades chickens, then that would be it. But I don't think this thing imputes a value to the labor of the individual owner. That's my construction of it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, and if he does the work himself MR. PALMER: Yes, sir. Page 110 July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- the electrical, the plumbing and all that -- MR. PALMER: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- how do we know that meets -- MR. PALMER: He must -- everything he does must meet the requisite inspection, as if it was done by a state certified individual or a locally specialty contractor. This provision in no way affects the final inspection or the quality of the work. The work must meet the -- if it was done by a very experienced plumber, electrician, what have you. It in no way is affected by this statutory provision. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Terrific. Answered my questions. Any other questions for Mr. Palmer? MR. PALMER: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you, sir. Peter, on that section of the code that you referenced in that other case, did you look through those? MR. LEHMANN: With regard to Carlson? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Is it only obtained -- because I don't know what those two sections say. The 90-1 -- MR. LEHMANN: Let me read it to you. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: 90-1 -- the 91-102, 276, I and 5. MR. LEHMANN: Let's see. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Before we make a decision to relieve it. MR. LEHMANN: 276, Paragraph 17 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I and 5. MR. LEHMANN: I'll just read the code sections for you. Paragraph 1, zoning action on building permits. The site development review director shall be responsible for determining whether application for building permits, as required by the Collier County Building Code, are in accord with the requirements of this zoning code and the Land Development Code. No building permits shall be issued without written approval that plans submitted conform to applicable zoning regulations and other land development regulations. No building or structure shall be erected, moved, added to, altered or utilized -- excuse me, utilized or allowed to exist without first obtaining the authorization of the required building Page 111 July 27, 2000 permit inspections and Certificates of Occupancy, as required by the Collier County Building Code, and no building permit application shall be approved by the site development review director for the erection, moving, addition to or alteration of any building or structure except in conformity with the provisions of this zoning code and the Land Development Code unless he shall receive a written order from the board of zoning appeals in the form of an administrative review of the interpretation or variance as provided by this code, or unless he shall receive a written order from a court or tribunal or of confident jurisdiction. And Paragraph 5 -- did you understand all that? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah. MR. LEHMANN: -- or do I need to repeat it? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And that covers, I think, if I heard you say, certificate of occupancy. MR. LEHMANN: Correct. And again, it says no building shall be erected, yada, yada, yada, without a permit, inspection and certificate. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. And then what's 5 saying? MR. LEHMANN: And Item No. 5 -- or Paragraph 5, improvement of property prohibited prior to issuance of building permit: No site work or removal of protected vegetation, grading, improvement of property or construction of any type may be commenced prior to the issuance of a building permit where the development proposed requires a building permit under this Land Development Code or other applicable county regulations. Exceptions to this requirement may be granted by the community of development and environmental services administrator for the approval -- for an approved subdivision or site development plan to provide for distribution of fill excavated on-site or to limit construction of an approved water management system, to minimize stock piles and hauling off-site or to protect the health, safety and welfare, where clearing, grading and filling plans have been submitted and approved, meeting the warrants of Section 3.2.8.3.6 of this code. Removal of exotic vegetation shall be exempted upon receipt of a vegetation removal permit for exotics pursuant to Division :3.9. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think Item I -- Section I or Paragraph 1, whichever, covered what I wanted, and which is the Page 1t 2 July 27, 2000 Certificate of Occupancy. So in essence, he's not in full compliance yet to what we ordered him to do. MR. LEHMANN: Right. MS. RAWSON: Maybe that's what the statute -- or the ordinance says. But I think, and you've got the order up there, I think that the order only requires him to obtain the permits, not the CO. MR. LEHMANN: Now that I read my side, would you read your order? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah. It says that the respondent correct the violations of Section 2.7.6, Paragraphs I and 5 of the ordinance, as amended in the code by obtaining all required and approved permits within 30 days. However, if a site development plan is required to obtain permits, then the respondent shall apply within 30 days. So it says correct the violations. And the violations are, in Item 1, Paragraphs I and 2, of that section, correct? MS. RAWSON: But we only ordered him to get the required permits is the problem. We didn't order him to get the CO. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MS. SAUNDERS: I think that's correct. And while I understand what the county attorney was saying, that he may have gotten -- the permit that was issued to him may not be valid if he doesn't comply with certain things, that's not what we're looking at right now. I would hope that when the CO comes to effect, if we -- if that's found to be the case, then to me it's another code violation. But he's done what we've asked him to do, from what I hear. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' First thing, he may have done what we've asked him to do. My problem is he's got a permit, but until he's done, we don't know if it's a proper permit. Because he's got to do the work and get the CO and he's got to do it without spending over 25,000, and he's got to do it in not leasing the building. MS. SAUNDERS: But it would seem to me if it's not a proper permit, that's not up to us to determine, it's the planning -- it's the building department to say you got a permit under misconstrued reasons. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL'. No, what I'm looking for is, we said get all required and approved permits. And we're assuming that in Page 113 July 27, 2000 good faith he's going to do what he says he's going to do under the rules. I mean, I don't see why he wouldn't. But until it's done, I don't see -- we're relieving the money, and you can't after the fact go back and impose the money a year from now. MS. RAWSON: It would be a different violation. I think he got -- he obtained all required permits. And I don't think we have the province to approve them or not approve them. We told him to go get the permits, and he did. That's all we ordered him to do. Now, if some of the things that Mr. Palmer said eventually come out to be true, you know, then the case may be back here. But for now, what we're -- I understand staff is recommending that you abate his fines because he did what we ordered him to do. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. I just want the record to reflect that we've covered all the bases. And if -- you know, so that nobody can ever have any questions that we didn't spread it out. MR. LEHMANN: Ms. Rawson, do we have the ability to postpone the fines for a period of time to make sure that this permit is actually valid, such as a year from now? MS. RAWSON: Well, you issued fines, and the county attorney's office said in effect you shouldn't have issued the fines because he did try to obtain the permit and it's our fault we didn't give it to him. Because the state statute trumps the county ordinance. And it was our fault. So, you know, I think your -- today that's your narrow issue. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. But in doing that, I guess my question was, the state says yes, you should give him a permit, but only under these conditions. That's where I was -- why I was asking the questions. The conditions are you don't spend more than $25,000, and he doesn't -- you know, he has to get the CO and he can't lease the building. I mean, those are all conditions on the permit. So yes, they've given him a permit, but it's based on the assumption that he in fact is going to do what is required to obtain that specialized permit, because that's what it is. MS. RAWSON: That's true. And that evidence is not before you yet, because that hasn't come to pass. MR. PONTE: Yeah, but I think, Mr. Chairman, it kind of makes us a police department. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I just wanted the questions out there. Page 114 July 27, 2000 I just want to make sure that we've asked all the questions up front before we waive the fine. I don't have a problem with request at all. I just wanted to ask all the questions I could ask. MR. LEHMANN: You're trying to preserve the record; is that correct? MS. DUSEK: I see where you're going. I think we have to wait. And if he doesn't do what the application -- I mean, the permit says, then he'll be back here. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I mean, we told him to get a permit and the man got it. And through no fault of his own, the county held him up, and I understand that part. But he got the permit under a specific set of conditions. That's what bothers me. MS. SAUNDERS: Well, I think that all -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: It's not like every other permit that you go down and you get it, I mean, it's fine, because it's all spelled out. This permit was given for an owner/builder on a commercial property under a specific set of guidelines. And that's why I wanted to make sure we understand that if the guidelines of this permit aren't met, then he really didn't get a permit. MS. RAWSON: I understand what you're saying, and I think that you've probably made that quite clear to the respondent. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think Mr. Vaughn understands. And I'm sure he'll do what's right. Yes, sir. MR. VAUGHN: I want to explain something that he said, the attorney said. The permit that I applied for, the county -- the building department is the one that determines whether it exceeds $25,000 or not. The building that we're talking about is a remodel building. It's not a new structure. It's just a fixer-upper. The CO that he's talking about, sometimes they determine is a certificate of occupancy or whatever, and then sometimes they say CO as far as getting the meter. I got the meter. So -- and the work to be done has to pass code by the county -- I mean, pass -- it has to be inspected before they're going to issue the final -- or issue the final CO on that. So there's not a problem there. I don't know where he was trying to go or where he was coming from. But that's not a problem. But the ordinance does stip -- I mean, the state statute stipulates what we can do, and the county is the one that tells Page 115 July 27, 2000 you how much it's going to cost. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understand. I'm just trying to get on the record that you got the permit based on a certain set of conditions. MR. VAUGHN: Well, if you read the conditions as they are. Everybody reads them different. Now, I did exactly what you told me to do. You told me to stop work, I stopped. You told me to get permits, permits with an S. Permit. I only needed a permit for that building, not permits. One. Which entails all of the trades on that particular building. And that's what I went to do, and that's what I told you before I tried to do and they wouldn't give it to me. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We understand that. MS. DUSEK: I make the motion that we forgive the fines. MR. PONTE: I second the motion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion and a second to forgive the fines on Case 99-032, County Commissioners versus K.O. and Martha Vaughn. Any question? We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Those opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So ordered. Next, request for reconsideration. MS. ARNOLD: Okay, this next item has been placed on your agenda at the request of Ms. Cheryl A. Horbal. The letter was provided to you which requested that, and we received some information yesterday, and Maria's going to be distributing it for your -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I guess my request to staff is why is this being considered -- reconsidered? Why is there a request to reconsider?. MS. ARNOLD: The request was made by the respondent, and we were giving the board an opportunity to approve or deny it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MR. PONTE: I have a question. This has a feeling of deja vous about it. And I don't know the reason that we should be rehearing what's already been done. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I was just going to mention to the board that time limits for rehearing the case have come and Page 1t6 July 27, 2000 gone. It is not -- the ordinance time and the statute's time is gone, both for us to rehear this and for the court to review it. I guess my own feeling is, I'll be glad to hear a statement from Ms. Horbal, but I'm not interested in rehearing the case. The time has come and gone. If there's some other request that she's going to make, I'd be interested, but we're not interested in rehearing. Ms. Horbal? Okay. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MS. HORBAL: I agree, I do not want to rehash it either. I would like for this problem to go away. I've spent the last year of my life working on this, and I would like nothing better to put it to rest. The reason I'm back before you all today is because of your request for me to go to the Collier County Board of County Commissioners, which I did. I followed up with them, went through a hearing with them. They debated on whether or not in fact the exotics should be taken off the exotics list, the java plum. They decided that that tree should not be taken off the list. They also at that time told me specifically, I don't know why you're here. This really is not our problem. You need to go back to county code enforcement. This is their problem. I called Barbara Berry after the meeting and I said, "Barbara, county code told me I needed to come before you." And she said, "Well, I don't know why they told you that, because," she said, "we cannot help you." She said, "We heard the case, there's nothing we can do, there's no decision that we can even make for you on your behalf." She said, "It has to be resolved by county code." I asked her, I said, "Well, you know, I've been before county code. They asked me to come before you at all." And at that point, I said, "Is there another level I need to go to? Do I need to go to the mayor? Do I need to go to the governor? What do I need to do?" And she told me that my best bet was talk to Michelle Arnold again and go from there. Michelle and I spoke a couple of weeks ago and she said that I could put forward a request again to meet with you all. And that at this time, I need to offer a solution. You guys have already agreed that I had a leg to stand on, so to speak. The Page 117 July 27, 2000 county code -- or the Collier County Board of Commissioners has told me that they can't do anything with this issue. So I'm back before you all to see if the solution that I am proposing would be satisfactory to this -- the violation. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. You need to understand that our solution is that you abate the problem. The people you need to satisfy is Michelle. MS. HORBAL: Exactly. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You don't need -- you know, she'll tell us that you satisfied her, and then we're happy. We're not going to say yeah, you can prune a true. We're not here to do that. You're in violation because you have this tree. We told you to get rid of the tree under whatever method, and we recommended one method, okay? So now all we want to hear is that you got rid of the tree or the county is satisfied that you've abated the violation. How that happens, that's all we want to know. MS. HORBAL: Okay. Well, I'm more than happy to work out something with Michelle. I don't have a problem with that. I think the extenuating circumstances in this case is that the county is at fault, not me. This was not an intentional act of trying to avoid the removal of the trees. It was not done intentionally, obviously on our part or our builder. It was a county mistake from the beginning. And I'm more than happy to comply with spraying the trees with the product that will eliminate the fruitation, the reproduction of the fruit, and therefore, eliminate the problem. The trees will no longer be a nuisance and no longer be a threat with the spraying. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL'. I don't have the order. I'm sure it reads along the lines of, you know, correct the violation I think it was within six months or something. That's what comes to my mind. MS. HORBAL: Right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: How you do that is between you and the county. All they need to do is come to us one day with a letter saying you're in compliance. How that came about, in reality, unfortunately is not our concern. MS. HORBAL'. I understand. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's between you two. MS. ARNOLD: I don't have the order in front of me either, Page t18 July 27, 2000 but I believe the order states that the trees are to be removed, not whatever method. And what is -- what Mrs. Horbal has provided for you is an alternative method to removal, which would be treating the trees during the fruiting season so that we would eliminate the fruits. And the plums that get carried by birds and wind or whatever are part of the problem, because they just vegetate like crazy. But I don't believe that the recommendation that she is proposing is acceptable by the county. And I think that was something that was discussed during the hearing process. The request was made by Ms. Horbal to come before this board. And all that is being asked is whether or not you want for hear what she has to say. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, we've heard some, and I understand where she's going. But if our order said remove the tree, anything less would still be a violation of the code, because the code says the tree is illegal, correct? MS. ARNOLD: Correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So spraying it doesn't make it now not illegal. That's why we said remove the tree. Because we talked about that, as I remember. I remember the spraying and the birds dropping seeds, I remember all that. So how you two work it out, again, I don't know what the method is. We said remove it, because to our way of thinking, that's the only way it can be done. Because it's on the list as illegal. MS. ARNOLD: Correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And the only way to get rid of it is either change the list or remove the tree. Now, obviously the County Commissioners said they can't change the list, so I don't know who can. Maybe that's the next step. But I know -- I mean, we've already heard more than I want to hear, but that's where our order is, remove the tree or. Now, if you can come back and say gee, the state took it off the list, I'm sure we'd be more than willing to say we'll amend our order -- MS. HORBAL: Actually, it's not on the state's list, it's only on Collier County's list. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, then I guess all I can say is I'm surprised Collier County can't help you, so -- MS. HORBAL: Me, too. Page 119 July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' That's where I'm coming from. It's on the list, there's nothing else we can do. That's why we said remove it. MS. ARNOLD: Well, just a point of clarification. When the -- Ms. Horbal went before the board, there was some confusion as to what was being requested. And some of the board members felt that it was as if the case was being argued before them, and that was the reason for their comment, that that issue should be addressed by this board, because that is your role. The board at that time requested staff provide information to the -- them at another date as to whether or not they should consider removing that species from the list. And we provided them with that report and they decided not to remove it from the list. So that's what occurred. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Then we're done, we can't help. Remove the tree. I mean, comply with our order. MS. HORBAL: Even though this is not of my doing. This has nothing to do with my doing. This was a mistake on the county's part. If the county would have done their job initially, this wouldn't even be an issue today. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understand that, but it is an issue, and all we're here to decide and what we did decide was this is the solution that we came up with. Beyond that, we can't do anything. You need to take some other action, and I don't know what that is, you know, whether it's get an attorney or whatever. MS. HORBAL: Well, I already have -- I have an attorney. So I guess that's the next step then is to go to court? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I would suggest that -- right now our order says remove the tree. If you feel you're being put upon by somebody, then you need to go to that next level, because our order is remove the tree. And the only way to change that is either get that tree off the list or remove the tree. Right now that's your only two options. MS. HORBAL: Okay, because that is -- in my eyes that is not an option. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You said that before, and I understand that. MS. HORBAL: Right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' But you need to understand from this board's perspective that is your only two options. Page 120 July 27, 2000 MS. HORBAL: Can I ask this board what responsibility the county plans to take on this, either financially -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL'. We're not the county, we're this board, and this board's told you to remove it. So we're done. MS. HORBAL: Okay. So where do I go from here, sir? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I suggest you go to your attorney's office probably and see what he tells you or she tells you. MS. HORBAL: Okay, so court's the next step. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I mean, we can't help you. The County Commissioners have decided it stays on the list. So if you feel there's some other action to be taken or you've been put upon by somebody, then you need to go to the next level, and normally that's probably an attorney. I mean, I don't know what else to tell you. We're done. We've told you to remove the tree and we're looking for you to do that. Unless you come back and say I don't have to do it because of this, would you change your order. MS. HORBAL: Okay. Now, my last question to you is in regards to fines. Because I've upheld what you directed at me from our first meeting, as far as pursuing the Collier County Commissioners and being in touch with Michelle Arnold. And so now my next question to you is in regard to fines. The lava plum trees have already dropped their fruits for this year, so that process is already finished or complete. Whatever seeds are going to be spread are spread, or are going to be spread. So where are we at time frame-wise, or fine-wise, or -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, we gave you, I think, six months to correct. MS. HORBAL: Six months to pursue the -- not to correct but to pursue it, I believe. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I don't have the order, but as I remember it, I thought it was six months to solve the problem which normally is what we say. MS. ARNOLD: I think we might be right at the deadline, right today or -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Whatever that date is in the order, and I don't have it and staff obviously doesn't have it, it was going to kick into $50 a day. MS. HORBAL.' Let's see, we met on March 28th -- I'm sorry, I met with the Collier County Commissioners on March 28th. CHAIRMAN FLEGAI.: This case was heard on January 27th, I Page 121 July 27, 2000 think. MS. HORBAL: Right, right, and I met with the commissioners on March 28th. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So your six months is -- you're here in July, so I'd say your six months is probably getting real close to being done. So your choices are if you haven't solved the problem on that deadline date -- whatever is in the order, again; I don't have a piece of paper to help you -- your fine is going to start. So your only option is to request that we extend the time to give you time to do whatever it is you're going to do and see if we would do that. MS. HORBAL: Well, then I would like to respectfully request a time period of at least six months. The fruit has already dropped from the trees so they don't pose another problem as far as spreading until next year in this time period. And at least six months -- I've already obtained legal services, so it's just a matter of getting our case put together and going to court. So is six months appropriate for that? I don't know what the dockets are like. I don't understand any of that -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We can't help you there either. MS. HORBAL: So I don't know if that's realistic or not. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Our only purview is, if you're asking for an extension, then we can say yes or no. That's up to the board. So if that's your request, that you'd like a six-month extension, the board can amend its order. And again, not having it in front of me is a disadvantage, but -- MS. ARNOLD: The deadline is -- we verified the deadline, is today. But we don't have the actual order stating what the language is. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL'. The fine starts tomorrow, so today -- MS. SAUNDERS: Is the right time to appeal. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: It's tight, but the pleasure of the board? We have a request, based on certain circumstances, to extend the time period for six months. Any comment? MS. SAUNDERS: Mr. Chairman, I think the homeowner is trying very hard to resolve it. She's done it the way -- respectfully and the way we best know how to tell her. I am very comfortable with giving her an additional six months to pursue it further. At some point it's going to catch up and you're going to have to get something changed, and we understand that. But I Page122 July 27, 2000 think six months is reasonable. MR. PONTE: I think six months is overly reasonable. And that in order to put a little fire under this issue, that we ought to -- in order to get an attorney involved, if that's what's going to happen or not, that the fines should stand and be effective today. MS. TAYLOR: I agree. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understand what the comments have been so far. So you understand what the board is saying, is that it may be to your advantage to let the fines start so that you have that stick in your hand, you and your attorney, or whatever you decide to do, that I'm being fined today for these reasons, and nobody wants to help me. In other words, we're trying to offer you a stick to go with. We've suggested a couple of things and it hasn't work so far. We're out of suggestions, other than if we let the fine kick in, that may be your stick to say look, I'm being fined and wrongly. I need help. Because you can always come back to this board, as the gentleman just did from a case that was heard some time ago, and ask us to negate the fine. You have that right. So that may be to your advantage, rather than getting six months, which if nothing happens or whatever, people just maybe get blase, it's better that three months down the road you're sitting in somebody's office saying, you know, at 50 bucks a day and 90 days have gone by, I'm being fined, you know. MS. HORBAL: Well, I certainly haven't been dragging my feet, believe me. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We understand that. We're just saying that this may be something to help you. So we -- MS. HORBAL: Well, I don't like to -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAI.: -- don't want to you feel that we're trying to just drop a hammer on you. We try to give you every tool that we can think of to work with. And this is a pretty big tool, when you go to somebody and say, I'm being fined and I feel it's improper for this reason. MS. HORBAL: I agree. I would like to put in a second request that the fine not start for one week. My attorney is out of town until next Wednesday. I cannot meet with him until that time. He has all the information all ready, but we have not sat down and talked about where we are going until after this Page 123 July 27, 2000 meeting today. So I would like to ask that the fines do not start until next week. MS. DUSEK: My personal feeling, excuse me, is to give you an extension without the fines, perhaps a 30-day extension, and let her organize herself. She certainly has been working toward resolving this issue. And I think-- MS. TAYLOR: How do you mean resolving? She wants to keep her trees. MS. DUSEK: Well, she does, but she has taken some steps to try to make some changes. MS. TAYLOR: How? Changes how? She wants to keep the trees. And they're illegal. This is a violation, and we need to stop trying to suggest things to these people. They want to change it, so we say well, get an attorney. Now she'll go to the attorney and say now the Code Enforcement Board recommended that we get an attorney. This is not our job. We're overstepping our bounds here. MS. HORBAL: Excuse me, Ms. Taylor, but the county didn't do its job two years ago. MS. TAYLOR: That is not in front of this board. MS. HORBAL: And so now I'm being penalized financially and time-wise, because the county did not do their job two years ago. And-- MS. TAYLOR: Well, that's not the board's -- HORBAL: -- so why am I having to take the brunt of all MS. of this -- MS. TAYLOR: MS. HORBAL: MS. TAYLOR: MS. HORBAL: MS. TAYLOR: MS. HORBAL: MS. TAYLOR: And we heard all of this -- -- without some consideration? -- when you were here before us, Mrs. Horbal -- Yes, you did. -- we heard all of this. Yes, you did. And we weighed it carefully and we came to a decision, and that decision should stick. MS. HORBAL: I'm not arguing with you. MS. TAYLOR: Yeah, you are. You are. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, we have it down to we've had a suggestion of six months, and then we've had a suggestion of none. We've had a suggestion of 30 days. Any other suggestions from the board? Page 124 July 27, 2000 MS. SAUNDERS: I'll revise my suggestion. I think 30 days is very reasonable. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, we have a 30-day extension. Any comments on 30 days? MR. PONTE: I think that's reasonable, too, in order to get the lawyer or whatever, whatever action might be followed by Ms. Horbal to get in line. So 30 days will be fine. CHAIRMAN FLEGAI.'- I mean, we all understand. All we want is compliance. And we're trying to -- our job is to give you time to comply, understanding the various constraints that are put upon you. I mean, we just don't want to be -- MS. DUSEK: Mrs.-- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- very hard about it. But, you know, our suggestions are things that we can think of in trying to get compliance. Now, understanding that I don't know what you can accomplish in 30 days, but if the board seems willing to possibly help you with a 30-day extension -- MS. HORBAL: I'm sorry, excuse me. I thought I turned that off. MS. DUSEK: And my suggestion on the 30-day extension would mean that she'd have to be in compliance. Whatever she does in that 30 days, by the end of 30 days, she has to be in compliance. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understood that part. We're changing basically from six months to seven months. MS. DUSEK: You understand that, Mrs. Horbal? MS. HORBAL: No, I'm sorry. MS. DUSEK: That within the 30 days, you have to be in compliance. MS. SAUNDERS: Or the fines start. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We're just moving from six months, basically, to seven months. MS. HORBAL: Okay. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: In other words, we're adding another 30 days and then the fines are going to start. It's not like this is a whole new deal. MS. HORBAL: Right, I understand that. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We're trying to give you some additional time. Time extension, okay? MS. HORBAL: Right. Page t25 July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That's if the board does it, and we haven't voted on it yet so I don't know if that will come to pass. So just so you understand. Any other comments, suggestions? Do we have a motion for 30 days? MS. SAUNDERS: I will move for a 30-day extension to the imposition of fines. MR. PONTE: I'll second the motion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion and a second to extend the date by 30 days for compliance. Any comments? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. MR. LEHMANN: Aye. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Aye. MS. SAUNDERS: Aye. MR. PONTE: Aye. MS. DUSEK: Aye. MR. KINCAID: Aye. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Those opposed? MS. TAYLOR: Aye. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. 6-1. So you understand it's just moved to 30 days. So you understand? MS. HORBAL: Yes, I do. Thank you. (Whereupon, Ms. Saunders left the board room.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Make a note that Ms. Saunders had to leave and she informed us of that. Request for extension by Pentecostal Church. MS. ARNOLD: Yes, this item is being requested. We received a letter from the Pentecostal Church of God, Florida District, Incorporated, and they're requesting that we extend the deadline for compliance. This property's in the process of being sold. And a representative of the organization that's purchasing the property is here, if you want to speak to them. But someone from the Pentecostal Church was unable to attend. This is the case where improvements were done to a commercial structure without obtaining permits. And I believe that the Friendship House, who's intending on purchasing the property, has every intentions of complying with the board's order as quickly as they can, as soon as they obtain ownership of the property. Page 126 July 27', 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, unless I did it wrong, we gave them, I think, 120 days or something like that. Didn't we hear this around March 23rd of 2000? MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. Maria's handing out the order. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: March, as I remember. MS. ARNOLD: On March 23rd. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We gave them until July 21st to remove the violations. MS. ARNOLD: Correct. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. So fines are already in place. The fine clock is running. Because this is the 2?th or so. So the fines are running. So what are they asking us to do? MS. ARNOLD: They're asking for an extension from the time frame to avoid imposition of fines. Because we haven't brought imposition of fines before you to date. It expires the 21st, which was six days -- or seven days from today. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Ms. Rawson, as I understand our orders, when they get -- we issue an order, they get filed, they run with the property? MS. RAWSON: They do. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So that the new owner automatically is on public record that this order exists. And I don't know if they purchased the property yet, but-- MS. RAWSON: According to the letter, it's a pending sale. And I'm sure they must be aware of it, because I think he may be here. But that's true, they run with the land, in answer to your question. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, so the fact that the date has come and gone is something that they're aware of. And since our order is to Pentecostal Church, they're the ones that would have to make the request for a time extension, correct? Because they haven't sold the property yet, so the order is to them. MS. RAWSON: Well, I think the request is from them, is it not? MS. CRUZ: Yes, it is. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: What kind of extension are they asking for?. Because this letter doesn't say. MS. ARNOLD: I would have to direct that question to Mr. Wrage, because he would know when they are going to be closing or the time frame for closing, and then estimated time Page t27 July 27, 2000 frame for correcting the violation. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I guess my thought pattern is that we gave somebody 120 days to do something, they didn't do it. Now they're going to sell the property, and now somebody else is going to want 120 days. MS. DUSEK: If I remember the case, that was one of their thoughts that day was to sell the property. So I think they've been diligent to make this come about. You can't necessarily sell something overnight, as we know. So -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL-' Gentleman from Friendship House, are you here, sir? MR. WRAGE: Yes, sir. (Speaker was duly sworn.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And your name, sir? MR, WRAGE: My name is Gary Wrage. W-R-A-G-E. I'm here as a member of the board of directors of the Immokalee Friendship House. I will not bore you with the history, as you have the fact that this church tried to start a mission in Immokalee. They obviously back and forth who got permits, who needed a conditional use, what have you. None of that happened. About three months ago the Friendship House became aware of the possibility that the property would come up for sale, or was for sale. Since that time, we did enter into a contract about -- it's been extended, but as I recall, our contract date is like 6/15. And yes, we're well aware of the code enforcement. One of the problems that I have -- or the Friendship House has, we understand that the fines go with the property. Part of our condition on the contract was that we would not be liable for that. I'm afear that our contract's going to fall through with the fines. And I realize that you have to after the fact come back and beg forgiveness, rather than -- you know, in listening to you today, you're not ready to forgive fines at this point, but simply we don't own the property and I'm pleading for the people that are going to purchase it. We have looked at the property. Our plans are as of day before yesterday, there are some issues of title that need to be cleared up. And as you know, having dealt with attorneys, time is not of the essence. We stand ready, prepared with money in hand to buy the property. Page t28 July 27, 2000 One of our construction advisors, John and Barbara Rank, have looked at the property. We feel that we would pull a permit, bring it up to compliance. As far as issue of usage of that building, this property adjoins the Immokalee Friendship House, so we really don't have a plan at this point what we're going to do with it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, let me ask you these questions. You say one of the conditions of your contract is that the fines don't carry over to you folks, and I understand that. When are you actually going to close on this property? Do you have any idea? I mean, is that going to happen in 10 days, 30 days, six months, something? MR. WRAGE: Again, I refer to my statement about the attorneys. We have a title. One of the problems we found in our title search is Pentecostal Church of God is not an existing incorporation in the State of Florida; i.e., we don't know who can sign the deed at this point. Whether they're incorporated somewhere else. In dealing with churches, as you have, as I have, this could be resolved tomorrow, two weeks. I would suspect we will close on the property within 30 days, no other problems. And at that point if we owned it, obviously we would attempt to pull permits. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: My next question is, if you close on in "X", understanding there's some outstanding violations, how long is it going to take you to comply with them? Because what I don't want to do is if the board were so inclined to extend the date to -- so the fines don't kick in until you take possession, I then don't want to give you, as I said before, another 120 days. I mean, you know, at some point we need to stop and say get it done. MR. WRAGE: If you'd asked me for time, I'd say we could close in 30 days. Permit should happen within the next 30 days. If I was to ask for time, I would say 60 days. But I can't stand here and tell you that we will own the property. There may be other circumstances I'm not aware of. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understand that. So at the same time we give this extension, if it all falls through, all we've done is extend the time for them to not come into compliance. So that's why I asked those questions. MR. WRAGE: The only thing I would say about the building, I Page 129 July 27, 2000 think code enforcement will enforce that, it is not a hazard. All problems are within the building. The building is locked. It's not being used. I go by it every day. So it's not exactly a hazard to the public as far as the extension of time, I don't believe. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Anybody have any questions for Mr. Wrage? MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Wrage, you do understand that if the board were to impose fines today with the current owner, that you as the purchasing party would have the right to come back at a later time and ask for a waiver of those fines? MR. WRAGE: That's going to create a lot of time, because right now, of course dealing with a house, board, what have you, it's going to add more time to it. At this point we're authorized to buy the building in lieu of -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Fines. MR. WRAGE: -- obviously the fines. MR. LEHMANN: Got you. MR. WRAGE: Fortunately, as some of you know, the Friendship House is a nonprofit organization. We live on donations. And an individual has given enough money to buy this property at what I feel is a reasonable price. I would hate to see us lose it. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Basically-- MR. WRAGE: And that's not your issue. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- if we impose the fines and let them stand, your deal is going to fall through basically is what you're saying. MR. WRAGE: I can't answer that question, but it would be an assumption of that thought. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. I thank you. MS. DUSEK: Well, my opinion, to move things along, is to give them an extension. I think that these people have worked toward a solution. And as we've said many times, what we want people to do is come into compliance, and we all work together. So I have no problems giving them an extension. MR. LEHMANN: Well, I have -- the only reservation I would say is that if the board so chooses to do so, that I just caution the board not to make that decision based on the sale. MS. DUSEK: I'm not making it based on that at all. If the Pentecostal Church had come and asked for an extension, I Page t30 July 27, 2000 would feel the same. MR. PONTE: Ms. Dusek, may I ask you why?. MS. DUSEK: I feel as though they have been working toward a solution. They obviously can't afford to -- MR. PONTE: They haven't done anything. MS. DUSEK: Well, they've tried to produce a sale. MR. PONTE: Yes. MS. DUSEK: And that was one of the solutions. MR. PONTE: The sale doesn't solve the problem. The violations involved interior alterations, you know, framing, insulation, plumbing, electric. MS. DUSEK: Yes, they couldn't -- at the time, if I remember this case, it was a matter of money. And if they couldn't afford to come into compliance by permitting and contracting, then they were going to have to sell it. And so obviously they weren't able to financially take care of it and this was the second option. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think maybe what would work, understanding that we're making some assumptions here, that, you know, the sale may fall through if they don't get an extension and the fines go into effect. The only way to get in compliance, I believe, is for somebody other than the Pentecostal Church to have this property. Because I don't think they have the money and I don't think they have any intention of coming into compliance. That's personal. It -- not being able to give maybe the best of both worlds, I might recommend to the board that since this situation exists and there is a potential buyer who seems willing to solve the problems, I could see a 30-day extension to get the deal done, and now the problem rests on their shoulders. Understanding that they go by donations. But they know about the problems, it's not new, it's not like we're buying a building, finding out today. Friendship House has known about the problems for a while, so they know that's facing them if they buy the building. Maybe the best we can do is extend the time so that they can get their deal over with. And then the onus falls on them. And if they need to come to us and say hey, we're working but, you know, we need relief of the fines, I think we might be interested. But the best that we could do maybe is take the fines off the table so the deal goes through. If in fact there is a deal. If not, all we've done is extend the day by 30 days. Page 13t July 27, 2000 MR. PONTE: I think just to remind the board, Mr. Wrage had suggested or told us that the Pentecostal Church of God of Florida, they couldn't even find it as a corporation. They didn't know who they were dealing with. So I don't know what's going to happen to clarify that within 30 days' time. I don't think 30 days is relevant to what we're deciding here. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I'm really looking for a way -- we want it resolved and it looks like the only way it might get resolved is if we can get it to change hands. MIR. WRAGE: The issue that we're talking about obviously is a title. Correspondence, when I talked to the attorney the day before yesterday was back to the Pentecostal Church of God. Couple issues here. They may have been a corporation, haven't paid, no longer shows on the state record. That's all we know at this point. May be registered someplace else. The whole issue, obviously to us and the title company, is who can sign the deed. And that could be resolved maybe tomorrow. I don't know. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, I don't think that -- MR. WRAGE: But if it hasn't been resolved in 30 days, you're right, we've got some serious problems. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Chairman, the order actually stipulated by obtaining the permits or the SDP or whatever, or removing the improvements. Another option that the current owner could have employed is just to remove those improvements. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: If I had to guess, they probably don't have the manpower and the funds to remove them. I'm guessing. But based on what I heard last time, I think that's probably the problem. MIR. WRAGE: Just to cover that issue just a little bit, two problems that we have -- I've been inside the building. The two main issues here are electric and plumbing, i.e., they've done some extensive electric work in there. And I can only speak what was said to me by John Rank, who I respect his opinion. He said it was a very good job, we will not have much problem permitting that and completing it. It's extensive. It really is. Plumbing was probably not as big an issue. But it's not visualizing wires hanging down. It's basically done and in there. So hopefully the permitting problem would not take -- you know, Page 132 July 27, 2000 we. basically will permit it as a c. ommercial building, probably str, ctly for storage until we dec;de what the future, you know, use of the Friendship House down the road is going to be. d C,HAIRMAN FLEGAL: I just think Pent.ecostal probably oesn t have the money to go for the permits. And we can fine all we want and, you ..know, we eventually get to where we throw it on the foreclosure I,st, and that's realIv not t,~ n,r h-~.--~-'~ ,, the. 30 days would help, why not? What'~ 30 da~s-?-~.~t-.'~l'~ ~'n with it. If that will get this thing off the books, I'm for ,t. I throw it open. MR.. LEHMANN: Well, the 30-day time frame basically throws it back ,nto the buyer's lap in saying .- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Right. MR. LEHMANN: -. today you acquire it, now the fines kick in. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Right, and he understands that up front. MR. WRAGE: I understand. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So that's not a problem to me. He knows that going in. All I've done is take th. em off the table so he can get to be an owner. I mean, just try, ng to hel him that , , P far. I won t go any further. But I II try to get the deal through. But beyond that, you've understoo.d since you've been talking about it that these problems ex,st, so it's not a sur ri So ' . .. p se. that s why I say I m only w, ll,ng to go so far. MR. WRAGE: The only issue of course Friendship has is obviously money. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, I understand that. Money's for everybody. But-- MR. LEHMANN: Is that a motion, Mr. Chairman? MS. DUSEK: Before We make that motion, is -..in your own personal opinion, do you feel that you can accompl;sh the sale and the permitting process within 30 days? MR. WRAGE: Yes and no. Unless there's something unknown out there that I'm not aware .o..f.. The only issue that I see right now, i.e. the survey and Mr. W, Ikison promised that to me last week, and that's, I don't think, an issue. The issue is, is who can sign the deed. MS. DUSEK: Right, assuming that's the only issue -- MR. WRAGE: That's the only issue that I have, because we've got the folks that tell me they can permit it. You know -- Page 133 July 27, 2000 MS. DUSEK: Very quickly. MR. WRAGE: -- very reasonable amount of time, once we own the property. We have the money. It's a matter of writing the check, somebody -- signing the deed, okay? If that never happens, somebody else will be back here besides me. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And I don't think the deed is that gigantic of a problem. MR. WRAGE: Well, if you've dealt with churches, and I'm a banker and I have, trust me, they are not good stewards of corporateship, okay? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' I know. Okay. I'd be willing to make the motion we grant a 30-day extension to the Pentecostal Church of God. MS. ARNOLD: Is that 30 days from the order or 30 days from today? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: 30 days from the order. You know, we can't -- then there'd be fines on the table if we don't go back to when the order was. MS. DUSEK: And that's the 21st? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Yes. So that was six days ago is when it kicked in? So we're going 30 days from midnight the 21st forward. Otherwise, the fines stay on the table, and I know that's not what you want. MR. WRAGE.' Thank you. And I don't take my comment back about the attorneys. MR. LEHMANN: I'll second that motion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We have a motion and a second, 30 days from the date in the order, which was July 21st. We have a motion and a second by Mr. Lehmann. Any further question? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Those opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Thank you. Betancourt, reduction of fines. I think that's next. MS. ARNOLD: Yes. This item was added. This is Diane Betancourt, and she's made this request to reduce fines. And Ms. Betancourt is here. This item was a case of -- in the Immokalee area of moving permits -- or moving mobile homes without obtaining permits. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Help us out here and tell me when we Page 134 July 27, 2000 imposed the fines and what are we talking about, are they still running, is everything solved? MS. ARNOLD: This case was heard on the 24th of June, 1999. And the order was to -- actually, you all issued imposition of fines already for a total of $5,000. And that was for the dates May 28th, '99 through June 16th, 1999. And to date they -- I believe that they are completely in compliance. They've obtained their site development plan for the three parcels, and obtained permits for all of the mobile homes that were in question that were moved or relocated. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Have you sent us a -- have you brought a -- MS. ARNOLD: No, we haven't done an affidavit of compliance at this point. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So-- MS. ARNOLD: The investigator -- did the investigator sign that? Yeah, the investigator has signed it, but we haven't brought it to the board at this point. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: They were in compliance as of some date this month or a month ago or two months ago? MS. ARNOLD: Actually, it's been -- I don't know. Diane, do you have that? Because I know that I gave that to you. MS. BETANCOURT: I just have this from Jackie Williams. That's a CO date. MS. ARNOLD: But remember I gave you the affidavit from the investigator? MS. BETANCOURT: No, I just had these little numbers and your fax telephone number, that's all I had. MS. ARNOLD: I know that the investigator signed the affidavit, and I thought we provided a copy to the property owner. I can't tell you what that date is right now. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I mean, based on the numbers you just gave me, it was $5,000 for-- MS. ARNOLD: 20 days. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, about 20 days back in '99. MS. ARNOLD: Right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So there's a whole, I assume bunch more money that's compiled and we don't know what that is and we don't know when the actual date was that it stopped. And I guess the other comment I would have, not only-- I Page t35 July 27, 2000 would like to know the amount of money we're talking about, but -- and we'll get Ms. Betancourt to tell us. But why we should forgive it, that's the big question. MS. ARNOLD: And that's what Ms. Betancourt is here to explain. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Chairman, if we don't even know the amounts of the fines, how do we to know what we're forgiving? MS. ARNOLD: Maria's calculating it right know. Do you have the date of compliance? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I assume it started May 28th~ so -- but I don't know when it stopped. About $t 50, is that what it is? MS. ARNOLD: The order?. I'm sorry, it was $250 per day. MS. BETANCOURT: Per unit. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah, $250 a day, starting back on May 27th. MS. ARNOLD: Yes, and that was for each case. There were three cases. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Correct. And I'm just being shown that. So you can't tell us when it came into compliance. MS. ARNOLD: No. Maria has everything but that affidavit in her file. Let me -- if you could give me two minutes, I can call -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL'. Okay. While you're doing that, we'll hear Mrs. Betancourt tell us why we should relinquish the fines in whole or in part, or whatever. (Speaker was duly sworn.) MS. BETANCOURT: Hi. My name is Priscilla Betancourt. I go by Diane, legal name Priscilla, and I am part owner at this trailer park with my husband. I'm really ready for this nightmare to be over. I tried to do a good deed in conjunction with the Farmer Workers Coalition by upgrading some of the trailers in our trailer park. We had about 11 rentals that we rented by the week, and we were in agreement with the Coalition to move a substandard trailer out and allow three families to become a homeowner by buying one of the FEMA trailers that were left over from Homestead. Well, we ran into a time constraint where we had to hurry up and move them, because Homestead wanted to get them out of their area. They had contracted with another coalition down there in Homestead to move them quickly. And I said well, we're through farming, my husband farms, and I said we can move Page 136 July 27, 2000 them out quickly, you can bring them in and store them. I said that's all we can do right now. So the Coalition says well, don't worry about permitting. We'll come in and do all of that for you. Just let me get them out of Homestead. So we moved the old trailers out quickly and they brought them in. And I said but you have to tie them down. Because that is -- you know, because we were in the storm season. They said we'll do that and we'll go for permitting, and we'll help you with that. Well, our families went up the road. Up the road means they went to either North Carolina or Michigan. I'm sure you're familiar with the migrant stream. And they left town. And I had no way of getting in touch with them. And I was left with three trailers, three families and finding myself in violation. I did not have them hooked up to utilities, because you have to have a permit for that. Utilities will not hook up unless you have a permit. So I kept calling the Coalition, they tried to get in touch with the families. And in the meantime, I came over to planning, they told me that I was going to have a new site improvement plan drawn up. And I said why? We've been in business 20 years. We've already gone through that. And I talked to Ray Bellows in the planning department several times during my summer vacation. And he said, you know, we really don't know what you need because it's a new area for us. We're enforcing this. I said well, find out. I said I need to hire somebody to get this site improvement plan drawn. I said, "The only people I know are the Wilkisons." And he said, "Well, they should know what to do." So I contacted David Wilkison. This is in September. We're through the September time. And Mr. Dantini's calling me up, "You need to get in compliance." I said, "I'm trying very-- I'm trying." So I met with David on -- David Wilkison on several occasions, and he said, "I'm working with Ray Bellows, I'm going to find out what you need." So finally about October, David calls me -- David Wilkison calls me and says, "1 know what we need. We just need this drawing." He said, "I'm going to get to work on it." Well, the end Page 137 July 27, 2000 of April, first of May, he finished. So my families were back in town, they were living with other people. And I said, you know, we need to buy the permits. So I finally got the site improvement plan. So we started working with the families in May. Well, in May they didn't come up with the money and I just said that's it. I said I'll just buy their permits for them. I'll do whatever it takes. I mean, I cannot have these fines imposed on me. I mean, the farming year was not that good. So that's what I did. I had my site improvement done. I bought their permits for them, which I was charged three times the amount because I bought them after the fact, which they were like 300 and something dollars each. I bought all of those. I had them hooked it up. I paid for their electric to be hooked up because they couldn't afford it. And that's where I am. And they're paying me back $25 a month, along with their rent. I didn't charge them any rent for the whole year that those trailers were sitting there. It's just been a nightmare. Honestly, it has. My intent was never to do anything criminal. I was not trying to undermined code enforcement. I've been in the business for a long time. I know what's needed. But it's just circumstances just fell on me. So yes, I'm asking for a reduction in fines, because I haven't even recouped my money from the people. But there was never a way they were going to get in compliance if I hadn't help them. I know it sounds like a big sob strange story, but honestly, it's the truth. It's just been a nightmare. And honestly, I can't tell you how much my fines are, because I had Mr. Spiller, we thought it was just a simple thing. I fired him. The Vegas have always been our attorneys for many years, and John says well, you know, let's just get our fines stopped and get our ducks in a row. That's what he did for me. That's the end. It just got out of hand. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, if you just -- I mean, not knowing when you got in compliance, but she's going to find out for us. But, I mean, if we went just till today, it's an exorbitant amount of money. Over $97,000. MS. BETANCOURT: You'd probably have to own the trailer park. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Not interested. So let's find out when this compliance date was. Do you Page 138 July 27, 2000 have any idea? Was it last month or the month before that you think you got everything worked out? MS. BETANCOURT: Well, like the CO dates, is that what you're asking for? Yeah, I hired Jackie Williams, but he's the only contractor in Immokalee with a license that does all of this, so you have to wait your turn. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah. MS. BETANCOURT: I have -- like the permit date I have, and I have the CO dates on all three of those. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I can't remember the order, but the CO dates would probably put them into compliance, or -- the permit or the CO date. When did that take place? MS. BETANCOURT: The CO dates on all three -- two of them are 11/24/99, and then the latter one was 12/17/99. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. The date, that should be close, I would guess. About seven months. It's 110 days. Well, if we go to the end of December, ballpark, that comes up to about $52,000. MS. ARNOLD: I'm still waiting on that date of affidavit. But we have the actual permits that were pulled and the CO dates for those permits. So that would at least tell us when she came into full compliance. And for one of the -- one of the permits that was issued on August 25th of '99, and a CO then was issued on December 29th of '99 for that permit. The second permit was issued on August 2nd of '99, and then CO'd in November, on the 24th of '99. And then the third permit was issued on the 16th, August 16th, '99, and then the CO for that one was issued on 11/15 of '99. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. And what does our order say? What does it require them to do, get permits or get CO's? MS. ARNOLD: The order indicates that the respondent must correct all violations by obtaining a site development plan -- what is that noise? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Somebody is drilling outside. MS. ARNOLD: -- or site improvement plan, or removing all of the violations within 120 days, or the fines would kick in. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. So-- MS. ARNOLD: That was one order. That's for all them? Okay. Page t39 July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, so when they got their permits, they had their site improvement plan. MS. ARNOLD: I'm sorry, that's the wrong -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MS. ARNOLD: And the certificate of occupancy. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, they needed the CO's. MS. ARNOLD: By May 27th. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Maria, do you have your calculator? MS. CRUZ: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL.' Looks like we have one that's 157 days, one that's 166 days, and one that's 196 days. I'm not going to argue for a day either way, but that should be close. Add you add those three numbers together, it's 250. It still works out the same. MS. ARNOLD: The total, adding those three dates -- I mean those three time periods together, is 129,750. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. We at least have a ballpark of what we're talking about. Any questions from anybody on the board? Any recommendations? We're basically looking at -- we asked her to come in compliance by May 27th, and she didn't get into full compliance until two of them toward the end of August, one toward the end of December. Understanding that there were maybe some mitigating circumstances. And we're looking at the three items, $129,750. MR. LEHMANN: Mr. Chairman, is that correct? Is it the permit date or the CO date? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: The order said CO. MS. ARNOLD: Yes. So the CO dates were actually in November and December. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So that's the dates I based the numbers on. MR. LEHMANN: I'm sorry, I thought you said August. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, she got permits in August and then got CO's in November and December. One on November 15th, one November 22rid and one December I think the 23rd or 4th or 2nd or something like that. The bottom line is right now she has fines facing her of Page140 July 2?, 2000 $129,750, and she need some relief. MS. BETANCOURT: Believe me, I would have never entered in any kind of contract with the Coalition had I known that I needed to do a site improvement plan. Because that was $7,800 I had no idea I was going to spend with Wilkison to have that done. I would have just said no, you know, go somewhere else. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: The board does have the option of doing nothing, relieving all the fine, relieving some of the fine, probably of taking the fine and just making it a one lump sum. Can we do that, Ms. Rawson? MS. RAWSON: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: In other words, even though we did it per trailer, we can now say, rather than the 129,000, give us "X" and we'll call it square, correct? MS. RAWSON: You could, yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So we have about four choices, if we're interested. MS. DUSEK: I'm interested. I think the one that we should eliminate is not doing anything at all. I think we should work with her. I just haven't in my own mind come to a conclusion on what that should be. MS. ARNOLD: If I may ask, Mrs. Betancourt, do you recall the date that you got the site improvement plan approved? MS. BETANCOURT: I think it's the latter part of April or the first of May. MR. LEHMANN: Just out of curiosity, Michelle, do you have any idea what the prosecuting costs involved in this are? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Do you have the order there? MS. ARNOLD: Yeah, it should say it in the order. MS. CRUZ: No, it's not. It wasn't included. Just the fines. MS. ARNOLD: I guess at that time we did not include the prosecution costs. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. MR. LEHMANN: No, I understand it may not have been -- MS. ARNOLD: Oh, okay. MR. LEHMANN: -- included in the order, but I'm saying what costs has the county incurred in dealing with this issue? MS. ARNOLD: I don't know what the cost was for that particular case. Because it's different per case. I mean, we also include the time that we spent, the number of visits and that Page 141 July 27, 2000 type of thing, so -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Maybe something we should consider, and not knowing where Bobby is going with this, but I think she's made some effort. She may have been put upon by somebody else in another county, and once she agreed to something, was left holding the bag and all that. That maybe if we're going to do anything, we should think in the line of a number and just say, you know, pay "X" and go away. And I don't think it should be a big number. I'm more or less leaning toward some reasonable fine. She did get a site improvement plan, and whatever she had to go through to get the permits done and finally the CO's. I do think she's made an effort. And I wouldn't be adverse to somebody saying let's do a lump sum of "X", and that "X" being something minimal, a couple of thousand dollars or whatever. MR. PONTE: Mr. Chairman, but if you follow that logic, why should there be any fine at all? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, I'm just throwing it out. I don't know what the board wants to do. Like I say, you have four choices: You can do nothing and let it stand, or you can waive it all, or you can reduce it, or you can take a lump sum. So those are your four choices. I'm trying to throw ideas out. MR. LEHMANN: I would think that if the board was heading towards eliminating and waiving all fines, that we should at least retain the fees that the county has invested in prosecuting this. MR. PONTE: I think you're right. MR. LEHMANN: I think that should be at bare minimum. I'm not saying that's my recommendation, but I'm saying I would recommend that if the board decided to go very low, that that would be the lower level. We'd at least recoup the fees involved in prosecuting the case. MS. TAYLOR: I would recommend $5,000, and that would include all the fees, et cetera, et cetera. That's a big, big drop from 150-some thousand. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: From 129,000. MS. TAYLOR: Whatever. That would sound like peanuts to me if I had that fine. And yet the county is recouping and this would be all settled. MR. LEHMANN: And I agree with our chairman, I think that Ms. Betancourt has been working to try and resolve this. Page 142 July 27, 2000 MR. PONTE: Then I don't think that there should be a fine, but I do think that the county ought to be reimbursed for costs, and that becomes fair all around. MR. LEHMANN: The problem at this point in time is what are those costs? MR. PONTE: Well, I think we could get an estimate. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, that may take a while. And I think we're looking to try and help Ms. Betancourt today, rather than revisit this next month, so -- MR. LEHMANN: Our colleague has already put out an estimate of $5,000 for fines. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Based on what I've seen on past actions, as I remember this, and understanding where it is, I would say cost to the county is probably approaching that number. If I had to guess, based on what I've seen before. MR. PONTE: $50 a day times 100 days, for $5,000? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, you're saying cost to them. MR. PONTE: Yes. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I mean, you've got to understand that it's cost of all the people in the office, not only the investigator and phone calls and reproduction. I mean -- MR. PONTE: Right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- that's how you throw all that in there. MR. PONTE: I understand that, Mr. Chairman. But I'm also aware of some of the costs that we've put on other cases. $5,000 would be very, very high indeed. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, I'm looking for a number. MS. DUSEK: I disagree. I don't think 5,000 is too high. I was actually thinking of more, in my own mind. Because this is almost a $1:30,000 fine. To take it down to five is really being extremely lenient, in my opinion. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I mean, I personally am not for forgiving it, because there's not extenuating circumstances, as like Mr. Vaughn, where the county seemed to be at fault in writing from the county attorney. So I'm not for forgiving it. I'm for something, and trying to get the cost back. I don't have a problem with the $5,000 number. I think it's reasonable. MS. DUSEK: Does that sound reasonable where your costs are concerned? I mean, if you could just kind of generally -- Page 143 July 27, 2000 MS. ARNOLD: I think that sounds pretty reasonable. It's based on the time and effort that has been expended so far. This case was going on for some time prior to this board even hearing it, so I think that would be a fair reduction. MS. BETANCOURT: May I interject? One thing -- the reason it went on so long is that nobody knew what to do with it. It was really -- when David Wilkison would call and talk to Ray Bellows, he would say I really don't know what standard they're asking for on a site improvement plan yet. We're trying to get a ruling. When all this started, it was like a test case. And Michelle can verify that. There hadn't been anything done to the trailer park situation in Immokalee. MR. LEHMANN: Mrs. Betancourt, the thing that bothers me personally is that in your own testimony you're saying that you eventually took it over under your control and said okay, I'll pay the $300 fine or whatever it was to resolve the problem and it was done -- MS. BETANCOURT: Well, I had to do that. MR. LEHMANN: -- very quickly. But personally what bothers me is why does it go for such a long period of time when all it really was is a relatively minor investment in permitting fees to make the problem go away? MS. BETANCOURT: Well, actually it wasn't that minor of an investment. It was like the permitting fee, and then I had to pay $900 to have each trailer hooked up from trailer to the electrical pole. So now I was up to $1,200. And then the county required another -- oh, gosh, I can't think of the word right now, it just left me -- another survey, actually, of the trailers sitting on the lot that the trailer park -- the trailer person was supposed to pay. That was another $200. So I had $1,500 in those trailers that the people owed me that they couldn't pay. And the trailers didn't even cost but maybe $1,200 when they bought them from FEMA. MR. LEHMANN: Right. And the issue I'm kind of looking at is, here we're looking at $130,000 issue with regards to fines versus the solution, was apparently a $1,500 issue. And maybe I'm just totally off track or something, but it just seems like somewhere along the line you would have looked at this and said gee, I'm getting into trouble in this area, let's just make it go away. Page 144 July 27, 2000 MS. BETANCOURT: I did. MR. LEHMANN: Which you eventually did. MS. BETANCOURT: I went to the Coalition. I went to the coalition in May. I said, "You need to talk to these three families and tell them that I need for them to get their permits and I need to get them hooked up." Well, May came around, they didn't do it. June, they got ready to leave. And I said, "Hey, you guys can't leave. I'm getting in trouble every day. I've got to get these trailers hooked up." Coalition would meet with them, "Yeah, I'm going to bring the money." Well, they never did. So finally I just -- my husband and I just said we'll go borrow the money, we'll get them all hooked up, and that's it, and that's what I did. They left -- actually, the Coalition left me holding the bag with those three families and those trailers. MS. TAYLOR: Well, I'd like to make a motion that we reduce the fines to $5,000, and that would include all costs. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, we have a motion to reduce the fines from 129,750, approximately, or whatever it is, down to five. Is there a second or is there a question? MR. PONTE: Something is not comfortable. MS. DUSEK: No, it's not. MR. PONTE: It's not comfortable just to reduce the fine that amount. And I guess it's more comfortable to just eliminate the fine, collect -- and say we're collecting the cost. But something sticks in my mind as being wrong. I'm missing a point here. I don't understand. Mr. Lehmann was trying to get you to explain, how did it get so out of hand? Where was the negligence? Was it negligence on your part making wrong judgments? MS. BETANCOURT.' I think maybe in the beginning -- MR. PONTE: I mean, how did it get so far out of hand? MS. BETANCOURT: -- in the beginning when I said yeah, we'll gladly move the old trailers out and put one in, I didn't know as a trailer park owner that the rules had changed and I needed to go back and get a new site improvement plan. I didn't know that. MR. PONTE: How long have you been an owner? MS. BETANCOURT: 20 years. 20 years. And we had developed lots on that trailer park earlier and had paid impact Page 145 July 27, 2000 fees. You know, all along I kept -- but I didn't know. I didn't -- MR. PONTE: You were familiar with the operation and some of the requirements. You're a professional. MS. BETANCOURT: Well, yes, until they changed. When did site improvement plans come about, Ms. Arnold, again? MS. ARNOLD: I'm not really sure when the site improvement plan process had come about. But the site development process has been around for some time. The site improvement plan process was maybe in the Nineties, and that was to alleviate or to take into account some minor changes that were occurring on properties. So the site improvement plan process is a less cumbersome process. And I understand that the Planning Department is trying to do away with that again and going back to just site development plan, because it's just creating a lot of-- MR. LEHMANN: I think part of the thing that is bothering me, and I don't have the case file with me, in front of me, but I think the thing that bothers me is we heard this case before and this is the first time I've met Mrs. Betancourt. So all the other times that we've heard this case, the respondent has been absent from our presence. MS. BETANCOURT: No, I've been here. MR. LEHMANN: Have you? MS. BETANCOURT: But I'm a school teacher-- MS. RAWSON: She had an attorney here. Mr. Spiller was here more than once. MR. LEHMANN: Okay, I take that back. MS. BETANCOURT: I fired him and then Mr. Vega took over. MR. LEHMANN: I apologize. MS. BETANCOURT: That's fine. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, I think one of the things that may I won't say help us but maybe clarify for a few of the members, where they might be having a problem in us bringing this down and looking to you to do something, we're -- in our minds we're stuck with we gave you a date to do something, and told you in writing that if you didn't do it, it was $250 a day per trailer. So you knew that, and yet, you know, these people, whether they left town and didn't help you or whatever, still, you were being fined $250 a day. And you're -- wrong terminology, but you're Page 146 July 27, 2000 sitting around saying well, what do I do, who do I see, what do I -- and the 250 a day, so now it's $750 a day clicking away. Math would tell me, I don't know what it's going to cost, but I want to get this monkey off my back. 10 days is $7,000 real quick. MS. ARNOLD: I think I can help the board in -- Mrs. Betancourt indicated that initially maybe she was negligent in responding. And as you were just reminded, Mr. Spiller was representing them, and I think she was following the advice of her attorney initially, and then consequently decided this is not going away, so I'm going to take the responsibility for following the board's order. And then back in April of last year was when she actually submitted the site improvement plan and got it approved, or whatever. I don't know that exact date, but -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I'm just making the comment maybe to help some members of the board that, you know, the fines are mounting, she's doing whatever it is she's doing, whether it's an attorney, who cares. But the clock's ticking, 750 a day on three trailers. That gives you some kind of incentive to do something. And if she had to spend -- you know, you spend $5,000, that's cheap, when at 750 bucks a day in 10 days you just spent $7,000. I'd rather spend five than seven. MS. RAWSON: Well, I recall Mr. Spiller, her attorney -- and you know with attorneys, time is not of the essence. MR. LEHMANN: So we've been told. MS. RAWSON: -- saying that he wanted to take this before the County Commission. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Right. MS. RAWSON: Remember? And I can't remember now just what his issue was, but I think in fact he did take it before the County Commission. MS. BETANCOURT: But I had hired Wilkison. I just said okay, I'm going to get this started. It took Wilkison September, October, November, December, January, February, April March, April, almost nine months to finish it, to give me my site improvement plan so I could start with the permitting. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So in reducing the number from the 129 down to something, and maybe using the word fine is the wrong word, but that's what we're really doing, reducing the fine to $5,000 in costs. Yeah, the clock was running, maybe she Page 147 July 27, 2000 could have done more, maybe a lot of things, but at this point let's just find a number and get it off everybody's books and get it gone. MR. LEHMANN: I think I'm wrestling with two issues. One is the issue of saying I'm going from 130,000 down to a $5,000 fine. Does that send out a -- or does that set a precedent for the board saying don't listen to them, go back and they'll waive the fine, don't worry about it? Or are we setting out a precedence and taking in essence the authority away from the board by doing that? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, to answer that part of the question, you always remember that the board has the authority to change, amend, is the proper word there, order in any manner except increasing a fine, which doesn't take away any authority, depending on the circumstances that you amend something by. So each case would stand on its own. And that's what we have to weigh, the merits of whoever stands up there and says this is why I need help. You know, whether I'm broke or destitute or whatever, they need some kind of help. And then we decide do we want to help or don't we want to help. MR. LEHMANN: And I'm looking at it from a perceived viewpoint -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I understand that. MR. LEHMANN: --from a respondent. But the other side of the coin is I'd like to work with the respondent. You know, it sounds strange. So for me internally, that's how I'm going back and forth, trying to get some sort of a middle of the road here. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I think in the Betancourts case is, I think more could have been done sooner. Whether she got bad advice, didn't do it, didn't seek any advice, I don't know what the reason is. I don't think she could pay the $129,000. I think that's not going to happen. And foreclosing on the property is -- it's probably not worth $129,000. I don't know how big a property it is. But, you know, I honestly don't know what's there. But at this point, if she's asking for the help, understanding that -- you know, could she have done more? Probably. Why didn't she do it? Who knows. She took some advice, maybe it was bad advice, good advice, not enough advice, wrong advice. Page 148 July 27, 2000 We need to decide first, do we want to help? If the answer's yes, to what extent do we want to help. I don't think we open up ourselves to gee, the next guy's going to come in and say the same thing, because he's going to get the same questions and we can then decide no, you haven't convinced me you've done as much as the last person. MS. DUSEK: Well, I'm wrestling in with the same feelings that Peter has, also. That's why it's difficult for me. MS. RAWSON: Well, let me tell you something about precedence, if it makes the two of you feel any better. You know, there are laws that we have to follow. And your job is to be sure that people come into compliance. But in terms of precedent in a court case, you always have to find cases that are what we call on all fours, with the very same fact situation. So you have every right to listen to every one of these respondents and consider their case individually and what they're telling you individually, based on the facts before you, while you're still complying with the law. Does that help? MR. PONTE: A little. But additionally, it would seem -- we've moved to $5,000. It would seem to make our fining decisions capricious, and that's something that could be used against this board by other attorneys in other cases. And I'm just not comfortable with it. I really want to help the respondent, but I just don't know what to do. MS. TAYLOR: You want to make it 50,000? MR. PONTE: No, it's not that. It's -- MS. TAYLOR: No, of course you don't. MR. PONTE: -- tougher call. MS. TAYLOR: But we have to make a fine of some kind. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We need to do something. MS. TAYLOR: That's right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: And basically your only two choices are we're not going to help at all or we're going to help in some manner. And I think we all want to help. MS. DUSEK-' Just what's that number. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So now is what's the manner. MR. PONTE: Then perhaps if we could say all right, not the fine but the cost of -- you are being assessed the cost of operations, but you must pay back the county, and that is $5,000, if that is the case. But if we can eliminate the word fine. Page149 July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Well, but you're going to have to waive the existing fine. Otherwise she's going to have to pay the $129,700. MR. PONTE: You're going to have to waive the existing fine. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Yeah. So you're going to have to waive it, so, I mean, you're back to well, are we waiving the fine, so -- MR. PONTE: I know, but I think that's where the comfort factor is. It really is a black-and-white situation, and not gray, in my mind. That's right, you waive the fine and charge charges. But you don't call it a fine. MS. TAYLOR: Why? MR. LEHMANN: I don't know that we can do that. MS. TAYLOR: That's right. If we don't -- MR. PONTE: I don't know either. MS. TAYLOR: -- see a fine, we're going to be in trouble. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You can't -- as I understand, Ms. Rawson, what you and I were talking about previously, we can't add costs after the fact, correct? MS. RAWSON: Right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: So our only option is we reduce the fine to something, and the fine goes in the pot, just like the costs go in the pot, as I understand the system. It doesn't go directly to code enforcement's budget, it goes in the pot. So our only option really is to reduce the fine from some number to some other number. We're controlled by the words of the statute. We can't add costs after the fact. So we can't change the name from fine to costs. MS. TAYLOR: Right. MR. PONTE: Not meaning to do a Jim Allen show, I'd suggest one dollar. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: That ain't going to fly here, I can tell you that. MS. ARNOLD: Well, you all can assess a fine or penalty. I mean, you can determine -- you can direct staff to say assess the costs incurred so far for prosecution, which would include -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: No, we can't do that, as -- MS. ARNOLD: Oh, you can't? CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- I remember. Not after the fact. MS. RAWSON: Well, we don't have a number yet. We can say assess the cost of prosecution and impose a fine plus costs Page 150 July 27, 2000 to be determined when we get the number back. MS. ARNOLD: Well, what I was going to suggest is that if you're trying to determine whether or not the $5,000 is fair, that you could take into consideration the cost for prosecution and a penalty to equal the $5,000 to -- I mean, if you think that is a fair number. I don't know if-- MR. LEHMANN: That was the intent of the $5,000 originally was to cover the fine and the cost of prosecution and everything. And I feel that the board honestly wants to work with this particular respondent. Maybe the solution is, as my colleague suggested, a $5,000 fine. That covers the cost of the prosecution, that covers the fine, and we let it go at that. Understanding that we're going to look at each one of these cases very independently, that we are not trying to set a precedence with this particular issue. I don't know what the answers are. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Ms. Rawson, did I misunderstand before we started this, when you and I were talking about costs, since our order didn't state that it included costs -- MS. RAWSON: That's right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- we can't go back after the fact and add them. MS. RAWSON: And I don't have that in front of me, but I believe Maria read it and it did not include costs. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Right. So we can't talk about costs. You're either going to reduce the fine to something, period -- MR. LEHMANN: That wasn't the intent. We're in essence reducing the fine to $5,000. And we're coming about that number because we're assuming that that $5,000 amount will then cover all of the prosecution fees. So in essence -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: You can't call it that -- MR. LEHMANN= That's right. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- you can only deal with the word fine. MR. LEHMANN: That's correct. It's a matter-- MS. TAYLOR: That's why I made the motion. We dropped it to $5,000. Fine. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I mean, I understand where some of us are going to trying to feel comfortable, but we can't amend the order to add costs after the fact. That was one of the questions I had asked Ms. Rawson some time ago, and she finally got to me Page 151 July 27, 2000 because I wasn't available and she wasn't available. So I don't want us to fall into that trap, now that I've got that worked out. So let's concentrate on reducing the fine from the current 129 whatever it is to some number, and that ends it. And right now, the number 5,000 is out. We had a motion and it hadn't been seconded. We've kind of been discussing it. So the 5,000 is still out there, unless somebody would like to change it to something else, or second the motion. MS. DUSEK: Well, I guess to get this moving -- I have to just say this: I think you've done a great job. I think you were a little slow in dragging your feet. And quite personally, I think the fine should be higher, because I feel dropping from 130 to five is just not enough. But I'm going to second the motion, just so we can move on to other things. So I second the motion. MR. LEHMANN: I would concur with my colleague's comments. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay, we have a motion and a second to reduce the fine from its current level, estimated to be around 129,000 some odd dollars to $5,000. Any additional comments? MR. PONTE: It flies in the face of all of my Jesuit training. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I didn't get it out fast enough. I was hoping to not have any comments. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Ms. Betancourt, that's the best we could do for you. MS. BETANCOURT: Thank you for hearing the case again, and please believe that my intent was never criminal or to undermine what we're trying to improve in Immokalee. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: We're down to reports. Mr. Lehmann has to leave, but we still have a quorum. Six. So we're in good shape. First item being Douglas and Cassandra Jimmo, order of affidavit of compliance. Do I hear a motion to accept the affidavit? MS. DUSEK: I so move. MS. TAYLOR: I second. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Page 152 July 27, 2000 (Unanimous votes of ayes.) (Whereupon, Mr. Lehmann leaves the boardroom.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Michelle, I think in your affidavit, at least the one I have, there's some items missing on the affidavit. In Item 2, it says recorded in/or and page and those numbers aren't there. So you may want to complete that. MS. ARNOLD: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: B, you had -- you added a Roger -- MS. ARNOLD: Roger and Antonio Biels (phonetic). And that's also an affidavit of compliance. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Okay. Motion to accept that affidavit? We don't have it in front of us, but -- MS. DUSEK: So moved. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Do we have a second? MS. TAYLOR: I'll second. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: All those in favor, signify by saying aye. (Unanimous votes of ayes.) CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: attorney. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Last item is a memo from the county I don't know what it says, so -- MS. ARNOLD: You and I had discussed trying to expedite some of the processes, and one of which was doing imposition of fines, you know, soon -- at the next available board meeting, rather than waiting till -- you know, especially, for example, if there was a compliance date of this past Monday, we would bring you an imposition of fines. I ran that by the county attorney's office and this is a response that I got from them. And I got that this morning, so that's why the lateness of it. But basically I believe it's Ms. Chadwell's opinion that we try to provide that notice for the public, even though it's not required of us to do that. I'll give you some time to review what you -- CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I guess what's that got to do with the bringing it to the board quickly? MS. ARNOLD: Because we wouldn't be providing notice to the public. If the deadline was Monday and we wouldn't be getting them timely noticed, they probably would not get that Page 153 July 27, 2000 notice prior to the actual board meeting that we were doing imposition of fines. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I'm a little confused by that statement. MS. ARNOLD: This is just informational item. If you want to CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I guess -- yeah, I have some problems what she's saying, notice in a hearing. It's not a hearing. You don't have a hearing on a notice to impose fines. You just impose it. MS. ARNOLD: Well, we typically send out a notice of hearing notice as a courtesy for all impositions of fines. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: I guess I have a problem with the word hearing. It's not a hearing. Imposing the fines is an administrative procedure. MS. ARNOLD: Oh, I see what you're saying. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: It's not a hearing. A public hearing is on the actual case itself. Imposing a fine is like the affidavit of compliance, it's an administrative procedure under the statute. So she's leading us to believe that you have to have this hearing, and I guess my comment is no. First of all, you don't have to have a hearing, but I wanted it brought forward more rapidly, rather than bring me a notice to impose fines six months later. That's ludicrous. Why couldn't it -- I mean, 30 days at the most, you should be here with imposition of fines. MS. ARNOLD: Right. We could do that, because there wouldn't be -- we would be able to have the respondents notified of the next hearing. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: There is no hearing requirement that I'm aware of, and if there is, somebody is going to have to show me where, because that's -- MS. ARNOLD: There isn't. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: -- that's not what I read the statute to say. MS. ARNOLD: There isn't. MS. RAWSON: I had this conversation with Ms. Chadwell and, you know, I'd probably given you the same advice for the last year, that let's notice them that we're going to impose fines so they can come. And it's not a hearing, but usually we let them talk because it's just minimal due process. Page 154 July 27, 2000 This is not to delay anything. The most that it would delay it, if somebody's time was up last week, like I think we had one that was due the 21st. Instead of bringing it to you today, we would have brought it to you next month. So the intent's not to delay it for six months, which is your concern, the intent is let's move them, let's get them going. And she understands, you know, that we want to keep things moving and we want to go ahead and get these things recorded and we want to start foreclosing on our liens. She has a very clear understanding of what the board's position is on that. She was only saying if we only had a few days, let's give them the usual notice that everybody else gets, and it would be the following month instead of this month. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: My question to Michelle when we talked about this was because we've had many of them where the imposition of fines and, you know, you're imposing a fine in July for something that started back in January, and I find that a little inexcusable. Why did it take you six months to bring me a letter to impose a fine. You should have brought it at whatever the next meeting was after the fine date started, if physically possible. So I think 30 days is more than enough time. MS. ARNOLD: Okay. I misunderstood your question to me then. CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: It's not that -- plus there's no hearing, it's an administrative thing. If you want to notify the people, that's up to you. The fine is the fine. If they're not in compliance, I'm for imposing the fine. When it's all done, if they want to ask for some relief, great. But to me the fine is a fine is a fine. Don't come before me and say well, don't do that. I'm really not interested. That slows the process down. We need to keep it moving and we can go through these cases a lot faster. Get to the end and then ask for some relief, like this lady did. I think that's the proper way to do it. Any other items? Next meeting is August 24th. Any other items? I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. MS. DUSEK: So moved. MS. TAYLOR: Second. MS. DUSEK: All those in favor? (Unanimous votes of ayes.) Page t55 July 27, 2000 CHAIRMAN FLEGAL: Thank you everybody for your patience. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 3:15 p.m. CLIFFORD FLEGAL, CHAIRMAN TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC., BY CHERIE' R. LEONE, RPR Page 156