BCC Minutes 04/25/2017 RApril 25, 2017
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TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Naples, Florida, April 25, 2017
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County
Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the
Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special
districts as have been created according to law and having conducted
business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in REGULAR SESSION
in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida,
with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN: Penny Taylor
Andy Solis
Donna Fiala
William L. McDaniel, Jr.
Burt L. Saunders
ALSO PRESENT:
Leo Ochs, County Manager
Nick Casalanguida, Deputy County Manager
Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney
Crystal Kinzel, Director of Finance and Accounting
Troy Miller, Television Operations Manager
COLLIER COUNTY
Board of County Commissioners
Community Redevelopment Agency Board (CRAB)
Airport Authority
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AGENDA
Board of County Commission Chambers
Collier County Government Center
3299 Tamiami Trail East, 3rd Floor
Naples, FL 34112
April 25, 2017
9:00 AM
Commissioner Penny Taylor, District 4 — BCC Chair Commissioner
Andy Solis, District 2 —BCC Vice-Chair
Commissioner Donna Fiala, District 1 - CRAB Co-Chair
Commissioner Burt Saunders, District 3
Commissioner William L. McDaniel, Jr., District 5 - CRAB Co-Chair
NOTICE: ALL PERSONS WISHING TO SPEAK ON AGENDA ITEMS MUST
REGISTER PRIOR TO PRESENTATION OF THE AGENDA ITEM TO BE
ADDRESSED. ALL REGISTERED SPEAKERS WILL RECEIVE UP TO THREE
(3) MINUTES UNLESS THE TIME IS ADJUSTED BY THE CHAIRMAN.
REQUESTS TO ADDRESS THE BOARD ON SUBJECTS WHICH ARE NOT ON
THIS AGENDA MUST BE SUBMITTED IN WRITING WITH EXPLANATION
TO THE COUNTY MANAGER AT LEAST 13 DAYS PRIOR TO THE DATE OF
THE MEETING AND WILL BE HEARD UNDER "PUBLIC PETITIONS."
PUBLIC PETITIONS ARE LIMITED TO THE PRESENTER, WITH A
MAXIMUM TIME OF TEN MINUTES.
ANY PERSON WHO DECIDES TO APPEAL A DECISION OF THIS BOARD
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April 25,2017
WILL NEED A RECORD OF THE PROCEEDING 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.
COLLIER COUNTY ORDINANCE NO. 2003-53 AS AMENDED BY
ORDINANCE 2004-05 AND 2007-24, REQUIRES THAT ALL LOBBYISTS
SHALL, BEFORE ENGAGING IN ANY LOBBYING ACTIVITIES (INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ADDRESSING THE BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS), REGISTER WITH THE CLERK TO THE BOARD AT THE
BOARD MINUTES AND RECORDS DEPARTMENT.
IF YOU ARE A PERSON WITH A DISABILITY WHO NEEDS ANY
ACCOMMODATION IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROCEEDING,
YOU ARE ENTITLED, AT NO COST TO YOU, THE PROVISION OF CERTAIN
ASSISTANCE. PLEASE CONTACT THE COLLIER COUNTY FACILITIES
MANAGEMENT DIVISION LOCATED AT 3335 EAST TAMIAMI TRAIL,
SUITE 1, NAPLES, FLORIDA, 34112-5356, (239) 252-8380; ASSISTED
LISTENING DEVICES FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED ARE AVAILABLE IN
THE FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DIVISION.
LUNCH RECESS SCHEDULED FOR 12:00 NOON TO 1:00 P.M
1. INVOCATION AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
A. Reverend Dawson Taylor of Naples United Church of Christ
2. AGENDA AND MINUTES
A. Approval of today's regular, consent and summary agenda as amended (ex
parte disclosure provided by commission members for consent and summary
agenda.)
B. March 28, 2017 - BCC/Regular Meeting Minutes
C. April 4, 2017 - BCC/CRA Workshop Minutes
3. SERVICE AWARDS
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April 25,2017
A. EMPLOYEE
B. ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS
C. RETIREES
4. PROCLAMATIONS
A. Proclamation designating May 2017 as Military Appreciation Month in
Collier County. To be accepted by Chief William Carl, president of the
Collier County Veterans Council; United States Army Veteran Luis
Chirichigno; United States Navy Veteran William Kruschel; United States
Air Force Veteran Sarah Cox; United States Marine Corps Veteran George
Archie; United States Coast Guard Veteran Spencer Roach; and Lois Bolin,
Board Chair of the Southwest Florida Veterans Alliance and Chair of Keep
the Spirit of'45 Alive.
B. Proclamation designating Monday, May 8, 2017, as Child Welfare
Professionals Day in Collier County. To be accepted by representatives from
Youth Haven, Friends of Foster Children Forever, the Children's Network of
Southwest Florida, the Children's Advocacy Center of Collier County and
the Department of Children and Families.
C. Proclamation recognizing Loos & Company, Inc. as the latest recipient of
the Waste Reduction Awards Program (the WRAP award) for contributing
to the greater good of Collier County by advocating the "Reduce, Reuse,
Recycle" message, thereby helping to prolong the usable life of the Collier
County Landfill. To be accepted by Mr. Richard Williams, General
Manager, and Ms. Amber Tselios, Newspaper Editor.
D. Proclamation designating May 2017 as Building Safety Month in Collier
County, in recognition of the critical roles performed by local, state and
federal building officials to ensure that all citizens live and work in safe and
livable buildings. To be accepted by Kathy Curatolo representing the Collier
Building Industry Association and Jamie French, Rich Long and Claudine
Auclair representing the Collier County Growth Management Department.
5. PRESENTATIONS
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April 25,2017
6. PUBLIC PETITIONS
A. Public Petition Request from Mr. Anthony S. Pires, Jr., on behalf of the
Vanderbilt Beach Resident's Association, Inc., requesting that the Board
direct staff to timely provide notification and any materials regarding APR-
PL20170000623, Beach Box Cafe.
7. PUBLIC COMMENTS ON GENERAL TOPICS NOT ON THE CURRENT
OR FUTURE AGENDA
8. BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS
9. ADVERTISED PUBLIC HEARINGS
A. Recommendation to approve an ordinance amending Chapter 74 of the
Collier County Code of Laws and Ordinances providing for the
incorporation by reference of the impact fee studies dated October 10, 2016,
entitled, "Collier County Emergency Medical Services Impact Fee Update
Study", "Collier County Library Facilities and Items/Equipment Impact Fee
Update Study", "Collier County General Government Buildings Impact Fee
Update Study, and the "Collier County Law Enforcement Impact Fee Update
Study", and the impact fee study dated December 21, 2016, entitled Water
and Wastewater Impact Fee Study"; amending the associated rate schedules
to reflect the revised rates set forth in the studies with an effective date of
May 1, 2017, for all rate decreases and a delayed effective date of July 24,
2017, for all rate increases, in accordance with the 90-day notice
requirements set forth in Section 163.31801(3)(d), Florida Statutes; and
providing for removal of the sunset language for the Impact Fee Program for
Existing Commercial Redevelopment.
B. Recommendation to accept the "2017 Indexing Calculations for Parks and
Recreation, Schools, Correctional Facilities and Transportation Impact
Fees", prepared by Tindale-Oliver and Associates, in accordance with the
adopted indexing methodology, and to approve an ordinance amending
Chapter 74 of the Collier County Code of Laws and Ordinances, amending
the Parks and Recreation Impact Fee Rate Schedule, the School Impact Fee
Rate Schedule, the Correctional Facilities Impact Fee Rate Schedule, and the
Transportation Impact Fee Rate Schedule; providing for a delayed effective
date of July 24, 2017 in accordance with the 90-day notice requirements set
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April 25, 2017
forth in Section 163.31801(3)(d), Florida Statutes.
10. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
A. Recommendation to consider identification of county-owned land to be
placed into a land trust, appropriately zoned and designated for development
of housing that is affordable.
11. COUNTY MANAGER'S REPORT
A. Recommendation to award Bid No. 17-7041 to Thomas Marine
Construction, Inc., for the construction of Haldeman Creek Weir
Replacement Project, in the amount of$ 1,637,185, Project No. 60103, and
authorize the Chairman to execute the Contract. (Jerry Kurtz, Principal
Project Manager, Capital Project Planning, Impact Fees and Program
Management Division)
B. Recommendation to award Bid Number 17-7066, "Goodland Drive Water
Main Replacement," Project Number 71076, to Quality Enterprises USA,
Inc., in the amount of$1,093,186.50 and authorize the necessary budget
amendment. (Tom Chmelik, P.E., PMP, Public Utilities Engineering and
Project Management Division Director)
C. This item has been continued from the April 11, 2017 BCC meeting.
Recommendation to review the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE)
program and direct the County Manager to develop a resolution for further
consideration that adopts a third-party administered PACE program for
residential and commercial properties or terminate the process. (James
French, Deputy Department Head, Growth Management Department & Gino
Santabarbara, Principal Planner, Capital Project Planning, Impact Fees &
Program Management Division)
D. Recommendation to provide public notice of the intent to resume and amend
Professional Services Agreement No. 06-4000 with CH2M Hill, Inc. for the
Vanderbilt Beach Road Extension project, and upon successful negotiations,
bring back an amended contract for final approval to complete the design
which was suspended, but never terminated, by the Board of County
Commissioners. (Project No. 60168) (James French, Deputy Department
Head, Growth Management Department & Gary R. Putaansuu, P.E.,
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April 25,2017
Principal Project Manager, Transportation Engineering Division)
12. COUNTY ATTORNEY'S REPORT
13. OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS
14. AIRPORT AUTHORITY AND/OR COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT
AGENCY
A. AIRPORT
B. COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY
15. STAFF AND COMMISSION GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS
A. Future Workshop Schedule
16. CONSENT AGENDA - All matters listed under this item are considered to be
routine and action will be taken by one motion without separate discussion of
each item. If discussion is desired by a member of the Board, that item(s) will
be removed from the Consent Agenda and considered separately.
A. GROWTH MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT
1) Recommendation to adopt a Resolution to declare a public hearing to
disclaim, renounce, and vacate the County and the public interest in a
portion of the 60-foot wide road right-of-way known as 25th Avenue
Northwest, approximately 665 feet in length, being a part of Tracts 1,
2 & 3, Golden Gate Estates Unit No. 21, Plat Book 7, Page 81 of the
Public Records of Collier County, Florida. The subject road right of
way is located west of 8th Street Northwest,just north of Immokalee
Road in Section 21, Township 48 South, Range 27 East, Collier
County, Florida. (VAC-PL20170000440)
2) Recommendation to authorize the Clerk of Courts to release a
Performance Bond in the amount of$489,300 which was posted as a
guaranty for Excavation Permit Number 59.886-1, PL20130002538
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April 25,2017
for work associated with Artesia Naples, Phase 3.
3) Recommendation to approve the ranked list of design professionals
pursuant to RFP No. 17-7097, "Collier Creek Modeling," and
authorize staff to negotiate a contract with the top ranked firm CB&I
Environmental & Infrastructure, Inc. for subsequent Board approval;
or, if contract negotiations are unsuccessful to authorize staff to
commence contract negotiations with the second ranked proposer,
Atkins North America, and make a finding that this item promotes
tourism.
4) Recommendation to accept a time extension to a Local Agency
Program Agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation
for the construction and construction engineering inspection of
intersection improvements on Golden Gate Parkway at Livingston
Road, Project No. 33431.
5) Recommendation to authorize the Clerk of Courts to release a
Performance Bond in the amount of$289,720 which was posted as a
guaranty for Excavation Permit Number 60.082-3, PL20150002846
for work associated with Cays of Naples (fka Hacienda Lakes of
Naples Tract B).
6) This item requires that ex parte disclosure be provided by
Commission members. Should a hearing be held on this item, all
participants are required to be sworn in. Recommendation to
approve for recording the final plat of Willoughby Preserve,
(Application Number PL20160003121) approval of the standard form
Construction and Maintenance Agreement and approval of the amount
of the performance security.
7) Recommendation to approve a work order with CB&I Coastal
Planning & Engineering, Inc. to provide professional engineering
services for 2018-2019 Local Government Funding Request under
Contract No.15-6382 for time and materials not to exceed $19,818,
authorize the County Manager or his designee to execute the work
order, and make a finding that this item promotes tourism.
8) Recommendation to approve five agreements for the purchase of six
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April 25,2017
easements required for the construction of a replacement weir on the
Golden Gate Main Canal between 8th and 10th Streets Northeast.
Golden Gate Main Canal Weir No. 4 Replacement (Project No.
60204). Estimated fiscal impact: $11,300.
9) Recommendation to grant final acceptance of the private roadway and
drainage improvements for the final plat of Corsica at Talis Park,
Application Number PL20140001402 with the roadway and drainage
improvements being privately maintained; acceptance of the plat
dedications, and authorizing the release of the maintenance security.
10) Recommendation to approve an After-The-Fact Big Cypress Basin
Local partnership grant application submittal, in order to become a co-
applicant with the City of Naples, to provide funding for the West
Goodlette-Frank Road Area Joint Stormwater and Wastewater
Collection Improvement Project.
11) Recommendation to approve an amendment to purchase agreement
for the purchase of a fee simple property (Parcel 101 FEE) required for
the Immokalee Stormwater Improvement Program (Project #60143).
Estimated Fiscal Impact: $0.
12) Recommendation to approve an After-The-Fact Florida Department of
Environmental Protection 319(h) Grant Application to fund the West
Goodlette-Frank Road Area Joint Stormwater-Sewer Project totaling
$750,000.
13) Recommendation to approve staff verified price increases to ITB No.
13-6140 "Purchase of Lime Rock and Fill" and authorize payment of
outstanding invoices for projects to Florida Dirt Source, LLC.
14) Recommendation to approve negotiated Agreements with DWJH,
LLC d/b/a Leo's Sod, and Triple C Sod, Inc. For Invitation to Bid
(ITB) No. 16-7032RR "Purchase and Delivery of Turfgrasses".
15) Recommendation to approve a budget amendment to recognize
revenue for Project #60119, Pine Ridge Weir, within Stormwater
Capital Funds in the amount of$33,857.32 and authorize payment to
Kelly Brothers, Inc. in the amount of$33,857.32 in accordance with
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April 25,2017
the approved Developer Agreement between Collier County and
Arthrex, Inc.
16) Recommendation to approve the selection committee's ranking of
professional engineering consultants on the Request for Proposal
issued as "CCNA Solicitation #17-7103 West Goodlette Frank Road
Joint Stormwater-Sewer Project" (Project Number 60142), and to
enter into contract negotiations with the top ranked firm subject to
Board approval.
17) Recommendation to approve a work order with CB&I Environmental
& Infrastructure, Inc. to provide professional engineering services in
support of a three (3) year lease extension to provide beach
renourishment sand from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
(BOEM), a federal government agency (Lease Extension &
Modification to Agreement No. OCS-G 35160). Engineering services
will be provided under Contract #15-6382 for time and material not to
exceed price of$14,936. This request also authorizes the County
Manager or his designee to execute the Work Order, and make a
finding that this item promotes tourism.
B. COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY
C. PUBLIC UTILITIES DEPARTMENT
1) Recommendation to approve a $297,960 Contract to AMEC Foster
Wheeler, Inc., under Request for Proposal #16-7039 for Construction,
Engineering and Inspection Services for the Northeast Recycling
Drop-off Center, Project Number 59009, and approve the necessary
budget amendment
2) Recommendation to approve Change Order No. 2 to Contract #16-
6589 "Memorial Pathway on Vanderbilt Drive" and authorize a
budget amendment in the amount of$97,000 to move funds from
Project No. 70104 to Project No. 70071, Countywide Utilities
Projects.
3) Recommendation to approve a $213,025.19 work order under Request
for Quotation #14-6213-84 to Quality Enterprises USA, Inc., for the
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April 25,2017
SRO Wellfield Flow Meter Replacement Project No. 70085.
D. PUBLIC SERVICES DEPARTMENT
1) Recommendation to approve three mortgage satisfactions for the
Community Development Block Grant Single Family Rehabilitation
in the combined amount of$66,393.75.
2) Recommendation to approve four mortgage satisfactions for the State
Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP) loan program in the combined
amount of$17,170.
3) Recommendation to approve the First Amendment to Agreement
between Collier County and Big Cypress Housing Corporation rolling
project funds forward from one program fiscal year to the successive
fiscal year and also to approve customary Subordination Agreements
with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Florida Housing Finance
Corporation who each have superior lien positions.
4) Recommendation to approve Change Order #3 for Contract #15-6437
- FPL Aerial to Underground Utility Conversion at Vanderbilt Beach
with MasTec North America, Inc. to increase the contract amount by
$156,810 to repair buried network damaged by others, and extend the
contract to complete repairs and wiring activation for Phase II and III
of the Vanderbilt Beach MSTU Utility Conversion Project.
5) Recommendation to approve and authorize the Chairman to sign the
Fourth Amendment to the Criminal Justice Mental Health Substance
Abuse Agreement with the David Lawrence Mental Health Center
(DLC) to adjust the grant budget by allocating $35,000 from
"Personnel" to "Incidental Expenses" for Program Year 3.
6) Recommendation to approve a Resolution approving the
transportation plan for acute care services for adults and children in
Collier County for the state fiscal years 2017-2020.
E. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DEPARTMENT
1) Recommendation to approve the addition of one classification and the
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removal of three classifications in the 2017 Fiscal Year Pay &
Classification Plan made from January 1, 2017 through March 31,
2017.
2) Recommendation to approve and authorize the Chairman to execute
an Agreement with Hodges University allowing Hodges Paramedic
students to obtain State-required field internship experience and
training under the appropriate supervision of the Collier County
Emergency Medical Services Department.
3) Recommendation to recognize and appropriate revenue to the
Facilities Management Division cost center in the amount of
$70,775.16 for the period of January 2017 through March 2017 of
Fiscal Year 2016-2017 and approve all necessary Budget
Amendments.
4) Recommendation to approve the administrative reports prepared by
the Procurement Services Division for change orders and other items
as identified.
F. COUNTY MANAGER OPERATIONS
1) Recommendation to approve an Interlocal Agreement with the Greater
Naples Fire Rescue District to assist and cooperate with the District in
collecting the District's impact fees and to authorize the County
Manager, or his designee, and the County Attorney to advertise for
future consideration an ordinance amending Chapter 74 of the Collier
County Code of Laws and Ordinances to remove all references to the
Isles of Capri Fire District which has been added to the Greater
Naples Fire Rescue District through the legislative process.
2) Recommendation to approve an Amendment extending the current
contract with PFM Financial Advisors, LLC (PFM) through May 31,
2020 under provisions of single source procurement as defined within
the Procurement Services Ordinance.
3) Recommendation to approve Tourist Development Tax Category "B"
funding to support the three upcoming FY 17 Sports Events up to
$16,750 and make a finding that these expenditures promote tourism.
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April 25, 2017
4) Recommendation to approve Tourist Tax Category "B" funding to
sponsor the upcoming May 2017 sports event, The FHSAA Boys'
Volleyball State Championship, totaling $7,800 and make a finding
that these expenditures promote tourism.
5) Recommendation to adopt a resolution approving amendments
(appropriating grants, donations, contributions or insurance proceeds)
to the Fiscal Year 2016-17 Adopted Budget.
G. AIRPORT AUTHORITY
1) Recommendation to approve a Collier County Airport Authority
Standard Form Lease Agreement with Island Air Charters, Inc. for
counter and office space at the Marco Island Executive Airport.
H. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE
J. OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS
1) Report to the Board regarding the investment of County funds as of
the quarter ended March 31, 2017.
2) To provide the Board of County Commissioners the Clerk of the
Circuit Court's Internal Audit Report 2017-6 Fee Payment Assistance
Program: Guadalupe Center, Inc., issued on, April 19, 2017.
3) Pursuant to the Board's Purchasing Ordinance 2013-69, as amended,
request that the Board approve and determine valid public purpose for
invoices payable and purchasing card transactions as of April 19,
2017.
4) To record in the minutes of the Board of County Commissioners, the
check number (or other payment method), amount, payee, and
purpose for which the referenced disbursements were drawn for the
periods between March 30 and April 12, 2017 pursuant to Florida
Statute 136.06.
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April 25,2017
K. COUNTY ATTORNEY
1) Recommendation to appoint a member to the Affordable Housing
Advisory Committee.
2) Recommendation to reappoint three members to the
Bayshore/Gateway Triangle Local Redevelopment Advisory Board.
17. SUMMARY AGENDA - This section is for advertised public hearings and
must meet the following criteria: 1) A recommendation for approval from
staff; 2) Unanimous recommendation for approval by the Collier County
Planning Commission or other authorizing agencies of all members present
and voting; 3) No written or oral objections to the item received by staff, the
Collier County Planning Commission, other authorizing agencies or the
Board, prior to the commencement of the BCC meeting on which the items
are scheduled to be heard; and 4) No individuals are registered to speak in
opposition to the item. For those items which are quasi-judicial in nature, all
participants must be sworn in.
A. This item requires that ex parte disclosure be provided by Commission
members. Should a hearing be held on this item, all participants are
required to be sworn in. Recommendation to approve Petition VAC-
PL20160002287 to disclaim, renounce and vacate the County and the public
interest in a portion of the 15-foot Utility Easement recorded in Official
Record Book 1835, page 637 of the Public Records of Collier County,
Florida, located in Section 21, Township 48 South, Range 25 East, Collier
County, Florida, and to accept a replacement utility easement.
B. Recommendation to adopt a resolution approving amendments
(appropriating carry forward, transfers and supplemental revenue) to the
Fiscal Year 2016-17 Adopted Budget.
18. ADJOURN
INQUIRIES CONCERNING CHANGES TO THE BOARD'S AGENDA SHOULD
BE MADE TO THE COUNTY MANAGER'S OFFICE AT 252-8383.
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April 25, 2017
April 25, 2017
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MR. OCHS: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats.
Madam Chair, you have a live mike.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Good morning. It's a very wonderful
morning. We have a lot of blessings today. The fires seem to be
somewhat controlled. That means there's safety not only for the
residents in the east but also for our first responders.
We'll be talking more about that later, but right now, I believe we
have a -- excuse me -- the invocation and the pledge, and Reverend
Dawson Taylor of Naples United Church of Christ will give us -- lead
us in the invocation, and then, Commissioner Fiala, would you lead us
in the Pledge of Allegiance.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You betcha.
Item #1A
INVOCATION AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE –
INVOCATION GIVEN
REVEREND TAYLOR: Let us pray.
Gracious and loving God, we give you thanks for the gift of this
day. We give you thanks for all of the gifts that you have given us, and
we ask that you would continue to be with those who have been
displaced, and we also ask that you be with those who are responding
to the crises in our county; that you will remind us to be those who
would be people of grace and of love and would respond in all the
ways that we are able; be with all of those who are facing loss this day;
help us to be a place that is mindful of all of those who go without.
And all this we ask in your many names, amen.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. And would you please
take your hats off and put your hands over your hearts and say with
me...
April 25, 2017
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(The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.)
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
County Manager?
Item #2A
APPROVAL OF TODAY'S REGULAR, CONSENT AND
SUMMARY AGENDA AS AMENDED (EX PARTE
DISCLOSURE PROVIDED BY COMMISSION MEMBERS FOR
CONSENT AND SUMMARY AGENDA.) - COMMISSIONER
SAUNDERS ADDED TWO ITEMS: ONE ON CONSOLIDATED
FIRE DISTRICTS (#10B) AND AN ITEM CONCERNING
MEETING WITH THE TDC (#10C) - APPROVED AND/OR
ADOPTED W/CHANGES
MR. OCHS: Good morning, Commissioners. These are the
proposed agenda changes for the Board of County Commissioners'
meeting of April 25th, 2017.
The first proposed change is to add Item 16H1 to your agenda.
This is a proclamation designating May 4th, 2017, as National Day of
Prayer. This is added at Commissioner McDaniel's request.
The next proposed change is to add Item 11E to the regular
agenda this morning. This is a recommendation to ratify a Local State
of Emergency Declaration signed over the weekend by the board chair
in response to the wildfire conditions and also to impose a burning ban
in accordance with county ordinance. It's at staff's request.
We have one time-certain item this morning, Commissioners,
that's Item 10A, and that's scheduled to be heard at 9:30 a.m.
Your court reporter breaks are at 10:30 and, if need be, 2:50.
Those are all the changes I have this morning, Madam Chair.
April 25, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And I promise our court reporter I'll be
much better than I have been in the past to make sure you get your
break when you do, because you are a hard working lady, and thank
you very much.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: How about the rest of us?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No. You guys can sit here and talk.
There's the work.
All right. So we --
MR. OCHS: County Attorney, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: County Attorney, any changes?
MR. KLATZKOW: No changes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Ms. Kinzel, any changes?
MS. KINZEL: No; thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No changes and ex parte.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Ditto; no changes and no ex parte.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I will again agree with that; no
changes, no ex parte.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No changes, no ex parte to disclose.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Madam Chair, I have no ex
parte. I do want to add two items, just for discussion purposes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: One is just a brief discussion
concerning the setting of a meeting into October, perhaps, dealing with
fire district consolidation, so I'd like to bring that up under Board of
County Commissioners' discussions.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And the second is to -- I
request the Board of County Commissioners to have a joint meeting
with the Tourist Development Council in June, if possible, and I'll
April 25, 2017
Page 5
explain the rationale for that.
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, those items would become Items
10B and 10C on your agenda.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You realize that Commissioner Fiala's
going to have to become two people, right, in that meeting?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And she's up to it, I can tell
that. She's done it before.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So we'll have to have two chairs, and
she'll move from one chair to the other in discussions.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I could sit in between them.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's probably the best idea.
All right. With those two changes, adding two items, one under
fire consolidation, perhaps, meeting in October, and then a joint
meeting with the TDC proposed in June.
All those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries unanimously.
Proposed Agenda Changes
Board of County Commissioners Meeting
April 25, 2017
Add On Item 16H1: Proclamation designating May 4, 2017 as National Day of Prayer.
(Commissioner McDaniel)
Add On Item 11E: Recommendation to ratify the Local State of Emergency signed by the
Board Chair in response to current wildfire conditions and local evacuations and to impose a
Burning Ban in accordance with Ordinance 2013-22. (Staff's request)
Time Certain Items:
Item 10A to be heard at 9:30 a.m.
5/24/2017 4:55 PM
April 25, 2017
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Item #2B and #2C
MARCH 28, 2017 - BCC/REGULAR MEETING MINUTES AND
APRIL 4, 2017 - BCC/CRA WORKSHOP MINUTES - APPROVED
AS PRESENTED
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, that takes you to Item 2B, which is
approval of the BCC regular meeting minutes from the March 28,
2017, Board of County Commissioners' meeting.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I make a motion to approve the
meeting minutes from March 28th and the workshop from April 4th,
the BCC/CRA workshop.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second; second.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: There's a motion on the floor and a
second. All those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries unanimously.
Item #4
PROCLAMATIONS - ONE MOTION TAKEN TO ADOPT ALL
PROCLAMATIONS
Item #4A
April 25, 2017
Page 7
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 2017 AS MILITARY
APPRECIATION MONTH IN COLLIER COUNTY. ACCEPTED
BY CHIEF WILLIAM CARL, PRESIDENT OF THE COLLIER
COUNTY VETERANS COUNCIL; UNITED STATES ARMY
VETERAN LUIS CHIRICHIGNO; UNITED STATES NAVY
VETERAN WILLIAM KRUSCHEL; UNITED STATES AIR
FORCE VETERAN SARAH COX; UNITED STATES COAST
GUARD VETERAN SPENCER ROACH; AND LOIS BOLIN,
BOARD CHAIR OF THE SOUTHWEST FLORIDA VETERANS
ALLIANCE AND CHAIR OF KEEP THE SPIRIT OF ’45 ALIVE –
ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: That takes us to Item 4A this morning. This is a
proclamation designating May 2017 as Military Appreciation Month in
Collier County. To be accepted by Chief William Carl, President of
the Collier County Veterans Council; United States Army Veteran,
Luis Chirichigno; United States Navy Veteran, William Kruschel;
United States Air Force Veteran, Sarah Cox; United States Coast
Guard Veteran, Spencer Roach; Lois Bolin, Board Chair of the
Southwest Florida Veterans Alliance and Chair of Keep the Spirit of
45 Alive; and Polly Crews, the oldest Gold Star mother in the State of
Florida.
If you'd all please come forward and receive your proclamation
from the County Commission.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Are we allowed to go down
and give them hugs?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Are we all going downstairs? Sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We have some supporting
veterans, if we could get them, who came to --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, that's good.
April 25, 2017
Page 8
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: What a blessing to have our military
veterans with us today, and have so many, and then have so many to
come up from our staff. You know, they touch our lives in so many
different ways and so many positive ways. This was a real blessing
this morning.
Item #4B
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MONDAY, MAY 8, 2017, AS
CHILD WELFARE PROFESSIONALS DAY IN COLLIER
COUNTY. ACCEPTED BY REPRESENTATIVES FROM YOUTH
HAVEN, FRIENDS OF FOSTER CHILDREN FOREVER, AND
THE CHILDREN’S NETWORK OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA –
ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Item 4B is a proclamation designating Monday,
May 8th, 2017, as Child Welfare Professionals Day in Collier County.
To be accepted by Meredith Chase representing Youth Haven; Jane
Billings representing Friends of Foster Children Forever; Nadereh
Salim representing Children's Network of Southwest Florida. If you'd
please step forward and receive your proclamation from the
Commission.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you for all you're doing for
the kids.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Would you be so kind to speak a little
bit about what you do and kids in care and things like that after we do a
photograph here.
MS. SALIM: Good morning, everyone. I'm Nadereh Salim. I'm
the CEO of Children's Network of Southwest Florida. We serve five
April 25, 2017
Page 9
counties of Southwest Florida: Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry, and
Glades. We are responsible for taking care of all the children who
have been traumatized by abuse, neglect, and abandonment.
On any given month, there are over a thousand abuse reports
received in our five-county community. Today we have 2,500 children
under our care. About a third of those kids live in foster homes. And,
obviously, this is no surprise, the number one factor in child abuse and
removal of kids from their homes is opiate. It's really ravaging our
communities.
In Collier County, we have 370 children that we are responsible
for. Those kids are either in the home of the parent under our
supervision, receiving services and overcoming whatever brought them
to our attention; another third of those kids are in the home of a kinship
caregiver. These are relatives and nonrelatives that have been vetted to
be sure that they are a safe alternative in lieu of staying home with the
parents, and then we have kids in foster care. Obviously, our foster
parents are a great asset. They're trained and background screened
and, you know, loving temporary homes for these kids.
Typically, children remain in the system for about 12 months to
18 months. Our goal is always to find permanency for these kids, and
while they're with us, we try to support them.
I know that Jane will probably speak in a minute about how they
support the educational needs of these children with tutoring and a lot
of things. And what we try to do is find a path to success that these
kids don't fall back into the same cycle that their family has been in.
And, again, thank you so much for your support. April is Child
Abuse Prevention Month, so this is just doubly sweet to be here on
both accounts, and thank you.
(Applause.)
MS. BILLINGS: I'm Jane Billings, Director of Foster Children
Forever. Thank you for this today.
April 25, 2017
Page 10
We, again, cannot do what we do without the case management
naturae (sic), Youth Haven, the school system. We are a privately
funded independent non-profit, independent of the welfare and judicial
systems, but we work with everybody, and it's these partnerships that
make the magic happen.
Our focus is on the children that are in care and that they can
succeed in school and believe in themselves and thrive and break this
cycle of abuse.
We are now, with our partnerships -- with case management, the
school system, Youth Haven, we are providing a continuum of
educational support for these children from zero to graduation. And
we are off this week, in fact, with the faculty of FGCU because the
results of what we're doing are proving absolutely amazing, and we are
preparing this for a presentation.
So thank you so much for today; thank you for your support;
thank you.
(Applause.)
MS. CHASE: Thank you. On behalf of Youth Haven, I'm
Meredith Chase, and I'm the Director of Development at Youth Haven.
We are the only residential emergency shelter for children who have
been removed from their homes due to abuse, neglect, or
abandonment. Our kiddos range in age from 6 to 18 years old, and we
currently are on a wait list with 50 children residing in our shelter right
here in Collier County. We also manage children from the area
surrounding counties.
We work with these amazing ladies and their organization and the
local county to help serve these children and get them to the path of
healing and on to the next step so they can grow to be independent and
giving back to the community.
We are expanding currently, so we'll be adding several new beds
over the next year, and we hope to be adding between 20 to 24
April 25, 2017
Page 11
additional beds in the next year, which will help relieve some of that
wait list for us. So thank you all for what you're doing for us. It's an
amazing, amazing month.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Madam Chair, can I just make a
comment?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'd actually like to invite all of the
speakers and their organizations. We're going to have a workshop on
June 6th relating to mental-health issues and what's happening in
Collier County on June 6th, and I would invite you all to come to that
because, obviously, this is one of the components that we need to
discuss as a community.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Excellent, excellent idea.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Great idea.
Item #4C
PROCLAMATION RECOGNIZING LOOS & COMPANY, INC.
AS THE LATEST RECIPIENT OF THE WASTE REDUCTION
AWARDS PROGRAM (THE WRAP AWARD) FOR
CONTRIBUTING TO THE GREATER GOOD OF COLLIER
COUNTY BY ADVOCATING THE “REDUCE, REUSE,
RECYCLE” MESSAGE, THEREBY HELPING TO PROLONG
THE USABLE LIFE OF THE COLLIER COUNTY LANDFILL.
ACCEPTED BY MR. RICHARD WILLIAMS, GENERAL
MANAGER, AND MS. AMBER TSELIOS, NEWSPAPER
EDITOR – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Item 4C is a proclamation recognizing Loos &
April 25, 2017
Page 12
Company, Incorporated, as the latest recipient of the Waste Reduction
Awards program for contributing to the greater good of Collier County
by advocating the reduce, reuse, recycle message thereby helping to
prolong the usable life of the Collier County Landfill. The award to be
accepted this morning by Mr. Richard Williams, he's the general
manager of Loos & Company, and also Kristi Bartlett representing the
Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce. If you'd please step forward.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is somebody going to speak?
MR. OCHS: No, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is somebody going to speak?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Madam Chair, if we could, I
would like for them to speak just because --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- the efforts of this
organization have been monumentous to our community with regard to
the extension of the life of our landfill and such.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So tell us how you do it; give us your
secrets.
MR. WILLIAMS: Well, actually I've been with the company for
22 years as of last month. I've been working with the recycle program
for 12 years. So within our facility, we're a manufacturing company for
aircraft hardware, cable fittings, and the machinery that goes along
with it.
We have so many different avenues in our business as far as
waste water, waste oil. We recycle everything that we can from paper,
all the bottles, everything that we use, and we continue to implement
new items every single week of things that we can keep out of the
landfill and keep out of our water system.
So it's been a long process, and we keep going every single day,
so -- we try our best.
April 25, 2017
Page 13
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Thank you. May I ask staff to
come up and give a brief report about our efforts, if I can, either Dan or
Dr. Yilmaz. I don't want to put them on the spot but -- yeah, I do.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: You don't want to, but you're going
to.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I remember when these efforts
started to transpire with our systems. And if you don't mind just
sharing just a brief history of what we've done in the expansions and
things that we have in place.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Absolutely. Good morning,
Commissioners. For the record, Dan Rodriguez, your Solid and
Hazardous Waste Management Division Director.
It actually started over 15 years ago with great leadership, thanks
to the Board of County Commissioners, our County Manager, Deputy
County Manager, and our Administrator, Dr. Yilmaz.
When we were actually running out of landfill airspace, there
were less than five years of capacity remaining. We were putting tons
and tons of material, construction materials, recyclables, sludge, some
really bad stuff, gypsum board and, thanks to the Board of County
Commissioners, you adopted a strategy, a 50-year strategy, as a matter
of fact, that diverted those recyclables. You partnered with Waste
Management and contracted with them to bring to our community the
first single stream recycling program which removed recyclables. So
you went from having less than five years of disposal capacity to about
64 years today.
And thanks to the hard work, dedication of not only the residents
and the businesses who recycle, but also the staff. If I could mention,
Dilia Camacho, she's your Waste Reduction Recycling Manager, and
Natalia there as well. She's a Recyclist as well. And, of course, Zach
-- raise his hand. They're out in the communities every day.
Zach has completed over 3,000 inspections this year alone of
April 25, 2017
Page 14
businesses, so doing a great job, as well as our code compliance and
education officers as well. They get out to the businesses to make sure
they're recycling. So it's really about putting that plan together. We're
getting the support of leadership to fund that plan because, without the
funding of that resource, it couldn't come to pass.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Thank you, sir.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Dan, I know that residential
recycling has been very successful. What do we have, over 70 percent
participants in residential, but what about the commercial? I know it's
been a little more difficult to get some of the businesses to recycle.
Are you making any headway in that?
MR. RODRIGUEZ: That's a great point. Thank you,
Commissioner. You've been one of our greatest supporters for
recycling, not only at the residential level, but business.
Actually, this year we've raised our recycling rate, thanks to the
residents, to 63 percent. Is that correct? Oh, 65. We went up 2
percent. See, it's growing already. So 65 percent, but, absolutely, the
businesses are recycling much more than they were in the past. We
had a recycling rate about 15 years ago of 13 percent and now,
countywide, we're at 65 percent, which is incredible.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, gosh, that's wonderful.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Yeah. The residents recycle more than the
businesses because it's a little more convenient, but we're making great
strides, thanks to your support and the leadership.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you, everyone.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
April 25, 2017
Page 15
Item #4D
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 2017 AS BUILDING
SAFETY MONTH IN COLLIER COUNTY, IN RECOGNITION
OF THE CRITICAL ROLES PERFORMED BY LOCAL, STATE
AND FEDERAL BUILDING OFFICIALS TO ENSURE THAT
ALL CITIZENS LIVE AND WORK IN SAFE AND LIVABLE
BUILDINGS. ACCEPTED BY KATHY CURATOLO
REPRESENTING THE COLLIER BUILDING INDUSTRY
ASSOCIATION, JAMIE FRENCH, RICH LONG AND CLAUDINE
AUCLAIR REPRESENTING THE COLLIER COUNTY GROWTH
MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT AND KRISTI BARTLETT,
REPRESENTING THE GREATER NAPLES CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Item 4D is a proclamation designating May 2017 as
Building Safety Month in Collier County in recognition of the critical
roles performed by local, state, and federal building officials to ensure
that all citizens live and work in safe and liveable buildings. To be
accepted by Kathy Curatolo representing the Collier Building Industry
Association, and Jamie French, Rich Long, Claudine Auclare
representing the Collier County Growth Management Department. If
you'd please step forward.
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Also, now it's time for Kristi Bartlett to join us.
MS. BARTLETT: Thank you.
MR. OCHS: Sorry, Kristi. I want you here for every
proclamation.
MS. BARTLETT: I know, I know.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's all right. I can move around
between people. You just stand there. I'll move.
April 25, 2017
Page 16
MS. AUCLAIR: Good morning, everyone. My name is
Claudine Auclair. I'm the Business Interim Manager for the Growth
Management Department. And I want to say thank you to the
commissioners and everyone in attendance for this proclamation today.
We are very happy to accept this and with our community
partners, CBIA, the Chamber, North Naples Fire and Rescue District,
the Greater Naples Fire Department, and everyone who works closely
with the Building Department.
Excuse me.
Building Safety Month is founded by the International Code
Council and celebrated in jurisdictions worldwide every May. I'm
sorry. I'm having throat -- this provides us an opportunity to develop
public awareness to help individuals, families, and businesses
understand what it takes to create safe and sustainable structures.
The campaign reinforces the need for adoption of modern model
building codes and a strong efficient system of code enforcement and
well-trained professional workforce to maintain the system. During
the month of May, building officials and representatives of the
Building Department will visit communities around the county to
promote Building Safety Month. We will be visiting with I-tech in
Immokalee, the Lely High School construction academy, who will
have public awareness for hurricane season, and a trade show in the
Growth Management Department in May.
Just think recently how these fires the past weekend in the Golden
Gate Estates area, if there weren't any code in place, how would the
fire and emergency be able to access those properties if we don't have
planned roads and setbacks created on each of these parcels to provide
safe access to those services? It's very important. That's why we have
building codes and Land Development Codes.
We would like to thank the community, the Commissioners, and
everyone for this proclamation. Thank you.
April 25, 2017
Page 17
(Applause.)
MS. CURATOLO: Good morning, Commissioners. It is our
pleasure, representing the Collier Building Industry Association, to
collaborate with the great team at Collier County Growth
Management.
It is through our collective discussion and collaboration that we
work together to make this a safe building community. So thank you
for the recognition today.
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, if I could get a motion to approve
today's proclamations.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to approve the proclamation
for today.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Do I hear a second?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Second.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries unanimously. Thank you.
MR. OCHS: Thank you.
Item #16H1 (Added per Agenda Change Sheet)
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 4, 2017 AS NATIONAL
DAY OF PRAYER - READ INTO THE RECORD BY
COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL
April 25, 2017
Page 18
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And, Commissioner McDaniel, we do
have a proclamation for the National Day of Prayer, if there's anyone
here to receive it, or I can give it to you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, I have copies of it over
here --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So we're set.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- Madam Chair. We're set
with it. I mean -- and we did move it on to the summary agenda and
passed it.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yep.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I'd be happy to read it if
you would like, or we could just make it a part of the record.
Whichever you prefer, Madam Chair.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Would you read it, please.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Whereas, a National Day of
Prayer was called for by the First Constitutional Congress in 1775 and
was first established by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, and in
1952 Congress unanimously voted to establish a National Day of
Prayer. The day was made official when President Harry S. Truman
signed it into law.
Whereas, in 1988 Congress and President Ronald Reagan
amended the law to designate the first day -- the first Thursday, excuse
me, in May as National Day of Prayer; and,
Whereas, most of the National Day of Prayers are geared at
praying for the nation, government leaders, the president,
congressmen, and local officials, there are large gatherings at the mall
in Washington and in thousands of cities across America;
Whereas, National Day of Prayer gives us an opportunity to come
together as a community, much needed these days, and pray for our
community, our nation, and our world;
April 25, 2017
Page 19
Whereas, local events are held at Collier County Courthouse steps
at 12 noon and at the Golden Gate Community Center at 7 p.m., as
well as an event in Everglades City, and all are invited to attend.
Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County May 4th, 2017, be designated as
National Prayer Day.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, you have a 9:30 time-certain, and
you also have a public petition item. Would you like to hear the public
petition before your 9:30 item? I would recommend that we do that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. That's fine.
Item #6A
PUBLIC PETITION FROM MR. ANTHONY PIRES, JR., ON
BEHALF OF THE VANDERBILT BEACH RESIDENT'S
ASSOCIATION, INC., REQUESTING THAT THE BOARD
DIRECT STAFF TO TIMELY PROVIDE NOTIFICATION AND
ANY MATERIALS REGARDING APR-PL20170000623, BEACH
BOX CAFÉ – DISCUSSED
MR. OCHS: Item 6A is a public petition request from Mr.
Anthony Pires on behalf of the Vanderbilt Beach Residents
Association, Incorporated requesting that the Board direct staff to
timely provide notification and any materials regarding applications
from the Beach Box Cafe.
Mr. Pires?
MR. PIRES: Thank you, Mr. Ochs, and thank you, members of
the Board. And there's not an S in my middle name. Somehow that
showed up. But it's a P, but it's okay.
MR. OCHS: Okay.
April 25, 2017
Page 20
MR. PIRES: It's a first. I'm here representing, as I mentioned in
the public petition, the Vanderbilt Beach Residents Association and
others in the neighborhood of what's called the Beach Box Cafe, which
-- we're in Vanderbilt Beach Road, including the Beachmoor
Condominium Association, Sun Realty, Leslie Garlock and others.
And as the Board's well aware, they've expressed concern in the
past over administrative parking reductions being granted to the Beach
Box Cafe in operation.
Last year the Board denied an appeal by the Beach Box Cafe, and
the county graciously allowed, and we appreciate very much the
county allowing my clients to intervene in that lawsuit, and within a
short time after the Court granted intervention, the lawsuit was
dismissed by the Beach Box.
And we also appreciate the Board last year directing staff to
notify me when any decision was made on the then pending
administrative parking reduction for Beach Box, because the major
issue that's arisen, there's no informal notification process in your Land
Development Code when an administrative parking reduction is
granted.
Theoretically, a property owner requiring 100 spaces could come
into the staff and request 50 parking spaces and a reduction of 50
percent and be granted. There's a 30-day appeal time, and it's not
notified -- notice is not sent to anyone.
But this board, again, last year in April, graciously notified --
directed staff to say, listen, staff, please as to this -- the then pending
APR, notify Mr. Pires on behalf of his clients so that they can, if they
wish to, timely file an appeal or/and objection. And that happened.
We had those issues last year.
A new application was filed more recently, and was filed in -- a
short time ago with regards to this, back in February, I believe, of this
year, for another administrative parking reduction. And as a result of
April 25, 2017
Page 21
that, I requested on behalf of my clients two things: One, that we be
notified and receive copies of any submittals made in that application
so we can track it. Because one thing I find out, that CityView portal
is not always as current as we wish it would be to the public as a
whole. Internally, it may be current, but to the public as a whole it's
not. I found that in many instances of many applications.
And the second request was that, consistent with this board's
directive a year ago in April, it's just ironic, when the Board directed
that staff notify me of any decision made on any APR for the Beach
Box, we requested as part two that we be notified of any decision.
We had received some communication from staff back and forth,
but no assurances if either of those requests would be granted.
I filed a public petition, and on the evening of the day I filed the
public petition, Mr. French graciously provided an email saying that
county staff will provide me a copy of any new application documents
for an administrative parking reduction at this site location, Beach Box,
if and when such information is submitted for processing.
And, I guess, two things. One, it says, new application. It didn't
address the pending application, which some people say it's
withdrawn, some say it's canceled, some say it's rejected, but there's
still a pending application. So there's one little twist on that, and we do
appreciate that from county staff, very much, that that was provided.
And I had a brief conversation with Mr. Casalanguida the same
day, April 4th, and the communication from Mr. French.
But part two has not been addressed at all, and the part two of the
request was to notify me of any responses, any decision regarding any
administrative parking reduction for the subject property including, but
limited to, the one that's pending, rejected, canceled, or withdrawn.
And that's what I'm asking the Board to do, to please direct the staff.
We appreciate what you've done in the past. We appreciate what staff
has done, but the neighborhood is consistently and constantly
April 25, 2017
Page 22
concerned about parking at the Beach Box that overflows into the other
areas. And it's been an ongoing problem for years.
And in the long term you may wish to look at your Land
Development Code and require notification of parking reduction
requests with a certain threshold because of the impact that it has on
the neighborhoods.
And our request is also consistent with what staff has recently
granted to North Collier residents concerning the Kalea Bay SDP
where the staff assured numerous residents in North Collier that the
Growth Management Department will notify them if and when a site
development plan amendment for Kalea Bay is approved. This was
just a month ago.
So consistent with what the Board directed last year -- and I
attached the minutes from that board meeting. I apologize for having
you read all those boring minutes -- and consistent with what they're
doing in others and consistent with our concern and the interest we
have as aggrieved and affected property owners. And, again, we
appreciate the county consenting to our intervening in the lawsuit to
protect my clients' rights. We request the Board to have the staff notify
us of any submittals, any responses, and any approvals or denials of
any APR for what's called the Beach Box Cafe.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Mr. Pires?
MR. PIRES: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. Leo, are we -- can we just
make that --
MR. OCHS: Your microphone, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, you mean that thing? That's
good, excuse me.
MR. PIRES: I do that all the time.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Leo, can we just make that motion,
April 25, 2017
Page 23
or can we direct staff to follow through on that, or do we have to bring
it back to another meeting or what?
MR. OCHS: No, you don't have to bring it back, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
MR. OCHS: We're already doing it, and we'll continue to do it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, okay. Very good.
MR. PIRES: If we have the assurance, similar to the last time, we
appreciate it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: It's only the right thing to do.
MR. PIRES: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you very much. Thanks for
bringing it to our attention. Thank you, staff, for following through
with it as we were hoping you would. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. I would like to ask either
our County Manager or County Attorney with regard to -- and, again,
there's no effort here to thwart public notice or anything along those
lines. But when the onus of notification comes back onto the county, I
foresee a possibility, without -- to not have a central point of
information dispersal. We do have a process in place for notification
of upcoming events and so on.
Now, I do agree, sir, with regard to the administrative,
specifically with regard to the Beach Box -- and you've given us a
specific point of notification, but if we make it a global effort, I'd
maybe like to hear from Mr. Bosi or Mr. French with regard to how we
can actually manage that process when that onus of notification comes
back onto the county, so...
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Commissioner, if I could maybe help
you out a little bit, as I was part of GMD, as we dealt with some of
this. I think you've got --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Tell everybody what GMD
April 25, 2017
Page 24
stands for. I know.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Growth Management Division, sir.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, Growth Management
Division.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: You've got an administrative
notification -- you've got an administrative process starting with
issuing a building permit all the way to a public involvement for our
neighborhood information meeting for a conditional use or Planned
Unit Development.
Right now your administrative reductions are not noticed. It's that
level of service that you as the board, by policy, can set. The only
concern is, you're going to draw that line somewhere in between that
building permit to PUD public notification. If it's to add on
administrative parking reductions or administrative architectural
reductions as well, too, you're just changing that line a little bit.
So right now we use the abundance of caution. If we know
something's important to the public, staff uses some discretion to make
sure that they're notified. But right now that notification is really held
at that conditional use or land use level. And if you want to change
that, that's a whole different discussion you want to probably have at a
broader level.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's the reason I asked.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you, Madam Chair. I
think it's -- I sort of agree with Mr. Casalanguida that you sort of go
down a dangerous path if the county is responsible for providing
notification of things. Then that puts the onus on us, and I don't know
if there's any potential liability for that, but that would be a problem.
This is a specific case. And the County Commission has done
this in the past for this particular issue. It's affecting a lot of neighbors
directly, and so I support having staff notify Mr. Pires wherever there's
April 25, 2017
Page 25
an application or whenever there's any action on an application but not
to open up the whole process to other applications. This is unique.
And I'd like to suggest that we limit it to that. And I don't think there's
been a problem other than in this particular circumstance.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I don't think we can -- we
really can't vote on anything other than giving direction to staff to
make adjustments or bring back language to the LDC with regard to
the notice process. And then we can formally have a public discussion
at that stage of the game. But I agree with Commissioner Saunders as
well.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And I agree with what both my
colleagues have said about that. But I do have one question, and that is
Mr. Pires had mentioned that -- you called it the CityView portal?
MR. PIRES: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- is not updated as quickly as
possible. Because I can see the issue is if the burden is on the
neighbors to keep track of things and there's a 30-day time limit then --
for an appeal, then how long it takes from filing for that to be up there
is a concern. So are we doing everything we can to make sure that
that's updated as frequently as possible?
MR. FRENCH: Good morning. For the record, Jamie French.
The CityView portal is in real time.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay.
MR. FRENCH: Unfortunately, when an application comes in and
it's in paper form, in the event that it has to go through a process to be
digitally transformed into an imagine, that does take a little bit more
time.
We are currently not processing 100 percent of our land use
documents, like we are building, and using digital imagery. We are
slowly transferring towards that. And I would say we're probably at
April 25, 2017
Page 26
about 60/40 digital versus not; however, all review activity, 100
percent of the review activity, is available online. So if that plan
reviewer does a review, whether it's a rejection comment or pass/fail,
you're able to see it as soon as they -- they click a button and it says,
show, and it's done.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Great.
MR. FRENCH: But it's in real time through the portal.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Thank you. And that's -- I think it's
important for the neighbors and just the public in general to realize that
that is all online, and there needs to be some effort put into monitoring
-- if something's very important, that it can be monitored. So thank
you for that explanation.
MR. FRENCH: Yes, sir.
MR. PIRES: Thank you. So I appreciate the Board's direction to
staff, and I appreciate -- again, appreciate working with the staff in the
past on this. And it's good seeing you all. It's been a while.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
Item #10A
IDENTIFICATION OF COUNTY-OWNED LAND TO BE
PLACED INTO A LAND TRUST, APPROPRIATELY ZONED
AND DESIGNATED FOR DEVELOPMENT OF HOUSING THAT
IS AFFORDABLE - MOTION FOR STAFF TO GIVE THE
STAKEHOLDERS COMMITTEE A LIST OF ALL COUNTY
OWNED PROPERTY TO REVIEW AND BRING BACK WITHIN
60 DAYS – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, that takes us to your 9:30
time-certain hearing this morning. It's Item 10A. This is a
recommendation to consider identification of county-owned land to be
April 25, 2017
Page 27
placed into a land trust appropriately zoned and designated for
development of housing that is affordable.
Commissioner Taylor, I believe this was your item.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes. Thank you very much, County
Manager.
We had a discussion about this at our last meeting, and I'd like to
bring this forward, not specifically for the money that might or might
not be forthcoming from the State, but in the spirit of starting the
process by which we, as a county, take a leadership position in this
whole question of affordable essential services, whatever you want to
call it, kind of housing, but the housing for those who are cost
burdened.
I think it's very important that we take this first step, not that we
shoulder the entire responsibility for it, but that we show the
community that we are serious about this process. In that spirit, we do
have properties that the county owns.
I do not think we have to put 60 acres away from one parcel, but
there are opportunities, I think, within what the County Manager has
given us to look at specific sites to see if there is 10 acres or more that
we could set aside understanding the ramifications of it.
So that's where I am right now. And I think what I'd like to do --
before we begin, I'd like to ask our chairman of our stakeholders
committee for affordable housing to come and speak to this.
MR. HRUBY: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record,
I'm Stephen Hruby. I Chair the Affordable Housing Commission.
This is an agenda item that is -- was a high priority in the ULI
report that we vetted here several months ago. They believe that a land
trust -- public land trusts are a key element to reducing the cost of
developing workforce and affordable housing.
It does a number of things. It's really a really good public/private
partnership element. It does several things. One, it takes out of the
April 25, 2017
Page 28
equation one of the highest cost elements of developing affordable
housing, and that's the cost of land, and particularly here in Collier
County where land costs are so high, and finding greenfield or a
sizable site to develop it is very difficult, particularly in the more urban
developed area.
Second of all, if it's properly zoned, if it's already zoned for
affordable housing, it does another thing. It allows us to give that
developer or that development community certainty, which is one of
the things that I've heard over the past decade from the development
community, the lack of certainty in this county when they move
forward for an entitlement. If the land is already zoned properly,
entitled properly with the proper density, their certainty is there. It will
move quicker, and it takes another element of cost out of that equation,
and that's the cost of getting the entitlements in place.
On our benefits side is the fact that this is publicly owned land,
and it will remain in perpetuity publicly owned land and leased back to
-- whether it's the multifamily or single-family development, it's leased
at a very nominal $10 a year, $100 a year, whatever it is, amount. That
ensures -- in kind, what that ensures is that land in that development on
that land will remain affordable in perpetuity or for a specific period of
time that is allocated to the ground.
So it isn't that we're giving away land. What we're using is to
leverage that land in matching private investment to develop the
property and ensure that that improvement is going to remain
affordable over time.
So I think those are the key elements of a land trust.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you, Madam Chair.
When this came up, or not this exact issue came up a couple weeks
ago, I'd expressed concerns because we were trying to meet a deadline
of September 1 to have a piece of property identified and rezoned, and
April 25, 2017
Page 29
it was pretty obvious that that was going to be an impossible task. I
think this is a very sound step. I want to congratulate you for putting
this on the agenda, because I think this is the way to approach it,
identify parcels that might be appropriate, and then go through the
rezone process, because it will take us some time. And so I applaud
you for putting this on there, and I support your effort.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I want to just maybe ask
staff and -- first off, Stephen, it is housing affordability. You're stuck
in the old --
MR. HRUBY: I'm stuck in the old --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Affordable housing. I saw a
whole bunch of people flinching out there when you said affordable
housing.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Especially our colleague to our right.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Correct. So housing
affordability. If there's one message that came from ULI is the
vernacular shift that's required.
And that leads me to the subject matter why I hit my button,
Madam Chair, and that is in the executive summary it talks about
targeting an aspect of our community called workforce housing. And if
that -- if that -- that's not -- that's not the target issue that we have in
our community. We have a housing affordability issue. We have
statutory definitions of affordable housing, of workforce housing, and
they're not necessarily inclusive of a target marketplace that we're
looking to offer up assistance on.
And I read it in the executive summary. And I'm in support,
Madam Chair, of the effort in what we're doing. It's just, if -- I don't
want us to head down a path without -- or in advance of our staff
coming back to us with specificities on the definitions of what we're
looking to do to offer up assistance.
April 25, 2017
Page 30
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It says it --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Designated for development of housing
that is affordable.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right. Well -- and in the third,
fourth paragraph down, the goal is to identify a parcel of land currently
owned by the county to be the first -- to be first placed in a trust and
then ensure the property's properly zoned and marketed for workforce
housing development. That's -- that made me put notes when I was
reading our board package this weekend.
And, Leo, or excuse me, Mr. Ochs; forgive me --
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- does the language in the
executive summary dictate policy that is contrary to what our ultimate
efforts are going to be in advance of the full report from the ULI and
our affordable housing -- housing affordability committee?
MR. OCHS: I don't think.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. Then I'll move -- well,
do you want to move for approval for your --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Well, I think -- how would you suggest
-- how does staff want us to suggest to move forward? Because I do
think we need to move forward, not for a September 1 deadline, but we
need to move forward.
MR. OCHS: Well, my suggestion would be that we vet this list
with both your Affordable Housing Advisory Committee and your
appointed stakeholders committee that's working on your community
housing plan.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
MR. OCHS: They have some criteria, I think, in mind, based on
the guidance that came out of the ULI report, where you look for
locations that have access to public transportation that are around
April 25, 2017
Page 31
employment centers. If we use those kinds of criteria based on, you
know, the committee's vetting, we might be able to come back with
two or three or four top locations we can then bring back to this board
for a final decision, if that works.
MR. HRUBY: Commissioners -- Commissioner, I'd like to
interject. Our stake -- we have broken down our stakeholder group
into subcommittees. And I am facilitating a subcommittee on this very
issue. So we have a group of about eight people who are focusing on
looking for best practices, ways of implementing a land trust, and
beginning to vet some of the properties that we're talking about.
One of the things in the last meeting's discussion that we
discussed, it was the use of this land and saying, wouldn't it be
wonderful if -- when we have a park, if we don't -- if we have several
acres of that park surrounded where we have -- where we have housing
that's affordable around it; we have a school, a school property, and we
take several acres and we create housing for those teachers and those
people working in the school. When we build an EMS or a fire station,
wouldn't it be nice to be able to have some housing on that same
property?
So one of the suggestions I think you're going to get from my
committee is that we begin to look at our acquisition of land and our
allocation of land resources with a priority for housing embedded in it.
You know, when you're buying a piece of ground for water retention
along a highway, if we buy an extra five acres, wouldn't it be nice to
have a piece of housing around that retention area?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Do we have to put the houses
up on stilts?
MR. HRUBY: Depending on whether we do the floodplain and
how much we're going to get rain in the next season, yeah.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So you're saying that five acres is not
too small?
April 25, 2017
Page 32
MR. HRUBY: No. Actually, we've had this discussion. We can
do anywhere from three acres up. Three acres is not -- I know the
10-acre limit is for the SAIL program. But a three- to five-acre plot,
for tax credit -- for instance, for tax credits, the number of units you're
going to get in tax credits, a three- to five-acre parcel is perfectly
adequate. We don't need 10, 15 acres. You could do several three- or
five-acre parcels nestled into a smaller tract of land. So, you know, we
shouldn't be limited by that 10 acres.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. Have you done the study yet
as to what categories are, sadly, not filled, and who then -- we read
about it all the time in the paper that they have to drive to Fort Myers.
You read about reporters, for instance, who have to live in Fort Myers.
You read about, especially, the Sheriff's Office, people that have to live
in other areas because they don't qualify for the low-income housing
here, which is your affordable housing that you're talking about.
Are we going to try and fill that gap? That's something I've been
banging the drum about for a long time. We're not filling that gap.
MR. HRUBY: That's a huge gap. That is a huge gap. And it's
not only your service providers and your first responders. It's your
young professionals.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right, exactly right.
MR. HRUBY: It's your young lawyers. It's your young
engineers. It's your young architects. It's your young medical
professionals who are just burdened with their college debt moving
into the area, and they can't even afford to rent an apartment if it's
available, so they're commuting.
If we want to retain our intellectual property, our youth, and we
want this community to have a diversity, an age diversity, we need to
be able to provide that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's what I was -- that's what I was
April 25, 2017
Page 33
referring to. But are you targeting that? Are you --
MR. HRUBY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- going to try and fill --
MR. HRUBY: That's going to be one of the focuses of how we --
we're looking at diversity of housing all the way from, you know, very
needy to seniors that are in need. So it's a diversity over a spectrum of
age, a spectrum of income, and housing typologies that we need to
produce. It's not just one or two segments.
As ULI said, housing affordability affects everyone in this
community.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I just would like to echo
that. You know, we've talked about housing affordability in our
community for a long time. There's not one magic sword that's going
to fix it all. And I think the suggestion that's being brought to us is a
really good step in the direction of what we need to do. We're not
going to be able to cure the housing affordability issue all in one swipe.
We're not going to be able to create one place that has that designation
to support the community and the needs that we have.
And the efforts that are ongoing, the continuing study of the ULI,
the definition of that population where we have -- where the issue has,
in fact, transpired, where employers, our County Manager, the
Superintendent of Schools, our Sheriff, our hospitals are having
difficulty in hiring people and then allowing -- or having a place for
them to live within our community.
I believe that Commissioner Taylor's recommendation here for
the moving of these properties over into the trust is the beginning of
that process for us to start to identify some of the things and add some
certainty along the lines of affordability as we go through this process.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Arthrex; they've been saying they
can't find housing for people.
April 25, 2017
Page 34
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Arthrex is -- I mean, we've got
an issue. There's no argument that there's not an issue within our
community.
And I have said this quite regularly, the folks that are working
here and not living here, a lot of that transpired in the last real estate
boom that we had and the excessive cost -- God bless you -- and the
excessive costs that were associated in construction at the time which
caused economic infeasibility and people to not live within our
community. What we don't want to have is the same conversation 10
years from now about that -- about a population that can no longer
afford to live here.
MR. HRUBY: One other element. And best practice across the
country is how public sector can use its assets, its influence, and its
policy to leverage that asset into greater investment by the private
sector. It becomes a public/private partnership. It's not the role of
government to provide this and do it, but what it is, is to use its
influences and its resources to leverage private investment to solve that
problem.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: In many different avenues. It's
--
MR. HRUBY: Multiple, multiple avenues.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's an opening up of a
discussion about innovative zoning criteria that we can implement in
place, incentivization for the redevelopment of the communities that
we already have. As Stephen talked about, siting housing within the
projects -- not projects, but within development that is coming forward
to have housing on site to actually house the work -- the workers that
are there.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Inclusionary zoning.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, not per that definition.
It's an incentivization process.
April 25, 2017
Page 35
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's not a dictatorial process.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Inclusionary.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's one of the issues I have
with inclusionary zoning is it oftentimes gets dictatorial. I'm looking
for incentivization.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Right. Well, on that note --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll second your --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: -- I'll segue into something else. And
just so that everyone knows, the -- and Commissioner Saunders can
probably verify this, but at this point the House has no money in the
budget for SAIL; the Senate does. They're going to make some
decisions in the next couple of weeks. But the interest -- there is a
contract on the Serus Point property which will require us to look at it
for rezoning. And we need to do this sooner than later because at this
point, I understand, either the developer is going to be using SAIL
money if it comes forward, or he'll be using housing tax credits.
There's another way which is more developer -- not my area of
knowledge except to say there are two ways, but there is a contract on
this property, and they will honor the workforce housing component of
that particular development.
So we need to move ahead to start rezoning it. And I understand
the developer has sent his request to Kim Grant. I would respectfully
request that we start looking at this at our next meeting and start the
process. And it was 108 units.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. How many are supposed to --
and what price category, or is it going to be inclusionary zoning type?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It will be inclusionary zoning, and at
this point, I guess, Ms. Grant will come forward with the details on it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And we'll remember the lesson we
learned with the last one that was just down the street from that, right?
April 25, 2017
Page 36
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Which was?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Down the street from that, same
thing. Well, we'll talk about that another time.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay, okay. But there -- right now it's,
for instance, zoned three stories above parking. They don't want --
they don't want parking underneath. They want parking at the same
level. So there's modifications to this document that must be in place
in order for them to present this for that process of housing tax or
SAIL. And SAIL money, by the way, now, apparently end of October
is when they will -- everyone will be getting their applications in. So
we do have some time.
MR. HRUBY: Anything else?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No.
MR. HRUBY: Any other questions?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's it.
MR. HRUBY: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Solis, yeah,
Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I would like to mention, in relation to
solving this very complex issue -- and I agree with everything that
everyone has already said -- that this is going to require a lot of
different efforts from a lot of different angles, I think, to make a
difference in this. And I would just like to urge staff to -- in looking at
the different items that the Board came back from the ULI report and
said we wanted staff to look at -- and it goes to what Commissioner
McDaniel was saying, I think this issue of allowing activity -- the
owners of the activity center properties to come back and add some
housing that would be affordable into those activity centers where
there's already transportation, there's already services there. I think
that's going to get a lot of traction in the community, at least from my
discussions on that.
April 25, 2017
Page 37
And I would really like to see that move forward, because I think
that is the kind of incentivization that we need to provide for the
landowners. I mean, if you've got a commercial PUD; it's built out.
You've got your rent revenue coming in. If you can, you know, open
that up and then create some more revenue from that by providing
affordable housing --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Housing that's affordable.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- I'm sorry, housing that's
affordable, then, you know, I think that's going to get some traction,
and I hope that that's on the forefront as well, because I think this is
certainly the first step. But that's another way, I think, to really bring
that forward.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Great. Wonderful.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: One last thing. I did have my
light on. You shut it off. That is -- am I allowed to speak?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. Not all of the
county-owned land is on the list. And I would like to make a
suggestion that we include all of the county-owned land onto the list
and allow the vetting processes to go through determining, based upon
what the Board has given as criterium locations, potential locations, to
be vetted through the public process, both the subcommittees, the
affordable committee as well, and just exclude or include, but have
every piece of property that we own on the list. Somebody picked this
list. It doesn't have everything that the county owns on it.
MR. HRUBY: I made the same comment, Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Really? Two good ideas right
at the same meeting.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So did I.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Is that too arduous of a task,
County Manager?
April 25, 2017
Page 38
MR. OCHS: No, not at all, sir. I'm assuming you don't want
Conservation Collier properties.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Why not? I'm joking. I'm
joking.
MR. OCHS: So we will try to be a bit selective based on --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Oh, yeah. Don't joke about
that. Sorry about that, Commissioner Saunders.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
MR. OCHS: So we'll vet this with the AHAC and your
stakeholders group --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Wonderful.
MR. OCHS: -- and get it back to the Board with some
recommendations as quickly as we can.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And update the list to include --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So, as always, I will ask for some kind
of time frame.
MR. OCHS: Well, 60 days?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Does that give you enough time, sir?
MR. HRUBY: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Before we break. Wonderful. All right.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Do you want a motion?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah. Would you like a motion? I
think that would be helpful.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's your --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I think it would be helpful to have a
motion so that we clarify the discussion.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You want to make the motion
since you brought it forward?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes. That -- I'd like to make a motion
that we ask staff to give to the stakeholders committee all the available
April 25, 2017
Page 39
sites in Collier County that we own for their vetting for housing that is
affordable and that that issue comes back to us within 60 days. You
notice I said "within." Certainly before we break.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
MR. MILLER: Madam Chair, I do have a public speaker for this
item.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Very good.
MR. MILLER: Peter Gaddy.
MR. GADDY: I'll waive, Madam Chair.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Thank you. All right.
There's a motion on the floor and a second. All those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. It carries. It's unanimous with
one absent vote.
MR. HRUBY: Commissioners, thank you for your support.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you. And then just as another
aside --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Now it's unanimous.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I'll accept that. It becomes very
unanimous.
I'd like to see, County Manager, if we could bring back -- Ms.
Grant, do you want to speak to this about what the developer --
potential developer of Cirrus Point has given you, and would you be
able to come back to us?
April 25, 2017
Page 40
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, there's a rezone process --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No, but I would think that we --
MR. OCHS: -- that's going to have to be followed.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: We would -- okay. So we would not
discuss it first? Then that's my --
MR. OCHS: I would recommend that you don't.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Oh, I got a dark look from our
County Attorney here. I'm sorry. I didn't understand that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Both of your bookends are --
no.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. So there's a process by which --
very good.
MR. OCHS: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much. But let me
assume that we'll start that process, sir.
MR. OCHS: Well, as soon as the applicant files, we'll start.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's great. Thank you very much.
Item #9A
ORDINANCE 2017-13: AMENDING CHAPTER 74 OF THE
COLLIER COUNTY CODE OF LAWS AND ORDINANCES
PROVIDING FOR THE INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE OF
THE IMPACT FEE STUDIES DATED OCTOBER 10, 2016,
ENTITLED, “COLLIER COUNTY EMERGENCY MEDICAL
SERVICES IMPACT FEE UPDATE STUDY”, “COLLIER
COUNTY LIBRARY FACILITIES AND ITEMS/EQUIPMENT
IMPACT FEE UPDATE STUDY”, “COLLIER COUNTY
GENERAL GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS IMPACT FEE UPDATE
STUDY, AND THE “COLLIER COUNTY LAW ENFORCEMENT
IMPACT FEE UPDATE STUDY”, AND THE IMPACT FEE
April 25, 2017
Page 41
STUDY DATED DECEMBER 21, 2016, ENTITLED WATER AND
WASTEWATER IMPACT FEE STUDY”; AMENDING THE
ASSOCIATED RATE SCHEDULES TO REFLECT THE REVISED
RATES SET FORTH IN THE STUDIES WITH AN EFFECTIVE
DATE OF MAY 1, 2017, FOR ALL RATE DECREASES AND A
DELAYED EFFECTIVE DATE OF JULY 24, 2017, FOR ALL
RATE INCREASES, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE 90-DAY
NOTICE REQUIREMENTS SET FORTH IN SECTION
163.31801(3)(D), FLORIDA STATUTES; AND PROVIDING FOR
REMOVAL OF THE SUNSET LANGUAGE FOR THE IMPACT
FEE PROGRAM FOR EXISTING COMMERCIAL
REDEVELOPMENT – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, that takes us to Item 9A, this is a
recommendation to approve an ordinance that updates a number of
your Collier County impact fees. And Ms. Amy Patterson will make
the presentation.
Commissioners, just to remind you, this was an item that was
previously presented to the Board. At the time it was presented
Commissioner Solis was not in attendance at that meeting, and the
Board asked that we defer a final decision till we could come back and
re-present the items with the commissioner here.
MS. PATTERSON: Good morning. Amy Patterson for the
record, Director of Capital Planning, Impact Fees, and Program
Management.
We've before you two items, one dealing with our impact fee
updates and then the second we'll get to next, which relates to the
indexing of four additional fees.
As County Manager Ochs indicated, this is the second reading of
this item. We were here before and made some presentations. I do
have our consultants here both for water and sewer and for the other
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impact fees. We have presentations ready if you'd like us to go
through those, or if you want to go immediately to questions, we can
go forward at your pleasure.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And I'll just say I appreciate the
commissioners bringing this back. I would like to see the presentation,
with everyone's indulgence. I know you've already been through it
before, but maybe at least an abbreviated version of it would be
helpful.
MS. PATTERSON: Sure. At your pleasure, we'll start with the
water and wastewater impact fees, and we have Mr. Rob Ori here from
PRMG. With that I'm going to turn it over to him.
MR. ORI: Thank you. For the record, my name is Robert Ori.
I'm the principal with Public Resources Management Group. And I'll
do an abbreviated presentation for you regarding the water and waste
water impact fees.
I'll just let you know that we did present the findings and the
studies before the Development Services Advisory Committee
subcommittee back in January 20th this year. And then that was
presented on March 1st, 2017, to the full committee, and they voted to
accept the study and the corresponding fees, as you know.
The purpose of the fees, and you'll probably hear this probably
several times today, is to probably have growth pay for growth, so to
speak. And Collier County, on the water and waste water system, has
been relying on the use of impact fees since 1998 as a financial
resource to fund infrastructure needs of the county and its utility
system. Again, it's responsible for growth paying for growth, and that
shifts the burden away from existing ratepayers to fund the
growth-related expenditures.
In addition, by having this financial resource, the county then can
apply its funds from existing ratepayers to, obviously, renewals,
replacements, capital improvements, whatnot. And if you look, the
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district today, or the water and sewer system, is a triple A rated utility,
one of the few in the state that has achieved that. And it's an indication
of the credit risk, management of the utility. It's very impressive what
you're doing. And the impact fees, as a pledge -- is a revenue pledge
toward the payment of expansion-related debt, so it all kind of links
together in terms of this financial picture for your utility system.
The method we utilize to develop the fees is called the system
buy-in method. We basically looked at the installed infrastructure
costs of your system today. We did consider your 10-year Capital
Improvement Program in developing the fee. But, really, the primary
focus was actually the installed costs, what's been incurred to date.
We also looked at what's called your level of service equivalent
residential connection, and that is 325 gallons per day for water, 225
gallons per day for sewer. That's consistent with your master planning
assumptions, your capacity planning assumptions, and continues with
the prior fees. It's very common level of service in the industry and in
South Florida as well.
To give you an idea of the fee recommendations, you can see in
this chart, the existing fees for water and sewer total about $5,115.
We're recommending a just slightly under 3 percent increase, about
$148 to 5,263. There is a slight shift: Water comes down a little bit;
sewer rises a little bit based on the installed infrastructure costs. But
that 3 percent, if you think about it, that's kind of equivalent to about
the rate of inflation published by Engineering News Record on
construction cost. So it kind of fits right in there, a very minor change,
I'd say. It's probably more of an update due to the fee.
In terms of comparability, although there's a lot of reasons why
fees are different, as you can see in this chart, the yellow and green is
the existing proposed fees. There's really no change in comparability.
It's very similar to high-growth counties with new infrastructure:
Sarasota County, Lee County, and whatnot. Also there's several other
April 25, 2017
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utilities on here that are looking at impact fees. Example,
Hillsborough County. They know their fees are low; they're looking at
them. Englewood water district's another one looking at fees. So it's
basically business almost as usual, so to speak.
What we would recommend to the Board is that you adopt the
proposed water/waste water fees as presented and as approved by the
DSAC committee. We find them to be reasonable, meet the criteria
established by case law and the Florida Impact Fee Act, and then I
would open up for questions or additional details if you'd like.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Thank you very much.
It's interesting you're the first to report, but there are going to be
more. Yesterday at the Tourist Development Council meeting, one of
the people on the TDC board said -- they said -- well, he said, you
know, you've got to start planning for the future, you know. If you
don't plan for the future, you won't have anything in place. And I then
explained, that's exactly what we're doing, and that's what this impact
fee stuff is all about. If we don't plan right now and start building our
infrastructure for the future, we're going to be caught short, and then it
will be very difficult and very high priced to catch up, so I'm glad -- I
just wanted to add to it.
Also -- let's see. Speaking of impact fees, just simply, if you want
to start a new business and, gosh, you're starting it on a shoestring,
right, and you can't afford an impact fee, you know, you just buy a
building that's already sitting there. They've already paid the impact
fees. You don't have to pay them again. So there are ways that you
can avoid them just by -- same with a house. You know, once they're
paid, they're paid. So those are two important factors that we have to
think about as well.
MR. ORI: That's correct.
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, would you like us to proceed with
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the rest of the staff presentation?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Solis, are you --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'd like to hear them all, then -- I
think I'll have some questions, but I'd like to hear the whole thing.
MR. ORI: Very good. Thank you.
MS. PATTERSON: Okay. We have Mr. Steve Tindale here
from Tindale Oliver, and he's going to take you through the remaining
impact fees, and I'm going to pull his presentation up here.
MR. TINDALE: Good morning. I'm Steve Tindale with Tindale,
Oliver & Associates. I do have Nilgun Camp, the Director of our
Public Finance and Facility Planning. And during the Q&A, she may
be answering most of the questions. I'll give you the big picture, more
of the strategic information.
I'm not sure which button I need to push here. Down?
I'm going to give you a very, very brief background why we have
the fees, some of the findings, and some of our conclusions.
The four we're bringing up to you is Emergency Medical
Services, government building, law enforcement, and libraries. I
believe you have, like, nine or 10. We basically update all the
variables that affect the fee and the rates. And I'd like to highlight, at
least for impact fees, the new state legislation moved the burden from
us being -- vetting this and being very careful with it. It used to be
public agencies could do kind of what they want to do, and the private
people had to prove that we were wrong, and now we have to prove
that we're right. So we do go through quite a bit of leaps in terms of
trying to meet the new state statute.
When we're doing impact fee studies, I'm the one that keeps
asking where are we headed, what does it look like, and does it make
sense. What I did here is showed you the 2005 time period where we
looked at information. If you look at that point looking backwards,
2010 was a crazy, silly time period. We had run up, and everything
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was crashing, and we were trying to estimate the future, and that whole
decade -- we had about a 10-year period; that decade's very difficult to
use for long-term planning.
We took those two time periods, just looked at the just value in
this county, and from those two time periods, you matched up. You
had the -- you were run up by the crash, and since that 2010 study, just
to justify the use, which is land values and building values, have gone
up 25 percent in this county.
So given that, when we started doing the update, I had a sense
that these fees we're doing, which are very building related, land
related, et cetera, were going to be fairly substantial just from looking
at those numbers and the changes that we've been through, and they
were pretty substantial.
And what we'd like to do is tell you our conclusions, and then I'll
briefly tell you how we got there. We have some fairly significant
conclusions.
The government buildings, law enforcement, libraries were in that
7 to 30 percent range, very reasonable; what I had kind of expected.
Emergency Medical Services for the residential, and I'll explain, that
was the only one that I thought was outside that -- an outlier, and we'll
talk to you exactly what we did; whether the change in the designation
of residential land uses that had the effect on that.
How we got there in terms of the fees: We have the fees to
maintain level of service. Also we have -- I think I've been working
with you for 27 years, and this is the best county in the world in terms
of quality of service and what you've done. And I always tell your
County Manager, I think you're first in income, about fifth in wages,
and I just drive down and look at the roads, and it's just been really a
pleasure working with the county that's growing what you've grown.
And you are a fast-growing county. Growth rates have a lot to do with
the impacts. It's not just growth. It's the rate of growth.
April 25, 2017
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So we calculate that cost. We look at -- it's very useful for
dealing with -- when you have potential development that's growing
very fast, needed during the high growth rate. You're permitting right
now, and check, you're ninth in the state in the rate of permitting.
In terms of absolute growth, you're in the top 15, in terms of the
growth itself. And just like everybody else, you've got limited funding
and things that some of the passed-down legislation from the state's
affecting you.
It's a one-time charge that covers the cost for capacity, and it's
basically to implement your Capital Improvement Program.
The fees, basically the demand for each different type of land use,
we have to, by law, give a credit. So if your tax revenues from capital
were high enough and you're generating enough revenue for growth to
pay out, the fee would be zero.
So this is the differential between the real -- rate of capital costs
versus the tax structure that's going to capital; not your overall tax
structure, but the part you have available after all your maintenance to
go to capital. And that fee, basically, is new growth minus new
revenues that new growth generates.
Our findings, we go through and we did the extensive part of this:
The inventory, the facility, the cost, which is usually one of the big
issues in trying to get to -- we usually use four or five sources to come
up with cost. We have statewide cost, we have local cost, we have bid
cost, we look at trends, we go through that quite heavily, and then your
projected revenue and the demand component.
And I'll remind you, the demand component we change for
residential, EMS. And you're going to see by splitting it from one use
to two or three uses, some of the uses vary quite a bit.
Government buildings; the demand -- what's happened in this
county is you are getting older, and I mention that to you all the time.
You are aging. You've really got a lot of interest in some diversity and
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changing that trend. It's an issue -- 40, 50 years in the future, but
you've done a nice job with your income and wages as you've aged.
So the person per household is trending downward, so the
demand for most of the residential fees, you'll see the person per house
going down. When we have a diverse fee, you have a little bit more
employment and some other things going on.
The cost per resident for the government buildings is up. We
knew that was going to go up. We see all the trends going up fairly
dramatically. So the net effect is about a 22 percent change in the fee
itself for government buildings.
What we did here is tried to give you some ideas in terms of the
fee itself, the current adopted fee and the changes. You can see for the
single-family home where your person per household has gone down a
little bit, it's 22 percent, and then you'll see more of the 30 percent
range for the nonresidential in terms of government buildings.
We also tried to highlight some examples of other counties. Our
calculated number is the 934, and you can see a range of anywhere
from -- and you've got to be careful with those ranges. Some of those
are only adopted at 20 percent. So if you take that 20 percent and
triple it, it's more like 6- or $700,000.
When we first got into government building fees, which were
pretty novel, maybe 10 or 15 years ago we did an analysis of all the
state to see if there was any -- yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Could you clarify what you just said?
You've got to be careful -- and I'm looking, obviously, at the Palm
Peach County number. What --
MR. TINDALE: Yes. They've adopted --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: What did you mean by they adopted
a 20 percent? I just wanted to --
MR. TINDALE: Look at the percent adopted, they have adopted
that at 27 percent of the calculated number.
April 25, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Oh, of the calculated number.
MR. TINDALE: Yes. So that's one thing we really need to be
careful. One is, it's five years old in terms of its age in terms of when
it was done, and when they adopted it, they decided to adopt it only at
27 percent of the rate.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Twenty percent of the rate that was
recommended?
MR. TINDALE: Right. Well, calculated.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Calculated. I mean -- right,
calculated.
MR. TINDALE: Yes. So each one of those you have to adjust
by those -- both the -- you have to look at the date they were adopted,
make sure they're not aged. And remember what I told you about
2010/2011 versus today and whether they were adopted at 100 percent
to get a real sense of the actual asset value they have per person in the
county and what the fee, you know, could or should be.
So that's the reason I brought that up. You have to multiply that
by at least three to get what it's really costing them in terms of growth.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: So in those counties, then there's
obviously some other revenue stream that they're using to cover some
of those costs?
MR. TINDALE: Or they're not covering the cost --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Or they're not covering at all?
MR. TINDALE: Yes. Some counties have much more
congested roads, and they don't have what you have. I mean, that's
what you trade off, the quality of the service versus the fee over time.
Law enforcement; again, the costs are up. The credit's down,
your future investment you're using for capital is down, and the
combination of those two change that fee about 30 percent. So this is
an effect of the cost going up and your capital revenue, your tax
revenue, being available is being reduced as you move forward, and
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the fee goes up.
The impact fee we calculated for the single-family home was 587,
your current's 449, and there's your 30 percent. And you see the
changes in the commercial demand.
These -- we circled some of the examples, low and high. There's
your 587, and you see a range of anywhere from the 436, which is 100
percent. That 477's really more like 550, and you see there's quite a
range between these counties, and you're pretty well within these range
(sic) in terms of the fees. These are some additional ones.
Library facilities; this one was much more stable than some of the
other ones in terms of the fees themself. This is only on residential
development. And I tell you the residential development's gone down
a little bit, so that has an effect; the number of people per house has
gone down, and it only charges for residential, so that has an effect to
moderate it.
The construction cost and the costs are up about 15 percent. Your
credit has actually gone up a little bit in terms of your investment, and
now you end up with that 7 percent, so this is one that's moderated. It's
a combination of the person per household going down, cost being
pretty moderate, and then you've got some more capital investment
here than in the historical. So those moderated that fee, and you don't
hit that 20, 25 percent range that we were expecting.
Again, these are some examples that we have. Your current fee,
we -- I think we did modify the retirement age-restricted home and
come up with the number of that, which dropped down dramatically,
and the rest of them are within that 7, 10 percent range.
These are the range of the fees, and you can see anywhere from --
again, you've got to be careful. It's -- that one is at 40 percent. There,
Sarasota County at 100 percent at 683, and you see quite a range of the
library fees.
Again, some of those haven't been updated for -- Monroe County
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hasn't updated theirs for 20 years, so that number is suspect. You have
to look at the date and the percentages to make sure you're doing
comparisons. We started adding that information because people say
-- but you do want to know what the actual number is for competitive
purposes, so we really need to show you the actual number and then
give you information about how I got there.
Now, this one's the one that's got the residential number that's
jumped on us, and I'll give you a specific reason why the single-family
residential one jumped above what we had expected. The demand,
what we did is, all your other fees, just about every one of them, have
single-family, multifamily, and multiple residential types. For
whatever reason, for many years the EMS had one rate for all uses.
And when you have quite a few people -- more people in a
single-family home than a multifamily home and other types of homes,
you have an average. When you jump and quit using that average and
you start stratifying it, some people are going to pay more and some
people are going to pay less. And at this point in time it was decided
to go ahead and make this match the rest of them.
So this is where the multifamily may drop and then single-family
would go up because there's a different number of persons per
household, and we adjusted that. So you see that the overall change
there is not that dramatic but for the single-family home it was, and
we'll show you that.
You see the non-single-family home, 17, 18 percent. That was
within expectations, but when we took the single-family home, we
started charging the full fee for single-family home and then
moderating the fee for multifamily and the rest of them, it changed
pretty dramatically.
Now, this is not a 4-or $5,000 fee. So what happens to you is
when you make that change, the percent change seems very dramatic,
but we're talking about making the proper adjustment, get those things
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aligned with everybody else for a difference of $50 per home, and it
was a decision, let's do it. Let's get the single-family home charged
properly; let's adjust this. The fees basically are in that 16 or 18
percent range, but adjustment between single-family and multifamily
adjusts that single-family up. But, again, the difference is about 50
bucks, and it's well worth getting it done right than to keep suffering
with having just the one single-family fee for this type.
These are some of the examples. And, again, you see some of
these are 15 years old, and you see a different range of the adoption
rates. But, again, you can see it ranging from anywhere $40 to the
$257 for the single-family home. So you're well within the range of
the different fees in the different counties.
You see the high range there and the low range.
So back to where we presented right at the beginning. We were
looking for quite a shift, because we've had quite a shift in the last
seven or eight years compared to 2005 and 2010. We got that shift.
These are not very large fees, so I think we decided it's nice to go
ahead and get these taken care of with the shift. So you have a change
from a total for all four of these from $1,600 for a single-family home
to 1999; 23 percent change was right around that range we had
expected for the -- for a major update with that one adjustment of
getting the multiple, single -- multiple residential unit types and the
EMS completed.
So that's the presentation, and she has all the answers about all the
details when you have the detailed questions.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Solis, do you want to
start, or do you want to wait? Commissioner Fiala wants to speak, and
so does Commissioner --
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, not to interrupt, but you do have
registered speakers for this item as well.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Then I think that -- we're in
April 25, 2017
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agreement --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah, let's hear the speakers.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Hear from the speakers.
MR. MILLER: Yes, ma'am. We actually have three registered
speakers, but everyone has ceded time to Janet Vasey. So Stan
Chrzanowski is here, and Dennis Vasey is here. So, Janet, you will
have nine minutes.
MS. VASEY: I won't take that long.
Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Janet Vasey, and
I'm a huge fan of impact fees. I served on the former Collier
Productivity Committee for 15 years and probably reviewed between
70 -- 60 and 70 impact fee studies during that period. I've reviewed
these studies and the indexing report, and I encourage you to approve
the recommended impact fee changes.
Impact fees have served us well. The county has been charging
them since I moved here 26 years ago and in the last 15 years generally
charged the maximum impact fees -- impact fee rates. This has
allowed our infrastructure to keep pace with new growth, even when
we were experiencing the most rapid growth in the United States.
Impact fees are how we've implemented the concept that growth
pays for growth, and it makes sense because there's a very clear causal
relationship; if our population stayed the same, we wouldn't need to
build any additional schools, roads, EMS stations, that kind of thing, or
more sewer and water capacity, but that's not the real world.
People, they move here, they build new homes and businesses
and create additional demand for government services, so the county
charges them impact fees to build the additional infrastructure to
provide these services. Very clear cause and effect.
The county commitment to this principle was strongly reaffirmed
in 2001. Between 1992 and 2000, there were no increases to impact
fees, and the road system became seriously deficient. In 2001 we had
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a referendum asking voters to approve a sales tax of one-half cent for
roads, but that failed by 78 percent. The very active debate at the time
centered on the need for growth to pay for growth through impact fees.
Since then, county commissioners have consistently supported this
principle, keeping impact fees current with scheduled studies and
indexing.
If you don't collect impact fees and keep them at the maximum
rate, where would you get the money to pay for the funding shortfalls
associated with new infrastructure? As I mentioned, voters already
gave a resounding no to an increase in sales tax for this purpose, and I
suspect any future referendum would probably have the same results.
So what about property taxes? Well, anyone who moved here in
the last 25 years has already paid their impact fees. They certainly
don't want to pay through increased impact fees for the infrastructure
needs created by the people moving here in the future. Almost any
other funding source would have the same problem; those who've
already paid their fair share for growth would be required to pay again
for someone else's share.
Some will tell you that our impact fees are too high, and this
constrains economic development and new construction, but that's
really not true, and here are some facts to consider: First, impact fees
in Collier County are high because we provide a high level of service
to our residents. We have wide roads, we have beautiful parks, schools
that aren't overcrowded, nearby libraries, sheriff and EMS stations
located throughout the county to achieve impressive response times to
emergencies. This is the service that your residents want, and to
duplicate -- and it cost money to duplicate these services for all the
new people that are moving here.
Second, even our highest impact fees in Collier County didn't
inhibit or slow new construction during the strong economy. Prior to
the recession, single-family homes in Collier County were paying over
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$28,000 in impact fees, and construction was booming. In fact, impact
fee collections during that period were over a hundred million dollars a
year.
Last year single-family homes have paid about 24,000. So by
comparison to the past, our impact fees now are a real bargain. And it
should be noted that there are more -- that the more affordable house in
the Estates pay about $19,000 since they don't hook up to water and
sewer.
Third, lowering impact fees does not spur new development. It
simply costs millions of dollars in lost revenue.
In FY12, coming out of the recession, Lee County reduced their
impact fees by 80 percent; they only charged 20 percent of the
allowable fees while Collier made no changes. Brett Baton of the
Daily News did an excellent analysis showing that both Collier and
Lee had the same rate of recovery over the next few years, but Lee
County lost $30 million in revenue because of the reduced impact fees.
And, Commissioner Solis, your question on the Palm Beach for
the government -- government buildings, Palm Beach was in that same
2012 time frame, and they may have made the same decision that Lee
County did to charge a reduced percentage because of the recession.
And so, as a result, they lost money, too.
So if impact fees -- if high impact fees don't constrain new
construction and lowering impact fees don't encourage it, then let's
collect all the impact fees that we're entitled to and build our
infrastructure as it's needed.
Clearly, impact fees add to the price of homes, contributing to the
housing affordability problem. I had to change that. However,
reducing impact fees across the board is not the solution. There are
other ways, some already in existence, to address this problem, and I
know with your workshop and the ULI report and your housing
affordability committee, that a variety of other solutions are being
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developed.
Within your impact fee program, you have a deferral program that
delays collection of impact fees until the original buyer sells the home.
There's about a million dollars in the program right now, but your
current ordinance would allow you to go up to a million -- a little over
a million four.
This added funding that is eventually repaid could help achieve
some of your housing affordability objectives while still protecting the
$70 million in current annual impact fee collections. You were just
under 70- last year.
I know staff is working on other options that could increase the
funding in the deferral program and expand -- like expanding the
income limits for participation and to make housing more affordable
for the target populations that you want to assist.
In conclusion, don't change a program that's doing exactly what
you need it to do. Collect the maximum legal impact fees that are
supported by the studies and indexing. In the last 10 years, Collier
County has collected nearly $500 million in impact fees -- that's a half
a billion dollars -- and it's enabled government services to keep pace
with growth. For that, I thank you, and I'm sure the taxpaying
residents of Collier County thank you, too. That's all I have.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Ms. Vasey, I want to thank you for
speaking to us. And it's refreshing, and it's accurate, and I really, really
want to thank you. That took a lot of preparation.
MS. VASEY: Thank you very much.
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, it's getting time for your court
reporter break. You wanted me to remind you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I think this is a great time. Thank you
very much, County Manager. I think we should break right now and
come back. I've been told I have to be very precise.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes.
April 25, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So we're going to come back at, sorry
guys, 10:45.
MR. MILLER: Madam Chair, Mr. Ochs, real quick, before we
mute the mikes, I have a speaker slip that got handed to me without an
item number on it. So Carol Pratt, if you're here, please come see me
in the break. Thank you, Madam Chair.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: 10:45.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: 10:45.
(A brief recess was had.)
MR. OCHS: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats.
Madam Chair?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Thank you very much.
So I believe we now are going to ask questions from the bench
here. I guess, podium, whatever. Commissioner Solis, you're not -- do
you want to wait to be at the end? Because I know you had some
questions, and --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I do have questions, but I'd like to
hear what everyone has to say since I wasn't here for the last
discussion. Was there a discussion last time that this was presented, or
was it just continued right off the bat? Unfortunately, I don't know.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I believe we continued it.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: There was -- there were two readings
with us, as I remember, is that correct, two readings with the impact
fees?
MR. OCHS: Yes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And so the first reading, and then the
second reading is when we continued it because you weren't here.
So, Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. I just wanted to say a couple
little things, and that is back in the '90s in Sarasota, they had decided to
April 25, 2017
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curb growth, so they built no new infrastructure. They felt that the best
way to curb growth is not build anymore roads and not put anymore
water systems in or anything. And, Leo, or even Commissioner
Saunders, you were here that time, working here, and I know Leo
would know, too.
And so they didn't do anything. What happened is they fell so far
behind. Then it cost them an arm and a leg to try and catch up. It was
really tough for them. And so this is our effort to keep on planning for
the future, to plan for growth, because we know it's coming, and you
can't stop it anyway, so you might as well plan for good growth in a --
in a great way, and this is how we're doing it. Then everybody sitting
in this audience, you don't have to pay for that growth. It's going to be
paid for by new growth. So that's one thing.
And one other thing I wanted to mention -- although Janet Vasey,
wherever -- oh, there you are. Great presentation. You hit everything
right on the head, so I'm probably just mimicking what you had said
when I say that, yes, we have high impact fees here in Collier County,
but we also have the lowest taxes in the area, and we have a high
growth rate. So we enjoy low taxes. It's a selling point when you're
buying your real estate, that the taxes are low and yet at the same time
people flock here because they love to live in the beauty of our
community.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, I'm not quite sure I want
to follow that, but I'm going to. I'm going to.
You know, I find it rather ironic that on a day where we're having
a discussion with regard to housing affordability that we have an
agenda item coming before us that's suggesting that we increase our
impact fees.
April 25, 2017
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I want to say out loud on the record that I love Janet Vasey. She
is a wonderful lady. She has served our community for many, many
years on the Productivity Committee, an infinite amount of knowledge,
and that is some of the -- that knowledge is what I'm looking to take
advantage of as we go forward as a community. I've expressed it on a
regular basis that we have such a wealth of experience within our
community.
I want to say out loud that I believe impact fees are a one-time
onerous tax and imposition statutorily regulated and put upon the first
person coming in.
I don't disagree with Ms. Vasey's comments with regard to
growth paying for growth. I believe that's a fair path for us to travel,
but I also think we need to have discussions. And you've heard me
regularly express this: With this growth comes expense, and with this
expense comes sustainability issues. And as we're building new roads,
as we're building new libraries, as we're building new parks, there are
upkeep and maintenance issues that are not being attended.
I mean, we as a board know, it's been put to us by staff, that we're
staring at in excess of 100 -- pushing 150 million of latent maintenance
and capital expenses that we have out there.
So having said all that, I am not in support of the increase in the
impact fees as is being suggested. I read the reports; I went through
the indexing. I would accept the processes for the indexing, but I'm
not in favor of the suggested increases.
I believe it's time for us to have a discussion adjusting how we're,
in fact, doing business as a community. I believe that there are
mechanisms and methodologies that can be put in place -- bless you, or
was that a cough?
MS. KINZEL: That was a cough, but sorry.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Did you notice she coughed
right in the middle of my thing.
April 25, 2017
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COMMISSIONER FIALA: It was planned.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, it was. I know. She does
it to me all the time.
I would suggest that we have a discussion. And, by the way, with
regard to adjusting the methodology, I have in my in box process that I
plan on bringing forward in May as an adjustment to how we're, in
fact, charging our impact fees and the -- not the calculation
methodology; trust that. Not the calculation methodology, just how
we're, as a community, doing business.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you, Madam Chair. I
was -- I'm prepared to make a motion to approve both of these agenda
items with the increases in fees.
There may be some alternative, and I would welcome the
opportunity, Commissioner McDaniel, to hear what those other options
are, but until we have other options in place and are ready to proceed
with other options, I think we need to continue on with what we have.
So we can always go back and amend our impact fees, repeal
them, do anything that's necessary if there's something that you have
that would be a valid replacement for that. But until then, I would
propose that we move forward with what we have here.
I agree with Janet Vasey that it's hard to argue that these impact
fees have been an impediment to growth.
On the issue of housing that is affordable or workforce housing,
when we get to dealing with those issues, we may very well want to
reduce impact fees for that type of appropriate housing, and we can do
that.
So I would -- I don't know if you're ready for a motion --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Then I'll make a motion to
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approve.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I thought he already made that
motion.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: We're on -- here we go.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It's 9A and 9B.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yep, 9A is the amendments to
Chapter 74 of the Collier County Code of Laws and Ordinances
providing for the incorporation by reference of the impact fee studies
dated October 10 -- October 10, 2016. So I'll make a motion to
approve those.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second that motion.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. There's a motion on the floor
and a second. All those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Lights, Madam Chair.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Oh, you came on at the last -- oh, two.
Oh, we have more discussion.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: More discussion.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Yes, Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: A couple of questions. Number one
-- well, first, I'll make a couple of statements.
First, I agree that we're having a discussion about what -- how to
make housing more affordable in Collier County. Increasing the
impact fees required seems inconsistent.
Now, I understand that we have waiver programs and different
programs for certain kinds of housing that would be considered
affordable, right? I'm trying not to fall into the --
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right. But a lot of what we're
talking about in that regard, I'm assuming, doesn't necessarily fit into
those waiver programs. I mean, those, as I understand them -- and
maybe somebody can explain that, but, you know, my concern is that
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while there may be waiver programs for low-income housing, you
know, things that are already defined. What we've been talking about
maybe is housing that's not even within those definitions.
Going back to what Commissioner McDaniel has said, we haven't
really defined yet, I don't think, what housing that's affordable is.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And the marketplace we're
looking to target there.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right. So my concern is that that
area of undefined housing that is affordable is going to be negatively
impacted by increasing the impact fees. I mean, that's my concern.
My first question is, given what Commissioner McDaniel just
suggested and looking at -- and I agree, I think at some point we have
to look at some other means, because we are going to get to the point,
if we just keep increasing the impact fees, where it will impact growth.
I think eventually that if you just keep adding them on it's going to.
The landowners will tell you that it has.
Is there a timing issue? Is this something that we need to decide
today when we have, number one, the definition of what constitutes
housing that's affordable still kind of up in the air and, two, you know,
maybe the waiver and deferral programs don't really apply to a part of
the housing market that we're trying to positively show some
leadership in? Does that make sense?
MS. PATTERSON: Yes. I can answer those questions for you.
A couple of things. Amy Patterson, again, for the record.
Let me tackle the deferral programs that we have in place and
what does that -- what's that going to look like going forward. We
were specifically tasked to look at the current impact fee deferral
program. We have one for single-family homes. We have a rental
program. There are a couple of other things under the current existing
impact fee ordinance, and they do have income limits. The program
currently is not being maximized to its full potential. There's a number
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of reasons why.
So as part of the ULI study and then the direction given by the
Board, that's going to be looked at not only for can the program be
changed, expanded, look at the income levels, pretty much anything's
on the table that could enhance -- potentially enhance that program.
With respect to timing of these impact fee studies, a couple of
things. All increases to impact fees statutorily require a 90-day notice.
So these fees, the increases, would not go into effect for 90 days;
however --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: From today?
MS. PATTERSON: From today -- however, the impact fee
studies also have a number of decreases, and those decreases would go
into effect immediately basically upon filing this ordinance with the
state. Any time you have decreases, we wouldn't want to drag this
process on.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right.
MS. PATTERSON: We'd really like to get those decreases in
place. We could -- one possibility would be to adopt these as
recommended. And should something change in the next 90 days --
Commissioner McDaniel may have some proposals or something like
that -- we obviously could adapt to that, and it's going to take a little bit
of time on the housing front.
So there's some -- there's options there. It's going to take some
time to work through any potential changes to the housing portion of
the impact fee program, but it is -- it is definitely part of that,
something that we're going to be working closely with housing to
identify those options.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And that really goes to my concern is
that if we're going to be revisiting how these deferral and waiver
programs work, what they apply to, it seems to me that that analysis
and those changes have to be taken into account when we're
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considering, you know, the impact fee question.
MS. PATTERSON: Well, the programs wouldn't address the
amount of fee -- the methodology is what it is. It establishes the
maximum legal limit of the fees that we can charge.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right.
MS. PATTERSON: What we would be looking at is are there
more categories of income or of types of housing that could be
included for potential deferrals. The amount would remain the same,
whatever you decide that amount is. It's just, if we could include more
people, or do we need to change the way we look at it.
So if it's a category of people that would be required to pay a
certain amount under these new conditions, they may be eligible for a
deferral where today they're not, and that is a separate and distinct
issue from how we establish the legal fees. It's more programmatic in
nature.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Understood. Okay.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. And that's -- you know,
Ms. Patterson brought up an interesting conundrum for me, and I'm
sure I'm not going to get the motion changer (sic) to adjust his motion.
But I certainly would vote for this -- to move the decreases forward,
but not the increases, and I'm -- and it's putting me in a -- it's a
conundrum for me, because I want to support -- I want to support the
community with the affected decreases that are available but not -- I'm
not happy with the increases at all.
I saw, what I perceive to be, from my real estate background, as --
and I'm going to use it as -- when I was reading the data in the
estimation of the potential cost per acre for future sites for EMS, they
used most recent Vanderbilt and Logan Boulevard site as a cost
analysis for the per-acre expense to buy land for new EMS stations;
$160,000 an acre, and that was the analogy that they -- or the
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comparison that they used to determine what the potential future
expenses were going to be for site acquisition. So I have questions
with some of those --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's too high or too low?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I think it's too high.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: The growth button is on. Since when
do landowners reduce their price of their land when people are moving
into Collier County? I don't think I ever remember that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: But you have to compare
apples to apples, Madam Chair. The next EMS site facility is going to
be in Eastern Collier County, and it's certainly not $160,000 an acre in
acquisition price, period.
MR. OCHS: Sir, excuse me. The next EMS station is planned
for Rattlesnake Hammock/951 area, and the one after that is at Collier
and Immokalee next to the new hospital. So there are future ones,
obviously, moving east as, obviously, the future trend, but --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Which is where, in fact, the
growth is going to be. And that was, just -- and I'm bringing that up.
I'm not arguing with the indexing processes. I'm just -- there was a lot
of subjectivity in the methodologies that were used, and it was a
question that I had as I was going forward, so -- problem one. Number
-- with having said that, I'm certainly in favor of the decreases but not
the increases.
I also want to have a discussion with regard to the deferrals and
the waivers. I believe that -- and we need to manage that very closely.
Anytime you offer up a deferral, anytime you offer up a waiver, you're
creating a deficit in your community. Those monies -- the reason we're
charging impact fees, the rationale for it, is it's a front-end expense to
support the growth and development, and when we create a deficit in
one segment of our community, we're then, at some stage of the game,
going to have to make the deficit up from another portion of the
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community. So the management of those waivers and deferrals is
imperative.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm not done yet. I had a -- are
you in a rush?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I'm sorry. No. I just --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. When we're talking
about the impact fees and the fact that everybody's paying them and
the fact that we have sectors of our population that haven't been able to
afford to live here, and the rationale that's continually given to me is,
well, they're being paid. The first person in pays them, and it's already
done.
It has -- it has an effect on the value of a person's home, a value
for the rents that need to be charged for commercial rates going
forward. If we have a -- and we're proposing that we increase from
25,000 up to 26,500 on a single-family home. And, yes, the folks in the
Estates pay a little less because they don't have water and sewer and
the like, but that is a -- that is a one-time tax on the front-end expense
of the purchase of a home.
So the rationale that everybody else is paying it is -- I'm having a
difficult time adding that into the overall affordability issues that we
have in our community. A large reason we have a large portion of the
sector of residents or workers that work here in our community live in
other municipalities is because of the inequalities or inequities that
were created in the impact fees that were charged in differentiation to
Lee County and Charlotte County and Hendry County where there are
no impact fees, so -- I'm done now.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you, Madam Chair.
Commissioner McDaniel, one thing I will guarantee you is that if
you have some other solutions to how we can solve that $150 million
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deficit that you were identifying, I'm all for it, and we'll support that
and would vote to repeal impact fees if there's something to replace it.
The problem is that we have roads we have to build and
infrastructure we have to build, and there really are only a couple ways
that I know of that we can finance that and pay for that. One is
through impact fees. The other, perhaps, is through ad valorem taxes.
Now, we're going to be doing our budgets, and, you know, if it's
the policy of the Board to substitute an ad valorem tax line item of a
small, you know, increment of increase in taxes for that purpose, then
that may take the place of impact fees. But until we make those types
of policy decisions, I think we need to keep moving forward with what
we have but recognize that if there's another alternative, I'm all for it.
So I want to proceed this morning with these two items, and we'll
be willing -- I guarantee you I'm willing to look at anything that comes
forward.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Absolutely. And if I may,
Madam Chair, because he addressed me.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes. But Commissioner Solis is
waiting.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I understand. He addressed me
specifically. And I just would like to say this: I'm not suggesting that
we don't charge impact fees. I'm not suggesting that growth not pay
for growth. I am suggesting that -- and, certainly, the methodology
that I'm going to bring -- hopefully I'll bring it forward next month. It's
going to take several years to work through the system. I want you to
full well understand that I'm not against impact fees -- well, I don't care
for impact fees, but I would like for us to adjust the way how we're
conducting business. And on that -- on that, as a sentiment, is where
I'm holding on my vote. I can count and see where we're at, so...
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: May I ask you a question about your
methodology? Is it methodology that another community has used so
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that we can start -- maybe you could send us a one-way
communication so we could start researching that in advance of your
presentation in May?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We will do that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Great. Thank you.
Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah. And very quickly. Again, I'm
fine with the decreases as they would be covered by the motion.
I think that at some point we have to start having a discussion, a
serious discussion, about alternative ways to dealing with the growth
issues and how we're going to fund the growth and maintain the level
of service, because that's really what we're talking about.
I think that, obviously, if we make the decision some other
counties make and don't provide the kind of revenues that we need to
cover the facilities that are required, then we end up maybe becoming,
you know, like some other communities that aren't quite as -- don't
have quite the high level of service that we have for our residents.
So, you know, I can't support the motion just because I think at
some point we have to -- we have to start having a conversation about
alternative ways to doing what we need to do.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Given the fact that we have already
been told by our colleague that he is going to bring something --
Commissioner McDaniel is bringing something forward in May, could
you support the motion understanding that we will address it again?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think -- I'd like to have that
discussion before we approve whatever it is that's going to be
approved.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And if I may, Madam Chair,
just as a -- the process that I'm bringing forward next month is going to
be a very slow, arduous process. It's not going to be a fix. It is a
suggestion on adjusting how we're doing business, but it is not going to
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-- it's not going cure the issues over time -- except for over time,
excuse me.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Given the fact that we do have at least
125 million at least at the AUIR, I think it is, or 132 million in debt
because we went through a recession and we didn't raise people's taxes
and there wasn't very much growth so we didn't collect so much
impact fees, I think it is imperative that we move forward with this
item in the motion on the floor, understanding that we are open, that
we will discuss it in the future, understanding that we are charging
what legally we can charge, and that it is very important for the future
of our community that we stay fiscally responsible as a county.
I don't know how much time folks have been here.
Commissioner Solis, I'm not sure -- I don't need you to answer that, but
I would -- I would encourage both Commissioner McDaniel and
Commissioner Solis to talk to Norm Feder about what we went
through, talk to folks in the staff about what we went through when
impact fees weren't raised, when we decided that the way we were
going to stop growth is, gosh, we're just not going to build it, and what
this county and what happened -- and, luckily, we had the talent that
came in here that put our ship on the right course. Some communities
don't have that opportunity.
And so, we've lived this before, and we know, unless there's
something else -- you know, unless there's something else on the
horizon -- and I'm very open to listening to what you have to say -- I
support the motion on the floor.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Call the question.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And I think I would like to call the
question.
So all those in favor of the motion on the floor say aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
April 25, 2017
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COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries 3-2.
Item #9B
ORDINANCE 2017-14: ACCEPTING THE “2017 INDEXING
CALCULATIONS FOR PARKS AND RECREATION, SCHOOLS,
CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES AND TRANSPORTATION
IMPACT FEES”, PREPARED BY TINDALE-OLIVER AND
ASSOCIATES, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE ADOPTED
INDEXING METHODOLOGY, AND TO APPROVE AN
ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 74 OF THE COLLIER
COUNTY CODE OF LAWS AND ORDINANCES, AMENDING
THE PARKS AND RECREATION IMPACT FEE RATE
SCHEDULE, THE SCHOOL IMPACT FEE RATE SCHEDULE,
THE CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES IMPACT FEE RATE
SCHEDULE, AND THE TRANSPORTATION IMPACT FEE
RATE SCHEDULE; PROVIDING FOR A DELAYED EFFECTIVE
DATE OF JULY 24, 2017 IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE 90-DAY
NOTICE REQUIREMENTS SET FORTH IN SECTION
163.31801(3)(D), FLORIDA STATUTES – ADOPTED
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And, Madam Chair, on 9B,
then I'll just go ahead and make the same motion approve the 2017
indexing calculations for parks and recreation, schools, correctional
facilities, and transportation impact fees.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll second that motion.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I thought you made -- you
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added them both -- you had them both in your original motion, I
thought.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. Well, I just want to
make sure, for the record, that they're both covered.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You did. You had them both in your
original motion. Yeah, it was my understanding, and I'm assuming,
County Attorney, that we can make one motion including two agenda
items in that motion.
MR. KLATZKOW: Is it everybody's understanding that you
voted on both items?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Is it everybody's understanding?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It was mine.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That's fine.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I didn't realize, but I would
certainly vote for it anyway, so...
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So in this case we have one that is
questioning it.
MR. KLATZKOW: Why don't you just vote on the second.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Just call the vote.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay, then. There's a motion on the
floor.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I seconded it.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. All those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries 3-2. Thank you very much.
April 25, 2017
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Stay close to us, Ms. Vasey.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We stay very close to her.
Item #10B
SETTING A MEETING DATE IN OCTOBER REGARDING FIRE
CONSOLIDATION - MOTION TO APPROVE A WORKSHOP ON
FIRE CONSOLIDATION AND EMS SERVICES IN OCTOBER –
APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, that takes us to item -- add-on Item
10B. This is an item added at the request of Commissioner Saunders
to discuss fire district consolidation.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Madam Chair, I don't want to
get into any kind of a lengthy conversation. What I'd like to ask the
Board to do -- and we can discuss it for a minute today and maybe talk
about it at the next meeting, if necessary. For the three of us that are
new on the Board, we may not be all up to speed completely in terms
of all efforts towards consolidation.
I think it would be very valuable for the fire commissioners and
the County Commission to have a joint meeting. I'd like to suggest
that we do that in October -- so that there's a long lead on it so
everybody can get prepared for it -- and have our staff and the fire
commissioners express where they think things need to go and so we
can kind of move that ball down the field a little bit if there's going to
be some additional consolidations.
There was a joint county commission/fire commissioners meeting
several years ago. I was actually representing the North Collier Fire
District at the time, and it was actually a very good meeting. It was at
the North Collier Park. County staff set that up very nicely for TV
viewing and recording. But a setting like that, I think, you know, for
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us to talk to them and for them to talk to us would be very valuable.
So my request is for us, for the Board to say let's go ahead and
move forward with a workshop in October to discuss the issues of fire
service in Collier County.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I love it.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I think it's about time we did
that, so that's a great suggestion.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Would you like to make a motion.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Great idea.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll make a motion to approve the
meeting in October.
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, again -- and I don't --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You don't need a motion.
MR. OCHS: No, no, no. I don't want to prolong this. I heard a
workshop to discuss fire consolidation, correct?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah. And there may be other
emergency services issues, but we can talk a little bit more about what
that agenda would be.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Well, that would be a different
workshop.
MR. OCHS: No. I just wanted to clarify. I didn't hear EMS, and
that's fine.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's what I heard. Fire consolidation.
MR. OCHS: I just want to make sure that we're limiting to fire.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Would there be any interest in
having that conversation as well? I mean --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Then we probably should plan for an
entire day, and it would really be two different meetings.
MR. OCHS: Well, the existing policy stated by the prior board
was that if and when there's a unified county fire district, then the
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Board would move to merge the countywide EMS system into that
unified fire district. If this board has a different position or wants to
discuss that as part of this workshop -- I just want to make sure that I'm
preparing for what the Board wants covered.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: You know, the issue of EMS,
I'd like to hear from the fire departments. That doesn't have to be part
of the formal agenda, but I'd like to hear from Collier County, from
staff as well as from the fire departments how are we going to best
provide fire service and EMS services into the distant future.
Now, the prior board -- I don't know what the policy of the prior
board was or what the impacts of that were, but I think it's important
for us to have a conversation. This would be a workshop where no
decisions could be made, but I think we need to start hearing what is
the trend in terms of these types of services and how best to go forward
with them. Not to suggest that there be any changes in the policy or
changes in the way things are done at this point but for us to get up to
speed on what those possibilities are.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have a question about that, and that
is when we talk about consolidation, and, you know, mainly we're
thinking of North Naples and Greater Naples, but what about the
cities? There's City of Naples -- City of Naples and Marco Island.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I think everyone should be
included. I just want to get up to speed on what these issues are.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And I thought that was the
best way to do it, in an informal workshop setting.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: One of the -- I'll wait till I'm
called on.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm done.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel.
April 25, 2017
Page 75
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. And I like the idea. I
think everybody -- I think we also ought to include EMS into the
discussion just to -- there is a perception amongst the general public
that government is government. We're all quite aware of the silo effect
of the individual elected boards and taxing authorities and districts of
the fire district and what our EMS, in fact, does, but the general public,
as a general rule, perceive even -- you know, I get, regularly, asked
questions about, well, can you help me with something that's going on
at my school.
And so I think the workshop is an excellent idea for us to open
this up and have a discussion as to how things are going.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So, County Manager, I'll leave it to
you, perhaps, in terms of structuring this in terms of understanding that
both EMS and fire consolidation would like to be discussed if we do it
on the same day, if we do it at the same meeting on the same day. It's
up to you, sir.
MR. OCHS: Sure. No, we'll make sure we include it all and
invite the municipalities as well.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Good. There's a motion on
the floor.
MR. OCHS: We'll get it scheduled. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Motion on the floor?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Second.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And a second by Commissioner
Saunders.
All those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
April 25, 2017
Page 76
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries unanimously. Okay.
Item #10C
SETTING A MEETING DATE IN JUNE WITH THE TDC - THE
WORKSHOP TO BE HELD DURING THE FIRST MEETING IN
JUNE – CONSENSUS
MR. OCHS: Item 10C was also placed on the agenda by
Commissioner Saunders, and that's a discussion about the possibility of
a joint meeting or workshop between the Board and the Tourist
Development Council.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And, Madam Chair, my
thinking in that is that we have the Tourist Development Council,
they're sending us messages via individuals that they don't think we
should spend tax -- or we shouldn't raise the fifth penny, for example,
we shouldn't, perhaps, spend any money on the amateur sports facility.
We're all talking about more money for beach renourishment and
maybe a little less money for advertising, and so I thought it would be
beneficial for our advisory board to hear from us on what our priorities
are and for us to hear from them as opposed to, you know, we'll read
some minutes or we'll see something in the newspaper, and this will
help, I believe, move things along in terms of our decision-making
process in terms of reallocating some of those funds.
They are our advisory board, and I think they need to know from
us in a setting -- in a workshop type setting what our desires are.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: So moved.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And -- thank you. And what
April 25, 2017
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I'd like to suggest is that we do this in June at one of our regularly
scheduled meetings or at the TDC meeting, have a set-aside of two
hours for this so we don't have to have a special trip here for them or
we don't have to have a special meeting for us.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Can we do it at the TDC
meeting?
MR. KLATZKOW: Sure. It won't be a TDC meeting. It would
be something else, but, yes.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: It would be a joint TDC
workshop meeting, but we would do it at the same time.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: County Manager, what is the schedule
for determining the funding for this? I don't quite remember for the
sports center.
MR. OCHS: Yes. The Board had asked that we ask the TDC to
move quickly so that when we come back to you in June with final
recommendations on the cost of the amateur sports complex that you
would have the TDC recommendation on an allocation already in
hand.
I think we can still accomplish that if -- I'm looking at the
schedule. If we --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I think May would work.
MR. OCHS: The challenge with having a joint meeting with the
TDC at their regular meeting is it's always the Monday proceeding the
board meeting which is normally your one-on-one days, and you have
a lot of appointments. I mean, if you're willing to modify your
one-on-one schedule so you could meet during the TDC meeting;
otherwise, I might suggest we just schedule it for a block of time
during the board meeting maybe the first meeting in June as an agenda
item.
Commissioner Saunders, it's up to you. You brought it forward.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah. I think that would
April 25, 2017
Page 78
work, or our last meeting in May.
MR. OCHS: Yes, even the last meeting in May.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That might be --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That might even be better. We
could have it advertised as a -- we obviously have our regular County
Commission meeting, but we could also advertise a specific time for a
workshop with the Tourist Development Council --
MR. OCHS: Excellent, yes.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- and set that at whatever time
--
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I wouldn't be able to make that May
meeting.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: What are you going to be
doing?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Is that when you're having
your --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I won't even be able to do it
telephonically, that's the problem. But, I mean, if that's --
understanding that -- I can't even listen to it that day, so -- I'm having
my surgery.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah, no. I understand. I'd
forgotten about it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. And that's the only problem I
would have.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Could you do it the first
meeting in June, or is that going to be too soon?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, I can do anything telephonically
the first meeting in June. I might -- in fact, if it's during the TDC
meeting, I plan on being back here and kick butt.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That would be --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Literally.
April 25, 2017
Page 79
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, I'll behave myself.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: But that will be the end of June, not the
beginning of June.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, that is the end of June.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, I think that would be
putting it off a little bit. Could you do it the first -- our first meeting in
June, which is --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Why don't you shoot for that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I will be participating in that
meeting, first meeting in June.
MR. OCHS: First meeting in June.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah.
MR. OCHS: Okay. I think we'll probably be back with the
amateur sports complex item at that same meeting, so the timing's
good.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Oh, that would be worthwhile.
MR. OCHS: Right. Okay.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Interesting.
MR. OCHS: Sounds like a plan.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Good.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Do we need to have a -- do you
need to have a vote on this?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Would you like to have a motion on
this just for clarification?
MR. OCHS: I don't need one, Commissioners, unless the County
Attorney thinks you need one.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
MR. OCHS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We voted on the other one.
April 25, 2017
Page 80
Item #11A
AWARD BID NO. 17-7041 TO THOMAS MARINE
CONSTRUCTION, INC., FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF
HALDEMAN CREEK WEIR REPLACEMENT PROJECT, IN THE
AMOUNT OF $1,637,185, PROJECT NO. 60103, AND THE
CHAIRMAN TO EXECUTE THE CONTRACT – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Okay. That takes us to Item 11A on this morning's
agenda. This is a recommendation to award a low bid to Thomas
Marine Construction, Incorporated, for the construction of the
Haldeman Creek weir replacement in the amount of $1,637,185. As I
mentioned, Commissioners, this is a competitive sealed bid. This was
a recommendation to award to the lowest responsive bidder. Mr. Kurtz
is available to make a presentation or answer questions or stand there
and receive his motion.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think he's made a fine presentation,
so I'll just make a motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Do we have any speakers, Troy, on
this?
MR. MILLER: No, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. So there's a motion on the floor
and a second. All those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
(No response.)
April 25, 2017
Page 81
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries unanimously. Thank you.
MR. OCHS: Thank you. Thank you, Jerry.
Item #11B
AWARD BID NUMBER 17-7066, “GOODLAND DRIVE WATER
MAIN REPLACEMENT,” PROJECT NUMBER 71076, TO
QUALITY ENTERPRISES USA, INC., IN THE AMOUNT OF
$1,093,186.50 AND AUTHORIZE THE NECESSARY BUDGET
AMENDMENT – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Item 11B is a recommendation to award a contract
for the Goodland Drive water main replacement project to Quality
Enterprises USA in the amount of $1,093,186.50. Again, this is an
award of a sealed competitive bid. Recommendation is to award to the
lowest responsive bidder. Mr. Chmelik's available to make a
presentation or respond to questions.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: This is a much needed, much needed
replacement, and they're waiting anxiously in Goodland for it to begin,
so I would like to make a motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Motion on the floor and a second. Any
discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
April 25, 2017
Page 82
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries unanimously. Thank you very
much.
MR. OCHS: Thank you, Commissioners.
Item #11C
REVIEW THE PROPERTY ASSESSED CLEAN ENERGY (PACE)
PROGRAM AND DIRECT THE COUNTY MANAGER TO
DEVELOP A RESOLUTION FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION
THAT ADOPTS A THIRD PARTY ADMINISTERED PACE
PROGRAM FOR RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL
PROPERTIES OR TERMINATE THE PROCESS – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Item 11C was an item that was continued from
your April 11th, 2017, BCC meeting. This is a recommendation to
review the Property Assessed Clean Energy, PACE, program and
direct the County Manager to develop a resolution for further
consideration that adopts a third party administered program for both
residential and commercial properties.
Mr. James French, your Deputy Department Head, Interim
Department Head of Growth Management, will present.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Madam Chair, just real quickly
before staff starts, at the last time that this was considered, I was doing
some legal work for a PACE provider, Ygrene, and I did not
participate because of the conflict, or the perceived conflict.
I made the decision that this program, I believe, is very important
for Collier County. It's all over the state. It's in Charlotte County. Lee
County's taking a look at it. And that will all be explained.
I terminated my financial relationship with the PACE provider,
Ygrene, to eliminate the conflict, and I've got an opinion from the
April 25, 2017
Page 83
County Attorney that as long as I don't have a financial conflict or the
appearance of a conflict, I can participate and vote. So my intention
today is to participate and vote, again, because I think this is a program
that's very important for the county. And I'll explain more of that as we
get into it.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: County Attorney?
MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah. I called State Commission on Ethics,
put the question to them, and they said that should the relationship be
terminated or the client be fired, then the commissioner would be free
to vote.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Thank you very much.
MR. OCHS: Mr. French.
MR. FRENCH: Good morning; still morning. Jamie French, for
the record.
Commissioners, I have with me today Geno Santabarbara,
Principal Planner. Geno and I -- with the Growth Management
Department. Geno and I have been working with the PACE providers
for the last two years. If you recall at the last meeting, this is a -- we're
revisiting the original item that was at your -- at a November Board of
County Commissioners' meeting. And, with that said, I'd like to turn it
over to Geno to walk you through his presentation, and we're here to
answer any questions.
Feel free at any time during this presentation to stop us and ask us
questions, please.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
MR. SANTABARBARA: Thanks, Jamie.
Good morning, Commissioners. Geno Santabarbara, Principal
Planner, for the record.
So today we're going to go back and provide the Board with a
presentation that we gave back in November of 2016 just to give an
April 25, 2017
Page 84
overview of the program and, like Jamie mentioned, feel free to
interrupt me at any time, and we can probably drill into any questions
or concerns that you might have as we go through this PowerPoint.
But it's just to give you a general idea of what the program is and kind
of what it entails.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Did we not do this at our last meeting?
Or help me with this.
MR. OCHS: No, ma'am. The last meeting we were actually
asking you to adopt the resolution and implement the program. There
was some discussion about the -- among the new board members that
they weren't quite sure what this program actually entailed. So the
direction from the Board was, let's come back and do that orientation,
that overview, like we did back in November of 2016. Unfortunately,
the new members had not joined the Board until December. So we're
going to give that orientation.
And then, if the Board wants us to proceed with the program, we
can come back at the subsequent meeting with the action item and the
resolution.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Very good. Thank you.
MR. SANTABARBARA: All right. So very basic overview.
Basically, what is PACE? PACE represents or stands for Property
Assessed Clean Energy. And back in 2010, the State of Florida passed
its PACE enabling statute, Florida Statute 163.02, which promotes the
three listed -- categories listed here: Energy efficiency and
conservation; renewable energy; and wind resistance and hardening
measures.
So what the PACE program basically does is provides upfront
financing for commercial and residential property owners to be able to
complete projects that fit within these categories and pay for the
upfront costs of these projects.
The program is a voluntary program where the property owners
April 25, 2017
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must participate or want to participate in the program and, ultimately,
there is a repayment process that's unique to the program that allows
the property owners to repay that upfront cost back to the program
through a non-ad valorem tax assessment put on the property tax bills,
and that's what Mr. Ray was mentioning and gave input on at the last
meeting.
So, again, the qualifying improvements that fit within the
categories listed, I just listed a few here and just wanted to give you a
couple examples of what they would entail. For energy efficiency and
conservation, you have, like, HVAC systems, windows and door
replacements, which is a majority of the -- based on our research is the
majority of the projects that have been completed mostly on the east
side of Florida, mostly Miami-Dade, to be specific.
And we've been working with Miami-Dade County as well as
Sarasota and other jurisdictions to see what they've done to implement
their program, and they've been great partners through all of this so far.
Renewable energy: Solar panels are the main source of projects
that fit this category, and then of your wind resistance and hardening
measures, which include storm shutters and gable-end bracing.
So some of the key components within the program, I just listed
the three main partners; they would have to be a part of the program.
So for governmental partners, you would have to have the Tax
Collector and a Property Appraiser agreement that gets completed if
this board wanted to go forward. The providers would also have to
establish an agreement with both the Tax Collector's Office as well as
the Property Appraiser's Office.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Just one second, sir.
MR. SANTABARBARA: Sure, sure.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I just want to make a point of
clarification. I have a concern about the brevity of the presentation,
because there's a lot more to the PACE program that is a benefit to our
April 25, 2017
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community than just those that are, in fact, being -- that are being
discussed here. And as a point of clarification, I'm the one that made
the motion two weeks ago for -- continuing this item and bringing it
back.
It wasn't necessarily that I didn't understand the program or hadn't
reviewed the information, and I've certainly read this presentation and
then met with several of our staff members and PACE providers and
the like. But I have a concern when we put up things like this, that this
becomes all that the -- all that is, in fact, offered and taken care of.
And I wasn't looking for a -- when I made the motion, I had -- I
expressed some specific concerns about the liability aspect, the
obligation of our Tax Collector, the lack of subordination that comes
with this indebtedness and how that, in fact, transpires.
I've gotten my answers to those questions. So, I mean, it's at the
pleasure of the Board, of course, if we want to continue on, but this is
all a matter of public record, and I'm satisfied with -- having the
extension of time that we were offered -- and I appreciate that
opportunity being afforded to me to allow me to clarify some of my
questions.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So the issue would be, do we want to
hear this presentation for -- well, I don't think Commissioner Saunders
needs it but, Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I don't. I've had an opportunity to go
through all the materials, and I understand it fairly well.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Please don't take that personally.
MR. OCHS: No, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No, it's not personal.
MR. SANTABARBARA: No.
MR. OCHS: You have eleven registered speakers, so...
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes, that's what I was going to say. I
have a feeling that the speakers are going to be able to bring more light
April 25, 2017
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to the subject. Not that the staff wasn't bringing light to the subject,
but it was an overview. Thank you very much.
MR. SANTABARBARA: No problem, no problem.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think there will be questions,
though, for staff, so just stick around.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes, absolutely, when we hear from the
speakers. All right. Let's begin.
MR. MILLER: Yes. Madam Chair, your first speaker is Jay
Neal. Now, he's been ceded additional time by CJ DeSantis who is
here, and Jeff Jones. He is here. So Mr. Neal will have a total of nine
minutes. And Mr. Neal will be followed by Terry Stark.
MR. NEAL: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioners and
Madam Chair. And thanks for being so gracious to meet with us
Friday when the world was on fire. We prayed for you over the
weekend, and I saw you got some rain, so that was a good thing.
The presentation that I put together really wasn't designed to do
anything more than address some concerns that were made in the
previous two board meetings and also in the Naples Daily News.
Is there a wand I need to wave to get the --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: The presentation? Mr. Miller, this is the
gentleman who has the presentation.
MR. NEAL: Sorry about that.
MR. FRENCH: Why don't you step over here, Jay.
MR. NEAL: Oh, thank you.
The first point -- the first point is, you know, what is PACE? And
I just want to make two points. It is voluntary to the property owner.
The structure is very similar to a CDD, but it's an individual property
owner that decides whether they want to participate in the program.
Another thing I think is important is we're not talking about
remodeling projects or granite counters or fixing up a pool. We're
talking about improvements that the legislature has put in the statute
April 25, 2017
Page 88
that are a compelling state interest, and the staff's already reviewed
those, so I won't get into them. But I just want to point out that these --
it's not just anything that you can use this program for.
There was some mention of the progress that's made in Florida.
The four largest Florida counties have subscribed or joined PACE
programs; been not unanimous but pretty widespread support. I think
the aggregate vote for the top four counties was 33-1. Charlotte
County had it on their consent agenda sometime back. Pasco was 5-0.
So I'm just pointing out that it's had some pretty solid support and it's
now in 52 percent -- 52 percent of the state of Florida has access to the
program.
We've also seen virtually no problems. We've had close to
10,000 PACE projects close and no regulatory complaints that we
know of because -- the reason for that is that the programs have very
robust mechanisms for making sure that everybody's happy,
particularly the property owner.
And I'd like to point out that about 80 percent of the PACE
projects so far have been wind mitigation. They've been windows,
roofs, and things that help a home be resilient when we get a tropical
storm or hurricane.
Also, three things that are consumer protections. One is the
legislation requires that if there is a mortgage on the house, that that
lender be given a 30-day notice so that they can adjust the escrow
account for the additional tax outlay. It's typically at least around
1,800 to 2,000 a year.
Second, the providers -- even though these are set up by
contractors, the providers do a phone call in which they go down
through every detail, every fee, total cost, everything else, to make sure
that the homeowner knows exactly what they're getting into. And in
some cases, after they hear all that, they decide to go another direction.
And, lastly, the contractors only get paid after there's an
April 25, 2017
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inspection and the property owner signs off that they're happy. So
there are a lot of protections built in for the homeowner.
There is additional cost, and this is something that has to be
repaid, but I think it's important to recognize that there's -- with every
cost there's a benefit. And any PACE improvement has to do one of
two things or both. It has to reduce your energy expenses, or it reduces
your property insurance premiums with the state-mandated discounts
that we have here in Florida for hurricane improvements.
We see payback periods. There's a community -- a senior
community with the old jalousie windows with a bad roof in Broward
County that had a payback period of a year and a couple weeks. We
look at the average payback period as being about five years.
There are thousands and thousands of households that if
somebody goes into the roof and bangs another nail into the roof, the
wall connection, you can have a significant discount on your insurance
because you get upgraded from toes (sic) to single wraps. So there's a
lot of benefits that go along with the additional expense.
I think that the -- none of the programs now will underwrite the
additional property value, but I think there's local realtors here that will
tell you that if you put in new windows, it's going to increase the value
of your house. That's not allowed to be included in the underwriting,
so that's added to the property value.
When you apply for the PACE assessment, you've got to have the
equity existing without the benefit of that additional and later added
value.
I think last it's very important to understand that there are multiple
PACE providers. That's good. That's good because it takes the cost
and the fees, and that robust competition is good for homeowners.
And I think there are four providers here today and, believe me, I think
they are up to the competition.
Benefits to the county: Again, compelling state interest. For
April 25, 2017
Page 90
every dollar you spend on mitigation, you save 4 to $7. And FEMA
says 4. There are private studies, the Ivy League, that say 7. We put
some numbers together in those second two bullet points based on 240
commercial projects and 560 residential projects. There's a document
that's prepared by the Livermore Labs, U.S. Department of Energy,
and other energy organizations that say based on your -- you know,
your fees and your millage rate, that that -- that number of projects will
create $456,000 in additional revenue. Maybe you can use that to
reduce impact fees.
It also would -- creates jobs; 554 new jobs in construction, but
there are indirect jobs that are also created because we're not spending
money on energy or sending it offshore to reinsurance. We're spending
it here on segments of the economy that create a lot more jobs.
Any, again, it's voluntary. And after you've been through the last
weekend, I would submit that post community viability, the ability for
people to come back home, for businesses to open, for there to be
people to shop at the business that's open, that's important. And the
more you can make homes and businesses resistent to wind risk, the
more you can ensure that your community is back on its feet as quick
as possible.
I wanted to address the role of government in this, because that
was a question that came up. And my apologies for this presentation
kind of being all over the place. But the county has no direct cost nor
liability in this program. The Tax Collector has a ministerial
responsibility that he's reimbursed up to 2 percent of the payment for,
okay. It's up to 2 percent.
Charlotte County does a flat $5. Broward County does 11 basis
points. Some of the counties do 2 percent. If you're talking about
larger commercial deals, that can tend to not make PACE as attractive.
But just to point out that that's the case. And the PACE assessment
cannot be accelerated. So what happens is when your Tax Collector
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Page 91
talked about the selling of the tax certificate, what actually happens if
you have a mortgage is that, similar to the way mortgage holders
handle force place, they just pay for insurance if the homeowner
doesn't pay their insurance. If the homeowner doesn't pay their taxes,
it's enough money that the mortgage holder has control of that process.
They'll pay the taxes for that given year given that it can't accelerate
and add it to escrow or to the end of the -- in the end of the loan.
So as contracts in California, which has judicial foreclosure, we
have statutory foreclosure. So there's a lot of protections if people are
unable to pay at a later date, so...
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Statutory foreclosure for PACE
payment?
MR. NEAL: Yes, the PACE portion. Exactly the same way the
other non-ad valorem taxes are handled.
I also want to talk about the perception that this is for people who
can't qualify, okay. And I'm going to do it very quickly, because I'm
running out of time. But we've got rates as low as 5.99 fixed, and
HELOCs -- I just put up a couple charts here to show. We're at low
interest -- record low interest rates, historically low interest rates. So if
you look at a 10-, 20-, 25-, 30-year assessment and you want to pick a
5.99 percent fixed, you're getting rid of all that interest rate for the
future, where if you're at a four-and-a-half percent HELOC or home
equity loan, that may very well adjust up.
So I'm out of time. I didn't think I'd take all the time, but I
appreciate the opportunity to come before you. Hopefully --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: My light was on from before.
MR. NEAL: -- we can move this forward. Any questions or --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Do we have any questions for the
speaker from here?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
April 25, 2017
Page 92
MR. NEAL: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Terry Stark. He'll be
followed by Devesh Nirmul.
MR. STARK: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record,
Terry Stark. I work for Ygrene Energy Fund. All of these speakers,
I'm sure, are going to come up and tell you how Ygrene -- listen to me
-- how great PACE is. I just want to address the things that came up at
the last meeting, the questions that came up. And the very first
question that came up was, okay, this is such a great program, how
come I'm reading in the paper that Senator Rubio wants a complete
review?
Well, as we know, banks, credit card companies, credit unions, all
of those financial institutions are under some sort of regulatory agency;
state or federal, somebody's looking out for them.
It's always been my opinion that as PACE grew up and became
more and more a financing mechanism, sooner or later somebody was
going to step up and say, we want to have some oversight on PACE
providers as well. We're okay with that. We understand that. It makes
complete sense to us.
The other thing that I like about that in particular is there's 37
states, roughly, that have already approved PACE. I moved down here
from Missouri last year. I started the program in St. Louis. What we
do in Florida is so different from St. Louis, you wouldn't believe it, and
it's all about the fact that in Florida we concentrate on consumer
protection. We didn't do any of that in St. Louis.
So the fact that they put it under an agency, maybe we'd get more
regulatory normalcy, if that's even a phrase, across -- across all the
states would be beneficial for PACE, quite frankly, and beneficial for
the consumer.
One of the other questions that came was about, well, what if
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somebody does this and takes out PACE finance and then loses their
job. Well, we saw Mr. Ray when he was up here speaking. We saw
Jay just now reference the fact that we're going to do tax certificates
for three years. It gives that person three years to get back on their
feet.
Well, if you compare that to what happens if they put that money
on a credit card, what happens if they do that with a bank, they may
not get three years to recover before something happens. And
certainly in the meantime, since those are credit-based items, it's going
to be hurting their credit. So from that perspective, they're better off
with us.
But then when you talk about the underwriting process -- and one
of the best questions was around an individual who's on a fixed income
but she has -- her mortgage is paid off, so she has all this equity in the
house. Well, what about her? What about that senior citizen?
As Jay mentioned, we make a phone call to each senior citizen,
but we don't make just one. We make up to four, and we do that with
different people who are going to repeatedly go through the process.
Do you understand what you're doing, and can you really afford to do
it? And try and give them the opportunity to really assess, is this a
good idea.
So I see my time is up. I appreciate your time. I hope you
support this as we move forward. Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Devesh Nirmul. He'll be
followed by Reed Wilson.
MR. NIRMUL: Good morning, Commissioners and staff. Thank
you for your careful consideration of this program and staff as well for
a lot of their due diligence that they provided.
I'm with Renew Financial. My name's Devesh Nirmul. We are
one of the four PACE providers associated with one of the authorities
here in Florida that is able to implement PACE.
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One thing I'd like to focus on, I think, that may not be completely
highlighted is that what we sees as the market transformation were
these consumer protections. What we are able to do when you
compare, as mentioned before, HELOCs and credit cards, then you
have PACE, the contractor management, the contractor vetting,
training, qualifying process, the permits requirements, the product
performance requirements. Essentially, we're transforming a
marketplace that I think if you look at what Angie's List or Home
Advisor's trying to do, we're taking it to another level, and I think that
in itself is a great value.
So the public purpose is -- going back to the Florida state statute,
I think the public purpose, initially, was to look at how do we capture
both public benefit and private benefit through a mechanism like this.
But there's additional benefits coming out of this through the consumer
protections, the contractor engagement that I think will have an impact
beyond just, you know, the program itself.
So just to quickly review some of those, I mentioned the product
performance requirements, contractor requirements, fair pricing. We
have data we look at. We can make sure that pricing is within a
reasonable range for the products and services, permit requirements,
which are definitely helpful.
I know that reinforces what is already a strong contracting culture
here in Southwest Florida, which thank you for pointing that out, Mr.
French, the last time we spoke and, of course, the funding's only
provided once the homeowner has signed off when satisfied with the
project, and there's dispute resolution that follows.
I think most of the providers, I've shared with you, the
comparison chart with the other financing mechanisms, and the senior
protections or the protected class protections that come with the
call-outs.
So just wanted to emphasize those. And I think, you know, it was
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mentioned earlier about the importance of maintaining existing
infrastructure. I've got a background -- I've worked in public sector and
county/city governments as well as commercial and residential real
estate, property management, and I'm really passionate about
operations and maintenance. And I think all the housing stuff we have
in Florida deserves a chance to be continually upgraded to perform
better, you know, to meet the codes we have, and I think PACE can
really add value there, especially when utility level incentives are not
where they used to be.
So thank you for your time, and we hope you consider supporting
this.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Reed Wilson, and he'll be
followed by Mike Antheil.
MR. WILSON: Edward Hall, who is with me here today, is
going to cede his time.
MR. MILLER: I'm sorry. Edward Hall, are you here, sir? Okay.
So Mr. Wilson will have six minutes of time.
MR. WILLIAMS: Good morning, County Commissioners.
Thank you for allowing me to speak this morning.
My name is Reed Wilson. I'm the owner of the FL Green Team.
And I've been in the energy conservation and solar energy business in
Southwest Florida for over 35 years. And we do a substantial amount
of business in Lee County, mostly in air-conditioning. We're licensed
air-conditioning contractors. I'm also a state-certified solar contractor
and a state-certified energy rater.
Our business model is, we're an energy conservation company,
and most of our business and most energy conservation is done
through air-conditioning.
And I just want to kind of paint a picture, if I may, of who would
really benefit from this. And let's -- I see this all the time. You know,
I have a family of five people, and their air conditioner, which is 20
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years old, and they've got 20-year-old ductwork in their house that was
built in the 1980s, the compressor goes out on their air conditioner.
That's a $2,000 fix on a 20-year-old air conditioner. If they put that on
a credit card at a minimum payment of 2 percent of that a month,
they're paying out $40 a month just to have air-conditioning over and
above what they're paying in energy cost. And if they pay minimum
amount, it's going to take them 10 years to pay that off, and they're out
of pocket $480 a year.
The other side of that is that we can apply for financing for them.
We use Wells Fargo Bank. You know, credit's really tight. It's
amazing how tough these credit agencies are on people.
But let's say that family of five gets a credit line for $5,000; I can
put in a new air conditioner for them. Again, their minimum monthly
payment is 2 percent, so that's a hundred dollars a month. If we factor
in their energy savings from putting a more efficient air conditioner in,
say that's $50 a month, there's still $50 a month out of pocket, or $600
a year, but they've got a new air conditioner with a full 10-year
warranty.
Under a PACE program, we could come in, do an manager audit
on their home, and provide a new air conditioner, potentially upgrade
the ductwork and the filtration in the home, add some insulation and,
for a family of five, put a solar water heater in. That's about a $15,000
contract right there.
And with that, in theory, you know, their cost on that $15,000
financed through PACE would be about $150 a month, and when you
add the energy savings with all the items that I just talked about, the
solar water heater, adding some insulation and high efficiency
air-conditioning, it breaks down to about that amount of money.
So under that scenario, they're basically breaking even, but
they've got a brand new water heater with a 10-year warranty on it,
they have a brand new air conditioner with a 10-year warranty. So the
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benefit to them is obvious in the -- you know, their -- no money out of
their pocket, they've got a cleaner environment in their home because
we've upgraded their air-conditioning system, and they're saving a
heck a lot of energy.
The second scenario would be a retired couple. Same thing.
Compressor goes out on their air conditioner. If it's on a credit card,
it's going to cost them 2 percent of that $2,000 or $40 a month, $480 a
year, to still have an old energy inefficient air conditioner. They could
put in a new one. Their out-of-pocket at that point in time is, you
know, $5,000. They put it on a credit card. They're going to pay $100
a month; 50 of that is going to be saved in electricity, so they're still
out of pocket $50 a month.
Under the PACE program, we do an energy audit. We can come
in, replace the air conditioner, ductwork, add some insulation, put in
what's a waste heat recovery unit that is waste heat from your air
conditioner will generate hot water.
And say these people have a swimming pool, a variable speed
pump; if they've got a one-and-a-half horsepower pump, a
variable-speed pump costs about $50 a month to run in electricity. I
can put a variable-speed pump in there that can do that for 10. So their
monthly savings adding up -- and let's say that they heat their pool with
a propane or a natural gas heater. We could replace -- or not replace it,
but supplement that heater with a solar energy, just in rough math to
keep it even; that's a $15,000 improvement.
And with those people, counting the air-conditioning, the waste
heat recovery unit, insulation, a variable-speed pump and, say, a solar
system for their pool, that's a $250-a-month savings with $150
payment through the PACE program.
So these are for-real beneficial items. And I speak mostly to
energy conservation because that's what my background's always been
in. And this program would actually save homeowners money; it
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would conserve energy to the tune of -- what is it, 27,000 kilowatts a
year, and reduce CO2 emissions about 30,000 pounds a year.
So with that said, thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Madam Chair, could I ask a
question?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Of course.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: We all received a letter from
Mr. Wilson, and in the letter it says -- one of the things says,
contractors who are signed up with PACE providers undergo some of
the most intensive vetting and training in the industry. Can you
elaborate on that a little bit in terms of the vetting, what that means?
MR. WILSON: I think that question would be better answered by
one of the PACE providers.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: All right.
MR. WILSON: Because we don't have it here or in Lee County,
and I'm just working it in Charlotte County right now.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: All right.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Mike Antheil. He will be
followed by Rick Vaske.
MR. ANTHEIL: Madam Mayor and members of the
Commission, thank you for the opportunity, or Madam Chair, I should
say. My name is Mike Antheil. I am with the company called
Renovate America. We are a PACE provider. We are three of the four
that you'll hear from today.
We have done -- just to put a little bit of perspective, we have
done about 80,000 of these PACE installations across the country, a
little bit more than $2 billion dollars in funding. Not necessarily
touting our program, but I'll give you some statistics, just so you know
that we do have some empirical data to kind of back it up.
Real quick, on the question about contractor vetting -- in fact, I
could spend the entire last two-and-a-half minutes talking about that
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but, essentially, you know, that is what separates PACE from virtually
any other -- or from any other form of financing is our ability to, for
lack of a better term, kind of hold these contractors' feet to the fire.
We do have a pretty intense process through registration, through
getting the contractors trained, through helping the contractors
understand the dos and the don'ts of, you know, how we're actually
approaching the people that we're dealing with -- or the homeowners
that we're offering PACE to. In fact, I think there might be a do and
don't pamphlet that one of our -- that Renew handed out.
And, ultimately, as the folks that are offering the financing, we
have the ability to hold these contractors accountable for their work.
The reality is, you know, the registration, the vetting process, is so
much so that a fly-by-night contractor, if you will, would probably be
so daunted by it that they wouldn't even bother signing up, you know,
for PACE in the first place.
As somebody mentioned, you know, we're not paying the
contractors the full amount until the project is done. We will actually
go through and train the individual salespeople who might work for
Mr. Wilson. For example, when you're -- when they're dealing with a
homeowner who's over the age of 65, we'll actually train those sales
folks on how to spot signs of dementia, how to, you know, not
necessarily -- you know, there's always that negotiation process, you
know, how to maybe not give them the highest price right away
knowing that, perhaps, an elderly homeowner might not negotiate with
somebody who's kind of more willing to beat somebody up.
We've got, you know, dozens of these kind of little steps that we'd
be happy to identify, but that's really what the contractor vetting is all
about.
The only point I was going to talk about is transferability, because
we did talk about that at the last meeting. At the point of sale, one of
the benefits of PACE is the ability to transfer the assessment to the
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new homeowner. What I would stress, though, is that it is an option.
It's not always going to happen, but it oftentimes can happen.
Essentially, it is something that can be negotiated at the point of sale,
and it can either be we are forced to -- or the seller has to pay it down,
the seller is disclosing it as part of the transaction, or the assessment is
actually transferred on to the new homeowner, but -- the assessment is
transferred on to the new homeowner, but the idea is so are the
savings; the insurance premium savings, the energy savings, and the
ongoing maintenance savings.
So thank you for the opportunity. We're certainly available for
questions, and we appreciate, you know, the fact that Collier County is
even considering such a fantastic program.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Rick Vaske. He'll be
followed by Rafael Perez.
MR. VASKE: Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you for
your time in considering this. My name's Rick Vaske. I'm the CEO of
Advanced Solar in Fort Myers. We've been operating solar systems
for about 33 years. We have an office here. We also have one in Fort
Lauderdale where we've been taking advantage of the PACE program
in Dade for just about over a year.
We haven't had any issues with any of these loans because of the
training that we've been provided by the PACE providers. All the
questions for the homeowners, our staff, and the background checks
that they've done on our company -- we are a five-star rated company
-- has been very thorough.
The questions that the homeowners typically have is, how is this
going to help my return on investment for my solar system? Mr.
Wilson did a great job in explaining how this benefits the homeowner
for a better return on investment. But that's the number-one problem
that my industry faces is the return on investment of solar.
And I know that Collier County could definitely use a little more
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renewable energy, and this is the best solution, in my opinion, of how
we become a more renewable energy-efficient community down here
in Collier County.
I think this is -- puts us on a fast track. I know that in Charlotte
County we've already hired two new people up there as salespeople.
We've also hired new two installers because of some of the demand
that we have, and we don't want to drive as much up there, so we hired
local contractors up in Charlotte County or in -- yes, in Charlotte
County.
So I think that's going to happen probably down here in Collier
County as we move into the PACE program; more jobs are going to be
available down here. Currently we don't have a problem driving down
from Fort Myers, but the demand for solar and renewable energy
products down here that PACE will allow us to move into is really
going to put more jobs, I believe, into this market for our business and
for our industry.
I know in Dade County we increased by 34 percent in renewable
energy products into that county over there in just about a year and a
half. So it's been a great benefit to our business.
I know that it's -- we're just one small business. Out of all the
projects that it's available for, all the contractors that it can benefit, but
I'm speaking on behalf of just Advanced Solar and the 54 employees
and our projected growth for 2017 and '18 and the years to come in
renewable energy that goes into the state of Florida. I just have seen
the benefit for our company, and I know what it can do for Collier
County.
I appreciate your time, and I hope you consider this.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Rafael Perez, and he will be
followed by Erin Deady.
MR. PEREZ: Good morning. Rafael Perez with Ygrene.
I want to just briefly thank the staff -- Madam Chair,
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Commissioners, I want to thank the staff for the hard work that Mr.
French and Mr. Santabarbara have done in the last two years. But just
to let you know, we've been discussing this with this county, with
Bruce Register, who's no longer here, for over four -- four, almost five
years.
So this is a long time in waiting. And at that time we were giving
you -- bringing you a concept. The difference now is that -- and I
could speak on -- Ygrene has done over 9,000 transactions in Florida
for over $200 million. And some good facts to share is, our
delinquency rate for not paying, property owners, their taxes, is less
than 1 percent. Our default rate on that 9,000 is zero. We have no
defaults. Absolutely none.
We train our contractors. My background is a general contractor,
plus I worked in the legislature and stuff. We train, monitor our
contractors constantly. They have to have general liability insurance,
workers' comp. They have to come pull a permit. I'm sure this county
does a great job in making sure that nobody pulls a permit that is not
qualified.
Additionally, we -- 95 percent of our transactions, we don't pay
the contractor till the work is 100 percent complete, inspected by the
city, and a final inspection in the file. So that's very important; the
only industry that that happens.
My colleagues and some others spoke about a deal verification
called -- we call it our welcome call. It's the only industry that I have
ever heard -- if I went to buy a car, nobody asks me -- nobody calls me
after I sign the papers. If I do a mortgage, nobody calls me after that.
A credit card, nobody calls. We call the property owner back and say,
this is a recorded line. If you want to go -- we ask the person's name,
we ask for their phone number, we ask for their date of birth, and we
say, this is a recorded call. We go through all the terms, what they're
going to pay, the years that they've decided, and a lot of times, guess
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what, they walk away. And contractors get really upset. But, you
know what, we're protecting the industry, we're protecting you. We're
protecting everybody as a whole.
One important thing is, right now our program and others have
more than 100 cities, 52 percent of the population, and we have no
problems. I haven't had a call, anybody telling me we want to remove
this. Nobody's terminated us. And you have the right to terminate us
at any given time.
You, I think, were one of the most regulated businesses there is,
because any -- any property that calls one of you commissioners or the
County Manager, we have to address the problem immediately, and we
do that, and that's why we take pride in protecting.
Our customer service surveys, 93 percent of property owners are
satisfied and will recommend us and, lastly, this is the best economic
development there is that exists out there. We're not asking for no
money. Don't give us no money. Just let us operate.
And I'm here for questions. Thank you for your time.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Madam Chair?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes, of course.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Just before Mr. Perez leaves, I
want -- a couple questions.
You said 100 cities and 50 percent of the population. I assume
you're talking about 100 cities in Florida.
MR. PEREZ: A hundred cities and counties in Florida, and 50
percent of the population's already participating.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Have these programs.
And do you know what the total -- PACE contracts total have
been throughout the state, your company, the other companies?
MR. PEREZ: About $240 million for 10,000 transactions.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And your company's done
9,000 of those transactions?
April 25, 2017
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MR. PEREZ: Nine thousand for 200 million.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And how long have you been
doing these?
MR. PEREZ: We started in October of 2013.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: There was a -- I want to ask
you just a quick question, because there was some discussion about
some problem in Arkansas. And my understanding is Arkansas doesn't
even have a PACE program. Can you elaborate on that?
MR. PEREZ: Yes. So a senator out of Arkansas proposed some
legislation in the federal government, and the legislation's more
towards residential. And Arkansas does not have a residential
program. They have a commercial program, and they haven't even
started operations. The two states that are offering a residential PACE
right now is California and Florida.
And, you know, I appreciate the federal government wanting to
get involved, but I think this is passed by our legislature, it's been
vetted by your staff, it's -- you guys will be giving us the blessing if we
proceed, so I think this is definitely a states issue, or local level.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your final speaker on this item is Erin Deady.
MS. DEADY: It's afternoon. Good afternoon. Erin Deady.
I have a slightly different perspective. I'm the program counsel.
I'm one of the lawyers for one of the third-party administrators, so I
can field any questions about the legal structure, the agreements,
agreements with the property appraisers, tax collectors, policies,
resolutions, state federal legislations, statutory questions, but I did
want to take time to just clarify one piece of this.
Most of the people that you've heard from so far have been
third-party administrators, private companies that administer these
programs. And I just wanted to clarify that these third-party
companies are not out operating in a vacuum. The way PACE works,
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it's a multi-government collaboration that people have come together,
local governments have come together through an interlocal
agreement. All of them went through a procurement process, and they
procured those third-party administrators, and those third-party
administrators have to operate under a contract with a local
government entity. So when more local governments come into the
program, they join that original core of those local governments that
launched the program.
So I'm not going to repeat what everybody else said. I can speak
to -- one final parting thought is there have been three previous
attempts at federal legislation on PACE, all focused on consumer
protections. And, you know, it's like any legislative process, what you
start with is not necessarily what you end up with, and the PACE
industry has participated in those legislative efforts in the past and will
do so with this one.
So I can field any questions you might have. Other than that, I'll
yield the rest of my time.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Thank you very much.
MS. DEADY: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Ms. Terri, we have a fairly
short agenda in front of us after we hear this item. Would you like a
break now? Because the thought is that we will work and finish this
agenda. And perhaps it will be another hour. I'm going to -- at your
pleasure, what you would like to do, because you're the one that's
working, working, working here.
THE COURT REPORTER: I could take a quick break now.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. That's fine. Let's break for,
ma'am, what would you suggest for you?
THE COURT REPORTER: Ten minutes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Ten minutes. Come back at 12:18.
(A brief recess was had.)
April 25, 2017
Page 106
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, you have a live mike.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
So we're at the point where we heard the public speaking, so --
and that's been closed. No other speakers, correct, Mr. Miller?
MR. MILLER: No.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. I believe Commissioner
Fiala -- who will be coming back shortly. So let us hear from
Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Who is in the process of
getting a drink of water.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Apologies for that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm sorry?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I said apologies for that. I was looking
at this.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Excuse me. I'm trying to gobble
lunch.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel's going to
speak first.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I just have a couple of
points I'd like to make. And I want to make it clear that today we're
voting on -- basically we're voting on PACE, no PACE. There's going
to be an ordinance that's developed with specificities and how the
process is going to be managed?
MR. KLATZKOW: No. You're voting on whether or not -- if
you don't want PACE, we're done. If you do want PACE, staff's going
to back with these third-party providers and come back with contracts
for you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's what I just said, isn't it?
PACE, no PACE?
MR. KLATZKOW: No, because you could say no PACE the
next time, too. All you're doing is asking staff to go forward with the
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process and then to bring you back -- there are, like, four or five
statewide agencies on this. They'll be bringing you --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That may not be what I asked
or what I said, but that's what I meant to say.
MR. KLATZKOW: There you go.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: But last time this came there was a
resolution attached to the executive summary, so there's no --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: There's no vote on this today?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's correct.
MR. KLATZKOW: Well, there is. There's a vote on --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: To move forward or not?
MR. KLATZKOW: -- move forward or not.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Which is -- that's what I said.
He doesn't agree with me, but that's what said.
Number two, I wanted to make a point, in the last meeting we had
a discussion, and I had concerns about the subordination and/or in the
event of a default that the entire balance might be accelerated and
lenders be put in harm's way because of that, and it's not -- that's not
the case. It's the annual assessment that travels along with the
indebtedness that is the only exposure that a first lienholder might, in
fact, have.
And third I wanted to -- and this was during the original
presentation. And there are a lot of benefits that can come from having
a program such as this. I mean -- and I'm certainly not going to -- I'm
going to bring up the most recent fire. I mean, our residents in Eastern
Collier County predominantly, we're all on wells. And one of the first
things that the fire department does when a fire department blows up is
they cut the power as a matter of safety, and then those of us who are
on wells who have no power then really can't run our sprinkler systems
April 25, 2017
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or do anything along the lines to try to help ourselves protect our
properties.
And there are mechanisms through some of the PACE providers
that allow for additional generation for installation, which is over and
above the home hardening or the -- or the alternative energy benefits
that can come from these -- from these particular providers.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Can you please repeat that. I didn't
understand anything on that end. What has that got to do with fires?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Having a generator allows you
to continue to run your -- because if you're on electricity and your well
is shut down --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So if you want to have a generator, you
can go to PACE?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. One of our county
employees had a picture, William Kosis (sic), he works for the
Supervisor of Elections, but he had a video going, and he's got a -- one
of those Rainbird sprinklers that's up, and it's spewing water in a
60-foot radius all over the top of his home, the roof of his home,
which, you know, a lot of issues with fire comes from spotting.
And once the power is shut off, they go through and they -- you
know, once the evacuation is set, the power is shut off, and then people
who maybe could have helped with fire suppression can't any longer
because they don't have a generator. I happen to have a generator, so...
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Plus, you could have solar
panels installed on your home so you'd have electricity no matter what.
That's part of the program as well.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right. I'm not sure that that
would be enough to pump your well or not, or run your well pump, but
I know a generator would.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Depends how many solar panels you
have.
April 25, 2017
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COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yeah. It would take a lot of
solar panels.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It would take a lot.
Okay. Commissioner Saunders? Oh, Commissioner Fiala, I'm
sorry. Your light was on way before Commissioner Saunders'.
Apologies, Commissioner Saunders.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just -- I have a whole bunch of
questions, but let me first ask the question: Did I read or hear that if
people take a loan out through PACE, if they miss payment or miss
payments, their house could then be repossessed by the PACE people
and sold?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Staff's going to answer this.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Pardon me?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Staff wanted to answer this.
MR. SANTABARBARA: Hi. Geno Santabarbara, for the
record.
It will be the equivalent of not paying your taxes. So it would go
the same process as you would normally go through if you didn't pay
your property taxes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sell your home off the tax deeds you
mean?
MR. SANTABARBARA: Right.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I see. Okay. And I notice that it
seems that there are -- the presentations that we've had are appealing to
people who can't get a loan from a bank or can't -- or who are seniors
or, you know, are having, you know, low income or whatever, and so
they're going to help them out. Well, if they have problems making
payments now, what makes you think they're not going to have
problems making payments with PACE? But then they lose their
home?
Now, if they needed a generator, for instance, go down to Home
April 25, 2017
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Depot and you buy it; you get 12 months interest free on buying your
generator. Why would you pay any interest at all to anyone when you
could go down and get your generator, and you're set to go? That's a
problem that I have.
Let's see. I think we have -- within the county we have money
that we have when people are trying to improve their home and if their
lower income; they can appeal to us, and we'll give them money
towards some of that home improvement, especially roofs and air
conditioners and so forth that qualify for that through our Housing
Department, and that's another benefit that we have that we can offer
people.
And same with -- I talked to generators, because that's what you
were talking about, Commissioner, but you can -- even if you want to
buy doors or windows, you can go to Lowe's or Home Depot and get
them on an interest-free loan for a whole year. I think that that's
something you want to do.
I'm really worried about taking advantage of people who are
already vulnerable, and then you take advantage of them again, and
that -- I mean, if I were a salesman for one of these companies -- not
some of the reputable companies that I heard about today. You can
start out with five -- or six reputable companies, and they're great, but
you better believe that that's going to be infiltrated almost immediately
with people who aren't so reputable and want to take advantage of
those that are more vulnerable.
And, of course, when they go into the door and tell them that they
can buy this thing and we're going to help you -- you know, we've
come here to help you, and you're going to save lots of money, right?
And the government supports our efforts. That's what I'm sure they'll
say. As long as the county's here, you know, it's got to be good, never
realizing that the county will then come in and sell their house on the
open market; they don't realize that.
April 25, 2017
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And it worries me tremendously, and it is hitting a wrong chord
with me. I've got many other things, but I'll move on for now.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you.
I have listened to Commissioner Fiala's concerns, and they're
legitimate concerns. You don't ever want to have a situation where
vulnerable elderly people can be taken advantage of, but you're not
looking at the PACE program in the right -- in the right way.
The PACE program is -- the way it's presented and what staff can
do with this is that vulnerable people aren't going to be taken
advantage of by unscrupulous contractors. There are a variety of
protections to make sure that vulnerable people aren't taken advantage
of. And that's a small -- that would be a very small segment of people
that would be interested in this type of program. You don't have to be
an elderly, vulnerable person to want to improve your air-conditioning
system; you may be a lower income. And I think those folks should
have just as much of an opportunity to improve their homes, as I have,
as an example, and as all of us have. And so this program isn't
something that's going to result in vulnerable elderly people being
taken advantage of.
It's been pointed out that there have been 10,000 residential
facilities financed in Florida with zero complaints, zero problems; 100
cities and counties in Florida have this program; 52 percent of the
population in the state of Florida live in cities and counties that have
this program. It's being considered in all of the areas in Southwest
Florida, and the program is going to continue to grow.
And, you know, hopefully Collier County will participate in this
for a variety of reasons. One is giving homeowners and business
owners an opportunity to have an optional mechanism to harden their
homes from storms or to improve their energy efficiency or, as
Commissioner McDaniel pointed out, perhaps put solar systems in
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where loss of electricity could result in some very significant losses to
the property.
There are significant advantages to the people that we all serve on
this commission. So I hope that the commission has an open mind to
this.
The second thing -- another point is that if there was one single
problem in Collier County, we can terminate the program. It's totally
at our option. So I would suggest approving this, moving forward with
it, would be the right thing. I've talked to realtors, I've talked to
contractors, I've talked to property owners; no one that I've talked to is
opposed to this. No one that I've talked to has said anything other than
this is a good program, it's going to help the economy, help
employment, it's going to help homeowners, and it's optional. And so I
hope that the Commission votes to move forward with this.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Very quickly. And I agree what
Commissioner Saunders has said.
This is another option for homeowners to be able to, essentially,
upgrade their homes. The -- one of the major protections I see is that it
isn't the judicial foreclosure that banks follow. I mean, that's a
protection in and of itself. The debt isn't accelerated as in a traditional
mortgage where the bank can declare it in default. It's all due today,
and if you don't pay it within a certain amount of time, they're going to
start a foreclosure, and you will have your house sold if you can't pay
it.
So the fact that it follows the tax certificate, tax deed
methodology is, I think, a major protection for homeowners.
I also have done a little research and haven't found any problems
with it. There hasn't been any instances where the elderly -- or people
have been taken care of (sic). And the fact, I think, also that in the
underwriting process, the underwriting process doesn't take into
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consideration the equity after the improvement's made. You have to
have the equity in your home prior to the construction being done, I
think, is a very conservative approach that I think would protect the
homeowners as well. It's not something that they're really going to be
-- there's going to be this overreach on the financing.
So I think this is a good option to present to the residents. It's a
financing option. And I think it could help a lot of people in the
community, so I'd be in favor of it.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. I've heard from my
colleagues. Let me talk about this. I'm going to address what you said.
In Collier County, you have equity where you live. It's just what
we do. That's why they want to be here. They would not be, you
know, here and having a dialogue with Collier County for, I heard,
four years, but certainly for two years, if Collier County was a place
where property values are falling.
So the equity issue is a gift to them. That's why they're knocking
at our door. It doesn't matter if the people staying -- the home -- or
whether they can even afford it. The equity in the home is there. The
people don't even have to do anything, and the equity in the home is
increasing on an annual basis.
Why would any person buying a home where they've used this
PACE program to upgrade the energy efficiency of the home, whether
it's an air conditioner or a roof, perhaps, but I'm thinking more
windows and doors, solar heating, why would any new homeowner
agree to having that carry into their term of the loan?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Is that a question that --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Is that a question?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- you want somebody to
answer?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I'm going to answer it.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Oh.
April 25, 2017
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COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Oh.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Because we live in the 21st century,
because what was great and the latest efficiency five years ago is not
there today. The SEERs change all the time. The requirements change
all the time. What this program does is maintain the cost of these
improvements for the manufacturers.
People who can -- people, I was told -- the people in -- I was told
this in a meeting that the average homeowner in Collier County pays
cash and their credit rating is 700 and, therefore, that means that we
can move this ahead pretty easily because, you know, these people are
here. Well, why would they not go to a bank? Why would they not
use the Home Depot option?
The -- it was interesting to know the counties where it started and
knowing the senator from the county where it started is one of the three
senators now asking the federal government to review the truth in
lending. I think that speaks volumes of what the federal government
wants to do and why are we getting ahead of the federal government in
Collier County?
These folks are not going to go away. And we could continue
this until such time as there is some kind of legislation. We don't have
to, you know, deaden it by a no vote, but I think it's very risky to get
ahead.
The idea that I cannot use my trusted contractor to do the repairs
on my house or to improve it, people that I've dealt business with for
30 years, speaks volumes of why these people want to do this, because
they're making money. It's all about making money.
You can put it under the umbrella of green and, you know, sort of
mom and apple pie and the American flag and green energy and all the
wonderful things that we want to do and -- but the bottom line is, these
PACE providers that come in get -- they have to get some kind of
kickback from the contractors, or else they would come in and say,
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look, we can provide the financing for you; you choose your
contractor. They don't do that. There's a reason for that.
It was said here that Collier County Commissioners have -- are
not liable for this. Oh, but, oh, we are. We are. We're going to make a
decision whether this program goes forward or not go forward. We are
liable. The buck stops right here. So if there's problems in the future,
we have that responsibility. It's ridiculous to say we don't have
liability.
The other thing that is really apparent in this program is that when
they come in and talk to a homeowner about the program, they do not
talk about the savings that homeowner will have on their house
specific to their house and specific to the income of that, of that
homeowner. They can talk about it in general, like when you're sold
an air-conditioning, well, if your bill is this, then it's going to be this,
and this and that, which we all have heard before and we've all gone
through.
If you have the correct kind of roof, your savings on your
insurance will be that, but if we did an energy audit of the home, the
individual home, and tell that homeowner, you know, maybe, yeah,
you can spend $15,000 on all these improvements, but, you know
what, you know, probably over the life of, you know, when you want
to sell the house or what you want to do, it's probably not going to be
that much of a savings, because we've done that very particular energy
audit, which is what they apparently do in commercial. They're very
clear about telling commercial folks, some companies are, about their
savings.
It becomes almost a sort of an Alice in Wonderland sale to a
homeowner that you, too, can be energy efficient. You, too, can get
the latest and greatest. Doesn't matter if next year the latest and
greatest has changed, but you, too, can get it, and you will save all this
money because these papers say you will.
April 25, 2017
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I think this is not a program for Collier County. I don't think -- I
am very concerned, as my colleague, Commissioner Fiala, is about the
disadvantaged, the people in low income, the people that -- the seniors
who may not have dementia, don't pull that -- don't pull that hat -- that
straw out of the hat. No, they don't have dementia. Come on. They're
seniors. And what they have is this need to be very independent and
this very -- a lot of them have this great fear, especially if they're
widows, of making decisions but, at the same time, trying to save
money, because they come from our greatest generation, and they
know about saving money.
So I think this is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and I cannot support
it.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Madam Chair?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I don't know who was first.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't know.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I don't need to go first, but I'm
happy to.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: There were a lot things in your
statement that were just incorrect, and I want to be very respectful, but
I want to address some of those.
I'm going to start off with one where you said you can't use your
trusted contractor, and I think you said that speaks volumes. And if
that were the case, it would speak volumes, because you talked about
kickbacks and all of those evil things that happen when you have to
use a specific contractor.
That's not the case with this program at all. The way the program
works is that the providers will vet contractors, and they'll have a list of
contractors. And if you want to use the PACE program, you talk to
one of the providers, and they say, well, here's our list of contractors.
April 25, 2017
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You're willing -- we vetted these, and you say, well, I want to use my
trusted contractor, and they say, that's fine, and they will go through
the rules and the processes with your trusted contractor.
And you use whoever you want. No one is mandated to use any
particular contractor. That is just plain wrong. And I don't know
where you got that information, but it's not correct. If that's a big part
of your basis for talking about fraud and taking advantage of people,
then your basis of fact is just incorrect.
One of the statements that you made is that the average home
purchaser in Collier County pays cash.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No, no. That's not my statement.
That's your PACE provider statement.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I don't know where that came
from, but let's assume that it's correct, the average homeowner in
Collier County pays cash. I have a hard time believing that that's
correct. I consider myself to be a fairly average home purchaser, and --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Commissioner Saunders,
you're anything but average.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. Let's say I'm above
average. I couldn't pay cash for a home, so I don't know where that
statistic comes from, and I don't believe it.
But let's assume that it's correct, that there's some average where
people are buying -- paying cash for their homes. What about the
people that can't pay cash for their homes? This is not an elitist
community. We're trying to develop more affordable housing or
housing that's affordable. We're trying to make sure that people that are
at lower economic strata can live here, but we also want to make sure
that they can improve their homes. So to say, you know, half of our
people pay cash so, therefore, we don't need anything, ignores the
other half, and I think that that's just plain wrong.
I'm kind of passionate about this because I've been involved with
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some of these providers for years. I know what they do. And all of
these horror stories about fraud and taking advantage of the elderly just
don't exist. Ten thousand in financings in Florida with zero issues.
I will tell you, bankers hate this program, and you'll get letters
from -- you know, Senator Richter is -- was a great senator. He's a
great community leader. He's also a banker. And he's indicated that
he has some problems with this program. His problem with the
program is that the PACE lien takes priority to the mortgage. That's
the only way this program would work, and that's why the legislature
set it up that way.
And so bankers will pound the table. They'll do everything they
can to stop this program. It benefits the little guy, it benefits all of us,
and bankers hate it because of that priority.
So a lot of the facts that you're getting are just incorrect. And I
just use a couple of them, but especially the trusted contractor, as
you're hearing stuff that's just not correct.
The issue of, why should we get ahead of the federal
government? I'm almost shocked to hear any local government person
or state government person say why should we get ahead of the federal
government. We should always be ahead of the federal government.
And if you think that the federal government's going to do something
in Washington dramatic with this, I think it was stated this has been
going on for three or four years. It may go on for another three or four
years.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No. This was just filed in June.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: It doesn't matter when
something is filed, because that happens all the time.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Don't confuse you with the facts?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. Well, let's wait for the
federal government. I think that that is -- you know, I never want to
wait for the federal government, period.
April 25, 2017
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And so your facts are incorrect. I hope that you will at least take
a look at it, but that's my comment.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Thank you.
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Did you -- let me just make
sure I understood what Commissioner Saunders said. Did you say
10,000 in the state of Florida have already gotten this program?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And nobody's ever had a problem?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: My understanding is that there
have been no complaints about this program.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Because I would love to
verify that before I vote.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, there are people that
have --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. Not from the people who
make the money off of it. I would like to verify it from areas that it's
located in. I want to know that nobody's had a problem, because I
understand there have been problems, and I could be understanding
wrong. Maybe the people that tell me there's no -- there are problems
are wrong. Maybe they weren't being honest about that. I don't know
that.
But right now I feel very protective over the people who -- you
see too many times where people who are nervous about -- you know,
I mean, how many people are taking advantage of elderly right now
over the telephone and they're selling them a bill of goods, and you
read about it over and over. It's just -- it's pathetic to see what's
happening, and I'm just worried about this. The only people who are
here are people who are making money off the program. I mean,
there's not going to be anybody else here. And I really am concerned
about that.
April 25, 2017
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And also, I've heard that the agreements that they make -- I can't
verify this myself. I've just heard that the agreements that they make
with the contractors, they have an agreement whereby their company
also reaps a little bit of benefits.
The Tax Collector is very, very concerned about that. By the
way, he also takes 2 percent. So if they charge 6 percent, and the Tax
Collector -- well, he just told me that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Up to.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No, he said 2.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. He said 2 percent.
And so he's very concerned about what's going to happen. And I
was hoping that he would be here, by the way, to say that for himself.
But, anyway, this is what I understand.
I love getting -- I think everybody in Collier County, everybody
in the whole United States, ought to get involved in solar. I think that's
a -- not only is it the way that we should be doing now, but it's the
wave of the future. We need to get off of our dependency on other
sources of energy.
And, absolutely -- you know, the Amish are into solar electricity.
How do you like that? They are. And I know that for a fact.
But, anyway, I'd love to get there, but if I have to go, you know,
to get free interest for a year, I'll do it. But I don't want to pay higher
interest and then another percentage, 2 percent on top of that because
the county has to collect that money on their taxes every year. I just
don't think that that's right at all.
And I think if we're voting for this, number two, we're voting so
that now our county government -- our county government is
supporting for-profit businesses right within our own community. I
don't know we've ever done that before, and that gives me a lot of
stomachaches to think that we would go out and say, yeah, yeah, we'll
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even collect it for you. That's wrong.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah. That's it?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's it.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's with love that I make a
motion that we approve item -- whatever one we're on here.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think it's 11C.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- 11C.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. There's a motion on the
floor. Do I hear a second?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'll second that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Any more discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Might as well say it nice and loud.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It passed 3-2.
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that takes us to Item 11D.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Mr. Ochs, let me just make
one comment, because Commissioner Fiala -- and I say that with all
due respect.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I know. You and I work really well
together.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And it's with love.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And it's with love.
You said that it gives you a sick feeling in your stomach for the
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government to be involved in helping these for-profits. Why are we
talking about providing free land to developers to build housing that is
affordable? It's the same thing. We are promoting -- we're using
government, we're using government assets, to help promote a private
developer, for example.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: It's aiding us, isn't it, to help the
housing situation for people who --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: The point is that government
frequently is involved in assisting private in what private enterprise
does, which makes a profit. So I just point that out, because we are
doing that, and we're going to continue doing that, and there's nothing
wrong with it.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And on an additional note, this
is going to come back before us with the specificity as far as the
ordinance and things goes, which will allow you some time to further
investigate some of the statements that have been made with --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I will.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm sure you will. So it's --
you're going to have -- this is not -- as Commissioner Taylor likes to
say, this is the first bite at the apple.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just don't want to see people hurt,
and then they say, well, the government approved it.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's the selling point.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Nobody --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Government approved the program.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I'm not selling too hard.
I'm not -- I mean, I can see that there -- I can see that we should, you
should, have concerns, but there is a large portion of our community
that can, in fact, benefit from this that can't just go to Home Depot and
get the 12 interest -- 12-month interest free because they don't have the
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creditworthiness to be able to get that type of financing. They can't
just go do those things. Your concerns --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those are precisely the --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And it's on the open market.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I understand that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's why truth in lending is such an
important process that is not being followed by this.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well -- and that's one of the
reasons the congressmen are bringing this forward. That's one of the
reasons we heard one of the providers saying they're looking forward
to regulatory agency overseeing this just to help with some of the less
reputable providers that are in this program to provide for some
guidance and supervision along the way.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: But what happens in the meantime?
Why the rush?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Thank you.
Item #11D
PROVIDING PUBLIC NOTICE OF THE INTENT TO RESUME
AND AMEND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENT NO.
06-4000 WITH CH2M HILL, INC. FOR THE VANDERBILT
BEACH ROAD EXTENSION PROJECT, AND UPON
SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATIONS, BRING BACK AN AMENDED
CONTRACT FOR FINAL APPROVAL TO COMPLETE THE
DESIGN WHICH WAS SUSPENDED, BUT NEVER
TERMINATED, BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS. (PROJECT NO. 60168) – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, that moves us to Item 11D. This is a
recommendation to provide public notice of the intent to resume and
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amend professional services agreement with CH2MHill for the
Vanderbilt Beach Road extension design project, and upon successful
negotiations, bring back an amended contract for final approval to
complete the design which was suspended but never terminated by the
Board.
Mr. French is available to make a presentation. I will add that
staff has worked closely with the County Attorney's Office and our
Procurement Director and the Clerk of the Circuit Court's Finance
Director and our Deputy Clerk, Ms. Kinzel, to bring this item forward.
We do have one addition that Mr. French would like to read into
the record that relates to the staff recommendation if I might, Madam
Chair.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes, of course.
MR. FRENCH: Good afternoon once more. Jamie French, or
James French, Deputy Department Head for the Growth Management
Department.
Commissioners, as the County Manager indicated, with using an
abundance of caution and certainly in cooperation with our
Procurement Director, the County Attorney's Office and, of course, the
Clerk's Office, and considering that Immokalee Road will be over
capacity within the next five years and that the Vanderbilt Beach Road
extension will offer relief to this situation, staff does believe that this
project is critical and would constitute an emergency.
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
MR. OCHS: -- we're available to make a presentation or respond
to questions from the Board. I know you do have one registered or,
sorry, two registered speakers as well on this item.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: What's the pleasure of colleagues up
here? Would you like to hear a presentation, or do we hear from the
speakers first and maybe a presentation?
April 25, 2017
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COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, let's hear from the speakers.
Now that Jamie has added that one caveat to this thing, I think it makes
it ready to go. But we first want to listen to the speakers.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Agreed.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Is that agreement?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yep.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Very good.
MR. MILLER: Madam Chair, we have two speakers on this
item. Your first speaker is Peter Gaddy. He will be followed by Carol
Pratt.
MR. GADDY: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Some 10 years
ago a previous County Commission held a meeting in this same room,
and at that meeting the alignment of the Vanderbilt Beach extension
over the objection of 50 or 60 speakers was approved.
At that meeting the County Commission said that this is an
emergency, that it was necessary because Golden Gate Estates was
going to be built out by 2016. They also said at that meeting that
people would be generously compensated. Unfortunately, that never
occurred.
What did occur was the great recession. The contract with
CH2MHill was suspended, and, approximately, I don't know, 400
property owners in Golden Gate Estates were left hanging for 10 years.
I would hope that if you decide to proceed with this contract that you
commit yourself to acquiring the right-of-way without waiting another
10 years.
Your vote today is a commitment to follow the five-year work
plan previously approved which calls for the expenditure of $2 million
this fiscal year and $25 million in the next fiscal year. That's Fiscal
Year 2018.
It also calls for construction in 2021 of 61 million. My question
is, do you have these funds identified and the source of these funds
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identified? And if not, are you going to borrow the money or are you
going to pay -- raise taxes?
Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker and final speaker on this item
is Carol Pratt.
MS. PRATT: Good afternoon. My name is Carol Pratt. I live
out in Golden Gate Estates, have for 30 years.
I would like Vanderbilt Beach extension to be reconsidered in that
I do realize it does need to happen. We will need relief from traffic out
there. But the way it's proposed now is it goes, like, from the north
side of the canal, build a bridge to the south side of the canal, and then
build another bridge back over to the north side of the canal to avoid
golf courses. Now, we're told it's wells. But, really, you could go
through the golf course and avoid taking people's homes. And in the
end, instead of putting in three bridges, you'd just have to put in one to
make this road happen.
Further, Commissioner Taylor, I understand that you have
proposed the workforce housing on property off of Vanderbilt Beach
Road extension on the north side of the canal, the 122 acres where
there's also a park planned and a school planned. So that's just that
many more people that will go through our residential area. And, you
know, we really promote and want our urban way of living. And so I
see just a ton of traffic come through all of our residential roads, our
community.
I think that in the prior planning, Commissioner Fiala, you were
here then on the board. We had -- this room was full; the hallway was
full of people opposed to this road.
And it went forward anyhow, and we had little to no voice in it.
And so in this next -- next time that we go around, I would hope that
you get people's input, that there's transparency, and that you'll
reconsider taking people's homes as opposed to a golf course.
April 25, 2017
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And I would also like to see the numbers on it. You know, this
was kind of put through, and we were all kind of wondering, like, how
can you build bridges to go north and south and do all these things to
avoid a golf course? So we'd really like to see the numbers, how this is
-- how it would compare to do it one way as opposed to another way.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Just one moment. No one is -- we
identified county-owned property. No one -- there's nothing -- no
decisions made on what properties, if any, would be used for any kind
of housing -- cost-burdened housing. So just please understand that it
may be on a map, but it doesn't mean anything more than these are the
lands that the county owns.
MS. PRATT: Well, what I read in the Naples Daily News -- you
know, that was my source, so -- it says that the property that you had
suggested was on the Vanderbilt Beach extension that was east of 951.
That would be in our neck of the woods.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: But only in terms of large properties.
Nothing in -- nothing more than, oh, this is a large property that the
county owns. And, by the way, there's one over here and there's one
over here; that kind of thing. There's been no decision. This is a
process, and we're right at the beginning.
MS. PRATT: Well, my point is is in that process --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes of course.
MS. PRATT: -- if it does happen, that will be a lot more people
than we intended ever coming down our roads, which we didn't want
in the first place.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Of course. Yes. No, I respect that.
That's a gentle correction, not a criticism at all.
MS. PRATT: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. So there is a couple of questions
before us that I think need to be addressed from the speakers, so...
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MR. CASALANGUIDA: Ma'am, I can take those if you'd like --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes, I'd like to.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: -- as part of the department that
planned that project and then, ultimately, took us through this
downturn and back up.
The alignment has been pretty much set. You know, we will
revisit minor changes. But this 60 percent design plan change that
we're talking about going through the 100 percent plans, that went
through extensive involvement, as Mr. Gaddy and Ms. Pratt pointed
out.
So there will be some minor tweaks, but I would not imagine a
wholesale realignment evaluation as part of this project.
The funding that Mr. Gaddy talked about, the Board has been
privy to the explanation that we plan to go to debt service when we go
to construction. We will do "pay/go" for the parts of design and early
permitting. But when we get into mitigation and construction, it
exceeds your revenues, and I think that was part of the budget
discussion that in probably 2019 or 2020, some of the funding that will
be required for construction will be a debt allocation as well as some of
the bridges in the Estates.
So we plan to come back and do some more public involvement
to talk about the tweaks to the plan since it's been dormant for a period
of eight to 10 years. We will surely include that in the process. We
will come back to the Board with these changes, if any, to the
alignment, but that's the plan, ma'am. And I think that answers their
questions.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And I guess I have one question, as
someone who wasn't here on the original planning of it; why would we
not go through golf course?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: It wasn't just the golf courses. There
were well heads, to the tune of 1.5 to $2 million for each well head to
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be replaced. So on the north side of the canal, not only is the golf
course there, but every section or half section, I think even smaller than
that, 1,300 feet between streets, Dr. Yilmaz has a deep injection well,
deep well.
So the relocation of those wells is extensive to do that. So that
alignment took that into consideration when the board heard that.
And I think Mr. Gaddy and Ms. Pratt are correct. We were here
till 10, 11 that night. I think there were a hundred-plus speakers that
heard all the pros and cons of each alignment. And the consultant, as
part of that, laid out why the alignment was chosen.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: We'll look at it, but it's been looked at
extensively as part of that process.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
MR. KLATZKOW: Keep in mind, we've been purchasing real
estate up and down that corridor since then.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Fourteen million dollars worth.
MR. KLATZKOW: So changing it now, I don't know what you
would do with what we've purchased.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. No, I speak as someone who
wasn't here and hasn't followed it.
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I ask these questions without any
ulterior motive. I just think it's important to bring it to the public, for
me, and to bring it to the public.
Okay. Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. And two of my questions
were answered, and it had to do with the right-of-way acquisition and
then also the construction costs. But the other is, are we going to
continue on with the neighborhood information processes to inform the
people that are -- that are new to the area?
April 25, 2017
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Again, it was mentioned by our speakers -- and though I wasn't
sitting up here when this issue came through, I have been extremely
active in our community, and I watched the angst and the concern that
was brought forward with this. And there's been -- again, not
purposely, but there's been a lot of damage been done to people's
property values because of the advent of this road coming through.
I remember as late as last year during the campaign when I was
out knocking doors, I talked -- I said, Vanderbilt's not coming. I
remember talking to people up there, because they were concerned
about the devaluation of their properties and their homes where they
live. And, you know, it was pretty much S -- standard operating
procedure. I was going to say SOP -- but that Vanderbilt wasn't
coming. So it's obviously moving forward, and especially due to the
fact of the imminent -- it's inevitable that the failure -- we already
know about the concerns on Immokalee Road and the excess traffic,
and that failure of that highway system we have to provide for some
alternative routes to move our people, period.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: We will include public involvement,
sir. That will be one of the new tasks that will be corrected as part of
the contract when it comes back.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I was just curious as to what
Commissioner McDaniel had to say about the issue, since that's in his
district, and I think he's expressed that, so I'm going to follow his lead
on this.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Excuse me.
When we listened to it before, the most important thing that I
heard is it gives people another way out. And especially now, after
suffering with these fires and everything, you need as much roadway
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as you can to get out of a dangerous zone quickly. And so I feel that
we must move forward with this, and with the -- with the addition that
you added to this language, I make a motion to approve.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: There's a motion on the floor. Do I
hear a second?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Any other discussion?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I wasn't going to bring up
the fire again because I used it in the last one. But I'm going to talk
about it and, you know, we're going to get a presentation. I think --
yeah, Dan's here. We're going to get a presentation on that event here
shortly.
But, you know, I was asked several times, well, why were the
evacuation areas so voluminous? Well, it was twofold. Number one,
that fire was moving so fast, and we had little -- very little time to
manage the process. Two, we all know we have limited infrastructure
in Eastern Collier County. This is the beginning of that process to
assist us with moving our people in advance of any natural disaster
that's coming forward.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Any other discussion? There's a
motion on the floor to approve and a second. All those in favor, say
aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Can I stop in the middle of a motion, or
do we go through it and then I can amend the motion to see if there's --
April 25, 2017
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how do we do this according to --
MR. KLATZKOW: You are voting on this motion now.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: We're in the middle of it, okay. So all
those in favor, say aye -- those opposed like sign?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Motion carries. I'd like to
amend the motion to declare that this is an emergency.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That says we did.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's already been done.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: But I think it has to be within the
motion itself.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I said --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It was added to the public
record.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay, fine. Thank you very much.
That was --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It was added to the executive
summary specifically for that purpose, so...
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Good.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you for mentioning, though.
It's a good thing.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I just -- I missed that. Okay, very good.
Thank you very much.
MR. FRENCH: Thank you.
Item #11E
PROCLAMATION/RESOLUTION 2017-82 & RESOLUTION 2017-
83: RATIFYING THE LOCAL STATE OF EMERGENCY
SIGNED BY THE BOARD CHAIR IN RESPONSE TO CURRENT
WILDFIRE CONDITIONS AND LOCAL EVACUATIONS AND
April 25, 2017
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TO IMPOSE A BURNING BAN IN ACCORDANCE WITH
ORDINANCE 2013-22 - ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, that takes us to Item 11E. That was
an add-on item. This is a recommendation to ratify the local state of
emergency that was signed by the Board chair and also to authorize a
burning ban in accordance with Ordinance 2013-22.
Mr. Summers will make a brief presentation.
MR. SUMMERS: Commissioners, good afternoon. Dan
Summers, Director of the Bureau of Emergency Services and
Emergency Management. I hope you'll forgive the lack of tie today,
but we were on the fire line early this morning.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You're going to have to go home and
put a tie on.
MR. SUMMERS: Yes, ma'am. I'll work on that.
And I'm not sure which is more scarier, standing in front of you
before lunch or a major disaster, but I'll go quickly.
Real quick, a couple of things. We're really here -- as Manager
Ochs mentioned, we're kind of lumping four things here: The --
certainly the burning ban and the state of emergency declaration, I
believe, are two proclamations in front of you. I wanted to give you a
very brief update but, as you know, operations are still ongoing, and
the EOC is partially activated.
And, certainly, I believe if the -- I have a few slides here. If you
kind of want to revisit wildfire mitigation real quick. So, Madam
Chair, I'll yield to you just to see if you want to move forward -- or I
would request, please, that you'd move forward on the burning ban and
the state of emergency declaration.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Any --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: So moved.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Second.
April 25, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. So there's a motion on the
floor and a second.
Before we leave this topic, I would like to see if we can't look at
this again in a couple of weeks. I know our former commissioner, Tim
Nance, would like to present some concepts. There -- his greatest
concern is that forestry isn't funded at an adequate level. So he is
suggesting there may be an opportunity for an MSTU in the Golden
Gate Estates area but, as he presented to us before you were elected --
and, actually, we had a -- his concern was always fire. And he has
some ideas about how to sort of drill down to it to the point where it
becomes almost part of our permitting process whereby we let folks
know when they want to build in the Golden Gate Estates maybe what
they should and shouldn't do, which, I think, Commissioner McDaniel,
you know very well.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: But the newcomers probably don't. So
if you would be available in a couple weeks, and I think maybe we'll
hear it.
And at that point we have a motion on the floor and a second. All
those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Did you want to show us something,
by the way, Dan?
MR. SUMMERS: Ma'am, I do. I think I have a couple of -- just
April 25, 2017
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a couple --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: We've love to see it.
MR. SUMMERS: I just wanted to revisit real quick the wildfire
mitigation discussion, and I'll be glad to -- if I could, I'll follow the
sequence here of the PowerPoint.
Real quick, I do want to mention, first of all, our hearts and
prayers for those who've suffered injury and loss. We are -- the fire
district Chief Schuldt and Red Cross and other agencies are continuing
to support those individuals.
It was very unusual. It took us time to get back into those areas,
and I'm sure this was a tough go for folks because of the information; it
took some time. I'm confident that our community will continue to
assist these families.
Growth Management is here as well; Jamie French is here as
well. And if you would like, he can certainly discuss some options
within resources that GMD or options might can provide to help those
folks come back to be re-established.
A real quick update on the fire: Again, 7,000 acres, 65 percent
contained. Current resources: 41 dozers, 118 forestry personnel. The
aircraft, as of midday, are going to be released; that's a very good-news
item, as well as our out-of-region mutual aid.
Let me give you a couple of quick statistics: There were 17
county departments involved in this response; five regional
coordination teams; 47 fire departments from across the state were
called in to assist. Part of our mutual aid in coordination with Greater
Naples; 16 partnering agencies; 120 Florida Forestry -- pardon me, 120
forestry personnel; 30 from the Department of Environmental
Protection with their firefighting equipment. At one point we had 11
aircraft on station and 14 bulldozers.
So we also received 12 residents at Max Hasse that we supported
as a reception center; 32 residents we supported as a reception center
April 25, 2017
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for a while at Golden Gate. We moved overnight sheltering to North
Collier Regional Park and had six people spend the night over there at
Golden Gate.
Our impact analysis and damage assessment's still ongoing. The
unmet needs that we have in terms of operations are none, and we
continue that local state of emergency and your burning ban. Thank
you for approving that.
I'm sort of lumping the wildfire mitigation discussion here
together real quick. We mentioned before wildfire is our second
greatest threat. We had about up -- we've had -- we've been fortunate.
We've been wet up until this year, or average. Today's fire continues to
be mitigated, and with over 7,000 acres burned in this most recent
event.
Seven wildfire disaster declarations since 1999. We're now on
our eighth wildfire disaster declaration, which was approved by
FEMA. That's a different set of reimbursement criteria. We haven't
done a Fire Management Assistance Act reimbursement in a long time,
so we've got to get the book out and you work on that just a little bit
and review with our agencies and our federal partners on some of that
reimbursement.
Ninety-one percent of your county lives in the urban wildfire
interface.
Collier County's annual statutory contribution is $27,000 a year to
Forestry. Our busiest months of wildfire are mentioned there. And as
I had mentioned to you, we're only halfway through.
So the state of emergency was prudent. I'll re-evaluate that as
needed and, certainly, the burning ban needs to stay in place, and I
think I recommended 30 days on that burning ban for now as well.
Wildfire mitigation efforts are very cost effective, as I mentioned
briefly in previous years. Our historical heat map, our map tells you
about the activity, and this was measured -- the fire districts and 911
April 25, 2017
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put this together for us and was put together in 2016, and here is the
map of the footprint of the fire that we just went through.
The little pink dots there, we used federal assets to do a nighttime
infrared flight. Those are hot spots that the fire service and forestry are
working on. The acreage did change a little bit, and that was a result
of a little bit more better mapping, not necessarily expanded fire.
And hats off to these dozers clearing lines. They're almost doing
29 miles of line with the dozers in order to ensure that this is a
protected area.
What can we improve on? And I think that was some of the
concern here that we want to talk about again in the future is
expanding capability and levels of service within mitigation and
wildlife. As you mentioned, Madam Chair, maybe some type of fund,
and MSTU or MSBU was part of our previous presentation.
We'll continue, and we've got a great working relationship; we
have this dialogue with Public Utility about expanding water points,
whether it be from wells, potable water, lakes, or ponds. Hats off to
Public Utilities again. We were teed up for some of those well sites
that they had for raw water, and they were on point for us, as you
would expect.
And a lot of these raw water points also require some engineering.
You just don't take a 12-ton fire truck and park it on the soft sugar sand
and pump water in it. So we know that if we do some other remote
rural water strategies, we have to engineer that just a little bit.
Forestry told us some startup costs that they used in Lee County
to do some more chopping efforts, and those numbers are listed there
as well as finding other types of funding opportunities or leveraging
mitigation, as we refer to it, to make some additional contributions to
suppression.
So very rough math here was a dollar per acre, and in the county
would bring you this; 50 cents would bring you 196,000; and 25 cents
April 25, 2017
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per acre, 98,000. So this was just a very, very rough little bit of math
for you.
I wanted to make sure you saw what that chopping operation
looked like. It certainly does little damage to the soils and the
infrastructure out there using this type of light-weight equipment
where it's appropriate, and Forestry has right of entry agreement
capability in the state of Florida and, again, certainly the expertise to
do this very quickly.
Last, I'll finish up here, just as a summary. Again, legislative
efforts are certainly part of this for not only ground operations but air
operations for Forestry. Continue to use the Fire-wise concept; that's
the marketing, the education program that we talk about with the
defensible space. We can certainly continue to review anything in the
Land Development Code, but a lot of that applies to new structure, and
certainly what we're looking at is existing structures.
And, finally, consider any other opportunities maybe to gift -- I
don't -- maybe provide funding for manpower and equipment for
Forestry to give this wildfire mitigation a boost.
I can't stress enough the team work, the cooperation. I had the
easy part. The boots on the ground and the lifting and the moving and
the sweat and the endurance where the firefighters, the men and
women on the line. Our Forestry partners have integrated perfectly in
our Emergency Operations Center, and we had the right tools in the
toolbox. And I can't -- and that's because you all helped us with that,
and I thank you very much.
The residents, the businesses, and the visitors here were very
cooperative and very patient, and we could not have asked for a better
community to pull together during this difficult time and to assist those
that were impacted by the fire. We recommend an online donation to
Red Cross and Salvation Army, so we'll continue to help those folks.
Let me see if you have any questions.
April 25, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. Well, questions,
comments, and discussion.
MR. SUMMERS: Certainly.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: For you as well, sir.
Number one, I would like to say I spent Sunday morning in the
rain like this (indicating) all morning long. And the reason I'm going
like this -- because I'm a pretty tall fellow -- is there were fire trucks all
over the place in Golden Gate Estates, and I didn't make those guys get
out in the rain. I stood in the rain and shook hands with those fire
departments. They were parked at every one of the streets on the north
line protecting our residents in Golden Gate Estates.
Dunedin, Kissimmee, St. Pete, and that's just to name a few of the
fire departments -- tankers, firemen that are sitting there waiting that
had come to help. And what an honor, what a blessing.
And then I went through the entire system where the commands
center is at 951 and Davis where they were dispatching and then down
to ECS as well and met for several hours with our fire chief and Dan
along the way.
So thank you. Thank you to all of those folks along the way.
What an honor.
On a business note, if you were, I've got a question for you. The
burn ban was put forth for 30 days. Would it not be prudent -- because
I understand we can repeal it at any juncture whenever the good Lord
starts sending us more regular rain.
MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Would it not be prudent for us
to extend that burn ban out for a longer period of time and then allow
you to let us know when so we don't have to renew it?
MR. SUMMERS: Sir, I am at the pleasure of the Board on that.
We thought 30 days would give us an assessment just to see where that
April 25, 2017
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is. We are perfectly happy to make that longer and bring it back to you
earlier if needed.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, I'm not opposed to
adjusting it right now. I mean, it's already been enacted. And if we
can adjust the time frame right now with a vote of the Board, I would
extend it out until such time as you come back to us and let us know.
I'm not about government overreach, and there are people out there
that have burn permits and things along those lines that are a little
slighted because they can't burn their trash and their yard waste and the
like, but I think it -- I think this circumstance warrants us extending
that out.
MR. SUMMERS: We would welcome that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Is that a motion?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll make that motion and
extend it to 90 days from the existing 30 days and allow us to cut it off
shorter whenever the time is warranted.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Do I hear a second?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All those in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries unanimously.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'd like to, on my third point
here I'd like to -- I'd like to give some specific direction to staff.
There's -- Commissioner Taylor, you brought up the conversation with
Commissioner Nance. I have spoken with Commissioner Nance as
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well.
I would like for us to get some information. I would like to give
direction to staff or County Manager to work with our officials, both
the fire service, the fire departments, emergency services and the like,
and come back to us with a couple of alternatives, and I would prefer it
to be within the next two weeks. I don't want to -- I don't want to make
this any more of a drawn-out process than it necessarily needs to be.
It's extremely distressing to me as a community -- this isn't -- this
right now, this particular fire is east of 951, and it's the residents in
Eastern Collier County, but this is a countywide issue. Ladies and
gentlemen, we were one spark away from lighting up the urbanized
area of Collier County.
If this fire had been a mile north, we wouldn't have just lost nine
structures and three homes or five homes, however -- and I'm not
taking away from the severity of the loss, but if this fire had been a
mile north, it would have jumped across 951, went right into the
urbanized Estates area which have just as thick of a vegetation issue
and even in a higher density.
So I would like for us to -- I would like to offer to staff positive
direction to come back to us with some alternatives. Mr. Summers has
already given us a brief analysis as to what Forestry Service has done
in other communities. And I applaud him -- because he and I talked
about this Sunday afternoon -- the sheer fact that we're only putting
$27,000 out to take proactive steps to help protect our community -- all
of our community. It's not just Eastern Collier County, but this is an
entire countywide issue.
I think some adjustments in our prioritization in what's important
to us as a community need to be addressed. So with the board's
pleasure, I'd like to also make that as a motion as well.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'll second that.
April 25, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. All those in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries unanimously.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm done.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. One more thing.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is Dan done?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No.
MR. SUMMERS: Yes, ma'am, I'm done unless you have any
other questions.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Don't leave, Dan. Don't leave.
MR. SUMMERS: Don't leave.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I really want to thank you, once again.
MR. SUMMERS: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Tremendous confidence in you leading
this very unexpected but extraordinarily dangerous event, and -- just so
pleased. And if there's anything that we can do, you know to call. And
just know that you have this board's support for your leadership.
MR. SUMMERS: Well, thank you, ma'am. And one -- two -- I
just want to mention two very important things to you: One was -- a
real accomplishment was the unification that we did with what we call
our media management. We brought the Sheriff's public information
officer, the Collier County Communications and Customer Relations,
the fire district PIOs, the Forestry PIOs, and we made that emergency
messages information a machine and a business process unified, and I
want to thank the Sheriff for helping us do that. So that's been one of
April 25, 2017
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the -- a push I wanted to have for a very long time, and I think that was
very good.
We continue to do after-actions reviews and those type of things,
and look at our emergency messaging. And the area was broad. And I
will tell you that with the variable winds that we had and shifts and this
fire fingering the way it did, we were conscious of overreaching and
cautious of being undersized in that evacuation area. So we appreciate
the residents' patience in that, and we were quite concerned of fire
spotting as much as a half- to three-quarter miles away.
But, again, my job was easier in the EOC, but the collective
teamwork of fire and Forestry, outside agencies, human services
agencies, county divisions, it was hard work, but it made it a real
pleasure with the team and very, very confident of what might lie
ahead. So thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
One more thing, if my colleagues would agree. It's budget time,
and I believe, according to our County Manager, the Forestry
Department may be subject to some cuts. And I think -- if you would
agree, I'd like, with the assistance of our County Manager, to write a
letter to the governor requesting that the budget for Forestry statewide
not be cut.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Be enhanced.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Sure.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Is that okay?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. So then --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Third.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Add that word "enhanced."
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Enhanced.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Not only not cut, but enhanced.
And if I can chime in just a little bit on what Commissioner Taylor --
April 25, 2017
Page 144
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: The Speaker as well.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah, maybe and the Speaker of the
House, right?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And the President of the Senate.
MR. OCHS: Yes, in our local delegation, certainly. We'll
include those all, if that works for you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And it will go very quickly, so we can
get it out. It's two weeks and budget's over, but this needs to be
brought forward --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: As before, if you'll send it to
me, I'll hand deliver it on Thursday.
MR. OCHS: Fantastic.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'll be up there.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Nice.
MR. OCHS: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And on that note, if I can just
piggyback on what you said. One of the benefits of our supporting our
Forestry Service is their -- their capacity to enter in onto private
property and do proactive mitigation. Our fire departments -- and a lot
of people don't understand this. Our fire departments have to have
your permission to come on your land and do fire mitigation. Forestry
doesn't. And, you know, a lot of our lots in Golden Gate Estates are 75
feet wide. And we've got a 10-foot setback property width on each
side. So the people that own the 75-foot lot, they build their house
seven-and-a-half feet off the property line so they can get the truck
around and get to the garage or shed or whatever it is that's in the back.
Well, inevitably, they end up next to a vacant lot next door
seven-and-a-half feet away, and the fire department doesn't have
enough room to get in there to protect the structure, and nor -- if that
property owner's remote, they don't have permission to go on site and
do fire mitigation, chopping and the like.
April 25, 2017
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So supporting fire -- or the Forestry Services is an imperative
effort. Not supporting our fire departments, please, but supporting
Forestry really will help us in some of these proactive steps.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Good.
MR. SUMMERS: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
Item #7
PUBLIC COMMENTS ON GENERAL TOPICS NOT ON THE
CURRENT OR FUTURE AGENDA
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, that takes us to Item 7, public
comments on general topics not on the current or future agenda.
MR. MILLER: We have no registered speakers on that item, sir.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And they cut us off on the
computers, too.
Item #15
STAFF AND COMMISSION GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS
MR. OCHS: That moves us to Item 15, staff and commission
general communications.
I have nothing for the Board today, ma'am.
MR. KLATZKOW: Nothing, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Ms. Kinzel?
MS. KINZEL: No. Thank you, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. Four.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
April 25, 2017
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COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I'll go quickly.
Number one, I have a happy. I always like to do a happy. I
served as president of -- I was a principal for the day at I-Tech over in
Immokalee, and amazing school. If you haven't -- my colleagues, if
you haven't had an opportunity, please visit I-Tech. It's similar to our
Lorenzo Walker school over here off of Airport Road, an amazing
facility. Unbelievable placement rates for the students that they have
coming in there from an employment standpoint. So that was a lot of
fun serving as principal of the day.
I would like to ask -- if we could get a head nod, I would like to
make some adjustments to the prior board's code enforcement
ordinances that were put out. I'm -- we're running -- and this is just a
positive head nod to allow me to work with staff to make some
adjustments in our code enforcement ordinance, and it's in line with
providing for a mechanism of anonymity for people to call and make
reports of code enforcement -- perceived code enforcement violations.
The ultimate goal is provide for anonymity but yet have
accountability at the same time. And I just would like to offer up a
suggestion for staff to work on that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Do you want to make a -- it an item so
we can decide it?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll bring it back as an item, but
I want a head nod out of you so I can -- I would like to have a head nod
out of you so that I can give a direction to staff to work on that with
me.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I just think -- what if staff brought it
back -- what if you made an agenda item, staff would bring it back,
and we could discuss whether we even want to do that or not, because
it's very controversial.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I understand.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
April 25, 2017
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COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And that's the reason I'm just
looking for some positive --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You've got mine.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay -- positive direction to
staff to work on it and bring it back. All of these things I'm going to
bring back as an actual agenda item so that you have an opportunity to
review. I'm not going to change something outside of the public
venue.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. I would not be opposed to
looking at that again.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Good. I would like to make a
similar suggestion to our sign ordinance. We have a lot of issues with
our sign ordinance, and I would like to make --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Staff's spare time. Signs are one of the
most controversial.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm aware of that. I've already
had conversations with staff as well with regard to it, and we have to
be careful about First Amendment rights and so on and so forth, but
there are some things, I think, that can be done.
One of the -- one of the reasons why I sought to become a county
commissioner was just to make subtle adjustment in some of the
systemic flaws. And we're -- we've been having a -- we've been having
conversations about the sign ordinance for quite some time, and I think
I can make some adjustments to the ordinance to help enhance our
code enforcement efforts with regard to that. So that's another head
nod? Yes.
Then, as the last point -- and I think Mr. Summers already left --
but I would like to also work with them with regard to emergency
services and communication. They did an amazing job with regard to
communicating, and they had difficulties with that fire in
communicating because it was moving so fast.
April 25, 2017
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And there was -- but I did hear a lot of folks about -- that weren't
able to -- that there really didn't seem to be a central information point
where everybody could necessarily go to. I know a lot of social media
was used and that sort of stuff, but I would like to have a discussion
about centralizing that a little bit and giving somebody -- give people a
central location to go to.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. So that, again, through the
County Manager's Office?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Correct. And I am completed.
That was my four.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Two things. Thank you very
much.
The first thing is I respectfully want to ask for all of your opinion
here on the Board. I would -- and it might just be me. I think we
ought to take a break at 10:30, and I think we ought to go to lunch at
12 o'clock. Whether we think it's only going to be 15 more minutes or
a half an hour, it never takes just a half an hour.
Here we are, staff hasn't been able to leave. They can't check with
their staff members. Our people are all here. And we're still sitting
here. I really think we ought to take a lunch hour at 12 o'clock, come
back at 1 o'clock and resume. Because, let's face it, the day is all about
BCC anyway. We have the day dedicated. Who cares if we get out
half an hour late or two hours late; we're here anyway, so...
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Especially today. I've been
gnawing on my arm since, like, 10:30.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I started eating at lunch just to get a
few bites, but I couldn't get very far so now I've -- of course, naturally,
I can't eat that lunch anymore. So I was just thinking, if it's all right
with everybody else, I think it would be nice if we went to lunch at 12
o'clock. Is that okay with you?
April 25, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I look at it differently. I think if we can
get the day over, we can get the day over. And it is a day, but I don't
know if the whole day has to be dedicated to it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I mean, I just dedicate my day.
You're going to do whatever you please, but I do feel we need to go to
lunch. It's not to try and get out of here so fast. It's to make sure
everybody can function throughout the day. And I think we need a
lunch-hour break.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: How about anybody else?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think it's a fair request. I mean, it's
1:30. It's a long day. The court reporter probably could use a break as
well.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I agree. I mean, there's going
to be certain instances, Madam Chair, where we're going to be able to
move it right along and be done and out in a period of time, but
everybody has perceptions about agenda items that are coming forth
and, you know, today is a perfect example of that where you felt we
were going to be fairly quick after we came back from our break, and
those were subjects that took a little bit longer. And so I think staying
to a schedule will allow for the public and our court reporter and
ourselves to better function.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't mean that to be a --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No, I know that. I just -- I'm used to
working. And when you work and you can get it done earlier in the
day, it gives staff -- and that's my experience with the City Council,
especially. You know, staff works all the time whether they're in a
meeting -- and in a meeting they're listening, but they have work that
April 25, 2017
Page 150
adds up when they're not here (sic), so it gives staff an opportunity to
go back and work in a day where maybe the lunch break wouldn't be
so important to them.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Let's ask a few staff
members. How do you feel? Do you want to break for lunch or -- we
might as well ask them.
MR. OCHS: No, no, no. It's the pleasure of the board, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No. It's already a vote. That's already a
vote. No one's going to do that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We're not going to go there.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: You're asking when we're hungry.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: The second thing now that we're all
-- I know that everybody's hungry. I understand that.
The second thing -- and this is the fun thing is, it's pickleball now.
Everybody has to be there.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: That's awesome.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think it's so much fun if you see the
improvements that we've made to this park. From the park that was a
rundown slip of a park to seeing what it is now to become the
pickleball capital of the world; pickleball capital of the world. It is
amazing. And to see the happiness and the fun that's going on over
there.
Thirteen hundred players signed up to play this year, coming from
46 countries, and -- I mean, 46 states and 12 countries. I mean, that --
you know, how can you beat that? And this is only the second year
doing this. I'm so proud of them. I'm so proud of what they've done.
The TDC has backed us up all the way. They're the ones that put
a shade structure up. And on Sundays at the games, people were just
shaking their head in disbelief. They said, nothing else is like this in
the world. Oh, they were so impressed. People were getting goose
April 25, 2017
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pimples and everything because they thought it was so great.
And so if you -- you not only sitting right here in the audience,
but out there, if anybody happens to be listening to this meeting, go see
it for yourself. It's so much fun. It's a pride and joy, and it's something
that we would have never thought of doing three years ago, and here
we are now the pickleball capital of the world.
So with that, thank you for indulging me.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I just have a couple comments.
One, I would like to commend staff. You know, for anybody
that's not following it, District 2 right now is in what I've been calling
the perfect storm of capital improvements projects. The bridge
replacements on Vanderbilt Drive and then all of the utilities work
that's being done on the finger streets south of 111th. I mean, two
major, major, very messy, smelly difficult projects within walking
distance of each other, which is really creating a -- having a huge
impact on traffic, everything.
You know, the responsiveness that staff has had and their
willingness to continually improve communication with the owners, I
mean, there's -- I keep trying to tell everyone, you know, it's just a
huge project and there's no, you know, tidy non-odorous way of
replacing all of this. It is a huge -- it's a huge project, and it's having a
huge impact.
So I would like to commend staff, the County Manager, Assistant
County Manager, and other staff, with, you know, the willingness to
continually try to keep the residents up to speed.
And I also had another situation off of Orange Blossom. There
was a little miscommunication, I think, somewhere along the line, but
staff immediately jumped on that and resolved it, and I just -- I can't
say enough. I'm continually impressed by the responsiveness of the
April 25, 2017
Page 152
staff. So thank you very much.
MR. OCHS: You're welcome, sir. It was our pleasure.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: The only thing I want to say is
I'm going to have a problem getting to the workshop on June 6th, I
believe, so I will go back -- if it stays on that date, and I assume it will,
I will go back and listen to the tape, and then there's an MPO meeting
on June 8th, I believe -- yeah, June 8th, and I might have a problem
getting to that as well. So I just wanted to alert you so that we make
sure we have a quorum at that meeting.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I hope it's fun.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: It is.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I will probably -- I don't know if I'll
be able to make the 6th, but I can do it by phone. Will the quorum be
established even though I can only participate by phone?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: If you can --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think if the Board approves
appearance by phone, it's okay.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, good.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: For the workshop, yeah.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. The Del's -- Del has indicated
that he would like to sell his property to the CRA. He would like to
start that process to see if the CRA is interested in it.
I'm passing out now Florida Statute 163.370 that indicates that in
CRAs, indeed, you can buy and sell property. It also indicates that the
purpose of the CRA is -- there is revitalization, but it's also to expand
and enhance, and they do use those words "affordable housing."
So as we move forward, if there is an interest -- I'm not saying
that the county is going to buy it, but if there's an interest, we should be
able to direct staff so that they can start that process.
April 25, 2017
Page 153
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What price is he asking?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Don't know anything about it. It's just
if there's an interest.
Okay. Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I could not express any interest
until I know some of the details. I don't want to --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No. Would you allow staff to entertain
it to bring us details back? Not to buy it, but just to open the door?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I don't have any problem with
staff coming back and saying, you know, this is a piece of property that
might be up for sale. But I have really -- I'll be very -- I would be very
cautious about buying property. That's all.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I agree.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I would be extremely cautious.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I wouldn't want to do anything until
we know the price.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah, but, no, no. I'm not saying buy
it. I'm just saying to start a process by which the staff would be willing
to say, okay, you know, what -- how big is the property? What's your
price? And then, of course, nothing would go from that point on. To
bring us back information.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So far we've got three votes that say,
no, not really?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Just -- I think we've all said if
staff wants to come back with some information, fine, but we've all
said we're going to be very cautious about buying it, period.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Well, I'll go along with it,
too.
April 25, 2017
Page 154
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah, me, too. So there it is. And
that's all I have right now. Thank you very much.
All right. Hearing none, meeting adjourned.
**** Carried unanimously (no formal motion was made) that the
following items under the Consent and Summary Agendas be
approved and/or adopted ****
Item #16A1
RESOLUTION 2017-74: A RESOLUTION TO DECLARE A
PUBLIC HEARING TO DISCLAIM, RENOUNCE, AND VACATE
THE COUNTY AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN A PORTION
OF THE 60-FOOT WIDE ROAD RIGHT-OF-WAY KNOWN AS
25TH AVENUE NORTHWEST, APPROXIMATELY 665 FEET IN
LENGTH, BEING A PART OF TRACTS 1, 2 & 3, GOLDEN GATE
ESTATES UNIT NO. 21, PLAT BOOK 7, PAGE 81 OF THE
PUBLIC RECORDS OF COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA. THE
SUBJECT ROAD RIGHT OF WAY IS LOCATED WEST OF 8TH
STREET NORTHWEST, JUST NORTH OF IMMOKALEE ROAD
IN SECTION 21, TOWNSHIP 48 SOUTH, RANGE 27 EAST,
COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA (VAC-PL20170000440)
Item #16A2
THE CLERK OF COURTS TO RELEASE A PERFORMANCE
BOND IN THE AMOUNT OF $489,300 WHICH WAS POSTED
AS A GUARANTY FOR EXCAVATION PERMIT NUMBER
59.886-1, PL20130002538 FOR WORK ASSOCIATED WITH
ARTESIA NAPLES, PHASE 3 – THE AS-BUILT LAKE CROSS
April 25, 2017
Page 155
SECTIONS HAVE BEEN RECEIVED AND LAKES HAVE BEEN
INSPECTED BY THE DEVELOPMENT REVIEW DIVISION
Item #16A3
THE RANKED LIST OF DESIGN PROFESSIONALS PURSUANT
TO RFP NO. 17-7097, “COLLIER CREEK MODELING,” AND
AUTHORIZE STAFF TO NEGOTIATE A CONTRACT WITH
THE TOP RANKED FIRM CB&I ENVIRONMENTAL &
INFRASTRUCTURE, INC. FOR SUBSEQUENT BOARD
APPROVAL; OR, IF CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS ARE
UNSUCCESSFUL TO AUTHORIZE STAFF TO COMMENCE
CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE SECOND RANKED
PROPOSER, ATKINS NORTH AMERICA, AND MAKE A
FINDING THAT THIS ITEM PROMOTES TOURISM
Item #16A4
A TIME EXTENSION TO A LOCAL AGENCY PROGRAM
AGREEMENT WITH THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION FOR THE CONSTRUCTION AND
CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING INSPECTION OF
INTERSECTION IMPROVEMENTS ON GOLDEN GATE
PARKWAY AT LIVINGSTON ROAD (PROJECT NO. 33431) –
EXTENDING THE CONSTUCTION COMPLETION DATE TO
DECEMBER 31, 2017
Item #16A5
THE CLERK OF COURTS TO RELEASE A PERFORMANCE
April 25, 2017
Page 156
BOND IN THE AMOUNT OF $289,720 WHICH WAS POSTED
AS A GUARANTY FOR EXCAVATION PERMIT NUMBER
60.082-3, PL20150002846 FOR WORK ASSOCIATED WITH
CAYS OF NAPLES (FKA HACIENDA LAKES OF NAPLES
TRACT B) – THE AS-BUILT LAKE CROSS SECTIONS HAVE
BEEN RECEIVED AND LAKES HAVE BEEN INSPECTED BY
THE DEVELOPMENT REVIEW DIVISION
Item #16A6
RECORD THE FINAL PLAT OF WILLOUGHBY PRESERVE,
(APPLICATION NUMBER PL20160003121) APPROVAL OF THE
STANDARD FORM CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE
AGREEMENT AND APPROVAL OF THE AMOUNT OF THE
PERFORMANCE SECURITY
Item #16A7
A WORK ORDER WITH CB&I COASTAL PLANNING &
ENGINEERING, INC. TO PROVIDE PROFESSIONAL
ENGINEERING SERVICES FOR 2018-2019 LOCAL
GOVERNMENT FUNDING REQUEST UNDER CONTRACT NO.
15- 6382 FOR TIME AND MATERIALS NOT TO EXCEED
$19,818, AUTHORIZE THE COUNTY MANAGER OR HIS
DESIGNEE TO EXECUTE THE WORK ORDER, AND MAKE A
FINDING THAT THIS ITEM PROMOTES TOURISM – FOR
COLLIER COUNTY’S SHORE PROTECTION PROJECTS AND
BEACH RENOURISHMENT PROJECTS THAT INCLUDE
SOUTH MARCO ISLAND; ALONG WITH THE COUNTY’S
INLET PROJECTS AT WIGGINS PASS AND DOCTORS PASS
April 25, 2017
Page 157
Item #16A8
FIVE AGREEMENTS FOR THE PURCHASE OF SIX
EASEMENTS REQUIRED FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A
REPLACEMENT WEIR ON THE GOLDEN GATE MAIN CANAL
BETWEEN 8TH AND 10TH STREETS NORTHEAST. GOLDEN
GATE MAIN CANAL WEIR NO. 4 REPLACEMENT (PROJECT
NO. 60204) (ESTIMATED FISCAL IMPACT: $11,300) – FOR THE
FOLLOWING: PARCEL 101TCE; PARCEL 102TCE1/TCE2;
PARCEL 103TCE; PARCEL 104DAME; PARCEL 104TCE
Item #16A9
RESOLUTION 2017-75: GRANT FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE
PRIVATE ROADWAY AND DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS FOR
THE FINAL PLAT OF CORSICA AT TALIS PARK,
APPLICATION NUMBER PL20140001402 WITH THE
ROADWAY AND DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS BEING
PRIVATELY MAINTAINED; ACCEPTANCE OF THE PLAT
DEDICATIONS, AND AUTHORIZING THE RELEASE OF THE
MAINTENANCE SECURITY
Item #16A10
AN AFTER-THE-FACT BIG CYPRESS BASIN LOCAL
PARTNERSHIP GRANT APPLICATION SUBMITTAL, IN
ORDER TO BECOME A CO-APPLICANT WITH THE CITY OF
NAPLES, TO PROVIDE FUNDING FOR THE WEST
GOODLETTE-FRANK ROAD AREA JOINT STORMWATER
AND WASTEWATER COLLECTION IMPROVEMENT PROJECT
– WITH THE FOLLOWING 13 STREETS AFFECTED:
April 25, 2017
Page 158
HOLLYGATE LANE, RIDGE STREET, ROSEMARY LANE, 12TH
STREET NORTH, 10TH STREET NORTH, 14TH STREET NORTH,
FRANK WHITMAN BOULEVARD, COOPER DRIVE, ILLINOIS
DRIVE, WISCONSIN DRIVE, OHIO DRIVE, HIGH POINTE
CIRCLE & ROSEMARY COURT
Item #16A11
AN AMENDMENT TO PURCHASE AGREEMENT FOR THE
PURCHASE OF A FEE SIMPLE PROPERTY (PARCEL 101FEE)
REQUIRED FOR THE IMMOKALEE STORMWATER
IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (PROJECT 60143) (ESTIMATED
FISCAL IMPACT: $0) – FOLIO #22430001026
Item #16A12
AN AFTER-THE-FACT FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 319(H) GRANT
APPLICATION TO FUND THE WEST GOODLETTE-FRANK
ROAD AREA JOINT STORMWATER-SEWER PROJECT
TOTALING $750,000 – AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Item #16A13
STAFF VERIFIED PRICE INCREASES TO ITB NO. 13-6140
“PURCHASE OF LIME ROCK AND FILL” AND AUTHORIZE
PAYMENT OF OUTSTANDING INVOICES FOR PROJECTS TO
FLORIDA DIRT SOURCE, LLC. – FOR INVOICES TOTALING
$85,924.04
April 25, 2017
Page 159
Item #16A14
NEGOTIATED AGREEMENTS WITH DWJH, LLC D/B/A LEO’S
SOD, AND TRIPLE C SOD, INC. FOR INVITATION TO BID
(ITB) NO. 16-7032RR “PURCHASE AND DELIVERY OF
TURFGRASSES” – FOR SOD INSTALLATION ON AN AS-
NEEDED BASIS
Item #16A15
A BUDGET AMENDMENT TO RECOGNIZE REVENUE FOR
PROJECT #60119, PINE RIDGE WEIR, WITHIN STORMWATER
CAPITAL FUNDS IN THE AMOUNT OF $33,857.32 AND
AUTHORIZE PAYMENT TO KELLY BROTHERS, INC. IN THE
AMOUNT OF $33,857.32 IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE
APPROVED DEVELOPER AGREEMENT BETWEEN COLLIER
COUNTY AND ARTHREX, INC. – DUE TO DELAY IN THE
COMMENCEMENT OF CONSTRUCTION FOR THE
REPLACEMENT PINE RIDGE WEIR, WHICH IS LOCATED
WITHIN THE CREEKSIDE COMMERCE PARK PUD
Item #16A16
SELECTION COMMITTEE’S RANKING OF PROFESSIONAL
ENGINEERING CONSULTANTS ON THE REQUEST FOR
PROPOSAL ISSUED AS "CCNA SOLICITATION #17-7103
WEST GOODLETTE FRANK ROAD JOINT STORMWATER-
SEWER PROJECT” (PROJECT NUMBER 60142), AND TO
ENTER INTO CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE TOP
RANKED FIRM SUBJECT TO BOARD APPROVAL – THE
SHORT LIST IS RANKED AS FOLLOWS: Q. GRADY MINOR,
April 25, 2017
Page 160
JOHNSON ENGINEERING AND STANTEC
Item #16A17
A WORK ORDER WITH CB&I ENVIRONMENTAL &
INFRASTRUCTURE, INC. TO PROVIDE PROFESSIONAL
ENGINEERING SERVICES IN SUPPORT OF A THREE (3)
YEAR LEASE EXTENSION TO PROVIDE BEACH
RENOURISHMENT SAND FROM THE BUREAU OF OCEAN
ENERGY MANAGEMENT (BOEM), A FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT AGENCY (LEASE EXTENSION &
MODIFICATION TO AGREEMENT NO. OCS-G 35160).
ENGINEERING SERVICES WILL BE PROVIDED UNDER
CONTRACT #15-6382 FOR TIME AND MATERIAL NOT TO
EXCEED PRICE OF $14,936. THIS REQUEST ALSO
AUTHORIZES THE COUNTY MANAGER OR HIS DESIGNEE
TO EXECUTE THE WORK ORDER, AND MAKE A FINDING
THAT THIS ITEM PROMOTES TOURISM – FOR 7.5 MILES OF
COASTLINE BETWEEN WIGGINS PASS AND GORDON PASS
INCLUDEING VANDERBILT BEACH, PELICAN BAY, PARK
SHORE AND NAPLES BEACH
Item #16C1
A $297,960 CONTRACT TO AMEC FOSTER WHEELER, INC.,
UNDER REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL #16-7039 FOR
CONSTRUCTION, ENGINEERING AND INSPECTION
SERVICES FOR THE NORTHEAST RECYCLING DROP- OFF
CENTER, PROJECT NUMBER 59009, AND APPROVE THE
NECESSARY BUDGET AMENDMENT – LOCATED BEHIND
THE COLLIER COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS ON 39TH AVENUE
April 25, 2017
Page 161
OFF OF IMMOKALEE ROAD
Item #16C2
CHANGE ORDER NO. 2 TO CONTRACT #16-6589 “MEMORIAL
PATHWAY ON VANDERBILT DRIVE” AND AUTHORIZE A
BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE AMOUNT OF $97,000 TO
MOVE FUNDS FROM PROJECT NO. 70104 TO PROJECT NO.
70071 (COUNTYWIDE UTILITIES PROJECTS) – AS THE
RECORD DRAWINGS FAILED TO IDENTIFY EXISTING
MAINS ON 1ST, 2ND, 3RD, 4TH, 5TH & 9TH STREETS
Item #16C3
A $213,025.19 WORK ORDER UNDER REQUEST FOR
QUOTATION #14-6213-84 TO QUALITY ENTERPRISES USA,
INC., FOR THE SRO WELLFIELD FLOW METER
REPLACEMENT (PROJECT NO. 70085) – FOR THE REVERSE
OSMOSIS TREATMENT SYSTEM
Item #16D1
THREE MORTGAGE SATISFACTIONS FOR THE COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT SINGLE FAMILY
REHABILITATION IN THE COMBINED AMOUNT OF
$66,393.75 – FOLIO #73983120005, FOLIO #01133640006 &
FOLIO #65171000000
Item #16D2
FOUR MORTGAGE SATISFACTIONS FOR THE STATE
April 25, 2017
Page 162
HOUSING INITIATIVES PARTNERSHIP (SHIP) LOAN
PROGRAM IN THE COMBINED AMOUNT OF $17,170 – FOR
THE FOLLOWING: 5366 BROWARD STREET, NAPLES; 4718
25TH AVE SW, NAPLES; 12199 FULLER LANE, NAPLES & 5380
25TH AVE SW, NAPLES
Item #16D3
THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO AGREEMENT BETWEEN
COLLIER COUNTY AND BIG CYPRESS HOUSING
CORPORATION ROLLING PROJECT FUNDS FORWARD
FROM ONE PROGRAM FISCAL YEAR TO THE SUCCESSIVE
FISCAL YEAR AND ALSO TO APPROVE CUSTOMARY
SUBORDINATION AGREEMENTS WITH THE U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND FLORIDA HOUSING
FINANCE CORPORATION WHO EACH HAVE SUPERIOR LIEN
POSITIONS – AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Item #16D4
CHANGE ORDER #3 FOR CONTRACT #15-6437 - FPL AERIAL
TO UNDERGROUND UTILITY CONVERSION AT
VANDERBILT BEACH WITH MASTEC NORTH AMERICA,
INC. TO INCREASE THE CONTRACT AMOUNT BY $156,810
TO REPAIR BURIED NETWORK DAMAGED BY OTHERS,
AND EXTEND THE CONTRACT TO COMPLETE REPAIRS
AND WIRING ACTIVATION FOR PHASE II AND III OF THE
VANDERBILT BEACH MSTU UTILITY CONVERSION
PROJECT
Item #16D5
April 25, 2017
Page 163
THE CHAIRMAN TO SIGN THE FOURTH AMENDMENT TO
THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE MENTAL HEALTH SUBSTANCE
ABUSE AGREEMENT WITH THE DAVID LAWRENCE
MENTAL HEALTH CENTER (DLC) TO ADJUST THE GRANT
BUDGET BY ALLOCATING $35,000 FROM “PERSONNEL” TO
“INCIDENTAL EXPENSES” FOR PROGRAM YEAR 3 – WHICH
INCLUDES MEDICATIONS GROCERIES, PERSONAL CARE
ITEMS OR TEMPORARY HOUSING
Item #16D6
RESOLUTION 2017-76: A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE
TRANSPORTATION PLAN FOR ACUTE CARE SERVICES FOR
ADULTS AND CHILDREN IN COLLIER COUNTY FOR THE
STATE FISCAL YEARS 2017-2020
Item #16E1
ADDITION OF ONE CLASSIFICATION AND THE REMOVAL
OF THREE CLASSIFICATIONS IN THE 2017 FISCAL YEAR
PAY & CLASSIFICATION PLAN MADE FROM JANUARY 1,
2017 THROUGH MARCH 31, 2017 – FOR THE ADDITION OF
THE CRA DIRECTOR AND THE REMOVAL OF HELICOPTER
PILOT (EMT), FIRE CHIEF AND ASSISTAN FIRE CHIEF
Item #16E2
THE CHAIRMAN TO EXECUTE AN AGREEMENT WITH
HODGES UNIVERSITY ALLOWING HODGES PARAMEDIC
STUDENTS TO OBTAIN STATE-REQUIRED FIELD
April 25, 2017
Page 164
INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE AND TRAINING UNDER THE
APPROPRIATE SUPERVISION OF THE COLLIER COUNTY
EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES DEPARTMENT
Item #16E3
RECOGNIZE AND APPROPRIATE REVENUE TO THE
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DIVISION COST CENTER IN THE
AMOUNT OF $70,775.16 FOR THE PERIOD OF JANUARY 2017
THROUGH MARCH 2017 OF FISCAL YEAR 2016-2017 AND
APPROVE ALL NECESSARY BUDGET AMENDMENTS – FOR
THE MAINTENANCE, REPAIR, CAPITAL REPLACEMENT,
AND CONSTRUCTION OF COUNTY OWNED BUILDINGS,
AND FACILITIES
Item #16E4
THE ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS PREPARED BY THE
PROCUREMENT SERVICES DIVISION FOR CHANGE ORDERS
AND OTHER ITEMS AS IDENTIFIED – AMENDMENTS/
CHANGE ORDERS FOR THE FOLLOWING CONTRACTS: #13-
6164 CAROLLO ENGINEERING; #15-6457 DOUGLAS
HIGGINS; #15-6494 QUALITY ENTERPRISES; #13-6178 HOLE
MONTES; #14-6257 HUMISTON & MOORE ENGINEERING;
#13-6464-TE FORGE ENGINEERING & #14-6342 COMMUNITY
ASPHALT CORP.
Item #16F1
AN INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT WITH THE GREATER
NAPLES FIRE RESCUE DISTRICT TO ASSIST AND
April 25, 2017
Page 165
COOPERATE WITH THE DISTRICT IN COLLECTING THE
DISTRICT’S IMPACT FEES AND TO AUTHORIZE THE
COUNTY MANAGER, OR HIS DESIGNEE, AND THE COUNTY
ATTORNEY TO ADVERTISE FOR FUTURE CONSIDERATION
AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 74 OF THE COLLIER
COUNTY CODE OF LAWS AND ORDINANCES TO REMOVE
ALL REFERENCES TO THE ISLES OF CAPRI FIRE DISTRICT
WHICH HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE GREATER NAPLES FIRE
RESCUE DISTRICT THROUGH THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS
Item #16F2
AN AMENDMENT EXTENDING THE CURRENT CONTRACT
WITH PFM FINANCIAL ADVISORS, LLC (PFM) THROUGH
MAY 31, 2020 UNDER PROVISIONS OF SINGLE SOURCE
PROCUREMENT AS DEFINED WITHIN THE PROCUREMENT
SERVICES ORDINANCE – WITH TERMS AND CONDITIONS
REMAINING THE SAME
Item #16F3
TOURIST DEVELOPMENT TAX CATEGORY “B” FUNDING TO
SUPPORT THE THREE UPCOMING FY 17 SPORTS EVENTS UP
TO $16,750 AND MAKE A FINDING THAT THESE
EXPENDITURES PROMOTE TOURISM – FOR THE THREE
FOLLOWING EVENTS: MAY 7TH - 14TH THE USTA-ITR
WOMAN’S PRO CIRCUIT AND MAY 14TH – 21ST THE USTA-
ITF WOMAN’S PRO CIRCUIT WILL TAKE PLACE AT THE
NAPLES BATH AND TENNIS CLUB; MAY 27TH – 29TH THE
SWEETBAY MEMORIAL DAY CUP HELD AT THE NORTH
COLLIER REGIONAL PARK
April 25, 2017
Page 166
Item #16F4
TOURIST TAX CATEGORY “B” FUNDING TO SPONSOR THE
UPCOMING MAY 2017 SPORTS EVENT, THE FHSAA BOYS’
VOLLEYBALL STATE CHAMPIONSHIP, TOTALING $7,800
AND MAKE A FINDING THAT THESE EXPENDITURES
PROMOTE TOURISM – HELD MAY 4TH – 6TH AT GOLDEN
GATE HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP
Item #16F5
RESOLUTION 2017-77: A RESOLUTION APPROVING
AMENDMENTS (APPROPRIATING GRANTS, DONATIONS,
CONTRIBUTIONS OR INSURANCE PROCEEDS) TO THE
FISCAL YEAR 2016-17 ADOPTED BUDGET
Item #16G1
A COLLIER COUNTY AIRPORT AUTHORITY STANDARD
FORM LEASE AGREEMENT WITH ISLAND AIR CHARTERS,
INC. FOR COUNTER AND OFFICE SPACE AT THE MARCO
ISLAND EXECUTIVE AIRPORT – PROVIDING SERVICES TO
KEY WEST AND THE BAHAMAS
Item #16H1 – Added (Per Agenda Change Sheet)
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 4, 2017 AS NATIONAL
DAY OF PRAYER - READ INTO THE RECORD BY
COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL
April 25, 2017
Page 167
Item #16J1
REPORT TO THE BOARD REGARDING THE INVESTMENT OF
COUNTY FUNDS AS OF THE QUARTER ENDED MARCH 31,
2017
Item #16J2
TO PROVIDE THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
THE CLERK OF THE CIRCUIT COURT’S INTERNAL AUDIT
REPORT 2017-6 FEE PAYMENT ASSISTANCE PROGRAM:
GUADALUPE CENTER, INC., ISSUED ON, APRIL 19, 2017
Item #16J3
PURSUANT TO THE BOARD’S PURCHASING ORDINANCE
2013-69, AS AMENDED, REQUEST THAT THE BOARD
APPROVE AND DETERMINE VALID PUBLIC PURPOSE FOR
INVOICES PAYABLE AND PURCHASING CARD
TRANSACTIONS AS OF APRIL 19, 2017
Item #16J4
TO RECORD IN THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS, THE CHECK NUMBER (OR OTHER
PAYMENT METHOD), AMOUNT, PAYEE, AND PURPOSE FOR
WHICH THE REFERENCED DISBURSEMENTS WERE DRAWN
FOR THE PERIODS BETWEEN MARCH 30 AND APRIL 12,
2017 PURSUANT TO FLORIDA STATUTE 136.06
Item #16K1
April 25, 2017
Page 168
RESOLUTION 2017-78: APPOINT A MEMBER TO THE
AFFORDABLE HOUSING ADVISORY COMMITTEE –
APPOINTING MR. SCOTT KISH TO FILL THE REMAINDER OF
A VACANT TERM THAT WILL EXPIRE ON OCTOBER 1, 2018
Item #16K2
RESOLUTION 2017-79: REAPPOINT THREE MEMBERS TO
THE BAYSHORE/ GATEWAY TRIANGLE LOCAL
REDEVELOPMENT ADVISORY BOARD – REAPPOINTING
LARRY INGRAM, SHANE SHADIS AND STEPHEN MAIN ALL
WITH TERMS EXPIRING ON MAY 22, 2020
Item #17A
RESOLUTION 2017-80: PETITION VAC-PL20160002287 TO
DISCLAIM, RENOUNCE AND VACATE THE COUNTY AND
THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN A PORTION OF THE 15-FOOT
UTILITY EASEMENT RECORDED IN OFFICIAL RECORD
BOOK 1835, PAGE 637 OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS OF
COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA, LOCATED IN SECTION 21,
TOWNSHIP 48 SOUTH, RANGE 25 EAST, COLLIER COUNTY,
FLORIDA, AND TO ACCEPT A REPLACEMENT UTILITY
EASEMENT
Item #17B
RESOLUTION 2017-81: A RESOLUTION APPROVING
AMENDMENTS (APPROPRIATING CARRY FORWARD,
April 25, 2017
TRANSFERS AND SUPPLEMENTAL REVENUE) TO THE
FISCAL YEAR 2016-17 ADOPTED BUDGET
*****
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 1:42 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL
1C;4
PENNY TO LOR,lor A IRMAN
p
ATTEST'''
DWIGHT E. BRAC , CLERK
b(j.
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Attest as to Chairma
signature only.
These minu approved by the Board on Illa , as presented
or as corrected
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF U.S. LEGAL
SUPPORT, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS, COURT REPORTER AND
NOTARY PUBLIC.
Page 169