BCC Minutes 11/06/2001 W (Immokalee Topics)November 6, 2001
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
IMMOKALEE WORKSHOP
Naples, Florida, November 6, 2001
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County
Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted
business herein, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and
as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been
created according to law and having conducted business herein, met
on this date at 9:12 a.m. In WORKSHOP SESSION at the University
of Florida IFAS Research and Education Center Auditorium, 2686
S.R. 29 North, Immokalee, Florida, with the following members
present:
CHAIRMAN: James D. Carter, Ph.D.
Jim Coletta
Donna Fiala
ALSO PRESENT:
Thomas Olliff, County Manager
Leo Ochs, Assistant County Manager
Greg Mihalic, HUI Director
John Dunnuck, Interim Division Admin.
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NOTICE OF BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
INFORMATIONAL WORKSHOP IN IMMOKALEE
Tuesday, November 6, 2001
9:00 A.M.
Notice is hereby given that the Collier County Board of County Commissioners
will hold an informational workshop on TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2001, at 9:00 A.M.
in the University of Florida IFAS Center Auditorium, 2686 S.R. 29 North, Immokalee,
Florida Board. The Board's informational topic(s) will include, but may not be limited to,
an overview of the following subjects:
Immokalee Pride/Community Character
Commercial Development
Education and Training
Community Landmarks
Public Comment
The meeting is open to the public.
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.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA
James D. Carter, Ph.D., Chairman
DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK
By:/s/Maureen Kenyon
Deputy Clerk
November 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning.
(Chorus of "good mornings.")
CHAIRMAN CARTER: If you're not awake, you're awake
now; right?
As with all meetings, I would like you to join me in standing for
the pledge of allegiance to the flag, and also a moment of silence to
remember those who are defending our country in this time of crisis.
(The pledge of allegiance was recited in unison.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning, Commissioners, staff.
It's a pleasure to be in Immokalee and to have the opportunity to
work in your community, and the turnout is just outstanding. If we
did it at the Board of County Commissioners -- often we feel like
we're talking to ourselves. But you have demonstrated in this
community how much you are involved in your community's
activities, and I know that this commissioner and the other
commissioners here really appreciate everything you're doing to
enhance and make this a growing, viable area. We're all very proud
of Immokalee, and we're glad to see that a lot of super things are
taking place here.
Last night a couple of your people from here were present,
Commissioner Coletta and Fred Thomas. If you would have heard
their stirring remarks in front of the Republican Executive
Committee, you would have been as proud as I am of what they're
doing and how they're representing not only all of Collier County, but
in particular how they're standing up for Immokalee.
So with those words, it is my pleasure, again, to be here and to
have an opportunity to participate with you this morning, and I'm
going to turn it over to our county manager, Mr. Tom Olliff, to begin
this and lead us through the process.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, thank you. Welcome to
Immokalee. Welcome to the Immokalee workshop. I think I need to
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begin by just saying thank you to a few people. Thank you first, I
believe, to the IFAS Research Center for hosting us. It's a great
facility if you've never been here. I encourage you to take a little
time afterwards to go through the facility and see what they do here.
In addition, I think we'd like to thank the staff who has worked
awfully hard to put together a good workshop for you. And I'd like to
thank the community because I think, primarily, this workshop is
going to be a community-driven workshop. Right now I think it's a
very exciting time in Immokalee. There's a lot of things going on. It's
just a great time to be a resident here in Immokalee.
Our goal from this workshop is to give the board a little more
detail and understanding about some of the buzz words that you'll
hear about some of the programs that are going on in Immokalee. It's
everything from Main Street to Jubilation to dormitory projects to the
airport. Pretty much we're going to cover the gamut here, and I think
we pretty much put together the people who are actually involved in
these projects to make the presentations to you.
But I would encourage you, as we do in other workshops -- even
though it feels a little more formal here, I would encourage you to ask
questions because our goal here is for you to walk out of the room
having a good working understanding about what's going on in
Immokalee and especially with a number of these initiative programs.
With that, I think I'll look to Barb to go ahead and begin -- I
think she's doing the first thing on the agenda here -- with an
overview of some of the partnerships that exist here in Immokalee.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning, Barbara.
MS. CACCHIONE: Good morning.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: It's good to see you again. Some of
you may wonder why Commissioner Henning isn't here this morning.
He is on what is called the -- it's the committee that meets with the
supervisor of elections, the canvassing board, and they have to
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determine the absentee votes that were filed. They have to look at
those and make sure everything is in order. So he sends his regrets.
He wished he was here, but he has another challenge this morning to
review and make sure we don't end up with any hanging chads or
pregnant chads or whatever. I shook my ballot twice, kicked it
around the floor a couple of times, because I want to make sure this
one counts. So I hope all of you will -- if you haven't voted today --
will get out and vote.
Thank you, Barbara.
MS. CACCHIONE: Good morning. I almost said, "for the
record, my name is Barbara Cacchione." I would like to just start out
this morning by talking about what I think is probably the most
important part of the success we're seeing here in Immokalee, and
that is the partnerships. If you look at this card in front of you, it
talks about the Empowerment Alliance, and on the back of it you'll
see listed all of the partners that have all been part of contributing to
the efforts that are happening here in Immokalee.
In the last two and a half years in terms of funding and different
projects that we have going on in the community, almost $48 million
in funding has been leveraged into this community. It's for a wide
array of projects from the restoration of Lake Trafford to the building
of a 300-bed dormitory to the airport. It is a variety of efforts that are
going on at this point in time.
The strategic plan of the Empowerment Alliance really focuses
on four key areas; education and training, which is the forefront,
which is really the basis of so many of our programs because that is
so important to get jobs and to see business development in the
community. The second area is housing, and that is another key or
important area that you'll hear a lot about this morning. Economic
development, jobs in the community is, of course, a very, very
important part of our strategic plan and, finally, the image of the
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community. You've seen so many efforts by the beautification
committee and private efforts to redo the facades along Main Street.
It's really moving to make the community much more aesthetically
pleasing.
The partnerships really involve the federal government. We are
a Round II enterprise community, a federal designation. There are
only 13 5 areas throughout the country. This gives us a certain degree
of funding every year. It also gives us a higher priority when we go
for grants, and it also is important because it highlights us as an area
that has a good strategic plan for change. It was a rigorous selection
process that we went through to get that designation, and that was the
recognition that they gave to us.
The second part is that we are also -- in terms of the state, we
have a very good partnership with them. We are recognized as an
enterprise zone in the state which also gives us certain tax
advantages. We recently filed for the front porch designation here in
the Immokalee community. The local government has been one of
our key partners as well. The housing and urban improvement
department, the planning department, comprehensive planning, all of
these areas have been very important and critical to the success of our
community.
Finally, if you look at this list of partners, you'll see everyone in
the community is on board, and that is the key to our success and, I
think, the success we'll see in the future.
With that I will open it up for any questions you may have.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have one, and I don't know if I
have to speak into this or not. Can you tell me if, like, social
activities, family activities, youth activities have been incorporated
into your plan as well? I noticed that there is a lack of movie theaters
or bowling alleys or anything that people can do as a family.
MS. CACCHIONE: That is a particular area that we're
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beginning to concentrate on. We started more with the education and
training component, but that is an area that we need to probably look
at down the road and pay some more attention to. Our partnership,
we meet quarterly and kind of make sure that everybody is aware of
what everybody else is doing. I think that is a very important part of
making sure everybody is informed and coordinated about different
activities.
We did apply for a youth-opportunity grant through the
workforce development board, and that was about two years ago.
Unfortunately, we did not receive that grant, and that would have
helped us kind of move that one along a little bit quicker.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Barbara, is there any possibility of
working with Roberts Ranch? I mean, it's a very big facility there
where some of those things, as Commissioner Fiala pointed out-- is
there any way we, through cooperative agreements with the county in
whatever division that might be, could assist you in that youth-family
activity?
MS. CACCHIONE: I think that could be something we could
definitely look at. That is a facility that is part of our eco-tourism
here in the community. It's something we treasure very much. I think
that it definitely could be part of something we could look into. I
know the chamber has talked about building a new building in that
area and wanting to kind of take part in helping facilitate some of the
people coming into the area, having a central location, and also be
able to develop services for the youth as well.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Questions by commissioners?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: One more. In Golden Gate they
have a community center that seems to be the center of activity there.
Is there anything like that here in Immokalee?
MS. CACCHIONE: I would say mainly the Immokalee
Community Park & Aquatic Center. I know the Guadalupe Center is
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very interested in building a new facility. So I think there are some
opportunities in the future, but most of these facilities are pretty well
used to their capacity. And also because a lot of people can't drive to
a particular area, we may need some other smaller community
facilities within the neighborhoods themselves very much like
Jubilation is doing as well.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Just one comment on that. You
hit on a point that I imagine we're going to be covering again later.
The parks and rec need an outreach program that's going to be able to
extend itself into the surrounding neighborhoods. That was the
survey we took, the Weed and Seed. That showed that the residents
were looking for more recreational activities, especially for the
children, and also some adult type of recreational needs. They
wanted to see something in their own neighborhoods or close by.
Parks and rec might want to focus on that in the future. They may
also want to focus on the fact that -- in Immokalee what percentage
of the people just speak Spanish?
MS. CACCHIONE: I knew you would ask me something like
that.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It's probably about 40 percent
or better.
MS. CACCHIONE: It's actually more than that.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right. And so --
MR. THOMAS: Just speak Spanish.
THE COURT REPORTER: Your name, sir.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Mr. Fred Thomas.
MR. THOMAS: No, no. The question is -- 80 percent of the
people do speak Spanish, but the question was how many people just
speak Spanish.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's correct.
MR. THOMAS: It's a much lower figure than that.
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COMMISSIONER COLETTA: In any case, we need to meet
even their needs too.
MS. CACCHIONE: Sure. I can't tell you that. I feel bad that I
don't have that statistic, but at least a quarter of the population --
CHAIRMAN CARTER:
you with the hand in the back.
please.
I think I might have the answer for
Just identify yourself for the record,
MS. BLANTON: Denise Blanton. I think one of the things that
you're trying to get at is that two-thirds of the people in Immokalee
are termed linguistically isolated because their first language is
Spanish, and they do not have a strong command of English. The
answer is two-thirds.
MR. MIHALIC: Thank you, Barbara.
MS. CACCHIONE: Thanks.
MR. MIHALIC: Ray Holland is going to do the introduction for
the community pride -- Immokalee pride and community character
section.
MR. HOLLAND: I'm Raymond Holland. I'm the president of
the Immokalee Chamber of Commerce. Benny Starling, the
executive director, was supposed to be here, but he's got a toothache,
so he asked me to fill in. I'm supposed to tell you a little bit about the
Main Street project and also the character and pride of Immokalee.
Somebody told me this morning that we've got some characters
in Immokalee, and we're proud of them. I think they were talking
about you, Fred.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We might trade you.
MR. HOLLAND: I think everyone probably knows, but if you
don't, Immokalee is really an agricultural oriented community and
has been for a number of years, but a lot of that is very much
changing now. If you came into Immokalee either from the Lehigh
area or from Naples today, you probably saw a bunch of traffic going
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out of town in either direction, and you probably saw a bunch of
traffic coming in.
There are a lot of people in Immokalee now that not only work
in housekeeping in motels, hotels in Naples or in Fort Myers, but they
also work in the trades. They're bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers,
and electricians and things like that. A lot of them have businesses
hauling dirt, dump trucks, and things like that, so there is a certain
change there. But the basic character of Immokalee still remains the
same.
The people that are coming here -- and we've got over eight
ethnic groups. Don't ask me to name them, but there are at least that
many, if not more. The vast majority of people are coming here for
the opportunities that still exist in Immokalee. We have a large
number of people from the Middle East as well as from Mexico,
Guatemala, Haiti, and so forth. A lot of them are starting small
businesses, grocery stores, things like that. They're trying to, of
course, live the American dream.
But we still have a large influx of Hispanic people or people of
Hispanic heritage. Of course, now there is a significant number of
people of Hispanic heritage that are second, third, or fourth
generation. A large number of them own property and own
businesses, and they're doing quite well. Of course, we still have
some people that are impoverished to one degree or another.
What Immokalee really is looking at, and I think it's on the poll
today, is housing. That's one of the biggest issues, housing and
roads. A large number of people have moved out of Immokalee
simply because of the housing. I want to give you one kind of
number here just to give you an example.
Land costs in Immokalee historically versus, for example,
Lehigh can be as much as $15,000 different. In real terms that equals
out, at the lowest interest rates that we're having now, to about $100 a
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month in additional payment over a 30-year period of time. To pay
an extra $100, the person would have to make an additional $4,000 a
year. Those are kind of significant numbers when you talk about
people that are closer to the minimum wage than they are the median
wage for Collier County.
Then you put on top of that impact fees that I understand are
around $5,000. Historically Lee County was lower than Collier.
Now, that's fixing to change, I understand, the first of the year, but
given that that's an additional $40. So the person would have to
make another $500 a month income in order to qualify for that extra
$140 a month that it would cost them for housing.
So I'm glad to see that we've got some additional habitat housing
coming along. Jubilation is coming in, and Arrowhead is coming
along. I think-- it's on the back burner; right? I like to tease Mike
about Collier's planned golf course community. Fred's laughing.
Why are you laughing, Fred?
MR. THOMAS: We're waiting.
MR. HOLLAND: But I think Immokalee, too, has a pretty nice
school system. It's a nice building, and the park is pretty nice. There
are some things like that. Obviously, there could be some
improvements, but the county has done, I think, a really good job in
that area so far, although there are things that can be done.
There are a number of other people that are doing a lot to help
out. The Economic Development Council has been very supportive.
There are a number of other things in Immokalee that are going on
that are very helpful. The CDC is something that's just started.
That's the Community Development Corporation. The CRA is
something else that just started up, and I think that's going to be a
really good thing for Immokalee. Enterprise Zone has been around
for awhile, and we had a little drawback there when Helene left, but
she's back now so we're kind of back on course with that. So I think
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that that's going to be another big benefit to Immokalee.
The Main Street-- I guess my five minutes are up. The Main
Street program is really an umbrella -- oh, isn't that nice? I didn't
realize I was going to have pictures.
It's an umbrella to me that comes under the chamber, and there's
some -- there are funds available there. If a person puts, for example,
$5,000 in beautification on the exterior of their building, they can get
up to $2,000 in help through Main Street program. Plus there's some
other help that can be done through helping them with the actual
plans and drawings and getting some approvals done. Plus then
they're going to qualify under the Economic Development Council
for some money coming back in the form of sales tax and stuff. I
think they're putting up there a few buildings that were kind of
befores and afters.
The biggest single thing in Immokalee lately is the Azteca
SuperCentro 2000. I believe -- I don't see Mrs. Luna here, but she's
supposed to be here.
MR. MIHALIC: She'll be here.
MR. HOLLAND: She's coming. Okay. That's great. That's a
tremendous endeavor that the Lunas did there. If you haven't been in
and seen it, you need to go down through Main Street and take a look
at it. I'm sure they'd be tickled to death to show you through it. They
took the old movie theatre, which was an absolute disastrous eyesore
for Immokalee, and turned it into the best-looking building in
Immokalee right now.
The Main Street program, we're looking to do some expansion
in that and get the word out a little more. We had a very good
program there for awhile, and most everyone knew about it, and now
there's a lot of other things. Downtown Immokalee has changed
some and some ownerships have changed, so we're going to have to
make a little better effort to get out and work on that. But I think you
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can see from some before and afters there that there have been some
pretty good improvements, and we're looking for quite a few more in
the next year or so. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Ray.
MR. HOLLAND: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Before you go, I always marvel
at what you've been able to accomplish here in Immokalee with little
money and a tremendous amount of human resources that you were
able to bring together. I've got one question for you. What do you
see as Immokalee 20 years from now? Was that a surprise question?
MR. HOLLAND: Yeah, it sure was. You know, a lot of that is
going to have to depend on where agriculture goes, and a lot of that is
going to depend on a number of factors that we may or may not have
some control over. You know, Immokalee got some designations and
supposedly some help -- I'm not sure if we ever saw it -- because we
were devastated by NAFTA, or at least that was the perception.
I think that really and truly you're going to -- in 20 years I think
you're going to see the airport becoming a tremendous part of the
equation in Immokalee simply because there's some space there for
expansion, and there are opportunities to have some sort of a hub for,
let's say, something like a Memphis for Federal Express. I can see
that that could be a possibility for Immokalee, or a bunch of small,
light kind of clean industry could be in that area or in the surrounding
area there, and the complexion could change that way.
The big situation in my mind is that transportation is going to be
the key issue. If you don't have the roads in, nothing's going to
happen. You know, we're sitting here where -- if we were four-laned
to both interstates plus to Naples and even to Fort Myers and then
maybe even up towards LaBelle, it could have a tremendous
difference. But with the road situation the way it is, Immokalee is
going to remain somewhat isolated simply because you just don't
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have the ability to get the transportation and the resources in and out,
trucking or whatever.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Ray, can I take you one step
further? What about if we did have the roads coming in-- at least
Immokalee Road -- what do you see happening as far as the
demographics of the area? Do you see a change? Do you see a
growth of the area? Do you possibly see maybe a community that's
sustainable and possibly incorporated in the very distant future?
MR. HOLLAND: Yes, going along with, you know, some other
things coming in. Just for an example, if you want to see most of the
people in Immokalee, go to Lehigh and go to Wal-Mart because that's
where they shop. The problem in Immokalee is that so many of the
Immokalee people identify themselves more with Lehigh, Lee
County, than they do with Collier County for shopping and so forth,
so millions of dollars, I think, in purchasing are going into Lee
County rather than Collier.
Another thing you see is that most every teacher or law
enforcement person in Immokalee doesn't live here. They're driving
in. So you get sort of back to housing, and you get kind of back to
shopping. So if we had a Wal-Mart or if we had a Publix and some
things like that, if there could be some shopping opportunities like
those here and the housing, then perhaps schoolteachers and law
enforcement people and prison guards out at Hendry Correctional and
stuff like that, maybe they would live in Immokalee, or maybe they
wouldn't but, I mean, they certainly -- there's a drawback now
because of that lack of housing. Then, of course, that's putting
another strain on the road system with people driving back and forth.
So I still think that Immokalee, even in 20 years, is going to be
more of the workingman's community. A lot of your domestic help
and so forth will still be going to Naples or to Fort Myers and driving
over to work. I don't think 20 years is that long to change that
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particular face of things. I think you'll see more and more craftsmen
and tradespeople living here and going to other places to work.
Agriculture, I think is going -- in 20 years is going to still be a
major factor in Immokalee. You've got citrus. There's plenty of
people here that can speak to that a lot better than I can, but you still
have a tremendous amount of citrus, and there's still a lot of farming.
I mean, a lot more of it is going to corporate farming, but you still
see, particularly in the Hispanic heritage, folks -- you see a lot of
people that used to work in the fields and now they're owning farms.
They're working their way up. I mean, they've got small farms.
They're not Six Ls, but they're working their way up, and they're
making a difference.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Ray, that was better than your
original presentation. Thank you.
MR. MIHALIC: Thanks, Ray.
MR. HOLLAND: Thank you.
MR. MIHALIC: Martha Buckholtz on Weed and Seed.
MS. CACCHIONE: John Lawson is going to do it.
MR. MIHALIC: Oh, John's going to do the Weed and Seed?
Okay.
MR. LAWSON: For the record, I am John Lawson, executive
director for community outreach, the Guadalupe Center. The Weed
and Seed program, you can see on the slide there, is a four-
component program. First is the weeding component. The weeding is
a joining of task forces of county, state, and federal law enforcement
agencies to go into a targeted area in the community and begin to
address the criminal activity in that area.
One of the major goals of the weed and seed program is to
reduce violent crime, drug trafficking, and drug-related crime within
the targeted area. When we're talking about Immokalee pride, one of
the first things that we have to do is recognize there are some things
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we don't like about the community and then begin to take action to
change that. Weeding out those components is something that the
community wants to see, and that is an important component of the
Weed and Seed program.
Weed and Seed is a collaborative effort of the agencies
throughout the state. It's the sheriffs department, the county, the U.S.
Attorney's office from the Middle District, and they have all signed
on to have staff participate in this program. The targeted area is
South Immokalee and the Eden Park section, which is the -- there
have been canvassing operations done in those locations, and people
have gone door to door to have the strategies that have been
developed incorporated into a plan that reflects the community's
needs.
The second of the four components and the second of the
weeding components is community policing. Community policing is
having the cop on the beat active in the community, and Immokalee
already has some of that. We'll be able to build on that through the
Weed and Seed program.
Once the community begins to take out those components that
are not desirable -- and that can include the improvement of physical
conditions as well through special code enforcement -- and cleanup
activities which have been going on for a long time here in the
community, then we begin to seed. That's the prevention,
intervention, and treatment program and the neighborhood restoration
and economic development.
The critical elements to bring a sense of safety and improved
quality of life for the families and children in Immokalee is a
complex process. You need to address the image of the community.
You need to address those homes that need to be rehabiliated.
And that's why there's four components to the Immokalee Weed and
Seed program. Through the strategic efforts of these four
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components, we believe that we'll be able to impact the neighborhood
with measurable results to serve as a model for agencies in the area,
civic organizations, businesses, residents, and youth.
I need to stress that this is a community effort and that is the --
and it will be served through a series of committees, a weeding
subcommittee, a seeding subcommittee, and safe havens. One of the
major components is to target youth development as part of the
program as well. There will be a development of a series of safe
havens in Immokalee as part of the program.
Our application is just at this point for recognition as a Weed
and Seed site. It doesn't come with funding. As soon as that
recognition does come, then there will be an opportunity to submit
funding, and we will move forward with the program.
I'll be happy to answer questions that you have on the Weed and
Seed program. I want to thank Jim Coletta, by the way, for being
actively involved and the sheriffs department and county staff who
have been actively involved in the development of the program.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, sir. Questions by the
commissioners?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: A comment, if I may.
This is a true grass-roots movement that has tremendous community
support. I haven't seen anything quite like this in a long time where
so many people have been involved in it for so long to make it
happen. It wasn't quite as easy as John alluded to. It took a lot of
pushing all the right buttons. In some cases, we didn't think it was
going to come together. There was some last-minute records that had
to be brought together and manufactured in some cases, but the whole
thing is absolutely amazing.
Anytime you can get the community directly involved in a
project of this scope, everybody is better for it. It might be
something that once this is going, you might use it for a model in
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other places in Collier County.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. As far as youth activities, you
were saying that you have youth programs planned. What type of
activities or family-entertainment centers are you planning to get the
families involved with each other?
MR. LAWSON: I wouldn't say that we have any entertainment
activities planned, per se, although we are looking at economic
development. We're looking at -- I need to make a few notes here to
better answer your question. We'll be working with the juvenile
courts, for one thing, through the program for children. That will be
one of the components. We'll have mentors and adults for youth who
will be enrolled in the skilled job programs. That's one of the
initiatives. We're working in cooperation with the workforce
development board on some of those initiatives.
The safe haven program will be a series of sites with Guadalupe
being one of them, hopefully, and then there will be others
developed. These will be hubs or locations so that the community,
including families, can take advantage of the resources. For example,
the park and rec department. They're developing some additional
support systems so that those programs can grow to respond to
community needs. Then the school system, utilizing the schools as
sites, for additional community activities. So I guess that would be
my answer to you as far as how this might develop that component.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And the schools are working with
you in opening the doors?
MR. LAWSON: The schools are partners with the Weed and
Seed program and have dedicated staff to be part of the seeding
subcommittee and will be actively involved in directing the program,
as well as the county staff.
MR. MIHALIC: Thank you, John. Why don't you talk about
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November 6, 2001
the mural project while you're up there.
MR. LAWSON: The mural project is not new to Immokalee.
There's been hopes of having murals around, and actually there have
been some murals that have been up over the years in Immokalee.
We had -- based on that history of interest in murals, there was a
group that went up to Lake Placid, and we visited the mural sites up
in that location.
Several years ago that weren't any murals in Lake Placid, and
now there's about 35. We decided, "Well, maybe that's something we
want to bring to Immokalee," this concept, so we spent a day up there
and spoke with the people who established it. There were a whole
series of murals that they developed under contract with professional
artists who do murals ranging in price from free to $10,000. They
gave the flavor of the community in Southwest Florida and the eco-
tourism component. They have a web page and a mechanism for
moving it forward.
So we have had a series of meetings with people that have been
interested in bringing these to Immokalee. Marlene Foord has been
actively involved in this and Dora Vidaurri. I didn't pronounce that
correctly.
MS. VIDAURRI: That's all right.
MR. LAWSON: Cheryl Thomas, Mary Sue Checks (phonetic),
Benny Starling, and myself have been meeting as well as other
community members and developing some ideas on themes and
partners we can have in funding it through the private sector. We've
been able to come up with what we believe will be some funding
sources to do a series of murals in Immokalee reflecting the culture,
the history, and the diversity of the area that would be conducive to
economic development and also just make a prettier location for
Immokalee.
As you go through town, you'll see more sides of buildings than
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November 6, 2001
you see fronts of buildings. Marlene -- I believe it was Marlene
whose board went by and took pictures of some of the various
buildings, so we're working on that. We're working with some of the
owners of the buildings so that we can put a match between murals,
funding sources, and the 57 walls that we've identified as being
opportunities in Immokalee for having murals that would increase the
community pride and just make Immokalee a prettier place.
We would be happy to answer questions you have on the mural
project. We are a component of the chamber and the Main Street
program at this point. We're doing it in that fashion because the Main
Street program has funding to help pay for the ongoing costs of
maintaining facilities. The thought would be -- and, I think, the
commitment from the chamber is that once these murals are up, then
we would make sure that they were -- the maintenance on them was
maintained through those funding sources through the chamber so
that we didn't have something that became an eyesore in years to
come.
MR. MIHALIC: Thank you. Denise Smith. Denise is going to
talk about the north entry beautification project.
MS. SMITH: Good morning. For the record, my name is
Denise Smith. I'm chairperson of the Immokalee beautification
committee. I also have with me our landscape architect, Mike
McGee of McGee & Associates.
Briefly I would just like to bring you up to date on the
beautification committee. We were formed in 1986, the advisory
committee. We're a five-member committee that meets once a
month. Back in 1990 we formed a master plan for beautification of
the main thoroughfares throughout our community, that being State
Road 29 and 846 West, Main Street, or South First Street or
Immokalee/Naples Road, whatever you know it by.
The master plan was broken up into three phases. The first
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November 6, 2001
phase of 846 West, also South First Street, was completed
approximately in 1993. The second phase, which was about a 2.5
mile strip of our Main Street, State Road 29, was completed last year
-- the summer of last year. Currently the committee is working on
Phase III, getting our architectural plans, working with the state to get
those completed to where we can finish the rest of 29 towards the
Immokalee airport.
I couldn't give you any kind of time frame when we might get
that done. We're hopefully looking at two years to get the plans
approved by the state and construction under way. Currently, as you
can see from the picture up on the board, we're working on the
beautification of the north entrance to our community. It's a triangle
or square that is adjacent to 29 as well as New Market Road.
We're also going to -- we have the rendering up there. We're
looking -- we're in the process of presenting our plans to the state.
Once that's approved construction will start, and we're hoping for
completion by next year. That will be the sign which is similar to
what's on South First Street. That will be going into that triangle area.
That's currently where the committee stands now. I'll be happy
to answer any questions if you have any.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Have you found that any of
the businesses along the routes where you've already completed your
beautification-- have you found that some of the businesses have
jumped in just wanting to improve their appearance because the street
is looking better?
MS. SMITH: I've never talked directly with any of the
businesses, but I know through some discussion with the Main Street
group that, yes, they are wanting to beautify their frontages along
with the beautification being done on the streetscape.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
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November 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Thank you very much. We
appreciate your presentation. I apologize to the group. I always tell
everybody else to turn off their cell phone.
MR. MIHALIC: All right. Dora, would you like to come up?
We're going to go into the housing section of the presentation. This
is Dora Vidaurri of county staff.
MS. VIDAURRI: Hi. Good morning. For the record, I'm Dora
Vidaurri. I'll be brief. As far as housing, it's always been a big issue
in this community. We have identified that there's a housing deficit
that includes middle-class housing to dilapidated housing. For so
long these needs have been talked about. Because of collaboration
and determination of organizations and committees, the people that
is, the area needs have been identified.
Housing has been identified as the No. 1 priority in Immokalee.
Recognizing that housing is an immense issue, ideas have surfaced of
what can be done. Today we are here to present to you, the Board of
County Commissioners, these ideas in motion, that it only takes an
idea to create some type of achievement, and that changes are good.
This community has come together to show that a new look as
presented with changes are soon to begin here. With that said, the
following presentations of myself, Fred Thomas, Mr. Nogaj, and
William Klohn will present the looks that are currently in the works
for this community. Creating opportunities through appropriate
housing in return will create significant respect and hope in the
people.
The Immokalee Housing Initiative has as its goal to eliminate
substandard housing through three components: Incentives,
inspections, and enforcement. Our second goal is to educate the
public on existing requirements for the maintenance and
improvement of housing through educational workshops.
The incentives are such as tipping fee financial assistance,
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November 6, 2001
density, no impact on impact such as -- because these are existing
units on the property, there's no impact on the community so,
therefore, there are no impact fees. And the site improvement as a
whole is an incentive for the property owners.
One of the most recent incentives that was approved by the
board was the financial assistance, which the tipping fee assistance
that pays for the tipping fees of mobile homes or dilapidated units.
It allows owners to remove as many substandard units and other
garbage that is associated on the properties. Many property owners
have become aware of the assistance and have voluntarily come into
our office to take advantage of that.
MR. MIHALIC: Commissioners, that was -- go back on that.
On top of your landfill, that's a substandard trailer being destroyed on
the landfill, the Immokalee landfill.
MS. VIDAURRI: That is correct.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I'm sure you've got many more
that you would like to see go over the hill.
MS. VIDAURRI: What do our inspections accomplish? Our
inspections have accomplished knowledge to the property owners and
understanding, conformity, and uniformity. I think overall our
inspections have brought this to light for a lot of property owners.
Enforcements have been able to set standards, knowledge, and safety.
Our community educational meetings goals are to inform and educate
and help property owners understand what the county's objectives are
as far as their land development codes and ordinances and to better
understand those issues.
One of the proposed agendas from our community meetings are
-- these are the subtitles so far. Our community meeting has been
scheduled for November 20th at 5:30 to 7:30. Our titles are
understanding an inspection from a structural standpoint. We have
omitted the second one. Then understanding common housing
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November 6, 2001
violations, enforcement procedures and the process, and separating
state and county codes.
We want the property owners to understand what an inspection
is from a structural standpoint. A lot of property owners are in
violation, such as adding to their units. It is a violation. So we want
to be able to put that into perspective as to what are some of those
structural issues.
Understanding common housing violations, a lot of property
owners aren't aware that not having adequate stoving is a violation,
so we want to be able to put that also into perspective. Further, to
help them understand what the process is and what could be the
consequence of violations that are existing on their property.
We have found out that there is a lot of confusion between state
and county codes such as their permitting and stuff like that, so we
want to be able to put that into light for them and be able to network
with the state to help property owners understand that we are two
different entities as far as permits and ordinances and things like that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What about slumlord owners who
know full well what their property rights are and still persist on
offering and charging an exorbitant price and offering substandard
housing? What teeth do you have to change that around?
MS. VIDAURRI: We don't have control as far as what type of
pricings are placed for housing, what they're charging for rent. I
would say that we could use leverages as far as their violations, if
they have violations, and that's all we can do. We can't because they
are not part of a county density program. We have not implemented
anything in that nature as far as maybe helping the price on the rents.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Let me see if I'm understanding the
question, Commissioner. There are state regulations and there are
local county regulations. I guess my experience in other situations is
that the two really don't work together well in many cases.
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November 6, 2001
MS. VIDAURRI: That is correct.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Enforcement does not necessarily
work well together. One group will say, "Well, you should do it,"
and then they'll say, "Oh, no, no, you should do it." Consequently
nobody does it.
I guess the question to us and what we need to explore and
pursue is how do we get both to work together so that we can put the
leverage on those who are in violation, whether it is county or state?
And I'm not an attorney, and I don't know which prevails over the
other, but I can understand how frustrated all of us are when we can't
get it done. And I -- you know, anything that I can do as a
commissioner I'll do to help get that stuff done because it distresses
me to no end with all this flip-flopping back and forth.
You know, you could be in the middle of drowning and
somebody's wondering who's going to throw you the rope. By the
time they decide, it's too late.
MS. VIDAURRI: Well, that is the frustration not only for the
staff, but also the property owners. You know, the county might be
somewhat more stringent, and what the state requires doesn't mean
that the county requires, or what the county requires doesn't mean the
state requires. Therefore, there is no collaboration, and we need to be
able to find the gaps and put that together so that it is a working
program.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Dora, if I may comment here,
for 40 some years we've been neglecting Immokalee, totally
neglecting it. It was a wild frontier. Our code enforcement rules did
not apply. Permits were a joke. This went on for a long time. The
market found its own level, like water does, and they were meeting a
need with substandard housing, actually, with the county's blessing
for many years. I commend the present commission and staff for
being forward on this and moving with the greatest of speed to try to
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November 6, 2001
remove this plight from the landscape.
There is no reason why we need to subsidize agriculture with
substandard housing, and agriculture realizes that, and they're starting
to step up to answer some of the needs also. But there is another
point to this whole picture, meaning with the trailer park owners, they
accept the fact that substandard units will not be accepted. They're
totally accepting that. They realize that all safety needs have to be in
place. The health and welfare of the community is of utmost
importance.
But they are running into a problem with the fact that we are
lacking planners that can do the site plans in a timely fashion. We're
seriously lacking. In the one case, there's one person that's been
waiting over a year; meanwhile everything is on hold, and his income
stream is coming to a screeching halt because the county hasn't been
able to supply the necessary site-plan approval. We may have to, at
some point in time, try to hone this down, or maybe we have to bring
in outside help to help get the site plans through in a timely fashion;
is that correct?
MS. VIDAURRI: Just to add to that, we do have a position
open for a planner. It's just filling the position. I think what we need
to do now is just work close in hand with the planning department
until we are able to fill that position, because it is hard to fill those
shoes in the community. It could be just because of the distance, the
required degrees, and things like that. So we do have a position open
for a planner that will be assisting in that area that has been approved
since the last fiscal year.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Is there any possibility, John,
that we might be able to hire outside help until we get through this
backlog so the people that are working with the county to remove this
plight can receive the assistance they need to get going on with their
business?
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November 6, 2001
MR. DUNNUCK: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, we were
putting together -- understanding what the state building code is and
some of the issues we have upcoming and the effect it's going to have
on our site development plan process, we are actually exploring many
challenges or opportunites out there between, you know, contracting
out between the City of Naples to see if they can use some of their
planners and private agencies as well.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I do appreciate that because
this is a problem. We've got people willing to cooperate. What about
the people that are stonewalling us on this? What's being done to
move forward on them? Just because a person refuses to allow
inspectors on the premises they shouldn't be exempt from this. Are
we taking action to be able to make sure they comply?
MS. VIDAURRI: We have. We've been able to -- with the way
the laws are written, we were able to observe some violations from
the street, which is validation, so we are proceeding on some cases
where we are seeing unauthorized work being done such as, you
know, reconstructing a whole unit, and we are proceeding on those
cases.
The laws are really written out to where the people are protected
with some rights as far as how much we get, is there an actual threat
on the property, is there enough evidence, and things like that. So we
have to be real careful. We've been working real close with the
county attorney's office in regard to those areas.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Meanwhile, what we're doing
is we're inspecting the people that are cooperating, and they're taking
the brunt of it, and those that aren't cooperating are getting temporary
exemptions if I'm reading this the way it is.
MS. VIDAURRI: We do have ongoing cases with the people
who have been uncooperative with our department.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. I think it would be the
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November 6, 2001
best idea to receive--
CHAIRMAN CARTER: So the prosecution takes place from
our own county attorney's office. The state's attorney doesn't get
involved in this?
MR. MIHALIC: The Code Enforcement Board.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Code Enforcement Board. Well, I just
thought maybe we could give the state attorney's office something to
really focus on.
MR. DUNNUCK: This is probably a good opportunity to put in
a plug. Next Tuesday's Board of County Commissioners meeting
we're actually bringing an agenda item requesting an additional
position for code enforcement in Immokalee specifically. We
understand that with the two investigators we have we can't keep up
with the workload in Immokalee, and we think a third investigator
would help us. So two can concentrate on the housing issue, while
one can concentrate on the general issues in Immokalee overall.
MR. OLLIFF: That's actually a follow-up from a previous
workshop that we had with the board where we discussed that and the
need for an additional inspection or additional enforcement officer
out here. It was pointed out, and I think the board fully supported it
at that time. So we're just bringing back the paperwork to make that
happen.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Questions or comments? Please go
forward.
MS. VIDAURRI: I just wanted to give a status report as far as
our housing. Let me get my paper because I can't see the numbers.
We've done 211 inspections, and we've determined that 64 units are
unsound. And out of 64 of the units we have removed 27, and that's a
September report. Overall, our project is to cooperate efforts for
better housing in Immokalee.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, Dora. Just one
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November 6, 2001
quick comment.
Dora, I wanted to thank you very much not only for your
involvement in trying to solve this one problem, but your
involvement in everything else that takes place in Immokalee, the
Weed and Seed, the civic association, the alliance. You're truly a
good example not only of a county employee, but of a citizen, a good
citizen.
MS. VIDAURRI: Thank you, Commissioner.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, Commissioner. Before we
leave the topic, I will ask one time, again, who prosecutes for the
state when the state violations are in play here? Is there any
coordinated efforts -- are there any coordinated efforts?
MR. MIHALIC: We have had discussions at the staff level
between the state process and the local process, but as Dora
mentioned there are disparate rules and regulations. The state is
supposed to inspect all migrant housing four times a year. That is not
being done. What they consider to be safe and sanitary is completely
different than what we consider to be safe and sanitary, so we have
not coordinated yet.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: What department in the state handles
that?
MS. VIDAURRI: The health department.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Department of Health?
MS. VIDAURRI: The Department of Health. They have their
own dedicated groups here with investigators, and that includes
environmental investigators as well. We have been working with
them really close, and they do call us, and we do have our inspectors
that will go out there. And we have in some cases had to displace
them and have been able to coordinate with other agencies to help
people in some bad situations. So we are working closely with them
and, like I said, we're currently finishing up our workshop that's
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November 6, 2001
going to be scheduled for November 20th that we're going to try to
cover some kind of understanding between state and county.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I would think out of that that if there
are issues that could be taken forward on a legislative process,
Representatives Spratt, Goodlette, Green are the people who could--
even with all the things that are in front of the legislature sometimes,
these are what I call clean-up points that are easy to be attached to a
bill. And if it can get in there and be done, we can get results. So if
you come up with some ideas -- I know Commissioner Coletta and I
are both very active at the state level, and we would be pleased to
take any initiatives forward.
MS. VIDAURRI: Thank you.
MR. MIHALIC: Fred Thomas. He'll talk about the 300-bed
dormitory and the 40 single-family sites.
MR. THOMAS: Before I start talking about the dormitory, I
want to try to do something else because I don't think there's a clear
understanding what Immokalee is about.
I came here 16 years ago from a waterfront condo in Tampa
where I lived for five years. I have an office here in Immokalee and
an office in Naples, and I still choose to live in Immokalee and retire
in Immokalee. I'm going to be redundant on some of the things you
heard earlier, but I think you will understand what Immokalee is
really about.
It's true we relate to Naples -- I mean to Fort Myers because
we're closer to Fort Myers. We're physically closer to Fort Myers.
You were asking some questions about the nature of housing in
Immokalee. We've come a long way in 15 years in Immokalee when
you understand -- let me go back and try it this way.
When I was the executive director in Indianapolis with 890,000
in population, I could bring 12 people in the room and control 80
percent of the rental housing in the community of Indianapolis. I
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November 6, 2001
could do the same thing in Richmond, Virginia, and the same thing in
Tampa, Florida. You can't do it in Immokalee because the nature of
housing in Immokalee is -- it's changing rapidly.
Think about game day around any major football stadium.
Anywhere you can put a car there's a car. If you go out into a lot of
residential communities, you see a house, and you've got a trailer
sitting behind the house that's being rented out. Now, a lot of that
stuff has been removed. Code enforcement is doing an outstanding
job of getting some of that out, but that's the nature of the beast, as
opposed to large slum landlords like you'll find in other major cities.
We have two types of housing needed in Immokalee. We have
to deal with the problem of a person paying $200 a week for a 40-
foot trailer and packing ten guys in it. That's not the landlord's fault.
The first guy moves in, and he brings all his buddies with him
because they're about the business of sending money home and
keeping expenses low so that in five or six years they can go back
home and live good.
The other end of the problem is dealing with the fact that 80
percent of our schoolteachers do not live here. They go half north
and half south, southwest and northwest. Then 95 percent of our
medical service workers do not live here. They go south and west.
And 90 percent of our retail management does not live here. They go
north and west. The reason why the retail management goes there is
because Fort Myers has come to us to bring their services and
franchises and what have you as opposed to coming from Naples.
The medical profession has come because Naples Community
Hospital brought that stuff out. So we need housing for that level of
person also.
Why would anybody live in Immokalee? Fred Thomas from
New York City, why are you living in Immokalee? Name anyplace
else in this country that you can take a remote control car and go
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November 6, 2001
around your house and still be 45 minutes from the symphony, from
the art museum, 20 minutes from the airport -- 25 minutes from the
airport, within two hours of the Marlins, Miami Heat, Orlando Magic,
and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It's communities like Immokalee, and
people are beginning to understand that nationally and are beginning
to gravitate here.
Okay. The reason why we have the kind of image we have from
Naples is because the last thing you saw coming here today was
Waterways if you came the long way, and the first thing you saw
when you came into Immokalee is our back door. But if the last
thing you saw was Anderson Avenue or Martin Luther King
Boulevard in Fort Myers and you come in our front door, this is a
whole different community. Okay. Widening roads that come out
here is good. We need to do some of those things about that.
Let me get back to the housing issue, and then I'm going to
finish up with what I think -- to answer your question -- Immokalee
will be like 20 years from today.
The Collier County housing authority will have a meeting on the
27th of November to discuss several issues. One is the dormitory.
The dormitory is designed to deal with that problem of workers
packing in ten guys to a trailer and paying $200 a week. Let me state
that another way because I don't think you really understand what
these workers are about.
There's a new technology, and the technology is that on a 100-
pound monofilament line -- on a 100-pound monofilament line you
can send all of the transmission information you can ever want to
send. The country of Canada says, "We're going to do this. We're
going to take it to Nova Scotia and to the Pacific coast. We're going
to pay somebody $5,000 a mile to install that for us." I've done the
numbers. Six guys can do it in 200 days.
Now, the question is, what do we need to do that.9 We can lay
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November 6, 2001
30 miles of that line a day. But these people are going to say, "We
need shovels. We need trucks. We also need housing." But what
kind of housing do we need? If I take an RV and say I'm going to
pack at least six guys in this room in there with us and three of us --
four of us will sleep in it and two of us will sleep under it for 200
days after which we'll get 2 1/2 million when we get to the other
coast, how many guys would go with me? A whole bunch of guys
would go with me.
That's exactly what the farmworkers are doing today. They're
sending $200 a week back to a country where they can live $800 a
year on, so they're trying to keep their costs down. We had to
develop a dormitory that satisfies that need where we can rent it for
$7 a day and provide a safe, sanitary, decent place for them to live.
We are going to do that, and we are going to go out for bids on
November the 13th and award the contract before Christmas so that
thing can be ready before August of this year. In order to get the land
for that, we had to buy all the remaining assets of the CSX railroad
which provides enough land to put 40 single-family homes.
We have worked both with your housing and urban development
department and with the Empowerment Alliance. The Empowerment
Alliance got a separate grant for $300,000 to do in-fill housing that
they have to spend by December 31 st. We're going to sell them that
land before December 31 st so they can make that goal, but we're
going to keep working on it until we get it to the point of individual
platting.
Also on my agenda at the Collier County housing authority
meeting is going to be partnership with MDG Associates to talk
about the other end of the spectrum. It's a partnership to get the
Arrowhead PUD, which has been on the books as long as the Collier
Enterprises PUD -- trying to get it jump started. They now have a
contract for sale, and they want to start building some things and
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November 6, 2001
putting in some high-end housing.
They're talking about trying to put in a swimming pool
apartment complex so we can attract that schoolteacher, that deputy
sheriff, the EMS worker to have a place here to live here in
Immokalee. A lot of folks think they won't live here. Yes, they will
live here if we've got the resource for them. But we've got to have a
commitment on the part of the county government to make sure this
happens because there's a whole lot of impediments that you have
placed on Immokalee because of the mindset of coastal Collier
County.
Now, some people think I'm crazy when I say this, but I think
you need to go back and revamp your whole land development code
similar to the code up in Highlands County and then have separate
overlays for coastal Collier County where you can do anything you
want. You can restrict it any way you want. You can just do
whatever you want over there to stop the growth or whatever you
think you're going to do.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We have some ideas.
MR. THOMAS: But, remember, there was a study done some
years ago that for every dollar of the ad valorem taxes you collect
from the residential, they want a dollar and a quarter back in services.
They only want 75 percent back in industrial. Farming only wants 37
cents back. So if we want to keep this place nice and keep it
economical, we need to get an economic engine.
Now, we don't want to replace agriculture because we need to
eat. It doesn't matter what the rest of the country thinks about it or
how they feel about it, if we can't grow our own food, we won't eat,
so we need to have that. But supportive of that we need to have an
investment on the part of the county commission to encourage
industrial development out here in Immokalee.
Now, we're here fighting to waive impact fees or defer impact
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November 6, 2001
fees. Any city in this country that's serious about economic
development -- they pay taxes over a short period of time so they can
make it happen. They know that that initial investment will have a
long-term repayment. If you do that here in Immokalee, we can do a
lot of things in Immokalee, a lot of things.
We didn't believe that this could be a tourist destination. You'll
hear more about that in a little bit. But the Indians said, "We'll put it
there," and the folks came. Now you've got other things, a sports
complex, and things have changed drastically out at Lake Trafford --
and I'm not going to steal Ann's thunder -- but things will happen if
you invest in it. We ask the commission to invest in it.
When we get ready to develop the Arrowhead PUD, the single-
family homes, zero lot lines, villas, condos, and apartment complexes
-- we've got a jump start. We're going to need infrastructure. God
bless the fact that we now have a community development block
grant entitlement recipient that can help us through some of those
things. But we need to understand that if you're going to capture the
dollars right now that are being spent in Lehigh or being spent in Fort
Myers, we've got to bring the population and then the retail will
come, and that money will reverberate in this community. It will
reverberate in this community.
Florida Community Bank with Citizens National Bank,
according to Steve Price, did a study about 15 years ago and found
out that we were the third economic generator in Fort Myers, the
folks out here in Immokalee, just based on the fact of looking where
the checks from Florida Community Bank were being cashed in
town. We need to begin to look at that and make an investment in
our future.
This is a beautiful community to live in. It's a nice community
to live in. We need to four-lane the road between here and 75 south,
between here and 75 in Fort Myers. And I'm going to run into some
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November 6, 2001
conflict here because the people in this audience don't agree with me
on this, but we need to straighten the road out, what I call the Naples
road, 846, straight down to 858 and four-lane 858 over to the coast.
Because the people in the high growth area of your county are in
Eastern Golden Gate Estates where you can't stop the growth.
They're growing rapidly. Those folks are the ones that are clogging
up Randall Road right now and will be clogging up 858 going east to
get to Naples -- to get to Miami. That needs to be four-laned.
Otherwise, you're going to have to four-lane 846 and 858. But if you
straighten out that road coming in, you have a perfect way of getting
into town, and I showed that to your county manager not too long
ago.
I want to thank you for this opportunity to talk to you. We're
going to be working with you. The housing authority is here to work
with you to make things happen and to help support some things.
We also need to solve another problem. We have become the
training ground in all of our businesses for our northern counties
because when your workforce has to travel 40 miles each way to get
to work and become seasoned employees, they're going to find jobs
closer to work. That's an expense that we don't even factor in to
county government and local business operations. We don't even
factor that in. We need to factor that in. We need to make sure we
protect the ambiance of this county by providing the services, the
security, the education, and the public health to the people that
maintain it for you. Thank you.
MR. MIHALIC: Thanks, Fred.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, Fred. Before you go
away, I think the commissioners may have a couple of questions for
you. Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, I didn't have one.
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November 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. I thought you did.
Commissioner Coletta.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It's not really a question, but
just a comment. Fred's been a driving force in Immokalee for a long
time. Everything that seems to be going forward, everything that
seems to be succeeding has got Fred's name on it in some form or
fashion. All I can say is a fitting tribute's honor is that when I grow
up I want to be Fred Thomas. (Applause.)
MR. THOMAS: We need to fix the problem -- we need to fix it
because I'll be retiring in 12 months.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, Fred. In 12 months --
MR. THOMAS: Let me finish my statement so you can hear
everything I'm going to say. You mentioned something about
incorporating. It's easier to form a new county than incorporate.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Ouch.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What did he say?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: It's easier to form a new county than it
is to incorporate.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Let me translate it for you.
What Fred just said is when he retires he's going to work for us for
nothing.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's good. Fred, you made some
great points on the public/private partnerships. That needs to continue
to be the story told. I would encourage you to write on that issue and
to keep continuing to speak to that issue. It is a subject that is so, like
you, dear to my heart. It is the only way that I know, the government
and private sector working together on these issues in funding and
being a part of the total economic engine, that we will be successful.
And we're way behind the curve. It's a matter of dollars, and it's a
matter of where we're going to get those dollars to make it happen.
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November 6, 2001
I just thank you for being a guiding light out there that continues
to support that, because that's something we've got to continually go
after, be better at, because Lee County is having our lunch. Thank you.
MR. MIHALIC: Thank you, Commissioners. I'd like to
introduce Lilly Flores, family services coordinator for Habitat for
Humanity. She would like to talk to you a little bit about Carson
Lakes, an update on that subdivision.
MS. FLORES: Good morning. I would just like to start by
quoting our current president, Dr. Sam Drexel, by saying that our
goal is to make elimination of poverty a matter of conscious in
Collier County. Everyone in America has had a dream of owning
their own home. Well, when Habitat for Humanity was founded in
Georgia in 1974 by Melvin and Linda Ford, that dream was possible
for many low-income families.
There are over 1,750 habitats in the United States who operate
independently by raising 100 percent of their funds through local
donations and grants. No government funding is accepted for the
construction of the houses. We received government support only for
impact-fee waivers and infrastructure. Deserving families buy these
houses from each affiliate who carries a mortgage of zero interest for
20 to 30 years by making a nominal down payment, commit to
working sweat-equity hours, and building their own homes as well as
others. Plus they make a commitment to partner with the habitat in
building homes not only for them, but for the community as well.
Habitat for Humanity-Collier County was founded in 1978
making us the second oldest in the United States. We have
completed over 370 houses in Collier County; 220 in Immokalee and
150 in Naples. Our 400th house is under construction and will be
completed next year. Our goal -- by 2005 our goal is to build 250
additional houses in Collier County.
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November 6, 2001
We have over 2,000 volunteers from churches, civic
organizations, businesses, and individuals who work beside future
homeowners six days a week to build houses. The need for
affordable housing in Collier County is tremendous. This year we
have over 700 applicants in Collier County for only 60 homes that we
will build.
If we all work together to improve our community and eliminate
substandard housing, we can make a difference. We will do much
more than just provide residences. We will provide ownership, self-
esteem, and a sense of stability which will build good families.
As you can see, that is our project out on Carson Lakes which
will have 84 new homes out there. Right now we have about 22
already built out there on Carson Lakes, and we plan to continue for
the next five years out there. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you.
MR. MIHALIC: Thank you. Our next speaker will be Dick
Nogaj to tell us about Jubilation and give us an update on his
development.
MR. NOGAJ: Good morning. My name is Dick Nogaj. I'm
president of Harvest for Humanity. In June 1998 my wife, Florence,
and I came to Immokalee, and we started the Harvest for Humanity
foundation. We really came here to build a new farming model, a
new paradigm for farming that would include diversified crops, year-
round employment for farmworkers, living wages for those workers,
and opportunities for stock ownership.
The farm today is a 11 O-acre parcel about a quarter mile north of
this facility. The harvest farm is where we are growing our
blueberries that will be at the marketplace coming this March and
April. We came from Chicago. Somebody said that we must be the
blueberry couple from Chicago on a mission from God. We would
like to think of ourselves that way.
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November 6, 2001
In 2000 we formed Jubilation, the Jubilation Development
Corporation, to bring a $10 million development to Immokalee.
Jubilation Development Corporation is a not-for-profit just as Harvest
for Humanity, but we are a private developer so we are different in
that respect from Habitat.
Jubilation we worked on with Collier County staff for 18 months
to get a PUD developed and the site plan designed, engineering work
completed, for what is really a very unique project not only to
Imtnokalee but to South Florida. This is the first private-housing
subdivision in Immokalee, but also it's the first TND development
that's provided by Collier County or any county in South Florida.
A traditional neighborhood development is coming back into
areas of the county where people are looking more for interactive
communities. They're looking more for bringing people back
together in a safe and secure environment. So Jubilation is not just a
subdivision; we're modeling it as a new neighborhood.
Our web site is going nationally. We are showing the design
features of Jubilation to folks all over the country. They're looking
for the aspects of Jubilation that include such amenities as the harvest
activity center where we will be having the harvest blueberry store
and catering company developed, the harvest landscaping company.
These are all new operations that will function at Jubilation and
create jobs for residents and people in the area.
Collier County, Lee, and Hendry County will be served by
Jubilation because the activity center includes amenities for the
blueberry store, the blueberry U-pick, the conservation preserve,
tours of the TND. And why is it the house and Jubilation are unique?
We have 89 homes that are going up. In the last six months we've
had about 200 families come to our office. Elizabeth Delarosa is our
office administrator, and we work with these families on a number of
issues. About 20 percent of the homes are sold in Jubilation to date.
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November 6, 2001
The grand opening will be in January when the first two models
are completed. The garden home/condominium building will be
under construction. The activity center will be under construction.
And the maintenance building is about to be completed.
There are a couple of issues that I really want to bring to the
board's attention, and I really need -- we really need assistance in this
area of affordable housing. There's an affordable housing gap on
new homes in Collier County and most of the area that is about
twenty to thirty thousand dollars. That gap really is a difference
between what builders have to build homes for here in Collier County
and what families can actually afford.
When we go back on some of these slides and we look at the
prices on these homes, the Sanctuary home is priced at $92,500.
Well, you need to understand that the Jubilation, the development
corporation, along with the Harvest for Humanity foundation is
subsidizing that. Florence and I are basically subsidizing those
homes. We take no overhead. We take no profit. We take no
salaries. We are not charging homeowners for what amounts to about
a twenty or thirty thousand dollar difference on the house.
So the appraised value on these homes down the road in terms of
market value will be substantially more than what those houses are
being sold for. The same is true of the Haven model. The same is
true of the garden home/condominium model which are priced at
$69,500. They are all 1,100 to 1,400 or 1,500 square foot homes
under AC with two-car garages, three bedrooms, two baths. But the
aspect of the traditional neighborhood allows these homes to be build
on living courts where the homes face each other with sidewalks --
interconnecting sidewalks that are safe and secure for families and
children and porches that face each other without vehicles. Vehicles
are relegated to the back of the homes. That's a unique aspect of
Jubilation.
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November 6, 2001
But in terms of assistance from the county board, the two areas I
really want to talk about are developer assistance and home-buyer
assistance. In the area of developer assistance, we need very, very
badly favored community status for Immokalee.
Now, the State of Florida has already established Immokalee as
a targeted area. I think especially for not-for-profit developers or
even for-profit developers, favored status would allow us to continue
to have fast-track capabilities which the county's staff has done a
great job on -- John and Greg and his people.
We need more help on permit-review assistance, waiving of
permit fees, review fees, impact fees. That kind of assistance for
Immokalee as a targeted area is very, very important for the future
development. The additional legislation that we need -- we need the
Collier County board to petition legislature to move Congress
towards farm -- towards tax credit status for homebuyer assistance.
We have tax credits now for rental developers throughout the
county, and that's been used for years, but there is no tax credit bill
currently passed in Congress for affordable housing developers to be
able to bridge that gap. With tax credits of twenty to thirty thousand
dollars per home, every affordable developer could come into
Immokalee and mm this community around overnight. That's if we
had tax credit legislation passed in Congress.
The second area we need assistance from the county on is home-
buyer assistance. We need to do a much better job on mortgage
assistance and mortgage commitments. The banks need to step up to
the plate here, and they've got to be encouraged to work with the
minority community.
The demographics of Immokalee are the absolute reverse from
the rest of the country. Almost every community in this country has
two-thirds home ownership and one-third rental. Almost every
community in the country or most of our communities are 10 or 20
Page 41
November 6, 2001
percent minority. This community is absolutely the other way
around. Two-thirds of the people that live here rent. Only one-third
own homes. So 80 or 90 percent of our people here are minority
families, almost all Hispanic and Haitians.
We need that kind of encouragement from banks with CRA
credits to work more diligently and provide more assistance to
families. The biggest problem that Florence and I and Elizabeth have
experienced with over 200 families in the last six months is we're
lucky if we can qualify 10 percent of them. That's because of the
bank requirements. You can say that they have credit problems.
They have debt problems. They have income problems. But not to
the extent that they have to be as quote, unquote, "clean" as required
by the bank. They can be more flexible with more encouragement
from the county board to have banks work with families in
Immokalee.
The second thing the county board can do is help Greg and John
in doing more in the way of closing assistance. We are a targeted
community. We don't have to have ordinances on the books that
require homeowners -- families not to ever have owned a home in last
three years. Right now we can't get SHIP funds and we can't get
impact-fee waivers if they've owned a home in the last three years.
That can be waived by the county board, and use this State of Florida
targeted community as a model to assist in that area.
The same thing with income limits. If we use the State of
Florida target for income limits, we can raise those income limits for
Immokalee. We are -- this development is for middle-income
families primarily, but middle-income families in Immokalee, folks,
are low-income families in Collier County. We're working with
thirty, thirty-five, forty thousand dollar a year income families.
They're struggling to get mortgage commitments right now from
numerous bank throughout Lee and Collier County.
Page 42
November 6, 2001
So with that, I would like to close on that basis and ask you for
your assistance in working with Greg and his people and John and
helping in those areas to give Immokalee favored status when it
comes to affordable housing developers. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. I know, Greg, you may
have some comments on that in terms of what you have been doing
or what's feasible in terms of how we might use the Florida targeted
community guidelines as it might apply to Collier County and
whether or not it's even feasible for us to consider under our current
budget challenges.
MR. MIHALIC: Well, Mr. Nogaj is correct that our programs
are set up for first-time home buyers. That is not a state requirement.
That is our choice. So we say that because we're trying to help people
get their first home they cannot have owned a home in the last three
years, and that's the same as bonding requirements and many other
programs.
It is possible we could make a local change to allow people that
have owned a home before or maybe still own a home and want to
rent it out to buy another one. That's a possibility. As far as raising
the income limits in Immokalee, the SHIP income limits are set by
state statute. We talked with Mr. Nogaj, and we actually sent a letter
to the Florida Housing & Finance Corporation asking them to
consider in their next cycle rule changes allowing targeted
communities to not have income restrictions on their bios within
targeted communities, which Immokalee is one, at the state level and
the local level. But that's going to require some state statute changes
for that particular area.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, that's most hopeful for me. I
understand what we could do, but there's always a cause-and-effect
relationship. So it just might be something the board could look at in
some future time in our total discussion of this in lieu of, as I said, all
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November 6, 2001
the budget challenges we're going to have. All I would say to you,
Mr. Nogaj, is we'll look. We'll listen. We'll evaluate. That's all I feel
I can do as a c°mmissioner at this point.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I wasn't here for the beginning of
your presentation, and I'm very sorry. Can you tell me when the first
homes will be ready for people to move in?
MR. NOGAJ: The models of the homes are currently being
built by Cypress Construction. They're going to be completed in
January. A number of the homes that are sold will be going out for
permits and ground breaking in the next two months. So our home
buyers will be moving in probably in March of next year, and then
we'll be going from there.
We have about 20 or 25 percent of the homes presold. The
garden home/condominium building will go under construction in the
next two weeks. The activity center will also be breaking ground in
the next month or so which will provide a lot of community-centered
functions; banquets, weddings, a fully-equipped kitchen, blueberry
store.
Eco-tourism is a very important aspect. We worked with Barb
Cacchione when she was still with the county in making Jubilation a
tourist stop for people in Naples and Fort Myers to buy blueberries
and see the site and learn about TND housing and learn about
harvesting and the program.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: One other question. Are you going
to have some type of a day care or after-school program on site as
well?
MR. NOGAJ: We have an after-school program, a dedicated
computer learning and training center which will be open to residents
within Jubilation and outside of Jubilation. That will serve some
after-school activities for the community. We also are a safe haven --
a designated safe haven and a polling place for the community.
Page 44
November 6, 2001
There is the harvesting activity center that will remain with Harvest
for Humanity as opposed to it being turned over to the Jubilation
homeowners association. So it will also house the corporate office
for the Harvest blueberry store, landscaping offices, and it will
continue with enough land that is set aside for future day care.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Magic Fingers, she needs a break. I
think I need to go there.
MR. MIHALIC: We have one more presenter in this section.
Can we do that for maybe five more minutes and then take a break?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Is that okay with you?
THE COURT REPORTER: Sure.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. That's five minutes. Fine. I
know where we are.
MR. MIHALIC: Mr. Klohn. Would you like to sit down with a
chair or--
MR. KLOHN: That's okay. I'll just run up.
MR. MIHALIC: This is Bill Klohn, president of MDG Capital
Partners, who is going to talk about his new Arrowhead Development
Reserve in Immokalee.
MR. KLOHN: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, members
of the commission. My name is William Klohn. I am a principal and
president of MDG Capital Partners. We are the developers of
Arrowhead Reserve. We also have with us today Bourke Gorman,
our project manager. Bourke's been involved in this project for about
three years, and we welcome his assistance to develop the project.
As I've been in Collier County for the past 20 years as both a
resident and a developer, I've seen all of the land go away, and
unfortunately it's now moving very quickly. We look at the
Arrowhead project, which is about 307 acres, as one of Collier
County's last best chances for affordable housing of this magnitude.
Certainly there are other affordable land opportunities, but we feel
Page 45
November 6, 2001
that it's the last and largest or best chance for Collier County and an
opportunity to address the needs of affordable housing.
We're very excited to be a part of fulfilling the needs for
affordable housing in the county and especially in Immokalee. My
hat's off to Mr. Thomas -- where did Fred go? -- and Dick Nogaj, and
all of the people affiliated with Habitat for their commitment to
affordable-housing needs in the county and Immokalee.
I echo many of their sentiments and requests for the needs and
assistance from the County Commission. MDG has a long history of
development and especially in affordable housing. Not only do we
have the project here in Collier County, but also there's projects in
West Virginia and Maryland. So this type of housing is not new to
US.
We're also kicking off a new project closer into Naples on Pine
Ridge Road called Cypress Glen. We won't talk about that today, but
it will be our second project that we're involved with now in the
county. As a matter of fact, one of our subdivisions in Maryland --
I'm sorry, in West Virginia was named subdivision of the year. So
we're very proud of our ability.
The project that we're doing, Arrowhead, is not intended to be a
project to fulfill the needs or void for farmworkers. We are after
helping the workforce of Collier County. We feel that the teachers,
the firemen, policemen, EMS, hospitality, service people, bank
tellers, secretaries, people in the medical profession, and of recent
I've heard that the hospital industry all the way from Naples to Marco
are bussing people and trying to solve their housing needs. I've also
heard that Home Depot is having a terrific problem with housing and
Publix-- Publix grocery stores.
Within our 307 acres -- Bourke, maybe you want to stand up and
point.
MR. GORMAN: I can do that.
Page 46
November 6, 2001
MR. KLOHN:
PUD.
MR. GORMAN:
it up here.
We intend to amend the currently approved
We have that approval. If you want I can put
MR. KLOHN: That's okay. We'll hold that for now.
We intend to amend the currently improved PUD to delete the
mobile homes. There were three hundred and some odd mobile
homes within the PUD. On the top end of the site plan, you have
Lake Trafford Road. That will be our main entry. That spine road
that meanders through the 307 acres will intersect and adjoin Carson
Road. That's the first road, or the first endeavor of our development
is to build that road.
Near the entry on Lake Trafford Road we have our single-family
section which will be comprised of approximately 450 single-family
houses. The areas off to the right, which are shaded in a maroon
color, and then down below and -- why don't you point to it, Bourke.
MR. GORMAN: All of this.
MR. KLOHN: And down to your right will be multi-family.
That's single-family.
MR. GORMAN: The multi-family is here and here.
MR. KLOHN: Correct.
MR. GORMAN: And these instead of being mobile homes will
now be apartments.
MR. KIJOHN: Three hundred apartments, right. So we've got a
total of 450 single-family, about 400 multi-family, which will be
comprised of both condominiums and townhouses, and then the 300
apartments, which we're very excited about. And the reason we're so
excited is Fred Thomas with the Collier County housing authority
intends with MDG to go forward on that project to develop those 300
units. As Fred said earlier, this will be before his board on November
27th.
Page 47
November 6, 2001
Also within the community will be 130,000 square feet of
commercial in the upper right-hand comer. If you notice, we've got
around 12 lakes, which will be stocked with fish. We've got a 3-acre
park in the center of the community, which will also house a
clubhouse and a swimming pool. That clubhouse and swimming
pool will be in addition to the clubhouse and swimming pool down in
the rental apartment project.
As far as pricing goes, we intend to bring Arrowhead out at
under $125,000 for everything. Naturally, the condominiums and the
townhouses will be under 100, probably from $70,000 to $100,000.
The single-family homes will be from $100,000 up to the current
SHIP cap of $126,000 (sic). It's our goal to bring this project in and
all of the housing within and under the cap on the current SHIP
program.
As far as timing goes, we are working with Hole, Montes
engineers, our in-house engineers, to create our submission to go
before the county for the site plan development amendment as well as
our zoning issues. We're working on that now and intend to submit it
sometime the latter part of this year or early next year; the point
being that we're very serious about going forward and moving
swiftly.
We've been working very hard with many of the governmental
1 entitles regarding financing to include -- Greg -- Greg's been terrific
in giving us comments on our project. We've also been over to Palm
Beach with the USDA and had Fannie Mae in our office to talk about
assistance for financing.
Just like Mr. Nogaj and Mr. Thomas said earlier, we now need
the county's help. We will be addressing in a very strong way the
need for the county to not defer impact fees, but rather to waive
impact fees. We think it's very important to waive the impact fees to
give the first-time home buyer their opportunity for a piece of their
Page 48
November 6, 2001
dream. We think also that the county should take a hard look at its
impact-fee structure. If you compare impact fees for some of the $3
million houses on the beach as compared to a $100,000 single-family
home, it just doesn't seem quite fair, but maybe we can work through
that together.
As far as impact-fee waivers, a lot of people are under the
misconception that the developer benefits from that cost savings.
That's absolutely false and incorrect. It's actually the home buyer that
benefits from the waiver. One of our members of the commission
said, "Well, how do we know that that's not going to go into your
pocket?" One of the ideas that we've come up with to demonstrate
that, to deserve the credit for the impact-fee waiver or for the first-
time home buyer to deserve that credit, is a new concept that we may
introduce which is a two-type pricing per home. One price would be
without impact fees, and the other price would, unfortunately, be with
the impact fees. The people that would not meet the affordable-
housing guidelines would be the ones to pay the price with the impact
fees. We think many other developers in the county or in other
counties may follow this concept that we've come up with.
We feel that this project will enhance the opportunity -- and
more importantly up Immokalee's opportunity to fulfill the needs for
affordable housing, create jobs, and stimulate the overall economic
growth. With that we hope that you'll give us our support, and we're
naturally happy to come talk with you about other ideas regarding the
impact-fee waivers and so on. Please give us your support.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, sir. I have been through
the briefing, ladies and gentlemen, and I have paid a lot of attention
to this project. As you know, we had a long discussion. I did not ask
the question whether you're going to put it in your pocket. I do
understand that impact fees are on the buyer and not on the
developer, but that's a misconception in the community, and one
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November 6, 2001
that's very difficult to communicate. I like the concept. I like the
ideas, and I'm sure the commissioners and our staff will continue to
work and see how we can make all of this come together. MR. KLOHN: Thank you very much.
MR. MIHALIC: Do you want to take a break?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, sir. We need to take a break.
Thank
Magic Fingers -- we just about wore her out. We'll take ten.
you.
(A break was held from 10:50 a.m. To 11:10 a.m.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, if you
could find your seat, please. Commissioners, we need to continue the
program. We are somewhat behind, so let's continue, Mr. Mihalic.
MR. MIHALIC: We're going to speed it up, Commissioners.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes.
MR. MIHALIC: We're going into the commercial development
section. Helene Caseltine, the economic development manager for
the county, is going to introduce that section. Helene.
MS. CASELTINE: Good morning. For the record, I'm Helene
Caseltine, economic development manager for the county's
department of housing and urban improvements, and I'm going to
introduce this section. We're going to switch gears a little bit. We've
been talking about housing and community character and that sort of
thing. We're now going to go into, as it says, commercial
development but, again, stressing the importance of partnerships,
working very closely with the Economic Development Council of
Collier County, the small business development center, the chamber
in Immokalee, the CDC, the alliance. Everyone is working together
to make things happen.
You'll hear from some existing business owners. You'll hear
from business owners who have projects on the board. You'll hear
about some of the improvements that are being made at the airport
Page 50
November 6, 2001
which is one of our economic engines here in Immokalee. So with
that I'm going to turn the podium over to Marlene Foord.
MS. FOORD: Good morning. My name is Marlene Foord. I'm
the principal planner with the comprehensive planning section of the
planning services department, and my focus in the county is to work
with the community redevelopment agency in redevelopment areas;
one of those redevelopment areas being Immokalee, and the other
redevelopment area is the Bayshore/Gateway area immediately east
of Naples. I'm sure you're all familiar with that area too.
I'm going to go through a couple slides here to help you
understand what the CRA is and what it does. CRA is a separate legal
entity that's separate from the governing board of the Board of
County Commissioners. They are charged with undertaking and
implementing community redevelopment as allowed under Part III,
Chapter 163 of the Florida Statutes. The Board of County
Commissioners declared themselves to be the CRA in March of last
year. And just note that in some communities the CRA is a group
appointed entirely by the Board of County Commissioners or City
Council in the case of the city, but in our case the Board of County
Commissioners is the CRA.
The CRA then made a finding of blight in March of 2000 for
both the Immokalee area and the Bayshore/Gateway Triangle area.
The redevelopment plan was adopted in May by the CRA and in June
by the Board of County Commissioners, and it includes separate
sections for the Immokalee component area and a separate section for
the Bayshore/Gateway area.
The plan was designed to capitalize on the existing programs,
the project in Immokalee, and not to try and reinvent the issues.
They are there. They are already identified. They are already being
worked on by some of these other programs, so the idea of the CRA
is to supplement those programs such as the Main Street program, the
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federal enterprise community designation, the regional airport
industrial park, and Lake Trafford to create a catalyst for revitalizing
the community and improving housing stock.
Just a note there, the community redevelopment agency is a
partnership into itself because it does not just focus on housing, and it
does not just focus on commercial development. This section of the
presentation is the commercial development part of the presentation,
but it also incorporates economic development, housing conditions
and standards, as well as eco-tourism and all these things that come
together in the redevelopment program.
CRA is also working with and complementing some of the other
newer programs that we have like the Empowerment Alliance, the
Immokalee alliance, the Weed and Seed program, the mural society,
the housing initiative, and many others. The redevelopment plan that
was adopted for Immokalee has areas that focus on south Immokalee,
Main Street, New Market Road, and the Immokalee regional airport
and industrial park. The goal is to encourage and initiate
neighborhood revitalization, housing programs, economic
development, and public and private partnerships.
The CRA in order to serve the community decided to establish
advisory boards in March of this year. There was an advisory board
established for the Immokalee area and one also separately
established for the Bayshore/Gateway area. The purpose of the
advisory board is to serve as the primary source of community input
to the CRA and to the CRA staff and to make recommendations
concerning the redevelopment plan such as possible amendments to
the plan, the redevelopment area work program and priorities and
implementation of the plan.
Members of the enterprise zone development agency were
appointed by the Board of County Commissioners, as is the CRA, to
serve as the advisory board for Immokalee. This is an already
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November 6, 2001
existing group that's been working in Immokalee for six years --
seven years -- four years, and they're a membership that's already
established. The CRA decided to appoint them as the advisory board.
The advisory board meetings are held monthly. Right now
they're held at the Habitat for Humanity office, and they are
immediately followed by the EZDA meetings if they are held that
month. They're not held as often as the advisory board meetings. So
far three meetings have been held of the advisory board. The officers
-- you can see again the partnerships here. The chairman that was
elected is Fred Thomas. The vice chair is Raymond Holland.
Each member receives a reference notebook that they will
probably tell you has too much stuff in it, but it's basically a notebook
that contains the list of member bylaws -- the bylaws were also
included in the package that was distributed here -- all of the
resolutions, the ordinances that have to do with the establishment of
the CRA and the advisory board and the redevelopment plan. The
redevelopment plan for Immokalee is in there, the Sunshine Law
information. A question and answer sheet is also included in there.
The CRA has a web site that we are constantly upgrading and
updating and hope to have it be a much more interactive web site
used by the community. And the zoning overlays, Immokalee has
several zoning overlays in it, and we have all that information in
there for the advisory board members as well as the Immokalee Fund
186 information.
For those of you that don't know what the CRA can do as far as
funding, the CRA establishes a tax increment district and collects the
tax increments as property values increase, and that goes into a fund
that can then be used in Immokalee and is used only in Immokalee
rather than throughout Immokalee -- I mean, throughout Collier
County. So they have all that budget information as well.
The advisory board has started to discuss the creation of
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incentives that might include facade grants or loans, code compliance
grants or loans, and fast-track permitting to enhance the existing fast-
track permitting that's available, and also possibly impact-fee
assistance. The CRA could possibly pay for impact fees or a portion
of the impact fees rather than having the developer and homeowners
or the people that want to redevelop property and move into the area.
They wouldn't have to pay the whole thing. The CRA could
supplement that through impact-fee assistance. This is important
because it's not a waiver. It's not a deferral. Impact fees are still
being paid.
The advisory boards are also starting to create marketing
material to market the CRA and the incentives that are already
provided by the county and the EDC and other agencies. We feel this
is important. There are a lot of programs that we already have, and
we just need to make sure that they're all put together in a package
that can be made available to those who might want to redevelop in
the community.
We're focusing on establishing priorities to be able to implement
the goals of the redevelopment plan. The redevelopment plan is
fairly general, and we now need to start working on the actual
implementation of the plan by implementing priorities.
Just a note, I went to the Florida redevelopment association
conference along with Helene a couple of weeks ago, and it was an
incredible conference, and we just made some observations and
recommendations that I hope will be used by the advisory board as
we move forward. All of the CRAs are in different stages of
redevelopment. Some have been around for six months, and some
have been around for ten years, and some even more. This gave us
an opportunity to talk with these other CRAs and find out what has
worked for them and what hasn't worked for them, and I hope that we
continue to communicate with other CRAs, including the CRA in the
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City of Naples.
Could you go back to that slide? Thank you. We also want to
look at the incentive programs. All of the CRAs have some kind of
incentive program, and we can use some of the ideas they have and
work them into the community here and apply for appropriate grants
as they become available.
We may be looking at considering getting a low-interest loan
using the funding that's available right now. We have in the account
$33,000. As of January 1st we expect another $150,000, so we're
looking at close to $200,000 for Immokalee. That's not really a
whole lot of money in the grand scheme of things. In order to get
things going early on, many CRAs seek a loan or a bond in order to
jump start the redevelopment and then pay back the bond of the loan
over the 10- or 20- or 30-year program.
One of the other recommendations that I came away from the
conference with is we need to have regular CRA meetings. Right
now the CRA is a separate legal entity from the Board of County
Commissioners, and the items for the CRA are generally put on the
Board of County Commissioners agenda and not really separated.
One of the things that CRA can do is have their own meetings. I
think the City of Naples has one every three months. So we may
look at trying to do something like that working, of course, with the
existing scheduling conflicts and problems that we have with the
Board of County Commissioners having so many meetings.
Advisory board members and CRA members, I hope they will
continue -- if they're going to the conference next year in Jacksonville
-- it was really incredible, and there were so many representatives
from CRAs, from city councils, from board of county commissions,
and from advisory boards there. It would be a great opportunity to
get a chance to communicate with them.
Okay. The last slide is just the front page of the redevelopment
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plan for Immokalee. It's showing you some of the focus areas. You
can see Lake Trafford there on the left, Main Street, the
manufacturing and technology center at the bottom right there, and
housing that's obviously below standards. Then you can see the sign
for Immokalee there bringing it all together, and that's the goal.
MR. MIHALIC: Thank you very much.
MS. FOORD: Any questions?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you very much.
MR. MIHALIC: Mrs. Luna. Is Mrs. Luna here? Helene, do you
want to talk about the Azteca SuperCentro?
MS. CASELTINE: Sure. For the record, I'm still Helene
Caseltine. Lidia Luna and her husband, Angel Luna, purchased the
old arcade theater maybe about a year -- two years ago, I believe it
was. As you-all know, that was in major, major disrepair. There
were people sleeping in the doorways and things like that.
They saw or had a vision for this building, and over the last year
and a half-- actually, planning staff has been trying to clean it up to
make it more attractive for potential developers. They did a good
job, I'd have to say. They did clean it up quite a bit. But when the
Lunas bought it, they had some major, major challenges ahead of
them.
They did go through the fast-track program through the county.
It took about a year and a half-- a good year anyway -- for that
construction to take place. But it's probably about a million and a
half dollar investment in restoring that building.
As I think Fred had mentioned or Raymond had mentioned, this
is one of the major buildings here on our Main Street especially. It's
now called the Azteca SuperCentro 2000. It does house a deli and
grocery store. It's got a laundromat, a tortilla factory, and a new
movie theater, and it is large enough to accomodate various
functions.
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The Immokalee chamber recently held an auction there, and that
was quite successful. You-all had about 200 or 300 people there. So
I think this will really be, ! think, a catalyst for the Main Street or the
downtown area, and I think maybe other building owners might look
at this as maybe something to, you know, help improve their building
as well. So we're really pleased that this has now come online.
MR. MIHALIC: Do you want to go on to the other economic
programs available in Immokalee?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: How are the tortillas?
MS. CASELTINE: Excellent. I've had lunch there. It's
wonderful.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I mean, you can buy them to go? You
can buy packages?
MS. CASELTINE: They have them packaged. They have a
little grocery store there, too, and you can buy them packaged there.
It's wonderful.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I'll have to stop on the way
home.
MS. CASELTINE: Absolutely. I'm going to talk a little bit
about some of the economic incentives that are available currently
here in Immokalee. Barb touched on a few of them as did Marlene.
Probably the most utilized program is the enterprise zone program.
Immokalee was designated about four years ago from the State
of Florida as the enterprise zone because of its high unemployment
rate, low-income levels, and so forth. Since then we have had about
20 some companies take advantage of the program, and over
$500,000 was realized in tax credits and tax reimbursements. So
that's quite a big dollar figure.
We have -- you can go to the next slide. This is obviously going
to be hard for you folks in the audience to see, but it's in the package.
This kind of generalizes the types of companies that are utilizing the
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November 6, 2001
program. We go from a small mom and pop realtor to farm co-ops to
those types of companies that are part of a major corporation. So it's
kind of all over the board. This kind of breaks out the types of
programs that are being utilized under the enterprise zone program.
Just as example of some of these companies, Taps Automotive
actually was the first company in Immokalee to utilize the program.
That was a couple years ago when they built their new store. They
moved off of New Market Road and went over behind Bob's Burgers.
Thus far they have received close to $10,000 in tax credit and sales
tax reimbursements. So that's pretty good for a small operation like
that.
Buddy's Home Furnishings out of Tampa opened their
Immokalee store a couple of years ago and got over $11,000 in tax
credits. And just as a side note, they told me that they especially
locate in enterprise zones throughout Florida for this very reason.
Lastly and more recently, Mi Ranchito Restaurante recently
expanded to include an ice cream shop. So about three or four weeks
ago they submitted an application to the Florida Department of
Revenue requesting about $1,800 in sales tax refunds for the new
equipment that they've purchased.
That's it. Going into other programs -- as I mentioned, you
know, the enterprise zone program is the most widely used. It's
probably the most utilized. We also work very closely with the
Economic Development Council in our fast-track permitting
program. That's available county-wide, however, typically in the
urban area we require certain criteria. Those criteria are waived for
projects that are located in Immokalee.
Also, with the help of the EDC and other organizations, we were
able to secure other designations for Immokalee, one being the rural
area of critical economic concern. Governor Bush declared that
about a year and a half ago. There's not actual funding attached to
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November 6, 2001
that, but it allows more flexibility when applying for state programs,
state grants, things like that. Typically there are criteria that are in
place when applying for those programs, job-creation wages, wage
thresholds and things. Being a designated rural area like this, it
waives or substantially lowers those criteria that are required.
Also, due to the effects that NAFTA had on the area, the
Immokalee community has been designated as a CAIP community,
and that's the Community Adjustment Investment Program. It's a
federal program for companies that are locating or are already located
in Immokalee and are looking to apply to the SBA or the USDA for
funding. The points can be waived in applying for those funds. So
that could be a substantial savings for some projects.
I also want to briefly mention a couple of others. We also have
the entrepreneurial investment zone. Obviously that's geared towards
foreign investors who are looking to apply for permanent residency
here in the United States. Typically to do so they would need to
invest three to four million dollars. In places like Immokalee -- there
are other communities around the country like this, but they would
only need to invest a half million dollars over a two-year period, and
this would also apply to their family members.
Lastly, I also wanted to mention the foreign trade zone. This is
specific to the Immokalee airport industrial park. A foreign trade
zone benefits companies that are doing business internationally where
they can bring goods into a foreign trade zone and not be charged
duties until those goods actually enter the U.S. Market. This was one
of the programs that made the Immokalee airport attractive to Siena
Marble because a lot of their product that was coming in might be
damaged, and they could just send it back without having duties
applied to it.
So with that, does anyone have any questions?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I do.
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MS. CASELTINE: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Back here with Mi Ranchito, I was
just wondering when they get tax credits and tax refunds, are they
then strongly encouraged to do something about improving the
appearance of their property with the money that they return back
rather than just using it on their bottom line.
MS. CASELTINE: We have talked with them about the Main
Street program and, you know, possibly fixing up the facade of their
building as well. They have yet to see that check, so when that time
comes, certainly.
MR. MIHALIC: Thank you very much.
MS. CASELTINE: Thank you.
MR. MIHALIC: Mr. Petrie from Siena Marble who is one of
our new companies that are investing at the airport industrial park.
MR. PETRIE: I'm Kyle Petrie from Siena Marble. I'm vice
president and one of the owners. We import raw materials from
around the world and process them into decorative inserts, wall tiles,
floor tiles, counter tops, and we have a table top division too. We're
currently in Naples. We've got two small parcels. We had one. We
had to expand it into two. So one of the things to move to Immokalee
was we needed a lot more space to grow this business.
The incentives of the county were very instrumental in us
moving our facilities to Immokalee along with the bonded warehouse
and the custom features that Helene mentioned. We are at the point
right now where we are going to be applying for permits in a few
weeks to start construction. I think the only little hurdle we've got
there is we got a little flack from the architectural review board.
They're trying to make it a little more -- I don't know -- change a little
more than we would think we need to for a manufacturing facility,
you know, the facade on the front of the building and such. But if we
can get by those little hurdles, we hope to be breaking ground
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sometime towards the end of the year.
We hope to be open -- you know, with construction -- in April,
May, or June. Coming out to Immokalee, we currently employ about
50 people. Most of those people are going to come with us. Everyone
will be offered to come out there with us. But then as soon as we
move into this new 50,000 foot facility, we hope to be employing
right away about 50 extra people and going up from there.
The reason to go to a much bigger facility is we are branching
out around the country with different transfer points so that we can
get more into the bigger -- I mean, we already sell in the whole
United States, but we're going to expedite that with reducing our
freight costs into secondary distribution points, getting some of our
new products into the home centers and, you know, hopefully, this
business is going to get rather large out in Immokalee. MR. MIHALIC: Questions?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Are they being fast tracked?
MR. MIHALIC: Absolutely. This is being fast tracked.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you.
MR. PETRIE: Thank you very much.
MR. MIHALIC: John Drury. John is going to talk about what's
happening at the airport and the airport industrial park.
MR. DRURY: Hi, Commissioners, Tom. First of all, just an
observation. To see the county manager, the assistant county
manager, and the county commission here coming up to Immokalee,
that's a change in the seven years I've been doing this airport stuff.
To see you coming up here and really getting a pulse for what's going
on in this community, all of you ought to be commended for taking
the time. I know it's a county manager initiative and county
commission initiative, but you're actually going out into the
community and sitting down and spending time to find out what's
going on, and that's commendable and a change that I've seen with
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this commission and this county manager and is welcomed, I think,
by everybody that you're actually taking the time to see what's going
on and getting a feel for your decisions.
The other observation I have is the amount of people that are
here all doing their different things to help Immokalee. It's really
coming together. Seven years ago or ten years ago it just sort of
started, but I look at everybody doing their part in housing and
economic development and beautification, and it's just a wonderful
thing to be a part of in the little thing that I do, and that's the airport.
As it relates to the airport, seven years ago when we started this
thing, the then county commission and Economic Development
Council, Susan Pareigis's group, got together and really formed that
public-private partnership and created this independent airport
authority and sort of said, "Let's do a hands off thing, and let this
independent authority go do some things and see what they can do
and support them when we need to."
I came down here and brought an engineer from Logan Airport,
and she sat down and cried. She looked at the airport and said,
"What have you done? You've relocated me here. The runways are
cracked. There's no fuel. The trees have grown into the approaches.
I mean, this airport is just not an airport, and you've relocated me
here." I said, "Just think of the vision. Think of the future.
Look beyond that."
CHAIRMAN CARTER:
grouper off the runway.
She watched the guy that found the
MR. DRURY: She was in tears. But eventually we got
together, and I really think it was the independent nature of that
authority and the support from the county commission and the
Economic Development Council where we cleaned up all the trees
and filled all the potholes in the runways and brought electricity.
Back then the terminal building consisted of a little phone booth in
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the middle of a field. When you landed you walked over and you
kind of sat underneath the little shed that was there out of the rain.
But it's changed a lot now.
We have a terminal building. We have hangars. We have a fuel
farm. We've got safe runways now. We've got -- it was the only
airport I knew of in the country that had an instrument landing system
with no runway lights. So you can shoot an approach, but then when
you came out you couldn't see the runway because there were no
runway lights. Well, we have runway lights now and a good
instrument approach, and we're building an airport industrial park.
New companies are coming to the industrial park, and it's really all
working pretty well.
What a lot of people don't know is that manufacturing incubator
facility is a hub zone, and with that it means that federal contracts can
be issued, and it's one of the only incubators facilities that does
manufacturing. We're actually manufacturing parachute trooper
parts, F-16 parts, M-16 parts, and those parts are in Afghanistan right
now. They're being manufactured right here in Immokalee.
Another thing that's going for the incubator are the change of
employees there. They're Hispanics now working on CAD
equipment and machinery and being trained on this equipment, so it's
kind of a neat thing to be a part of and to see over the last several
months really.
As far as projects going on in Immokalee, we have the
manufacturing incubator. It's doing well, and we're building phase
two. That building just came out of the ground this week, and if you
go by the airport you'll see it popping out. That's a manufacturing
assembly area, a bonded warehouse, and a powder-coating facility.
Siena Marble, I just mentioned, they're going to be building a
50,000 square foot facility and employing about 100 to 200 people in
manufacturing over the next two years. We're also building a cargo
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processing facility which is going to allow packing and sorting of
cargo. We will also have a U.S. Customs facility, which will have
the INS, U.S. Customs, and the Department of Agriculture for cargo
only. A lot of cargo is currently packed, shipped, repackaged, and
sent to the islands, the Bahamas, out of that airport. We're looking to
expand that.
I just spent about a week over in Miami at the international
cargo trade conference and met with a lot of cargo companies that are
really interested in Immokalee because of its location. Cut Flowers
was talked a lot about as an opportunity here. But the location of
Immokalee for an aviation or transportation system is really
important for the future.
The biggest problem we have in Immokalee is the length of the
runway. It's just too short. There's sort of three markets or runway
lengths. One is sort of your local Florida market, Naples, a 5,000
foot runway. That's what we have here, and Orlando, Tampa, those
kind of short flights. Then there is your intercontinental or
transcontinental market area, which is about an 8,000 foot runway,
and then there's the intercontinental market, which is going to
Europe, which is what Fort Myers has done.
Immokalee probably needs to be in the transcontinental market
area. We just finished a market study on what that runway length
needs to be, and it's going to be in the 8,400 foot length so that we
can reach Canada and South America and at least have that market
area. We'll start with finishing up that study and then looking into
what we need to do to do that as well.
There's a lot of exciting projects going on at the airport. We're
widening 846 from two lanes to four lanes. We're extending the
airport industrial park road to add industrial park sites. We're filling
in industrial park sites so that new companies can come there.
I think we heard it several times before, but the idea of creating
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incentives for Immokalee is really important. I know politically it's
hard in the Naples area to talk about some of these incentives, but it's
really the right thing to do for this community to get it going. One of
the incentives we've heard about is the impact-fee waiver.
Siena Marble would not be here had it not been for that. I mean,
that's just the way it is. They're going to be employing quite a
number of people and investing a lot of money into their facility. I
think we really need to look at what we are going to do for incentives
to get new companies into Immokalee and to recognize the hurdles
that Immokalee has to get these new companies in there.
Certainly that was one that helped this county get in there, and I
hope the county revisits it and takes a serious look at it because it's
one of the only tangible tools for economic incentives to bring new
companies. With that, I'll be happy to answer any questions that
anyone has, but that's sort of a overview of what's going on at the
airport.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't know if there's any other
questions by the commissioners.
yesterday covering most of this.
doing an outstanding job.
MR. DRURY: Thank you.
learning about what's going on.
I had a briefing by John Drury
I thank you again, John. You're
Thanks for coming up here and
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Drury.
MR. MIHALIC: Miss Flores. Yolanda Flores is going to
introduce our education and training section as well as talk about
Lorenzo Walker Institute.
MS. FLORES: Good morning. My name is Yolanda Flores,
and I coordinate the career and family center for Lorenzo Walker
Institute of Technology out here in Immokalee. I can definitely say
it's an exciting time to be out here. I'm starting up my fifth year, and
during five years I've seen a lot of changes across the board,
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including education. We still have a ways to go, but I think we're
working towards that.
During the four years that I've completed, I worked under three
different directors of the vocational school and each one with their
own priorities. So in terms of bringing about change, it's a little bit
difficult when we constantly have a turnover. However, now with
Dr. Tuttle on board he is paying close attention to what's happening
in Immokalee, and he's definitely taking into consideration the BREV
study that was done and looking at a better way to reorganize
workforce education in Immokalee.
Education, we know, is critical in order to encourage business to
come here, and it's always nice to be included when prospective
businesses are looking to come to Immokalee so that I can talk to
them and talk to them about some of the benefits that we can offer
through our organization.
One of the things that we do is I coordinate the WEA program
for farmworkers and for the in-school youth. One of the neat
partnerships that we've been able to establish has been out in the
airport where we set up work experiences for youth and also for
adults to get trained on the job and learn a skill. With the airport and
John Kirchner, we've had, like, five young ladies that have helped out
there in the support region. With global manufacturing right now, we
have four young men that have been receiving training by Larry Fox,
and in exchange the students get skills, and then Larry after a
predetermined time will hire them as his own full-time employees. In
exchange, we pay the students out of a grant that we have for that
particular project.
Another interesting thing that we've been doing is the Step
Ahead to Success project. Step Ahead to Success program targets
kids that are still in school, high school students. Right there we're
trying to prepare them to graduate, but also to continue their
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education once they graduate. Right now we have 30 students in that
particular program, and all of those 30 students are guaranteed a full
scholarship to Lorenzo Walker Institute of Technology upon
graduation where they can receive training in auto mechanics,
nursing, secretarial, those kinds of things.
While we have them in our program, I have a case manager that
works with the students on after-school activities and Saturday
programs. The students are taken on field trips, not only here in the
Immokalee area, but also in the Naples/Fort Myers area to expose
them to the various careers that exist out there and that they can strive
to work towards.
We also worked with Kim Long and Futures Unlimited, and a
group of them were able to go up to Tallahassee and watch our state
government at work. There were about five that were also chosen to
go to the leadership institute at Indian River Community College for
a two-week summer program all expenses paid.
Another neat thing was this summer for the first time we set up a
computer technology course aimed at those students, and 15 students
were chosen to participate. They brought an instructor out. The
instructor taught them how to basically build a computer, how to put
all the pieces together, and at the end of the course each student went
home with their own computer.
So we are striving to do some of those same things with out-of-
school youth programs, and we want to be able to do some of those
things with the adult program. As we look to reorganization -- as you
see up there, we have the Bethune Education Center, and I'm really
not a part of that. I'm kind of a stand alone, but in our reorganization
we hope to become all one and, hopefully, that will be the starting
point of bringing more vocational programs into the Immokalee area
and also trying to strengthen our English classes and basic-skills
classes and find a way on how to bring the two together, because so
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November 6, 2001
many of our population here in Immokalee are in need of all of those
services. That's it. Thank you. Any questions?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you very much. Any
questions, Commissioners? Thanks again.
MR. MIHALIC: Susan Pareigis. Susan is going to talk about
the Immokalee career one-stop service center.
MS. PAREIGIS: Good morning. Susan Pareigis, officially with
the Economic Development Council in Collier County. I will tell you
that's normally the hat that I wear, so I will mention one brief word
about the EDC. We do have a new little guide on Immokalee and
Everglades City that I would like you to look it. It's in the back of the
room. It really shows the different type incentives that we have put
together over the last couple of years in really looking at the
Immokalee place of business as to what are the incentives that we can
put together to really bring those businesses out to the Immokalee
area and get them operational.
I will share with you that the quickest thing that a client asks us
about is the labor pool or the workforce in Immokalee, Florida. So in
that avenue Greg has asked me to come as a volunteer today. I sit on
the Southwest Florida workforce development board, and I just want
to share with you one brief success that we've had with the
Immokalee area, specifically this avenue.
If you do not know, we have finally sited an Immokalee one-
stop career center in Immokalee, Florida. It will be operational April
2nd. I will share with you that Joe Paterno told me to list April 1st,
and I told him I wasn't going to do that. It was an oxymoron. We're
going to put it on the 2nd and hope for the best.
It's located on Fifth Street South. If you haven't gone by, you
need to look at it. Helene was was very generous to take a snapshot
for me. It's actually under construction. The cost of the project is
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November 6, 2001
about $2.98 million. It's about 28,500 square feet. And the owner is
the workforce development board itself. Our lender was Fifth/Third
Bank. You may recall, Colleen Kevetko (phonetic), the president of
Fifth/Third, was also the chairman of the EDC at the time, and the
loan guarantor is the USDA and the rural development.
I think it's important to -- a lot of people might say, "Why is she
talking about education when they're doing job creation and
retention?" Again, I find this to be synonymous. I can't do economic
development unless ! have the education and the training and the
skilled labor force. The educators can't hold the classes and the
training unless they have workforce to put into the classes and into
jobs ultimately.
So, again, from the EDC perspective, we see this as being very
synonymous, and I would share with you I think the Southwest
Florida workforce development board also sees this as being
synonymous. The real goal of the workforce development board and
the one-stop center is to bring the people that are looking for skills,
looking for jobs with the employers that have the jobs.
The capacity issue is an issue that we work with a lot in the local
marketplace. The level of education training and skills -- what we do
find specifically in the Immokalee area is that we have a labor force
that has a very, very strong work ethic. I cannot share with you how
important that is, not just to the coastal community employers, but
also the employers in the Immokalee area that our labor force has a
very strong work ethic. They work very hard for their dollars. They
work multiple jobs.
The key for us in economic development and, again, long-term
systemic diversification in the market really lies in the education and
training skills that are available for an employer over time to grow
their capacity. That ultimately results in jobs. Again, it's kind of a
chicken-and-egg scenario. You have to do both synonymously or at
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November 6, 2001
the same time.
I will share with you that the Immokalee one-stop career center
started way back in May of 1996 when we actually seated the
Southwest Florida workforce development board. I am ashamed to
tell you it's taken us this long to get the one-stop center sited. Barb
Cacchione can tell you the little twists and turns in between trying to
get those funded.
We got the articles of incorporation in April of'97, and then we
went through a period of trying to see if we can get this funded
maybe through the state legislature through a direct appropriation.
The long stow short, that didn't work -- twice. We wanted to make
sure that as the board sat and contemplated where these one-stop
centers would be, we wanted to make sure not only was there one in
Naples -- which the board had said yes -- but at every single meeting
I can tell you your Collier delegates said we're going to have one in
Immokalee too.
So when the motion was made, Immokalee was included as one
of the sites for the one-stop center. Again, in working with the
community, we understand transportation is a great need in the
community here. We wanted to be able to not only have the
education and vocational training, again in concert with Bethune, but
also bring the social-services side to the equation as well at one
center.
We had groundbreaking in July. I don't want to forget that we
got the USDA grant back in March of 2000 for 2.9 million, which
made this fiscally able to happen. And April 2nd we're going to be
looking for Joe Paterno because we're going to be opening the doors
to go in and actually render services to clients.
I wanted to briefly also share with you the seven different
agencies that will be housed at the one stop. You can read them for
yourself. If you have specific questions, I can give you information
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November 6, 2001
on what each of these agencies does but, again, the broad concept of
what Greg has asked me to share with you is the co-location of all of
these facilities at the one-stop center.
One of the goals for the one-stop center -- and I understand from
Priscilla Chagnone, who is the deputy director at workforce, that's
still not happening, but we aim to -- is to eventually have a client
come into a one-stop center, fill out one application so that they can
then be processed through all of the agencies at the one-stop center
one time. You get the generic information, make it the most efficient
use of their time, and then also make sure that we refer to the other
agencies.
Some of our clients find that they don't even know what services
to ask for. So, hopefully, this will be a referral mechanism among the
agencies, again, if they're co-housed at the one stop.
That's my brief presentation. I will share with you, again, that
we have the Immokalee/Everglades City brochure in the back that
shows specific information that Helene has shared with you;
incentives, empowerment zone destinations, how do you avail
yourselves of enterprise zone benefits, etc. In addition, there is a
business essentials guide that is for all of Collier County inclusive.
I will share with you that the EDC board thinks that education
and training is an absolutely vital essential step to really diversifying
the economy in Collier County and more specifically in the
Immokalee area. You have our commitment to make sure that not
only on our paid time, but on volunteer time, we are trying to make
sure that we advance this mission.
I can answer any questions you may have.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you so much, Susan. Thank
you for being here and enlightening us one more time on all the good
things you're doing.
MS. PAREIGIS: Thank you.
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November 6, 2001
MR. MIHALIC:
RCMA Charter School.
MS. JIMENEZ: Hi.
school in Collier County.
Marie Jimenez. She's going to talk about the
Good morning. We are the other charter
There's one in Marco Island, and there's
one in Immokalee. This is our second year of operation. We serve
kindergarten, first, and second grade, and then we take a big jump
and we serve sixth, seventh, and eighth graders.
We truly are a choice when it comes to middle school. There's
only one middle school in Immokalee, and we're the other one. Our
middle school students have chosen to be there and also their parents.
Our K1 and 2 is sort of like an extended Headstart. These are the
kids that need more time in learning the language, more time in
learning just kind of the rules and the ropes of the big schools. Our
intention is to transition our children from our little school to the
bigger school in third grade and then again in ninth grade. It's a little
confusing, but we can get into details if you need to.
We're currently housed in a building we're renting from the
Methodist church and have decided to build our own charter school,
which is what you see here. If you're familiar with Immokalee, this
charter school building will be behind our RCMA building, which is
on Main Street. When you drive by RCMA, you'll see two little
houses, a little pink house and a brown house behind RCMA, and our
building will -- those little buildings will be demolished, and our
building will go on that property.
So the property is owned by RCMA, and we'll be putting--
we're fast tracking, actually, this building; right? Because we have to
be there in August of next year because we don't fit in the building
we're in now. I have threatened the architect that the kids will be at
his house if they're not in this building next year.
As you know, RCMA is a 35-year-old organization. We serve
traditional migrant and farmworker families, and that's who makes up
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November 6, 2001
most of the population at the charter school. Twenty percent of our
kids are special-needs kids, and eighty percent have other needs other
than a disability.
This building will bring about 95 additional jobs to Immokalee,
about half of them or perhaps two-thirds will be professional, so we'll
have -- we have to have, as any other charter school, certified
teachers, certified administrators, so this school will have the same.
The income of these folks will average about $30,000. So we'll be
able to provide a nice service to Immokalee by offering jobs.
This building will be an educational safe haven with wrap-
around services. We will open at 7 a.m. And close at 5:30 or 6 p.m.,
sometimes later depending on student activities. All of our services
are free. We are a public school, so that's free, but the child care that
we provide before and after school is also free. We open our doors at
7, and we will serve infants starting at 5 weeks old to 8th graders,
which are anywhere from between 13 and 14 years old.
So during the school day this building will serve about 194 kids
during the day and then at three o'clock when the rest of the kids in
the community are out, we expect to receive another 100 or so kids.
This is a place where kids will go when there's nothing else to do.
We will be building a dance studio, a community lab, a community
resource library, and art studio, and we hope to see it open all the
time, evenings, weekends, for community use. It's 51,000 square feet,
and it will be three stories and designed really to provide wrap-
around services and fully serve the community.
Any questions? I was told five minutes so ...
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's right.
MS. JIMENEZ: I'm following directions because that's what I'm
trying to teach the kids to do, so I'm setting my example.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you very much.
MR. MIHALIC: Theresa Miller is going to talk about the PACE
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November 6, 2001
Center for Girls.
MS. MILLER: Good morning -- it's almost afternoon. I'm
Theresa Miller, the executive director of PACE Center for Girls.
PACE is a private nonprofit organization based in Jacksonville. In
1997 the Florida legislature appropriated a PACE Center to be
located somewhere between Sarasota and Naples. Each county vied
for this program as we're the No. 1 ranked program in the State of
Florida with all juvenile justice programs. There are over 500 of
those in the state.
Immokalee got together a committee of community volunteers,
and we put in a proposal and won. So PACE is our only center
located in this circuit-- for the judicial circuit. We're funded
primarily by the Department of Juvenile Justice as a delinquency
prevention program to work with at-risk girls between the ages of 11
and 18. We are nonresidential. The girls live at home. They
voluntarily come to our program. We're a year-round program. Last
year out of 252 weekdays, we had school 250.
We work with primarily truant, ungovernable, runway,
dependent, delinquent youth, and with a 250-day calendar we had a
98 percent attendance rate, which is very remarkable. When you
have students in school, you can make remarkable progress with
them. We had a 100 percent increase in academic functioning.
We're working to prepare our children to be our future leaders of
Immokalee. Our child-abuse rate decreased drastically. Our
runaway rate decreased drastically. We saw great improvements in
grade-point averages. We're very happy to be in the Immokalee
community. We're here because this is where the need is, and this is
where the support is.
We are an alternative school in that all of our staff are paid staff.
We contract with Collier County Public Schools to provide
alternative education. Our girls, hopefully, will transition back to the
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November 6, 2001
high school, graduate, and go to college or get a job. We have had a
very good graduation rate. We've had 100 percent because we've
only had one senior each year.
We start with prevention and really start with middle-school
students. This year, however, we have nine students that will be
graduating. We're working on after-school plans for them. We take
referrals from anyone. All of our services are free. The school and
the counseling center brought students to us to start. Now the student
and their parents typically come to us themselves. We do have a
waiting list. Our waiting list last year at the start of the summer
session was 92. We served 35 students in-house. We currently serve
a total of 92 students because three years after they leave our program
we continue to provide them with support services and transition.
And that's remarkable, and that's one of the reasons that our program
is so successful in the State of Florida.
PACE's comprehensive services are in the education. We are
competency based, meaning the students can earn at their own rate
their credits. We have a ten-to-one classroom ratio. We are
community based. We offer a gender-specific, gender-competent
curriculum for our at-risk girls.
We have social workers on staff. We work with their social
skills as well as their academic skills. We also do community service
as a component of our program, and last year our students and staff
contributed over 2,900 hours to the Immokalee community and the
larger Collier County community as well.
PACE provides girls and young women an opportunity for a
better future through education, counseling, training, and advocacy.
Once again, we're very proud to be in the Immokalee community.
We want to stay here for a long time. We will have our challenges of
finding property and expanding our program. Rent is a major
obstacle for us and for any other business wanting to open here. We
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November 6, 2001
will face that challenge together and make progress and keep you
apprised of that. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Questions? Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. You say there are
dramatic reductions in the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse of
these girls. Do you make that happen by educating them or working
with the parents or working in a family setting? How do you do that?
MS. MILLER: We do all of that. We do individual, family, and
group counseling sessions. We do a lot of work with families. We
don't do a traditional report card. We do a monthly report. So we
meet with parents every month either in the home or in the school.
We offer free counseling for them.
When you're getting a report on your daughter's progress -- we
do parent meetings as well. One of our parents told us at one of our
strategic planning meetings, "You know, you say really good things
about our girls, and you like them, and they cooperate with you." We
don't have a janitor in our school. Our students and staff do all the
chores. You know, they don't even pick up their clothes at home.
How do we do that? We teach how to get along with our kids and to
learn to play and enjoy our children, again, instead of fighting.
COMMISSIONER FIALA:
MS. MILLER: Anyone.
COMMISSIONER FIALA:
program?
And who refers them to you?
How do they become part of your
MS. MILLER: Anyone can refer them. They have to have one
or more of the at-risks features to be eligible.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I would strongly recommend, if
you ever get the time, to spend an afternoon going through there and
meeting the girls. It's very impressive. I warned you, Theresa. I said
-- the day you took me through there, I said, "I'm going to be after
you to expand this program into other parts of Collier County." It is
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unbelievable what you have accomplished there.
MS. MILLER: Thank you. We actually -- Melanie Tracey is
here with me, and we opened this program together. When we
named our program, we fought with our state board for a long time.
We named it Collier at Immokalee because our goal is to have Collier
at Naples some day. We opened -- it's so we wouldn't have to change
the name down the road.
We have made the commitment to stabilize this program in
Immokalee, and that's finding a future home so that we can expand in
Naples. Last year the Florida legislature members asked us if we
wanted that expansion at that time, and we had to turn it down
because we did not have a permanent place where we can call home
here, and we don't want to expand until we do.
So there is hope, and that's certainly our mission down the road.
I'll tell you, I brought two of my students with me today. They've
actually had their attention kept by other presenters -- thank you.
They've learned a lot. So thank you for the opportunity.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you. I have a
granddaughter whose room is an at-risk experience. Maybe she can
benefit from the program.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Commissioner Carter, can I ask the
RCMA -- Yolanda, how is RCMA funded to be able to provide all
the free programs? I should have asked that before.
MS. JIMENEZ: My name is Maria.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Maria. I'm sorry.
MS. JIMENEZ: The charter school is funded like other public
schools where we get an FTE count just like other public schools.
And then our child care is -- some of it is funded through subsidized
child care, which is now at risk because the state is reorganizing
some stuff, so most of it is grants.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, okay. Fine. Thank you.
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November 6, 2001
MS. JIMENEZ:
babies.
MS. PAREIGIS:
MS. JIMENEZ:
MS. PAREIGIS:
dollars that --
And the little ones will be Headstart, the
Maria --
Yes.
-- you might want to mention the expansion
THE COURT REPORTER: Your name, please.
MS. PAREIGIS: Certainly. Susan Pareigis with the EDC. You
might want to mention the expansion dollars that we're raising and
possibly --
MS. JIMENEZ: You know more about it than I do.
MS. PAREIGIS: Just another source of funding.
MR. MALAMUT: I'm Ira Malamut, and I'm the senior fiscal
officer RCMA. Are you referring to capital improvement funds?
MS. PAREIGIS: Correct.
MR. MALAMUT: The State of Florida also offers charter
schools -- I guess all schools -- capital improvement funds for
infrastructure, and so we are going to use that as part of the funding
mechanism for this building.
MS. JIMENEZ: Thank you.
MR. MIHALIC: Thank you. Ann Olesky is going to talk a little
bit about community landmarks and, of course, about Lake Trafford.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: This is the high point of the
MS. OLESKY: I've heard that before.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: While Ann is coming up here,
I'm going to warn you to pay attention, because she's got a way with
nature and birds, and she'll get after you if you don't. MS. OLESKY: Oh, yes.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Is that where you learned your crow
call?
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November 6, 2001
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That could be.
MS. OLESKY: Is that what he calls it?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Sometimes in the open you can hear
him go through it.
MS. OLESKY: I can believe it. For the record, the name is
Ann Olesky, and before I go on to talk about the community
landmarks, I just want to make a statement to all of you. This is aside
from being a landmark. We are Collier County's future, and you
better take care of us. From the group you've seen in this room, you
have education that has to be foremost. Whether it's from a student
that is at risk or a student that is just starting out, education.
I think my most horrifying experience with the education in
Immokalee was driving by the Immokalee High School many years
ago and seeing a barbed-wire fence. I was livid. I worked very
closely with the Chamber of Commerce at that time to get it
removed. That is a beautiful school with a beautiful educational level,
and to see that was awful.
So, remember, we are your future. The guys out here are
working very hard, whether it's transportation, which we need
desperately, roads to get us there -- and I'm glad Fred's not here
because 846 is the way to go. I upped him on that one.
The neat thing is watching all of these. We work together very
closely, whether we're in education, whether we're in law
enforcement -- it doesn't matter. It's all a unit, so take good care of
us. We are not Naples. We are a complement to Naples.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I just -- can I just add that
when you say "take good care of us," I don't think in the 27 years I've
lived here I've ever seen a commissioner as passionate about his
district as Jim Coletta.
MS. OLESKY: Amen.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So I know he's doing a good job.
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November 6, 2001
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you.
MS. OLESKY: There isn't a commissioner onboard that hasn't
been supportive, along with these great guys here, and we appreciate
it, and we do love you all dearly.
Now, I'll get on to the best part of this thing, Lake Trafford.
Talk about things coming together, Lake Trafford was in desperate
trouble, as all of you know, and I won't go into the history of that.
The lake was dying. The only thing that the birds, the alligators, and
all the critters that live in that lake have asked is that we give them a
clean place to to live.
I heard many speakers talking about how the communities
pulled together to make things work, about the private sector and the
public sector -- well, you can take it a step further with Lake
Trafford: Private sector, public sector, and then add in the
government. Where in the world could you take and put a group of
people from a mad fisherman, a wildlife photographer-- you
employed at one time a Dr. Gail Gibson under a George Yilmaz
whom we called affectionately our mad scientist who was into
feasability studies. We thought we would have to hang him when we
got him in there. But we took the South Florida Water Management,
the Game & Fish Commission, Collier County, our lead agency --
you threw us in a room and you said, "Come up with a plan to save
the lake." There was no fighting, no nothing. They all pulled
together and said, "The first thing is to get the mud out of the lake
and then take it home from there."
Well, now I have a new word. Lake Trafford's new beginning.
On November 16th we are going to be awarding the dredging permit,
I guess you could say, to the agency that will be doing the restoration
of the lake. I was not in charge of sending out invitations, and my
apologies to my Immokaleans who didn't get theirs. I got all 65 back.
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November 6, 2001
So if anyone wants to go to that barbecue, we want you. You're more
than welcome. We want everybody there. It's a win-win project.
Now, Lake Trafford, stop and think...education. The first thing
we did -- as we were working to get the mud out of the lake and to
find a way to get it out -- in the future you're going to need education
over on that lake. My generation is the generation that caused a lot of
the problems, so it's the generations that are coming up behind me
that are going to have to be the ones to do it.
So a wonderful man by the name of Dr. Eric Flaig, who worked
very closely with the University of Florida and other agencies -- and
if that's my five minutes, though. I'm keeping the podium. I'm here.
Anyway, he worked very closely to get a sixth and eighth grade
curriculum established. It was presented, and it's been accepted. It is
now the curriculum for the science students in this grade level. We
want to take it further.
It's going to be and has been presented and as I understand will
be the format utilized in the State of Florida for this type of
curriculum. So I'm very pleased with that. So on education Lake
Trafford is right onboard.
If you're a photographer, Lake Trafford is the way to go. I just
happened to bring something to show you. This will be auctioned off
at the barbecue. What makes it so special is a lovely lady by the
name of Nicky Butcher, who is Clyde Butcher's wife, our Ansel
Adams of the Everglades, who did this. This says it all. You've got
the serenity. You've got the fishing. This is what it's all about. We
are a part of Collier County, and I think we are a great part.
This is going to be auctioned off-- I dare you to bid against me,
but that's okay. It's a silent auction to be held on the 16th, and she
does great work. It's one of many things to be auctioned. All the
proceeds do go to the lake. That happens to be No. 1 in a series of
75, and Nicky was a little bit leery about doing it since she is not as
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November 6, 2001
known as her husband, Clyde, but I think it's a beautiful piece of art,
and I hope that you'll take time to look at it and see some of their
work.
Education, as I was saying, that's so important. We're moving
on to photography. Lake Trafford has it. Moving on to birding.
Birding is the fastest growing sport -- not in the United States, but in
the world. It's better than golf, fishing.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Could we collect an impact fee on it?
MS. OLESKY: You'll probably find a way. But getting on to
that, you've got-- all of those things are so important. Getting on to
my favorite subject, fishing on the lake -- fishing on Lake Trafford. I
want to take time to read something that I got from the Game & Fish
Commission. This will, I hope, interest you.
They do a study. That's where they go out on the lake and they
literally ask the fishermen, "How are you doing? What do you
recommend? What do you think?" And they really did ask their
input, which is very important. They do a six-month roving report,
and this is just part of it. Part of the survey was done in October of
'99 to April of 2000.
"Anglers on Lake Trafford spent an estimated total of 40,656
hours on Lake Trafford" during that period of time. That's the time
that they did the thing. Using an estimated average, angler
expenditures at that time was $18.20. Now, that was a survey done
by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife in conjunction with Florida. Can you
imagine that? $18.20. Where do you think the rest of that money
goes?
Well, "Honey, you go buy this. Go get the gas for the car. Take
the kids to eat. Well, I need a new fishing pole." All of these things
are spent in Collier County, hopefully, although Lee does grab us a
little bit. So the fishermen on Lake Trafford are important. I will tell
you that Lake Trafford is the only natural freshwater lake south and
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November 6, 2001
west of Okeechobee -- did you catch that? South and west. So,
remember, it is the only one, and it's in Collier County, our home.
Another thing I wanted to just quickly read to you again from
Frank Morello, who's a biologist with them -- here's the part that
really interests Collier County, mostly for tourism: 66 percent of the
anglers fishing on Lake Trafford -- they don't live in Collier County.
They come to visit. So, remember, we're an asset.
Tourism, that's another leg of that stool. I think tourism is the
wave of the future, and everybody already knows that I'm a firm
believer that all of Southwest Florida is going to have to band
together. That's Lee, Collier, and Hendry. And I know from working
with Lee County -- they worked very close with us. Hendry is now
onboard working very closely with us to insure that Southwest
Florida is the way to go.
Tourism is so important. I have airboats on Lake Trafford. But
even if you don't take an airboat ride, suppose you were to go out in
your own pleasure boat, fish from the shore, teach your child fishing
-- there's a program out there called Hooked on Fishing. What better
way to bring a child up than to teach them to respect their lake and
learn to fish. So fishing is a very important part of Lake Trafford.
Now to the final part, the Lake Trafford barbecue. I hope all of
you will come. From 4 to 5 I understand there will be a
groundbreaking ceremony. We call it the blessing of the dredge.
From 5 to approximately 6:15 you will be shuttled from Lake
Trafford on a hayride to the Peppers Ranch and Reserve where you
will enjoy, hopefully, a barbecue. And the greatest thing about the
Immokaleans is this is put on strictly by Collier County
Immokaleans, and I've never had anybody go away hungry. So our
$16 million project is on, running, and we will be an accent as
Immokalee is to Collier County, so I thank you. Any questions?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Annie, you're just as great as always,
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and we'll never run the meter on you.
want. Thank you.
MS. OLESKY:
MR. MIHALIC:
MS. OLESKY:
You can talk as long as you
Thank you.
Donna --
Oh, wait a minute.
No.
I'm sorry. I forgot.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: There she goes again.
MS. OLESKY: Yeah. I forgot. We have a Christmas tree in
Immokalee now. The Christmas tree has been donated by the
Blocker family. Cheryl Thomas, who is in charge of the Christmas
around the world parade in conjunction with the Friendship House,
the Indian casino, and many, many residents -- all the schools are
making their own ornaments for on the Christmas tree.
She'll be about -- I'm not good on heights, but I think she's about
25 feet tall. Landscapes of Florida are baby-sitting her right now.
The Blocker family is going to help us transport her over to the
comer of Seventh and Main where she will be planted, and the
greatest thing about this is it's going to be called the Immokalee
friendship tree.
They can decorate it for May day. We can put the colors of the
watermelon season. We have a wonderful block party that can utilize
it. So there's many, many things, but she will be called the
Immokalee friendship tree. So you'll have to come out on December
the 1 st. I understand that the Friendship House will be holding --
anyone can come and help decorate the friendship tree and put things
together to start off the Christmas season. Now I'm done.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, Annie
MR. MIHALIC: Donna. Donna Ridewood is going to talk
about Roberts Ranch.
MS. RIDEWOOD: I'm Donna Ridewood. I'm the museum
manager for the Collier County museum. Excuse me. It's a long, dry
time sitting there. I also manage the Roberts Ranch project here in
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November 6, 2001
Immokalee.
I'm pretty much among a lot of friends here. I've worked with
many people in this community, especially I can recall some young
ladies from the PACE program who came and helped with Roberts
Ranch roundup, and we've had a lot of support for this project in the
community, which we believe is very important because museums,
first and foremost, really do reflect their community. Without the
community support, it just doesn't seem to work very well.
We know that in Everglades City we do have a community
museum, and we're very proud and very pleased with it. I'd like to
announce that the Museum of the Everglades was recently placed on
the national register of historic buildings. We are currently looking
to hire someone to help us put the ranch on the national register.
That's quite a distinction because Collier County, unfortunately, does
not have a lot of buildings listed on the national register of historic
places, so we're quite pleased with that.
I'm here today just to give you a brief overview of the progress
at the ranch. I know the commissioners have been pretty well kept up
to date on what is going on. I hope this won't be too much of repeat
for you-all.
The first picture is of a building on the site. There is the
smokehouse. Roberts Ranch has about 15 acres, 15 buildings, all in
need of restoration. This would be a historic restoration. This is not
just, frankly, putting up pressure-treated boards and spray painting it.
This is a very delicate operation, and what we seek to do when we
have a historic restoration project is to replace as little of the material
as possible.
So if you take a look at this picture of the side -- let's see. We've
just replaced areas where the wood was, frankly, eaten out by
carpenter ants. We were fortunate enough to find wood on the site in
the barn, hard pine, and some cedar that is perfect for this project
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November 6, 2001
because it's aged wood, so it will fit in. It won't look like brand new
wood.
There you see the workmen ripping the boards so that they'll fit.
Behind them is the maid's quarters. Again, you'll see where boards
had to be pulled and new ones are being replaced. Currently we're
working on the maid's quarters, the smokehouse, and the outhouse.
Next we'll be working on the shed and the horse ramp.
This is a big dollar project for which we have gotten support
from the county TDC funds and state funding. Unfortunately, we
were informed by the state recently that we may lose all of our
funding because of budget cuts. So once we have hired a museum
assistant to be a daily worker here at the ranch, I am going to be
coming after all of you for money for the project because it's a
worthwhile project and something that I would like to dedicate more
of my time to.
Show the next one. That's the outhouse. This outhouse was
built in the 1930s by the works -- public administration. They were
placed all over the country, especially in the south. You can't quite
see it, but there's a little sign in there that says "for sale." That was
our little joke about affordable housing.
We are hoping to have the ranch fully restored and open to the
public by 2005. We have an early opening date of this December. It
will be a limited kind of experience for people. But there is such an
interest in the property that we wanted to get the public there and
especially the school groups and school children who have a real
interest in the land.
I do have to say that the Roberts family has been extremely
generous in donating four acres of the property to the project, and
that four acres includes the main house, the Roberts family home that
was built in 1925. That will be a major-dollar project for which I am
going to have to attempt to raise about five to six hundred thousand
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November 6, 2001
dollars.
We also have plans to build a visitors center on the site, and that
hopefully will be getting started soon. Again, funding is our issue.
Construction costs are very high. Trying to move a building -- I've
been quoted anywhere from $20,000 to $12,000 to move a building
across the property. These kind of costs are really prohibitive, so it
tends to slow down the project as we keep sending things out to bid
looking for someone to be a little more reasonable in their prices.
Basically, we are looking to be a partner in the community here
in Immokalee to work with all of you as a tourist attraction. We also
believe this is an attraction that is a destination. And by that I mean
we will go out and publicize and market this site heavily, especially
to the European market. We know there is a great interest among the
German and British tourists in the history of cattle ranching,
especially in Southern Florida. So we're looking forward to being
able to bring those kind of audiences to Immokalee. We want to
partner with other businesses in town, and certainly we have done
that to a limited extent with some of you already, but we would like
to continue that partnership.
I would be happy to answer any questions you might have.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Not a question, but I'm very
disappointed in hearing about the state funds being withdrawn. It's
going to really raise a problem with the restoration.
MS. RIDEWOOD: It will slow down the progress considerably,
and this is why I'm grateful for the fact that a position was approved
to have an assistant there for the daily operation of the ranch, because
that frees me up to go out and seek other types of funding for the
project. The state, I think, was being drastic in saying that they'll
take it all away. They may just come back with a reduction, but it's
unfortunate when you have a signed contract.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: What can we do to intercede
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November 6, 2001
with the state for the possibility of getting some of these funds back?
We can give it priority. Mr. Carter and myself do make frequent trips
to Tallahassee.
MS. RIDEWOOD: Some kind of encouragement to allow us to
keep some portion of that $143,000 grant that we were awarded
would make a difference.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We'll put that on our list. We'll look to
Tom Olliff to give us the people we need to contact, and we will
work the system every opportunity we can to see if we can't get part
of it back.
MS. RIDEWOOD: That would be terrific.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We would like to get it all back.
MS. RIDEWOOD: Yes, we would. Maybe--
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I like to ask for all of it, and then if I
get half of it, I figure it's better.
MS. RIDEWOOD: That's right. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What is this building?
MS. RIDEWOOD: That's the smokehouse. Both the
smokehouse and the maid's quarters had to be fully re-roofed. We
found -- this is the interesting thing about historic preservation
projects or restoration projects. You can make an assessment at one
level, but then when you start to pull things apart, you then see, well,
maybe it wasn't as inexpensive as you thought.
In the case of this roof, we thought maybe just a portion of it
was unsound, but the entire understructure of this roof was riddled
with carpenter ant damage. So this is why these things tend to go
slowly and tend to be a little costly.
MR. MIHALIC: Thank you. Well, Commissioners, we're
almost at the end of the line here.
I guess we just want to reinforce some of the things you heard
this morning. We really need several things to help Immokalee
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November 6, 2001
continue to grow. I think the most important is some type of impact-
fee enticements or incentives, both for commercial and residential
development. It costs the same to build a commercial building here
as it does in the coastal area, but the value isn't the same. When you
finish you have value that cannot produce the same amount of rents
and cannot produce the same amount of profit. Impact fees are a
major issue, and you heard it through both the commercial and
residential developers today.
Secondly, along with continuing to push the widening of 846,
Lake Trafford Road will need to be widened. You heard about
several developments on the north side of town today, and you're
really going to have a lot of increased traffic on that road. You'll also
need extensions of either Carson Road or Little League Road to State
Route 82 to really reduce the bottleneck traffic in that area of
Immokalee. We think that's important.
Thirdly, we hope that the board understands and will continue to
support the public-private partnerships that are crucial to make
Immokalee succeed, and I hope you've heard that this morning.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: As we review the public-private
partnership process, we all know that we're going to have go back,
depending on what the state does to us -- depending, depending,
depending -- we're going to have to take a hard look at our own
budget that we approved to determine how we can meet the growing
needs of this community.
As GW has said, I am just an ordinary man put into a position
where I have to make difficult decisions. I have never heard it said
better by anyone in my life, and I think we're all having the
opportunity as men and women of this commission to go through the
same process with our staffs.
But having said that, Greg, again, I will look to see what can we
do in the public sector along with the private sector to keep our eye
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November 6, 2001
on the goal of where we need to be and how we can best get there.
The other thing I think that was said by Fred Thomas this
morning is about overlay districts. And I don't know where that will
take us, but perhaps that's something that we have to think about in
Collier. There may be overlays, but certain parts of the county
operate on a different basis -- may I use that -- that says, "If we do it
here, it doesn't mean it's universal in the county," that it only applies
to a certain area in terms of what the goals and needs are for that
particular community to achieve what needs to be done.
MR. MIHALIC: Well, Lee County, they've chosen in some of
their CRA areas not to levy impact fees at all in those areas to
encourage development and redevelopment. Of course, that is a
money issue, but that is a possibility.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's a good point too. I can
tell you that it would be a temporary fix because Immokalee is going
to take off in the very near future. It's going to be something that 20
years from now I think ~ve're all going to be very amazed with what
we're going to find here.
It will be a multi-class community. It will expand to probably
five times the size it is now. It will have everything from government
centers to a shopping mall. It will meet the needs of everyone.
I can see this community coming together. We're heading in that
direction. Possibly we need to look at a revamp of the master plan in
the next year or so at, of course, the community's direction.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: It makes a lot of sense to me,
Commissioner. Again, it gets back to the strategic planning process.
Where do you start? What elements do you remove or expand as you
go? So what you do today in the first part of it does not mean it stays
there forever. It has that flexibility as the community grows to be
more self-sustaining in accomplishing the goals.
Commissioner Fiala.
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November 6, 2001
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Nothing.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Do you have public speakers?
MR. MIHALIC: We have only one listed,
Mr. Thomas. If anyone else would like to speak, we have sign-up
sheets.
I think we've talked everybody out, Commissioners.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay.
MR. MIHALIC: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, thank you. We want to thank
the members of the staff, fellow commissioners, and most
importantly of all we want to thank all of you for being here this
morning, for sharing with us, for helping us better understand and
continue to learn about Immokalee and what a beautiful, beautiful
place this is, and how much you're doing to make this such a viable
part of Collier County.
God bless you all. God bless America. The meeting stands
adjourned.
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
workshop was adjourned by order of the Chair at 12:35 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS
CONTROL
JAMES IZ(/. CARr~EI~,'~t.D, CHAIRMAN
Page 91
November 6, 2001
DWIG~{.~;~,. 3~~.K, CLERK
Th~se'~mu~es approved by the Board on
presented
or as corrected
//-o2'7- 0/., as
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT
REPORTING, INC. BY MARGARET A. SMITH, RPR
Page 92