BCC Minutes 05/09/2017 RMay 9, 2017
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TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Naples, Florida, May 9, 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
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May 9, 2017
COLLIER COUNTY
Board of County Commissioners
Community Redevelopment Agency Board (CRAB)
Airport Authority
AGENDA
Board of County Commission Chambers
Collier County Government Center
3299 Tamiami Trail East, 3rd Floor
Naples, FL 34112
May 09, 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.
PUBLIC COMMENT ON GENERAL TOPICS NOT ON THE CURRENT OR
FUTURE AGENDA TO BE HEARD NO SOONER THAN 1:00 P.M., OR AT THE
CONCLUSION OF THE AGENDA; WHICHEVER OCCURS FIRST.
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.”
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May 9, 2017
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
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 Craig Goodrich of First Presbyterian Church
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 agenda.)
B. April 11, 2017 - BCC/Regular Meeting Minutes
3. SERVICE AWARDS
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May 9, 2017
A. EMPLOYEE
B. ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS
C. RETIREES
4. PROCLAMATIONS (One Motion Taken to Adopt All Proclamations)
A. Proclamation designating May 2017 as Motorcycle Safety Month in Collier
County. To be accepted by representatives of American Bikers Aimed
Toward Education - ABATE of Florida Inc. - Gator Alley Chapter, Lynn
Corr, President and Legislative Trustee, Will Breem, Safety Director, and
Fred Corr, State Delegate.
B. Proclamation designating May 1-7, as National Correctional Officers Week
in Collier County. To be accepted by Sheriff Kevin Rambosk, Chief Chris
Roberts, Capt. Beth Richards, Cmdr. Patricia Gifford, Cmdr. Kevin
McGowan and other Correctional Officers and Naples Jail Center staff.
C. Proclamation designating May 20-26 as National Safe Boating Week in
Collier County. To be accepted by members of the United States Coast
Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 95: Flotilla Commander Douglas Bartlett, Flotilla
Vice Commander John Montville, Joe Riccio, Douglas Johnson and Keith
Wohltman.
D. Proclamation designating May 2017 as National Mental Health Awareness
Month in Collier County. To be accepted by the following officers of the
David Lawrence Center: Scott Burgess, CEO; Jim Warnken Chief Planning
and Business Development Officer; Scott Geltemeyer, CFO; Nancy
Dauphinais, COO; and Dr. Douglas Johnson, Board President.
E. Proclamation designating May 2017 as National Drug Court Awareness
Month in Collier County. To be accepted by The Honorable Janeice Martin,
Presiding Judge; Ashley Swan, Case Manager; members of the Drug Court
team and participants.
F. Proclamation designating May 17, 2017, as Healthcare Network of
Southwest Florida Day in Collier County. To be accepted by Mike Ellis,
Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Emily Ptaszek, Chief Operating Officer and
Steve Wheeler, Vice President Development.
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5. PRESENTATIONS
A. Presentation of the Collier County Business of the Month for May 2017 to
the David Lawrence Center. To be accepted by Scott Burgess, Chief
Executive Officer; David Lawrence Center (DLC); Nancy Dauphihais, Chief
Operating Officer, DLC; Scott Geltmeyer, Chief Financial Officer, DLC;
Darcy Taylor, Chief Development Officer, DLC; Jim Warnken, Chief
Planning and Business Development Officer, DLC; Trista Meister,
Communications Director, DLC; Susan Kuhar, Account Executive, Greater
Naples Chamber of Commerce; and Bethany Sawyer, Membership
Engagement Specialist, Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce.
B. Recommendation to recognize Lisa Taylor, Senior Management & Budget
Analyst, Growth Management Department as the April 2017 Employee of
the Month.
6. PUBLIC PETITIONS
A. Public Petition request from Ms. Rita M. Pyrdol requesting that the Board of
County Commissioners address traffic volume on St. Andrews Boulevard by
installing a gate on Warren Street.
7. PUBLIC COMMENTS ON GENERAL TOPICS NOT ON THE CURRENT
OR FUTURE AGENDA
8. BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS
9. ADVERTISED PUBLIC HEARINGS
A. This item to be heard immediately following Item #11A.
Recommendation to adopt an ordinance amending Ordinance No. 02-61, as
amended, to amend the external boundaries of the Fiddler’s Creek
Community Development District #2, pursuant to Chapter 190.046, Florida
Statutes, and to waive the optional local public hearing on a petition to
amend the external boundaries of Fiddler’s Creek Community Development
District #1 filed with the Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission
(FLWAC) since the CDD is over 1,000 acres.
10. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
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A. Commissioner Fiala's Request for Reconsideration of Commissioner
Saunder's Item #10B from the April 25, 2017 Meeting titled: Setting a
meeting date in October regarding Fire Consolidation.
11. COUNTY MANAGER'S REPORT
A. This item to be heard immediately following Item #6A. Recommendation
to direct the County Manager to convene a multi-agency work group to
identify and prioritize options for wildfire mitigation in Collier County. (Dan
Summers, Director, Bureau of Emergency Management)
B. Recommendation to Award Contract No. 16-6679 "Traffic Operations Video
Wall Replacement" in the amount of $479,895.25 to Activu Corporation for
the purchase, configuration and installation of an Activu Video Wall System
to be located in the Collier County Traffic Management Center . (Project No.
33471) (Jay Ahmad, Transportation Engineering Division Director)
C. Recommendation that the Board authorizes staff to work with the Florida
Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to review and update
local unincorporated Collier County boater safety zones, to bring back to the
Board proposed changes to these rules and regulations, and to conduct 4
public workshops to make the public aware of this initiative. (Gary
McAlpin, Manager - Coastal Management Programs, Capital Project
Planning, Impact Fees and Program Management Division)
D. Recommendation to report to the Board on the ATV ad hoc committee;
progress to date, and conceptual plan for a park on the Immokalee Airport
Property; plan to approach the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to
further determine potential mitigation costs associated with environmental
permitting. (Barry Williams, Director, Parks and Recreation)
12. COUNTY ATTORNEY'S REPORT
13. OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS
A. Recommendation for a Budget Amendment to request additional funds for
the purchase of a helicopter for the Collier County Sheriff's Office in the
amount of $750,000.
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14. AIRPORT AUTHORITY AND/OR COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT
AGENCY
A. AIRPORT
B. COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY
15. STAFF AND COMMISSION GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS
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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.
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A. GROWTH MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT
1) 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 minor final plat of Triangle Plaza at Lely
Resort Tract “A” Replat, Application Number PL20160003092.
2) 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 minor final plat of Naftal Acres,
Application Number PL20160003115.
3) 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 Vincent Acres,
(PL20150002012) approval of the standard form Construction and
Maintenance Agreement and approval of the amount of the
performance security.
4) This item requires that ex parte disclosure be provided by
Commission members. Should a hearing be held on this item, all
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participants are required to be sworn in. Recommendation to
approve for recording the final plat of Esplanade Golf and Country
Club of Naples Phase 3 Blocks “K1”, “K2” and “H3”, (Application
Number PL20160003679) approval of the standard form Construction
and Maintenance Agreement and approval of the amount of the
performance security.
5) 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 Del Webb Naples Parcel 102,
Phase 2, (Application Number PL20160003169) approval of the
standard form Construction and Maintenance Agreement and approval
of the amount of the performance security.
6) Recommendation to authorize the Clerk of Courts to release a
Performance Bond in the amount of $122,000 which was posted as a
development guaranty for an Early Work Authorization (EWA)
(PL20160002228) for work associated with Isles of Collier Preserve
Phase 10.
7) Recommendation to authorize the Clerk of Courts to release a
Performance Bond in the amount of $14,000 which was posted as a
development guaranty for an Early Work Authorization (EWA)
(PL20160001205) for work associated with Isles of Collier Preserve
Phase 9.
8) Recommendation to approve Amendment #1 to Agreement #13-6016
for Special Magistrate Services for Code Enforcement with Brenda C.
Garretson to extend the term for one additional year and to increase
the hourly rate of compensation from $175 to $200.
9) Recommendation to approve the selection committee’s ranking and
authorize staff to enter into contract negotiations with Stantec
Consulting Services, Inc. (“Stantec”), on Request for Proposal No. 17-
7072 for Stormwater Utility Program services.
B. COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY
C. PUBLIC UTILITIES DEPARTMENT
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May 9, 2017
1) Recommendation to purchase Flygt wastewater pumps, warranty
repair, parts and related materials from Xylem Water Solutions USA,
Inc.
2) Recommendation to approve a $547,400 work order under Request
for Quotation #14-6213-95 to Southwest Utility Systems Inc., to
construct new pump station 133.09 at Willoughby Drive under Project
Number 70177, and authorize the necessary budget amendment.
3) Recommendation to approve budget amendments in the total amount
of $750,000 to fund the Tree Farm Road Water Main Looping
Connection project, and the Northeast (Orangetree) Water Treatment
Plant High Service Pumps project under Project Nos. 70178 and
70179.
D. PUBLIC SERVICES DEPARTMENT
1) Recommendation to authorize execution of the FY16 Section 5339
grant award from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) in the
Transit Award Management System (TrAMS) and appropriate a
budget amendment in the amount of $299,327 fo r the
rehabilitation/renovation of the CAT Operation Facility.
2) Recommendation to accept and ratify fee waivers granted by the
Director of Domestic Animal Services for the period of January 1,
2017 through March 31, 2017 in accordance with the process
established by Resolution No. 2016-125 in the amount of $410.
3) Recommendation to authorize the execution of the 2015/2016 Federal
Highway Administration Flexible Funds grant award in the amount of
$80,000 for the purchase and installation of additional bus shelters
through the Transit Award Management System (TrAMS) and
appropriate a budget amendment.
4) Recommendation to approve the necessary budget amendment to
recognize revenue for FY2017 received from the State Aid to
Libraries Grant in the amount of $221,236.
5) Recommendation to authorize the Rotary Club of Naples-Collier, Inc.
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to use the Fred W. Coyle Freedom Park for its Honor Flag fundraiser
for 2017. This project supports the various charities of the Rotary
Club.
E. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DEPARTMENT
1) Recommendation to approve a Lease Agreement with the District
School Board of Collier County for the continued use of property for
recreational purposes at Avalon Elementary School.
2) Recommendation to approve Amendment No. 12 to the Agreement
with Collier County District School Board for the Driver Education
Program.
3) Recommendation to approve and execute a First Amendment to
License Agreements for use of Wal-Mart’s parking lots to distribute
disaster relief supplies to the public.
4) Recommendation to approve a Land Lease Agreement with the
District School Board of Collier County for a Public Safety Radio
Communication Tower at Gulf Coast High School.
5) Recommendation to approve a Certificate of Public Convenience and
Necessity for a Class 1 and Class 2 Advanced Life Service (ALS)
Rescue and intra-facility ambulance transport for the Seminole Tribe
of Florida Fire Rescue within the boundary of the Seminole Tribe in
Immokalee.
6) 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 adopt a resolution approving amendments
(appropriating grants, donations, contributions or insurance proceeds)
to the Fiscal Year 2016-17 Adopted Budget.
2) Recommendation to approve a report covering budget amendments
impacting reserves and moving funds in an amount up to and
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including $25,000 and $50,000, respectively.
G. AIRPORT AUTHORITY
1) Recommendation to approve the attached time extensions to Florida
Department of Transportation Joint Participation Agreement (JPA)
Contract Numbers G0594 and G0615 for the Avgas Fuel Farm
Facilities at the Marco Island Executive Airport and Everglades
Airpark.
2) Recommendation to extend Contract No. 11-5642 "Aviation Fuel
Purchase and Delivery" for six months, or until a new contract is
awarded, whichever is soonest.
H. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
1) Proclamation designating May 21-27, as Emergency Medical Services
Week in Collier County, in recognition of the dedication of all
emergency medical professionals serving in a variety of roles. This
proclamation will be delivered to Tabatha Butcher, Chief, Collier
County EMS.
2) Proclamation designating May 14-20, 2017, as Water Reuse Week in
Collier County, and calling upon each citizen and business to help
protect our precious resource by practicing water conservation and
using reclaimed water in an efficient and effective manner. This
Proclamation will be delivered to Dr. George Yilmaz, Public Utilities
Department Head and Lisa Koehler, Big Cypress Basin Administrator.
3) Proclamation designating the second week in May as National
Women's Lung Health Week in Collier County. This proclamation
will be sent by mail to Lindsay Kohn with the American Lung
Association in Florida.
I. MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE
J. OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS
1) Recommendation to authorize execution of the budget amendment in
the amount of $42,000 for communications equipment (9-1-1).
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May 9, 2017
2) Recommendation to approve a budget amendment recognizing
$1,463,000 in revenues and expenditures in the Sheriff's FY2017
General Fund budget.
3) To provide the Board of County Commissioners the Clerk of the
Circuit Court’s Internal Audit Report 2017-7 Job Creation Investment
Program: Arthrex and Arthrex Manufacturing, issued on, May 2,
2017.
4) 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 May 3, 2017.
5) 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 April 13, 2017 and April 26, 2017 pursuant to
Florida Statute 136.06.
K. COUNTY ATTORNEY
1) Recommendation to approve the hiring of Philip Greenwald, Esq., for
mediation services relating to the Golden Gate Boulevard road
widening Project No. 60040, and the eminent domain case styled
Collier County v. GG1 Naples, LLC, et al., Case No. 15-CA-0329,
now pending in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit Court for Collier
County, Florida, and to authorize the County Attorney to retain Mr.
Greenwald for future mediations in eminent domain litigation. (Fiscal
Impact: $5,000)
2) Recommendation to appoint one member to the All-Terrain Vehicle
Park Ad Hoc Committee.
3) Recommendation to appoint three member(s) to the Immokalee Local
Redevelopment Advisory Board.
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17. SUMMARY AGENDA - This section is for advertised public hearings and
must meet the following criteria: 1) A recommendation for approval from
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May 9, 2017
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.
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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 amending Ordinance
Number 92-10, as amended, the Tollgate Commercial Center Planned Unit
Development (PUD), by amending the PUD document to add specific
institutional uses as permitted uses on Tracts 7, 8 and 9 of the commercial
use areas, “A” parcels, as shown on the PUD Master Plan; by amending the
PUD document to add specific institutional uses as permitted uses on Tracts
16-20 and 24-25 of the commercial/light industrial uses area, “B” parcels, as
shown on the PUD Master Plan; and by providing an effective date. The
subject property is located at the intersection of Collier Boulevard (CR-951)
and Beck Boulevard in Section 35, Township 49 South, Range 26 East, and
Section 2, Township 50 South, Range 26 East, Collier County, Florida.
[PUDA- PL20150002280]
B. Recommendation to approve the single petition within the 2016 Cycle 2 of
Growth Management Plan Amendments for transmittal to the Florida
Department of Economic Opportunity for review and Comments response,
for an amendment specific to the Logan Boulevard/Immokalee Road
Commercial Infill Subdistrict in the southeast quadrant of the Immokalee
Road (CR 846) - Logan Boulevard intersection. (Transmittal Hearing) (CP-
2016-2/PL20160001100)
C. Recommendation to adopt an Ordinance that will implement a temporary
moratorium on cannabis dispensing businesses, during which time staff will
develop and bring forward Land Development Code Amendments regarding
the appropriate zoning designation and locational restrictions suitable for
such cannabis dispensing businesses. Note by County Attorney: This
moratorium period commenced February 14, 2017 (Item #11A), and will
expire February 13, 2018, absent further action by the Board.
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18. ADJOURN
INQUIRIES CONCERNING CHANGES TO THE BOARD’S AGENDA SHOULD
BE MADE TO THE COUNTY MANAGER’S OFFICE AT 252-8383.
May 9, 2017
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MR. OCHS: Good morning, Commissioners.
Madam Chair, you have a live mic.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Good morning. I think the gavel works,
right?
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am.
Item #1A
INVOCATION AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE – INVOCATION
GIVEN
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you so much for being here.
The energy this morning is very friendly. We've seen some old friends
and new friends coming in and really appreciate you being here and
participating in our meeting.
With that, we are going to stand and have an invocation by
Reverend Craig Goodrich, and Judge Janeice Martin is here, and she's
going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
REVEREND GOODRICH: Let us take a deep breath. I've
looked at the agenda today, and I think we do need to pray, so let us
pray.
Oh, God, we thank you for the gift of this new day, for life and
health, for this world that you've made and called good. We're grateful
today for our county, for our history, for our future. We're grateful for
these commissioners, for your calling these servants to work for the
common good. Give them strength for the long day ahead, give them,
this day, wisdom and courage, good humor, and even joy in doing their
good work.
Where difficult decisions and discussions await, give patience and
understanding. May each search their own heart and mind and may all
May 9, 2017
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assume the best intentions of their colleagues.
We thank you for the staff and all others who have prepared
reports, budgets, and for all the work of those organizations which will
be recognized by proclamation today.
Help us all to remember those in distress, the poor and oppressed,
give us compassionate hearts and clear minds that we may all do
justice, love, kindness, and walk humbly. Help us to see through the
eyes of the other, to rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with
those who weep.
Be with all this day who are suffering from any hardship, fire,
drought, or any other calamity or distress. And in this day of political
factions, bring calmness, a spirit of respect, and compromise where
necessary.
Finally, we pray also for our state and country and our leaders,
grant protection to police, fire, and social workers and all who work
and serve in government, and now grant, to all, grace and peace, the
satisfaction of this day's good work. This we ask and pray in the spirit
of all that is holy and good. Amen.
(The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.)
Item #2A
APPROVAL OF TODAY'S REGULAR, CONSENT AND
SUMMARY AGENDA AS AMENDED (EX PARTE DISCLOSURE
PROVIDED BY COMMISSION MEMBERS FOR CONSENT AND
SUMMARY AGENDAS.) – APPROVED AND/OR ADOPTED
W/CHANGES (COMMISSIONER SOLIS ABSTAINED FROM
VOTING ON ITEM #17A)
MR. OCHS: Good morning, Madam Chairman and
May 9, 2017
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Commissioners.
These are the proposed agenda changes for the Board of County
Commissioners' meeting of May 9th, 2017.
The first proposed change is to move Item 9A on your agenda to
the summary agenda to become Item 17D. This is a recommendation
to adopt an ordinance regarding changes in the boundaries of both
Community Development Districts 1 and 2 in the Fiddler's Creek
community. That move is made at Commissioner Taylor's request.
The next proposed change is to move Item 17C from the
summary agenda to become Item 9B under advertised public hearings.
This is a recommendation to adopt an ordinance that will implement a
temporary moratorium on cannabis dispensing businesses. That item
is moved at Commissioner McDaniel's request.
We have one time-certain item this morning, Commissioners.
That is Item 11A regarding wildfire mitigation, and that report from
the staff will be heard immediately following your public petition item,
which is Item 6A on your agenda.
And those are all the changes I have this morning, Madam Chair.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
So now we will do -- excuse me. I've lost my spot here -- any
changes, other additional changes to the agenda. County Attorney?
MR. KLATZKOW: No, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I remembered this morning to ask you.
MR. MILLER: Madam Chair, I did want to alert. We had two
speakers registered for Item 17C, so I want to let them know I've
moved them to 9B now that that item has been moved.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. So moved. Thank you.
Ms. Kinzel?
MS. KINZEL: No. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel, any changes
May 9, 2017
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to the agenda?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No changes, no corrections. Did
you want ex parte as well, or should we wait for that?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Let's wait. Do you mind?
Any changes?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No changes, but I will have a conflict
on 17A, the Tollgate matter on the summary agenda, and I will not be
voting on that item.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So we need to pull that for a separate
vote?
MR. OCHS: No, ma'am.
MR. KLATZKOW: No.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It's so noted?
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Very good.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I have no changes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No changes, oh, okay.
So any ex parte, Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I have no ex parte.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala, we know you do.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I happen to have a couple.
16A3, which is the Vincent Acres, I've spoken with Ashley
Caserta, Patrick Vanasse, Nick Kouloheras of Habitat for Humanity. I
attended a neighborhood information meeting, emails from residents in
neighboring communities, meetings with Planning Commissioners and
staff.
And on 17A, the summary agenda, oh, we're going to speak -- no,
are we -- you didn't pull that one, did you?
May 9, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, fine. I just had emails from
residents of Forest Glen.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, if I could just remind all the board
members to please speak into your microphone so everybody can hear.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I have no ex parte this morning.
Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: The only ex parte I have is related to
16A3, the final plat of Vincent Acres. I did speak with Lisa Lefkow
and Nick Kouloheras.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I don't believe I have any ex
parte to disclose this morning.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Very good. All right. So do I
hear a motion to approve the agenda as amended?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: So moved.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And should we -- let's do it separately.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: So moved.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Seconded.
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.)
Proposed Agenda Changes
Board of County Commissioners Meeting
May 9, 2017
Move Item 9A to Item 17D: Recommendation to adopt an ordinance amending Ordinance No.02-
61,as amended,to amend the external boundaries of the Fiddler's Creek Community Development
District#2, pursuant to Chapter 190.046, Florida Statutes,and to waive the optional local public
hearing on a petition to amend the external boundaries of Fiddler's Creek Community Development
District#1 filed with the Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission (FLWAC)since the CDD is
over 1,000 acres. (Commissioner Taylor's request)
Move Item 17C to Item 9B: Recommendation to adopt an Ordinance that will implement a
temporary moratorium on cannabis dispensing businesses,during which time staff will develop and
bring forward Land Development Code Amendments regarding the appropriate zoning designation
and locational restrictions suitable for such cannabis dispensing businesses. Note by County
Attorney:This moratorium period commenced February 14,2017 (Item 11-A),and will expire
February 13, 2018, absent further action by the Board. (Commissioner McDaniel's request)
Time Certain Items:
Item 11A to be heard immediately following Item 6A
5/9/2017 8:25 AM
May 9, 2017
Page 7
Item #2B
APRIL 11, 2017 – BCC REGULAR MEETING MINUTES –
APPROVED AS PRESENTED
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries unanimously.
And now we have the minutes, which is the regular, consent and
-- I'm sorry. The minutes of April the 11th, which is the BCC regular
meeting minutes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Speak into your mic.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, Leo just told me that, too.
Very kindly, though. He said all of us, but I knew whose microphone
wasn't getting used.
MR. OCHS: She knows me too well.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: But you look lovely in your blue today.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. That's supposed to take
away the fact that I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's right. All right. 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: It carries unanimously.
May 9, 2017
Page 8
Item #4
PROCLAMATIONS - ONE MOTION TAKEN TO ADOPT ALL
PROCLAMATIONS
Item #4A
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 2017 AS
MOTORCYCLE SAFETY MONTH IN COLLIER COUNTY.
ACCEPTED BY REPRESENTATIVES OF AMERICAN BIKERS
AIMED TOWARD EDUCATION - ABATE OF FLORIDA INC. -
GATOR ALLEY CHAPTER, LYNN CORR, PRESIDENT AND
LEGISLATIVE TRUSTEE, WILL BREEM, SAFETY DIRECTOR,
AND DEB PIGNOTELLO, NEWSPAPER EDITOR – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we have no service awards today,
so we move to Item 4 on this morning's agenda, proclamations.
Item 4A is a proclamation designating May 2017 as Motorcycle
Safety Month in Collier County. To be accepted by representatives of
ABATE of Florida, the Gator Alley Chapter. That is the America
Bikers Aim Towards Education. The award will be accepted by Lynn
Corr, President and Legislative Trustee; Will Breem, Safety Director;
and Deb Pignotello (phonetic), the Newsletter Editor. If you'd please
step forward and receive your proclamation from the Board.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm going to come down there.
These guys are all my friends. I'm going to stand right here in front of
Commissioner Saunders.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I'd like to note that I was reading the
May 9, 2017
Page 9
back of this gentleman's jacket, and one of his labels said, "I am my
brother's keeper." And I think this may amplify what you are about,
and I really applaud you for that.
MS. CORR: Thank you. Hi, I am Lynn Corr. I am the president
of the local chapter, Gator Alley, of ABATE, and I want to thank our
honorable commissioners and the distinguished guests that are here for
allowing us this opportunity.
Real quick, as a local chapter in this community, I want to thank
the first responders for most recent issues that we had in the fire.
We've had so many of our members that were part of that fire area, and
I do want the Court to know -- or the Commissioners to know that we
are so thankful for what they've done. And they are in our hearts and
are always in our prayers.
ABATE of Florida, as you know, is an awareness and safety and
legislative program that we have here. We are fighting very hard right
now to get into our schools so that we can instruct students on how to
be aware of a motorcyclist and how to be a good motorcyclist. So we
just want the community to know if you do see someone on a
motorcycle, that you look and you listen, because sometimes you don't
see us.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's right.
MS. CORR: Sometimes I don't see us. I've -- more than once
I've had people in my blind spot. And we want to make sure that we
get the word out. We need to look and be aware.
But we do want to thank you very much for this honor. We do
take it very seriously. And thank you.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Both Commissioner Saunders
and I are a member of this -- members of this local chapter.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah.
May 9, 2017
Page 10
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You do a lot of good in this
community.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I think I've been a member for
about 12 or 14 years. They do a great job in terms of educating the
public, and I want to thank them for what they do as well.
Item #4B
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 1-7, AS NATIONAL
CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WEEK IN COLLIER COUNTY
ACCEPTED BY SHERIFF KEVIN RAMBOSK, CHIEF CHRIS
ROBERTS, CAPT. BETH RICHARDS, CMDR. PATRICIA
GIFFORD, CMDR. KEVIN MCGOWAN AND OTHER
CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS AND NAPLES JAIL CENTER
STAFF – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Item 4B is a proclamation designating May 1st
through 7th as National Correctional Officers Week in Collier County.
To be accepted by Sheriff Kevin Rambosk, Chief Chris Roberts,
Captain Beth Richard, Commander Patricia Gifford, and other
members of the correctional officers and administrative staff from the
Naples Jail Center. If you'd please step forward.
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Greet the Board. Shake their hands.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Good morning, Sheriff.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Maybe I could stand on your feet.
No, that's not tall enough.
You know, while they're going back, I, oh -- I took a tour group
over there one time. Actually twice, right, Kevin?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes, twice.
May 9, 2017
Page 11
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Twice. And it was very interesting
for this tour group because they -- luckily they had never seen the
inside before.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: That's always a good thing. We're happy
to take people on tours. We don't want people to stay, if at all possible.
So I just want to take a moment to thank the Commission for
recognizing all of your corrections deputies. You know, they do a
terrific job 24/7 each and every day. They're called upon to handle
anything and everything from inmate safety to violent encounters to
mental-health assessment and referral, so they have quite the job. And
the most important job that they have that we as -- and all of our other
deputies keep in mind is that once an arrest has been made and those
persons have been dropped off at jail, the rest of our deputies can go
home and sleep at night, and they have the responsibility of
maintaining their safety and custody.
Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Thank you, sir.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Madam Chair, if I can just
make one statement with regard to that.
Ladies and gentlemen, that last proclamation was just a -- is a
classic example of what goes on behind the scenes all day every day.
As the sheriff alluded, 24/7 those folks are performing their duties. I
have, as well, visited and toured the jail system, and I highly
recommend, if you haven't taken the opportunity, that you please do. It
is absolutely amazing the effort that is taken over there for our
community. Thank you.
Item #4C
May 9, 2017
Page 12
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 20-26 AS NATIONAL
SAFE BOATING WEEK IN COLLIER COUNTY. ACCEPTED BY
MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
AUXILIARY FLOTILLA 95: FLOTILLA COMMANDER
DOUGLAS BARTLETT, FLOTILLA VICE COMMANDER JOHN
MONTVILLE, JOE RICCIO, DOUGLAS JOHNSON AND KEITH
WOHLTMAN – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Item 4C is a proclamation designating May 20th
through 26th as National Safe Boating Week in Collier County. To be
accepted by members of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary
Flotilla 95, led by Flotilla Commander Douglas Bartlett, Joe Riccio,
and Douglas Johnson. If you'd please step forward, gentlemen.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER FIALA: This is the Marco Island Flotilla.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Oh, it is?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: It's the Marco Island Flotilla.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You're going to have to say it.
MR. BARTLETT: My name is Doug Bartlett. I'm the Flotilla
Commander of Flotilla 95.
I'd like to thank the commissioners for the support that they're
giving to the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary not only for the Safe
Boating Week and the safety of boating, but also through all the
activities that you support us with throughout the year. Thank you
very much.
Flotilla 95 supports Marco Island, and our area of operation goes
down into the Ten Thousand Islands. We're currently supporting our
communities, and it's our 50th year.
And the upcoming Safe Boating Week is a big week for us
because we're promoting boating safety, and we do that really in three
May 9, 2017
Page 13
different ways. We have ongoing classes where we teach boating
safety, basic boating skills, and then also how to navigate the, let's say,
more challenging waters of Marco Island and the Ten Thousand areas.
We give boaters local-knowledge classes, and those are great
classes that we give. And we have over 300 students so far this year
that have passed our courses.
The second way we support boating safety is on the water. We
go out and we do cursory patrols of the local waters, and we also
support the United States Coast Guard in search and rescue operations
when called upon.
We also have the pleasure of teaching all the third graders in
Tommy Barfield and Manatee Elementary School about boating
safety. We teach them about how to use VHF radios, just like they
would the cell phones for 911, and we're very proud of that. And we
also have outreach programs.
One of the programs that we are very happy to support is the
maintenance of the life jacket donor programs where we support the
maintenance on over 100 life jackets that are on five different beaches
for the use of children who might not have life jackets.
So, again, thank you very much for your support, and we ask
everybody, as you enjoy your boating summer, that you do so with two
things in mind: One, safety first and, please remember, always wear a
life jacket.
Commissioners, thank you very much for your time and the
proclamation.
(Applause.)
Item #4D
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 2017 AS NATIONAL
May 9, 2017
Page 14
MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH IN COLLIER
COUNTY. ACCEPTED BY THE FOLLOWING OFFICERS OF
THE DAVID LAWRENCE CENTER: SCOTT BURGESS, CEO;
JIM WARNKEN CHIEF PLANNING AND BUSINESS
DEVELOPMENT OFFICER; SCOTT GELTEMEYER, CFO;
NANCY DAUPHINAIS, COO; AND DR. DOUGLAS JOHNSON,
BOARD PRESIDENT – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Item 4C is a proclamation designating May 2017 as
National Mental Health Awareness Month in Collier County. To be
accepted by the following officers of the David Lawrence Center:
Scott Burgess, CEO; Jim Warnken, Chief Planning and Business
Development Officer; Scott Geltemeyer, CFO; Nancy Dauphinais,
COO; and Dr. Douglas Johnson, Board Chairman.
If you'd please step forward and receive your proclamation.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Can I just make a quick comment
about this?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Of course.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, go ahead.
MR. BURGESS: Well, thank you.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I was going to jump in.
MR. BURGESS: I just first wanted to say thank you so very
much. We appreciate the proclamation. We appreciate your
recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month which is being
celebrated across the entire country.
Unfortunately, mental health and addictions issues are still the
only whispered-about health conditions that we have in our country. It
used to be other conditions weren't talked about openly, unfortunately,
mental health in specific is not really talked about an awful lot.
May 9, 2017
Page 15
One example of that is that we have two suicides in America for
every homicide in America. When we talk about the epidemic of
homicide, we know how significant that is in our country, and it's a
major issue we need to tackle. And the suicide epidemic is double
that, and we don't really talk about it at all.
So we know that there are a tremendous number of our citizens
that are silently suffering, some of them that don't have access to care,
some of them, because of the stigma, are not seeking out care, and
that's why Mental Health Awareness Month is so important to make
sure that we're getting this word out, we're raising the awareness and,
most important, that we're talking about the hope there is in recovery,
because we know the research demonstrates that if people have access
to care, they can get effective treatment, and they can do really well in
life.
We know that these are not conditions that have a downward
trajectory. They can have an upward trajectory just like any other
health condition. We just need to understand when they happen, early
identification, early treatment, and providing the most effective care.
So we thank you for raising the awareness. We also thank you so
much for your partnership. We can't do this work by ourselves. We're
open 24/7/365 with our emergency assessment center, all of our
aftercare services, and it is a community lift. I look around this room, I
see so many of our amazing partners, including the county, and we
thank you. We really couldn't do this work without you. We are,
together, literally saving and changing lives each and every day. So I
thank you so very much.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I was just going to make a comment.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I was just going to mention and
May 9, 2017
Page 16
remind everyone that on June 6th hopefully it won't a whisper
anymore. We'll have a conversation here at a workshop with the full
county -- except I guess Commissioner Saunders can't be here, but
we're going to have a workshop on mental-health issues in Collier
County.
I think it's been an eye-opening experience for me to understand
what we're doing and not doing in Collier County. But it's an
opportunity to be part of that conversation, so I would encourage
anyone that's interested in mental-health issues in the county to please
attend.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What's the date?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: June 6th.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, yeah. I hope I can make it. I'm
having a knee surgery.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right. No, I know. I know.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: It just depends on whether I can
walk or not.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Get to a phone? Can you --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I can get to a phone, I think, yeah. I
should be -- yeah.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: You can attend by phone.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good.
Item #4E
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 2017 AS NATIONAL
DRUG COURT AWARENESS MONTH IN COLLIER COUNTY.
ACCEPTED BY HONORABLE JANEICE MARTIN, PRESIDING
JUDGE; ASHLEY SWAN, CASE MANAGER; MEMBERS OF THE
DRUG COURT TEAM AND PARTICIPANTS – ADOPTED
May 9, 2017
Page 17
MR. OCHS: Item 4E is a proclamation designating May 2017 as
National Drug Court Awareness Month in Collier County. To be
accepted by the honorable Janeice Martin, Presiding Judge; John
Brewer, Case Manager; Sergeant Leslie Weidenhammer, Collier
County Sheriff's Office; and various program participants. If you'd all
please come forward and accept your proclamation.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Ladies in the middle.
(Applause.)
JUDGE MARTIN: Good morning. I'm Judge Janeice Martin,
and I have been doing this for a lot of years. I have never before had
the fantastic coincidence of sharing this privilege with the Sheriff and
Corrections and with the David Lawrence Center, who are two integral
partners in what we do.
Just a couple words that I'd like to say. First, I want to thank the
Commission for its leadership. Bold action is required to address what
is an epidemic in our nation, in our world.
These young men who took time away from their jobs this
morning to join us -- we've got 65 people in drug court. We're barely
scratching the surface of what the Sheriff would tell you he's got sitting
in the jail. And these are your sons, these are your neighbors, these are
your grandsons, these are your employees, many of them are your
employers. These guys run their own businesses because they've been
able to come in and show the incredible courage to turn their lives
around, to take an opportunity. Doing time is a whole lot easier than
what these guys have stepped forward and taken on in coming into
drug court.
And the David Lawrence Center is literally saving lives. This is
something -- I am so proud to stand beside these guys and all of the
May 9, 2017
Page 18
people that they represent this morning. I'm so proud to stand with
these folks who work so hard.
Mr. Brewer, I think, goes 24/7, as does the Sergeant, holding
them accountable but also offering them support to do what they need
to do to get on track and be productive members of the society that you
all represent so well.
So I'm incredibly proud, I'm incredibly thankful, and I'm a little
terrified, because we're burying people. These guys are the lucky ones;
they've gotten a shot. But they buried a friend of theirs this month.
We have buried two graduates in the past four weeks. These are
people who had the privilege of drug court, did well in drug court,
accessed our services. This is how insidious this disease is.
So I don't think we can possibly overreact. It is something that I'm
pleased to have a team that works tirelessly, and I'm just trying to hold
pace with these folks.
So I thank you for your leadership. I encourage you to continue;
as Commissioner Solis has indicated, let's continue to work together to
look for solutions, because these guys want help. They want to rejoin
their families and run their businesses and be a part of what we all
enjoy, but they can't do it on their own.
So I thank you all for being a part of that.
(Applause.)
Item #4F
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 17, 2017, AS
HEALTHCARE NETWORK OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA DAY IN
COLLIER COUNTY. ACCEPTED BY MIKE ELLIS, CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, DR. EMILY PTASZEK, CHIEF
OPERATING OFFICER AND STEVE WHEELER, VICE
May 9, 2017
Page 19
PRESIDENT OF DEVELOPMENT – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Item 4F is a proclamation designating May 17,
2017, as Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida Day in Collier
County. To be accepted by Michael Ellis, Chief Executive Officer; Dr.
Emily Ptaszek, Chief Operating Officer; Steve Wheeler, Vice
President of Development; and Haris Domond, Board Chairman. If
you'd please step forward.
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: You know the drill.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm really not this short. It's just I'm
standing next to tall people.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So she says.
MR. ELLIS: Good morning. My name is Mike Ellis. I'm the
Chief Executive Officer of Healthcare Network, and I would -- we
would like to thank the County Commission for the proclamation.
We feel it's most deserved. The proclamation celebrates our 40th
year in healthcare in Collier County. Healthcare Network started off
as a one-room clinic in Immokalee in 1977. We now have 22 offices
throughout the county. We serve 50,000 citizens in Collier County.
Between our medical and dental services, we provide care for 60
percent of the children in Collier County. Our physicians deliver
roughly 43 percent of the babies in Collier County. We employee full
time over 50 doctors and dentists. The organization has 405 employees
now with a $50 million annual budget.
Healthcare Network is working with the David Lawrence Center
and NCEF on children's behavioral health issues. We now have a
Ph.D. psychologist in every pediatric practice we have in Collier
County. Also working with NCEF and the University of Florida
College of Dentistry, pediatric dentistry, we have pretty much
May 9, 2017
Page 20
eliminated access problems for children and dental care in Florida.
Some of our new initiatives include senior care. As you know,
Collier County has probably the highest per capita of concierge
physicians in the country, which leaves a big void for senior care in
this county.
Also, we are committed, through our board of directors, to
eliminate access problems for adult dental care in Collier County over
the next four years.
We will open a new 50,000-square-foot building in Golden Gate
in the year 2019 that will offer the full spectrum of our services.
Again, I would like to thank you for the recognition.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Before you leave.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Can I ask a question?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes, of course.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do you happen to provide glasses
for little ones?
MR. ELLIS: We do not, but NCEF does. That's one of their
programs that they provide care for children in Collier County that
have vision problems. Again, their attitude is, you can't learn unless
you can see.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And where could these people --
now, they don't have cars, so where could they find these people?
MR. ELLIS: That is a mobile unit. If you would like to touch
base with me, I can give you all that information.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I would like to do that. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And before you leave, I just
want to thank you. Mr. Ellis has been involved with children's health
issues for many, many years. I met him when he was a CEO of the
Children's Hospital in Lee County, and he and I -- not too many people
May 9, 2017
Page 21
know this, but he and I shared a tent together for about 14 years. We
climbed Kilimanjaro together to help raise awareness of the Children's
Hospital. I can't hardly believe it was 17 years ago in the year 2000.
So I want to thank you publicly for all that you've done for children
throughout Southwest Florida.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
MR. ELLIS: Thank you.
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, if I may have a motion to approve
today's proclamations.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to approve all the
proclamations for today.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: 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: Carries unanimously. Thank you.
MR. OCHS: That takes us to Item 5 on this morning's agenda,
presentations.
Item #5A
PRESENTATION OF THE COLLIER COUNTY BUSINESS OF
THE MONTH FOR MAY 2017 TO THE DAVID LAWRENCE
CENTER. ACCEPTED BY SCOTT BURGESS, CHIEF
May 9, 2017
Page 22
EXECUTIVE OFFICER; DAVID LAWRENCE CENTER (DLC);
NANCY DAUPHIHAIS, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, DLC;
SCOTT GELTMEYER, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, DLC;
DARCY TAYLOR, CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER, DLC; JIM
WARNKEN, CHIEF PLANNING AND BUSINESS
DEVELOPMENT OFFICER, DLC; TRISTA MEISTER,
COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, DLC; SUSAN KUHAR,
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE, GREATER NAPLES CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE; AND BETHANY SAWYER, MEMBERSHIP
ENGAGEMENT SPECIALIST, GREATER NAPLES CHAMBER
OF COMMERCE – PRESENTED
Item 5A is a presentation of the Collier County Business of the
Month for May 2017 to the David Lawrence Center. To be accepted
this morning by Scott Burgess, Chief Executive Officer; Nancy
Dauphinais, Chief Operating Officer; Scott Geltmeyer, Chief Financial
Officer; Darcy Taylor, Chief Development Officer; Dr. Douglas
Johnson, Board President; Jim Warnken, Chief Planning and
Development Officer; Trista Meister, Communications Director with
the David Lawrence Center.
If you'd please step forward and receive your honor. Here we go
again.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Round two. Is there a third one we
don't know about? One more time?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Can I just make one more comment.
It's wonderful to see -- and I think one of the eye-opening experiences
that I've had in looking into the mental-health issues in Collier County
is the amount of collaboration between all of these different agencies.
You've heard already from the Sheriff's Department, David Lawrence,
the drug court, and Janeice Martin's -- Judge Martin's efforts in the
May 9, 2017
Page 23
courthouse and David Lawrence Center all working together to address
this issue, this is one of the conversations we'll have on June 6th. And
I would urge everyone that's interested in understanding how this all
works together in our community to please attend.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And enhance those efforts.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: The necessity of a
collaborative effort and community buy-in at the same time is
imperative. I think we heard Judge Martin speak. We're barely
touching the tip of the iceberg, let alone the subsurface issues that are,
in fact, transpiring, so...
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right.
Item #5B
RECOMMENDATION TO RECOGNIZE LISA TAYLOR, SENIOR
MANAGEMENT & BUDGET ANALYST, GROWTH
MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT AS THE APRIL 2017
EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH – RECOGNIZED
MR. OCHS: Item 5B is a recommendation to recognize Lisa
Taylor, Senior Management and Budget Analyst with our Growth
Management Department, as the April 2017 Employee of the Month.
Lisa, if you'd please step forward.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Look around.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Ladies, come up with your pom-poms.
Come on, come on. Come on, you've got to come up with your
pom-poms.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Come on, bring your
pom-poms.
May 9, 2017
Page 24
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: But I think she'd like a picture with
you. Let's do it with one, and then come on up.
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we'll have plenty of time for
pictures. First I have to embarrass Lisa here.
For our audience that's watching and doesn't have the pleasure of
knowing Lisa personally, let me tell you about her. She's been with the
county since 1990, working currently for our Growth Management
Department.
Recently Lisa stepped in when her supervisor was asked to serve
as our interim director for procurement services. And during this time,
Lisa was able to keep the day-to-day operations of her area moving
forward without any issues or disruption of service. She showed
initiative, management skills, responsibility, and ability to lead her
team. She was able to fill a gap of leadership needed to support other
department operations.
With her 27 years of knowledge and expertise in the field, she's
often called upon to participate in cross-departmental efforts with the
Clerk's Office, Purchasing, Utilities, Budget Office, and many other
areas in county government, and she's always provided sound financial
and procedural guidance in processing her work and the work of her
team.
Lisa's not only well known and well liked but highly respected by
her peers and the management team and is very deserving of the
employee-of-the-month award.
Commissioners, it's my honor to recognize Lisa Taylor as your
Employee of the Month for April 2017. Congratulations, Lisa.
MS. TAYLOR: Thank you. Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Stay there. Commissioners, Lisa -- Commissioners,
Lisa had a special request. Her daughter Sage --
May 9, 2017
Page 25
MS. TAYLOR: Oh, my God.
MR. OCHS: -- is here this morning, serves in our Armed Forces,
and we'd love to have her come up and get a picture with her mom,
Employee of the Month. Congratulations.
(Applause.)
MS. TAYLOR: Thank you.
MR. OCHS: All right. And then let's get the other members of
the peanut gallery to come up here real quick. Come. Come on, come
on, come on.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: With pom-poms.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah, with your pom-poms.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We have to shake them a little bit.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You've got to shake them a little bit.
You've got to do a cheer.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You guys must have a lot of fun
working together, huh? That's the way it should be.
MR. WILLIAMS: We get into a lot of trouble.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Do you need it -- okay. Two rows,
ladies. Lisa's in front.
Wait, wait, we've got one more coming.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Come on, Rookman. Giddy up.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Wait, wait. One more. Lisa, Lisa.
Okay. So you're going to say one, two, three, and wave your
pom-poms, "Lisa." Okay, one, two, three, Lisa.
MR. OCHS: That's great. That's great stuff.
(Applause.)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: So much for hiding in the corner.
We're not going to embarrass you, Lisa.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: She's leaving the room very quickly.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Straight out the door.
May 9, 2017
Page 26
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that takes us to Item 6 on your
agenda this morning, public petitions.
Item #6A
PUBLIC PETITION REQUEST FROM MS. RITA M. PYRDOL
REQUESTING THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
ADDRESS TRAFFIC VOLUME ON ST. ANDREWS
BOULEVARD BY INSTALLING A GATE ON WARREN STREET
– STAFF TO BRING BACK A SOLUTION TO HELP REDUCE
TRAFFIC VOLUME AND SPEED – CONSENSUS
Item 6A is a public petition request from Ms. Rita Pyrdol
requesting that the Board of County Commissioners address traffic
volume on St. Andrews Boulevard by installing a gate on Warren
Street. Ms. Pyrdol, if you'd please come forward. You have 10
minutes.
MS. PYRDOL: I've got to have my eyes, or I can't see anything.
First of all, I'll like to thank you for letting us petition. The
obvious root cause of our problem is the failure of planning and
zoning. Now you and I have to deal with it.
And please excuse me if I sound angry. I'm not angry at you. I
may be angry because I'm angry with myself. I've got blood on my
hands.
Geri Jennings died on our street on March 28th of this year.
She was hit by a car that jumped the curb, knocked down a
mailbox/lamppost combination, and still had enough forward
momentum to strike her on the sidewalk, and two people had to jump
out of the way.
We remember Geri. We are Geri's STAR, stands for Saint
May 9, 2017
Page 27
Andrew's Rescue. We are 50 members, neighbors in the greater
St. Andrew's Boulevard area. Will the members of Geri's STAR
please stand. Thank you. Thank you.
At this time of day, many of our members work or have left for
the north and could not join us, but I have 10 pages of emails -- I'm
going to be leaving some papers with you to look over, and that's one
of them. Ten pages of emails from people who could not be here
today and their comments.
New stop signs were installed after Geri's death, and two cars
have been rear-ended at the new stop signs while being stopped. One
was sent to the hospital and then released, thank god. He's here today.
I saw the danger years ago and asked and trusted people who
promised they would end the speeding, the passing on the right in the
bicycle lanes, the road-rage-fueled tailgating, the endless stream of
cars and trucks, but I failed to follow through, to make sure that
everything was being done, because it was so obviously an accident
waiting to be happening, and it did, and I'm sorry.
We're asking you to help disburse the huge volume of traffic that
travels St. Andrews. Ours is a residential street only two miles long
with 200 houses each situated less than three car lengths some only
two car lengths, from the onslaught of what it seems are many
uncaring and reckless motorists.
The number of houses does not include the people from the many
complexes, such as Four Fountains. Our street provides homes for
many souls. I have some visual aids here. This is my mailbox, and
you'll be able to look at this. I don't know how much you can see from
there.
MR. OCHS: I can put it on the screen for you if you'd like.
MS. PYRDOL: Oh, excellent. As you can see, when you get
your mail, you have to step into the road, and this is where people pass
May 9, 2017
Page 28
on the right. This is what they need. It's only a one-lane road one side
and one-laned on the other, and then there's this bicycle lane. And
when people pass on the right, they're going to be right there where
people get their mail.
Streets that flank us -- streets that flank us, Augusta Boulevard
and Grand Lely, do not have houses situated as close to the street, nor
do they have anywhere near the amount of traffic. As measured in
April by the Collier County Transportation Department in a 24-hour
period, St. Andrews had almost 7,500 vehicles in 24 hours; a two-mile
street, 7,500 vehicles, almost 2,000 of which were trucks, and I have
those data that I will leave with you.
Now, one-ton trucks are restricted by a sign on St. Andrews, but
18-wheelers, cement mixers, car carriers, huge flatbed trucks, and
other heavy commercial vehicles daily travel the boulevard. Now,
trucks require more feet to stop and, therefore, present even a greater
danger than the cars.
In comparison, on the same day, that's April 11th of this year,
only about 2,800 vehicles drove one of our flank streets, Augusta
Boulevard, 340 being trucks. Same day. That means that St. Andrews
handles almost three times the vehicles of Augusta Boulevard.
I think some cars coming from Santa Barbara with drivers texting
or otherwise distracted, hit the light there, and think they're still on a
six-lane boulevard. And they head in to St. Andrews, they're lost,
they're angry, and they try to speed out. I'm just -- I'm just trying to
give you some way to explain the kind of truly life-threatening actions
of motorists my neighbors and I have witnessed on our street. It is just
unbelievable.
On Halloween our street is very popular. Hundreds of children fill
the boulevard until midnight. It's truly a delight. The children can be
unmindful of danger, especially on that night; I fear for them.
May 9, 2017
Page 29
Commissioner Fiala wisely recognized the problem in 2007. In
this email to a resident dated February 5th, 2007, she wrote, and I
quote, we have always planned ahead to extend Santa Barbara and
then, through a cement pork chop, direct the traffic at Rattlesnake to
the left or to the right, to make it difficult for people to access St.
Andrews or Augusta Boulevard.
In other words, directing traffic to the right, to the left so that they
would not go directly into St. Andrews, and I think that's the major
problem.
I have plans here drawn up by an engineering company in 2006
that illustrate how the disbursal of Santa Barbara's traffic was to be
accomplished. As can be seen from both plans, no access was to be
provided to St. Andrews from Santa Barbara; none. All that was
needed was cement barriers to prevent traffic from Santa Barbara
going straight ahead to St. Andrews. Instead the traffic was going to
be directed to the left or to the right on Rattlesnake. A six-lane road
widened for that purpose.
As anyone who worries that traffic would then be a problem on
Augusta or Grand Lely if these plans were executed, I don't know -- I
don't know what to call them here in Connecticut; we called them
Jersey barriers, these cement blocks, about this long and about that
high, and they're portable. In other words, you can move them. If
people are worried that the disbursal of the traffic, instead of going to
St. Andrews, is going to end up on Grand Lely or Augusta Boulevard,
we can try it out. We can put Jersey barriers down, and we can see.
We can get traffic counts and find out if that's what's going to happen.
And I'm not a betting person, but I'm willing to bet that it's not
going to happen. We're not going to have this traffic going down
Augusta and Grand Lely. It's going to be disbursed wider out, because
a lot of these people are -- they don't even know where they're going.
May 9, 2017
Page 30
I'm sure all of you are aware that the Collier County website
under Transportation Planning section, there is a part called traffic
calming. That's c-a-l-m-i-n-g, traffic calming. Here it states, quote, a
problem exists if in a residential area there is, quote, daily traffic
volumes greater than 2,000 vehicles per day. St. Andrews -- St.
Andrews has almost four times that. We have a problem.
And that count was taken in April when most seasonal visitors
have left. Surely the situation requires immediate and drastic action,
and drastic isn't a bad word. We propose the gating of Warren Street at
St. Andrews allowing only emergency vehicular traffic. As a group
we feel that much of the traffic volume generated on St. Andrews is
due to vehicles exiting and entering Warren Street. That's where we
feel they're coming down from Santa Barbara and filling the street.
Warrants -- and also coming from 41, too.
Warren Street was open to St. Andrews because of the fire station
located on it. It is no longer a fire station. That was the only reason
that road was opened. It is now a storage unit.
At one time Warren Street was closed for months for repairs, and
there was no problem because St. Andrews does not supply the most
efficient route for Warren Street area residents. That's a fact.
From Warren Street, by using one of the eight exits onto 41,
residents can travel at 45 or 55 miles per hour to their destinations
north or south respectively. Then, by accessing Rattlesnake, they can
travel 45 miles per hour and pick up Santa Barbara. That's what I do.
I don't go down St. Andrews. Speed bumps? No. With the curvey
street? No. It's much more sensible.
They should not be speeding on St. Andrews, which has a speed
limit of 30 miles an hour and proposed going down to 25. They should
be on these other streets, and they've got eight ways to do it from
Warren Street.
May 9, 2017
Page 31
Please execute this plan and stop the bloodshed. Foxfire
community faced the same problem, and gating the street solved it.
We cannot wait for heavy-duty engineering in the future; it will be too
late. And stop signs are producing accidents, not preventing them,
because of the volume, because of the volume.
The motorists who speed were not deterred by the speed limit
signs, and they won't be deterred by lowering the speed limit. If we
reduce the total numbers of motorists, we'll also be reducing the
numbers of reckless motorists. On a street that, because of the
proximity of the houses to the street, presents a situation that allows
little room for driving errors, and errors happen.
We are neighbors out there, close to traffic, vulnerable. Please
save us. Thank you.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Saunders, with your
indulgence, Commissioner Fiala would like to speak. And it's her
district, if you don't mind. She's been --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: My button was pushed a long
time ago on another item.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: On another item. Okay, good.
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, everything she says is true.
And I want to tell you --
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER FIALA: It is.
MS. PYRDOL: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And one of the things that I don't
think anybody at the time realized -- well, I should just speak for
myself. I live on a very heavily traveled road also. I connect -- I
connect Davis Boulevard and U.S. 41, so it's a really heavily traveled
May 9, 2017
Page 32
street, but the difference is the people are just coming from Davis
Boulevard however they can get there.
On St. Andrews they're coming all the way from Immokalee and
all the way in. So you've got people traveling from one side of the
county to the other, and they're using that street.
Now, we were told initially by who was our transportation
manager at the time, Norm Feder, and he promised -- I was sitting at
that meeting, at a Lely meeting, homeowners meeting, and he said --
and the people were saying, what happens when we can't move on our
streets because it's so full of traffic. He said, if that happens, I'll put in
a pork chop. A couple of the other people that are in the audience, too,
also with our county, had heard that, too.
I'd never heard of a pork chop. I didn't know what the heck he
was even talking about. So I asked him afterwards -- I still don't know
how they function; I really don't. But that was the promise.
Now since then, of course, we've run into many, many problems.
I don't think anybody ever realized the crush of traffic. And when she
said something about people passing on the right, she's not kidding. I
was just there the other -- I go onto that street now -- I'm watching it.
I've been, you know, just driving around watching what's going on.
People are passing on the right. And the right is actually a bike lane.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Right.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: They do it anyway. We've tried to
come up with solutions without impeding traffic, but -- and we've had
meetings with this, and we're trying to do whatever we can, but there's
got to be -- there's got to be something else. What did we do before it
went through? Everything just went along just fine.
And I want to tell you, this is a neighborhood of families, kids on
the street. It's not just people that stay at home or, you know, go off to
work in the morning and come back at night. There's a lot of kids on
May 9, 2017
Page 33
this road. So it is imperative.
Now, we are trying really hard to come up with other ways to try
and disperse the traffic, discourage the traffic, but, you know, we have
other things. There's a construction site right across the street that's
building, building now, building more, building more, and their trucks
take St. Andrews. Even though they're not supposed to and even
though the signs say it, they do anyway; dump trucks and delivery
trucks, et cetera. So they've got that problem as well.
You've got a high school right in there, and the shortcut is right
through that community. So there are many things they're dealing
with. Things that, on my heavily traveled road, we don't have to deal
with at all. So they've probably got twice as much traffic as we do.
We're trying to find a way so that we don't block traffic totally so
that people can get to their homes so that we don't take that traffic and
put it on someone else's road, but -- and we're working with some
solutions. I don't know if they're going to work. We're going to have
to keep on trying.
But maybe somebody from our Transportation Department would
like to talk to this or -- I mean, we can't make any decisions now. This
is a petition. But -- and we're trying really hard. We've come up with a
few things. What's going to happen -- and we've put up -- some people
wrote and said, we need stop signs, so we put them up. But then, you
know, as soon as you have stop signs, you have rear-end crashes, and
that's happened already. So then we put flags on them. And now we're
going to put lights on them to see if we can stop them. But that's really
not going to do it.
We've talked about roundabouts because that does slow traffic
down, and it probably would make it more difficult for trucks. So --
although they can get through anyway, because roundabouts don't stop
trucks.
May 9, 2017
Page 34
But we're trying to find out what we can do, because if you cut off
traffic to go in, the people who live there -- and there's a lot of homes
in there -- they can't get in there either.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's right.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Other than go through somebody
else's neighborhood.
MS. PYRDOL: We're willing to go with any type of blocking
because it's so serious now.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I wonder if we blocked both
that and Augusta.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Can I make a suggestion?
Because, really, at this stage this is a public petition, and we really
can't vote. But would it help if we put this up as a specific agenda item
and brought -- directed staff to come to us with plausible or possible
solutions that we can actually vote on to give direction to staff on?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Staff's already doing that,
Commissioner McDaniel. I mean, they've got some things -- if
somebody would like to come up and speak to this. Nick, do you want
to --
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure, I'm happy to. I know you
brokered a meeting with the presidents of some of the HOAs that were
there just recently in the conference room with the board office, and
we reviewed multiple fixes.
We talked about putting a four-way stop at Warren Street, which
is coming on the board meeting on June 13th coming up, so we'll do
that. We talked about modifying the approaches. We've already -- and
plan to drop the speed limit to 25 miles an hour.
We've met with the Sheriff's Office, and they're going to continue
with enforcement as well, too.
If we ever decide to close that access point, as the pork chop
May 9, 2017
Page 35
you've described, we'd have to do pretty much a region-wide little
public meeting because Augusta and Lely would be affected.
In the past, I would say, six or seven years, there's been about
5,000 units in the area between Lely and the east side of 41.
But the traffic volumes on St. Andrews are not above a two-lane
facility. What we're seeing is bad driver behavior, and we've had that
discussion with the Sheriff's Office.
So our --
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Come on now.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Please. We ask you for your respect,
and let the speaker speak. Thank you.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: In the FY'18 budget, we were going to
-- we appropriated funds to come forward to do a design at both
Warren and Wildflower to neck down the road so it will be an even
four, so there won't be a passing opportunity at the stop signs we're
installing.
So there's three or four projects that have been planned all phased
in to do that, and we've been working with that community to put those
in place. So that is our goal, ma'am.
MS. PYRDOL: As I said before --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Excuse me, if you would sit down.
Thank you --
MS. PYRDOL: I'm sorry.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: -- and when you're called, you can
speak. Thank you.
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. That's exactly what we're doing
right now. We're trying. We're trying to work with the community.
We've got people coming representing different parts of the
community and hoping to come up with a solution. Rather than hit it
May 9, 2017
Page 36
with a sledge hammer, see what we can do about finding a solution
that will reduce the traffic, take away the speed, which is something
else.
Now, the person that was hit, it wasn't because of speeding or
anything. It was actually poor driver behavior. Yeah, it was -- and it
was pretty sad. I can't understand how people could -- anyway, I
would tell you the circumstances, but that's not important at this time.
We're trying to do what we can, and we're going to keep on
stepping, stepping, stepping forward to do other things until we've
found the correct solution, but -- and we are involving the community
at all the times.
So we don't have the whole community. We have representatives
from each section of the community.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Thank you.
And then, Commissioner Fiala, it will be your decision, but we all
received a letter from a Mr. Douglas. I wondered if you would read it
into the record, please.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You're welcome.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Commissioner Fiala and County
Manager Ochs, it has been brought to my attention that there will be
residents from our neighborhood at your next Collier County
Commission meeting. I would like to let you know that they will not
be speaking on behalf of the LCCPOA or board of directors. I know
all residents have the right to speak, but this group of residents have
not attended our meetings, which is where they should obtain their
information and discuss their concerns.
Additionally, they have held independent meetings with residents
to aggravate the situation, not resolve it. They feel the LCCPOA and
county have done nothing to protect the safety of the residents.
May 9, 2017
Page 37
They are not part of the LCCPOA board. Please inform your
other colleagues.
This LCCPOA board looks forward to continuing to work with
you to solve the traffic issue along St. Andrews Boulevard in Lely.
Thank you, William Douglas, LCCPOA President.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And what does that stand for, the LCC?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Lely Country Club Property Owners
Association.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you for asking that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
MS. PYRDOL: Excuse me. Can I correct something. That's a
mistake.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: This is a presentation. We are going to
have a hearing. You'll have opportunity, or you could write us, but on
a presentation, no. Thank you, though. Thank you for asking.
Yes, Commissioner Saunders now.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Just real quickly. I know no
one likes speed bumps and that type of thing. I know emergency
vehicles -- emergency departments don't like those.
I was up at USF this past weekend. My son graduated from
college.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Congratulations.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Go Bulls.
But, anyway, they have these speed bumps that are really not just
speed bumps. I mean, you have to slow down to 5 or 10 miles an hour
maximum or your car bottoms out. And they're aggravating, they're
painful to have to go over, but they do slow everybody down. And
that may be a possible solution.
I know that they were talking about stop signs and things of that
May 9, 2017
Page 38
nature. That will have some impact, but drivers who want to get
through an area fast, if they know that they have these types of speed
platforms, I think they probably are, they'll find another way to go
because they can't possibly speed. In between them they can, but that's
-- you know, if you have enough of them, they can't do that. So just a
thought.
I don't know what the solution is, but I can't imagine living on a
residential street with 7,500 cars a day going by. Even if that's, you
know, a peak day, peak season, it's just hard to imagine that you can't
go out of your driveway, hardly.
So I know you're coming back on June 13th. I don't know why
you have to come back to us for stop signs. That seems to me that you
should be able to just do that. But I would urge you to do some
creative thinking on that one. This does sound like a bad situation.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: The Board approves all traffic control
devices. So we bring that back, and we'll do a staff presentation as part
of the item to get you up to speed as to what we're doing and when.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Maybe you could do it on the 23rd.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yeah. It's a stop sign or two.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Well -- and just to add to the mix, to
stir it up a little bit, 7th Avenue North had a problem in the late '90s.
And I was president of the association, and the city fathers did not
believe that we had the truck traffic we did on 7th Avenue North.
They didn't want to do a traffic study, so neighbors sat out there in
lawn chairs over a period of two weeks, witnessed what is today; we
have two traffic circles.
And, yes, trucks will go over them, but it deterred the truck traffic
tremendously. It still allowed the cars to go back and forth, but they
May 9, 2017
Page 39
don't have the bad trucks and the recklessness, because they have to
slow down for those.
It's not a roundabout, I'm told. It's traffic circles. So we -- traffic
calming is increasingly going to become important unless we decide
that we're tired of building roofs in Collier County. Thank you --
rooftops.
MR. OCHS: Thank you, Commissioners.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Madam Chair, my light was
on.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Oh, I didn't see that. It was a
last-minute light. Here we go.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Oh, it's been on for a while.
You were just looking the other way. I think we're going to move that
light right there in front of you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No, sir. We'll just --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I just wanted to -- I wanted to
make a point to the folks that are here today. And understand,
procedurally, your petition -- your petition has been heard, we are
listening, and efforts are, in fact, being made.
We don't have the capacity on your petition to make any decisions
or vote on anything just because of a procedural process that we have
to go through. But I want the folks that are here -- that are here today
and those that are listening to know and understand -- are you taking
my candy?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. I think she did.
But I want you to know that we are hearing and that we will make
every effort that we can to assist with the issue. I just wanted you to
know that, you know, this isn't a "go back and forth and debate"
process. You made your presentation, and I think you've heard the gist
May 9, 2017
Page 40
of our board here giving direction to staff to move forward as
expeditiously as possible.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
Item #11A
RECOMMENDATION TO DIRECT THE COUNTY MANAGER
TO CONVENE A MULTI-AGENCY WORK GROUP TO
IDENTIFY AND PRIORITIZE OPTIONS FOR WILDFIRE
MITIGATION IN COLLIER COUNTY – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, that takes us to your time-certain
item this morning. It's Item 11A. And this is a recommendation to
direct the County Manager to convene a multi-agency work group to
identify and prioritize options for wildfire mitigation in Collier County.
Mr. Dan Summers, your Director of the Bureau of Emergency
Management, will make the presentation.
MR. SUMMERS: Commissioners, good morning. Dan
Summers, Director of the Bureau of Emergency Services and
Emergency Management. Always great to be in front of you and be
with you today.
We are excited about the recommendation here to convene a
wildfire mitigation working group. And if you can see on the slide real
quickly there, what I wanted to tell you is that we have a -- we do have
a structured process for a working group.
The Board of County Commissioners has chartered for
emergency management a citizen core advisory group. That is one of
the -- that is a board-chartered group. Within that board's charter are
mitigation strategy technical working groups that we can convene to
May 9, 2017
Page 41
prepare information. That information goes to citizen core, which is
one of your advisory committees for emergency management, and then
we can certainly bring that forward.
So we do have a structure for that. We're happy to do that. Rick
Zyvoloski on our team is our plans chief, and can -- Rick runs our local
mitigation strategy, which is a requirement of FEMA that we have for
our emergency management pass-through funding. So we have a
mechanism. That mitigation working group can not only give you
some policy and paths forward, but it also puts projects, vetted projects
in the queue for any FEMA grants in the future should those become
available. So I just wanted to let you know we had a structure in place.
And, finally -- and, finally, and as was mentioned in the executive
summary, we just threw some names there for some agencies that can
be involved is in a leadership position but also know that we can reach
out in a technical working group. We can reach out to anybody, and
that includes getting some citizen input, which is certainly important in
this process.
So that briefly is a structure. We have a mechanism for that, and
I'm happy to entertain any questions or if you would like to talk further
about those that you'd like to engage with us.
MR. OCHS: You'll be back how soon?
MR. SUMMERS: Pardon me?
MR. OCHS: Ninety days?
MR. SUMMERS: Could be back to you in 90 days, yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'd like to make a motion to approve.
MR. SUMMERS: If we're not fighting too much fire; if we can
get some days in the office.
Yes, ma'am, 90 days.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I think we have some speakers, do we
not, Mr. Miller?
May 9, 2017
Page 42
MR. MILLER: Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No?
MR. MILLER: We have two registered public speakers on this
item.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
MR. MILLER: Tim Nance will be followed by Michael Ramsey.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Mr. Summers, let's listen to the
speakers, and then we'll come back.
MR. NANCE: Madam Chair, Honorable Commissioners, Tim
Nance here representing myself.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: How you doing?
MR. NANCE: I'm doing well, sir. Thanks for asking. Mrs.
Nance is doing well, too, so...
The events of last April brought forward, very vividly and very
personally for many people, the fact that windblown fire and wildfire
is the greatest threat to property and lives in Eastern Collier County. I
can tell you personally living in the area that's the fire zone, there is
absolutely nothing more terrifying than seeing an 80-foot to a
100-foot-tall fire withinside of where you're standing. It actually
dwarfs the threat even of a major hurricane in our eastern county.
I really commend you on this effort, and I want to thank you for
your immediate action.
I would personally like to thank Commissioner McDaniel for his
leadership on this. He's a strong advocate, of course, out there and
well familiar with this threat, having lived there many years himself.
One thing that I would like to let you know is that there are really
not too many things we can do about fire once it happens, but the one
thing that I want to bring to your attention is I don't think we've really
done a very good job on things that we can do in advance of the fire to
mitigate fire intensity.
May 9, 2017
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You can't say enough about our first responders. Their service is
astonishing out there. Without their Herculean efforts out there, the
fire that we had would have been much, much worse. But make no
mistake about it, this was not a fire in Golden Gate Estates. This was a
fire in the rural fringe, primarily in the North Belle Meade. It was
7,000 acres on the southern border of Golden Gate Estates.
With winds primarily out of the southeast each and every dry
season moving into the time when fire's of the greatest risk, fires can
break throughout this area, and they move generally northeast. Had we
had a traditional wind pattern over those critical days, we would have
had a fire line of approximately four to five miles that would have
moved north through Golden Gate Estates, and the results would have
been greatly different.
Getting something done concretely on operations is something
that is -- that I consider my greatest failure as a commissioner. I just
couldn't raise the level of concern to the point where I thought
anything could be done.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Just one moment. I would like to cede
Commissioner Nance time to speak to this, as he was very much
involved. If you --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Shut the light off.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: If you agree.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Please.
MR. NANCE: Thank you very much for your courtesy; thank
you.
I kind of lost my train of thought there.
We need to get operational things done. We will have a huge fire
in Golden Gate Estates one day. It's a question of when. It's not a
question of if.
And I don't want us to be Gatlinburg. This last November, 24,000
May 9, 2017
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structures were damaged or destroyed in a three-day fire; 900 families
are now homeless because of that. I don't want us to be California, and
we certainly can be. We have all the elements. We've got a 50-year
standing pile of fuel ever since GAC divided the area. Sure, there's
been a few fires here and there, but there's never been a raging fire
through Golden Gate Estates. We've been lucky. We've been very,
very lucky.
Chief Sapp will tell you that we have been blessed, and we have
had extraordinary service from the people that go out there to respond.
But, we have to have operational things that get done. We just have to.
We have to get our firebreaks cut down. There's a huge plan through
Golden Gate Estates that's been created by the Florida Forest Service
to create firebreaks. They've never been completed. They've never
been maintained on a regular basis, and it's a funding problem.
It's -- you know, when you have an event like you have now, it's
on everybody's radar, but it falls off. You have a few years where
nothing happens, and during that time, a couple thousand more people
move to the Estates, and they're not even aware of the risk.
Right now, today, you have two groups of people in Golden Gate
Estates. You have those residents that are terrified, and you have those
residents that are completely oblivious, and not much in between.
During my service as commissioner, I met with some of the
groups that you're going to meet with again. We talked about, you
know, what can we do? We talked about the need for municipal
hookups for water supply close into the Estates for having to deal with
a fire to respond.
We talked about areas that are needed for mobilization. And the
two things that the Florida Forest Service talked about is prescribed
burns and firebreak establishment and maintenance. We simply
absolutely have to get this done. By this fall, if we don't get this done,
May 9, 2017
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I'm going to be very, very disappointed, and I think a lot of people in
the Estates are going to be disappointed.
Now, a lot of people go out there and say, well, you know, these
residents moved into the fire zone. They moved into the woodlands to
enjoy that. They need to be responsible for that, and that's true. But
there's only so much they can do. They don't have the authority to cut
firebreaks on somebody else's property.
And since the Estates is only 50 percent built out, there's a lot of
people that have a home on a 75-foot-wide lot, and next door to them
is a vacant lot that's got a 25- or 35-foot wall of foliage that's there
that's on somebody else's property that they can't touch. It's a
tremendous, tremendous risk to them.
So one thing that I've tried to advocate for and things that you'll
see coming forward are to make the Land Development Code and site
development planning compatible and synergistic with good fire
management and preparation. I know everybody's talked about public
awareness and talking but, you know, it's -- let's talk about how hard it
is to get working-class blue collar families to come to a meeting.
Unless there's a fire that they can smell and see, it's just not on their
radar. So we have to get -- we have to get better public awareness so
that people reduce this fuel.
The only thing we can do to give our first responders a chance is
to reduce the fuel. How do you do that? You do prescribed burns.
You have firebreaks. Had we had some prescribed burns in the North
Belle Meade, that fire would not have been as intense as it was, and
that's the game. The game is to not have the fires with a huge amount
of momentum and a huge intensity as our first responders rush there to
try to save people's lives and structures.
So I know that you'll probably hear from Golden Gate Estates.
One of the ideas that's been kicked around that I will throw out -- and I
May 9, 2017
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want to thank you -- each of you, I think, has talked to me about this
and has ideas to do this. This operational reduction of fuel requires
money, and that's the thing it's always lacked. There just hasn't been
funding.
Florida Forest Service has a budget that typically gets kicked to
the back of the room. You know, I think occasionally -- we had a high
point where we get $20,000 out there to work on firebreaks or
something. That's a drop in the bucket, Commissioners. That's not
going to do anything substantive.
There's been discussion in the Golden Gate Civic Association,
each year when we have these fires, about creating an MSTU within
the Estates strictly dedicated for wildfire mitigation. And the way that
was discussed was to simply have people pay a dollar an acre or part of
an acre each year to have a dedicated fund to take care of these
firebreaks. That means that an acre and a quarter lot would pay $2 a
year. A two-and-a-half-acre lot would pay $3 a year. The 90,000
acres that are Golden Gate Estates would thereby raise somewhere
between 100- and $150,000 each year to get ahead of a disaster, to give
our first responders a chance.
Now, I know you're going to consider it. I know many of you
have great ideas on how you can fund this but, please, realize there is
urgency here. There is urgency here. We have been so lucky and so
blessed. Only the hand of God has saved us on many occasions here.
And I just really don't want to be sitting there one day -- set
myself aside. I take the risk. I live there myself. But I don't want to
have an event, have a tragedy, have several hundred homes lost, and
people dispossessed and go, well, you know, I guess we really should
have done some of these things. We should have been more
aggressive about it.
So I ask for your support. Thank you for supporting this agenda
May 9, 2017
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item. It's a personal passion of mine, and I know it's a personal passion
of Commissioner McDaniel. So I want to thank you, Commissioner,
personally for your concern on this. But we simply have got to get
something done, and any advocacy that I can have to convince you that
this is important and it's necessary, I'll do whatever I can do.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Before you leave, I'd like to ask Mrs.
Nance to come up and repeat what she told me on Thursday night and
where you were and why it was so bloodcurdling.
MS. NANCE: Well, for the record, Gail Nance.
What I told you was that we were forced to evacuate on Thursday
from the Frangipani fire. That was, you know, the first -- the first one.
So I guess it was about one in the afternoon we left and got back
about midnight. But we went -- the flames, they were really high, just
coming along. We went around and went across the canal, so we were
watching from the other side of the canal at the exact same place where
we watched our property burn January 27th of 1985.
We didn't have our house there at that time. We had a cleared area
for the house. We had cleared some of the underbrush, which is why
we still have trees.
And so we stood over there and watched it burn. At that time we
had purchased our property for the trees and the wildlife, and we
thought that was gone, but it came back. So we were in the exact same
place pretty much sure that it was going to burn. We didn't see any
way it was going to stop. The fire department had to actually leave
because they would have been trapped.
But Forestry was there. All of a sudden the helicopters started.
And it was just like a miracle.
I guess the fire got within two-tenths of the house from that
direction. And then a few days later the other fire got within about a
mile from another direction.
May 9, 2017
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And our house is still there. Tim worked really, really hard
clearing all the underbrush he could, mowing everything he could. I
mean, he saw this coming. We had some bamboo. He got rid of that.
Cleaned everything possible, and we have almost -- we have about
13-and-a-half acres. And he did everything he could. And our house
and our property did not burn. And it was Forestry. They were
amazing.
But the people out in the Estates, they're not allowed to clear
enough property around the house to have the same sort of buffer we
had around ours. It's not even allowed. So some steps need to be
taken.
There's also all these firebreaks that are there and not being
maintained. That would have helped immensely. Our neighbors down
the way, they lost their power poles at the ground, transformers
blowing up. Everybody's on well water there. Tim was out driving
around delivering five-gallon buckets of water, because we got our
power back the next day because our power poles didn't burn. And so
he was delivering water to the people and their animals and everything,
like, all day and putting out hot spots. There wasn't anybody there to
give them water. Some of them had generators.
But, basically, you know, there needs to be a little -- everybody's
so busy trying to stop the fires, they're not -- and no structure -- no
houses were lost. Some little parts of houses. No houses were lost in
our area. It's a lot of buildings.
But it was pretty intense. I mean, we were pretty much -- when
we first went across to watch, we were pretty much 100 percent sure
our property was going to go. That's fairly terrifying.
So Tim got out right before the flames would have cut him off at
the way out of the area. So we were very lucky.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very, very much.
May 9, 2017
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MR. NANCE: Well, you know, setting personal experiences
aside -- and, you know, it is terrifying and it's a tough deal, but if a fire
gets into Golden Gate Estates and starts traveling across an area that's
getting denser every year, without having some firebreaks and without
having some prescribed burning to stop that momentum, we are going
to -- I fear we'd have a tragedy, and I don't want to see that.
You know, I can clear -- I've got it cleared out around my house
150 feet around. Now, there's a big canopy above me, but there's no
fuel on the ground. It's not going to get in there. It's not going to be as
bad as it can, but other people that have lots in Golden Gate Estates
don't have that ability. And when they have neighbors that have
undeveloped property, that's tough.
An MSTU by the acre would collect money from those absentee
owners that are not taking care of their properties. That's one of the
compelling things about it is it wouldn't be an ad valorem-based
MSTU that would charge somebody with a home more. It would
charge people with more acres more, and it would take -- it would
catch the people from out of town that never come down, never clean
up their property, never maintain it, never reduce the fuel a little bit of
skin in the game.
So that's just one thing for you to consider. I'm not saying that's a
panacea. Estates civic has talked about it for years. It's never really
gone anywhere. I talked to a million people about it. I've never heard
anybody say they wouldn't pay a dollar an acre. You know, if you
look at the cost of the evacuation you just had where you had, you
know, 7,000 homes evacuated, that was -- you know, some people had
to go out of town and get a motel room or something like that. That's a
pittance compared to, you know, what you have invested and what
you're paying for in insurance and so on and so forth.
So, once again, thank you for your consideration. It's a passion of
May 9, 2017
Page 50
mine. Thank you for indulging me, Madam Chair and Commissioners.
Thank you for giving me the extra time. And I look forward to
supporting what you come up with to help us out, and I hope by this
fall we have equipment moving to do something. I really hope.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: We have two speakers. Would you --
are you directing the question to Commissioner Nance? Because we
have another speaker.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yes, I did want to ask him a
couple questions.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Please go ahead.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: You mentioned the dollar per
acre generating close to $100,000 a year.
MR. NANCE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: The thing that you said is
needed most is to reduce the fuel --
MR. NANCE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- to provide some firebreaks.
How does $100,000 a year accomplish any of that? And what would
be a more realistic number? And in your mind how would we
accomplish that? I know the mechanism to raise the money, but how
much is really needed? And would this be something that would be
done in conjunction with the Forestry Department or the fire
departments? How would that all --
MR. NANCE: The Florida Forest Service is the agency that has
the authority to pretty much take eminent domain for a firebreak. In
other words, they get the permission -- they have the authority to go to
a property owner and say, look, we're going to make a firebreak across
your property. And then it takes machine time, operators, and fuel to
get that done. That's where you need the money. You need the money
to physically go in, cut down the brush, and establish a firebreak and
May 9, 2017
Page 51
then maintain it perpetually from year to year.
You know, it's going to grow up every summer in the rainy
season, and you take it back down again, and what it does is it slows
the momentum of the fire a little bit and let's Forestry Service and first
responders get in there. So you need money for that.
The second thing, you also need money to conduct prescribed
burning and do that.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'm trying to get kind of a
handle on what order of magnitude you're talking about.
MR. NANCE: Sir, I don't know.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: A hundred thousand dollars
doesn't go very far.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's a Dan Summers
question.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Is it? Okay.
MR. NANCE: Yes, sir, I don't know. I know that we have
virtually no money now to do it, and that's why none of that's getting
done. So this is just a discussion about, you know, hey, look, if
everybody chipped in a couple bucks a year, how much money would
we get? What would it best be spent on? That's for the professionals
to determine. That's not for us. But what I'm letting you know is, I
think the community out there is willing to put skin in the game to get
this done.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Instead of a dollar per acre, I
mean, $10 per acre? That still doesn't sound like a whole lot,
especially for the homeowner.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We'll get there in a second.
MR. NANCE: Well, like I say, you have to figure that out. I
don't know. All I'm saying is the willingness is there to participate as
far as I can judge and what I've seen in the community. Now, whether
May 9, 2017
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it's your preferred mechanism, that's a policy decision for you to
determine.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. Thank you.
MR. NANCE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel, do you have
anything?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We have another speaker, and
then I'll go.
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, after your speaker, it would be
almost time for your court reporter break as well.
MR. MILLER: Your final speaker on this item is Michael
Ramsey.
MR. RAMSEY: Good morning, Commissioners. Michael
Ramsey. I'm the President of the Golden Gate Area Civic Association.
Thank you for entertaining this discussion. Thank you, Mr. Summers;
that helps a lot.
Just to give you some background on me, I am an ecologist,
wildlife biologist. I've worked in four different states. I do prescribed
burns. I've got 30 years of experience in prescribed burns.
I do prescribed burns. My burns are planned and everything.
And it's tried to be thought out, trying to control the uncontrollable.
In this situation, I'm very glad to see the proposal by Mr.
Summers to kind of put together a task force to look at some of these
different options. I think that's good because right now we have a
fire-based ecology in South Florida. If you look at the habitat
management that I do and you look at what's going on, the vegetation
down here has evolved and it needs to burn about every 10 to 15 years.
If it doesn't burn, you get an explosive situation, which we almost got
to this fire season.
Now, currently, if we look at the efforts and the agencies in
May 9, 2017
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Collier County, we are primarily based -- especially for the Estates and
the RFMUD areas and the natural areas, we're based for response after
the fire starts. And they do pretty good with that. You never have
enough resources when a wildfire starts. You have to bring it in from
the outside counties. No county ever has enough to take care of a
wildfire situation.
So we do pretty good with that. The response from the 30th
Avenue fire was pretty good, I thought. Everybody was pretty much
rolling after two or three hours.
On that one issue, we don't do enough on the front end to prevent
the fire from starting or, if the fire starts, keep it down so it's more
controllable, and that is done through some of the issues that Tim
Nance was talking about; that is the vegetation management and the
fuel reduction.
We don't have enough effort on that area, and I think with our
proposal here with the task force, we can go in there and study that and
maybe even teach the coordination with other agencies how to work
together to do that, so I think this is a pretty good idea.
Finally, in response to the issue about the money, with the
MSTU, we can get a lot done with 90,000, okay; we can. Mostly it's
working with Forestry. Forestry will be the primary agency on this
because they're the ones that understand what we're trying to do,
reduce the fuel load. And 90,000 each year would take us a long way.
So that would help.
So this is a good discussion. Thank you for this opportunity.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. I think we'll break now, give
our court reporter a well-deserved -- maybe to 10:45, right, 10
minutes?
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am.
May 9, 2017
Page 54
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: 10:45. Is that good? All right, thank
you.
(A brief recess was had, and Derek Johnssen is present for Crystal
Kinzel.)
MR. OCHS: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats.
Chairman, you have a live mic.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much. So I think we
are -- we don't have any more public speakers, is that correct?
And so I think, Mr. Summers, if you'd come back to the podium,
and I'm sure there's going to be lots of questions.
MR. SUMMERS: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I just wanted to make it -- to start this
off by saying I learned something in this last go-round, this last fire.
First of all, I learned how extraordinarily hard working our fire
department is, how when there's an emergency, how they put
everything aside and help in the area. I mean, it's -- and your
coordination is extraordinary. I'm using that word because it is. It's
very moving to me to see this.
But I also learned something that the law requires, and the law
says that our dear first responders cannot go on private property, that
the only entity that can is the Forestry Department; is that correct?
And would you expound on that just for -- just so that everybody
understands sort of the logistics of a wildfire and who can and who
can't.
MR. SUMMERS: Yes, ma'am. And let's make sure that we
understand that we're talking about the wildfire scenario itself.
So as it pertains to first responder entry, obviously the authority
having jurisdiction is a local fire department when it becomes a fire
rescue environment, so we understand that.
In this wildfire engagement, particularly mitigation, it's referred to
May 9, 2017
Page 55
as the Hawkins Bill. And the Hawkins Bill is crystal clear about
Forestry's -- making an easy process for Forestry to go to private
property and to make the necessary firebreaks to mitigate wildfire.
And they have -- they are staffed to manage that right-of-entry
coordination. They have the biologist on staff that can handle the
environmental concerns. They know what equipment is right for that
environment. So not only are they a good fire mitigation specialist, but
they are certainly good in their environmental management process as
well.
So it does make them -- it makes it extremely easy for them to
gain entry. Their challenge, of course, as you've heard, is budget and
resources and how much real estate and how many miles of lines need
to be cut in this county, and they've done a tremendous job with
virtually nothing, in my opinion, in terms of equipment.
Sometimes they do the work internally; sometimes they contract
that work under their oversight for this wildland mitigation for putting
the firebreaks, as we know them, in place.
So -- and, again, they have an overwhelming demand anywhere in
South Florida, and certainly a lot of demand here in Collier County.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, my light was on.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, let's go right to the point
of discussion, and that is funding. I shared this two weeks ago after the
fire that Commissioner Nance spoke about. I visited Mr. Summers
over at our Emergency Services Center and learned that, as a
municipality, we are relegated or, by statute, we afford Florida
Forestry Services $27,000 a year. That's all.
And when you approach it from --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: This was a look of --
May 9, 2017
Page 56
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Disdain, disgust.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Confusion.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Not confusion at all.
I am saddened just on the -- I operate on some pretty simple
principles; I have to. But I believe that local government's primary job
is to build roads, bridges, and keep our families and neighborhoods
safe, period. And where are the priorities of this community? Where
have the priorities of this community been?
When we have the opportunity -- these are known -- this is a
known issue. Commissioner Nance expressed it very eloquently,
discussing the lack of preventative maintenance that's been going on.
And at the end of the day it boils down to a funding issue. Florida
-- and, Commissioner Taylor, you brought up a very valid point few
people know: Our local fire departments are predominantly geared for
after-the-fact fire protection and predominantly for structures. You
know, they are geared for that.
Forestry Service is the lead on our wild brush fires. We have
unique circumstances. Commissioner Nance spoke about it. A fellow
that owns a -- people that own a 75-foot tract have a 10 percent lot
width setback. They slide that house clear over to seven-and-a-half
feet away from the property line so they can get their truck around to
their shop that's in the back of the house, though our fire departments
-- and it's pretty known by the folks that live in Eastern Collier County
that you need to have that 30-foot buffer around your home. Their side
yard setback is seven-and-a-half feet next to a vacant tract owned by
somebody else in another part of the world. That neighbor, that fellow
-- the folks that have their home can't go onto that lot and clear it. Our
fire departments can't go onto that lot and clear it. The only entity
that's legally allowed, without permission, is the Florida Forestry
Service.
May 9, 2017
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So, for me, the most perplexing issue is our lack of action as a
local government to provide protection for our community. I find it
astounding that the folks in Eastern Collier County are willing, as
Commissioner Nance said, to put skin in the game, but this isn't an
east-of-951 issue.
I spoke about this two weeks ago. We were half a mile away
from a disaster where we wouldn't have lost nine structures and five
homes, though that's a travesty in and of itself. Half a mile north, it
would have been 900 structures and 500 homes.
And one spark away, and we would have lit up a more densely
populated urbanized area west of 951, Logan Woods, so on and so
forth; far more heavily densely populated and as thick as what we have
in Eastern Collier County.
So it's past time for us as a local government -- I mean, this step
here with the -- with the wildfire group is certainly a good start. It's
going to prioritize the efforts of the first responding agencies, but I
think, especially with us moving into a budget cycle -- and we've got
some pretty interesting discussions that are coming up with regard to
how we're managing our money here at the county level -- I think it's
high time that we as a community start to reconsider our priorities in
and how and what we do for our citizens.
On that note, I do have a specific question for you, Dan --
MR. SUMMERS: Can go right ahead, sir.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- and Commissioner Saunders
asked it earlier of Commissioner Nance.
But as you shared with me, we're moving 27,000 over to Forestry
for preventative fire mitigation currently, and it's by statute. Could you
give us some more details as to the exposures that Florida Forestry
Service is looking at?
MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir, I can. And our -- as you said, the
May 9, 2017
Page 58
budget is a formula. It's a statutorily required formula for their -- what
is known as a cooperator's contribution.
But what I would offer to you in that discussion is they're looking
at other opportunities. I spoke personally with Jim Quarrels, the
Director of the Florida Forestry Service. Obviously, that man is very
busy right this minute. As you know, there's many, many fires still
going on in the state of Florida and yet another campaign fire in the
northern panhandle of Florida. So getting those folks right this minute
to get some instant information, we need to give them a little bit of
time to catch their breath.
But we did talk about some mitigation models and strategies and
funding concerns. I don't know what -- I believe the state budget was
just approved last evening, so I don't know if they got any additional
funding. Thanks to the letter that you all generated -- to get up there,
so we don't know their posture for the next upcoming year.
The second component is that -- I just spoke with Tallahassee this
morning -- the Fire Management Assistance Grant, which is some of
the reimbursement, different from the hurricane pot of money from
FEMA, different program. That state grant contract has not yet been
signed primarily because of the ongoing fires.
And I mention that grant is that -- sometimes FEMA provides
some mitigation funding to go on top of the reimbursement for
responders. So that is a funding avenue that may be 12, 16 months
before we even know what the mitigation pot of competitive grant
money might be available for additional mitigation.
And, lastly, what I thought was a good model was what Lee
County did with its all-hazards MSTU mitigation fund was they did
provide Forestry -- and, again, I need to validate these numbers --
somewhere around $450,000 bought them equipment, and Forestry did
the project management and the execution of additional fire lines in
May 9, 2017
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Lee County, and that was a smaller tractor, what we refer to as a
Bobcat-type environment and personnel and pickup trucks, and they
may have done some contract work as well.
So my last soapbox comment here would be to say we need to
prepare for this as a marathon, and we need to get ready to get them
some equipment and resources that they need, and understand that to
be successful, not only are they going to cut new lines but have got to
maintain existing lines. And so there's many, many miles in Collier
County to work on.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Could I -- am I still allowed --
you've hit my light --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah. You've got two other speakers.
Yeah, no. I just didn't want to call you again. You're still talking.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. Did I also understand
that our local fire departments afforded additional revenues to the
Florida Forestry Service this year?
MR. SUMMERS: There were some contrib -- I don't know the
specifics, but I think there were some what I call contributions in kind
where if the -- they were cutting some additional breaks. I believe both
North Collier and Greater Naples afforded additional fuel, maybe did
some minor maintenance for them, but I believe they made some
contributions to spread their dollars a little bit further in that process.
So they did, in fact, make some contributions. I don't know the details.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I just wanted to express that out
loud. I have talked to both of the fire chiefs with Greater Naples and
North Collier. There is a collaborative effort here that the first
responders are interested in doing in working with us as a
municipality, even from a funding source. You know, each one of
those two independent fire districts is an independent taxing district, so
there is an effort that is there that can be brought together for
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collaboration on this -- on this dire need.
MR. SUMMERS: And I could not be more proud of our joint
efforts, frankly, as a team.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Amen.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I'm not sure who was first,
Commissioner Fiala or Commissioner Saunders.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I was going to make a motion
to approve directing the County Manager to convene a multiagency
work group to present the Board with options for the fire mitigation,
which was the subject of this thing. But has it gone further than that,
or is that still what the subject is?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Well, I'd like to add a little bit more to
it, but if there's a motion, do I hear a second to that?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'll second the motion. I do
have some additional thoughts.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's discussion, yes.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, not on the motion.
Some additional thoughts after we do the motion, or now if that's --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah, no. Now's the time.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. This may take just a
couple minutes.
But we have a workshop that's scheduled with the fire districts in
October. Now, that may be reconsidered, because that's an item on our
agenda for reconsidering having that joint workshop.
I'm wondering if it would be appropriate to add to that workshop
a discussion on how best to deal with this overall situation. And I'm
going to give you a couple thoughts, and it would take some time to
put it together, but we're talking about October.
It seems to me -- and, again, I don't have any experience with this
or any knowledge about it, but I'm just kind of thinking out loud -- that
May 9, 2017
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the fire service is able to go to a property owner and say, we're going to
do a firebreak across your property. It seems to me that we could enter
into interlocal agreements where they would -- the fire service would
cooperate with that so that we could get those agreements.
And then it seems to me that we could work with the independent
fire districts where we provide funding either through an MSTU or if
it's through general ad valorem taxes, but we provide funding for a
specific purpose if they're willing to do this, and I assume that they
would be, and that would be to have our independent fire districts take
the lead in having the equipment that's needed, as opposed to
depending on the state fire service, and have these independent fire
districts -- again, if they're willing to do this with our funding -- create
the firebreaks, do all of that we would -- that would be needed, and do
that through an interlocal agreement with the fire service in terms of
getting the permission to make -- to build those firebreaks.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I don't mean to interrupt,
but we're -- there are statute rules as to who's in charge.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It's not the fire district.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's not the fire districts. When
a wildfire breaks out, the Forestry Service is the lead.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'm not talking about when a
fire breaks out. I'm talking about reducing the fuel for a fire in
advance of --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Oh, you're talking about the
preventative maintenance side of it?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That's all I'm talking about.
When a fire breaks out, then you get -- whatever you have to do, you
do.
But the thing that Commissioner Nance had emphasized was that
the way to deal with this is to reduce the amount of fuel, and the way
May 9, 2017
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you do that is through firebreaks and controlled burns.
The independent fire districts, I believe, do these fire burns and
do that -- that type of work. They don't have the resources to do
everything that would be needed to accomplish the goal that you're
talking about, which is to develop these firebreaks and to reduce the
fuel to a point where we could feel a little safer about it.
So the point is that can we work with the fire districts through a
contract where we pay for those types of services, that type of
equipment, we add to their task, to the things that they're doing, to their
services, this additional objective.
MR. SUMMERS: Sir, I would respond to that and say we'll give
all of these avenues a good thorough second look. But the business
process of Forestry expanding their fire lines and managing the control
burns is -- that protocol is readily established. In other words, if there is
-- if there is a controlled burn, for example, and Forestry does that
whether it's on public or private land, they have coordinated that in
advance. They certainly notify the local fire departments, in some
cases invite the fire department out for new candidates and those type
of things.
But what Forestry brings to the table in a leadership role here is
that if there is a spread, then the dozers are immediately on standby,
the aircraft are immediately available.
So all of those components that Forestry brings to a response,
they bring to the table in a controlled prescribed burn as well.
So that's kind of why that system works so well. That is their
specialty item.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Not looking to change that
system at all, but part of the problem is that Forestry doesn't have the
resources to devote to Collier County that are needed to protect Collier
County. They just don't have the resources on a statewide basis.
May 9, 2017
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So the question is, can we, through an interlocal agreement,
enhance those services where they would still be in control, to
whatever extent is required, but we would provide the personnel, the
equipment to the fire districts to create those firebreaks? It's a matter
of an interlocal agreement and funding, it seems to me.
MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir. There might be some mutual benefits
there. But in the Lee County case, that's exactly what they did directly
from the county to Forestry. Forestry managed an interlocal agreement
and executed a scope of work, and the advantage to us is that the
Hawkins Bill was in place and made that right-of-entry work very
easy.
So they could be a party to that or in the case, as I understand,
with Lee County, it was directly between the county and gave the
Forestry that booster shot to go in and do expanded work.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, that would certainly be a
better alternative. Again, just trying to think of how best to do this.
MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir. And that's very easily done.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'd like to explore that with the
fire districts in terms of whether or not there is a way to expand what
they do.
MR. SUMMERS: Understood.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Again, within an interlocal
agreement with the state, perhaps, to --
MR. SUMMERS: Very good.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I have a question, Dan, or, excuse me, I
would be -- Mr. Ochs. It would be talking about how we can move
ahead right now to start the process about the MSTU in Golden Gate
Estates. We hear that you're willing to do it, and I think it's now. The
time is now.
MR. KLATZKOW: Ma'am, they don't want an MSTU, because
May 9, 2017
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an MSTU would be based on the appraised value.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
MR. KLATZKOW: What I'm hearing is more of an MSBU.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: MSBU.
MR. KLATZKOW: And if you're talking a dollar an acre or
something like that, I would suggest you just fund this out of your
general budget. It would be a lot easier, a lot faster, and --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Agreed.
MR. KLATZKOW: -- simpler.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Well, it may not be a dollar an acre
once they get into this conversation. So maybe we look at it both
ways. Maybe we -- maybe we look at it -- there was some
conversation in the break that, you know, two-and-a-half acre -- if it
was $10 an acre and the house sits on two-and-a-half acres, that's $25 a
year. You can't go to Starbucks for $25 a year. So let's keep this open
for sure.
MR. KLATZKOW: We can keep it open, but you're going to
have to do --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah. What's the process?
MR. KLATZKOW: You're going to have to put together a study
to see what the appropriate value is. You're going to have to show that
these properties are being specially benefited by that. You're going to
have to get with, you know, the Tax Collector on this to get that. I'm
just saying it's going to be a lengthy process. If you're talking $90,000
a year --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: We may not be, though, so --
MR. KLATZKOW: I understand.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: -- what's the process? How long is the
process?
MR. KLATZKOW: Your process is probably at least a year and
May 9, 2017
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a half.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: To create an MSBU?
MR. KLATZKOW: To create an MSBU and then get it on the
tax rolls, yes.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think there's alternatives, though.
Once the MSTU is -- MSBU is created, I mean, they could borrow the
funds or it could be loaned, and then as the revenue comes, it could be
paid down. I mean, I think there's --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's a good idea.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- ways to expedite.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's a good idea.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah, because there would be a
year's lag in getting all the money in the account, but I think there's
probably ways to --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And I'm talking just --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- speed that up.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: -- Golden Gate Estates right now. The
countywide MSTU, is that -- would -- Mr. Summers, was it an MSTU
that you were talking about or countywide?
MR. SUMMERS: At the time of the original presentation, we did
say MSTU or BU, just depending on what your scope of delivery
would be.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That can be put -- that can be put on --
that could be put on the ballot in 2018. That's a question that we could
go (sic).
I mean, with what the county is facing in terms of hurricanes in
the west and fires in the east, I think it's going to be a hard sell to -- it's
going to take -- I don't mean it's going to be a hard sell. It's just going
to take a little bit more than, because there's fires in the east, to
convince the folks in the west that they have something to be
May 9, 2017
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concerned about. If we have a storm this year, the wisdom of having a
countywide, you know, fee would certainly be shown.
So I think we should look at all parts. But at this point, I agree
with you, we could agree to some kind of fee or certainly this
committee could. They could borrow the money from us, and we could
get this fund going.
I'm very, very, very impressed that Golden Gate folks understand
it. It got my attention. And I want to honor what they want to do right
now. Whatever we do as a county, I'd like to start that process.
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, if you want to move immediately
to set wheels in motion for some action in the fall with the Forestry
Service, the most expeditious way for that is to find $75,000 out of
your reserves and match that with the 25- you're already providing.
And based on what I'm hearing, that -- that is what they need to create
these additional firebreaks and maintain the existing ones, at least as a
starting point, then you've got this task force over the next 90 days that
can then be looking, you know, intermediate and long term.
Because, this -- again, if that fire moved in another direction, you
know, you'd be into more dense areas, and it wouldn't just be a --
necessarily a rural concern.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And yesterday there was a small fire
out there; small fire because they were able to control it, but there was
another fire.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That was a mile from my
home.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. All right. And your light was
on, sir?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, it is.
And I just -- I thank you, County Manager, for that. I mean,
again, this comes back around to my belief of what local government's
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primary job is, and that's to keep our families and neighborhoods safe.
And for the minuscule amount of money that can be put over in this
direction to start the process, is it the beginning? Is it? No. And it's
certainly not the end. Because we have to be doing more -- well,
certainly it is the beginning, but we have to be doing more than what
we have been doing.
Commissioner Nance, I recall when he was serving as our
commissioner, brought this up on a regular basis and couldn't get --
couldn't get a lot of traction. So I think it's -- we're beholding to take
positive action and move this forward.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. So --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll wind this up -- oh.
MR. OCHS: No. I was just going to mention, the format to do
that, I think, we could just simply replicate what Dan alluded to is
already being done in Lee County where the County Commission
contracts with the Forestry Service, has a scope of service, and a
financial remuneration for that. We'll get it in front of the Board. That
solves the immediate concern about moving quickly.
And then over the next 90 days, with the working group, they can
look, then, beyond this next fire season and work towards some more
permanent solutions and associated funding mechanisms.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. So to wind this up, then, going
back to the original motion --
MR. OCHS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- I want to amend that motion so
that not only do we create this committee -- and it starts right away --
but per your suggestion, actually, we have money in the pot
immediately, something from the reserve, $75,000, plus, of course, the
state already has -- already gets 27-, so that's $102,000 that we have
May 9, 2017
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there in case we need it. It will be there.
And so my motion is to approve all of that.
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. If you would add that, you know, you
direct the staff to enter into an interlocal agreement with the state forest
service to make that happen --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes.
MR. OCHS: -- that would be great.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So create an interlocal agreement
with the state regarding forest fires, right?
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And does the seconder agree to that
amended motion? Which, I believe, was you, sir.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Sure, yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So if there's any more discussion -- one
minor thing, it's minor, but when you think about fire out in the area,
you do think about homes, of course, that's number one, but I think our
Commissioner Nance, who was in the agricultural business,
understands there's barns of chemicals maybe out there, and we
certainly have had oil drilling out there. So in your pondering of this
and discussion, I think we need to address this also.
MR. SUMMERS: Ma'am, let me comment on that. We took
considerable time with the Forestry green team to identify some of
those vulnerable locations. That included captive wildlife. We spent
some time with our GIS activity and looking at also -- some of these
barns and ag storage do not meet the federal requirement for reporting,
but we now know that they're there. We're going to do some more
identification of that. And, certainly, the fire departments have offered
to go out there to the homeowner and the small business and offer any
suggestions that they can for firebreaks. So we're paying very close
May 9, 2017
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attention to that in our after action.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. So there's -- any other
discussion? Yes.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I was just going to add one thing;
that while I think we're taking some proactive steps to expedite this, I
really think we cannot lose site of the residents wanting to control their
own future --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- in this. You know, I think the
creation of an MSBU for the affected area by the residents there is
something that definitely needs to stay on the table, in my opinion,
because it allows them to, you know, control the future of what this
thing is going to be and how much money's going to be raised and
what's going to happen.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes, I would agree. Here, here on that.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Madam Chair, I agree with
that completely. One other comment.
There was a comment made that property owners are not able to
clear their areas around their homes because of some restrictions in our
county codes, which I think would be rather -- I think it's rather strange
that we would prohibit that. So if you could take a look at what that
prohibition might be so we can at least eliminate that so people can
clear around their homes.
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. When we bring the agreement with
Forestry back, we'll have a corresponding report on how we might
address that in your LDC.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much because --
Commissioner Saunders, thank you for that, because I remembered in
conversation with Commissioner Nance over those few days -- he's
much more articulate in this, but there probably needs to be a systemic
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change with folks coming in asking to build in Golden Gate, what we
tell them.
You know, everybody knows if you build on the coast, you run
the threat of hurricanes. I'm not so sure that everybody knows if you
build out in Golden Gate, wildfires are a threat.
So I'm thinking that in -- when you come and bring it back we can
talk about how we can -- "massage" is the wrong word, but how we
can inform people coming into our community. And we are the
highest growth community as of last month in the state of Florida --
what the challenges are if they want to build in Golden Gate in terms
of wildfire.
MR. OCHS: Will do.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. So we have -- any other
discussion? Commissioners Saunders, you spoke, right?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yep.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Motion on the floor and a
second. And I don't think we repeat -- does everybody understand the
motion?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes.
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. SUMMERS: Thank you.
May 9, 2017
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Item #13A
RECOMMENDATION FOR A BUDGET AMENDMENT TO
REQUEST ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR THE PURCHASE OF A
HELICOPTER FOR THE COLLIER COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE
IN THE AMOUNT OF $750,000 – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, it may be appropriate at this point to
move to Item 13A. We have the sheriff and his staff here. This was a
recommendation for a budget amendment to request additional funds
for the purchase of a helicopter for the Sheriff's Office in the amount of
$750,000. Sheriff Rambosk is here to make the presentation.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Good morning, Commissioners.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Good morning.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Public safety preservation and
proactivity is what has made this the community it is today. You just
talked a long time about the first element to that, and I'd like to talk a
little bit about the second element of that.
You know, we're regularly called upon to provide service in
search and rescue, in marine emergency response, SWAT operations,
and this year, particularly, we've seen an impact from local fires.
To date, the only thing we can do with our current helicopter --
helicopters, we have two -- is to fly, identify, locate, and direct
resources, which means we have to have either assistance from any
one of a number of other organizations around -- and I'll touch on them
in a second -- or put our people in on the ground, say, in the
Everglades by swamp buggy.
For some time we've been looking at how could we improve upon
that and develop a capability where, if we're called upon to a marine
accident out in the water, how can we airlift someone who has been
May 9, 2017
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injured and make sure that we can get them to EMS and to the hospital
in that golden hour, as we've often talked about in survival.
So today we only have a couple of options, and that is call
Miami-Dade, you can call the coast guard in Tampa, and we can call
the Forestry Service if it happens to deal with fire, but fire alone. They
can't assist in the other services.
We have no hoist; we have no lifting capability. We have no
drop-in capability to drop our SWAT people in a location or on a roof,
which poses other dangers to come in from other locations. We have
no bucket capability should local fire service or Forestry make that
request.
We can be more proactive, and I believe that we should be more
proactive. You know, we've looked at how we might be able to do
that, and if we were to go out and purchase a new aircraft today or
even a used one, $6.5 million is what it would cost us to provide that
service.
Recently -- and the reason why we're here making this request is
because we were offered an opportunity on a surplus aircraft. It was an
in-service DEA aircraft used on a regular basis from a company that
made the purchase but will turn it right to law enforcement if it can be
helpful to law enforcement, or they'll rehab it and sell it to a private
company to do that.
The cost of that aircraft today is $400,000 plus 250- to 350- for
additional hoisting buckets and training that would be necessary to put
that in service in Collier County. So a total of $750,000.
Normally, with that amount of money at this point in the year, I
would have just went and made the purchase and done what we needed
to do, but because we've had the incidents that we've had, we're going
to see a significant increase in overtime costs and impact on the budget
probably approaching a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and we're
May 9, 2017
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not into hurricane season, and we're not out of fire season.
So as I understand it, through the law, if I wind up exceeding the
budget by October, I have to pay out of my wallet. I don't really want
to have to do that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: How's that going to work out
for you?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Not good, not good.
You know, we've been in contact with our two largest fire
districts with regard to the ability to provide a very proactive
immediate response to a starting fire which could potentially preclude
it from growing into something that none of us want to see, but if you
put that along with all of the other preventative things that you're
talking about, we become a very proactive community with regard to
public safety, whether it be -- and I'll say all-hazard, because it is
wildfires, it's hurricane, it's floods, it's whatever we may impact.
So as I was thinking here, in looking at my initial request to make
the request to increase this year's budget, I'd like to change that, and I
would like to find a way to get an advance from the next budget to
enable us to make this purchase today, which I would wait to purchase
until October if I could, but I can't. It will be gone.
Therefore, whatever you approve as our budget, I'll work within
it. We've always been extremely fiscally responsible with what we do.
And I would just as soon be able to come and tell you that we worked
within our current budget this year, and we're going to work within
what you authorize next year as opposed to increasing our current
budget and enable you to put forth the resources to those prevention
efforts as you started today, in conjunction with what I can handle
within my budget.
I open it up to questions.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
May 9, 2017
Page 74
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Commissioner Fiala was first.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Oh, okay. I didn't want to get yelled at
for --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Oh, we'd never yell at you,
Madam Chair.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: -- accusations --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I just want to say to our
audience members, actually, that our Sheriff's Office is recognized
throughout the state of Florida as keeping our crime rate down,
continually reducing it, and being a very responsive Sheriff's
Department to our community. I'm always so proud when I go places
and they recognize our Sheriff's Office.
This is another way; here we've been talking about the fires this
morning, what an appropriate time, and we didn't even realize all this
was going to be going on. But they were talking about extra help and
extra needs. I think that's a wonderful thing. We were talking about
increasing your budget anyway. By folding that into this, I think that
this would be one of the smartest moves we could make, and I am
wholeheartedly for it, and I would make a motion to approve right
now.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Next one was you, Commissioner
McDaniel, so I'll call on you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Just so you know, you got to
make the motion just because I let you go first.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh. You know what, you can make
the motion. I'll second it.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No, no, no. It's all good.
I just wanted to ask a quick question.
County Manager and I spoke. Do we have the money available in
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reserves to make this happen? I see the budget amendments that have
been attached and such.
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. I'll let Mark elaborate. But, you know, the
Sheriff's contingency reserve is contained within your overall General
Fund Contingency Reserve. He, by law, is able to access that on his
request. That money's there and available for him.
Mark?
MR. ISACKSON: The law, which we attached as part of the
executive summary, indicates that the Sheriff has access to a, upon
request, which he has made, up to $4 million. It's 2 and a half percent,
essentially, by policy that the Board adopts on a reserve for
contingency. We set the same reserve for contingency countywide
within the General Fund.
You know, advancing the Sheriff -- if you -- if you increase his
budget by 750-, like we originally had requested and say he doesn't use
his 750-, he can always turn it back at yearend. So I don't want to
make it more complicated than it really has to be. That's why we --
when we looked at the executive summary, looked at the statute, we
presented the information to you in supplement to the sheriff's
information. I think it's good to go.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You're good to go.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah. I just want to
compliment the sheriff on the presentation. I would like to get some
information down the road -- I'm sure we'll do that in the budget
process -- what the operating costs are and that sort of thing. But I
think that's a good expenditure of funds, and I want to congratulate you
for putting that together and finding what sounds like a very good deal
May 9, 2017
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in terms of the acquisition.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes. We think so.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah. Well done. Okay, there's a
motion on the floor to accept the Sheriff's proposal and a second. Any
other discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All those no 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.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
Item #9B
ORDINANCE 2017-17: RECOMMENDATION TO ADOPT AN
ORDINANCE THAT WILL IMPLEMENT A TEMPORARY
MORATORIUM ON CANNABIS DISPENSING BUSINESSES,
DURING WHICH TIME STAFF WILL DEVELOP AND BRING
FORWARD LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE AMENDMENTS
REGARDING THE APPROPRIATE ZONING DESIGNATION
AND LOCATIONAL RESTRICTIONS SUITABLE FOR SUCH
CANNABIS DISPENSING BUSINESSES. NOTE BY COUNTY
ATTORNEY: THIS MORATORIUM PERIOD COMMENCED
FEBRUARY 14, 2017 (ITEM #11A), AND WILL EXPIRE
May 9, 2017
Page 77
FEBRUARY 13, 2018, ABSENT FURTHER ACTION BY THE
BOARD – MOTION EXTENDING THE MORATORIUM UNTIL
OCTOBER 10TH AND BRING BACK AN ORDINANCE AT THAT
BCC MEETING FOR REVIEW – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Madam Chairman, that brings us back to Item 9B on
your agenda this morning. This was previously Item 17 on your
summary agenda. This is a recommendation to adopt an ordinance that
will implement a temporary moratorium on cannabis dispensing
businesses. This item was moved from the summary agenda at
Commissioner McDaniel's request, and I believe we have some
registered speakers on this item as well, Madam Chair.
MR. MILLER: Yes, we do. We have five registered speakers on
this item.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll be happy to hear the public
speakers first, and then I can go, unless you want me to go first.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I think you should go first and explain
why you did this --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: -- and set the stage for it. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: My reasoning is pretty simple.
There was an election last year. There was a referendum ballot. The
electorate spoke to the governing bodies to allow for these facilities to
be legal and operational.
There was a discussion early on in the early part of this year about
enacting this moratorium. Commissioner Saunders was very eloquent.
I want to compliment you on bringing me over from voting against the
original moratorium. I did vote for it because of his persuasiveness,
but I reserved the right not to at that time because now I've read the
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specific language.
I've got an issue -- first off, as you well know, I have an issue
with moratoriums at large, but the specific language that's a portion of
this executive summary and the actual ordinance, I believe, puts forth a
lot of misnomers of what these entities are and why this board is, in
fact, bringing forward a moratorium.
Commissioner Saunders shared with me, and I agreed with the
rationale, that we weren't quite sure what these entities were going to
look like because of the law and the statutory requisite for the state to
come out with what these dispensaries were, in fact, going to be, and
why try to regulate them twice until we actually know.
Well -- and subsequent to that, now, with what I've been able to
read from the legislature and what's transpired up there, there really
hasn't been much discussion as to what they look like. The argument
was, how many are there going to be, necessarily, is the biggest
problem.
And as I understand as of last night, they didn't make any final
decisions. They passed it off to the Health Department for some kind
of a ruling which is going to even further potentially forestall. Yes?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Can I comment?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Of course. Come on. It's a --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: But the amendment requires the
Department of Health, I believe it is, to come up with regulations. I
mean, that's originally what the vote was on.
So the Department of -- as I understand it, and maybe
Commissioner Saunders can clarify this if I'm wrong. The amendment
requires the Department of Health to come up with regulations on how
to implement this constitutional provision. The legislature then
decided to get into that. I mean, the whole idea to begin with was that
the Department would develop the rules and regulations on how to
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regulate this new right that we have.
So I think that's still ongoing. The hearings that have to happen
through the Division of Administrative Hearings are ongoing, I think.
And so I just want to make sure -- I mean, the regulations will happen;
they're happening. I just don't than the legislature's going to chime in
on that at this point.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I think the rationale for
starting the process to create the moratorium was to wait for the
legislature to do whatever it was going to do and for the agency to
develop the rules, and the anticipation was that the legislature would
have passed a bill this session, which didn't happen, and that the
agency would have rules in place sometime during the summer, which
may still happen.
But I think the bottom line is that the bills that were floating
through the legislature preserve to cities and counties the ability to
regulate the zoning issues associated with dispensaries and to regulate
the number of dispensaries in a community.
And so I think that there's probably sufficient information
available to our county staff to come back to us with some ordinance at
this point to control or limit in some way the number of dispensaries;
the idea being that you don't want medical marijuana dispensaries that
are failing because there are too many of them. You don't want them
in the wrong locations. But they are pharmacies. It is a legal drug, and
we should have dispensaries for that.
So I think maybe the proper thing to do, instead of having a
moratorium at this point, is to direct staff to come back to us with an
ordinance on how to deal with licensing and permitting the
dispensaries. And maybe we need a short-term moratorium for that,
but we don't need a year, I don't think, at this point. I think we have to
kind of go on our own.
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COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I didn't mean to -- were you --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I wasn't done, but he basically
said where I was wanting to go.
I have in my office, I think -- and don't quote me this. I think
there are 17 or so counties so far that have adopted ordinances to
regulate these. I actually received an email from some folks that talked
about specifically tying the allowable number of these facilities to the
documented registered patients that have the capacity to purchase and
receive these --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: One of the studies that I saw,
and I think was presented to the county, was that there's been an
analysis done that you need a population of 60,000 to support a
dispensary, and that would give you the patient load for that, so Collier
County would have six or seven dispensaries, but that type of
information's available.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right, yeah.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And so having said all that, I
have issues with the actual language within the executive summary and
ordinance, and I would rather we not enact a moratorium but direct
staff to come back to us with specific language to manage these
facilities.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'd just like to add, I think we need to
go back to where this -- why this came up to begin with, and that was
this was a proposal from staff, because -- and correct me if I am
wrong, but the Land Development Code doesn't really have any
provisions that would regulate where these dispensaries would be
located.
So there was a concern that there was already applications being
made, and we didn't -- and, internally, we wouldn't know how to deal
with those, and they could be located essentially anywhere.
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MR. KLATZKOW: The Land Development Code has permitted
uses. If you're not a permitted use, you can't do it. I don't know that
you could open a dispensary at this time, quite frankly, period.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I don't think you can because
it's --
MR. KLATZKOW: We're going to have to come back with an
ordinance to actually give them places that they can open.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right. But, I mean, I thought the
concern was that we didn't have anything in there. We didn't know
how it was going to regulate it. And, you know, I don't know, you
could probably -- you could apply for a location. You couldn't sell
anything yet probably, but you could call it a dispensary or something.
So I just thought that the whole idea was to give staff time to
develop provisions or amendments to the Land Development Code that
would govern where these would be located. I mean, are we
reinventing the wheel, or do I not remember that correctly?
MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning Director.
It was a concern that was expressed from the dais but it was also
echoed by staff as well that we had no regulation for dealing with the
medical marijuana dispensaries based upon the lack of action from the
Florida legislator (sic). There are -- that we're making process still is
to be done (sic).
We have gathered a tremendous amount of resources and
information from Florida counties as well as other locations. We're
prepared to begin that stakeholder vesting process of developing the
locational criteria suggesting what's the appropriate number based
upon 1 to 67,500. That's the number that the state legislator (sic) had
made a determination in terms of dispensaries per population.
So we have all that information. We're prepared, just with
speaking with Richard Henderlong and Jeremy Frantz, the LDC
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Amendment Manager, that we're going to be contacting Drug Free
Collier, the NCH, Dr. Weiss and the organization, all the vested
stakeholders who come in, give them a first draft about some of the
conversations, about the direction that we're going to go to set up those
locational restrictions that we have, that suggest the appropriate
number, and set the framework up for the county and for the Planning
Commission and then, ultimately, the Board to consider probably
within the fall sometime to have those ready for public --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Quick question. And what
happens --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Let Commissioner Solis finish, please.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Just -- and this will be my last
question is, but if the moratorium wasn't in place, what do we do if
somebody comes in and says, we want to locate a dispensary here, so
that we have the location in advance and be ahead of the market or
whatever, and how would we handle that now?
MR. BOSI: The concern would be, if they would come in, they
would say -- they would label themselves as a pharmacy.
MR. KLATZKOW: You have a problem. Your Land
Development Code is structured that you can only do a permitted use,
so our argument is this is not a permitted use. Their argument's going
to be, well, you have to give me some place to go to as well as this is a
constitutional issue here.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right.
MR. KLATZKOW: That's why the moratorium is good, so we
can get the regulations in place to avoid that issue.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Give you time to do that.
MR. BOSI: Because what they could argue is they're not a
medical marijuana dispensary, but they're a pharmacy --
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COMMISSIONER SOLIS: They're a pharmacy.
MR. BOSI: -- and pharmacies are clearly allowed within the
majority of our commercial zoning categories, and that would be --
that would be the concern. The argument would be, they would say,
we're a pharmacy, and we're permitted in the C2, C3, C4, C5. Our
position would be you're not a pharmacy, you're a medical -- and then
that's where we would have a legal issue.
MR. KLATZKOW: And the moratorium gets rid of that issue.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: So you need, what, six
months; is that what you said?
MR. BOSI: Yes. We were waiting for the end of the legislative
session. Now we know that it's ended and there's no specific
guidelines that are being crafted from the State. There's enough of
adopted ordinances that have been -- that have been, as indicated by
the Board, you know, adopted from their various counties and
jurisdictions, cities, that we've got the framework and the structure to
come back and propose the locational criteria that the Board is seeking
with limitation upon the number, and then allow for the Board to make
the final decision on when they think's appropriate.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I just had a simple question,
and that is, can people who need medical marijuana for pain, can they,
right now, get a prescription from their doctor and go get it?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Specific --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I understand that, yes, they can. I've
asked around.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: For specific conditions, I think --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- they can, not -- but, right, for
specific conditions, and I think you have to register and --
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COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, there's two different
types of medical marijuana now. The one that was approved by the
legislature a couple years ago, and that is available through licensed
physicians. I don't know whether you can get regular -- I don't think
you can get regular medical marijuana under the constitutional
amendment just yet. But you can get it for the other.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just meant, if you need it right now
-- somebody had written me a letter and they said, I'm in pain, and you
won't even let me cure my pain. Well, if you can buy it right now
because your doctor gives you a prescription, I didn't understand that
letter, then.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: As I understand it, the original
legislation that was enacted by the legislature limited what they could
be prescribed for. That's why they wanted to have this amendment that
broadened the conditions for which it could be used and prescribed, so
I think the answer to that is yes, but it's limited.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: It's very limited.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Very limited, yeah.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Seizures and things like that;
very limited.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Are you done?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: So, basically, we're at the same
spot we were back in February when this subject of the moratorium
came up. And our County Attorney is telling us that we have an issue
because we have a request for dispensaries such as this to come that we
don't have guidelines for within our LDC.
MR. BOSI: Correct.
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COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Correct. So, necessarily, for
our own protection, we need to have a moratorium on a short-term
basis to allow staff to develop the language that's requisite for the
regulation of these facilities?
MR. KLATZKOW: Correct. I think that's the prudent course.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: All right. What's the
opportunity of adjusting the language in the existing ordinance to
eliminate some of the -- some of the misnomers that are included in
both the ordinance and the executive summary and specifying the
shorter time frame? Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: May I? My light's on?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Of course.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: As I recall when this first came up --
and it may have been me that -- the original proposal was for a
six-month moratorium, and then I think I might have came forward
and said, well, there's all this going on in the legislature, we didn't
know where this was going to end up, let's make it a year to make sure
we have enough time, we don't to end up running out of time. Based
upon what I'm hearing from staff, if we already know where we're
headed, we've gotten some of the data from the State or whatever, I
have no objection to amending that to make it a six-month moratorium.
I mean, if that addresses it.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: From the February date where
we de facto enacted it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No, can't do that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Don't laugh. I'm just asking the
question.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I just want to make sure that we have
enough time --
May 9, 2017
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MR. KLATZKOW: You can always extend it.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: You could extend it.
MR. KLATZKOW: I mean, if you wanted to set it, just to pick a
number or a date of November 1st, and staff comes back and says, we
need a couple of more weeks, we can extend it.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And are you okay with
amending the language within the ordinance itself specifically? In
Paragraph 2 -- I'm going to read it off the executive summary. And it
said that the Board expressed concerns over the potential adverse
impacts on the health, safety, and welfare of residences, businesses
from secondary effects associated with the distribution of cannabis,
potentially including offensive odors, trespassing, theft, fire hazards,
increased crime in and about the dispensary, robberies, negative
impacts on nearby businesses, nuisance problems, and increased DUI
incidence.
Additionally, the above potential adverse impacts are accentuated
by the current difficulties experienced by cannabis businesses in
obtaining banking services, which is true with regard to that, but that
middle sentence had -- has nothing to do with why I originally agreed
to allow for the moratorium to be put in place. It was on the precept
that we weren't quite sure what these institutions were, in fact, going to
look like and that we were going to prudently wait until the legislature
was through so that we were regulating them once, and now we're at a
point where we're going to get to do it anyway.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So registered, but this is the executive
summary.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I got it. It's also -- that
language is included in the ordinance as well, Madam Chair.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Not -- we don't have an ordinance yet.
They're working on it.
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COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: There is an ordinance attached
to this.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: No. The moratorium
ordinance has that language in it.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Some of that language may
need to be in there just to justify having a moratorium.
MR. KLATZKOW: We didn't make it up.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, it's also expressing --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah.
MR. KLATZKOW: I mean, there were a number of moratorium
ordinances --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: It's also expressing --
MR. KLATZKOW: And this is pretty --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- what our state has learned from
the other states.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's right.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: When they realized that this was
going to happen, we had other states calling our state to tell them
what's happening in and Oregon, to tell them what's happening in
Colorado, and warn you against what's going to happen here, because
these are all the things that were happening there.
So I'm sure that that was worked into it just because of what's
been happening in other states.
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, just to remind you, you have five
public speakers as well.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Five speakers. It's almost time for your
break, our lunch. So, yes, let's hear our speakers.
MR. MILLER: Madam Chair, your first registered speaker is
Laraine Deutsche, and she will be followed by Jason Hartgrave.
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: If you would be so kind -- no, either
podium. And if the other speaker would come up and use this podium,
that would great. Thank you very much.
MS. DEUTSCHE: Good morning. My name is Laraine
Deutsche, and I am asking you to honor the will of the people on
Amendment II. I'm against the moratorium and, actually, this is a
healthcare need not to be taken lightly, and we can also look at it that it
will be revenue for Collier County. Perhaps some of it could be even
used in fire prevention.
I'm from Michigan where we've had this at least six years, maybe
even 10, maybe even longer, medical marijuana law, and it's been very
successful there, and the dispensaries are in many different cities in
Michigan and of different economic levels.
So if you have some mindset that Collier County's going to turn
into a seedy area, that's not happened, of what I'm aware of. And,
again, I'm going to reiterate that this is a healthcare issue, and we
should not be dragging our feet on it.
Also, do you have zoning for drugstores? Do they have
moratoriums? Like CVS, Walgreens? I'm asking a question now.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You direct your question to the Chair,
if you would.
MS. DEUTSCHE: I'm sorry. I don't know the protocol.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's all right.
MS. DEUTSCHE: I'm directing it to Ms. Taylor.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. It's my understanding that we
do have zoning for drugstores; is that correct --
MR. KLATZKOW: That is correct.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: -- that was the question? That's correct,
yes.
MS. DEUTSCHE: Okay. And let's see. All right. Well, I think
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that's it. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much. You've been
here a long morning. I really appreciate you staying with us. Thank
you very much.
MS. DEUTSCHE: Thank you for your consideration.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You're welcome.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Jason Hartgrave. He'll be
followed by Amanda Dillon.
MR. HARTGRAVE: She ceded her time to me.
MR. MILLER: Oh, I'm sorry. Are you here, Ms. Dillon?
MS. DILLON: Yes.
MR. MILLER: Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Mr. Hartgrave will have six
minutes, and he will be followed by Tammy Boxx.
MR. HARTGRAVE: Greetings, Commissioners. This is Jason
Hartgrave. I'm also with the Libertarian party, also a concerned citizen
and, you know, perhaps even a patient in the future.
But I would, first of all, like to applaud the Board for taking a
critical approach and to be thinking about this issue again. I think
there's a lot of confusion still about what you think that has happened
according to the legislator (sic). But I will tell you that Florida Statute
No. 381 dash or dot 986 is really what is important. It defines a
dispensing organization as an organization, quote, approved by the
Department. So for any sort of dispensary, it has to be approved by the
Department, by the State of Florida.
Now, unfortunately, the legislator (sic) did not pass, like, their
recommendations, but this is really on the Florida Department of
Health, and those guidelines and those things will be given on July the
3rd. So July the 3rd is when we will get these guidelines. So nothing,
even if there was no moratorium at all, could even begin to, you know,
become an issue.
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Then there's another 90 days after this, so that would bring us to
October the 3rd. So October the 3rd is when those guidelines will be
implemented across the state of Florida. So there would be no medical
marijuana dispensing facility allowed by the State prior to October the
3rd. So any moratorium that would extend beyond the October the 3rd
date would really be violating that constitutional thing that the voters
have really made it the will of the people.
And just so you understand how many people in this area voiced
their thoughts on this issue, there was 106,027 votes cast right here in
Collier County for yes on this amendment. That's 64.3 percent. That's
more votes than, you know, frankly speaking, any of you received up
there, and that is the voice of the people. Your constituents are telling
you -- and there's a lot of sick people in this community. There's
people that need this right now. They are risking being locked up in a
cage by Sheriff Rambosk to get the medications that they most
definitely need.
Let's talk for just a second about these conditions. This is cancer.
I'm pretty sure there's no moratorium on cancer facilities or radiation,
which we do know in uncontrolled doses could hurt people.
We have people suffering from AIDS. We have soldiers that are
suffering from PSTD (sic). That means that they're basically living
with a super high, elevated level of cortisol all the time. There's people
waking up in pain from Parkinson disease, shaking uncontrollably, and
the marijuana that we do have here in Florida, no, there's nobody that
can get the type of strains necessary other than the low Charlotte's
Web, which is only shown effective in some conditions.
So nobody can get this right now, as you were discussing earlier,
until this date of October the 3rd. So the moratorium, even if it didn't
exist in this county, there would be no issue. So why are we creating
an additional problem and an additional block for patients that need
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this?
We also have a petition here, which I will give a copy to the
commissioners. We had 400 signatures, roughly 400 signatures.
There's some comments left by constituents. I don't know if anybody
has had a chance to read these. I could spend some of my remaining
time talking about this.
This is -- you know, Sherry Cecil, Naples, Florida. This is
medically necessary not only for my son but many other sick people.
This moratorium is a disgrace to the voting system and the voters'
voice.
Andy Kasis, Bonita Springs. I have epilepsy, and they've got me
on all kinds of meds. I need this instead of my meds. This can help
me in a big way, along with other people, with what I have.
Elsa Brightman, Naples, Florida. I have MS. I feel this will
benefit me, and on and on.
I, myself -- you may have noticed I kind of walk a little funny.
That's because I have a condition called MHE, Multiple Hereditary
Exostosis. So what that means is I have about 20 benign bone tumors.
But by benign, they're not cancerous. They just cause me all sorts of
joint pain and problems, fibromyalgia, et cetera. The only reason I
mention this is one of the only people that were prescribed, federally,
medical marijuana, was somebody that was suffering from my
condition.
My condition is not listed in the Amendment II; however, I have
hopes that it would be considered a debilitating condition because I do
know people that have suffered extremely from the very opioid
epidemic that is given because we're prescribing people OxyContins
and other things that damage their liver and destroy their quality of
life.
As far as I know, we have had no medical-related deaths of
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marijuana overdose in Collier County despite it being a substance that
has been in our community for a long time, even if illegally.
Thank you for your time.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel, do you have
a question?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No, no.
MR. MILLER: Your final speaker on this item is Tammy Boxx,
who's been ceded three additional minutes from Elsa Griffin (sic). Ms.
Griffin, are you -- thank you. Ms. Boxx?
MS. BOXX: Good morning. My name is Tamara Boxx. I am a
United States Air Force military police officer, medically retired 2011
for injuries sustained on active duty.
I am on five prescription medications: Percocet, Nucynta, Lyrica
to name three. I would love to be prescribed medical marijuana, but
you cannot get it, as it was said you just can. You can't.
It is disgusting to me that our county has voted to do this. And it
is being politicked. It is disturbing.
I have three friends that have committed suicide because of
PTSD. Every day I wake up and I can barely walk. And you want to
politic it.
My veterans are asking for your help, and you sit here and talk
about mental health. You talk about raising mental health awareness,
and you don't even bat an eye to prescription drugs in this county. It is
disturbing. It is disgusting.
I put my life on the line at 17 years old. I didn't even bat an eye.
And you talk about you can just get it. No, you cannot. You can't.
Disturbing.
You talked about a patch that that motorcycle gentleman had on
his back, "I am my brother's keeper." Yes, you are. It is your
responsibility to take care of us. I am speaking on behalf of my
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veterans, on behalf of these people, that don't want to take drugs. I am
fed these drugs. I was told in the military, here, 800 milligrams of
Ibuprofen. Here, this will fix you. You have a broken bone, here, 800
milligrams of Ibuprofen; this will fix you. Take that weapon, go back
out, go. And, you know what? We did it. We didn't give a dang. We
did it for you.
Do this for us. Do it. You don't need a year. That is ridiculous.
You don't need it. Six months -- I understand you have to do things
right, I understand that, but your children are out there taking more
Xanax than any of these adults that suffer from medical problems, and
you know it. You know it.
This is Collier County; this is Naples. We know we have a face
to live up to. We know it. But this is important. Your county voted for
this. That gentleman stood here and gave you a number. You cannot
dispute numbers. You can't. If I could pull my pants leg up and show
you the 19-inch scar, the three scars on my spine where I had to have a
spinal stimulator put in, where I could show you the death certificates
of three of my brothers that died since January from PTSD, I would, if
that will make you feel better, but I can't.
I can ask you to take care of us and be my brother's keeper. I'm
begging you. Please. Please stop politicking. Please do the right thing.
Please. I'm begging you. Please.
I understand that you have to do the right things, I get it, but these
things that you are scared of, that we're going to become seedy. It's
Naples. We have $500 venue tickets for the Kentucky Derby. You
have the finest law enforcement men and women.
We spend millions on this. Take care of us. Veterans wait two to
three months to get an appointment at the VA, and we are just given --
I tried to go to Walgreens to fill my Percocet prescription. I was told
they would not support my habit because I'm 32 and I should not be on
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10-3 22 milligrams of Percocet, and I take two of them a day. My liver
is going to be gone.
This is real life. This is real. It's marijuana. No one has died
from medical marijuana. Please do the right thing. I am begging you.
Please, please. Take care of us. For those that cannot speak for
themselves, please, before more of my people die. Please. Thank you.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yeah. I have a question for
Mr. Bosi and maybe the County Attorney.
I mean, one of the speakers talked about a date of October 3rd
before this gets -- has to get through based upon the constitutional
amendment vote and all. Was that a correct --
MR. KLATZKOW: I can't tell you that exact date is correct. I do
know that you're going to have to have regulations from the State
Department of Health come down, and whenever they come down.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. Okay. So how long --
the question is to you, how long will it take for us to move through this
process, and assuming the date that public speaker spoke about is, in
fact, accurate, can we have an ordinance put together by the 1st of
October?
MR. BOSI: I would imagine that we most certainly can. We can
have this vetted over the summertime with the interest groups, with all
-- and the public, have a review draft ready for the Planning
Commission review sometime in August and September, and then
bring back for consideration and the Board's approval sometime in
October. And I've let our LDC team know that this was -- this is our
focus over the summer, and we're going to -- before I came down to
the meeting, I knew that this was going to be the discussion point and
that originally we were intending to wait until the end of legislation
May 9, 2017
Page 95
session to see what rule-making process was going to come out.
We know that that's not going to produce -- or that hasn't been
produced. So we know that it's -- now is our time to move forward on
the issue. We will most certainly make every effort to make sure that
we can bring something in the October time frame back to the Board
for their consideration.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I certainly don't want us to
be reacting to -- I mean, not that public speakers don't matter, but the
information that comes from our County Attorney, I think, has to lead
with regard to that, and our County Attorney has shared with us that
we have an issue with regard to no -- or no regulation capacity for
these entities if they, in fact, come forward. Whether or not our public
speaker perceives it to be to legal or not is --
MR. KLATZKOW: You need to have -- you need to have these
zoning ordinances in place --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yep.
MR. KLATZKOW: -- as quickly as possible, quite frankly. And,
you know, I'm sure that the schedule that Mike just gave you, you
know, is as good as staff's going to get on this, and that's where we're
going to proceed. Unfortunately, the legislature punted. I mean, we're
all waiting to see what they did, and they punted the decision on it. So
at this point in time, you know, we can't punt.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And my concern, again, this is
public perception. This is the will of the people. This was voted on
and passed by a majority to amend the Constitution to allow these
entities to exist. We have a duty. We have a -- and sometimes it's not
fun being in the minority, and I well no. Sometimes it's not fun being
in the minority. But I really think -- I think it's paramount that we
move this along as quickly as possible.
May 9, 2017
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I can't support the moratorium as it's currently written both in the
executive summary and the ordinance itself. I just can't.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Just to clarify, I don't think
anybody on this board wants to prohibit the sale of medical marijuana
in Collier County. That's certainly not my objective. And I appreciate
the very impassioned comments that we got, especially from our
veteran, and thank you for your service.
It's a legal drug, and it's -- it will be dispensed in Collier County.
The question becomes the number of dispensaries and where they're to
be located, not a question of whether they're going to be. And so I
think we do need a moratorium for a short period of time to get the
ordinance drafted. We have a meeting on October 10th. You've said
you can have this done by October. I think we should task staff to get
this done as quickly as possible, recognizing that there will be
dispensaries, and there may be six or 10 of them in Collier County. We
don't want 50 of them because that makes all of them less viable
economically.
And so I know there's some language in the proposed ordinance
that creates a bit of a problem, but that doesn't mean that there's a
problem with these dispensaries. It just means that we have to have
certain language in there to make sure that we are on solid ground in
terms of a moratorium.
Now, I've gotten calls and emails from people from out of state
that have said they want to come to Collier County and set up a
dispensary. And if we don't have a moratorium, we're going to get
applications for dispensaries just waiting for the time when the drug is
legal and can be distributed, and I just don't think that's an appropriate
approach.
So what I'd like to suggest is that we have the moratorium expire
May 9, 2017
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on October 1, that we direct staff to come to us on October 10th for a
first reading of an ordinance. Now, that means you have to go through
the planning board and all of that stuff, but that would be a hard
timeline to bring something back.
I don't know if that would be acceptable to Commissioner
McDaniel. But I agree, we need to move this.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And I would also like to thank the
veteran that was speaking for her service as well. And I agree with
Commissioner Saunders, you know, this is not about wanting to deny
anyone access to medical marijuana. It's not available yet. I mean, this
is -- that's not a decision that we're making, obviously, because the
people have spoken. It is going to be available in Florida. We're
waiting on the Department of Health to come up with the regulations.
There's nothing that we can do about that.
And as I recall the discussion we had had was since we didn't
know what was going to happen, we could terminate the moratorium at
any time and to make it coincide with when the regulations are going
to be effective, which is when anyone could start even applying to be a
dispensary.
I'd be in favor of that as well. I mean, I think that was originally,
at least from my perspective, was the intent of the moratorium was
really, you know, to figure out what was going to happen.
At one point the legislature was talking about preempting the
zoning for these -- for the dispensaries to the legislature. So I would
be in favor of this revised motion as well, if that would be acceptable.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Is that a second?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'll second that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, just an interesting thing. I've
May 9, 2017
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had a number of people already contact or even come into my office all
wanting to open medical dispensaries. They're ready to go. They've
picked out sites. They're -- you know, this is something they
immediately wanted to start. But one guy from out of town came in,
and he wanted to have the monopoly on all of the dispensaries. I just
want to state upfront, he said, that I would like to open all the
dispensaries and be the single operator.
And so, as you're deliberating through all of this stuff, you want
to -- you might want to address that situation to see if you want it to go
all to one person or if it should be handled by different people. I don't
know the answer. I'm just thinking you can tackle that or at least think
about it.
MR. BOSI: One of the -- thank you, Commissioner Fiala.
We're going to deal strictly with the number of locations -- the
locational aspects, the number aspects. The -- in terms of specific
ownership, zoning would not get into that subject area.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Madam Chair, it was brought
to my attention that we should have the moratorium expire on October
10th, which is the date that you're going to come back to an ordinance,
so there won't be a gap there, so...
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Do you agree to the amendment on the
motion?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: So October 10th the
moratorium ends. And, obviously, if we need a couple more weeks,
we can extend that on October 10th because we'll be in a meeting. But
that's the deadline for you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. We have a motion on the
floor and a second.
May 9, 2017
Page 99
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: For purposes of discussion -- I
had my light off (sic), and you cut it off so -- or had my light on, and
you cut it off.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: She's trying to tell you
something there.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Maybe I missed the button.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah. You missed the button. It
wasn't lit. I hit it a couple of times thinking somehow I know he
always wants to have the last word. Where is his light? And it didn't
go off.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: There you go. And I'm just
messing with you now.
I full on understand the path that you all are on. It's the language
within the existing executive summary and ordinance that I've got
issues with.
I think there is complete solid ground in a different wording of
this to allow us and afford us the opportunity to get this regulation
done without espousing theories of potentially what could occur from
these facilities existing, so...
Call the vote. Here I go; the minority.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I may regret saying this because I do
not want to offend your needs, your medical needs, what you've done
for us in the military, what you're doing for us as heading a party, your
concerns coming from Michigan, and all the folks that need medical
marijuana to relieve their symptoms. But in today's world, in high
schools and in elementary schools, kids are lighting up and that is,
unfortunately, the specter by which, I have a sense -- you know, the
legislation punted. They didn't -- you know, let's move it ahead. Let
someone else do it.
May 9, 2017
Page 100
We're taking responsibility for the constitutional amendment.
We're taking responsibility for our voters. And it appears to you that
we're limping along. Maybe we are, but I don't think so. We just want
to make sure that those dispensaries serve you and not our youth; that
they are located where you can access them, not the kids in the
neighborhood.
So thank you very much for coming in, for baring your souls, all
of you, and thank you so much for your service and know that October
10th is a real date. We've set it. Thank you very much.
Motion on the floor and a second. All those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Those opposed, like sign.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It carries 4-1. Thank you very much.
And we're going to break now; come back at 1:08. Thank you.
(A luncheon recess was had, and Crystal Kinzel is now present in
the board room.)
Item #10A
COMMISSIONER FIALA'S REQUEST FOR RECONSIDERATION
OF COMMISSIONER SAUNDER'S ITEM #10B FROM THE
APRIL 25, 2017 MEETING TITLED: SETTING A MEETING
DATE IN OCTOBER REGARDING FIRE CONSOLIDATION –
DISCUSSED
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we are now moving to Item 10,
May 9, 2017
Page 101
Board of County Commissioners.
Item 10A has to do with a request by Commissioner Fiala for
reconsideration of a board-adopted motion made by -- or excuse me --
on an item brought forward by Commissioner Saunders at the April
25th board meeting regarding setting a date in October for a workshop
regarding fire consolidation.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Thank you.
And, Commissioner Saunders, this was no poke at you, by the
way. I just felt that maybe we would be undermining the fire
departments by telling them that they have to talk to us about
consolidation when, you know, it's something that they should possibly
talk amongst themselves about first, and we shouldn't probably push
them into anything. I don't know that we would like it if Fire came in
and told us what we would have to do.
So I just felt that it was -- that we should allow them to initiate
that.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Sure.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: If they ever wanted to meet with us
to talk about it, certainly, then we could meet with them. There's a ring
to this, huh?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: A couple things. And I don't
know what the procedure is on a motion to reconsider, if that's
debatable or not. I assume that it's -- that it is debatable.
MR. KLATZKOW: It's debatable to a point.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. Well, let me know
when we go beyond the point.
My thinking in terms of a joint meeting with the fire
commissioners isn't just to talk about consolidation. It's no different
than having the joint meeting with the City of Naples, the City of
Marco Island, any other elected body.
May 9, 2017
Page 102
We need to be working together. And the thought is that by
having this joint meeting, we can kind of find out where things are
moving, what -- if they need -- what, if anything, they need from us,
but it's not just limited to the issue of fire consolidation. At the
meeting when this was approved by the Board, we were talking about
the EMS issues, fire consolidation issues. And we had an issue come
up today that, I think, would be part of that agenda, which is what can
the Collier County Commission do in conjunction with the fire districts
to facilitate more of the controlled burns in the eastern part of the
county, help provide more -- perhaps more personnel, more equipment,
and so there are a whole myriad of issues where the Collier County
Commission and the independent fire districts need coordination. And
that coordination happens, but I think it would be important to have a
dialogue on a whole myriad of issues, not just the issue of
consolidation.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: See, that's what it said was about
consolidation, and I just -- I can -- certainly like today, it certainly is
understandable but -- and then it only said North Naples. It didn't even
say anybody else, or the way I remember it, anyway, with North
Naples. Did it say any more than that? I thought it --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: It was to be a joint meeting
with the independent fire districts --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: All of them.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- so we could talk about
mutual issues of interest and important issues.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, it said "consolidation."
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I don't know what the "it" is
that you're talking about, but that was the --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: The executive summary, and that's
May 9, 2017
Page 103
my concern. I just felt that it -- is it -- and everybody -- you know, I'll
go along with what anybody says. I just -- well, maybe. I just didn't
feel like --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I remember that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just didn't feel that it was our
responsibility to call them and talk to them about consolidation. It
would be nice if they invited us to talk with them about consolidation.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, like I say, it's broader
than that.
And one of the issues we talked about today would certainly be
that. But this is an invitation. If the fire commissioners say, we don't
want to meet with the County Commission, that's fine. I mean, I
would understand that, but somebody has to start the process, and I
thought that this would be a way to get us all together in the same
room to talk about issues of mutual interest. That's the purpose of it.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And I can respect that, but I think -- I
think from my three years on this -- on the commission, no one is
forgetting it. We've had several meetings about this. It's been -- in
fact, I think when I was elected, Commissioner Fiala, which was two
years ago, three years ago, 2'14, that was the year that it was on the --
to consolidate, right? Greater Naples consolidated. I think that was the
year, that was the vote. I think it was there, or maybe it was two years
before.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, they consolidated right around
that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Right around that time.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: But that was just Greater Naples and
Golden Gate, and they've been wanting to include others as well, yeah.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: And I know they've had a lot of
meetings talking fire chief to fire chief.
May 9, 2017
Page 104
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And one time they invited us over to
--
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes. In North Naples, yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Were you here -- yes, already. And
they invited us over to talk to them about all of them working together.
I thought that was very nice.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Right. That was almost a full-day
meeting.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, it was.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So it's not -- I don't think we have to
initiate anything. I think, if anything, we need to support them but
allow the fire departments to come in and ask us for our cooperation,
not necessarily our guidance, because I think, frankly, the leadership is
pretty strong in this community.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. They have their own -- they
do a good job. You know, they have their own boards, and they make
their own decisions. We certainly don't tell them what to do.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Elected officials. No.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just like they don't come in and tell
us what to do, we don't go in and tell them what to do either. So that's
-- maybe I misunderstood. I just felt that I didn't want to try and look
like we're trying to tell them what they need to do.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, not to go beyond the
point or where it's no longer appropriate, I'll just simply wrap up with
saying, if the Board doesn't want to do that, that's fine. I don't consider
that to be a poke or anything. But obviously we'll vote on the motion.
I think it's important for the mutual elected boards, independent
fire districts and the County Commission, to sit down and talk and talk
about issues beyond consolidation. And there certainly isn't any effort
on my part for the County Commission to tell the fire districts what to
May 9, 2017
Page 105
do. We can't tell them what to do. That's never the -- never was the
intention. Just simply so that we can work together on issues that I
think are important. And, you know, the issue of wildfires is certainly
one of them.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And when you talk about
consolidation, you said "independent." Are you talking also about the
cities?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, I was talking about the
independent fire districts, not the cities. It would not be inappropriate
to include the cities. I just hadn't thought about that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't even know if they all meet
together. I have no idea.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Well, I can tell you one thing: They
fought that fire together. There's a wonderful photograph in the Naples
Daily News of firefighters backs to the camera with the flames; you
could see them. And there was a plane coming over, and on the back
of one of the firefighters was City of Naples. It was right in the woods.
It was --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I know they all came out to aid one
another. That was a beautiful gesture of solidarity amongst everyone.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yep. Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. I would like to support
Commissioner Saunders' thought process of a joint meeting. If we do,
in fact, invite the cities of Marco and Naples, I would welcome that.
A lot of what we do has to do with perception, and there are a lot
of folks that perceive government as "it." We all know that there are
individual funding buckets where money comes from and goes to. We
all know that there are independent fire districts with separate elected
advisory boards and so ons, but a lot of folks don't, number one.
Number two, we do, the Board does, oversee the operations of
May 9, 2017
Page 106
our EMS, which is a portion of our first responders and a portion of
our -- of what we do. So a coordinated effort just to get together and
talk, certainly not telling them what to do by any stretch, but hearing
from them things that we -- that they may know from a professional
level as to how we can better enhance our first responders, our
emergency services, processes, and the like, I would -- I certainly
support Commissioner Saunders' efforts in that regard to enhance
communication.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's good. I just thought we were
going to tell them that they need to consolidate.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm boiling it way down, but that --
being that you used the word, that's why I just felt that that was -- you
know, it's not our business to tell them. Now, I know you used to work
for them. Is that what they wanted to do was consolidate or --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That was many, many years
ago.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I know.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I have no idea.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: But you have a good relationship
with them.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Oh, yeah. I have no idea what
the plans --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: They talk about you very fondly, North
Naples.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, I'm glad to hear that, but
I think --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: They don't even use swear words or
anything.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I have no idea what the
May 9, 2017
Page 107
thinking of the fire commissioners is at this point. I'd like to find out.
But, again, this is just an effort to have the dialogue.
I think I would go ahead and call the question of your motion.
You've got a motion.
Okay. Just as long as we're --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- not going in to talk with them
strictly about consolidation. And we're inviting more than just North
Naples, right?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: All of them.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, yeah, but it said North Naples.
So I just wanted to find out if --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Did we specify North Naples?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, that was -- I mean, not that it
didn't say anything else. There was nothing at all about the cities. I
just didn't know who else. I don't even know if Immokalee is involved
and...
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: They should be.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: They should, yeah.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And it should, yeah
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's an independent fire district,
yes. I mean, that was -- the thought was to get together with us, but I
understand if you don't want to do it, but I don't see the downside,
that's all.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just couldn't ask you in person
because, can't do that, so I thought I better ask you right out in the
open. And as long as -- and you're talking about a full scope of
services and not, you know -- then I'm fine with that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. So no reconsideration.
May 9, 2017
Page 108
COMMISSIONER FIALA: (Shrugs shoulders.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. So be it. So it goes forward.
County Manager, I wondered if we could hear public comment
right now, if my board agrees.
MR. OCHS: Certainly.
Item #7
PUBLIC COMMENTS ON GENERAL TOPICS NOT ON THE
CURRENT OR FUTURE AGENDA
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Item 7 on your agenda is public
comments on general topics not on the current or future agenda.
MR. MILLER: Madam Chair, you have two registered speakers
for public comment. Judi Palay, and she will be followed by Pam
Brown.
MS. PALAY: Thank you. Well, we survived another season.
In the last years, our population has doubled plus during season.
That might have worked if building projects hadn't spiraled out of
control and continue to do so. With our population getting older,
investments and interest down, many of us chose to sell our homes up
north and become permanent Neapolitans, and then the houses,
condos, and high-rises appeared wherever there was any available
space.
Livingston Road, which was to take the overload from
north/south streets, began to fill with large multi-unit buildings.
Goodlette-Frank as well. It didn't help that Vanderbilt Drive would be
closed for two seasons. 41 became a parking lot. Entry to it from
Wiggins Pass Road could take up to 30 minutes.
Immokalee Road has been declared insufficient. Hospitals cannot
May 9, 2017
Page 109
always accommodate patients requiring rooms. Parking places at
various beaches? Nope. Even the grocery stores are overcrowded in
season. A distance that should take 20 minutes could take an hour or
more.
What happened to responsible planning? Isn't it important to
provide for the safety and well-being of our residents? Is it necessary
to destroy a way of life that gave access to a community where we
could enjoy our surroundings and take advantage of what we didn't
have time for as we raised our families and worked, looking ahead
towards retirement?
I am not suggesting that we never build again. I am urging our
commissioners to help our infrastructure catch up to our population
explosion to protect those of us who live here until that can happen.
I would like you please to re-examine the density issue and see if,
perhaps, it is unrealistic.
I'm asking, no, begging you, to put more effort into better and
safer roads, better lighting to protect cyclists and pedestrians, better
access to medical care and other necessary activities so that we can be
in an environment that is enjoyable for the residents who live here.
Thank you. And could I urge you, please, maybe to have public
comment first thing in the morning, which would help those of us that
have other things on our schedule?
Thank you so much.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Madam Chair, your final speaker on public
comment is Pam Brown.
MS. BROWN: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I am here as a
citizen of Immokalee asking for you to help us with our roads.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Excuse me for one second. Would you
just identify yourself for the record.
May 9, 2017
Page 110
MR. BROWN: Pam Brown, native Immokalee-an, board of --
chairman of -- well, not chairman, I'm sorry, Immokalee Chamber of
Commerce, CAC committee member, and just a concerned citizen.
I've lived there all my life, and Commissioner McDaniel knows me
well.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll verify that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You'll vouch for her.
MS. BROWN: You'll vouch for me? Thank you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: She is who she says she it.
MS. BROWN: And he and I have talked about the problem that
I'm having, or we're having right now. There are a lot of accidents
going on North 29, north of Immokalee, from Westclox, New Market
Road, and there's a corridor. This just happened. I don't know. Can
we get that up?
MR. OCHS: It's already up.
MS. BROWN: Yeah. Good deal. Okay. As you see, on this
accident, it blocked the road, 82 and 29. This is the only corridor
going north and south out of Immokalee. And one accident -- here's
another one.
MR. OCHS: You had it right.
MS. BROWN: Okay. And here was an accident that it was from
midnight to six in the morning where people could not go in and out of
Immokalee, and it killed two of the people who was Immokalee
natives.
From what I understand, right now there's a PD&E study going
on 29 south of Immokalee, and I am asking you to please, when you do
go talk about this issue at the MPO meetings, to try to bring this PD&E
money back to 29 north. We are needing this desperately in
Immokalee. This is where most of our commuters come in every
morning for school, for the IFAS center.
May 9, 2017
Page 111
We have RCMA. There were meetings they had to attend that
mooring. They had to go and reroute themselves to go another way
out of Immokalee, which made them late for the meeting.
And I -- casino. We have one million visitors that come to the
casino every year. I know a lot of them come from Naples, but they
also come from Fort Myers. And if you all could please help us, it
would really help us a lot.
Here is -- this is a report of the accident crashes for six months
with the Sheriff's Department. Now, this isn't specified about the
accidents on 29 and 82, but I have requested that from the Sheriff's
Department, and they are going to get that for me. This is a lot of
accidents in a small amount of time.
And, as Commissioner McDaniel can tell you, we are, like,
backed up two or three miles some days going out of Immokalee or
coming into Immokalee.
There's been some recommendations that we would like to do in
the interim before the bypass comes through or the roundabout or
whatever we can do. I understand there is a strategic intermodal
system that is coming on board, but we have to do something for the
safety of Immokalee, and I really would like for you all to consider this
going forward.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Is that an average?
MS. BROWN: Pardon me.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: This is an average?
MS. BROWN: This is from the last six months, Commissioner
Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Oh, six months.
MS. BROWN: Yes, sir; 11/1 to 4/30. And this doesn't include
the accident -- I don't know if it included the one that blocked the
May 9, 2017
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traffic on State Road 29 and 82 that was in the paper May 1st.
So I know there is money that is being funded for downtown
Immokalee. We have issues at Westclox, and I would like to see if
there's any way we could prioritize some of these jobs, because we
have been to MPO meetings, we have begged for this. When you all
came to Immokalee last year, it was a concern then. So we really
would appreciate if you all would look at this. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Before she goes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes, sir, go ahead.
MS. BROWN: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'd just like to ask staff about
any information on the PD&E money for the south side of 29.
Because I know we -- and you know this as well, Pam. We -- you
know, FDOT moved up the improvements to State Road 82 and the
roundabout out there at 29. But any information on that south money?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sir, I think -- the middle section,
obviously, is going through the PD&E. The south projects are funded
for PD&E. Probably the question you would ask of the MPO and
DOT is could they move some of the PD&E money to the south to the
next phase in the middle section where it's probably badly needed,
which is the downtown area.
MS. BROWN: No, sir, north; north of Immokalee.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Coming into Immokalee.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: From Lake Trafford north is part of
that 82/29. That intersection will drop down to that location. The
middle section -- and thank you for putting that up, Pam.
MS. BROWN: This is a little map; sorry.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Right. Where the Number 29 is
heading north, just from that point to 82 is funded, and they moved it
up to, I believe, 2019. The middle section from the first 29 symbol
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that's at the top of your screen to the 29 symbol that's just out of
Immokalee, that's the middle PD&E that's funded.
Farther south there's another PD&E going on, and I guess the
question we'd ask DOT and the MPO, is the middle section's next
phase, which would design funded -- and I don't have that answer in
front of you. And we could find that out.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We'll do it. I mean, we have an
MPO, I think, this Friday.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Friday.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: So, I mean, we'll bring it up
then, have a discussion, get some -- get an adjustment to the priorities
as to what we think we would like to see happening.
MS. BROWN: Okay. And if you would like to see some
Immokalee people there, I can get them there for you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes, ma'am.
MS. BROWN: And if you need a petition, whatever you all need,
I will try to do if for you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: We're going to the City of Naples this
year, not Immokalee, but yes, ma'am --
MS. BROWN: Okay.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: -- we need that.
And then, you know, not -- this is a question, not -- and I would
need board support, of course. But I'd like to see if the county can't
participate in this, because this is very dangerous. That's -- I'm not
sure that that can happen. I know this is a budget issue, but I think
FDOT needs to understand, and I think the folks in Immokalee need to
understand the county's concerned about them.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Thank you.
MS. BROWN: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
May 9, 2017
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MS. BROWN: I appreciate it. Thank you for your time.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You're welcome.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thanks for coming. She's the best
cook, I want to tell you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: She's a good cook?
Item #11B
RECOMMENDATION TO AWARD CONTRACT NO. 16-6679
"TRAFFIC OPERATIONS VIDEO WALL REPLACEMENT" IN
THE AMOUNT OF $479,895.25 TO ACTIVU CORPORATION
FOR THE PURCHASE, CONFIGURATION AND INSTALLATION
OF AN ACTIVU VIDEO WALL SYSTEM TO BE LOCATED IN
THE COLLIER COUNTY TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT CENTER –
APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that takes us to Item 11B this
afternoon. This is a recommendation to award a contract for Traffic
Operations video wall replacements in the Traffic Operations Center. I
know that -- Commissioner Taylor, I think you had a particular interest
in this item.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes. And, specifically, because I've
been on the MPO now for three years, and we've been talking about
the City of Naples participating in coming together so that we can have
two government entities in the same room that share the traffic in the
county. And I just -- and then I was relieved to see -- I was
disappointed to see they're not here now. That's not your
responsibility, but -- and I was relieved to see within three to five years
you're going to be looking at this again.
So I just wanted to know where we are in that process of
May 9, 2017
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persuading the City of Naples that we aren't the big bad guys that they
think we are and, by gosh, it would be a cost savings and smart, and it
would be -- you know, to move our -- move our workforce and also
consolidate money -- there's the word "consolidation." I was hesitating
on that -- to bring some kind of more efficiency to the system.
So on that note, I'm going to turn over to you, sir, because you
know what you're talking about. I'm not sure I do.
MR. AHMAD: Thank you, Commissioner. Jay Ahmad, for the
record, Director of Transportation Engineering.
We've gone well beyond those days where we had that issue
where the city didn't want to collocate with us. We've been in
discussion with them, and actually they petitioned to study through the
FDOT, the Florida Department of Transportation.
Last week, actually, I've had a primary report from that study
which essentially had the disadvantages and advantages of collocating
into one location. The idea is not -- you know, we've always -- never
had that vision of taking over the city TMC. It's actually been under
one roof.
Our Counter Manager -- Deputy County Manager had that for a
while when he was in Growth Management. And there are a lot of
efficiencies in being under one roof under -- you know, the
communication could be improved, you know, those lines where
they're not solid lines between the county and, you know, the border
lines, from a traffic perspective, we can work better. And having a
person in that room and be able to monitor and see each other's TMCs
and traffic signals operation is a benefit, and I think they see that as
well.
So hopefully the study will end by June/July, and we'll have
positive recommendations. And through your MPO, through -- I know
you folks are on the MPO. So we've been talking about having a
May 9, 2017
Page 116
location for the TMC funding in the five years or possibly a little bit
longer, to have that collocating, if that ever becomes a possibility.
I know our County Manager's been asking us to also look at the
Emergency Operations Center to be able to locate in that, and we have
an architect on -- kind of going through the RFP now to see the spaces
available in the Emergency Operations Center to see if we can locate
our EOC, you know, at the EOC site, and hopefully the city could also
be in that location.
I hope I answered that question. It was a long-winded answer.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes, you did. Thank you very much.
MR. AHMAD: Sure thing.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
Questions?
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, do you want --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I would like to make a motion
to approve. I've been to the Transportation Department a number of
times. I've brought people there, taken a couple tours there. They are
magnificent to watch them. It's kind of poetry in motion is what I can
call it.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I can understand that the
equipment will only last for so long. And, Mike, my assistant, just said
he was coming to work down Airport Road, and he said, you know, we
have a fantastic transportation system. He said every light, every light
was synchronized, so I just drove right in. It only took me less than 20
minutes to get here. Oh, he was really bragging, so I thought we better
keep our equipment updated. And so my motion is to approve.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Saunders?
May 9, 2017
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COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: After the motion, I just have a
comment for staff.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: There's a mo -- oh.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: After the vote.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: After we vote? Okay.
County Manager, you were --
MR. OCHS: No, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You had nothing to say.
MR. OCHS: All set. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. All right. Very good. 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.
Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I wanted to alert our staff, and
you may know -- may already know about this, but House Bill 865
passed the legislature, and in Section 14 of that bill it directs the
Department of Transportation to submit to the Governor, the President
of the Senate, and Speaker of the House a report providing a
comprehensive review of the boundaries and headquarters of each of
the Department's districts. Along with its report, the departments shall
provide a study on the expenses associated with creating an additional
district with the Department's Fort Myers urban office as the District
headquarters.
May 9, 2017
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And so I don't know how that report's going to go, but we should
take a look at that and try to impact on that, because having a new
district in Fort Myers, I think, would be a real positive for this region.
So just to alert that to you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Does that mean take it out of
Bartow?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: We would be in the Fort
Myers district if it passed. So, yes. So we'd have much more impact
on their decision making. So it's House Bill 865.
MR. AHMAD: Got it. Thank you, sir, for the information.
Item #11C
RECOMMENDATION THAT THE BOARD AUTHORIZES STAFF
TO WORK WITH THE FLORIDA FISH AND WILDLIFE
CONSERVATION COMMISSION (FWC) TO REVIEW AND
UPDATE LOCAL UNINCORPORATED COLLIER COUNTY
BOATER SAFETY ZONES, TO BRING BACK TO THE BOARD
PROPOSED CHANGES TO THESE RULES AND REGULATIONS,
AND TO CONDUCT 4 PUBLIC WORKSHOPS TO MAKE THE
PUBLIC AWARE OF THIS INITIATIVE. (GARY MCALPIN,
MANAGER - COASTAL MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS,
CAPITAL PROJECT PLANNING, IMPACT FEES AND
PROGRAM MANAGEMENT DIVISION) – MOTION TO
APPROVE STAFF’S RECOMMENDATIONS AND HOLD SOME
OF THE PUBLIC’S MEETINGS DURING SEASON – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair and Commissioners, that takes us to
Item 11C. This is a recommendation for the Board to authorize the
staff to begin work on updating the boater safety zones in
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unincorporated Collier County, following on the heels of the recently
completed state manatee protection zone update, and Mr. Gary
McAlpin will make a brief presentation.
MR. McALPIN: Thank you, Leo.
For the record, Gary McAlpin, Coastal Zone Management.
So Leo is right, we have been working with FWC. And over the
last year, we've been successful in having a new manatee speed zone
put into place. This is a state effort by FWC, but the county
participated through the Local Rule Review Committee in a significant
way.
And to talk a little bit about that, just to set a background, is that
we gave them -- we've met six times or so. We gave them a lot of
input on the manatee speed zones. They accepted about 85 percent of
that. They took it to their commission. It went through a review
process. And just on April 20th of this past month it was approved.
So we have in Collier County the framework of a new manatee
protection speed zone ordinance by the State, and that will be
implemented in 2018 pending no appeals to that process.
So with that, we have the second piece of that, which is our boater
safety speed zones, and that is a county initiative that we have to go
through. We control the speed zones, the local speed zones in the
county, and at this point in time we want to review those the same way
we did with the manatee speed zones looking to -- for public
participation and a workshop -- series of workshops with that, and
before we started that process, we wanted to review that with you and
solicit your input and solicit your approval prior to starting.
So a quick background. We have three types of speed zones in
the county. We have State FWC manatee markers, we have our local
boater safety speed zones, and we have federal channel markers.
Altogether, we have about 700 markers that we maintain in the county.
May 9, 2017
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The vast majority of those are federal markers. They designate the
markings and the boundaries of safe water within our channels. And,
by statute, by the permit requirements, we are required to maintain
those for the government.
We also have the local manatee protection zones that we just
talked about, and then we have our local ordinances, our local speed
zones that are permitted by our ordinance.
So with those, the goals of that is obviously to regulate speeds in
difficult waters -- we have marked the channel boundaries -- and also
any additional information that is required for safe boating operations.
So what do they look like? We have two pictures here of our
different type of speed zones. You could see on the lower left a
manatee speed zone, a typical one that we would look for, and then our
boating safety speed zones.
Our manatee zones are all by FWC jurisdiction. The State
controls these. It's based on state statutes. They are permitted,
constructed, and maintained by the State, and their primary function is
to maintain the health, safety, and protection of the manatees.
Corollary to that, we also have what we can call navigational
speed zones or safety speed zones within the county. And these speed
zones are our responsibility, but just because they're our responsibility
doesn't mean that the State doesn't have a big role in helping us with
those. All of our speed zones and all of our markers have to be
permitted by the State. Our ordinances have to be reviewed by the
State, and they have to be -- and approved by the State to make sure
they're consistent with the state statutes.
And, lastly, we permit these. We're responsible for these, but
they're based on state guidelines. And these markers that we have do a
lot of things. They control the speed. They deal with things like speed
in blind corners, narrow channels, proximity to fuel stations, and the
May 9, 2017
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public in public marinas.
So why are we looking at our speed zones at this point in time?
Well, we have the manatee -- new manatee speed zone regulations that
have just been put in place. We want to take our local speed zones that
we have and look at them again, make sure that we don't have any gaps
or overlaps in the speed zones and that the plan is comprehensive. Both
our local speed zones and the state manatee speed zones complement
each other, and we are consistent with that.
The problem is is that the State has, about five years ago, changed
their ordinances and changed their criteria. And when they changed
their ordinance and criteria, that -- a lot of -- that threw a lot of our
county markers and speed zones that were not as per state statutes at
that point in time, and the permits needed to be reviewed and reapplied
for.
So we have a number of speed zones in the county that are not --
that are not legally permitted right now because of changes five years
ago from the State, and our -- and they're not into compliance with
state laws and regulations.
So if they're not in compliance with state laws and regulations,
they can't be legally enforced. So the Sheriff's Department, and the
FWC enforcement officers out in the Gulf and throughout our
waterways, if they see a violation, they can't legally enforce that.
Also, we need to get a better inventory of our speed zones. The
ordinances we have have been in place for about 20, some of them,
close to 30 years. Situations have changed during that period of time.
Waterway channels have changed, and we need to just review all of
this again.
And, lastly, when we originally put our ordinance in place,
Collier County maintained everything, but now we have the City of
Marco Island, we have the City of Naples, and we have Everglades
May 9, 2017
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City, and we need to maintain our own local speed zones and let the
cities maintain their speed zones.
So what we are proposing relative to the speed zones is that we
hold a series of public workshops and, with our public workshops, we
look at, specifically, are we still -- what do we need to do with our
ordinances? How do they need to be updated? We look at where are
the speed zones.
We involve the public into that. We look at -- get public input on
where we need to have special signs or special zones at that point in
time. We want to have a general kickoff meeting. We want to have
two review meetings, one in the north part of the county, one in the
south part of the county.
Once we get all of the public input and we develop revised speed
zones and ordinances, we want to review that with all of the people
that participated, and then we want to bring it back to the Board of
County Commissioners for action at that point in time.
This is a significant effort, that's our plan, and we'd like your
approval of that plan moving forward.
I'll answer any questions that you have.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I don't have -- I don't think we have any
questions. It's well presented. Ah, Commissioner Solis, did you -- oh,
no.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I will. You beat me to it. I was
reaching for the button.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You know what, you reached for the
wrong button, and I thought it was -- yeah. Okay.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I was doing both at the same time.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: So the workshops -- I just want to be
clear that the workshops you're talking about are public workshops, but
May 9, 2017
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they're not BCC workshops. These are citizen --
MR. McALPIN: These will be workshops that we will have that
will be -- that will be publicly noticed for everybody. It will not --
BCC members certainly could attend, but we'll be working workshops
that we held out with the community, Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Is there any -- has any thought been
given to when you would schedule these? I'm getting requests that if
you're going to do these, to please do them during the season when
people are here.
MR. McALPIN: Well, we had indicated -- we had thought that
what we would do is there's some information that we need to pull
together. But we wanted to get started on this right away so that he we
can start having this. It's going to take six months for us to go ahead
and pull this all together with what we have to do, so we wanted to
start this process right now.
I know that there was some concern throughout the Pelican Bay
community.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right.
MR. McALPIN: Well, we don't have any speed zones within
Pelican Bay within the Clam Pass system, and so -- we don't have any
manatee speed zones within the Clam Pass system. We don't have any
safety speed zones within the Clam Pass system, because the
waterways are too shallow for boaters. There's not that -- we don't have
boats in those systems.
So we could continue with this activity independent of anything
we wanted to do with Pelican Bay community, Commissioner.
MR. OCHS: Commissioner, they may be filing with FWC for an
appeal on the manatee protection zone speed zones but not our local,
so it wouldn't interfere with this effort.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And Pelican Bay, notwithstanding,
May 9, 2017
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there's no reason to have these during the season when everyone is
here?
MR. OCHS: Sure.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: You need to --
MR. McALPIN: If the Board directs us to have these during the
season when everyone's here, we would do that. We don't necessarily
see a need for that. What we want to try to do is involve the boating
community with this, but it's the Board's decision on how we move
forward, Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Can I ask a question? When we talk
about in season, because we have -- you know, we have a -- in season
could start as early as the middle of September, or it could start in
November, or it could start in January.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: In January.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What do you think is Pelican Bay's
wish?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: We went through this last time,
didn't we? What did we decide, November to April, is it October to
April or --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, it depends on what Pelican
Bay -- I'm just asking Pelican Bay. I think -- usually what we start
with is October. You know, that's pretty likely, but I don't know how
Pelican Bay people feel, so that's why I'm asking for this, or would
October be good?
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we can do this, you know, at your
schedule convenience. We were just anxious to get the effort
underway. We could have it all wrapped up, we believe, in six
months, but if you want to have us spread that schedule out to allow
for these public meetings, or at least a couple of them to occur during
May 9, 2017
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the season, we'd be happy to do that.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: The -- many of the signs that we
have out there now are not -- they're not permitted? They're not --
MR. McALPIN: Well, they were permitted. When the permits --
when the rule regulations changed, they need to be re-permitted. And
the regulations changed, so some of the signs, you know, where we
had speed zones are no longer valid, and they'd have to be changed to
have them be enforceable.
And so what we wanted to try to do -- now that we have half of
the signs with the manatee done, we wanted to just piggyback right on
that and, while we're at it, do the rest of them all at once.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Again, these are just the boater safety
zones --
MR. McALPIN: These are the speed zones, that's correct, within
our navigable waterways.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And this doesn't have anything to do
with the manatee zones?
MR. McALPIN: The manatee zones are already completed.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: All right. Okay. I'm --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I thought it was the City of Naples who
was going to post all the signs in Clam -- no, just kidding.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I don't know what that was about,
but...
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You will.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'm sure I will, yeah.
MR. OCHS: So would you like us to proceed as outlined, or do
you want us to slow the train down and hold these meetings next year
during season?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I think it's very wise to do it within the
season and slow it down a little bit, because I can think -- I think that's
May 9, 2017
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what our public expects, and so much of our public are boaters that are
seasonal.
MR. OCHS: Commissioner, the only downside to that, or the
primary downside that I see, is local law enforcement, the sheriff's
marine patrol, for example, there are some concerns with inability to
enforce some of these zones that are posted but aren't updated from
permit compliance. So we were a bit anxious to get those moving and
under the new statute compliance so that the enforcement agencies
could -- you know, actually enforce the speed zones in those areas.
But perhaps we could start -- maybe we could start with those initially.
I don't know, Gary, if you can --
MR. McALPIN: I think we could start. If we could start this
program rolling and have -- we could certainly have a kickoff session
with the whole communities and work with the boaters in both the
north and the south, and then potentially when the community starts to
come back in, review what work has been done up till that point in
time.
We could make it work however you want to do it,
Commissioners. But Leo is right, if we can get these things in place,
we want to be able to enforce it and make it safe, and that's really what
we're trying to accomplish.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll make a motion that we
move along as directed by staff and make sure that we have at least a
couple of public meetings once whenever we decide season is to make
sure we've involved all the potential public that is possible.
I would also -- well, that's my motion.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second that motion.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Thank you.
For discussion purposes, how did we get so far out with our
May 9, 2017
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ordinances not being in conformity to FWC's laws and the like?
MR. McALPIN: Commissioner, we -- they changed the
ordinance five years ago. It took us a while to realize what, actually,
were the requirements. We have been working with FWC all along.
They said -- they gave us the counsel that the first thing that they
wanted to do was to tackle the manatee, and then once we did the
manatee, that they would support us in moving forward with this.
So we have been working with them hand in hand since that
period of time.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Thank you, sir.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. No other discussion. Motion
on the floor and a second. All those in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: We have two speakers.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. I'm sorry.
MR. MILLER: I am so sorry. You got through that before I
could say. We do have two registered public speakers, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Oh, I beg your pardon. We're going to
hold that vote until we hear from our speakers.
MR. MILLER: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: One of them's not here.
MR. MILLER: Well, Joshua Maxwell, and Jim Kalvin.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I don't think we ought to
let Mr. Maxwell --
MR. McALPIN: Jim had to leave.
MR. MILLER: So it will be Joshua Maxwell is our only speaker,
then.
MR. MAXWELL: Good afternoon. Josh Maxwell. I sit on the
May 9, 2017
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board for Marine Industries of Collier County and a chief engineer at
Turrell Hall & Associates, a marine environmental firm here in town.
We worked with Gary and Chris and the rest of the committee on
the manatee speed zones and look forward to hopefully attending some
of these public meetings.
And my only suggestion is, if we do the some in season, some out
of season, if we can maybe let that publicly be known what we're
going to target on, because that's one thing with the manatee speed
zones; we spent a lot of time discussing areas that weren't on the
docket for that day, and that could maybe be a much more efficient use
of your staff's time as well as the public that comes to be involved.
As far as how much of the public is seasonal versus not, majority
of our members from Marine Industry are year-round residents. I'm a
year-round boater. All my friends are year-round boaters, so I think
you'd get a lot of attention outside of season, and that might be a good
way to identify county zones that aren't necessarily as close to our
seasonal residents. You know, we've got a lot to the south that we
could probably work through before getting to some of the more
controversial areas.
So with that, we fully support and look forward to working with
your staff on identifying any changes, if needed.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Do we need to amend the
motion to -- or does that fit into your plan of -- I mean, it sounded --
that's very logical, and I perceived you to be working on the law
enforcement aspects of the -- of our boating safety zones, necessarily,
first anyway, so...
MR. McALPIN: Commissioner, I think the ordinance is clear.
We'll -- your -- we'll work to make that happen.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Got it.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Thank you very much.
May 9, 2017
Page 129
MR. MAXWELL: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Any other discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Motion on the floor and a second. All
those in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye, again.
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 very
much.
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, if you could indulge Gary for one
second. He wants to introduce his new staff member.
MR. McALPIN: Chris, stand up here, please. Chris -- this is the
face of our boater safety zone speed markers coastal program on the
water, Chris D'Arco. Chris doesn't have -- like many county
employees, he doesn't have a glamorous job. It's kind of mundane
many ways, but he does it -- he does it with a great zest and a great
zeal, and he is one of the -- one of our star employees, like many of us,
and so I just wanted to make sure that we gave Chris the recognition
that he deserves and have you know of the effort that he puts into our
program.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you.
MR. OCHS: Thanks, Gary. Thanks, Chris.
Item #11D
May 9, 2017
Page 130
Recommendation to report to the Board on the ATV ad hoc
committee; progress to date, and conceptual plan for a park on the
Immokalee Airport Property; plan to approach the US Fish and
Wildlife Service (USFWS) to further determine potential mitigation
costs associated with environmental permitting – Motion to accept
staff report and recommendations, seek written approval from the
FAA and bring back construction and preliminary operating budget
costs – Approved
Item 11D is a recommendation to report to the Board on the ATV
Ad Hoc Committee progress to date and conceptual plan for a park on
the Immokalee airport property, and Mr. Williams, your Director of
Parks and Recreation, will make the presentation.
MR. WILLIAMS: Good afternoon. Barry Williams, Parks and
Recreation Director.
Thank you, Leo.
Just, if I could add about Chris, he can paddleboard like anybody
I've ever seen, too. So he's got some skills. But --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: He's really laughing back there.
MR. WILLIAMS: Madam Chair, Commissioners, I wanted to
bring forward just kind of an update to you on activities of your ad hoc
committee related to seeking a place for off-highway vehicles to
recreate in Collier County. And I put up a slide that just kind of lays
out the history of this. This has got some history for sure back to 2003
when Southwest Florida Water Management made a deal with the
Board then to find lands for folks to provide for this type of recreation.
And you can see from the timeline, that deal never was made. In
2011 the Board settled with South Florida Water Management for $3
million for the Board to look for opportunities for people to recreate
this way.
May 9, 2017
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So we have done a number of things in that effort and,
unfortunately, none of them have been proven successful. We've done
searches for land. We've looked for partnering with outside entities.
We've looked at our partners at Miami-Dade. The jetport was a site
that was looked at for some time. We've also reached out to the
Seminole Tribe and looked at them as an opportune to partner with
them, but none of those things have worked.
And so one of the things that we began to focus in the committee
on was lands that the county owned as possible sites. And a part of the
focus had been on a 300-acre parcel associated with Immokalee
airport. And Justin Lobb, the Airport Manager, is here today to talk
about that property in some detail. But I just wanted to kind of go over
with you briefly where we are with that look at that property and
certainly get your direction as we move forward.
This is just a site plan of the airport. And just to orient you to
this, I'm going to try to bring your attention to this area here, and we'll
look at this at a little closer detail in a minute. But this is a 300-acre
parcel that currently is unused by the airport. And part of what we've
talked to the airport about was their master plan and their actions that
they'd like to see in the future. And the area of concern for the airport
is this area here closer to the airport terminal where they would like to
do their business development as part of their master plan for the
airport.
So we looked at this area as possible sites for a trail system to
ride, and we found a number of things that we wanted to bring to your
attention.
First of all, when you look at the site -- and this is a little closer
look -- you can see a couple of things that are of interest. These little
black areas here, these are gopher tortoise areas that would have to
have some mitigation. Not a big deal, but certainly one of concern in
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terms of trying to develop the property.
There are a couple other features I want to share with you, if I
could, though. This area -- and, again, many of you know I'm color
blind, so I'm going to say that's blue.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Purple.
MR. WILLIAMS: Purple. I was going purple next.
This area for the purple -- there's two areas for this property that
you need to be aware of. In the purple area, that top area, that's
considered non-aviation use, and what that means from the airport's
perspective is that land could be used for things outside of the aviation
industry. And so those are lands that could be easily used.
The area to the south, if you will, this area here, and delineated by
this line, or actually by the line up to the purple, is considered aviation
use. And the issue with that portion of the property is that if it were
determined in the future that the lands could be used for an aviation
purpose, that they would need to be returned to that purpose. So that's
probably the biggest issue that we're faced with in looking at this
property.
Thirdly, this area that you see crosshatched as part of the purple
and down to this area, this area is considered part of a secondary
panther zone, and that's a critical thing, and we'll talk a little bit more
about that in a minute.
The secondary panther zone would require, as we move forward
in looking at developing the property, of acquiring panther habitat
units mitigation credits in order to take into consideration what we
would do on that property.
So you can see with the property that we're looking at, there are
some complications that need consideration for us. And let me just
move down another slide or two.
Actually, what I'd like to do is, perhaps, turn the mic over just
May 9, 2017
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briefly to Mark Sunyak with RWA. Mark has done a conceptual
design on the property, and partly what we're trying to do with the
property is to minimize the PHU bill, if you will. And some of the
things that he's done, he's done in conjunction with your ad hoc
committee just to overlay a trail system for the property.
So if I may, let me just ask Mark to come up and explain to you a
little bit of what he's done there.
MR. SUNYAK: Good afternoon. For the record, Mark Sunyak,
RWA.
So what we've tried to do is tried to take a look at all of the
hard-scaping and items that would need to support things like restroom
facilities and an office facility and a ticket counter to control access to
the site and locate those in areas, ideally, that are in the non-aviation
uses. But as Barry had showed you, the non-aviation uses are almost
entirely within the secondary panther habitat.
So what we tried to do is keep things to the west and keep as
much as we could to the south to avoid the panther -- secondary
panther habitat with the intense uses.
So what you see here is just a concept. We were scheduled to go
present this to the ad hoc committee to show them where we're at
within the process. And the intent is that after we get some feedback
from them that we would take this to U.S. Fish and Wildlife and start
to continue or -- sorry -- to continue the dialogue with them to talk
about what mitigation might look like for this type of use at this
specific location.
So we're not quite there yet, but we are in the process of taking
this concept plan and getting it before the ad hoc committee for more
input from them.
MR. WILLIAMS: Mark, thank you.
Just a couple more slides, and then I'll stop and entertain your
May 9, 2017
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questions that you might have.
I wanted to offer a couple of things in terms of the pros and cons
of this site, and we've talked a little bit about the cons. The
non-aviation use lands and the secondary panther habitat, that's an
issue for certain. We did an environmental study on this property.
And a very conservative estimate, if you did complete vertical
construction on this site, we had a price tag of $3.6 million for
potential PHU mitigation. That blows your budget. You do have
allowed $3 million in this project.
The other was the aviation use lands can be recalled with a
defined aviation use. One of the things that we talked to the airport
about in exploring this and exploring it beyond the original discussions
was the use of the lands and what potential use was there in the future
for some aviation use.
And what we understand is that it's not in the master plan. These
lands have been unused for many years, and there's no anticipated use.
Certainly, that could be something that you would differ with in terms
of looking at this site. But that's generally staff's opinion in terms of
the potential use of the lands.
The PHU costs are unknown at this time is another con, and that's
one of the things that we're looking to do with this proposal is basically
take this concept, get the ad hoc committee in agreeance with what
we're looking to do, what they would like to see in an ATV park, and
then advance that to U.S. Fish and Wildlife and get a true sense of
what the PHU costs are. You know, we can only do that with a
conceptual plan to take that to U.S. Fish and Wildlife to get that
answer. But that is certainly a con not having the PHUs.
MR. OCHS: PHU stands for?
MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. PHUs are panther habitat units. This
is lands that the panther will roam, and so with U.S. Fish and Wildlife,
May 9, 2017
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as part of the permitting, it requires if you develop that portion of land,
you have to find or mitigate for those lands elsewhere. So you would
have to buy credits for that use.
The last con I'll mention is we have done a pro forma on
operating a park. The parks and rec division has never run an ATV
park. Likely, if we were to move this forward, we would look for a
third-party vendor to do this. There are public and private sector ATV
parks in Florida. We know our counterparts in Polk County opened
one about two years ago.
Typically, with parks and recreation services, though, you do look
at a subsidy in terms of the service. You do want to capture user fees.
For a couple examples, youth sports, for every dollar we spend we get
about 25 cents in user fees that pay for the cost of the service.
Sun-n-Fun Lagoon, it's a little better. For every dollar you spend,
you get about a $1.10 in return that helps offset some of the operating.
With what we've looked at with this model, though -- and, again,
this is just a planning. We've seen a cost recovery about 80 to 90
percent depending on whether we run it or if a third-party vendor runs
it. So it's still showing a subsidy needed for the operating.
So those are all the reasons why you don't want to do this. Now,
let me tell you the reasons why you would want to do it, and that's the
pros. We do see it as an opportunity for economic development and
tourism. It has gotten attention through the Promise Zones. And I
know there's still a question about the Promise Zone and what that's
going to do for Immokalee, but it has been inserted in that.
And you can see this -- we know that there's 7,000 users,
registered users in Collier County, there's 35,000 in Miami-Dade, and
another 20,000 in Broward. So in South Florida you've got a large
number of people that are registered ATVs -- that have ATVs. So
there's a market out here. And you're centrally located with some of
May 9, 2017
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the other amenities that Immokalee has: The Seminole Casino, Lake
Trafford, Pepper Ranch. So you're creating an opportunity for tourism,
we think, in terms of developing at this site.
It also -- and probably the most key for us, is you can't find land,
640 acres in Collier County, for $3 million. These are lands that we
own and manage, and so we have that capability as well as a pro.
There's no long-term use defined for these lands. Right now they
are -- they're agriculture lands. The neighbors around us, King Ranch,
Collier Enterprises, we've talked to them about this use, and they've
been supportive in terms of helping us however they can. But you
don't have any particular long-term plans for this use defined.
We have talked to the FAA. The FAA has given approval,
tentative approval for the concept. And, again, the pro is that we
would look for a third-party vendor to do this versus county staff.
Our recommendations to you with this update are simply to
continue to allow us to work with the ad hoc committee on the
conceptual design. We have a meeting this Thursday where we would
bring the design to them, continue to get their input. Once we've
gotten the ad hoc group to approve the design, we would want to
approach U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to get a true sense of what it
would cost to mitigate the development of this property.
And then, ultimately, what we're looking to do is to bring back to
you in September or October an item that describes the design,
permitting, construction, and operating costs associated with this
project, and then at that time seek direction from you of whether you'd
want to proceed.
So with that, that's my presentation and certainly any questions
you have -- we have a number of people here. Justin Lobb is here,
Mark Sunyak is also available for any questions that you have.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: How many speakers do we have?
May 9, 2017
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MR. MILLER: I have -- excuse me. I have three registered
speakers.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Well, let's hear from our
speakers. Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm completely fine with that.
MR. MILLER: Your first speaker is Mario Menendez, and he
will be followed by Greg Westgate.
MR. WILLIAMS: Mario had to go back to work, I think.
MR. MILLER: Craig (sic) Westgate, and he will be followed by
Joe Pelletier.
MR. WESTGATE: Joe had to leave also.
MR. MILLER: And he had to leave also. Greg Westgate will be
speaking.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: So are you the only one
without a job?
MR. WESTGATE: I'm the only one that's self-employed.
My name is Greg Westgate. I am an active member on the ATV
committee, happily (9sic) to serve.
I know some of you. I want to take this opportunity for the ones
that don't know me to get to know who I am and get to, you know,
meet the new members. I know Bill. I know Donna. Penny's been
around a little bit with the ATV committee and the process that we've
gone through. Solis and Mr. Saunders is new, I presume. And I want
to take this opportunity, again, to express the importance of you getting
to understand the complexity of what we've gone through to get to this
point, the hurdles and the obstacles that we've overcome.
Most of the other -- the length of time that this process has gone
on has outlived most of the commissioners with the exception of Ms.
Fiala, and I do appreciate her --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I'm not sure that's a compliment.
May 9, 2017
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MR. WESTGATE: I do appreciate her interest and her support as
well as Mr. McDaniel, who's been vocal about it and he's been, you
know, pretty supportive up to this point as well.
And I ask, you know, for you guys to support. And if there's any
questions at this time that I could answer to you to -- unanswered
questions that you may have, not being as involved as others in the
past, can we bring light to any questions that you may have and earn
your support?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I do have -- I was going to ask
staff this question, but I heard two different numbers. One was 600
acres, one was 300 acres. So the size of the useable portion of this for
the ATV, is it 300 acres, 600 acres? What's the --
MR. WILLIAMS: It's 300 acres. I made a 600-acre reference.
That was the original commitment from South Florida Water
Management.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. And then in terms of an
ATV park with 300, is that enough land?
MR. WESTGATE: Yes, it is, absolutely.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's a lot of land.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. And are you -- I
assume that some of the ATV enthusiasts are riding off road other
places that may not be suitable for that.
MR. WESTGATE: True.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And the reason I ask that
question is, if we're going to look for Panther Habitat Units from U.S.
Fish and Wildlife, it might be appropriate to let them know that this
would take a lot of the inappropriate use off where natural habitat and
panthers are impacted, so there may be some mitigation that way as
well. But thank you.
MR. WESTGATE: You're welcome.
May 9, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'm just curious as to the numbers of
ATV enthusiasts. Do we have numbers? What --
MR. WILLIAMS: Commissioner Solis, we do. There are a little
over 7,000 registered ATVs in Collier County.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Those are the ones with titles.
MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. There's probably more, that's true.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And there is more.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Also curious -- and I don't know if
this is still going on, but I vaguely remember there being lots of
discussions regarding the mountain biking community. Is this
something that's usable by anybody else, or am I stirring up a hornet's
nest?
MR. WESTGATE: No, I think you're -- I spoke to -- about two
weeks ago I spoke to a guy that took an interest in what we're doing,
and he asked me if -- there is growth in the mountain biking activity.
And he asked -- he approached me and said, would this be something
that we could get involved with with the committee? Could we utilize
this space as well?
I thought it was a great idea in involving other activity in the park.
The problem with that is it can't be permitted or it can't be insured at
the same time because the uses don't mix. But it is something that
could be looked at as far as allowing those individuals to use the
facility as well at times that it's not being used by the ATVs, and I
think that's great.
MR. WILLIAMS: Commissioner, if I may add, too, just, in the
current plan there is not mountain biking in the plan. We could
certainly bring that back to the ATV committee for consideration and
look at that and look at the pros and cons of that, so...
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Nothing else.
May 9, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yeah, thank you. I'm good,
Greg. You and I have talked about this at length, and I'm heading over
to staff now, so you're good.
MR. WESTGATE: Thanks.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You all right?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Barry?
MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: If you would, please, come
back around to one of your prior slides that you brought up of the pros
and cons.
MR. WILLIAMS: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You're done. I mean, you're
welcome to stand up there if you want to, but it's more comfortable to
sit.
MR. WILLIAMS: Madam Chair, I think you had another
speaker, too.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: He's not here. Joe had to go
back to work as well.
MR. WILLIAMS: Is this --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That one there. That one there.
That one there.
So I have a couple of questions that I want to ask, and part of it is
you, Barry, part of it is Justin as well. The initial estimates of
mitigation for PHUs was how much?
MR. WILLIAMS: 3.6.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: 3.6. And then we have some
additional mitigation expense with regard to the gopher tortoise,
because you have to build condominiums for the gopher tortoises
before you move them from their current homes, so there's a cost that's
May 9, 2017
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associated with the relocation of the gopher tortoises.
Have you done any preliminary analysis as to the cost associated
with the -- round numbers -- as to the construction of preliminary
design?
MR. WILLIAMS: No, sir, not at this time.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. Have we had a
discussion, County Attorney, with regard to the liability associated -- I
mean, Barry has shared that there are other -- and I'm pleased to hear
that there are other municipalities that do self-insured, municipalities
that do own facilities such as this, but I have a concern about our being
self-insured and owning our own park.
MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah. I've had conversations with Jeff
Walker on this. It's, by its nature, inherently dangerous activity, so
you're going to have liability there.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Of course. But can we insure
over and above our statutory liability or statutory -- what's the word --
immunity?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Sovereign.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, the sovereign immunity
is indigenous folks, but we have statutory liability immunity.
MR. OCHS: Yes.
MR. KLATZKOW: Well, to some extent on this, yes, but we can
always purchase additional insurance if that's a concern.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. My next question is for
Justin.
Have you --
MR. LOBB: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record,
Justin Lobb.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm sorry, Justin. I should have
let you -- I should have let him say who he is.
May 9, 2017
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Have you gotten written approval from the FAA with regard to
the utilization of these lands?
MR. LOBB: We -- as Barry indicated, we've received a tentative
approval, really a thumbs-up of the concept, but it will require a more
thorough review of the site plan that's being proposed here. They'll
have to look at some of the environmental considerations, make sure it
doesn't conflict with aviation or air traffic uses, and then, of course, the
resulting use or lease agreement as well. So we would need all of
those in place in order to achieve a final approval.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I would suggest that before you
spend any more money or time with the committee, the volunteers that
serve on our advisory committee, that you get that written approval
from the FAA.
MR. LOBB: I would concur with that, and the site plan will
certainly help us do that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. I mean -- and just for
the information of the Board, Justin and I sat in on a teleconference
call last week together where, as you all may or may not know, there
were cattle leases existent on the airport for a millennia. And there
was another one that came through, and the FAA denied it. And we're
not allowed to any longer do cattle leases on a portion of this land
that's described as -- where some of this ATV park is.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: You know that's because of
flying cows. They interfere with the aircraft.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: When cows fly, that's when
you're allowed to have them on the airport, correct.
So -- but in -- and because one of the comments I made to the
gentleman from the FAA was, well, we've been doing this forever, and
if we don't allow for culls, which is excess vegetables that aren't good
to go to market, that they bring those in to supplement the food for the
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cattle, and that's what attracts the birds, which then in turn causes the
enhanced aviation issue.
I said, we can manage that and just not allow the cattlemen to
bring in the culls and such. Well, no, no, no. That activity at large
attracts other wildlife and so on and so forth.
And I -- in parting the comment, I said, well, we've had them here
forever, and the gentleman from the FAA's line was, well, sometimes
if we don't know, we don't know.
And I know we have had other issues that are going on, and I
know the folks that are on this committee are very dedicated. You
have seen from some of the prior slides, this has been going on for a
millennia, for a long, long time, since 2003 when the state -- I was one
of the trespassers in the Picayune back in the day when the State
locked us out of the Bad Luck Prairie.
So before we go forward with this, it's imperative to me that the
land that's being proposed to be utilized, that we've got that approval,
and then this board has to have some -- a serious discussion with
regard to the costs associated with this project. We have $3 million
minus the expensed-out consulting fees so far for this facility. And are
we going to be interested in supporting this type of effort and the
monetary requisites that travel along with it?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I would just add, too, that I know
that the culinary accelerator out there had some issues, I think, as well
with the FAA, so I would echo Commissioner McDaniel's thoughts
about trying to work that out first. They can be difficult to deal with.
MR. LOBB: Yeah. In fact, I believe there were some issues we
were working through with the EDA grant that was for applied out
there and how that money can be used on aviation or non-aviation
lands. But the FAA was very willing and able to work with us to
resolve that. In fact, I think we got some great communication and
May 9, 2017
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collaboration with the FAA and the EDA on that issue.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: County Manager, do we need to make
a motion regarding this, or is it just a report, or should we say carry on
until -- and come back with a number?
MR. OCHS: Well, it's a report, ma'am. But unless the Board
determines at this stage that they don't think they want to proceed with
this project at this particular location, then we would work with the
advisory committee to, you know, seek other alternatives.
We've done a voucher program before. There have been some
and continue to be some conversations with the leadership at the
Seminole tribe to see if there may be some interest in a facility on
tribal land.
But this -- as we've said, you know, and Commissioner McDaniel
said, this has been going on for quite a long time, and we've had a lot
of fits and start on other potential locations. We just haven't been able
to find something that works on all levels in Collier County so far.
This is probably the closest we've been to getting something concrete.
But it is -- again, at the end of the day, I have to agree with the
commissioner; if we can't substantially reduce the mitigation costs,
which are currently estimated at more than the entire budget to permit,
design, construct, and operate this program, I couldn't, in good
conscience, recommend to the Board that we incur that kind of a
subsidized operation right now, especially if there's alternatives.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Boy, it's been a long time, and
we've really tried. I would -- I would like to suggest that we task our
people to go out and see if this location is feasible, if we can actually
afford it, and if we can get the permits needed, and then if they find
that it looks like a good project, I would say let's take the next step and
try and move forward. Let's see. It's been 14 years, and it's probably
May 9, 2017
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about time.
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. Again, with the staff
recommendations or -- essentially, the plan at this point is to complete
the consultant engagement that we began with the permitting agencies
to try to hammer out more specifically what our mitigation costs would
be, refine the layout, get some more information from the FAA, come
back to this board in the fall and say, look, this is what we have, this is
what kind of numbers we're looking at, and then you can make a go/no
go decision at that point if it works for the Board.
And we've already incurred the expense of the consultant, and
we're on the verge of, I think, getting that mitigation number
hammered out.
MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir, that's correct.
MR. OCHS: So that's a big starting point for us. If we could
continue with that, Commissioners, and do these few other things that
we talked about and come back to you in the fall, I think then you'd be
in a better position with better information on which to make a future
decision on whether you want to continue.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. Thank you.
Commissioner McDaniel, are you going to talk us out of it?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: As I always do, Madam Chair.
I'd like to -- I'd like to make a motion that we do, in fact, proceed
forward, but I would like to put the requisite that we receive written
permission from the FAA with regard to this utilization on this land in
advance of expending any more funds. I mean, you could certainly
discuss the conceptual plan with the committee, but I really think that
that's a prudent move for us to go forward with this.
I would also like to specify that that we do have an engineer on
staff that has given us the preliminaries on the mitigation side. I would
like an estimate of the construction cost, rough; it doesn't have to be to
May 9, 2017
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the penny.
MR. OCHS: Sure.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: But a rough estimate of the
construction cost, and I would also like to see the preliminary
operating budgets that are being estimated for this facility.
MR. OCHS: Yeah. All of that we would plan to bring back
when you get back from your break.
Commissioner, I don't have any problem with that FAA
prerequisite except -- Justin, if you could come up. I thought I heard
you say that to get a final determination from FAA they would actually
have to see formal documents for operations and a final site plan; is
that correct?
MR. LOBB: Sure. Their primary concern would be the site plan,
make sure it doesn't conflict with any aeronautical use --
MR. OCHS: Okay.
MR. LOBB: -- and then, or course, the lease.
MR. OCHS: And I'm not sure we can have a final site plan until
we have some more information from the permitting agencies. There
may be ways to further mitigate some of those costs by changing the
concept plan that you saw right now.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: The concept plan is fairly
descriptive of what's, in fact, the uses that are going to be entailed on
that 300-and-some-odd acres. So I think that's sufficient enough to get
to them to get past a preliminary nod, if you will.
MR. LOBB: I think we can take it to the next step there. But any
stage here, even your final design package, will be subject to their
review.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And since we're on the subject
of the FAA, we do get their written approval, we do decide to expend
the funds to build the facility. If I'm not mistaken, on the southerly
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portion of this land, there is a 60-day discontinuance-of-use clause if
they do decide someday to utilize those lands, if the FAA decides to
utilize those lands for aviation purposes. So we could go through these
motions, expense and such, and then get to move.
MR. LOBB: Well -- and I would just clarify that FAA wouldn't
make that determination. It would be some sort of need that would
arise at some point in the future that, you know, a private aviation
entity would need to use that land for an aeronautical purpose. It
wouldn't be arbitrary.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: There is an underlying right to
discontinue this use there.
MR. LOBB: Sure.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. So...
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Madam Chair?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'm not sure if that was a
motion. I think it was. But I think staff is struggling with part of the
motion is not to move any further forward with this until you have
written approval from the FAA which you're not going to get. So if
you could eliminate that requirement, they've got sort of a -- you said
you could get a nod of approval. I think you've already gotten that
from the FAA, but they may not be able to get written approval until
later on in the process, and your motion would stop the process until
they get the written approval.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right.
MR. LOBB: We can provide the information that we have and
look to obtain some sort of, at least, non-objection at this point.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: More than a nod of approval.
And, again, I'm not trying to stop the process by any stretch of the -- I
don't want to go there. It's just the issue with the -- with the FAA is we
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have had other issues. I just went through the cattle lease issue. There
is litigation going on on another presumed use that they, at the last
minute, decided was not conducive for our airport facility, and I don't
-- and I wasn't going to head down that path right here while we're
going, but that was the reason I was being so insistent on more than
just a head nod out of the FAA about this.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Well, the issue right now is whether
you would take that off your motion.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, I'll take that out of my
motion.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Do we have a second?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'll second that, then.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: All right. We have a motion on the
floor.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I seconded his motion before.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Oh, you did. So would the motion
maker agree to the moderation --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sure.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: -- modification?
Okay. Any other discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: 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.)
May 9, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. It carries unanimously.
MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
MR. OCHS: Thank you, Commissioners.
Item #15
STAFF AND COMMISSION GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS
That takes us to Item 15 on this afternoon's agenda, staff and
Commission general communications.
I'll begin, Madam Chair, if I may, just by reminding the Board of
your upcoming workshop schedules, the most current one being this
Thursday. You have a joint meeting with the City of Marco Island
beginning at 9 a.m., and then at 1 p.m. on Thursday you have the
update to your RFMUD restudy update. You also have on June 6th the
previously mentioned community mental-health workshop.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, also, just a couple of quick things.
I've had some discussions with various commissioners about different
things that they would like us to work on, and I just want to run a
couple of these up the flagpole with the Board.
One was I was having a discussion with Commissioner
McDaniel, and he had raised this on the dais at a previous meeting, but
I just wanted to get some consensus among the Board, and it has to do
with potentially changing the current board policy on receiving
anonymous complaints, particularly into our Code Enforcement
Department.
We've got a long history of going back and forth on this.
Commissioner Fiala and Commissioner Taylor will remember the
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discussions from just a couple of years ago. But the current board
policy is that we do not accept anonymous complaints because there
was fear in the past of retaliation, and because of that, the Board
decided that they were not going to entertain anonymous complaints.
They did provide kind of a backdoor, if you will, and tell folks that,
you know, if they wanted to identify, they could work through their
individual commissioner office to do that, but...
And, Commissioner, I don't want to speak for you. If you want
to, perhaps, articulate how you'd like to see us change the policy and
see if you have some consensus, then we'd be happy to move out on
this.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You pretty well spoke what I
said. I mean, I'd like us to adjust the policy that currently exists to
allow for people to make anonymous complaints and then take
direction from our staff if frivolity starts to add into it.
Right now the sheer fact that we have an ordinance that has to be,
as the County Manager shared, back-doored in order to protect
someone's interest that has an interest in helping us with our code
enforcement efforts, I think there are serious holes in that. So I'd like
to make an adjustment to the language in the ordinance to allow for
anonymity.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioners Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And I will support that. I
know in Golden Gate City, as an example, there are a lot of violations.
People live in very close proximity to each other, and when a
complaint's filed, neighbors do get -- there is the potential for
retaliation.
If you have an anonymous system, there is potential for frivolous
cases being filed. But I think the protection of people wanting to make
legitimate complaints kind of outweighs the potential for frivolous
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complaints.
And so I would support doing that on a trial basis. If it turns out
that it's not working because of too many frivolous complaints that are
anonymous, then we can readjust. But I'd like to try it.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, I agree. I think -- I was not
wholeheartedly in favor of removing that anyway, the anonymity of
them. But we did, and that was because it -- people in neighborhoods
decided to all pile up against one other, and they were using that as a
way to get even with a neighbor. It was pretty bad news.
Although, there was another instance where there were some very
dangerous people, and if anybody reported them, their animals got
shot, so that wasn't very good.
But I think that we now know -- people can call us, the
commissioners, and say, I want to report something, but I just don't
want my name involved, and that's okay. Then we can handle it for
them. So I think we can take a little bit of what we've learned from
both sides and invite them to call anonymously and report if they want
to, but if they're fearful of reporting anything, they could call us, and
then they can work through us.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So you like the way it's written right
now.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, I'd like to be able to bring back
anonymous phone calls unless people even feel uncomfortable about
doing that, and then they can call us and ask us to report it for them so
that they're not involved.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Well, I'm going to take the opposite.
My experience is that they're going to -- they're going to need to hire
new people, additional people because if you're going to have
anonymous calls, you're obligated to follow up on it. And,
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unfortunately, some of it can be retaliation. And it's my experience, at
least in my time as a city council person, that we stopped it for that
reason.
I love the idea that folks can call anonymously to a commissioner,
and then the commissioner can report it. They have to make the effort.
But to call just to our staff and to be -- and not register the name, I just
don't agree. To me, it's like sending out anonymous letters. There's
just no place for that.
So there is a way, and it is through each of our individual offices.
And then we become the shepherd making sure that it's followed up
on. But -- and so there is an avenue. I'm just not really comfortable
with anonymity.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's hard to say "anonymity."
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Anonymity. Well, I can't even say it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Anonymous.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It's the end of a meeting.
Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I agree. I think I'm going to agree
with Commissioner Taylor. I don't know -- I mean, I haven't heard
that there's a problem with people being afraid of giving their name.
Certainly, if anybody's afraid of retaliation, yeah, they could call me,
and I would report it, but...
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, see, that works out. Just --
well, that's what you said.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah. So are you content with the way
we do it?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. So I guess it's --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, wait a minute.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No, she agreed.
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COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I agree with -- that's why -- I
was working both of them in together to try and make both sides blend.
But it works just fine right now. If people want to report something,
they just call my office, and then we report it, and then they're not
involved, and that way, then, nobody can retaliate against them. And
they hear it from my office. They probably --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: You could get -- you could be out there
looking at it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Uh-huh. Well -- and do many times,
yes.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I know you do; I know you do.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I take -- I'll ride out with Code
Enforcement to see for myself, and we've seen a lot of stuff.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I think this -- a lot of this has to
do with geography. You folks hear from people who live in different
neighborhoods. I hear from people who live in different
neighborhoods from the folks that you live in.
The rural areas of our community, things are done -- things are --
things are transacted in a different manner. I remember last year on the
campaign trail there were illegal activities transpiring in Golden Gate
Estates, people operating mulching business and landscape business
and trucking businesses and construction businesses right next door to
a residential home, and the people were fearful for retribution with
regard to that illegal activity that was transpiring.
And I understand there's a mechanism in place for those folks to
receive some help --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Call you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- to call my office and take
care of that. I just -- I feel that there -- in order for us to have an
ordinance -- we would have a greater opportunity of assistance from
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the general public in managing our code enforcement efforts if there
was a semblance of anonymity provided for the folks as they're calling
in. It's --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I don't think the situation with rural
counties is -- the rural part of our county is any different than the
situation in the urban part where houses are going through Airbnb.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, or many other things. You
know, some areas down by me, and there's a lot of stuff that is --
(Multiple speakers speaking.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah. The neighbors know what's
going on.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: The rationale with doing this is
we have a lot of people who won't call in code enforcement violations
because of fear of retribution.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: But that's where -- that's where -- and,
again, that's where you step out as a commissioner and say, you call
my office. You don't have to leave your name.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And so there's a -- again, I'm
sharing an example with you, Madam Chair, and that is -- and, again,
this isn't argumentative. We have a deficiency in our system.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's an opinion.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm sorry?
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's an opinion. That's your opinion.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm entitled to that opinion.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's right.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: But when there is a contractor
who is witnessing an illegal activity transpiring with regard to a
land-clearing activity on a weekend, there is no mechanism for them to
get through to me to get to a code enforcement complaint, because the
people that have already violated the code are in, out, and gone, where
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we have staff on the weekends for people to call and report as long as
they give their name.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Well, I disagree.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, you know, I don't know about
that, because although they could try and call staff -- I mean, I don't
know how many people have your phone number, but anybody has
mine.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Everybody has yours.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And if they call me on the weekend
and I call somebody from Code -- because I have their number, too,
and I can let them know it's going on right now; maybe you can send
somebody over, and it's done. Toot sweet.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: In the city, the code enforcement, I call
him at 11 o'clock at night and he answers the phone. I mean, it's that
profound. And they'll come and say, something's going on, and he
addresses it then and there. So I'm very happy with the way we do
things. So I think it's the way --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: So 3-2 we don't do anything
with it.
MR. OCHS: No change is what I'm counting here, 3-2.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No change.
MR. OCHS: Now you know why I bring these things up --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yes.
MR. OCHS: -- before taking off on my own on them.
So I have one more also, maybe not quite as lengthy, but this one
came up in a discussion last week with the Chair, and we were
speaking about the upcoming December or -- excuse me, December --
June 13th board meeting and subsequent workshop that day with the
TDC and some of the intricacies of the ordinance, and the Chair
suggested that what we might want to consider is some kind of a
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staff-initiated information item at your next board meeting that kind of
takes you through the TDC ordinance and the state statute and tries to
make sure that the Board is well informed about its contents and how
those four or five pennies of tourist taxes can and can't be used.
You know, she and I debated a little bit about whether we could
cover that during the session with the TDC on the June 13th meeting. I
think the Chair -- and I'll let her speak for herself -- but she thought it
was important to do that prior to the June meeting, which we could do
at a board meeting or we could do through an informational memo. I
just -- again, ma'am, it's one of those things where I'd like to get some
consensus from the board before I take off down a path that --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah. I was going to bring it up
anyway, as you asked. But, again, this is just a -- it's really purely
informational, but it's also informational for the public because we are
already getting resolutions from one entity that is suggests -- well, is
expressing their interest in how we're going to divide those four cents
or five cents, and I just think it would be -- it would go a long way just
to -- as purely informational. No discussion -- well, we would ask
questions, but that was it.
Also, the legality of it. I don't think people understand, at least
the folks I'm talking to don't quite understand that it is State. It's not
the Commission that decides how those pennies are divided. And if
we were talking about reapportioning four cents, which is what the
memo was about, and then adding a fifth cent -- and it does seem to be
on -- at least in my experience, it's a very -- everyone is engaged in this
question, everyone.
I think we need to maybe just air it, ask questions. And then
we've got two or three weeks before the -- before a decision-making
session to ask staff to go through it. It's not an easy read. I don't
anticipate this being as long as it is us to talk about this. I really don't.
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The TDC did a great job, by the way, with it, so...
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'd certainly welcome at least a
memo just explaining the basics of -- to make sure that I'm on the same
page with everybody else. That would be helpful.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Madam Chair, why don't we
get a memo from the County Attorney. I think you've probably
already prepared a lot of that material already.
MR. KLATZKOW: We have them in stock.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah. So us a memo on the
five pennies, how they can all be used.
MR. KLATZKOW: Mr. Wert prepared one years ago that we use
that we'll just get to you.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And then on -- at our next
board meeting, if there are any questions, we can ask the County
Attorney at that time.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Easy peasy. There we go. Just as long
as we have time to really look at it.
MR. OCHS: That's great. And we've got some supplemental
information that we'll -- we can work with the County Attorney on.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Perfect.
MR. OCHS: -- and make sure you have a pretty good packet.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: We can get that memo now and then
have questions before we have to make that decision.
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I'm very content with that.
MR. OCHS: Good? Thanks.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Oh, absolutely.
MR. OCHS: Thank you very much. That's all I have.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That was a lot.
MR. OCHS: Yeah, I know.
May 9, 2017
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CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: County Attorney?
MR. KLATZKOW: Nothing, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Ms. Kinzel?
MS. KINZEL: No. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Just one statement, and I just --
and I know it isn't necessarily necessary, but I wanted to express my
gratitude to this board for recognizing the enormity of what's
transpiring in our community with regard to our fire-safety mitigation.
Your recognition of that today meant a lot, means a lot to all of the
residents of Collier County, and I wanted to say thank you.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: That's it?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's it.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commiss -- Commissioner -- I had
somebody call me Commiss.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Fiala.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Or sometimes they call me Fonna
Dilona.
On May 23rd, Commissioner McDaniel, you had said something
about discussing the impact fees.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Could you -- because I won't be here
May 23rd. Could we just hold it off till the next meeting in June? I'll
be here even if I'm on crutches or something. I'll still be here. I would
love to participate in that. Would that be acceptable?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I don't see why not. I mean, it
has to come back twice, correct?
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: We'll be meeting -- and we'll be
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meeting in July, too, the first meeting in July.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right. So we have two
subsequent meetings after that, and we can get the nuts and bolts of it
out in the -- assuming we're all ready. I mean, staff and I are working
-- staff's working on it, and I'm pointing and talking, so...
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, that's good. Well, we'd have
then June, June, and July, so we should have that -- yeah, I just wanted
to participate.
And, County Manager, I hope, you know -- and anything else. I
just -- I can't even participate in phone on the 23rd because the surgery
takes place the day before, so I probably won't be capable of doing
anything the --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: County Manager, there's one other
thing we're going to discuss which is the workforce/affordable
housing, the -- that whole concept of how we do things and reviewing
it, and I think Commissioner Fiala would like to be part of that also.
MR. OCHS: Sure.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Right, on the 23rd. I thought we were
moving towards that.
MR. OCHS: Yeah, we were going to bring back some options on
a policy on SHIP that you had asked us to take a look at, but we can
certainly hold that off till the subsequent meeting.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I'll be able to read and prepare
beforehand, you know.
MR. OCHS: No problem, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll be kind of imprisoned anyway,
so it will give me something to do while I'm there. I'm not used to just
sitting around.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And on that June 13th
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meeting, don't forget about the workshop as part of it, so we don't want
to have it too loaded up. We have two --
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- meetings after -- we have
two meetings after that.
MR. OCHS: Right. And you've got --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Budget.
MR. OCHS: -- every -- yeah, and we have budgets, and every
developer who's rushing to get their petition in front of the Board
before the break. So your June meetings are going to be chock full.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So we're going to serve dinner, right?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: We can narrow it a little and
encourage people to maybe get to the point a little quicker or
something.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Maybe on those days we
should have two servings of brownies instead of one.
MR. OCHS: I'll second that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Terri, do you know how to make a
different kind of -- so we'll have a variety? Good one. Good one.
Okay. Let's see. I have a couple more things. Oh, my goodness.
I wrote myself a note about roles and planning so that the developers
don't have to disclose, but I forget -- I've forgotten what I was talking
about; I wrote that a week ago yet. I'll have to think about that for a
minute.
Also, about -- we have a Collier County Ethics Ordinance, and it
differs just a little bit, I think, with the State. It brings it closer to home
here. Something happened recently, and I just want to make sure it
doesn't happen again, and that was if anybody is working for any
company who is lobbying us for something or another and so the
commissioner has not been able to participate, and then the night
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before he quits and then votes on it, I just -- somehow -- although it's
legal. It's legal -- I think we ought to have something on our Ethics
Ordinance that just makes it look a little cleaner, and -- because I know
I got a real uncomfortable feeling about that and, especially -- well --
and I think that maybe if we could write -- if everybody would agree,
just so that they don't work there for six months or something before
they decide to not work for them anymore.
And they can't work for them six months afterwards either, just so
that it's cleaner. Because we don't ever want anybody to even look at
us as -- if maybe there's something not -- not as proper as it should be.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, I think that's directed at
me.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't want to say anything like that.
I'm just --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: You just did.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: In the future.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: You can't help it. You just did.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, but in the future.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And just for the record,
everything that was done was perfectly legal.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Contacted the Ethics
Commission, an opinion from the County Attorney. That's all I really
have to say about that particular issue.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, that's what I said; it was legal.
It was absolutely legal. It just didn't look good, and --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, you're saying it again,
and I just take offense to that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend,
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because you're too nice of a guy and you've done a great job here.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I complied with -- I complied
with the law. I did what was perfectly legal. And whether you think it
looked good or not is not relevant.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I have an opinion, and my light
is on.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I was going to speak.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Oh, well. Go ahead.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Unfortunately, I've had quite a few
remarks about that from the public. There was a suggestion by one that
we look at the lobbying laws of the state, even the city, and try to make
it work for this issue when someone has a relationship with a company
and then severs that relationship in the middle of the discussion of an
agenda, that it not be allowed and to kind of frame it on the lobbyist
concept where a lobbyist can't do business with the governing body it
appears before for a period of two years.
It was very broad, but there is a -- there is a perception out there
that this is just not where we want to go and, frankly, in my 12 years of
being in government, 13, I've not ever seen this before.
So I would support Commissioner Fiala's concern to see --
perhaps we could craft something for discussion and bring it back
where we could avoid the perception of impropriety. And, again,
politics is perception.
Okay. Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. You know, I find it -- I
have two subjects. And I think Commissioner Saunders operated
within the law. I find it rather unusual that we're as concerned about
perceptions, and politics is perceptions, in what recently transpired
here today.
The actions of a political board, a policy-setting board, can't be
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based on perceptions. We have laws that are in place. We have an
Ethics Ordinance that is, in fact, in place. It's even been made more
restrictive by this board. And I don't think we should get caught up in
trying to manage our governance based upon perception.
In the previous conversation with regard to our ATV park, guess
who owns an ATV park? Well, that would be me. So there are people
that are out there that have a perception that I have a poor opinion with
regard to our county owning our own ATV park for self-serving issues,
and that couldn't be farther from the case.
Who has a -- who has a knowledge base beyond belief with
regard to the interworkings and hidden mechanisms of one of those
things? But there's always going to be a perception out there if, in fact,
this board chooses to not pursue a particular facility or somewhere
along those lines that I have some sort of self-serving interest, and it
couldn't be farther from the truth.
So I think we need to be cautious about making adjustments to
our ordinance, to our Ethics Ordinance. Commissioner Saunders
operated within the parameters of the law, sought counsel from the
Ethics Commission, sought counsel from our County Attorney.
And I have a concern about us being shifted on a regular basis
because of politics and perceptions. I'm far more interested in making
our decisions with regard to pragmatism and fact.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Well, the fact is we're in the middle of
a vote that was going to fail, and with Commissioner Saunders
changing his vote, it's not going to fail. That's the fact.
Now, the perception and the -- out there in the public -- you need
to go out to the public to understand it. I have. They've called me and
emailed me about this.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'd like to get -- this is a public
records request -- I want a copy of all the emails that you've got in
May 9, 2017
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reference to that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And, Mr. County Attorney, if
you could make sure I get those within the next 24 hours, I'd appreciate
it.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I think -- and, again, this
is just me. This is -- sometimes when you're in the minority, and I
regularly am, and things don't go the way that you personally feel, the
way that your constituents are asking you to vote, it's not -- there's a
perception that things are manipulated and twisted when they're not.
And in that particular vote --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I know that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- in that particular instance --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Absolutely. And I'm not saying -- I am
not saying -- and I don't -- I'm not going to speak for my colleague.
I'm not saying that you -- that the law was not followed.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I didn't say that either.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Oh, no. Both of you have been
quite careful to say that the law was not --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: The facts are --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Both of you have espoused
opinions with regard to a perception that your constituents have talked
to you about, and I don't want our board to start making policy that is
based upon perception.
The law is the law. The actions that were conducted were
conducted in a manner that was within the guise of the law, and I think
that pragmatism should rule. Sorry.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I think the law should rule.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It does.
May 9, 2017
Page 165
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: It does.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: There's no question.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And the bottom line is that it
was a 3-2 vote, and you were on the losing end of the vote, and now
there's an effort to change that.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No, sir.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: No, I've seen your emails back
--
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I'm very passionate about the subject
we discussed, but please don't twist it to reflect and try to deflect what
the -- what the spirit of this conversation is.
This vote will go through barring anyone else changing their
mind. I can't imagine that's going to happen. That's not the issue. The
issue is the future. The issue is, do we allow Penny Taylor,
Commissioner, to change her vote in the middle of a discussion and to
say that I have just severed ties with a business, therefore, I can vote on
this in order to affect the outcome of the vote? Do we allow any
commissioner to do this going forward? And I think it's a worthy
discussion.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: From a discussion standpoint, I
think sometimes there are going to be extenuating circumstances that
will allow for that to transpire, including yourself and myself. I'm not
--
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sorry if I offended you. I just
thought that for the future -- and I did say the future. I did not say this
vote at all --
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- that we probably ought to put
something in our Collier County Ethics Ordinance to make sure that
nobody ever reads it wrong. But if that offended you, I'm sorry, and
May 9, 2017
Page 166
I'll withdraw.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I've been involved in public
service for, I don't know, maybe 30 years. There have been two ethics
complaints filed against me. One of them I filed because I wanted an
opinion from the Ethics Commission because someone was
questioning something that I did, so I filed a complaint against myself,
which was resolved in my favor.
The second one was the gentleman that was here just a few weeks
ago, filed a complaint because allegedly some of us infringed on his
freedom of speech by speaking too long at a political rally.
Those are the only two times that I've had anything dealing with
the Ethics Commission. So it is offensive when a commissioner that
I'm sitting with and who I've known for many, many years says, it gave
me a sick feeling in my stomach. That is -- those are fighting words,
Commissioner. You're talking about someone's reputation. You're
talking about ethics.
And what I did, I severed a contractual relationship I had with a
client effective April 1 so that I could participate in the future vote that
came up. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing sinister about that. But I
felt strongly that this particular program was important enough for this
community.
Now, I know that -- Commissioner Taylor, I've seen some of your
one-way communications concerning that issue subsequent to the vote,
so I know that there's going to be an effort to change that. This is not
the right forum to start that process.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And that's her right to do that.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: No, no. Again, let's not digress into --
the issue at hand is whether there's support to ask the County Attorney
to craft some language to put in our Ethics Ordinance so that we never
May 9, 2017
Page 167
run into this issue again. That's the issue.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's all I wanted.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: It could be about jellybeans. It could
be about pit bulls. It could be about schools. It's the issue of having a
business relationship which prohibits voting on and having that
relationship severed in the process of a vote so that --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: That's not quite what happened
either. It wasn't in the process of a vote. I just heard that
Commissioner Saunders -- that he severed that relationship the 1st of
April.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: He didn't -- no, he recused himself
when we started that vote.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: The first time the item came
up, I recused myself. There was not a sufficient -- I think
Commissioner Solis was not here, if I'm not mistaken.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: So the item was continued.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Oh, so that -- so he recused -- you
recused --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: When the item was continued,
I severed my relationship with my client so that I could participate in
the vote that came at a future meeting.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Done.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. So, again, that's what happened.
It was in the process of a vote.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I wouldn't characterize it that
way.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, neither here nor there. All of
this discussion, I certainly didn't mean to offend you, Commissioner
Saunders. I didn't mean that at all. I meant for, as I said, for the future,
May 9, 2017
Page 168
we should maybe -- for anybody who's working for somebody, they
ought to have a -- I didn't say this -- a reasonable length of time from
when they quit the company to when they vote on something.
But if you all think that that's wrong, it's just something I think
that's right, but that doesn't mean that that's right. I've been the loser
on many ends of these things recently.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Well -- and I would agree with you on
that and, you know -- but we may not have support.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: But I sure didn't mean to offend. I
don't mean in any way. You were -- you said that day, you know, I've
checked with the Ethics Commission, I've checked with the attorney,
the attorney said, yes, he did. I mean, that wasn't meant for you. I'm
just talking about in the future when anything like this comes, just give
it some time before -- one to the other.
But you're very ethical. I would never -- I didn't mean that. But,
well, just appearances, and that's all. Okay.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: So I guess the issue -- Commissioner
Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: My light's on.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I think she's scared to cut my
light off.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I just leave it on, sir.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I would just like to say that, you
know, I think Commissioner Saunders did exactly what he was
supposed to do. He requested an opinion from the Ethics Commission,
which is the commission that handles these issues. He did the same
with the County Attorney. I think he should be commended for that. I
mean, that's -- he followed the law.
I think it's unfortunate that this issue has come up in this way
because I think he's had a very long and good, to say the least, record
May 9, 2017
Page 169
as a public servant.
So I'm not going to support it. I think there's -- we have an Ethics
Ordinance. We have the State Statutes. We have the Ethics
Commission. And I'm -- I'm disappointed that it's come up this way,
so...
That's all I have to say.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Okay. Then we go on.
All right. Commissioner Solis -- oh, anything else,
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: (Shakes head.)
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: That's it.
Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I don't have anything.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR: I don't either. So hearing no other
discussion, we're adjourned.
**** Commissioner Solis moved, seconded by Commissioner
McDaniel and carried unanimously that the following items under the
Consent and Summary Agendas (Commissioner Solis abstained from
voting on Item #17A) be approved and/or adopted ****
Item #16A1
RECORDING THE MINOR FINAL PLAT OF TRIANGLE PLAZA
AT LELY RESORT TRACT “A” REPLAT, APPLICATION
NUMBER PL20160003092 – THE DEVELOPMENT REVIEW
DIVISION RECOMMENDS THE MINOR FINAL PLAT BE
APPROVED FOR RECORDING
May 9, 2017
Page 170
Item #16A2
RECORDING THE MINOR FINAL PLAT OF NAFTAL ACRES,
APPLICATION NO. PL20160003115 – THE PROPERTY WAS
RECENTLY SUBJECT TO REZONE PETITION PL20160001132
THAT REZONED THE PROPERTY TO RSF-1 PURSUANT TO
ORDINANCE 2016-42
Item #16A3
RECORDING THE FINAL PLAT OF VINCENT ACRES,
(PL20150002012) APPROVAL OF THE STANDARD FORM
CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT AND
APPROVAL OF THE AMOUNT OF THE PERFORMANCE
SECURITY – W/STIPULATIONS
Item #16A4
RECORDING THE FINAL PLAT OF ESPLANADE GOLF AND
COUNTRY CLUB OF NAPLES PHASE 3 BLOCKS “K1”, “K2”
AND “H3”, (APPLICATION NUMBER PL20160003679)
APPROVAL OF THE STANDARD FORM CONSTRUCTION
AND MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT AND APPROVAL OF THE
AMOUNT OF THE PERFORMANCE SECURITY –
W/STIPULATIONS
Item #16A5
RECORDING THE FINAL PLAT OF DEL WEBB NAPLES
PARCEL 102, PHASE 2, (APPLICATION NUMBER
May 9, 2017
Page 171
PL20160003169) APPROVAL OF THE STANDARD FORM
CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT AND
APPROVAL OF THE AMOUNT OF THE PERFORMANCE
SECURITY – W/STIPULATIONS
Item #16A6
CLERK OF COURTS RELEASE OF A PERFORMANCE BOND
IN THE AMOUNT OF $122,000 THAT WAS POSTED AS A
DEVELOPMENT GUARANTY FOR AN EARLY WORK
AUTHORIZATION (PL20160002228) FOR WORK ASSOCIATED
WITH ISLES OF COLLIER PRESERVE PHASE 10 – WORK
ASSOCIATED WITH THE SECURITY WAS INSPECTED AND
THE DEVELOPER HAS FULFILLED COMMITMENTS WITH
RESPECT TO THE SECURITY
Item #16A7
CLERK OF COURTS RELEASE OF A PERFORMANCE
BOND IN THE AMOUNT OF $14,000 THAT WAS POSTED AS A
DEVELOPMENT GUARANTY FOR AN EARLY WORK
AUTHORIZATION (PL20160001205) FOR WORK ASSOCIATED
WITH ISLES OF COLLIER PRESERVE PHASE 9 – WORK
ASSOCIATED WITH THE SECURITY WAS INSPECTED AND
THE DEVELOPER HAS FULFILLED COMMITMENTS WITH
RESPECT TO THE SECURITY
Item #16A8
AMENDMENT #1 TO AGREEMENT #13-6016 FOR SPECIAL
May 9, 2017
Page 172
MAGISTRATE SERVICES FOR CODE ENFORCEMENT WITH
BRENDA C. GARRETSON TO EXTEND THE TERM FOR ONE
ADDITIONAL YEAR AND TO INCREASE THE HOURLY RATE
OF COMPENSATION FROM $175 TO $200 – EXTENDED TO
MAY 15, 2018
Item #16A9
SELECTION COMMITTEE’S RANKING AND AUTHORIZING
STAFF TO ENTER INTO CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS WITH
STANTEC CONSULTING SERVICES, INC. (“STANTEC”), ON
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL #17- 7072 FOR STORMWATER
UTILITY PROGRAM SERVICES – AS DETAILED IN THE
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Item #16C1
PURCHASE FLYGT WASTEWATER PUMPS, WARRANTY
REPAIR, PARTS AND RELATED MATERIALS FROM XYLEM
WATER SOLUTIONS USA, INC. – FLYGT PUMPS HAVE BEEN
USED SINCE 1987 AND THE UTILITIES STANDARDS
MANUAL SPECIFIES FLYGT AS THE APPROVED BRAND
Item #16C2
A $547,400 WORK ORDER UNDER CONTRACT #14-6213-95
WITH SOUTHWEST UTILITY SYSTEMS INC., FOR THE
CONSTRUCTION OF NEW PUMP STATION 133.09 AT
WILLOUGHBY DRIVE UNDER PROJECT N0. 70177, AND
AUTHORIZING THE NECESSARY BUDGET AMENDMENT –
May 9, 2017
Page 173
WILL BE BUILT TO CURRENT UTILITY STANDARDS AND
SERVE APPROXIMATELY 15 HOMES ON WILLOUGHBY
DRIVE AND 15 FUTURE HOMES IN A PROPOSED PRESERVE
ON WILLOUGHBY DRIVE
Item #16C3
BUDGET AMENDMENTS IN THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF
$750,000 TO FUND THE TREE FARM ROAD WATER MAIN
LOOPING CONNECTION PROJECT, AND THE NORTHEAST
(ORANGETREE) WATER TREATMENT PLANT HIGH
SERVICE PUMPS UNDER PROJECT NOS. 70178 AND 70179 –
AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Item #16D1
EXECUTION OF THE FY16 SECTION 5339 GRANT AWARD
FROM THE FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION (FTA) IN
THE TRANSIT AWARD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (TRAMS)
AND APPROPRIATE A BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE
AMOUNT OF $299,327 FOR THE REHABILITATION AND
RENOVATION OF THE CAT OPERATION FACILITY – FUNDS
WILL ALSO BE USED TO INSTALL A DIESEL EXHAUST
FLUID PUMP STATION AT THE MAIN FACILITY ON RADIO
ROAD AND WILL USE FDOT AUTHORIZED TOLL REVENUE
CREDITS FOR A 20% REQUIRED SOFT MATCH OF $74,832
Item #16D2
ACCEPTING AND RATIFYING FEE WAIVERS GRANTED BY
May 9, 2017
Page 174
THE DIRECTOR OF DOMESTIC ANIMAL SERVICES FOR THE
PERIOD OF JANUARY 1, 2017 THROUGH MARCH 31, 2017 IN
ACCORDANCE WITH THE PROCESS ESTABLISHED BY
RESOLUTION NO. 2016-125 IN THE AMOUNT OF $410 –
SURRENDER AND BOARD FEES FOR EIGHT ANIMALS
WERE WAIVED BY THE DIRECTOR TO PREVENT ANIMAL
SUFFERING, RETURN AN ANIMAL TO A RESPONSIBLE
HOME AND TO SAFEKEEP IMPOUNDED ANIMALS
Item #16D3
EXECUTING A 2015/2016 FEDERAL HIGHWAY
ADMINISTRATION FLEXIBLE FUNDS GRANT AWARD IN
THE AMOUNT OF $80,000 TO PURCHASE AND INSTALL
ADDITIONAL BUS SHELTERS THROUGH THE TRANSIT
AWARD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (TRAMS) AND
APPROPRIATE A BUDGET AMENDMENT – TO PURCHASE
AND INSTALL THREE BUS SHELTERS THAT WILL INCLUDE
BIKE RACKS, BENCHES AND TRASH RECEPTACLES AND
WILL BE PLACED ON EXISTING PADS ON US 41 FROM
VANDERBILT BEACH ROAD TO JUST SOUTH OF PELICAN
BAY BOULEVARD USING FDOT APPROVED TOLL REVENUE
CREDITS IN THE AMOUNT OF $20,000 USED AS A SOFT
MATCH FOR THE GRANT
Item #16D4
A NECESSARY BUDGET AMENDMENT TO RECOGNIZE
REVENUE FOR FY2017 RECEIVED FROM THE STATE AID TO
LIBRARIES GRANT FOR $221,236 – FUNDS THAT ARE USED
May 9, 2017
Page 175
TO PURCHASE LIBRARY MATERIAL, FOR EQUIPMENT AND
OTHER LIBRARY PURPOSES SUCH AS HIRING TEMPORARY
PERSONNEL TO PROVIDE SERVICES TO LIBRARY PATRONS
Item #16D5
THE ROTARY CLUB OF NAPLES-COLLIER, INC. USE OF
FRED W. COYLE FREEDOM PARK FOR ITS HONOR FLAG
FUNDRAISER FOR 2017. THE PROJECT SUPPORTS THE
VARIOUS CHARITIES OF THE ROTARY CLUB – AS
DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Item #16E1
A LEASE AGREEMENT WITH THE DISTRICT SCHOOL
BOARD OF COLLIER COUNTY FOR CONTINUED USE OF
PROPERTY FOR RECREATIONAL PURPOSES AT AVALON
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL – LOCATED AT 3300 THOMASSON
DRIVE
Item #16E2
AMENDMENT NO. 12 TO AN AGREEMENT WITH THE
COLLIER COUNTY DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD FOR THE
DRIVER EDUCATION PROGRAM – FOR PUBLIC AND
PRIVATE SUMMER DRIVER EDUCATION PROGRAMS FOR
COLLIER COUNTY STUDENTS, FUNIN SUPPLIES,
EQUIPMENT AND FUEL FOR YEAR ROUND DRIVER
EDUCATION PROGRAMS
May 9, 2017
Page 176
Item #16E3
AMENDMENT NO. 1 TO LICENSE AGREEMENTS FOR THE
USE OF WAL-MART’S PARKING LOTS TO DISTRIBUTE
DISASTER RELIEF SUPPLIES TO THE PUBLIC – EXTENDS
THE TERMS OF USE AN ADDITIONAL TEN (10) YEARS FOR
THE USE OF SITES IN THE EVENT OF A MAJOR DISASTER
AT FOUR OF WAL-MART’S NAPLES STORES TO USE
Item #16E4
A LAND LEASE AGREEMENT WITH THE DISTRICT SCHOOL
BOARD OF COLLIER COUNTY FOR AN EMERGENCY RADIO
COMMUNICATION TOWER AT GULF COAST HIGH SCHOOL
– TO IMPLEMENT THE P25 RADIO SYSTEM
Item #16E5
A CERTIFICATE OF PUBLIC CONVENIENCE AND
NECESSITY FOR A CLASS 1 AND CLASS 2 ADVANCED LIFE
SERVICE (ALS) RESCUE AND INTRA-FACILITY
AMBULANCE TRANSPORT FOR THE SEMINOLE TRIBE OF
FLORIDA’S FIRE RESCUE WITHIN THE BOUNDARY OF THE
SEMINOLE TRIBE IN IMMOKALEE – THE DEPARTMENT
OPERATES EXCLUSIVELY FOR AND ON THE SEMINOLE
RESERVATION IN IMMOKALEE AND CERTIFICATES ARE
SUBJECT TO CERTAIN CONDITIONS
Item #16E6
May 9, 2017
Page 177
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS PREPARED BY PROCUREMENT
SERVICES FOR CHANGE ORDERS AND OTHER ITEMS AS
IDENTIFIED – NET TOTAL OF (2) CHANGES TO CONTRACTS
IS $0.00 AND TOTAL NUMBER OF DAYS ADDED IS 0
Item #16F1
RESOLUTION 2017-84 : AMENDMENTS (APPROPRIATING
GRANTS, DONATIONS, CONTRIBUTIONS OR INSURANCE
PROCEEDS) TO THE FISCAL YEAR 2016-17 ADOPTED
BUDGET
Item #16F2
A REPORT COVERING BUDGET AMENDMENTS IMPACTING
RESERVES AND MOVING FUNDS IN AN AMOUNT UP TO
AND INCLUDING $25,000 AND $50,000, RESPECTIVELY
Item #16G1
TIME EXTENSIONS TO FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION JOINT PARTICIPATION AGREEMENT
(JPA) CONTRACT NUMBERS G0594 AND G0615 FOR THE
AVGAS FUEL FARM FACILITIES AT THE MARCO ISLAND
EXECUTIVE AIRPORT AND EVERGLADES AIRPARK
(PROJECT NUMBERS 33450 AND 33454) – EXTENDING THE
AGREEMENTS TO DECEMBER 31, 2017 TO ALLOW
SUFFICIENT TIME TO COMPLETE THE FABRICATION,
INSTALLATION, AND TESTING OF THE AVIATION FUEL
FARM ENHANCEMENTS AT THE MARCO ISLAND AIRPORT
May 9, 2017
Page 178
AND FUEL STORAGE SYSTEM AT EVERGLADES AIRPARK
Item #16G2
EXTEND CONTRACT #11-5642 “AVIATION FUEL PURCHASE
AND DELIVERY” FOR SIX MONTHS, OR UNTIL A NEW
CONTRACT IS AWARDED, WHICHEVER IS SOONEST – AT
THE MARCO ISLAND AIRPORT, IMMOKALEE AIRPORT,
AND EVERGLADES AIRPARK AND EXTENDING THE
CONTRACT THROUGH NOVEMBER 20, 2017 OR UNTIL A
NEW CONTRACT IS AWARDED
Item #16H1
A PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 21-27 AS
EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES WEEK IN COLLIER
COUNTY, IN RECOGNITION OF THE DEDICATION OF ALL
EMERGENCY MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS SERVING IN A
VARIETY OF ROLES THAT WILL BE DELIVERED TO
TABATHA BUTCHER, CHIEF, COLLIER COUNTY EMS
Item #16H2
A PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 14-20, 2017, AS
WATER REUSE WEEK IN COLLIER COUNTY, AND CALLING
UPON EACH CITIZEN AND BUSINESS TO HELP PROTECT
OUR PRECIOUS RESOURCE BY PRACTICING WATER
CONSERVATION AND USING RECLAIMED WATER IN AN
EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE MANNER THAT WILL BE
DELIVERED TO DR. GEORGE YILMAZ, PUBLIC UTILITIES
May 9, 2017
Page 179
DEPARTMENT HEAD AND LISA KOEHLER, BIG CYPRESS
BASIN ADMINISTRATOR
Item #16H3
A PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING THE SECOND WEEK IN
MAY AS NATIONAL WOMEN'S LUNG HEALTH WEEK IN
COLLIER COUNTY THAT WILL BE SENT BY MAIL TO
LINDSAY KOHN WITH THE AMERICAN LUNG
ASSOCIATION IN FLORIDA
Item #16J1
EXECUTING A BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE AMOUNT OF
$42,000 FOR COMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT (9-1-1)
Item #16J2
A BUDGET AMENDMENT TO RECOGNIZE $1,463,000 IN
REVENUE AND EXPENDITURES IN THE SHERIFF'S FY2017
GENERAL FUND BUDGET – CCSO PROVIDES A
SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF SERVICES DURING THE FISCAL
YEAR INCLUDING SPECIAL DETAIL CONTRACTS, SEXUAL
PREDATOR COLLECTIONS, INMATE MEDICAL AND
SUBSISTENCE NEEDS, INMATE HOUSING AND THE
PROVISION OF INMATE LABOR WITH UNSPENT FEES
TURNED BACK TO THE BOARD AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE
FISCAL YEAR
Item #16J3
May 9, 2017
Page 180
TO PROVIDE THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
THE CLERK OF THE CIRCUIT COURT’S INTERNAL AUDIT
REPORT 2017-7 JOB CREATION INVESTMENT PROGRAM:
ARTHREX AND ARTHREX MANUFACTURING, ISSUED ON,
MAY 2, 2017
Item #16J4
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 MAY 3, 2017
Item #16J5
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 APRIL 13, 2017 AND APRIL 26,
2017 PURSUANT TO FLORIDA STATUTE 136.06
Item #16K1
HIRING PHILIP GREENWALD, ESQ., FOR MEDIATION
SERVICES RELATING TO GOLDEN GATE BOULEVARD
ROAD WIDENING PROJECT NO. 60040, AND THE EMINENT
DOMAIN CASE STYLED COLLIER COUNTY V. GG1 NAPLES,
May 9, 2017
Page 181
LLC, ET AL., CASE NO. 15-CA-0329, NOW PENDING IN THE
TWENTIETH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT COURT FOR COLLIER
COUNTY, FLORIDA, AND TO AUTHORIZE THE COUNTY
ATTORNEY TO RETAIN MR. GREENWALD FOR FUTURE
MEDIATIONS IN EMINENT DOMAIN LITIGATION. (FISCAL
IMPACT: $5,000)
Item #16K2
RESOLUTION 2017-85: APPOINTING JOSH STURGEON (AT
LARGE CATEGORY), TO FILL A CURRENT VACANCY AND
A TERM THAT WILL EXPIRE UPON THE EXPIRATION OF
THE COMMITTEE, TO THE ATV PARK AD HOC COMMITTEE
Item #16K3
RESOLUTION 2017-86: REAPPOINTING SKI OLESKY,
(BUSINESS CATEGORY) AND APPOINTING ROBERT RAINES
(BUSINESS CATEGORY)TO THE SEAT FORMERLY HELD BY
CYNTHIA LOZANO TO 3-YEAR TERMS EXPIRING APRIL 4,
2020 AND APPOINTING PATRICIA ANNE GOODNIGHT (AT
LARGE BUSINESS/RESIDENT) TO FILL A CURRENTLY
VACANT TERM THAT WILL EXPIRE APRIL 4, 2018 TO THE
IMMOKALEE LOCAL REDEVELOPMENT ADVISORY BOARD
Item #17A – Commissioner Solis abstained from voting
ORDINANCE 2017-15: AMENDING ORDINANCE 92-10, AS
AMENDED, THE TOLLGATE COMMERCIAL CENTER
PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD), BY AMENDING THE
May 9, 2017
Page 182
PUD DOCUMENT TO ADD SPECIFIC INSTITUTIONAL USES
AS PERMITTED USES ON TRACTS 7, 8 AND 9 OF THE
COMMERCIAL USE AREAS, “A” PARCELS, AS SHOWN ON
THE PUD MASTER PLAN; BY AMENDING THE PUD
DOCUMENT TO ADD SPECIFIC INSTITUTIONAL USES AS
PERMITTED USES ON TRACTS 16-20 AND 24-25 OF THE
COMMERCIAL/LIGHT INDUSTRIAL USES AREA, “B”
PARCELS, AS SHOWN ON THE PUD MASTER PLAN; AND BY
PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE. THE SUBJECT PROPERTY
IS LOCATED AT THE INTERSECTION OF COLLIER
BOULEVARD (CR-951) AND BECK BOULEVARD IN SECTION
35, TOWNSHIP 49 SOUTH, RANGE 26 EAST, AND SECTION 2,
TOWNSHIP 50 SOUTH, RANGE 26 EAST, COLLIER COUNTY,
FLORIDA. [PUDA-PL20150002280]
Item #17B
RESOLUTION 2017-87: A SINGLE PETITION WITHIN THE
2016 CYCLE 2 OF GROWTH MANAGEMENT PLAN
AMENDMENTS FOR TRANSMITTAL TO FLORIDA
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY FOR REVIEW
AND COMMENTS RESPONSE, FOR AN AMENDMENT
SPECIFIC TO THE LOGAN BOULEVARD/IMMOKALEE ROAD
COMMERCIAL INFILL SUBDISTRICT IN THE SOUTHEAST
QUADRANT OF THE IMMOKALEE ROAD (CR 846) ‒ LOGAN
BOULEVARD INTERSECTION. (TRANSMITTAL HEARING)
(CP-2016-2/PL20160001100)
Item #17C – Moved to Item #9B (Per Agenda Change Sheet)
May 9, 2017
Page 183
Item #17D – Moved from Item #9A (Per Agenda Change Sheet)
ORDINANCE 2017-16: AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. 02-61,
AS AMENDED, TO AMEND EXTERNAL BOUNDARIES OF
THE FIDDLER’S CREEK COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
DISTRICT #2, PURSUANT TO CHAPTER 190.046, FLORIDA
STATUTES, AND TO WAIVE THE OPTIONAL LOCAL PUBLIC
HEARING ON A PETITION TO AMEND THE EXTERNAL
BOUNDARIES OF FIDDLER’S CREEK COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT #1 FILED WITH THE FLORIDA
LAND AND WATER ADJUDICATORY COMMISSION
(FLWAC) SINCE THE CDD IS OVER 1,000 ACRES
*****
May 9, 2017
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL
PENNY T OR, v AIRMAN
ATTEST
DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK
Y a �
4
Attest as{6
signature nnty..
These minutes approved by the Board on t AL1 , as presented
k/ or as corrected
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF U.S. LEGAL
SUPPORT, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS, COURT REPORTER AND
NOTARY PUBLIC.
Page 184
FORM 8B MEMORANDUM OF VOTING CONFLICT FOR
COUNTY, MUNICIPAL, AND OTHER LOCAL PUBLIC OFFICERS
LAST NAME—FIRST NAME—MIDDLE NAME NAME OF BOARD,COUNCIL,COMMISSION,AUTHORITY,OR COMMITTEE
Solis, Andrew I. Collier County Board of County Commissioners
MAILING ADDRESS THE BOARD,COUNCIL,COMMISSION,AUTHORITY OR COMMITTEE ON
3299 East Tamiami Trail, Suite 300 WHICH I SERVE ISA UNIT OF:
CITY COUNTY 1:1CITY gCOUNTY 0 OTHER LOCAL AGENCY
Naples Collier NAME OF POLITICAL SUBDIVISION:
DATE ON WHICH VOTE OCCURRED
May 9, 2017 MY POSITION IS: d ELECTIVE 0 APPOINTIVE
WHO MUST FILE FORM 8B
This form is for use by any person serving at the county, city, or other local level of government on an appointed or elected board, council,
commission, authority, or committee. It applies to members of advisory and non-advisory bodies who are presented with a voting conflict of
interest under Section 112.3143, Florida Statutes.
Your responsibilities under the law when faced with voting on a measure in which you have a conflict of interest will vary greatly depending
on whether you hold an elective or appointive position. For this reason, please pay close attention to the instructions on this form before
completing and filing the form.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH SECTION 112.3143, FLORIDA STATUTES
A person holding elective or appointive county, municipal, or other local public office MUST ABSTAIN from voting on a measure which
would inure to his or her special private gain or loss. Each elected or appointed local officer also MUST ABSTAIN from knowingly voting on
a measure which would inure to the special gain or loss of a principal (other than a government agency) by whom he or she is retained
(including the parent, subsidiary, or sibling organization of a principal by which he or she is retained); to the special private gain or loss of a
relative; or to the special private gain or loss of a business associate. Commissioners of community redevelopment agencies(CRAB) under
Sec. 163.356 or 163.357, F.S., and officers of independent special tax districts elected on a one-acre, one-vote basis are not prohibited
from voting in that capacity.
For purposes of this law, a "relative" includes only the officer's father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, sister, father-in-law,
mother-in-law, son-in-law, and daughter-in-law. A"business associate" means any person or entity engaged in or carrying on a business
enterprise with the officer as a partner, joint venturer, coowner of property, or corporate shareholder (where the shares of the corporation
are not listed on any national or regional stock exchange).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ELECTED OFFICERS:
In addition to abstaining from voting in the situations described above, you must disclose the conflict:
PRIOR TO THE VOTE BEING TAKEN by publicly stating to the assembly the nature of your interest in the measure on which you are
abstaining from voting; and
WITHIN 15 DAYS AFTER THE VOTE OCCURS by completing and filing this form with the person responsible for recording the
minutes of the meeting, who should incorporate the form in the minutes.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
APPOINTED OFFICERS:
Although you must abstain from voting in the situations described above, you are not prohibited by Section 112.3143 from otherwise
participating in these matters. However, you must disclose the nature of the conflict before making any attempt to influence the decision,
whether orally or in writing and whether made by you or at your direction.
IF YOU INTEND TO MAKE ANY ATTEMPT TO INFLUENCE THE DECISION PRIOR TO THE MEETING AT WHICH THE VOTE WILL BE
TAKEN:
• You must complete and file this form(before making any attempt to influence the decision)with the person responsible for recording the
minutes of the meeting,who will incorporate the form in the minutes. (Continued on page 2)
CE FORM 8B-EFF. 11/2013 PAGE 1
Adopted by reference in Rule 34-7.010(1)(f),F.A.C.
APPOINTED OFFICERS (continued)
• A copy of the form must be provided immediately to the other members of the agency.
• The form must be read publicly at the next meeting after the form is filed.
IF YOU MAKE NO ATTEMPT TO INFLUENCE THE DECISION EXCEPT BY DISCUSSION AT THE MEETING:
• You must disclose orally the nature of your conflict in the measure before participating.
• You must complete the form and file it within 15 days after the vote occurs with the person responsible for recording the minutes of the
meeting,who must incorporate the form in the minutes.A copy of the form must be provided immediately to the other members of the
agency, and the form must be read publicly at the next meeting after the form is filed.
DISCLOSURE OF LOCAL OFFICER'S INTEREST
Andrew I. Solis hereby disclose that on May 9, 20 17
(a)A measure came or will come before my agency which(check one or more)
inured to my special private gain or loss;
inured to the special gain or loss of my business associate,
inured to the special gain or loss of my relative, ;
inured to the special gain or loss of a client of my law firm, Tollgate Naples, LLC by
whom I am retained; or
inured to the special gain or loss of ,which
is the parent subsidiary, or sibling organization or subsidiary of a principal which has retained me.
(b)The measure before my agency and the nature of my conflicting interest in the measure is as follows:
On May 9, 2017, BCC Agenda Item 17.A., the Board will consider a recommendation to amend Ordinance No.
92-10, as amended, the Tollgate Commercial Center Planned Unit Development (PUD), by amending the PUD
document to add specific institutional uses and permitted uses.
The applicant, Tollgate Naples, LLC, is a client of my law firm, and in an abundance of caution, I will abstain from
voting pursuant to Section 286.012, Fla. Stat. to avoid any perceived prejudice or bias.
If disclosure of specific information would violate confidentiality or privilege pursuant to law or rules governing attorneys, a public officer,
who is also an attorney, may comply with the disclosure requirements of this section by disclosing the nature of the interest in such a way
as to provide the public with notice of the conflict.
May 9, 2017 411
Date Filed Sig of e
NOTICE: UNDER PROVISIONS OF FLORIDA STATUTES §112.317, A FAILURE TO MAKE ANY REQUIRED DISCLOSURE
CONSTITUTES GROUNDS FOR AND MAY BE PUNISHED BY ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: IMPEACHMENT,
REMOVAL OR SUSPENSION FROM OFFICE OR EMPLOYMENT, DEMOTION, REDUCTION IN SALARY, REPRIMAND, OR A
CIVIL PENALTY NOT TO EXCEED $10,000.
CE FORM 8B-EFF. 11/2013 PAGE 2
Adopted by reference in Rule 34-7.010(1)(f),F.A.C.