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BCC Minutes 09/06/2018 B (Budget) September 6, 2018 Page 1 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, September 6, 2018 BUDGET HEARING 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 5:05 p.m., in SPECIAL SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: ACTING CHAIRMAN: William L. McDaniel, Jr. Andy Solis (via speakerphone) Donna Fiala Burt L. Saunders Penny Taylor ALSO PRESENT: Leo Ochs, County Manager Nick Casalanguida, Deputy County Manager Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney Troy Miller, Communications & Customer Relations Page 1 September 6, 2018 COLLIER COUNTY Board of County Commissioners Community Redevelopment Agency Board (CRAB) Airport Authority STORMWATER UTILITY AGENDA Board of County Commission Chambers Collier County Government Center 3299 Tamiami Trail East, 3rd Floor Naples, FL 34112 September 6, 2018 5:05 PM Commissioner Andy Solis, District 2 – BCC Chair Commissioner William McDaniel, Jr., Dist. 5 – BCC Vice-Chair; CRAB Co-Chair Commissioner Donna Fiala, District 1 - CRAB Co-Chair Commissioner Burt Saunders, District 3 Commissioner Penny Taylor, District 4 NOTICE: ALL PERSONS WISHING TO SPEAK ON AGENDA ITEMS MUST REGISTER PRIOR TO SPEAKING. 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 PROCEEDING IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED. ALL REGISTERED SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO THREE (3) MINUTES UNLESS THE TIME IS ADJUSTED BY THE CHAIRMAN. IF YOU ARE A PERSON WITH A DISABILITY WHO NEEDS ANY ACCOMMODATION IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROCEEDING, Page 2 September 6, 2018 YOU ARE ENTITLED, AT NO COST TO YOU, THE PROVISION OF CERTAIN ASSISTANCE. PLEASE CONTACT THE COLLIER COUNTY FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT 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 COUNTY COMMISSIONERS’ OFFICE. 1. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 2. ADVERTISED PUBLIC HEARING – Stormwater Utility A. Executive Summary B. Presentation C. Public Comment D. Resolution of the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, relating to the provision of stormwater management system and improvements; amending the initial rate resolution for stormwater management system and improvements and confirming resolution No. 2018- 71, as amended; imposing stormwater utility fees against certain real property within the unincorporated area of collier county established as the stormwater benefit area; approving the stormwater rolls; and providing an effective date. 3. Adjourn Page 1 September 6, 2018 COLLIER COUNTY Board of County Commissioners Community Redevelopment Agency Board (CRAB) Airport Authority PELICAN BAY BUDGET AGENDA Board of County Commission Chambers Collier County Government Center 3299 Tamiami Trail East, 3rd Floor Naples, FL 34112 September 6, 2018 5:05 PM Commissioner Andy Solis, District 2 – BCC Chair Commissioner William McDaniel, Jr., Dist. 5 – BCC Vice-Chair; CRAB Co-Chair Commissioner Donna Fiala, District 1 - CRAB Co-Chair Commissioner Burt Saunders, District 3 Commissioner Penny Taylor, District 4 NOTICE: ALL PERSONS WISHING TO SPEAK ON AGENDA ITEMS MUST REGISTER PRIOR TO SPEAKING. 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 PROCEEDING IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED. ALL REGISTERED SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO THREE (3) MINUTES UNLESS THE TIME IS ADJUSTED BY THE CHAIRMAN. IF YOU ARE A PERSON WITH A DISABILITY WHO NEEDS ANY ACCOMMODATION IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROCEEDING, Page 2 September 6, 2018 YOU ARE ENTITLED, AT NO COST TO YOU, THE PROVISION OF CERTAIN ASSISTANCE. PLEASE CONTACT THE COLLIER COUNTY FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT 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 COUNTY COMMISSIONERS’ OFFICE. 1. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 2. ADVERTISED PUBLIC HEARING – Pelican Bay Services Division Budget Hearing A. Executive Summary – Fiscal Year 2019 Pelican Bay Services Division Budget B. Public Comment C. Resolution Approving the Special Assessment Roll and Levying the Special Assessment against the Benefited Properties within the Pelican Bay Municipal Service Taxing and Benefit Unit. . 3. Adjourn Page 1 September 6, 2018 COLLIER COUNTY Board of County Commissioners Community Redevelopment Agency Board (CRAB) Airport Authority BUDGET AGENDA Board of County Commission Chambers Collier County Government Center 3299 Tamiami Trail East, 3rd Floor Naples, FL 34112 September 6, 2018 5:05 PM Commissioner Andy Solis, District 2 – BCC Chair Commissioner William McDaniel, Jr., Dist. 5 – BCC Vice-Chair; CRAB Co-Chair Commissioner Donna Fiala, District 1 - CRAB Co-Chair Commissioner Burt Saunders, District 3 Commissioner Penny Taylor, District 4 NOTICE: ALL PERSONS WISHING TO SPEAK ON AGENDA ITEMS MUST REGISTER PRIOR TO SPEAKING. 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 PROCEEDING IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED. ALL REGISTERED SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO THREE (3) MINUTES UNLESS THE TIME IS ADJUSTED BY THE CHAIRMAN. IF YOU ARE A PERSON WITH A DISABILITY WHO NEEDS ANY ACCOMMODATION IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROCEEDING, Page 2 September 6, 2018 YOU ARE ENTITLED, AT NO COST TO YOU, THE PROVISION OF CERTAIN ASSISTANCE. PLEASE CONTACT THE COLLIER COUNTY FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT 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 COUNTY COMMISSIONERS’ OFFICE. 1. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 2. ADVERTISED PUBLIC HEARING - BCC - Fiscal Year 2019 Budget A. Discussion of Tentative Millage Rates and Increases Over the Rolled Back Millage Rates. B. Review and Discussion of Further Amendments to the Tentative Budget C. Public Comments and Questions D. Announcement of Tentative Millage Rates and Percentage Changes in Property Tax Rates E. Resolution to Adopt the Tentative Millage Rates F. Resolution to Adopt the Amended Tentative Budget G. Announcement of Final Public Hearing as Follows: Final Public Hearing on the FY 12018-19 Collier County Budget Thursday, September 20, 2018 5:05 p.m. Collier County Government Center W. Harmon Turner Building (F) Third Floor, Boardroom Naples, Florida 3. Adjourn Collier County Government Center W. Harmon Turner Building (F) Third Floor, Boardroom Naples, Florida 3. Adjourn Page 3 September 6, 2018 September 6, 2018 Page 2 MR. OCHS: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd please take your seat, and if you don't have a seat available, there are additional seats up on the fifth floor of this building that we could accommodate more guests. Mr. Chairman, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We're helping Commissioner Fiala get settled. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Getting my wastebasket, you know. What can you do without a wastebasket? Sorry, folks. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: There's no sorry. It's functionality. Good evening, everybody. First off, before we get started, I would like to remind everybody if you have not yet, please silence your cell phones. That will provide for no interruptions for our speakers as we go. And if you would please all rise and join Commissioner Fiala in the Pledge of Allegiance. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And put your hands over your heart, please, and say with me. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: You are welcome, kind sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: With that, we're going to move straight on our agenda here to our advertised public hearing. First off, I think I need to call for a motion. Is Commissioner Solis available on the telephone this evening? I know he wanted to call in, and I need a motion for that to happen in the event that he does or is here. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I am here. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion to permit Commissioner Solis to participate in this meeting via September 6, 2018 Page 3 telephone; that there's a valid reason for his not being here. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I'll second that motion. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: All right. It's been moved and seconded that we permit him to attend telephonically. Any discussion? Any other discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Hearing none, all in favor? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: (No verbal response.) COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: (No verbal response.) COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Opposed, same sign, same sound. (No response.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: So moved. All right. STORMWATER UTILITY RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA, RELATING TO THE PROVISION OF STORMWATER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND IMPROVEMENTS; AMENDING THE INITIAL RATE RESOLUTION FOR STORMWATER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND IMPROVEMENTS AND CONFIRMING RESOLUTION NO. 2018-71, AS AMENDED; IMPOSING STORMWATER UTILITY FEES AGAINST CERTAIN REAL PROPERTY WITHIN THE UNINCORPORATED AREA OF COLLIER COUNTY September 6, 2018 Page 4 ESTABLISHED AS THE STORMWATER BENEFIT AREA; APPROVING THE STORMWATER ROLLS; AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE - MOTION TO CONTINUE THE ITEM TO THE NEXT BUDGET CYCLE – APPROVED (COMMISSIONER FIALA AND COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL BOTH BELIEVE THAT STAFF NEEDS TO GET THE COMMUNITY MORE INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS) MR. OCHS: Commissioners, you are embarking on the first of two statutorily required public hearings to adopt your Fiscal Year 2019 county spending plan. You have three items related to that on the agenda this evening. The first item has to do with the consideration by the Board of a resolution that would implement a stormwater utility fee. After that item you will hear the Pelican Bay budget presentation, and followed by the full county budget presentation, if that so pleases the Chair and the Board. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I think that's a fine way for us to proceed. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Let's move right on to it. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. We're going to begin the brief staff presentation with Mr. Thaddeus Cohen, your public -- excuse me -- your Growth Management Department Head. MR. COHEN: Thank you, Manager Ochs. Thaddeus Cohen, Department Head, Growth Management. As we start today, this has been an interesting journey as we're moving forward with our stormwater utility fee. And one of the things that I found as we've had an opportunity to travel throughout the September 6, 2018 Page 5 community is that, as you can tell by the crowd here today, we're all in this together, and that flood control and property protection is something that -- what we do as far as the stormwater's concerned as well as water quality. And I think it ensures our ability to get around our community safely, it protects people's properties as well as their individual lives, and it's something that we're hearing more and more as to what we can do for the quality of our environment. One of the things that we said to you earlier this year was that we wanted to be more proactive rather than reactive in our process, and we gave you examples as to some of the issues that we've had as far as pipes that were collapsing and the cost that sometimes is as much as 10 times more for us to go out and to fix a system rather than being able to program it on an ongoing basis to be able to have that as part of our thought process as to how it is that we provide a better infrastructure for our community. I think what we can say is that we're pretty much united in knowing that there's a need to improve our system; that our current level of reinvestment is not sustainable to be able to manage the things that we need to do; that our current program does not have the full resources that are necessary in order for us to provide for not only the existing infrastructure but for the planned growth; and that we needed a system of funding that provided a better level of equality so that people felt more comfortable as to what it is that they're paying. And, again, we were complaint driven as far as being able to have our staff go out and meet with the citizens on an ongoing basis. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thaddeus? MR. COHEN: Yes. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Can you take one breath? MR. COHEN: Sure enough. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Fiala? September 6, 2018 Page 6 COMMISSIONER FIALA: I was just going to suggest that we have our audience spread into three different areas, and I don't know if the other areas know that if they have something that they want to say, if they have put their speaker slips in, to come down here so that they're prepared. I just wanted -- and those at home, we have a lot of people here, folks. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Every room is full. MR. COHEN: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And thank you -- MR. COHEN: Thank you. No problem. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: -- Mr. Cohen. It just -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes, absolutely. That was a good thing, because I neglected to share that as well. So we want to give everyone an opportunity. MR. COHEN: And it was an important point to make. It's a point well taken. And that kind of leads me to where we are right now is we kind of got to a rough start in this process. The notices went out. Your phones rang off the hook, our phones rang off the hook, the manager's phones rang off the hook with people being concerned about what it is that we were trying to implement. We heard things such as, you know, you put the fee in place, you're going to take my home, which is, no, not the case, but we understand from the statutory language that that could be interpreted. And as we were to think about this again, if we were to go through this process again -- and I'm clear with all the folks here in the room, nobody wants to go through this process again -- that we would probably put a cover letter on that document that I think would have softened the edges of that communication so that folks would have felt September 6, 2018 Page 7 more comfortable with at least the process of what it is that we were trying to do. So what we did internally was we kind of doubled our outreach efforts. Our staff has fielded all the phone calls. We have not been able to update our website right now because we're waiting for the final direction, but everyone who called we responded to. We even went out to their site so that we would be able to handle the issues that we've seen. And, more importantly, what I think we'd want to say is, we heard the issues that were being raised by the community from that notice that we sent out. There was concerns about unpaved surfaces. How is it that we're looking at pervious versus impervious surfaces? There were mapping issues. I've got a camper. Why would you count a camper? I don't have a stall in the back. That's really something different. Do I get a credit if I'm holding water on my property? How are you thinking about that? Individual calculations for, remember that long tail that we had, how is it that we're going to work that? Can I appeal if I'm not happy with what the process is? So all of those things we heard from the citizens here. That gave us an opportunity to reflect on how we would handle those issues. And what we wanted to do was take a moment right now, I think, and talk about what are the prevailing issues that we heard, which was the large lots, particularly in Golden Gate Estates, but also other places in the community as to how did we think about those and how did we come to what we believe when we talked to you a little bit longer, is an equitable solution. And with that, I'd like to bring Tim up so that he can kind of talk in terms of, with his staff, how we looked at those large lots and how we think we can move forward to resolve some of those issues. MR. HANCOCK: Thank you, Mr. Cohen. September 6, 2018 Page 8 For the record, my name is Tim Hancock. I'm a Principal with Stantec. Our team was pleased to work with the county to put together the program before you today. What I want to do is in addition to myself, we have our team here. Molly Williams, who's a Registered PE, 24 years of stormwater management experience as an engineer. She has kind of led our analysis side of things. On the financial side, Mr. David Hider who has literally been involved in hundreds of stormwater utility rate assessments throughout the country and responsible for creating dozens of them as well and as the principal element of putting the methodology together for assessment, the background behind it. Then we also have Mr. James Hale, who is intimately involved with the GIS, which really is the aerial photograph interpretation and how these layers were calculated. They are all here, as I am, to address questions you or the public may have. What I want to get to first and foremost is based on the phone calls and response that has been received, we think the majority of issues lies in the large lots and folks who live in the Estates. You may remember when we presented this project to you, there was a Tier 4. We called it the tail. It was about 8,500 properties that had more than, I think it was, 9,300 square feet of impervious, about 8,500 properties, and they range from 9,300 square feet to well over 20,000 square feet of impervious areas. As Mr. Cohen identified, we did discover some mapping issues. Not that the mapping was incorrect -- and I want to give the Property Appraiser's all the credit in the world. Their data is some of the best data we have seen anywhere. It has helped us be accurate and do a good job. But there was an unpaved drive layer that couldn't tell the difference between a lime rock compacted driveway, a gravel driveway, or an open trail. That layer basically has been removed. So those assessments are being revised because of that layer being September 6, 2018 Page 9 removed. But it wasn't the data's fault. It was just how that layer was basically created and how it was being accounted for. But the Estates are still unique. This is an area for those of us that have lived here for decades that recognize that in the '50s most of the Estates was uninhabitable. The way in which you could create a livable area out there was very simple: Dig canals and drain the land. That's what the canals serve the Estates to do. They're not a water management system. They are a siphon. They're designed to remove water, groundwater, so that the area became livable. We didn't start permitting water management until the '80s in Southwest Florida. So for 30 years the system sat there functioning and operating as a drainage system solely. What you can see here from this map is -- this is a soils map of Collier County. The light blue is poorly drained soils. This means they don't allow a significant amount of percolation. That doesn't mean the water doesn't enter the ground. It means it percolates at a very slow rate. And with the water table being up and high, that water actually doesn't sit there. It moves. What you see here is a combination of canals, both state maintained and owned as well as county maintained and owned. This also shows in the Estates the secondary ditch system, which is part of the drainage system. What you see here, while it's only about 5 percent of the land mass of the county, if you add up all the miles of ditches in the Estates, they account for 57 percent of the roadside swales in Collier County. It's a large area. Its only drainage system are roadside swales and canals. Without them being maintained, that water table would rise. What we also recognize here is no two Estates lots were the same. You could pick two properties out of that Tier 4, and they would be vastly different. Not just in amount of impervious, but did they have September 6, 2018 Page 10 sod? And, believe it or not, sod creates runoff. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it does. And there are formulas. And if you want to get into the math, I can have Molly come up here and bore all of us to death. She thinks it's exciting. The rest of us probably wouldn't. But we can go through the formulas with you, but everything we do on earth, whether we just drive over it, which results in compacting soil, whether we plant sod on it, or whether we put a building on it, all of those things create runoff. So in the Estates, the method of treating that runoff is very simple. What percs into the ground gets drawn to and sucked out by the canal system. So you may not see it on the surface. And if I'm a property owner, and I'm watching a nice heavy rain and I see no ponding on my property, my thought naturally is, hey, my property's holding water. I get it. I understand that mindset. The truth is what you're doing is you're standing on top of an underground river, and it's only about two to three feet deep. And that water is moving underground towards the nearest canal or ditch and being siphoned off the land. If those canals aren't operating properly and if those ditches aren't operating properly, that water will back up and you will see flooding. This is a topography map for the Golden Gate Estates. The areas in dark blue are approximately one-half foot above sea level. That is their natural grade. So if you think about it, if you're in the south end of the Estates, where is that water going? The folks on the north, their water is moving in a south and southwesterly direction, generally, towards the lower areas. So while it may not be sitting on your property, it is moving somewhere. And so we don't have a lot of topography. But I'll tell you, the canals have done a great job. And the reason I know that -- and I've been doing this for 30 years in Southwest Florida -- we have seen the September 6, 2018 Page 11 vegetation in much of the Estates go from wetland to transitional and in some cases upland. Those canals have lowered the groundwater table significantly enough, but they have now become a part of the system that the folks in the Estates are dependent on. If that system doesn't work, they will flood. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Excuse me. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Certainly. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Can you just -- if you go back to that -- is it 4.5 or 45? I think it's 4.5, right, on the previous? MR. HANCOCK: Four-and-a-half, yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Four-and-a-half. Fine. Thank you. MR. HANCOCK: Generally what you're going to see is in the canal, is you're going to see a level of around -- depending on which size of the weir you're on, around 11 feet, okay. And then on the property, you're going to see no more than about three feet of freeboard. So the most soil storage you're going to get on average is about three vertical feet of soil storage before you hit the groundwater. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Stop. You're off in the weeds. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You know that, right? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Because you've dug down and you've hit water. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes, we have. And we all know that. Anywhere you dig six feet you're in the water. So come on. MR. HANCOCK: If you got to six feet, you're doing great. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Right. Could be a hump where I live. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: A ridge. MR. HANCOCK: So what I want to point out though, is despite September 6, 2018 Page 12 all of that, you know, the Estates are unique. They do serve a recharge purpose. And I think it's important that what you got in your notices did not recognize the potential recharge purpose for the Estates. So despite the fact that they have an extensive canal network that needs maintenance -- and, candidly, it needs better maintenance than it's been getting, and that's one of the reasons we're here proposing this to you -- is we looked at doing a large lot credit for the Estates, and it kind of became like throwing a dart because, like I said, one lot is very different than the other. So what we felt was most appropriate, and you're going to see it in the staff recommendation, basically, is to consolidate that Tier 4, to pull it back, to recognize that there is value to recharge and to recognize that value in the rates, and your staff will be sharing that with you as well. Mr. Cohen? MR. COHEN: So what are the program features? And Tim kind of highlighted that very first one. First of all, we simplified the program to three tiers. And as he's indicated that, that was in the recognition of the uniqueness of the Estates. And I think by going to three tiers, it provides some level of certainty for property owners as to what it is that their maximum cost would be. We also recognized that there was -- MR. OCHS: Thaddeus, go back to that and go through those three tiered rates and the maximums. MR. COHEN: Yes. The first tier is units that are 2,900 square feet and less, $72. If you're between the 2,900 and 5,400, the average cost, the cost to you would be $120. MR. OCHS: Per year. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Per year, yes. And then as you go forward, 5,400 and above, with the collapse of that tier it is $192. September 6, 2018 Page 13 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And just as a point, that's for residential only. MR. COHEN: That's for residential only, that's correct. MR. OCHS: Yes. MR. COHEN: Our ERU is still based on that average unit of 120. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Did you have a question? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No. MR. COHEN: I think what that does is, is that moves us still to the conversations that we had with you earlier is to try to move towards an industry standard on our level of service. And one of the things that this chart shows us is the variations that we have from where we are currently to where it is that we're trying to get to. And I think that our funding mechanism provides us with that ability. You heard that constant theme of we need to be able to have the maintenance and the capital projects to be able to ensure that our system as a whole works well. So what are the program features that we have? It's a single three-tier system that we said is simplified. We want to focus on the facts that for residential, the maximum fee is $192. Unpaved surfaces, which is what we got when we got off to that rough start in the system, that has been removed. There are no automatic increases. That's one of the concerns that we heard. Once this fee goes in place, there's the ability for this to be ratched up on an annual basis, and that's not the case. It's either 25 percent or 50 percent credit for qualifying properties, and we have a mechanism to be able to talk with property owners about the permitting that they may have to be able to, as Tim says, be able to do that recharge and have the water on their system -- excuse me -- the water on their properties. There's an adopted appeal process that you can then go to staff that then goes to the Board of County Commissioners who can also September 6, 2018 Page 14 defer that to a Hearing Examiner if that seems to make sense. Again, the industry standard is what we're trying to get to. And then there's also, after year two, which is the first year, there's the ability to pay on a quarterly basis as a payment option. We want to be proactive rather than reactive so that we can be good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars. With that, I think today what we're looking for and what we're asking for is a final step and an approval, and I would like to have Amy come up and kind of talk in terms of what our recommendations are based on where we are with this adoption of the changes and modifications that we've made to the system, having heard the issues that have been raised by the citizens. We think we've had the ability to go out and test and see whether or not, across the board, this seems to make sense, and I think with that we can talk in terms of what that final implementation could look like. MS. PATTERSON: Good evening. Amy Patterson, for the record, Director of Capital Project Planning. In your packet you had the final rate resolution as prepared, and you can see that lengthy title there. Our proposal is that we adopt the final rate resolution with the following modifications as outlined by Thaddeus. One is to update the definition of impervious to exclude unpaved surfaces; the second is revise Tier 3 to include all single-family parcels with impervious area greater than 5,400 square feet. That limits the fee for single-family homes to a maximum of $192; and to have the final adoption of the rate study incorporated as part of the final rate resolution. MR. OCHS: We're ready for questions, sir, or public speakers at your pleasure. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Taylor had to excuse herself for a minute. She'll be back. But do you have any questions September 6, 2018 Page 15 for staff? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I could ask one now. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Please. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just have one, and that is once we catch up with tremendous backlog, and I know that that won't be in the next couple years, but when we do -- by the way, there will also be extra people in our county at the same time, so more people will be paying into it -- will this fee be reduced? MR. COHEN: That would be up to the Board. What we have -- at the suggestion of, I believe, Commissioner McDaniel in April or so, we indicated that this would come back on an annual basis. You would have the ability to see our performance not only on a maintenance side, the work that Travis and his team does a great job of doing with those additional funds, but you would also be able to take a look at the capital side and see where we are in making progress, as you've indicated, not only with the backlog, but with new residents that arrive paying into the system, and the projects that we have in our AUIR, which will then be able to be worked through. But you would have the opportunity to be able to take a look at that and lower the fee if you felt that that made sense. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Do you have any questions, Commissioner Saunders? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah. Just a couple questions. In terms of getting a program started, if we were to say to you, what is the minimum fee for a single-family residential unit, equivalent residential unit, right now you'd have that fee, whatever that number was, 120 or -- MR. COHEN: One hundred twenty, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And then it goes up to a potential of 192. But if we said in order to get a program started, what would be the minimum fee that would make some sense for a one-year September 6, 2018 Page 16 program, for example, and, secondly, how does this apply to the commercial properties which I understand are being very substantially impacted as well. So those are two questions. MR. COHEN: Sure enough. Let me take that first one, which is being able to walk out the door and out the gate, how are we able to take the dollars? We project that at the current funding level that we're recommending, it's roughly $21 million. Eight -- COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Over. MR. COHEN: One year. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: For one year, 21 million. MR. COHEN: Yes, sir. Eight million dollars we would have in maintenance. The $13 million we would have in capital projects. We're prepared to be able to move forward aggressively on the maintenance side because we have the ability now, on the assumption that this moves forward, to be able to program across the county with our stormwater teams the work that actually needs to get done. We've kind of leaned forward on that currently with some of the work that we're doing on the Goodlette ditch, for example, that Travis, who's a lifetime resident here, took me down and said, you know, that ditch hasn't been cleaned in 30 years, or work that we're doing in Freedom Park that kind of allowed for drainage in the Frank Whiteman area to let us get over to the Gordon River. So those are the kinds of things that we're able to hit the ground running and do. We've already talked with purchasing about getting the equipment -- I like to say this word, Menzi Muck -- to be able to get the equipment to get into the canals to clean those out. On the capital side, we've had a $7 million AUIR deficit over the last several years that we have not been able to get to. Those programs have been designed, programmed, and are ready to move forward out on the streets which allows us to, again, to get to not only those things that are currently programmed but also the backlog that the September 6, 2018 Page 17 commissioner has talked about. So we have that ability to judiciously, through program management and others, effectuate this program. MR. OCHS: Commissioner, I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's on point. Just to update, that $21 million in your proposed budget was at the current rate structure before the two recommended staff changes. That -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That's dropped down to 18-. MR. OCHS: That will go down to 18 million if the Board adopts the two changes that we've recommended. MR. COHEN: I apologize. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: The second question deals with the issue of commercial -- MR. COHEN: Commercial property. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- and how they are charged and how much of that now $18 million would be from the commercial component. MR. COHEN: I'm not sure that we have a breakout of residential to commercial. If we do, we'll be working on that currently. But what we can say is, you know, that's a multiple of the ERUs. One of the things that we've talked to commercial properties about is the ability for them, depending upon what their site plan looks like, is to be able to get that 25 percent credit. We had a gentleman come in from a conversation that we had just a few days ago who has come in and applied and has the ability to get that 25 percent credit. So we have that ability to work with property owners to be able to help ameliorate some of the issues that they have. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. So during the public speaking component, which I suspect will take a substantial amount of time, I would like for staff to do a few calculations. One, first of all, I think that the credit is too low; that I think that property owners that September 6, 2018 Page 18 have put in money to retain water on their own property should be able to get as much as a 50 percent credit. So I'd like to crunch a few numbers as to what that does to your program as opposed to 25 percent. And then also in terms of the -- I'd like to kind of get a sense of how commercial units are being charged. I understand it's a multiple of the ERUs, but I just need to have an understanding of how you get to whatever the ERU count is for a particular property. And then also in terms of, if we decided to move forward with a scaled-down program, obviously you need the $8 million for maintenance. I don't have any particular issue with that. Your capital -- you're currently at -- you were at 13 million, and that gave you a total of 21 million. You've got that reduced to the 18 million. I'm wondering if you need that much in capital; if you could reduce that component of the program as well. What I'm looking at is the potential for perhaps cutting this in half as a start to see where -- how things shake out. So I need some calculations done if I'm going to vote to proceed with this tonight. MR. COHEN: Okay. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And it's on your point. And I don't mean to steal your thunder, but one of the things, he asked about the commercial, I also want to know is there any positives or opportunities for relief for not-for-profit, the churches along those lines that are -- that are being charged this fee? MR. OCHS: Okay. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And then I would also, with these capital projects, give us four or five and what they're going to do. MR. COHEN: Okay. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: We know we've deferred them. They're there. So just talk a little bit about it. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And a minimum timeline on those. September 6, 2018 Page 19 COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. MR. COHEN: Will do. MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, just for context, it might be instructive for the Board and the audience to have Mr. Isackson tell you what's in your current annual budget for stormwater capital and maintenance expense so you'll have a basis of comparison when we come back later. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's between eight and seven, isn't it? MR. ISACKSON: About $8.1 million. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That's already appropriated this year. MR. ISACKSON: Of which the General Fund and the Unincorporated General Fund are contributing about five and a half or so to that effort. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That eight million that they're talking about maintenance is already budgeted up. MR. OCHS: Part of that is -- how much is ad valorem base? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: 5.5. MR. ISACKSON: About five-and-a-half million of that eight is roughly property taxes, general governmental revenues. MR. OCHS: The rest is grants. MR. ISACKSON: The remaining are grants, South Florida Water Management District, et cetera. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Right. Very good. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions before we move on? (No response.) MR. COHEN: Mr. Chair, would you -- if we have any of that information currently, would you like to see it now, or would you like to wait till after the speakers? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's time for us to go to public speakers. MR. COHEN: Okay. September 6, 2018 Page 20 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I'm -- we've had multiple, multiple presentations on this, and I'm ready to go, so... MR. MILLER: We've approximately 125 registered speakers for this item. They are spread out over this room, the hallway, the fifth floor of this building, the HR conference room, and the risk classroom. Because of that, I'm going to call four names at once. I would like you all to use both podiums. If you have pictures or a PowerPoint, you'll need to use that podium. I would like you to come up and queue and be ready to speak. I'm calling four names at once so people on other floors and buildings can be here. Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And in terms of -- we did have a limit, so I think you need to advise what the limit is. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: No one can speak for more than 20 minutes, so that's, what, 20 times 125. MR. MILLER: Registered speakers are limited to three minutes, but we do have people that are ceding time. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Now -- and did everybody here that? Because not everybody comes to our meetings. He's going to call four names, and then we're going to stack up two at each podium and go through the process. And you are limited to three minutes. MR. MILLER: Thank you. Your first speaker will be Richard Baranski. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Oh, forgive me. Troy? Troy? Troy? MR. MILLER: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I have been absolutely remiss, because there's a commissioner in the sky. Commissioner Solis, do you have any questions? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No, I don't. I'm interested in hearing what the speakers have to say. September 6, 2018 Page 21 COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis, are you in a pub in Ireland right now? I'd like to join you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yeah. I was going to say. Okay. And I assume that's a no. We didn't hear you very well, sir. Are you okay to go on with the public speaking? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'm interested in hearing what the speakers have to say. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. MR. MILLER: Your first speaker will be Richard Baranski. He will be followed by Bill Archer. He'll be followed by Tom Okner. He'll be followed by Jesse Purdon. Three minutes, sir. MR. BARANSKI: Thank you. My name is Rick Baranski. I'm President of the Naples Area Board of Realtors. As you may recall, that we were the only organization that spoke out against the water surtax back at the first reading. We stood alone and we had reservations about the calculations, about the property proportional size of the proposed increases and took issue with the fact that there were no -- that there was zero discussion of any other potential revenue. We also, as you may recall, took issue with the decision being voted on at the time. It was just after picking up and cleaning up from Irma, and it was a very emotional time. Our argument then is the same as it is now. We said it felt rushed then and we still feel it feels rushed. There were adjustments as recently as last week being made at some $3 million. It appears that there's a lot of questions about this. We're talking about nearly -- it says here over 20, but nearly $20 million. I think we need to make sure that this is done correctly, and we still feel it's rushed. Moving on. My time is almost up. So we owe it to our members, and you owe it to your constituents, September 6, 2018 Page 22 that we get this right, and we ask for a 12-month deferral on a proposed water surtax to fully evaluate the rate structure and how it deals with both impervious land usage and valuation for lot credits in regards to their application. So we're asking for a 12-month moratorium, whatever you want to call it, to study this and come up with a more comprehensive plan. Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Bill Archer. He will be followed by Tom Okner, he'll be followed by Jesse Purdon, and then James Wane. Three minutes, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: William, before you go, just as a point of information, each one of the podiums has a timer up there with the three minutes, and the yellow light goes off at 30 seconds and then the red light comes on, you're done. And if you would, please, hold comments, applause, and such. We all -- we all have our moment, and if we -- there's a lot of people that want to speak, so proceed, William. MR. ARCHER: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Bill Archer. I'm a member of the Board of Directors at NABOR. I'm also a Collier County resident as well as a small business owner. There's been a number of things that are concerning moving forward with the tax in its current form. First, there are many large lots within the Estates that are not currently getting large credit, attenuation credits, and having lots that literally take stress off the county system. Second, the businesses, as mentioned, are getting completely ignored in this solution as they were excluded from any credits in this last adjustment. And, lastly, this 25 percent blanket credit for qualified residential properties calculated and quantified for fairness. I find it difficult to believe that people who live in Ave Maria, Fiddler's Creek, or the Estuary will all have the exact same impact on September 6, 2018 Page 23 the county stormwater system. When you take into consideration the properties and people that live in communities with independent stormwater systems, then take into consideration how a large lot attenuation credit might compare to the blanket 25 percent, you can see where the math becomes murky; no pun intended. Twenty-five percent credits for residential lots without individual consideration for size opens the door to skepticism in its application. If we are going to tax people, the least we owe them is certainty and accuracy on both how the tax is calculated and applied. I urge you to consider a 12-month deferral so we can look deeper into this issue and ensure we get this right. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Tom Okner. He'll be followed by Jesse Purdon, he'll be followed by James Wane, and then Peggy Whitback. MR. OKNER: Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Tom Okner, and I live in a subdivision called The Quarry. We already have a CDD there that -- it was developed that is part of our tax bases, basically, that supports our water system. We have a large lake out there, as you may know, several lakes in that Heritage Bay area. We had an assessment in the thousands of dollars as a result of Irma that is being added onto our CDD, and now we're looking at an additional water management tax coming along. I suppose that right now it's a tough time with hydrology engineers in Florida. They don't have the best reputation looking at the water management of the entire South Florida area. So I'm opposed to the addition of a new tax. And my question would be two things. I mean, well, I appreciate being educated on what you're planning on doing with this, but I -- I lost my point. September 6, 2018 Page 24 Anyway, someone will mention it. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Jesse Purdon. He will be followed by James Wane, who will be followed by Peggy Whitback, who will be followed by John Hooley. MR. PURDON: Mr. Chair, Commissioners. And, Commissioner Solis, I know you can't see but just so you know the room is full all the way to the back, overflow's full, and a shout out to the overflow overflow for everybody listening. Good evening. My name's Jesse Purdon. I'm the Director of Government Affairs for NABOR. I wanted to take a moment to explain that our organization isn't in any way, shape, or form denying that we as a county need to address our stormwater. Our issue as a staff -- or are we negating the hard work that the staff has put in, that out there, so I want to put that out there. But our objection is based on the methodology and the speed at which this is moving in light of the latest additions and credits. From the beginning, there's been murky math, inconsistencies on the definition of impervious and pervious surfaces, credits for large lots or not credits for large lots, a cap of $192, a 25 percent blanket credit. In short, it's just too murky. Take a look around the room. You can see how many people are in opposition to this -- I won't call it a fee. I'll call it a tax increase. It's the accumulation of $20 million here, $5 million there that has left our industry and our citizens complacent with the inevitability of tax increases. It's not how it's supposed to be. As an organization of 6,600 strong, we have the mindset that we're the industry -- we're the economic engine of this industry. We have a message. At some point we as a community need to figure out solutions to diversify our funding streams. The reality is, to comparable counties around the state of Florida, we are very, very top heavy on property taxes. That's a fight for another day. September 6, 2018 Page 25 Today I'm going to ask you to really deeply consider a 12-month deferral to the water surtax that will allow for thorough and accurate stormwater planning that everyone can get behind. Tonight we stand with Golden Gate Estates. We stand with every taxpayer in Collier County here in opposition of expediency over efficiency. Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is James Wane. He will be followed by Peggy Whitback, who will be followed by John Hooley, and then Scott Baxter. MR. WANE: Good evening, Commissioners. My name's James Wane. I live in the Estates. I have a four-acre estate there. On my property is a cypress pond which most of my surface water drains into. I also have three pole barns which don't have sides to them. It's dirt floors. They've been counted as buildings with the rest of -- like a house. And I wonder if there's going to be any kind of way -- are these people going to go around and consult each of us in turn, or are they going to look where the property is? How are they going to decide how or, rather, what these things -- I've lost my theme as well. Basically, each of us has probably got an individual scenario like I've just said to you. So are we all going to be treated individually, or are we going to be given any kind of information about how the thing is going? I'm just a little bit confused with the way the assessments are made. It doesn't speak to me. It doesn't tell me how things are precisely. Okay. Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Peggy Whitback. She'll be followed by John Hooley, who will be followed by Scott Baxter, and then Thomas Turner. MS. WHITBACK: Thank you. September 6, 2018 Page 26 Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Peggy Whitback. I am the President of the Frangipani Ag Community Civic Association in North Belle Meade. It's comprised of Section 15, 14, and 13, Township -- Range 27, Township -- or I got that backwards. Whatever, 47, 27. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We know where you are. MS. WHITBACK: Yeah. You know where I am. Our area's very concerned about being assessed this stormwater fee. We have no county maintenance in our area. We have no ditches. We do not drain into any canal, nor are we allowed to drain into any canal. Most of our properties are very large. Mine, 45 acres. I have three ponds; two frog ponds. We don't drain into anything. We manage our water. All our neighbors manage their water. I'm getting nervous. Our property owners retain all the water in our area. I would like to see North Belle Meade removed from the fee system. Thank you. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Your next speaker is John Hooley. He will be followed by Scott Baxter, who will be followed by Thomas Turner, and then Marty (sic) Morrissey. MR. HOOLEY: Well, good evening. My name is John Hooley. I know some of you up there. I've lived here since 1977. It rains. It rains and it floods. It's done that all the time. What's it flood? It floods the roads. Where has the stormwater unit's been funded? It's been funded in transportation. Okay. Do we need it? Sure, we need it, but I'm not sure that this is really where we're getting. So let me take Page 18 from the Stantec report and do a little bit of history. I don't know that -- can you blow that up? September 6, 2018 Page 27 Okay. So the county in 2005, 2004 said, you know, we need 15 mills for stormwater. Okay. Then you said, well, maybe that's too much. We're going to only do it up to 15 mills. So then I was going to show the bar graph, Mr. Ochs. If as you can see, you're funding $13 million in 2008, 2009, and then 2010 you decide, eh, maybe 11. And then in 2011 until today's date, you know, you're running this at $6 million. So the problem that we've got here is, you're not funding it. And as you can see, between 2017 and 2018 you took another million-and-a-half dollars out of the fund. So, you know, you come here and you say, we need money. Yeah. Okay. All right. So you want to raise $21 million, and that's what all this is about. We'll call it 18-. That's brand new money. So the county really has about $10 million. This is the funding from the General, but you get additional things for stormwater management. So the county has $10 million that's going to disappear. You're going to assess us all for $18 million, and the amount of money that you've already got in the budget for this stuff goes back to the General Fund which -- and we'll never see it again. So it's really a tax. Okay. Now, what do you need? Well, here's the thing. I don't know if we can get all of this. You need $8 million for capital costs. So the $8 million is for 15 dump trucks, eight vacuum trucks, and some excavators. So it's $8 million. It's not $8 million every year. It's $8 million. So -- but it's going to cost money to run it. It's $2 million to run it. (Applause.) MR. HOOLEY: You know, you guys have taken a million-and-a-half dollars out of the fund. You need $2 million to run the new equipment, and if you want the new equipment, I'll write you September 6, 2018 Page 28 my check for $190 now. Just don't come to me next year and ask for another $190. That's just not fair. Okay. (Applause.) MR. HOOLEY: Now, this idea of calling it a utility is just to convince us that we need to do that. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Your three minutes are up, sir. MR. HOOLEY: Oh. I've got more stuff. I've got a CDD. You're already charging me. Can somebody give me some time? Somebody's going to give me another three minutes. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: One second. One second, sir. Mr. Troy? MR. MILLER: I would be hard pressed to sort through 85 of these slips to find a name of someone who wants to shout out their name for me to give it to him, but I will. MS. MILES: Kim Miles. MR. MILLER: Kim. I'm sorry? MS. MILES: Kim Miles. MR. MILLER: Miles, okay. MR. OCHS: Mr. Miller? Let -- the Chairman will decide what he wants to do. MR. MILLER: Okay. How do you want to proceed? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Are you okay with that if that lady gives up her three minutes? COMMISSIONER FIALA: There's another gentleman over there, too. MR. FLEURIMA: I give him my three minutes. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: What's your name, sir? MR. FLEURIMA: Patrick Fleurima. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Patrick Fleurima. MR. MILLER: And Kim Miles. September 6, 2018 Page 29 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: When you get to those names -- you are now bequeathed an additional six minutes, sir. (Applause.) MR. HOOLEY: Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So this is not a utility. Everybody in this audience and everybody up on the Board knows what a utility is. A utility is what I pay for water and sewer. It's what I pay for my electricity. It's what I pay for my cable. It benefits my property. Of course, they're coming up and saying, oh, the stormwater benefits your property, but I'm going to show you later that it, in fact, doesn't. Okay. So what do we have for stormwater? Well, we have -- we have your ordinance. I can't remember the name -- number of it, but I'm going to tell you what I think it says. What it says is that at some point rainfall equals runoff. Of course, it says, you know, not impermeable surfaces. But we all live here, so we know that whether it's permeable or impermeable, it gets water logged. You know, Andrew, the no-named storm Gordon, you're going to have runoff, and you're going to have runoff from everywhere. But you're only charging people with improved property, not somebody who has a lot, an empty lot, okay. So that's a problem. Then you're not assessing agricultural land. Now, the letter that I got says that, you know, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's national pollution discharge elimination system by stormwater requires us to do this. And everybody who knows U.S. Sugar knows that the agricultural runoff has fertilizer, fungicides, and pest control running off, and we're not doing anything about that, and we're not charging them anything. So that's just not fair. And that's really what this is all about. So it's fundamentally unfair to the people of Collier County, and it's been in the General September 6, 2018 Page 30 Fund because that's where it belongs, because everybody uses the roads. Now I'm going to get a little personal. Many of these people probably live in CDDs. I'm running for a CDD just to take charge of it. But here's the deal. My CDD, I'm being charged for the actual capital expenditures to maintain the stormwater. I'm being charged for the maintenance for the stormwater. My development is surrounded by preserve areas that can probably run about two or three feet of water. In addition, we've all got lakes for the runoffs. We don't discharge anything. And what the county is going to do so graciously for me and the people who live in my CDD is they're going to give me a 25 percent reduction. I just -- you know, come on. Really? That's just unbelievable, because we're not really part of the problem. So we have less impact than vacant land. So this is a scheme to raise money for the county. Now, I've looked at the capital projects, and you've got some capital projects. Those capital projects aren't going to go in next week. That's $12 million. So if you take the capital projects out, you've got $6 million but, you know, you've got $10 million annually that you apply to this. So I just don't see it as anything more than raising money and figuring out what to do with it after you get it. And I know that if it passes, I'm going to get the same charge in 2019 -- I mean, in 2020 and 2021. So if you've got a capital project -- and I've talked to stormwater -- it benefits a certain parcel of property. And so like I'm being taxed for my CDD, there should be a special assessment, a one-time special assessment to run those capital projects. And, by the way, this is the way it's been done historically, historically in Collier County. And now we're going to put a whole new layer of government and we're September 6, 2018 Page 31 going to call it a utility when, in reality, it's a tax. And it's a tax that frees up $10 million for county general coffers. So I suggest that this is unfair to everybody. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, sir. (Applause.) MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Scott Baxter. He will be followed by Thomas Turner, who will be followed by, my mistake, Mary Morrissey, and then Marty Manion. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Mr. Baxter, wait one second. Commissioner Taylor has a question. You're all right. Commissioner Taylor has a question for the County Manager. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: County Manager Ochs, it's my understanding, because this is done according to state statute, we are prohibited by law to divert any money that comes from the stormwater utility fee to anything else but stormwater utility. MR. OCHS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: It is also my understanding that part of what we're doing is every year the budget is going to be reviewed and that we as a board are going to ascertain whether or not you spend that money wisely; is that correct? MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. MR. BAXTER: Good evening. Thank you for having us all in here. First of all, I'd like to at least turn in a single page. We decided to save a few trees and not print off the 2,680 signatures that we have on our petition. However, if you'd like to see it online. I don't know who I present that to. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It tipped over 2,500? Because I'd heard it wasn't quite there yet. MR. BAXTER: We're over 2,500. We were at 26- something a September 6, 2018 Page 32 little while ago. I don't know if I turn that in or what I do. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: To the court reporter. MR. BAXTER: That gentleman is a very hard act to follow. So I'm going to ignore a lot of the stuff that I was going to say, because he covered it much better than I ever possibly could. Look, I'm up here primarily for my in-laws. My in-laws are 87 years old. My in-laws are on a fixed income. You guys are hitting them with a 30 percent increase in their taxes. Call it a fee. Call it whatever you want. It's a 30 percent increase in their taxes. It's a great way to -- a fee is a great thing to call it because you skirted right around the Save Our Homes initiative. Foomf, it went right on around that. Not only that, but I don't see anywhere in any of your plans -- you have a millage, as this gentleman just presented. You're already collecting money. You're going to collect that on top of this new fee, this new tax? So the totals that you guys are giving us really aren't adding up. The numbers that he has added into the amount you're already collecting come up to more than what you guys are saying you're going to collect. But back to the whole tax is inherently unfair to people who live in the Estates on a fixed income. It also discriminates against the people in the Estates and in rural sections of Collier County who are on large lots and have a driveway. We have to have a driveway to get to our house. We're getting penalized for that even though we don't discharge water into the swale. I don't know how many of you went out there after Irma and noticed that the yards had water. The swales were empty. Your swales work. I give you guys credit. Considering there's no maintenance been done on them since '05 that I know of, they work very well. But the yard is what holds the water in our area, and we're being taxed for holding water on our property. I consider that unfair, September 6, 2018 Page 33 and I would ask that the Board of Commissioners reconsider this entire fee, tax, whatever you-all want to call it. And, again, I bow to the gentleman that was just here. That was a great speech. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Thomas Turner. He will be followed by Mary Morrissey, who will be followed by Marty Manion and then Karen Fleurima. MR. TURNER: Thanks for having this hearing this evening, and I appreciate it. I'm Thomas Turner. I've been here all my life. Born and raised here. I'm old enough to get Social Security, but I'm not getting it, so don't worry about it. I ain't going to take none out of the coffers. But I've seen every storm there is since the '50s. My family's been here since the early 1900s. Everybody has a cure for the water runoff. The only way you can cure the water runoff for Collier County is you put it at a 30-degree tilt from Bonita Beach Road and you dig it east and west thing -- you add 30 more feet 19 feet deep out to Golden Gate. I was here when they dug Golden Gate. It ruined the city bay. We used to have the prettiest water. I'd go down there and get clams and oysters out of Naples Bay. Can't do that no more. All the runoff comes from out there. And I've lived in Golden Gate, and I have a home in the Estates, considered the Estates, and my fee is $1,500 -- and I've got more than that; I own a lot of land -- for one house on four acres. But from what Mr. Saunders told me, it's all going to be only $190 max. It don't matter if you get 100 acres or 50 acres. That's my understanding. Is that right, Burt? That's what you told me. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That is my understanding. September 6, 2018 Page 34 MR. TURNER: $190 is all it's going to be. It don't matter how much concrete you've got out there. If you've got a garage out there and you're working on your motorcycles, your airboat, you've got 5,000 square feet of that, it's still $190 on one single residence; is that right? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That's correct. That's what I understand. MR. TURNER: Because I'm going to make sure we're all talking about the same program. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Mr. Ochs -- MR. TURNER: My land has four acres. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Hang on a second. Hang on a second. Let me answer -- at least answer that. MR. TURNER: Okay. I don't want to lose my time. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That's my understanding. I think Mr. Ochs has indicated in the affirmative at this point. We may be dealing with this fee, it may even be lower than that. But right now -- MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. As proposed, the maximum annual fee that any single-family residential property owner will pay is $192 maximum. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Whether it's 10 acres, four acres? MR. TURNER: And you've got a garage on it and you've got a horse barn out there, whatever's on that property, you're only going to pay $190. Is that my understanding? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That's correct. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: 92 -- 192. MR. OCHS: Max. MR. TURNER: Max. Okay. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And it's per property. Tom? Tommy? It's per property. September 6, 2018 Page 35 MR. TURNER: Yes, I understand that. I own several of them, but that's just one of them. I just want to make sure we're all right -- because we get confused whenever it's not your money. So I just want to make sure what's my money I'm straightened out on what it is. But another thing that is, I think -- I would ask you-all to put it off for another year. Continue to work with Tim and the staff and figure out something for it. But there is no -- no real way to fix drainage unless you tilt it. And everything goes by the tidal. Ever since I've been a kid, the tide goes out. We'd have bad storms once or twice or maybe three times a year, and it'd run out in the Naples Bay and on out into the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico determines how the tide's going to go. I don't care what they say back here. The tide drops four to six feet and there's water up here, it's going to go down to the lowest point in the pond, and that's our pond. And it all drains to that pond. And it's all moving this direction, so it don't matter what we do. But I wish you would consider, though, because there's a lot of people that didn't budget this money in their budget. And it's slammed on them, and a lot of them didn't know that this was coming, and it's really going to hurt them because they're just coming off the storm. They don't have the finances that I have to do it. A lot of them are already suffering from the last year's deal and just getting above the grade. I'd just ask that you would -- you'd be -- think it twice before we went forward with giving the bills out, and then that would give people a chance to adjust their -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, Tommy. MR. TURNER: -- thing. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, Tommy. MR. TURNER: Thank you. September 6, 2018 Page 36 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Appreciate it. (Applause.) MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Mary Morrissey. She'll be followed by Marty Manion, who will be followed by Karen Fleurima and then Tim Kragh. MS. MORRISSEY: Good evening, Commissioners. I'm here tonight to speak in support. I think I'm alone. As a member of a family with well-established roots in Collier County for the last 45 years, I witnessed the growth and ever-changing impact development has on our water displacement, the reduction of impervious land. In the '80s the commissioners funded and created a collection system for treated wastewater to be stored in tanks for distribution to the golf courses, landscape medians. This became an environmental model for the rest of the county -- country. In the '90s and early 2000s, the Commissioners floated bonds to accelerate road improvements. No one comes to Naples and doesn't point out the landscape and how beautiful it is. These projects were well thought out and very forward thinking and took a good deal of political courage by the commissioners. We continue to reap the benefits of their actions. We must, once again, look to the future and the environmental catastrophe we're facing -- Naples does not go unaddressed or linger any further. Our aging infrastructure and weirs, swales, aging pipes must be addressed, as a utility tax is an answer. We're currently reactive in approach and Bandaid these issues, and it doesn't support long-term fixes. We have heard the term penny wise pound foolish. Here we're living examples. No pun intended, Commissioner. Most of the seasonal residents are unaware of the failed September 6, 2018 Page 37 infrastructure as they're not here in the summer to see it first hand. Insurance costs have risen year over year. In my community we've had water intrusion during different times of the year. Fifteen homes -- this is not a knee-jerk reaction to Irma and did not all take place during Irma. On July 3rd of this year we had four homes with water intrusion. One home was condemned because it flooded twice. Property values will decline. Taxes will go up. People will not come to our once beautiful community. Tourism is responsible for thirty-six five thousand (sic) jobs with 1.8 million visitors. Why would they travel and pay a premium when the older historic neighborhoods are in disrepair and dilapidated and possibly abandoned due to cost of rebuilding? The argument of newer developments, why should they be taxed? We have better drainage. My answer to that is we're one community with one common goal in keeping stormwater managed. It is a problem for all of us. The monies will ensure the future and studies that need to be conducted and long-term fixes. Global warming, call it what you may, it's only a matter of time because we're all affected. No matter a $30 million home or a $300,000 home. So, Commissioners, I implore you to pass and follow the footsteps of the past and push ahead as a model for other communities nationwide. Pass this tax, amended or not, you find a better way for our futures. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Listen, ladies and gentlemen. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. I will not tolerate -- ma'am? Ma'am? Yes. I will not tolerate that. Please. Show respect. Ma'am, you're not allowed -- you're not allowed to instigate it either. Please. You showed respect for those that have a different opinion than you, and I expect everyone in this room to do the same thing. September 6, 2018 Page 38 Understand? Okay. Thank you, ma'am. MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, your next speaker is Marty Manion. He'll be followed by Karen Fleurima, who will be followed by Tim Kragh, and then David Ling. MR. MANION: Good evening. My name is Marty Manion, and I'm the CEO of the Naples Area Board of Realtors. Since the new bills began landing in mailboxes, my government affairs department has been ground zero for disgruntled members who are among the thousands of Collier citizens who felt rocked when they opened their bill. These members came to us because they want to feel as though their voices are heard, their dollars are respected, and the rules are applied equally to everyone in the county regardless of where they live. I want to point out an issue that many have pointed out with the 25 percent blanket credit. It only applies to residential homes. The commercial properties are not included in these solutions. And, furthermore, there is still a level of uncertainty on the methodology of the credits. Commercial properties have the largest impervious area, and that means we'll be paying a hefty increase, and we're not fully addressed in this equation. Why does it matter to us? It matters because we represent the industry as a whole, residential and commercial, and we want to do everything in our power to ensure that everyone is getting treated fairly. We have very strict standards at our board on the allocation of dollars and absolute formulas that get us there. I want to ensure that the county is taking the same care with the dollars of our industry and our members. Anytime property taxes are increased in any significant and September 6, 2018 Page 39 proportional way, NABOR will take an interest. There's no denial that money needs to be applied to these solutions. The issue is the murky methodology. I would also urge you to consider a 12-month deferral on the water surtax. In our world "we did this right" is far more important than "we started on time." Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Karen Fleurima. She'll be followed by Tim Kragh, who will be followed David Ling, and then Joseph Schmitt. Go ahead, ma'am. MS. FLEURIMA: My name is Karen Fleurima. I'm a fairly new resident here, about a year and a half now. And since I've been here -- I do love this place. It's beautiful, and I fully expect that I have to pay more taxes here -- to live here than somewhere; however, since we've been here, we've noticed a lot of development going on, et cetera, and just to point out that, like, in 2016, the person who owned the property that I live in now, we're paying double what they were in taxes. So that money should -- with all the new people coming in, et cetera, that should be able to help the fund without adding an additional fee. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Tim Kragh. He will be followed by David Ling, who would be followed by Joseph Schmitt, and then James Lamboy. MR. KRAGH: Good evening. My name's Tim Kragh. I'm the general manager at Forest Glen Golf and Country Club. I've been in my position for 10 years. One of my huge tasks at the club is to manage the water at Forest Glen. If we don't manage our water -- and you wonder what that's all about -- well, if the weir out front is open and we drain out before the September 6, 2018 Page 40 rainy season's over with, then we're walking across our ponds to play golf, and that's no fun. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You do lose as many balls. MR. KRAGH: Yeah, right. You don't lose as many balls. So we have the exact opposite problem at Forest Glen Golf and Country Club. Our members, when they purchase, they purchase it from the developer. That infrastructure and that pond and storm drainage system was already put in. During our tropical storm just this last weekend, I checked the weir, and we're closed. And our system is still not full, believe it or not. Last year during the hurricane, we maybe flowed of out of our community for maybe two days at a trickle. The interesting part there is that Forest Glen, when it flows out, it goes into Henderson Creek Canal, which is South Florida Water Management, and it trickles down into Rookery Bay. That's not the county. Forest Glen would like to be exempt from this tax. Forest Glen looks to be taxed $40,000 as an entire community on an annual basis. So our 1,500 voting members that I represent would absolutely be opposed to this. That's all I have. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is David Ling. He will be followed by Joseph Schmitt, and then James Lamboy followed by Steve Harrison. MR. LING: My name is David Ling. I'm the President of Forest Glen Golf and Country Club. Tim is our general manager. One of the things that he didn't address is the amount of money that Forest Glen residents put into maintaining not only the water management ponds, but the water quality and the pond banks. We have invested ourselves over $100,000 of our own money to put aerators in all 19 of those ponds on our property. We have invested thousands September 6, 2018 Page 41 more dollars to plant aquatic littorals alongside the banks to make sure that the runoff doesn't leach chemicals into the water that could flow -- possibly flow into Rookery Bay. We are completely self-contained. We have thousands of dollars every year that goes into reserves to maintain our stormwater runoff system. So, again, as Tim was requesting, we request to be exempt because we do not contribute to the issue within Collier County. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Joseph Schmitt. He has been ceded three minutes from Terry Cole. Now, I know Terry was on five. Has Terry Cole had a chance to make it down here? MR. SCHMITT: Terry's upstairs. MR. MILLER: He's on his way down. Okay. So that will be six minutes for Mr. Schmitt. COMMISSIONER FIALA: There he is. MR. MILLER: Thank you, sir. Mr. Schmitt will be followed by James Lamboy, then Steve Harrison, and then Phil Fitzpatrick. MR. SCHMITT: Can I ask to have the presentation... Good evening, Commissioners. Just for the record, I do have an undergraduate degree in engineering and a graduate degree in engineering. I'm a retired army colonel and former District Commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I do have a little experience in flood control, coastal management, and in issuing permits and understanding the permitting process. I serve as an independent consultant advising clients through the federal permitting process. I'm going to discuss today, of course, our fee, and I want to make sure I hit this right. Which one do I hit to advance it? There you go. All right. I have no problem with this fee, and I fully understand September 6, 2018 Page 42 the need for -- at least understand the need for the requirement to fund the improvements. My real concern, though, is only one criteria used, and that was the sole criteria that was a ratio -- or that was impervious surface. Why not a ratio of impervious to pervious surface and understanding how that would work? Now, I'm going to focus on Fiddler's Creek. I'm a resident of Fiddler's Creek, live at 7629 Mulberry Lane, Fiddler's Creek. There is no stormwater that goes into the county-maintained systems from Fiddler's Creek. They do not have any operational maintenance requirements associated with Fiddler's Creek. We paid for and funded our stormwater management fee, and we handle all of the runoff. In fact, we handle runoff from other areas of the county. I'm going to give you an example in the CDD. In the CDD -- this is what I've paid. I live in Mulberry Row. I pay, basically, $1,850 a year in O&M costs. And that pays for other operational and maintenance requirements within the CDD, but it also pays for the management of the stormwater fee. I've also paid, for the last 16 years, approximately $2,600 in paying off debt services for CDD bonds to pay for the construction of the stormwater management fee plus the infrastructure in Fiddler's Creek. So we have paid for our stormwater management. The stormwater management fee in Fiddler's Creek is owned and operated by the Fiddler's Creek CDD. I'm a supervisor on CDD1. We collect an amount of almost -- over a half a million dollars for our 2018 and '19 O&M services, and part of that pays for all our stormwater and stormwater management. Our community is fully approved, certified, and permitted through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and in the South Florida Water Management District; meets all the 404 and 401 requirements, Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, Section 401 of the Clean Water September 6, 2018 Page 43 Act imposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in concert with the South Florida Water Management District. We also meet all the requirements of the South Florida Water Management District permitting process. Bottom line, the entire development of Fiddler's Creek flows into what we call the marsh enhancement buffer system. That was developed in concert with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' permitting process to handle the runoff, and I'm going to show you in a couple series of maps of how that runoff is handled through Fiddler's Creek. No runoff, again, is impacted on the county management system. The water flows from Fiddler's Creek and flows through Fiddler's Creek. And just so folks understand, we have two CCDs, CDD1 and 2, and we call these Eastern Collier County, Southern Collier County. The water management -- actually, we have water management flows -- this is outside of the creek, the water flows -- and I'll show you on the Collier County website as well. The water flows up 41 and down 41, flows through, and we actually handle stormwater runoff through our Fiddler's Creek, and then it goes all the way down in through the marsh enhancement buffer system. This is an example of how the water actually flows through and handles down through Fiddler's Creek. Bottom line, we deal with our own stormwater, and we manage our own stormwater process. In 2004 when I was your community development services administrator, I signed a memo that went to the state to comply with the requirements of Florida law. These are the communities that are identified as handling secondary providers of stormwater in the county. I would ask of Stantec, look at this and include this in their analysis. I think they have to go back and look at the analysis and look at how these communities deal with stormwater. Fiddler's Creek 1 and 2 handle stormwater, plus all the other September 6, 2018 Page 44 communities that are listed here. They are funded and supported and handle their stormwater, yet you're telling me I get a 50 percent fee reduction. It says, basically, I have to prove -- and my question is, do I do it individually, or do we do it by the entire county? A 50 percent -- if I can prove that we send water through a management system and with no impact, I believe, on the Collier County system, and then send it into Rookery Bay, which we do, but that's a 50 percent fee. The interesting piece, though, is you're telling me that I have to pay another 15 percent because I travel on county roads, and I have to pay for the stormwater that's handled through the rest of the county. Now, I've paid for it by my community. We manage it through the community. The CDD, we manage it, but I have to pay for an additional fee, which is really a tax, to allow me to travel on the county roads, which I pay other taxes to do that. I didn't know I now have to pay a stormwater fee to pay for a tax to drive on county roads. As noted, is it a 50 percent or 25 percent? Are the communities that have state and federal permitting -- which most of the communities do here since the mid '80s, through the federal permitting process and through state permitting process, meet the requirements -- do they get a 25 percent fee, or they get a 50 percent fee? Is it done individually? Is it done as a community? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Is that his six minutes? MR. SCHMITT: Yes. MR. MILLER: Yes, sir. MR. SCHMITT: And I'm going to go back, just in conclusion, I'm going to say the system was constructed and fundamentally paid for by the CDD -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And we see the big, red letters. MR. SCHMITT: -- and is it a tax or is it a fee? I'm glad to -- I'll be glad to pay a tax. September 6, 2018 Page 45 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. Thank you for your time, Joe. MR. SCHMITT: Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is James Lamboy. He'll be followed by Steve Harrison, then Phil Fitzpatrick, and Ted Nering. MR. LAMBOY: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and audience. Thank you for letting me speak. Good governance should include clear goals and accountability. This proposal, your August proposal, had a rough start this past month because you inadvertently took a very desirable goal and weaponized it in its impact on the Golden Gate Estates area. Now, the staff has done a lot to fix a number of these problems, and I think they've done a great job up to this point. But I do think you need more time. You should take that time and fix the rest of the problems within the system. All right. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes, sir. MR. LAMBOY: That's all I have to say. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you very much. MR. LAMBOY: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And it is well received if you don't burn your entire three minutes. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Steve Harrison. He'll be followed by Phil Fitzpatrick. He'll be followed by Ted Nering and then Arlene Fitzpatrick. MR. HARRISON: I'm a bean counter, a CPA. I'm known by most of the people up here as a result as serving for eight years on the county's Productivity Committee where I was chairman for three years. So I look at this not from a standpoint of questioning the need for some improvements, but I'm going to make some accounting points for you. As it was pointed out earlier, we already have a millage rate. It's September 6, 2018 Page 46 been on the books forever. One of the tiresome things we CPAs do is read the financial statements of the county. And I chose the collections that have been going on that we saw earlier. So one might ask, where's the money been going? How much is left in the fund? What kinds of criteria are there for anything in there? If you also choose to go online, you can find the capital projects for stormwater as of 2017. It amounts to $6 million. And you heard that five-and-a-half million is being collected right now. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Mr. Chairman, could I ask the speaker to direct his comments to the Board here. MR. HARRISON: Sorry. Thank you, Burt. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: We're going to be making the decision, so if you could address us. MR. HARRISON: Okay, fine. So nobody's questioning that six million may be too little. Let's come to the accounting points. The millage rate is intended for maintenance, okay. So if we have maintenance projects separate from capital projects, we should preserve that distinction; things like the fire trucks or whatever. You understand, if we blur this line, we get into the spot of trying to fund things in two or three different places. So we need to be very clear in what's capital and what's maintenance. We should pay for maintenance through the millage rate, because that's what it was set up for. And if we have capital projects, of course, they should be documented and supportable by what's actually going to be the improvement. So I'm not arguing the need for fewer dollars, necessarily. I would also inject that we have a fairly large series of impact fees. Is any portion of the impact fee associated with stormwater? Because that could be like a third source for funding this. So as we get into this, I think just -- we have to be very careful to September 6, 2018 Page 47 look at how we're going to do the bookkeeping and separate the items into the different funding sources. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, Steven. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Phil Fitzpatrick. He'll be followed by Ted Nering, then Arlene Fitzpatrick, and Marilyn Czubkowski. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And when your name's called, please, if you could move forward. MR. MILLER: Is Mr. Fitzpatrick in the room, please? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: He's gone. MR. MILLER: Okay. He's not on the fifth floor, so he has left. Your next speaker is Ted Nering. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Gone. MR. MILLER: Mr. Nering has left. Your next speaker is Arlene Fitzpatrick. Is she in the room? Are you Arlene? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Gone. MR. MILLER: Marilyn Czubkowski. MS. CZHUBKOWSKI: I'm here. MR. MILLER: Thank you, ma'am. You will be followed by Leonard Crame, who will be followed by David Estes and then -- hold on a minute -- Steven Bracci. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Troy, if you would, please, be verifying that these people are, in fact, here that you've got coming up. MR. MILLER: I'm going to hold their names. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Please. MS. CZHUBKOWSKI: Thank you, Commissioners. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Ma'am, you can move that down. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: There you go. MS. CZHUBKOWSKI: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That's set up for tall guys. September 6, 2018 Page 48 MS. CZHUBKOWSKI: Okay. And I'm not tall. Okay. Speaking as a private citizen of Collier County and a supervisor of a CDD, I find the assessment to our development, Verona Walk, to be excessive. With 1,920 homes at $90 per household equates to $172,800 per year. The community of Verona Walk already pays $162.13 per household or $311,289 per year for operation and maintenance of our Verona Walk community development district. This is in addition to the $850 we pay per year for the debt. The community of Verona Walk project area is 754 acres with 40 lakes, retention ponds, with a total lake area of 115 acres. This is an email that was sent out by our chair of our CDD. The stormwater management system for Verona Walk as designed and approved by the county and constructed is a system that is part of a larger stormwater system that extends to the area south of us and operates as part of a larger system, and the area to the south of us is a preserve. We are interconnected to this off-site area by three control structures on the south edge of Verona Walk. These controlled structures are passive systems operating solely by gravity. The control structures are designed to pass captive stormwater between Verona Walk and the area to the south. As acting chair of the CDD, I have been monitoring these control structures for about four years and have witnessed only one time when the water left Verona Walk, but we intake water on a regular basis. And right now we've been accepting water for over four weeks. So it would be correct to state that Verona Walk stormwater almost never leaves the Verona Walk area. The way captured stormwater leaves the Verona Walk lakes is by pumping water; 2.5 million is used for irrigation, evaporation, and water entering the upper aquifer. September 6, 2018 Page 49 I question why we are being charged or given only a 20 percent credit. We are respectful of our environment. We keep 100 percent of our water on our property. I have some other questions, which I am going to exceed my time, but I will give my minutes to the person here. Thank you very much. I would like my questions answered, though, that I've written. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We'd be happy to answer your questions. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Leonard Crame. He'll be followed by David Estes, then Steven Bracci and then Sandra Reish. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We're going to take a minute at the hour-and-a-half mark, correct, for our stenographers, for a finger rest. So we'll do two more speakers, and then we'll take a break. MR. CRAME: Okay. My name is Leonard Crame, and I am a retired environmental engineer with a Texas professional engineer license. I built a home in 19 -- or 2005/2006 at 771 29th Street Southwest in Golden Gate Estates. Stormwater is good for Golden Gate Estates. It keeps our groundwater and the water wells recharged, helps prevent brushfires, and promotes a healthy environmental for flora and fauna. The best strategy for Collier County is not to move stormwater unless it's a local threat to our health and safety. In 12 years, I do not believe I have discharged any stormwater to Collier County other than what falls along the narrow easement in the front of my property. My stormwater runoff flows toward the rear of my property, around my house and barn into a shallow retention basin that originated as an approved dirt borrow pit for building up my barn foundation. In addition, I have about 150 native bald cypress and palm trees that absorb a lot of water. September 6, 2018 Page 50 Collier County does not need a large pool of money for undefined stormwater improvements to meet the intent of state and federal regulations. Stormwater utility fees can only be used for stormwater management and not to bail out other county debts. More time is needed to truly assess stormwater needs and then work backwards to determine the appropriate amount and method of funding. A few culverts under 25th through 31st Street Southwest along the north side of White Boulevard would go a long way. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Wouldn't it. MR. CRAME: Calculating stormwater runoff based on impervious areas with no permanent retention credits is wrong for large properties such as those in Golden Gate Estates. I have 2.81 acres with 4.31 calculated ERUs, yet my impervious area is only 13.7 percent of my property. I encourage Collier County to go in with a simple low-cost flat-rate fee that minimizes movement of stormwater in Golden Gate Estates residential areas. The latest proposed $192 per year maximum fee is a step in the right direction. A further study is required to really define this accurately. For this reason I believe Collier County should defer approval of any additional stormwater fees until more information's available. Remember, the county has a millage rate for stormwater in our annual property taxes. Thank you for letting me express my view on this issue. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is David Estes, and then after the break, Steven Bracci, Sandra Reish, and then Larry McKenney. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That will be a 10-minute break, ladies? You good with that? MR. ESTES: Thank you, Commissioners. I promise I won't use all of my three minutes. I'll be brief. This proposal is the epitome of what we all hate about government. It's a fee or a tax that's being imposed upon the citizens September 6, 2018 Page 51 where -- that is riddled with errors and all kinds of things that have not been considered yet. So what I would encourage the Board to do is defer this for a year so that there can be more studies done and more calculations done so that when this does roll out again in a year everybody can be comfortable with it. That's all I have. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, David. And we will take a 10-minute break; be back at 6:38. (A brief recess was had.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: All right, ladies and gentlemen. County Manager, does the chair have a live mic? MR. OCHS: You have a live mic, Mr. Chair. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: There we go. How about that. If everybody would take their seats, please. Keep your cell phones on silent. And did you have something to say? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I wondered if we should -- the people that are in other rooms, maybe they should come down now there's the extra seats. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We could invite that. If there is somebody in one of our spare rooms and they wish to come in, there has been a few seats vacated. So, Mr. Bracci. MR. BRACCI: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Steve Bracci. He'll be followed by Sandra Reish, then Larry McKenney, then Marty Durham. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. MR. BRACCI: Thank you. Steve Bracci, for the record. I think at the beginning of the presentation there was a discussion, and I just asked Mr. Hancock for clarification, about if the definition of impervious is being changed under the resolution that you guys passed in 2018. He informed me that, no, that's not the case. Apparently, September 6, 2018 Page 52 rather, they're just tinkering with the GIS layer on the Property Appraiser's website. I then asked the question is -- whether pervious -- I'm sorry -- whether pavers over sand were considered pervious or impervious, because he's saying that pavers -- unpaved areas would be considered -- would be considered -- or paved areas would be considered impervious. Unpaved areas would be considered pervious. So the question, then, is what about a paver over sand? And so he said that pavers over sand would be considered impervious. And I want to argue that that's unfair, and I'm going to -- I'd like to put this -- hopefully this will work without flipping it around in different directions. Can I put this here? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: If we can get it to work, yes, sir. There you go. MR. BRACCI: All right. Can you hear me from here? I'm pretty loud anyway. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: No, you have to be at the microphone, Steven. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Wait. We have a mike. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: If the batteries are working. MR. BRACCI: So this is your Land Development Code, 6.05.03, titled stormwater -- let me see if I can do it the right way. "Stormwater plans for single-family dwelling units," okay. And in it, it defines impervious area, and then it says at the end here, "and additionally the term 'pervious area' shall include grass, crushed stone, mulch, pavers without lime rock base, and unlined pond area." So what I'm hearing is that when I built my house, or when my house was built in 2003, and we complied with the Land Development Code for stormwater plans for a single-family dwelling, our paver driveway on top of sand was considered pervious but now when it September 6, 2018 Page 53 comes time to tax us for stormwater, we're going to expand the definition to have my driveway suddenly flip to impervious. That's a little bit of bait and switch, isn't it? I don't think that that's quite very fair. I mean, so we, as citizens, could have been well-intentioned in the front end, and we're going to get it in the back end. And, you know, if -- you know -- anyway. The -- if there's -- if there's a lesson -- beyond that, you know, the lesson -- if the county can pick up on anything today, you'd realize that -- I mean, this is the canary in the coal mine, guys. I mean, you had 80 percent to 20 rejection of the last assessment for fire. Now you have all these people out here today. I think you need to consider that the natives are a little bit restless on this. But I'd like that pervious thing looked at, please. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Absolutely. Appreciate that, Steven. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Sandra Reish. She'll be followed by Larry McKenney, Marty Durham, and then Mel Thompson. MS. REISH: Good evening, everybody. I'm just a single person not talking about a community, but my own private house. I live in the Pine Ridge area. We have a 30-foot-wide drainage ditch. That's the back of my property. That's my land that I'm paying tax on. Across the south end of our property you see the survey, which is -- if you want to put this in, I don't care one way or the other. Okay. That's the survey showing you where the property -- see it on the top with the X's? That's where it's going across our property. It has been widened over the years by the City of Naples to 35 feet. When we moved in, it was only 30 feet. That's all that's mentioned there. Every time they come through, they make it a little big wider. When the water accumulates over the property, it did not flow into the street. It stayed on our property, and it was absorbed by the September 6, 2018 Page 54 land in our front yard. Here is another picture. Okay. That's our front yard. It's not in the street. It's in the -- it's took a week to go away, but it did go away. We pay property taxes on the whole property, but we do not have use of all the property. We would be paying double for the ditch if we were accessed (sic) for sewage use. They're charging us $393 from 2018 to 2019. Not the -- I think you mentioned 120. I've got the bill right here. It's $393. Okay. In close is a picture of the ditch and how the water stays on our property. We should not be billed $393.60. We should be paying -- you should be paying us for the use of our property for water drainage and the use of storage and water. Okay. That's all I have to say. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: There you go. (Applause.) MS. REISH: I'm glad I got a laugh out of everybody. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Larry McKenney. He'll be followed by Marty Durham, Jacob Winge, and then Justin Narine. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Jacob left. MR. McKENNEY: I'd just like to say, she just stole my line, because I'm the better half of the person than owns the property. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Outstanding. MR. McKENNEY: And we are being charged for stormwater on the back half of the property in that ditch, cul-de-sac, or whatever you want to call it, and now if I'm understanding, the driveway is being -- going to be charged for impervious. That's going to be charged also. So I'm going to be double charged? Shake your head if that's correct. MR. OCHS: Is it paved or -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You know, we're -- sir, you have three minutes to express your opinion, and it's not a question-and-answer scenario. September 6, 2018 Page 55 So, I mean, your wife was kind enough to bring a survey and show us pictures, and you're asking me to commit to something. I'm not going there. MR. McKENNEY: Okay. Well, I'm just going to say the water stays on our property. It doesn't go down anywhere except in our property. We store water on our property. It drains through the whole subdivision, and it drains down through our property, and I think we should get a charge for that on our side, not on your side. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes, sir. Appreciate it. MR. McKENNEY: I think I'm leaving now. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Marty Durham. She'll be followed by Justin Narine, then Joyce Chesser, and Erik Ritz. MS. DURHAM: Good afternoon. I'm Marty Durham. I'm representing Seacrest school who is a 501-3(c) (sic) non-profit in East Naples. And our budgets are very lean. And although I do understand the need to repair aging infrastructure, we're in the same boat with our facilities. We also, however, do have a permitted and functioning modern surface water system -- management system, and it's on site, and we spent a lot of money building it, permitting it, designing it, and maintaining it. And it seems to me that an operating system is to your benefit and is worth a larger credit than what you're currently offering to business owners. Have you considered providing a larger credit for commercial property owners with functioning surface water monitoring management systems? Because I do understand that when the water runs off my property, you need to handle it, but I'm handling a good load of that prior to it running off my property, and I'm paying for that through the design build that we had to use through the county September 6, 2018 Page 56 permitting system. I have some discomfort with the fact that maintenance has been not handled at the county level in the General Fund. It seems to me that utilities is an expected function of county government, and the fact that it has not been funded properly on the maintenance side concerns me. So my suggestion was to do a single assessment for capital and then build the maintenance into the county budget where I think it belongs, not in the continuing assessment fee. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Justin Narine. He'll be followed by Joyce Chesser, Erik Ritz, and then Anthony Catera. MR. NARINE: Hi. My name is Justin Narine. I look around; I don't see many people that I see out in the Estates. I think I'm one of few people here that actually represent a demographic of the Estates. We usually work. We're home taking care of our families, so all of them aren't here. That's a frustrating part for me. I know I work all day, I go home, I work on my property. I actually mow my ditch. I live there. People that don't live there, somebody else comes and mows their ditch. I mean, just something to consider. I mean, I've worked 15 years in engineering and construction. I can defend my land. Like I -- the way you have it set up, I'll probably pay less. So this is a berm I have on my property. And because of what I do for a living I'm able to -- MR. OCHS: Sir, let me get you the portable mike. MR. NARINE: I'm able to, like, show -- like, really, you guys only manage 690 square feet of my impervious area, but in the Estates it kind of just sits there. It's not like in town where you have sheet and swale flow to the streets, you know. It sits on our lots. It goes in between. But as Tim said, there's that underflow water. So what really -- if mythology (sic) is an issue, maybe we should consider looking at September 6, 2018 Page 57 it from a different approach meaning ways to lower the water table. The lots that just sit there that -- I mean, if it's -- even if they paid $50 a year and you mowed it once a month, that's $4 a month to mow their ditch. I'd pay you $50 to come mow my ditch. I mean, serious, right? So if you can spread it over a little bit more of the people, you know, people that just have their land sitting, especially in the Estates. I'm only representing, you know, the Estates. You know, it's -- it's handled on our own lots. We just want the ditches clear. We want the canals to keep the water table low. We'll pay you. I think we'll all pay you to do the spraying. We'll pay you guys to mow the ditches, whatever that costs, and we'll spread it equally among everybody in our community. We're happy to do that. But I think that's a good thing to consider is not looking at it from an impervious standpoint, but look at it from a standpoint of we all use the same system, so what do we do to keep the water table low? So thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Joyce Chesser. She'll be followed by Erik Ritz, then Anthony Catera, and then Theresa Puglise, excuse me. MS. CHESSER: Hi. My name is Joyce Chesser. I've been in Naples since 1970. And I do live in the Estates, and I have two-and-three-quarter acres. And the only time I have ever seen any water at all on my property was during Irma, and it went down after two days. It was gone. But I learned a lot from everybody here. The most important thing I learned is that you are not ready for this. You are not ready; no. Even the man that spoke that -- this man over here, he didn't even have anything for the commercial; he couldn't present. So I'm for letting it go for a year and do a proper study. Thank September 6, 2018 Page 58 you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Eric Ritz. He'll be followed by Anthony Catera, Theresa Puglise, and then Henry Creasy. MR. RITZ: Good evening, County Commissioners and esteemed Golden Gate neighbors, and Naples neighbors. I came here today not as a bean counter like I've heard or an engineer or maybe representing a huge community that's gated. I came here today to represent the families of Golden Gate, the people that -- like this young man said that was just up here -- work for a living. Can't be here to speak. Maybe they're putting their pennies together to pay their light bill. And so I wanted to come here today to tell you that what this tax is going to do to those people is devastating. Now, you may not think that. You may think that, well, really it's only $120 or, $190 or $72 I've seen; I've seen all kinds of numbers. But to them that represents whether or not they can eat a good meal or whether or not they can pay their light bill at the end of the month. So I think this something that people that make 80-, $90,000, $100,000 a year need to think about, because not everybody makes that kind of money. I talked to a guy -- I stopped for gasoline today, and I was talking to a guy about it at the gas station. And he says he's got four rental houses. And he says, awe, I'm just going to charge the people more rent. And when I listened to that, I thought, well, you know, I know a lot of people that pay rent that can't afford to pay more rent. And I think these are things that you guys need to take into consideration, because it's not just about getting money for the county. It's about possibly people not being able to eat or pay their bills. Possibly people having to move out of Collier County like I've seen happen in the last 10, 15 years because they can't afford to live here. I mean, the bottom line here is, are we representing the people September 6, 2018 Page 59 that live here properly or aren't we? And it's not necessarily about the people that can afford it. It's sometimes about the people that can't. And so that's what I'm bringing to the table today. I've been here most of my life, and my property -- I've seen my property flood twice. I built the house in 1992. Both times it was during a hurricane. The culvert out front never floods. We have, you know, great canals that exit the water out of our area there. So, in closing, I'd just like you to think a little bit about the little guy, and that's why I'm here today. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, sir. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Anthony Catera. He'll be followed by Theresa Puglise, Henry Creasy, and then Ed Moulten. It's looking like some of these aren't here. I'm trying to pull the ones out, Mr. Chairman, that I know have dropped. It's just we have to call them to check. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Right. MR. MILLER: No Mr. Catera. Is there a Ms. Theresa Puglise? (No response.) MR. MILLER: Henry Creasy? He will be followed by Ed Moulten, and then Roger Williams. MR. CREASY: I live on 27 -- 2.71 acres in Golden Gate Estates. I build a new house and -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Sir, what's your name? MR. CREASY: Henry Creasy. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: How do you do, Henry? MR. CREASY: I came here to ask you up there to scuttle this whole tax plan, and all I'm hearing is deferring it for 12 months. I think deferring it would be the proper thing to do in that on my lot alone, I went to the website, looked it up, and my driveway is three times the length that it actually is. Now, Collier County normally has accurate records. Nothing September 6, 2018 Page 60 wrong with -- everything I've ever seen are accurate, but in this case the map shows my driveway going around the side of my house and a big parking lot over my septic area, which actually is grass. It also shows my driveway parallel in the street that I front on. So a lot of inaccuracies, and that would play into deferring this thing for 12 months. But, actually, I'm here to ask you to scuttle it and just continue paying for the maintenance of stormwater drainage out of the General Fund. You've got a project across from Home Depot on Pine Ridge Road that -- my mother-in-law lives over there. And I've been going through there maybe 15 years or more, and it's always flooded. And now the county has seen fit -- I'm assuming the county is doing the job. It's nice seeing some action that maybe that will be corrected. But the truth of the matter is it's bound to have been going on for 25 or 30 years, and now all of a sudden we've got this big rush to clean up all the storm drainage problems like right now. And I think that if you do $8 million a year -- I've heard the figure $8 million -- do 8 million a year, take it out of the General Fund, that would be what I would ask you-all to approve. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, sir. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Ed Moulten. He'll be followed by Roger Williams, Freddie Brantley, and then Susan O'Brien. MR. MOULTEN: Good evening. Ed Moulten. I've been a resident in Collier County since '72. Seen a lot of storms down on Marco and my current residence up north of Pine Ridge in the Vineyards. Vineyards just turned over from the developer to a homeowners association master group that's trying to manage kind of what we've inherited. September 6, 2018 Page 61 And we're learning as we go. There's been a lot of infrastructure we're finding ourselves having to pay for ourselves to repair, and that's our part of the deal, because our water does flow into the I-75 canal going south. From what I'm learning tonight, it's been a pretty good education. It seems the general tone, you know, is just get rid of it, stop it, don't go any further, but we can't do that. We've got to move forward. You've got to do something, because the next Irma, you know, could be worse. Houston last year had three or four times the rain we had. We'd have water not to this floor level, but probably halfway up, you know, your first floor, you know, if we had that amount of rain here in the same amount of time. So we've got to do something. I think we all acknowledge that. It sounds to be it's a public education issue, better communication with the citizens and the taxpayers, the constituents, et cetera. But something's got to be done. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Roger Williams. He'll be followed by Freddie Brantley, Lawrence Gates, and then Kim Francisco. MR. WILLIAMS: How do I get the -- MR. MILLER: Podium computer. One second, sir. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes. My name is Roger Williams. I'm a retired federal government employee. I worked on projects of this size and even bigger for 25 years all over the world. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Make sure you speak into the microphone, sir. MR. WILLIAMS: Do I get that time again, or do you have that? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That's perfect. MR. WILLIAMS: Okay. Anyway, I'd like to comment that September 6, 2018 Page 62 Golden Gate Estates works well because it was designed well and it was implemented well. I lived here at the time that was done. It drains extremely well. There's a lot of things -- MR. MILLER: If I can interrupt you, Roger, just a second. Yeah, he has a different PowerPoint that needs to be loaded up. MR. WILLIAMS: Where are my -- MR. MILLER: One second. I paused your timer. MR. WILLIAMS: You better start it all over again. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Very protective of their three minutes. MR. WILLIAMS: Okay. Good. Project Management 101. I don't need to preach to these guys back here. They know what to do. The first thing you do is identify the requirements, you determine how to do it, implement it, determine what the cost will be, get the end user's approval, and then you go get the money. This project starts out by going out and getting the money. That's not the way to do a project. Okay. I've heard numbers like 21-and-a-half million now, 10 million, maybe, could be five million, some money taken out of the General Fund. South Florida Water District does this. So before we proceed on this, we need to make sure we've got our requirements straight, what we're going to do, and what we're going to -- what it's going to cost. And the other deal is the logistical tale for the future. Okay. There's no plan in sight. The only thing we see is a bill coming next month in our taxes. Okay. Let me see where I am on here. Numerous errors on the impervious calculations. I filed a request for consideration. I got an immediate response on the 28th -- 20th of last month, and I haven't heard a word from anybody at the project office. They -- I've also had an experience with the county through the September 6, 2018 Page 63 CRA doing a stormwater repair. I own a house about two blocks away here, it's on Bayside Street, that was built in 1938. It's been in the family. My wife is a sixth generation Naples resident. And it has never flooded. But the CRA comes along and puts in a -- do I have a pointer? CRA comes along, puts in a ditch out in front there. And I went to the meeting as they were planning it, and they were going to move the water to Haldeman Creek. I told them, hey, look, guys, the water does not drain that direction. It drains to the north end of Rock Creek. They assured me it flowed into Haldeman Creek. Well, by George, when they got through with it, it almost flowed into Haldeman Creek, and you can see the result here. There's -- water was never standing in that yard until they put that ditch in. And if you look at the first picture -- or, actually, it's the second picture down on the bottom, that hole, whatever it is they put in, is way above the point of entry, and the water now goes underneath the house. It doesn't get up into the house, but it probably will some day. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Sir, we did step on your time a minute. Can you wrap up in about 10 seconds? MR. WILLIAMS: I can wrap up in 10 seconds. I think you ought to put this on hold, think about what you're going to do, and don't make a mistake. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, sir. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Freddie Brantley. He'll be followed by Lawrence Gates, Kim Francisco, and Crystal Foster. Mr. Brantley, are you present? (No response.) MR. MILLER: Next up is Lawrence Gates. Mr. Gates? (No response.) MR. MILLER: Kim Francisco? (No response.) September 6, 2018 Page 64 MR. MILLER: Crystal Foster. Moving on. Oh, Crystal Foster. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Crystal Foster is on her way. Call out the -- while Crystal's coming up -- MR. MILLER: She'll be followed by Anthony Pires. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We know he's here. Or at least he was. Go ahead. MS. FOSTER: Hi. My name is Crystal Foster. I live on Marco Island, and I have two-and-a-half acres in 6L Farm area. This county does not do anything with our roads or our swales. It's ours as individual. I just put $3,000 in the swale area and redoing the pipes under my roads this year. Last year, we flooded three times. Yes, we had Irma. We had two feet of water. It stood out there for over two weeks. Thank God I had moved my horses, because they would have either been floating or drowned. I listen to everybody and I see all the points they're making. I'm hoping that you guys see that there are a lot of people here on all three floors, and each individual has their own situation. Right now I have half of my property is flooded just with the rain we've had. We've flooded twice this year. The storm in May we got about four or five inches. It stood there for a week, week and a half. Right now half of my property is flooded and my horses can't go on it. Because of the storms last year, we've lost over 40 trees, 30 of which we just took down two weeks ago. They've died. They've drowned. And as I said we, right now, have standing water. I go out there, I'm worried about snakes. I don't want a pond on my property, but I have a pond only because it's standing and hasn't drained. To open up in the mail and find out that we're going to be charged 190 something dollars after just putting $3,000 in and not getting any September 6, 2018 Page 65 response as far as any of the work being done out there -- we have an easement on the edge of our property. Am I going to be paying for that easement even though it's my property and it's a easement for LCEC to come out there and take care of their lines? Am I going to be paying the extra amount because of that whole 330 feet of easement? I don't think everything's been calculated correctly, and I think this really needs to be addressed before the fees are being charged to everybody. My well was contaminated last year. It took me three treatments to treat it because of the standing water and the flooding out in 6L Farm area. Nothing's ever done out there. So before I'm going to pay any kind of fee to you guys, I want some commitment that you're going to do something out there. I do have pictures, but I think my time -- I have pictures on my phone to show. I don't know if I can put it on here. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You can. You've got about 20 seconds, I think. I don't have the clock, so... MR. MILLER: Ten seconds, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And now your time is up. I appreciate you showing us those, ma'am. MS. FOSTER: Those are just from the storm that just came through. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yep. That was the last tropical storm. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Anthony Pires. He's been ceded three additional minutes from Zach Lombardo, who I just spoke to. He'll be followed by Jeff Bronsdon, Charles Kirk, and then Jason Lane. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Did we work out the issue there, sir? MR. PIRES: Yes, we did. Thank you. So I have six minutes. And thank you very much, Mr. Chairman September 6, 2018 Page 66 and Mr. Lombardo for ceding his three minutes. I'm here representing a number of individuals and parties, primarily community development districts. You've heard about the community development districts. I represent Fiddler's Creek Community Development District 1, Fiddler's Creek Community Development District 2, Pelican Marsh Community Development District, and Lely Community Development District. You'll hear a common theme from all those districts: They take care of their own water. Some of them even take county water, and we'll get into that in a little bit. But I think what's important and it's lost in here is I don't think Stantec did you-all any good, quite frankly. They did not look at the community development districts. They did not look at credits to the community development districts that treat Collier County stormwater. And the statute requires -- and the stormwater utility is defined, and Section 403.031(17) says, "'Stormwater utility' means the funding of a stormwater management program by assessing the cost of the program to the beneficiaries," the beneficiaries, "based on their relative contribution to its need." Let me -- Mr. Schmitt covered this extensively. Fiddler's Creek Community Development District 1, those two entities pay 550 -- the people there pay $555,000 a year to maintain their stormwater management system that takes water from north of 41 that are in Collier County canals. It comes down 41, comes south of 41 into the Fiddler's Creek system, through the Fiddler's Creek system where it's treated for water quality, and it's also stored, discharges into the state system. No direct discharge into any county system, yet the flawed plan that Stantec has provided says the maximum credit you get may be 50 percent. And only if you as an individual property owner come in. That's outrageous. You have thousands of people that live in these communities and September 6, 2018 Page 67 have paid into their community development districts that are treating county stormwater, and there's no credit given for that. I would submit that for Fiddler's Creek residents, they should pay nothing to the stormwater utility. I don't think it's fair and equitable under the scheme. Additionally, with regards to the water management issue, it's important to know that, again, none of the county stormwater -- none of the water runs in the county stormwater system. The Stantec report and the county's approaches, unfortunately, puts the burden on the property owner and person to ask for an exemption. They've flipped the burden. The burden should be on the county and Stantec to justify these fees. So I think it's inappropriate. Now, with regards to Pelican Marsh Community Development District -- I have my letters on file, and I appreciate you-all getting bombarded by all those. Pelican Marsh takes water from Vanderbilt Beach Road, from Pine Ridge, from Monterey, a huge basin, and they treat it, and they take it from U.S. 41. That water goes into the Pine Ridge Canal, it goes through Pelican Marsh. And guess who pays for that in the Pelican Marsh Pine Ridge Canal? The residents of Pelican Marsh pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Again, they are discharging a little bit into the county system but taking a ton of water from the county's systems. Lely Community Development District. The public roads in Lely are county roads. So for the county to say, gee, we're going to make sure everybody pays at least 50 percent to travel on county roads, the county is -- all their stormwater in Lely runs into the Lely CDD water management system paid for by guess who? The people who live in Lely Resort. That water then goes under 41 and travels a whole whopping 845 feet in a county canal. Then it goes through Eagle Creek, and the Eagle Creek people pay for its treatment until it discharges on Tower September 6, 2018 Page 68 Road. It's flawed. A credit should be provided to all those people. They should be exempt, all those CDDs, from paying any stormwater fees: Fiddler's Creek, Pelican Marsh, and Lely Community Development District. Also, you've received letters from various individual property owners who own property in Fiddler's Creek. The golf course, the club and spa, they pay their stormwater fees, their water management fees, to their CDD. Not a drop of water from the foundation's club and spa in Fiddler's Creek, from the sales center in Fiddler's Creek, from the golf club center in Fiddler's Creek hits the county system. The county doesn't take care of any of that. So I would submit to you that it is a flawed approach, and all those should be exempt from paying any of the stormwater management fee. And, again, I reiterate with regards to this process, the county has put the burden on the individual property owners. The burden should be on the county to have a system that is defined by statute. The cost of the program to be assessed to beneficiaries based on the relative contributions to its needs. So, in summation, I would suggest that this whole system be set aside and that if you don't set it aside because of its flaws, that as to the community development districts I mentioned, that they obtain a full credit in that the individual property owners don't have to spend hundreds of dollars to come to the county and ask for a credit of what, another 25 percent. That's flawed, and it's wrong. And I appreciate your consideration and your patience. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. MR. PIRES: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Jeff Bronsdon. He'll be followed by Charles Kirk, and then Jason Lane, and then Grady Johnson. September 6, 2018 Page 69 I would remind folks real quickly, if you're hearing your name and you're in an overflow room, make your way towards this chamber. Thank you. MR. BRONSDON: The whole plan's flawed. MR. MILLER: Can you state your name, sir. MR. BRONSDON: Jeff Bronsdon. It's poorly planned, poorly implemented. The first I heard of it was I got a letter from the county a couple weeks ago, and it irritates me. You know, we're not a money tree you can go out there and shake down every time you need money. County's got a problem with spending money, not getting money. Don't pick my pocket. If you can't plan properly, you can't maintain things properly, step down and let somebody come in and do it that can do it properly. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Charles Kirk. He'll be followed by Jason Lane, then Grady Johnson, and then Representative Bob Rommel. MR. KIRK: Mr. Chairman, my name is Charles Kirk. I'm a resident of Moon Lake Homeowners Association. About two years ago I was president of the association, and I looked at our lake system, the retention pond system and realized that it was in trouble and not really doing what it should be doing. Our shores were kind of eroded. We were not really retaining water like we should, and I thought we weren't really getting rid of high water when we should. So a little over a year ago I decided to go looking for our outfall. Our outfall happens to be right on the border of Davis Boulevard. When I went looking for the outfall, I found out that it was buried under about 2-foot dirt. So there was absolutely no way for I don't know how many years that Moon Lake contributed one drop of water to the county system September 6, 2018 Page 70 because it couldn't. It was underground. When I went to the county and asked them to please come up and remove the dirt which they had nicely planted on top of our outfall, the county told me they can't do that because that's a state highway. So I went to the state and the state said, no, we only go four feet from the road, and that's further away. That's the county. And the county said, no, that's the state. And I played this game back and forth for several weeks. The company that is handling the maintenance for the state somehow made a deal with the state prison association. They have prisoners that they work on the roads around, and they showed up and manually dug the ditch out so that we would have an outfall. It did prove effective in Irma, okay, although they really didn't dig it quite deep enough. So yours truly made it deeper so it would work. In the meantime now I have left presidency. I've left the board in Moon Lake; however, the board that's there presently has followed up. We are now going to incur something like $750,000 worth of repair to our four lakes. In this last storm, the water level came up to the point where it was going to the outfall. When I went there and looked, now there's enough fill in there that they've -- that our water's not running into the county anymore. So I'm saying this definitely needs to be looked at, number one, and, number two, use the money that's in the budget and do your work properly, okay, which is not being done. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Jason Lane. He'll be followed by Grady Johnson, then Representative Bob Rommel, then Fred Twigger. MR. LANE: Good evening. I'm Jason Lane. I live in Logan Woods. September 6, 2018 Page 71 Everything has switched. Since I've been listening to the presentation beforehand and everybody speaking, it's clear that -- not a knock on you guys -- but you don't have the information necessary at all to even come close to a vote on this. At this time we don't know how much commercial's paying, how much individuals are paying. I mean, I know pretty much everybody here, their number was probably above $192. I know mine was. The lady I was sitting with upstairs was $1,000. So when we get here, it was 21-and-a-half million. Somehow somebody found three-and-a-half million under their seat, and now they only need 18-. So I thought that was weird. So we have no idea how much it costs, who's paying, how much commercial's paying, commercial entities. And we're going to vote on it? I mean, we can't even have a discussion on it yet. I mean, being here is somewhat embarrassing. We don't even have numbers. We got a letter in the mail which was apparently worthless, because mine says $332. I heard the gentleman beforehand say $192. So I went and looked on your website, and it says $331. So if anybody has any idea what they're paying for this tax, I'd love to hear it. But you guys don't have any information yet. And, frankly, I would like to have a discussion after somebody figures out who's paying what, how much it's going to cost, and where it's going to go so we can talk about it with somewhat of an understanding of it, because right now nobody has a clue. And I'm not just saying you guys. I'm saying all of us here that drove all over the place. When I left my house, it was 21-and-a-half million. Now it's 18-. It was 331; now it's 192. But before my time runs out -- so I'm just begging you not to vote on this until you have any idea who's paying what and where it's going because, obviously, we don't now. I don't know how you vote on September 6, 2018 Page 72 something. I mean, the federal government voted on a healthcare bill a few years back, and they didn't have any idea where it was going either. I don't know if you follow that. I don't think that worked out that well. And that's kind of what this is reminding me of, but... Anyways, I live in Logan Woods, and when I first got my bill, I got a $332 bill, and I'm like, oh, they're giving me $332 for storing water on my property, like that other young lady up here, during, you know, the big rains in August, and then in Irma, and then suddenly the day before Irma after about two weeks of water standing on my property, it all drained out in one day. I mean, it was rushing out. So I have a couple questions. One is, are the developers going to kick in for this? Because when they develop land, it seems to all go to my property. Two, who is controlling the lever on Logan Woods, because it sits there? After Irma, I was two weeks. A lot of our well heads went under water jeopardizing public safety. I've got three little girls that had E. coli in their well, and nobody cares about it. So thank you for your time. I appreciate it. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Grady Johnson. He'll be followed by Representative Bob Rommel, then Fred Twigger, and then Guy Perow (phonetic). MR. JOHNSON: Good evening. Right shortly, again, I'm Grady Johnson, 34 years public service, 30 years law enforcement, four years as a county commissioner. I want to say this up front, and I stand on it. Just like these people's asked you, you-all need to postpone this. If you-all vote this in like it is, as far as I'm concerned -- and anybody want to discuss it or argue it with me, you just rewrote the definition of strong-armed robbery of the taxpayers and property owners of this county. (Applause.) MR. JOHNSON: This is just unbelievable. And correct me if I'm wrong, out here in Golden Gate all this -- I was raised here. Some of September 6, 2018 Page 73 my cousins are sitting right there. Spent our life, our family's life, all the Golden Gate -- 12 months out of the year there was water. There was cypress heads all up here off Pine Ridge and everything we used to have to swim through December, January, February and stuff hunting. I mean, what's fascinating me -- you've drained all the water. The canal is out there. This gentleman says now you get, I guess, your money back if you put a retainer on your property to hold in whatever you decide, stormwater? So that's the reason I want to bring that up. Down there on the island, on Plantation Island through lots, got it right here, and our lots down there, I've got tickle. The one that's vacant right now, as you all well now, we're looking to build a home, it says, you know, again, $120 on that. And if I heard that gentleman back there right, what have we got to do, put a retainer around that piece of property that's got a canal on all three sides of it and it's only a few feet across it? What are we supposed to do; hold this water? So, again, in making my point -- and I'm serious about this. From what I've heard here from everybody and the professionals, hopefully the staff will readdress this and you-all take a look at it, because I will stand on that statement. I ain't never heard anything such in my life presented to you. You folks, to make that kind of decision with as screwed up as what I've heard this to be, you know, especially when folks go out there, and what are we going to do, go around and put little retainers around their property to hold the water? Back in my day and -- again, I've served here 30 years -- I was in charge of all the swampland, this, that, and the other. One other thing I'm going to leave you with. On the canals they're talking about, how about let's doing this: They've drained all of this water, drained every bit of it. If you go out there and look at these September 6, 2018 Page 74 canals -- and I'll take you and show you some. I've argued with it. Even as a commissioner, I argued with the governor and that board up there. Look how many underground springs has been hit out here digging these ditches, digging these ditches and stuff to drain this water. So there's the other problem. Nobody's plugged those ditches but yet they plugged our flowing wells. If you go and back remember, Burt -- I don't know if you was here then at that time or not -- they come around, and we had all the old farmland. All you do is put a post down, there was water so deep, and the water run out of the top of it. They put cement in them, stopped them, but yet we have all of these ditches out here, and I will show you, springs flowing up from our underground water. And yet they're talking about holding water or the ditches is not draining? Well, the reason them canals are not draining, there's a lot of underground springs, like I said, that was hit by all this digging. So again, folks, I appreciate it, but I'm going to ask you, the commissioners, please dig back into this and do not vote this thing through again one more item. In my view -- and anybody that wants to argue with me about it, we're good. That's the new definition of strong-armed robbery. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, Grady. MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Representative Bob Rommel. He'll be followed by Fred Twigger, Guy Perow, and then Peter Goodin. REPRESENTATIVE ROMMEL: Hi, Commissioners, and thank you all for being here. You're probably going to be surprised, but I'm not in support of this new tax. But I want to tell you why, all kidding aside. In Fiddler's Creek, I know it's been well represented here tonight, September 6, 2018 Page 75 we have over 2,500 front doors. That's over 5,000 people. We already retain our water, and to be taxed with another tax for nothing is really ridiculous. I'm also really concerned about our commercial people here. Our businesses are still struggling from Hurricane Irma, and we have businesses that are going to be getting 4-, 5-, $6,000 fee for stormwater runoff. I understand it may be a critical infrastructure need. Nobody wants our roads flooded. Nobody wants our homes flooded. But maybe before we tax these folks here and all these businesses, maybe before we build another park, we fix our critical needs. You know, people have had it. They've had it here. I mean, there's people out in the Estates that have been homesteaded that aren't paying that much in property taxes that their stormwater fee may be as much as their property taxes. I think -- I think you've heard from everybody. I know my email box has been full, and I said, folks, it's not me trying to impose this new tax on you. Please contact your county commissioners. And, you know, from talking to you, I know you all have got it. I think you've heard enough that maybe we can postpone it for a year. Maybe we don't have to do everything that you're talking about at one step. You know, we have to act like it's your money because, you know, we have a great county, but we really are, you know -- we're becoming the highest taxed county in the state. And you know what, that's not going to be a great way for our realtors to advertise "Come to Collier County." So I'm just going to ask you, please reconsider. Push it back a year. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Question for him? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: No. I don't have a question, but I'm going to ask staff, I mean, you just made a statement that we're becoming the highest taxed county in the state, and -- September 6, 2018 Page 76 REPRESENTATIVE ROMMEL: If you want me to correct that, I'll tell you we are the second highest taxed per capita in the state of Florida. Osceola County collects more revenue than us, and that's the only county. And I'm talking not just the county. I'm talking schools. I'm talking the County Commission. I'm talking fire. Only one county does more. If you want, I can email you all the stats. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'd like to see that because, obviously, we have some control over what the county does. We don't have any control over the school board. REPRESENTATIVE ROMMEL: I understand. But for the citizens that pay their taxes, they pay one tax bill, and -- COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'd just like -- you know, it's a comment that you made, and I'd just like to see backup for it. REPRESENTATIVE ROMMEL: It's per capita. Taxes per capita. And if this passes, we'll be number one. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Fred Twigger. He'll be followed by Guy Perow, then Peter Goodin, and Robert Anderson. MR. TWIGGER: Hello, everyone. Hello, Commissioners. Good to see all of our fellow business owners and homeowners here this evening for such a very important meeting. I can only start by saying that as a resident of Collier County -- I live in Golden Gate Estates. I have five acres, and not one drop of rainwater off the roof of my house goes anywhere near your pipes, your ditches, or your canals. So it's very confusing that the project team wants to tax people for services that we're not even using. No geological survey has been done. His statement when he first started his talk this evening about we have a river three feet under our ground. No, we don't. The ground is not a big sponge. No, it's not. And I challenge you to come to my house with a professional water management team of experts independently, put industrial dyes on my September 6, 2018 Page 77 property, give it whatever amount of time you want, six months, six days, six years, and tell me when it hits the canal, because it won't. And I think that's part of the problem here, folks. We've got a very flawed system here. We do need flood control and better drainage in Collier County. We all know that. But apparently the team just hasn't tweaked this quite right. We don't know how to bill, if we're going to do this, homeowners from business owners and what amount is fair and how are we going to do this and who's going to pay what. I would urge you as a fellow resident of Collier County, we entrust you folks to run the business of this county the best you can for us, and part of that responsibility is also looking after the homeowners and business owners in Collier County. And the present system proposed in this budget is not correct right now for what we need to do. If we can push it back and do some independent studies and get a better outline of what we want to do, if we're going to do it, if it has to be done, we need time to do that. It does not fit in this year's budget, and I hope you folks will take that into consideration upon your vote. Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Guy Perow. He'll be followed by Peter Goodin, then Robert Anderson, then Robin Gafford. MR. GOODIN: I'm Peter Goodin. I don't know if Guy's here. MR. MILLER: Okay. Guy Perow? I want to allow him one more call. He was originally on the fifth floor. All right. Peter Goodin. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: If he hasn't made it here by then, we'll let him come back. MR. MILLER: Peter Goodin will be followed by Robert Anderson and will be followed by Steve Gafford. MR. GOODIN: My name is Peter Goodin. I'm a resident of September 6, 2018 Page 78 Oakes Estates which, by the way, isn't shown on the Stantec map of Golden Gate Estates. We get left off of that a lot because we're all by ourselves. I attended an informational meeting last fall. Maybe it was in December. I was the only citizen at the meeting. At that meeting staff and the consultants explained to me that while the tax revenues have recovered from the recession, stormwater budgets had not which, in my mind, raised a question, well, where's that money going instead? But they did convince me that we all live downstream, and those of us that live upstream need to pay for downstream. So I resigned myself to a plan that would tax people based on their impervious to fund the stormwater system. Up to now, we're doing it Whac-A-Mole which accounts for the fact why I've never seen anybody from stormwater in my neighborhood, because out in the Estates people don't complain. They just get on with it. The next time I heard of the plan was from a commissioner's coffee meeting where they told me it was already a done deal. And then this morning I read online that Tier 4 was being collapsed into Tier 3. That's a recommendation of staff. I specifically oppose this change, and I'd like to tell you why. If we agree that the costs associated are related to your impervious, then this is a true example of the redistribution of wealth by taxation or how not to support affordable housing in Collier County. The left hand is my four rental homes. No, I'm not the fellow that was talking to the other gentleman. My four rental homes and their square foot impervious. Just to let you know, that is not remotely like they're under air. In each case it's less than half that. These are modest homes. These are not luxury homes. You see one step over the equivalent residential units, and the tier that we fall into, and the totals for my five properties, 21,200 square September 6, 2018 Page 79 foot impervious, and my taxes 624. My neighbor's house in Golden Gate Estates has got an impervious of 23,7-. And his taxes, until this morning when I checked, would have been 728. Just about right. About the same because it's about the same amount as my five houses. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Your time is up, sir. MR. GOODIN: The last line is what he will be paying now, 192. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Got you, sir. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Robert Anderson. He'll be followed by Steve Gafford, Chris Hudson, and then Gerald Huckle. MR. ANDERSON: Good evening. My name is Robert Anderson. I live in Golden Gate Estates. I learned last night at the Golden Gate Civic Association that there are 100,000 lots in Golden Gate Estates. Mostly, we're very rural out there. I get a bill in the mail for $396 for the three acres that we have. And my chicken coops were included as impervious. I think there were some problems with Stantec and the way that they did their calculations. We also learned tonight that Golden Gate Estates has a swale system. The water that's on our property stays on our property. We have a pond in the backyard. It doesn't discharge into the water management system. This is a very flawed fee. It shouldn't be a fee. It should be a tax, and it should be part of a homestead so there's a limit on the amount that you can raise the tax every year. So, basically, I say you need to postpone this for a year, get your act together, get the information straight. You've heard from a lot of people, and I think you're going to hear from a lot more tonight. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Steve Gafford. Mr. Gafford September 6, 2018 Page 80 was ceded additional time from Robin Gafford. Is Robin present? MR. GAFFORD: She's in the hall. MR. MILLER: I hear her. Thank you, Robin. Steve will be followed by Chris Hudson, Gerald Huckle, and Janet Whidden. You have six minutes, sir. MR. GAFFORD: Good evening. Is everybody still awake? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yeah. We're doing just fine. MR. GAFFORD: I see eyes glazing over. People having problems paying attention. My name's Steve Gafford. I live in the Estates. I heard somebody earlier say that there aren't many people from the Estates represented here. I see otherwise. I see a lot of people from the Estates. It was mentioned that the Estates is kind of a unique area relative to Collier County in general. I agree with that. And anybody that knows me knows that I tell two groups of people -- I make this statement to two groups of people. Tonight I get to add to that. It will be three groups of people. I tell used car salesmen and I tell real estate brokers, don't tell me anything in words that you're not willing to put in writing. That's what I tell them. I really do. When I go in to buy a car, I tell them those words. I'm going to expand that now to include county commissioner, government in general, but right now I'm addressing county commissioners. I hear all kinds of different words. I hear all kinds of different promises. I hear people saying we can't spend this money on anything but drainage. I hear people saying that we're going to be capped at 192. I hear all kinds of promises and words and we're going do these things and we're going to do these capital improvements, we're going to do this maintenance. But I need to see it in writing, and I need to be -- I need for it to September 6, 2018 Page 81 be the law, and I need that law to be the connector between where you get the money from and where the money's going. I need accountability, I need transparency, and I need to know that some of this money is going to be spent in my community before I can sign off on it. I don't see any capital projects scheduled for Golden Gate Estates. I might have missed it. I'm not saying that I've seen them all. But I haven't seen any. And Golden Gate Estates is being hit heavily with these taxes. Everybody's looking around and saying, hey, I just got a new thing in the mail. We weren't -- I won't say we weren't able to be informed, but we weren't properly informed, because the County Commission meetings are in the daytime. Everybody out there works. We're not able to come to maybe a year's worth of meetings to catch this. And on top of that, when this whole thing got rolling, it was right after Irma, and we were all flooded. Some of us didn't have phones for two weeks. Most of us didn't have electricity for at least 10 days after. And we're focused on that. The reason there's a turnout tonight instead of at all these previous meetings is because now we've gotten the bill in the mail, and there's a real number at the bottom of that bill. Now that number's getting soft because you guys aren't really ready, but the number has been softened to 192, but it wasn't 192 when the bill first came. So that's why everybody picks up their pitchforks and firebrands and marchs down to the county offices because, you know, what are you guys up to here? So in the first place it was you guys aren't really ready for this. Other people have said this. Other people have asked you to postpone it for a year. I mostly want the amount reduced. I think -- I think you're trying to collect too much. I think if you look at the fact that we have impact fees, every new house that's built is going to add to the September 6, 2018 Page 82 square footage of impervious properties, and I think we should maybe add a rider onto the impact fees because of that addition. That would be another way to collect some of this revenue without imposing it on people who have already built their houses. I can't go out to my house and saw off 20 feet of it and say now I have less impervious so that my tax bill will go down, and that's what makes it a tax. A fee I get to choose. I can choose whether I pay a fee or not pay a fee. This is a tax. Let's make no mistake about it. So when somebody adds a house, they should contribute heavily to this fund. You're getting -- if the figures I assimilated are correct, you're getting some $10 million already on the millage, the .15 millage, and it's labeled on the county budget as stormwater, storm management, stormwater management. So if you add the impact fees, that $10 million, and the $18 million that you're asking us to be happy with tonight, you're looking at $28 million plus whatever you can raise from the impact fees, and we need to know that that's how much you really need. We need to see the projects, we need to know how much the projects are going to cost, we need to know that some of those projects are in our neighborhoods, and I don't see any of that, and I need a law or a statement or something signed and written in blood, signed in blood that this money, all three sections of this money, are going to be spent on projects that actually do me some good. And I didn't use all my time, but I pretty much said what I have to say. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, sir. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Chris Hudson. Mr. Hudson has been ceded additional minutes from James Craft. Is Mr. Craft here? MR. HUDSON: I don't see Mr. Craft. He was on the fifth floor, but I do not see him. September 6, 2018 Page 83 MR. MILLER: Okay. If you don't mind, Chris, I'm going to go with three minutes then. MR. HUDSON: Yep, not a problem. MR. MILLER: Okay. He will be followed by Gerald Huckle, Janet Whidden, and then Brad Estes. MR. HUDSON: Commissioners, I appreciate the opportunity to come before you. I know this is not the first time you've seen my short stature standing behind this podium wishing I was a little bit taller. I'm also wishing I didn't have to come here so often, both in my capacity as a resident of District 5 and in my capacity as the state director for Americans for Prosperity, of which we have thousands of activists across this state, roughly over 261,000 to be exact, roughly covering about 14,000 here in Collier County. I will tell you, I came here last time, and I addressed to you my family situation because, as a resident, I think that's important. I'm expecting my second little girl in December. I am really happy with the home I built in this community, but I'm surely frustrated. And I've talked about how great the community is that you guys have helped build and prepare for growth and prepare for our community to excel beyond our greatest dreams and desires, but I've had to walk that back. I've to walk that back because when I think about every new tax that's sort of popped up here as an idea, regardless of the genesis of that tax, a couple things still remain true. And I've heard it said that sometimes these suggestions are nothing more than a cup of coffee or a box of pizza. But I've done my own math, and as a parent about to have a second little one, I'll tell you, this tax amounts to 375 diapers, it amounts to 40 high school lunches, a full month of gas, a year's streaming services, a month of Internet, or a month of electric. That's a lot. That's not a cup of coffee or a box of pizza. That's a sincere, significant amount for individuals. September 6, 2018 Page 84 I've been here my entire life. I intend to stay here my entire life no matter how many taxes you pile on, because I love this place, but it doesn't mean I'm not going to come before you every single time and say enough is enough. I don't remember anybody up here telling us they were going to raise our taxes over the years making promises. And I'd ask you and the commissioner that's in the sky above us there to hear what we're saying. You talk a lot about affordable housing. You talk a lot about workforce. These are going to creating challenges in adding to that workforce and adding to the affordable housing you so crave. We've heard scuttle the project, we've heard we're not a money tree. A fee is a tax. All of those are true. I'd ask you to listen to the residents that are here this evening, because I've heard it said in the past, and I said here a year ago when this room was dead empty wondering where everybody was, and that's where I remembered, you know what, during this budget hearing they're all running. They're all scuttling out of town. They're here today. I hope you listen to every one of them. I'm glad I got to come here near the end. I'm glad you guys are still awake and paying attention, and I know you're sincere about it, so thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Gerald Huckle. He'll be followed by Janet Whidden, Brad Estes, and then Barry Hoey. MR. HUCKLE: Thank you. County Commissioners, it's good to see you. I have the greatest respect and admiration for what you do. I know you spend a lot of time, effort, energy, and intelligence in what you do. But I think it's time to drain the swamp, and I don't mean the Everglades. All these wonderful people, my neighbors -- I live in Golden Gate, my wife and I, and we've been here since 1983. September 6, 2018 Page 85 There's three points I'd like to offer. There have been wonderful comments made by very intelligent people this evening, so I don't need to spread numbers. I don't need to do any of that because you have it all before you in recording. What I would like to say is this: Think about history. When my wife and I moved here August the 23rd of 1983, the next day we had a tropical wave. It dumped 14 inches rain in nine hours in Golden Gate City, and we had a flood. We pumped the water. Six months later in all of the local television networks in the area, it was announced that it was discovered by the governing bodies that the bulk of the problem of the flooding in Golden Gate was as a result of the Corps of Engineers not opening the weirs in the canals. Now, you can go back and check the history and tell me if I'm wrong. That brings me to point one. It's going to be brief. Point one: Get your act together. When I say drain the swamp, I mean the swamp of politics. Please get your act together. It's not a hard thing to do. I'm a business owner and a manager. I'm a good manager. I know what you go through, and I know all the statutes in the state and the county and the city regulations, but you know what, above and beyond that are the people. So get your act together. Manage your affiliation with the state and county and local governments that affect all of the drainage systems, including the canals. I respect the Corps of Engineers, and I know they have their responsibilities. The second thing I would suggest, that you just simply manage the operation of your stormwater existing services to try to have your people do a better job. Many, many times I've seen situations where neglect has been paramount in those areas, and I won't say any more than. The third thing is, this shouldn't be a county commissioner issue without a referendum. Get your act together. Spend a year or however September 6, 2018 Page 86 long it takes to do better research, manage the research so that it's properly presented. And I'm out of time, but then put it in referendum before these wonderful people. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Janet Whidden. Janet Whidden? (No response.) MR. MILLER: Brad Estes. I do not see Brad Estes. Barry Hoey. Oh, I'm sorry. I missed you, Brad. I'm sorry. Brad will be followed by Barry Hoey, and then Andrew Whiffen. MR. ESTES: Good evening, Commissioners. Is it on? Can you hear me? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. You're working well. MR. ESTES: I'm Brad Estes. I'm the Secretary of the Poinciana Civic Association. And this is from the perspective of a community that has a dysfunctional stormwater system, and it has had one for as much as 30 years. We have attempted on numerous occasions and different methods talking to our commissioners during this time to get resolution of a system that just doesn't work. We urge you to adopt this utility fee because it -- right now it is the best solution to providing a proactive and restrictive funding source. It can't be pulled for other reasons like ad valorem can. We have another -- a number of unaddressed issues. As you can see on the photo here, we awakened one morning -- and this is not unusual, maybe more in the afternoons -- that both of our ingress and egress streets are flooded. You will not go through that with an automobile. You probably won't go through that with an ambulance, frankly. You need a high-profile vehicle. At two and a half -- this is more than two and a half or three September 6, 2018 Page 87 inches. But that's -- two and a half or three inches, we'll have flooding on these two streets. The vehicles are damaged to try to drive through it. There are signs posted now, "Do not drive through high water," so basically we're shut off from Airport Road. We're a community of low elevation. Commissioner Fiala called us a -- what did you call us a bowl -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yep. MR. ESTES: -- one time. We're a bowl, okay. What exacerbated the bowl was increasing the height of Airport Road, the repaving and the six-laning of Airport Road. Where do we get some of our water? It runs off Airport Road into our access streets. So, therefore, our system must be maintained appropriately so it can handle peak level at all times. I was just doing a letter, draft letter for our president to sign to send to Travis Gossard about the priorities and the reason that we should have priorities for our particular development, our particular neighborhood, and there's about seven or eight items on it: Weeds, sediment in the ditches. And I don't blame the county crews for doing it. I think they have to ration out their services a little bit -- a little bit but not enough everywhere. So we have a swale restoration that's going on right now. We appreciate that. We're 172 swales restored right now, and the crews are wonderful. But our swale system still is dysfunctional. It doesn't hold the water it should and, as a result, the water rises up to the houses whenever the swales fill up. So thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Barry Hoey. He will be followed by Andrew Whiffen and then Dr. Peter J. Hill and Andrew Verner (sic). September 6, 2018 Page 88 MR. HOEY: Hello, Commissioners. Thank you for listening to us here today. MR. MILLER: Can you state your name, please. State your name. MR. HOEY: Yeah. My name is Barry Hoey. And I actually work here in Southwest Florida as a realtor. I work here promoting Southwest Florida much of the time, especially in Naples area, Collier County. I live in Golden Gate Estates. I obviously was born somewhere else, but Golden Gate Estates is my home now. And I hope that the missing commissioner is having a good time in that Irish bar over there. On a serious note, the first I heard about this was a number of weeks ago when I got this letter in the mail. I later learned that it had started after Irma. You know, I was without electricity and phone service for at least 11 or 12 days, and since then, actually, I'm still fighting the insurance company trying to rebuild the property or whatever else. You know, we all need to do our fair share, obviously. And as a realtor, I'm very familiar with a lot of properties here in Collier County. We sell a lot in Golden Gate Estates, and Logan Woods, obviously, is a problem area. There is a problem and, obviously, a problem needs to be addressed. But I -- you know, many of the previous speakers have made very good points, and I don't need to go over them again. Identifying the problem is, obviously, the first thing to do, and then say, how do you solve that problem, rather than the other way around and going to collect 21 million which then became 18-. The first bill I got was $563 or -62 or something like that. I have five-and-a-half acres. During Irma not one drop of water left our property. And the reason I know that, I can prove it, because when we September 6, 2018 Page 89 had all the damage, I actually took photos, and I recorded everything that happened on the property. And I got onto the county, and this pleasant lady come out, and I challenged anyone to come out from the county and test the property. No water leaves the five-and-a-half acre property. Since then I learned that amount is now down to 192. But that doesn't solve it. The system itself that's proposed is very unfair. It gives a bad image. We're already going through issues of red tide with algae. We have everything else. You don't need this on top of it. Realtors, you know -- and I don't blame that guy saying, you know, a word or whatever. Well, trust me, where we come from, your word is your mouth. You know, your word is your bond, rather. And, you know, we're helping people here. Help us -- you know, please, scuttle this, like one person said, and, you know, go back to the drawing board and start again and come with something that's fair. Fair, I think, is something. I have other notes written down. I'm not going to go into them. Thanks for your time. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, Andy (sic). MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Andrew Whiffen. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That was him. MR. HOEY: Nope. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Oh, I'm sorry. MR. MILLER: He will be followed by Dr. Peter Hill, and then Andrew Verner. MR. WHIFFEN: Good evening, County Commissioners. Thank you for listening to us tonight. Again, my name is Andrew Whiffen, and I'm actually a qualified stormwater management inspector in the eyes of FDEP. In response to the stormwater tax assessment for my property, I feel that this tax is nonsense, therefore, not applicable to my home. September 6, 2018 Page 90 The debate is based on the letter I received in the mail, and after reviewing the website provided to me, addresses the concern of the quality of water that leave my property in the event of a rainstorm -- excuse me, rainstorm event, no matter the intensity of it. For the majority of my neighbors and myself, we have on our property a single-family home with vegetation throughout our properties. As allowed through FDEP's 2015 construction generic permit for small and large construction, there's a hyperlink that references a list of allowable best-management practices, or BMPs, that are acceptable to make sure clean water is leaving -- excuse me -- leaving my home. Established vegetation is actually one of those things, including sod, and this actually quoted, reduces the potential of sediment generation due to erosion of bare ground. Existing vegetation also provides buffer strips to remove suspended particles from sheet flows. Therefore, I do not believe I need to be assessed a fee for my home to control my stormwater runoff. I appreciate the presenters earlier at the beginning. A gentleman mentioned an interesting point about the sod acting as a stormwater conveyance. If that is actually true, then you're having to redefine the state's use saying that sod is no longer a permitted BMP. I'd also like to address in the Golden Gate Estates area for my homes along rotaries -- excuse me -- along roadways that do not see measurable traffic, there are no storm drains in place that convey water off our roadways and only utilize the swales originally created. For the most part, the swales keep the water from ponding in the road and eventually do one of the following: Percolate into the ground, evaporate, eventually discharge into another body of water. Example, canal. With such major storms as Hurricane Irma, my property was submerged in water for over a month, maybe two. And took -- based September 6, 2018 Page 91 on my location, the existing water levels in the neighboring canals, not much could be done for my property except just wait. And I doubt honestly with the proposed budget that I'm not (sic) really going to see any of that infrastructure in the time that was given. However, there are other residents that are trying to do the right thing, including the retention ponds on their property. I don't think 50 percent is acceptable. I think 100 percent should be acceptable if no water is leaving their site. As for the ERUs, I have a small home, about 1,400 square feet. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Your bell has rung, Andy. Thank you. MR. WHIFFEN: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Dr. Peter J. Hill. He'll be followed by Andrew Werner, and then Jean Werner, and Doug Fee. DR. HILL: Yeah. Good evening, Commissioners and ladies and gentlemen. It's been a long day. I stand before you. I've had 45 years of experience of large reservoir management fluid systems through rocks, through earth all over the world, and I've come to learn a little of what goes on in the Everglades. I've lived here now for -- since 2011, and I'm going to stay here. I'm a resident of Collier's Reserve. We are a net absorber of runoff both from the NCH hospital and from the Riverchase Estates, so we absorb more than we -- we don't put out any stormwater. So we self-contain. With that said, I want to vote -- to voice my opinion to say that I'm in favor of assessment; however, there are serious caveats. People have spoken very lucidly about it. We need proper identification and detail of what programs you need over the next three to five years. Once we've done that and defined that, then we need to very clearly know what is available to us funding-wise from all sources. And then September 6, 2018 Page 92 once you know that, then we should have a public discussion with all those documents available to us and see where those plans take us and lead us. Many people have spoken to that, and that is what I think we need, whether we need a year to do that, but we need to do it right. Florida, I'm afraid, is a very sad history of man's inability to live in harmony with the greater Everglades ecosystem, and that is all too evident today. Everyone has started out with good intentions, but that has fast deteriorated to a game of unintended consequences. Those that have not understood history are doomed to repeat it, and unless we take onboard all of that history and all of that understanding and all of that planning, then our plans will come to nothing, and we will, once again, be faced with unintended consequences. So I'm in favor of assessment but at the appropriate time after the appropriate study and after the appropriate work has been done. We need an advanced water management system that is both sustainable, properly understood, modeled, and of very high quality, and I think everyone in this room demands that and requires that. We have got to put a process in place that delivers that. So this is not a free pass. We elect you guys to serve us, and regrettably or unfortunately, we are responsible for stormwater runoff, every single one of us. We do it. We deliver it. Whether we like it or not, that's what we do. And we have to find a way in which we can absorb this, properly manage it, and properly put it in place. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, sir. DR. HILL: Thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Ms. Jean, if you don't mind indulging me, we're going to take a 10-minute break for our stenographers. MS. WERNER: I have to work tomorrow. September 6, 2018 Page 93 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I'm sorry. Me too. We're going to take a 10-minute break. Be back at 8:08. (A brief recess was had.) MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mic. Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: All right, folks. Everybody, if you can, please take a seat. Put your cell phone back on silent. I've been informed that there are approximately 34 speakers left, and everyone has been moved to this floor. So let's go. MR. MILLER: Yes, sir. Your next speaker is Andrew Werner. Is Andrew Werner? MR. WERNER: I'm right here. MR. MILLER: Followed by Jean Werner, then Doug Fee, and then Dawn Smith. Mr. Werner. MR. WERNER: Good evening, Commissioners. I'm Andy Werner. I live out in Golden Gate also. I've lived out there 30 years. We don't drain a lot of water into the drainage system out there. My property doesn't drain at all, but that's been said before, and everybody's talked about it. It's just -- the reason I'm here is because I think you guys did a very poor job on assessing what the property owners ought to be spending. I think it's a function of your budget mentality. If my house is flooded, I can't get to it, I think that needs to be addressed. I think it needs to be addressed for the entire county. And if you have a flood issue that's been going on since Collier County's been in existence, I think that ought to take a little higher priority than some of the other issues that you budget for. If my house is flooded, the last thing I want to do is go to a nursery and buy plants to put on my driveway. I think that this whole thing should be tabled for a minimum of a September 6, 2018 Page 94 year to see if you guys can come up with a program that will actually do what you're trying to do. I can't believe that you have let this thing go as long as you have. You've -- you haven't spent the money that was invested for this, that was collected for it, and now it seems to be the problem that you want to get a giant lump sum, and we really don't know what it's going to do and where it's going to be spent. And that's all I came to say this evening. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Jean Werner. She'll be followed by Doug Fee, Dawn Smith, and then Dr. Joseph Doyle. MS. WERNER: Good evening, Commissioners, and the rest of the people in the audience. We've lived in Collier County since 1977. I'm not an engineer. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a CDC -- CDD -- is that right? -- CDD manager. I'm a nurse. But what I see that was wrong with this was how it was done. It wasn't implemented properly. And when we first got the bill, it was -- our bill was almost $400. We have six-and-a-quarter acres. And I've written -- I've emailed all the commissioners, and actually I got a reply from Ms. Fiala, and I had talked to Bill McDaniel before also. We think we should get a credit for the property that we have where we hold water and it re-absorbs. And I know you've heard this tonight, but we don't get any credit on the -- when you redid the numbers, our number went down because they -- we had some driveway that was gravel and not cement. But what I don't understand is we didn't get any credit. And when I looked at the map -- I've looked at the map intermittently. Pelican Bay has a 50 percent credit with no numbers listed that they're going to pay anything. A lot of the other communities, like Lely, Pelican Marsh, they're getting 25 percent, but Golden Gate Estates residents are getting no credit. And I do believe, unless I was hallucinating that day when I looked at it, that it looked like we had it briefly, and then when I went September 6, 2018 Page 95 back on it, it was removed. So I'd like to know what happened with that. And I think -- like everybody else, I think we should postpone this for a year, and I think we should go from there and do the studies, see what we need, and just make it equitable, you know. If it's right, it's right. If it's wrong, it's not. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, Ms. Jean. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Doug Fee. He will be followed by Dawn Smith, Dr. Joseph Doyle, and then Erick Swanson. MR. FEE: Good evening, Commissioners. Thankful to be here. I was on the PAC for the North Naples and Big Corkscrew Fire referendum, and we studied that, and we knew what was going on, what the voters were being asked for. Overwhelmingly, we voted it down because it was confusing. It did not seem as if it was fair. It was a change, and we didn't like change. We talked a lot about this vote, and I believe that the fire commissioners could have done a millage vote. We're paying 1.0. They could have come to us and said, across the board, let's go to a 1.2. That was even discussed at a meeting. But they decided not to do that. Sometimes I think in history you can look at something and learn from it. And in this case, I believe we can. I would ask that you say no to this, okay. When I run my household, I see what comes in, and I know what goes out, and I have one budget. You are our elected officials, and I believe with everything that's been said tonight, what you're predominantly hearing is it's confusing, you haven't thought it all out. And if it's hard politically to raise taxes, that may be what you're hearing tonight is don't do it with several buckets where everybody -- you know, there's a lot of questions with this. So one may be able to accomplish it putting the budget together with an ad September 6, 2018 Page 96 valorem, okay. Now, I'm not suggesting that we don't have enough taxes. I know that property values are going up. We are benefiting from that. The other thing about stormwater is, obviously, everyone in this room benefits public benefit from stormwater. So what better way to benefit everyone in this room by putting it in your tax bill, your ad valorem, so everybody's paying, and you know exactly what you're paying. It's in the budget. It's not regressive. It's not hurting one person more than the other. It is just plain and simple, okay. Give me a tax bill. I'll pay the tax bill, and I know it's a public benefit. The other thing I wanted to say was I was on the Productivity Committee many years ago, and since 2002 till today, the county has been allocating .333 mills of the General Fund to growth or capital-related expenditure. It amounts to about $20 million a year. There is money out there. There's an elephant in the room right now. It's called impact fees. And you're asking the voters to vote on something in November for a one-cent sales tax, and in the video it's talking about growth related. You have hard decisions, but you're going to have to look at impact fees to come up with some of the funds and not put it on the backs of the taxpayer. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Dawn Smith. She'll be followed by Dr. Joseph Doyle, Erick Swanson, and then Jonah Bautch. MS. SMITH: Hi. My main concern is I notice that you're taxing schools. MR. MILLER: Can you state your name, please. MS. SMITH: Dawn Smith. You're taxing the schools. Schools are funded by the taxpayers. We're going to get hit with a huge tax next year. They're $10,000 and up per school. How are you going to -- are you sending another September 6, 2018 Page 97 extortion letter next year with a -- where it says it's a fee that you're going to take title to our property if we don't pay that, too? You have to understand what you have done -- I'm so nervous. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You're doing well. MS. SMITH: What you've done is illegal and not morally right. That is the most important thing. You proposed a stormwater tax one month after Irma. The people that voted you guys in that support this county, you didn't even give them 30 days after Irma before you hit them with an illegal tax. It's a double tax. We already pay it. You're paying it again. On the bottom of the letter it states it has to be paid to Collier County Tax Collector. If not paid, you're going to take title of the property. If I don't pay my FP&L bill, they shut it off. They don't take my house. You're not giving anybody the opportunity to even recoup from Irma. Look at what you're charging businesses. I'll throw it out there. Car lots, you're charging them $18,000 and up at these car lots. What do you -- how do you think that's going to trickle down next year when I want to get another car? I'm going to be paying more. Look at what you're doing to Publix. They're going to be raising their prices. Look what you're charging the mom-and-pop stores. Who's going to pay that? It's all going to trickle down to people that are still trying to recoup after Irma. It's been one year. That's all I have to say. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, Dawn. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Dr. Joseph Doyle. He'll be followed by Erick Swanson, Jonah Bautch, and then Robert Lebel. DR. DOYLE: Good evening, Commissioners. Dr. Joseph Doyle. A year ago I was evacuating voluntarily from Irma, but you elected to go ahead with a budget hearing, and there was nobody here. Now look at this year. Everybody's here. September 6, 2018 Page 98 And I did participate in the workshops in October, November right after Irma. And I originally actually supported the concept of this stormwater utility because Pelican Bay was going to get a 25 percent credit for having its own water management system and then another 25 percent credit because we discharge directly into the gulf. But after listening to what I've heard tonight, first of all, this is not ready for prime time. There are a lot of problems with the methodology for maybe Golden Gate Estates and some other areas, as well as the CDDs. And, by the way, Pelican Bay used to be a type of CDD. But these pipes are now 35 to 40 years old. And the reason why I supported the stormwater utility is because I figured, well, the other 50 percent we were going to have to -- you know, we would be contributing to the pipes that need to be replaced under Pelican Bay, under Pelican Bay Boulevard, Gulf Park Boulevard, and the public roads; however, it's come to my attention recently that a lot of these pipes may be part of a whole 'nother plan where Pelican Bay would be taking over the management of these, and we would be paying for all this under a 30-year bond. So guess what, we should pay nothing of a stormwater utility. So this needs to be studied. And, you know, I was here originally tonight to ask you to take the $5.5 million that's currently being used in the general funds and give that back to the taxpayers, because you're going to be raising another 18 to $21 million with this stormwater utility. But I see that now you used to raise -- with a .15 mills, you used to raise about $13 million back in 2008. So I kind of wonder, you know, what is going on with the money that had been raised, and why isn't it back up to 13 million now that we've supposedly recovered 10 years later from the great recession. So I think there are a lot of moving parts here. I think there are a lot of things that need to be answered. I think this whole concept September 6, 2018 Page 99 needs to be rethought. I don't know if you can do it in the next two weeks for the second budget hearing. I think probably a one-year moratorium and take the time to really study it and understand all the moving parts and all the affected parties. So I don't think you should adopt this tonight. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Erick Swanson. Erick Swanson? (No response.) MR. MILLER: Jonah Bautch or Bautch, B-a-u-t-c-h. Jonah will be followed by Robert Lebel, Maria Walling, and then Chris Carpenter. MR. BAUTCH: Good evening. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Excuse me one second. If your name's been called, please come forward to the podium so we know that you're here. You may go, sir. MR. BAUTCH: All right. Good evening. I'm Jonah Bautch, like couch but with a B. It's close. Anyhow, so far tonight, heard from, you know, a couple people who supported it, a couple people who didn't support it, well, a couple more people who didn't support it. And it's -- I don't know. I just -- you know, obviously, there's some problems, which we've seen tonight, in the county that need to be taken care of. Whether we need this tax right now to figure it out, I don't know. I don't think so. From what I've heard tonight, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of places that are doing the right things for their stormwater utilities. I just want you guys to reconsider for a year. Think it over. Have the staff do some more work, and then we'll go from there, and maybe I'll see you next year. Have a good one. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Robert Lebel or Lebel, September 6, 2018 Page 100 L-e-b-e-l. Maria Walling. Maria Walling. (No response.) MR. MILLER: Chris Carpenter. I know she's right here. She'll be followed by Joe Bonness, and then David Lindsay. And, Joe Bonness, if you're here, and, David Lindsay, please come to the microphones and be ready. Thank you. MS. CARPENTER: Thanks. For the record, Chris Carpenter, Naples Park. I'm opposed to this stormwater fee, and I have a problem with the tiers. And the county tells me that I have 3,500 square feet of impervious area, so I fall into Tier 2. And Tier 2 is from 2,901 square feet to 5,400 square feet. And, again, I'm at 3,500. And I'm looking at this thinking, you know, why do I have to pay the same as the guy who's got 5,400 square feet? All of the people within Tier 2 are paying $120 a year. And why do I have to pay the same as the guy who's got 1,900 square feet more than I do of impervious area? How is this fair? I started thinking how could I get out of this, and I thought well, you know, 1,900 square feet, that's more than the square footage of my driveways, and I have two driveways. I own and live in a duplex in Naples Park. I'm using it as a single-family home, but I have two driveways. And the square feet for the driveways is 1,126 feet. So I thought, well, I'll just take them out, you know, have gravel, have shell. And then I found out that the county requires me to have the driveways have a hard surface in the right-of-way. So you're requiring me to have a hard surface, and now you want to charge me a fee for that hard surface, and that doesn't seem to me to be very fair either. I really think you need to go back to the drawing board and come up with another plan. So thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Joe Bonness. He will be September 6, 2018 Page 101 followed by David Lindsay, Bill Wingate, and then Maureen Bonness. MR. BONNESS: Good evening. Joe Bonness, for the record there. Historically, we've been doing a really good job of really messing things up as far as our drainage goes. I mean, it cost $2 million to go out and dig the Caloosahatchee Canal out to Lake Okeechobee, and we pay 20- to $200 million a year now to maintain that water because of how we screwed that up. I live in Golden Gate Estates, one of the sections that did not make it into the map there. My lot does not drain off of -- into the roadway. I've got a berm that runs across. Yes, I flood. I like it flooded. I want to retain water there. When I've got standing water, I don't have mosquitoes. I want the water that's there. And you're not going to tell me that in the basin that I'm in, the amount of impervious surface that I have makes any difference whatsoever in that area. That water in the basin is going to rise. The groundwater level under my house and under my driveway is the same as it is across the rest of the lot. But then there's my neighbor. Brand new coming on in. He bought one of the lowest lots that's in the area. He put in four foot of fill for half his property. Now, he is a contributor to your storm drainage, but he's going to be paying the same $192 that I am. But that's if it goes to $192. Right now I'm looking at $250, which, actually, that's more like -- I'm going to be there for 30 years, so it's more like $7,500 that you're asking me to pay. And that's the same with everybody else out here. They're planning on being here for quite a while. And it really has to be, you know, looked at a little bit better as to what's going on. I've seen in this whole thing, basically, you know, 15 trucks, five excavators, another 60 employees that are in there. Well, if you contract that out, you don't have to go out and buy the equipment September 6, 2018 Page 102 and put it in your capital budget right away. Take a look at how to be able to cut these things to make it proper. Employ the people that are in Collier County instead of going on out and just deciding you're going to build up the bureaucracy. So, you know, I've talked to the old guys that have been here. When they put Golden Gate Canal in along the Golden Gate -- or along the Airport Road, that destroyed the farming, destroyed the hydrology there. We don't need more drainage. We need less drainage. We need to retain it. We want to use that water when it gets dry out. We don't want to get rid of it. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is David Lindsay. David Lindsay? (No response.) MR. MILLER: Bill Wingate. Mr. Wingate will be followed by Maureen Bonness, Wayne Jenkins, and then Alex Garland, Jr. MR. WINGATE: Bill Wingate. We all know tonight, we all found out that this Stantec report is -- should just be trashed. It was done inappropriately from day one for four years. Am I accurate? It started four years ago, you guys working on it? Okay. And I found out about it last week when I got a letter along with about probably another 200,000 citizens in Collier County. You all know this. You all know that it was done underhanded. You all know that we don't need a bunch of water draining out real quick. You all know that. What we need is the departments that we have in the county right now to do their job. You need to access funds from $7 million of managerial expenses that aren't needed to the road department so they can clean ditches and put in culverts. I mean, I had a whole three minutes thing here, but there's so many people said what I was going to say. It's like now I just need to September 6, 2018 Page 103 get to the nuts and bolts about it and just let you all know how ridiculous the whole thing is and not pull the punch on it. Tommy Turner said in the beginning, when it rains, it rains. It takes a few days for the water to run off. You don't need to tax $20 million. You're already taking in 10-. You've got $43 million from Growth Management. Half of the people that work there shouldn't even work there. You can just either put a shovel and a rake in their hand and put them to work for Travis or fire them. You don't need engineers working for the county payroll when you hired Stantec, whoever they are, Davidson Engineering, and any other engineering firm out there that you got hired to do any job. It just doesn't make sense. You guys can do the job that needs to be done with what you have. You're not spending the money that we're already paying you to do the job. There's -- ditches haven't been cleaned in 30 years. Travis can't clean them all because he's got nobody to do it because they're all sitting in the air-conditioning making $100-, $200,000. You pay a million dollars a year in attorney fees for the county. Come on. It's just -- the numbers are absurd. And you can't pull another $10 million out of the most poorly managed -- Growth Management is the most poorly managed department in the county. Water Management, Growth Management, you guys have got to gut that. That's just ridiculous. It really is, and everybody knows it. Ask anybody in this town, they'll tell you. Worst case, you need to put it up for a vote. You did it all wrong. Anybody that was in your ear in the past four years trying to push this through, you should probably just fire them because they were sneaking around. And they know it's a tax. It was written up as if it wasn't a tax. So I'm serious, just can them, because they shouldn't be involved in county business. September 6, 2018 Page 104 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, William. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Maureen Bonness. She'll be followed by Wayne Jenkins, then Alex Garland, Jr., then Patrick Leon. MS. BONNESS: Maureen Bonness. I'm from the Big Corkscrew Island Neighborhood. I live in a swamp out of choice. I like it that way. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Hi-hoe neighbor. MS. BONNESS: I have standing water in my back yard cypress dome nine months of the year, and that's good. If it's less than that, it's bad. My house drains off into my cypress dome. It does not drain into your system. I also live on a private road. I'll be brief. I think that the percentage, the ratio of impervious to pervious acreage on your land or square footage on your property, is an integral part of the equation when you're trying to figure out how to tax people for stormwater runoff, and that should actually -- arguably, I think it's more important than just the square footage of the impervious, and that must be included in any equation. I understand there's a need and there's a backlog. So now you're developing a system to tax us to pay for that. Hopefully that backlog's going to get taken care of by this new fee system, and it will be -- then we'll get back to a maintenance level. I think there should be an amendment in here that says that the rate's going to go down in a set number of years, let's say five years, and at that point it's maintenance. And if, indeed, we are not down to a maintenance level in five years, then the commissioners at that time can decide to increase it rather than us waiting for the commissioners to decide in the future when it's an appropriate time to reduce the taxes, which I don't see happening in the near future. The other point, last point, is that I don't think people on private roads should be taxed through this stormwater runoff system. Thank you. September 6, 2018 Page 105 MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Wayne Jenkins. He'll be followed by Alex Garland, Jr., Patrick Leon, and Tim Akhundov. MR. JENKINS: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Wayne Jenkins. After all afternoon of writing my speech, Ms. Bonness just took all my notes, I think, and talked about it. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Does that mean you're done? MR. JENKINS: No, but I'm going to say it anyway. I've got a lot of homework in this. Again, my name is Wayne Jenkins. My wife and I have lived at our home at 2500 Jenkins Way for over 30 years. We lost most of your property rights years ago due to the rural land stewardship program. We live in the middle of 10 acres with no hope of subdividing or clearing our property. We built our home in the center of 10 acres. I even did my homework. I drew you a map. The square is 10 acres. My home and my shop are right dead center in the 10 acres. That's not to scale, but it does show the location of the buildings to the acreage. Our property has no drainage ditches, culverts, or swales to channel water. It also has no flooding issues. What water runs off my roof goes directly into the surrounding ground, and it doesn't flow over to get off my 10 acres. I feel that your proposed stormwater management program has some serious flaws. I believe that your calculations should include a ratio of square footage of impervious surface versus the square footage of the entire property. Thank you, Ms. Bonness. My property actually stores runoff water as opposed to subdivisions, as you can jump from roof to roof on a small lot. This is where you have runoff problems. Homes with larger land masses than the square footage of the impervious area should be given a credit or September 6, 2018 Page 106 payment for storing runoff, not a notice for $541, although I got some -- we did get some good news out: We're down to maybe $192, so thank you for that. The planning so far appears to be a get rich scheme of how to collect 21 million revised down to 18 million instantly against landowners who will see nothing but a bill. I don't foresee any work being done out in the middle of my area. I'm halfway between the tollbooth and Golden Gate Estates. I'm in a little agricultural area, and all I see is I'm going to give you 192 or $541 every year for nothing from my part of it. I know that I don't live just on that piece of property. I go to town. I drive on roads. So I accept that I have some responsibility for payments. The most serious flooding in my area is the recent completion of the four-laning of Collier Boulevard at 951. White Boulevard was raised approximately five feet to intersect with Collier Boulevard. Unfortunately, the genius architect that designed this project failed to realize the old theory that water runs downhill. Whenever we receive a good rain, it overflows White Boulevard at the start of the reconstructed area. We have paid for this once and will have to pay again when it is corrected. Is this what stormwater planning money is for? Please consider a reasonable formula for this fee. And, again, I urge you to take some time to do some serious thought on this. And thank you for your time. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Alex Garland, Jr. He'll be followed by Patrick Leon, Tim Akhundov, and Joseph DeMeo. MR. GARLAND: Good evening, Commissioners. I'm Alex Garland, Jr. Born and raised in Naples. Been here my whole life out in the Estates. I'm also a business owner in the industrial park. So I'm speaking September 6, 2018 Page 107 on you on a couple different venues. This, what a lot of people aren't addressing, is Golden Gate High School. Every high school, every park, everything is being charged. This one's $19,000. We've got another one here in North Collier, $23,000. It's all going to go to our tax money. So I'm not just being assessed 600, hopefully, 192 for my house. I'm being assessed $3,000 for my business in the industrial park. This is going to be added onto my taxes. I can't just raise my prices like you guys do. My customers -- I don't know if they're going to pay it. So I have to now find that money somewhere else. That's probably going to come out of the paychecks of 16 employees that also live in the Estates that are paying extra. It's a big trickle-down effect. It affects everybody, and it affects them hard. A gentleman said at the beginning of this the canals were made to -- well enough to drain the Estates. Well, if they're made well enough to drain the Estates, they should be able to maintain the Estates. Rainwater is rainwater, whether it's running off my roof onto my property or running straight down onto my property. Volume is volume. I will pay a total combined of almost $4,000 a year with my business and my house, and that doesn't include all this. I think that's insane. I don't think that's people looking out for my best interest in my county. My property has approximately 15 percent non-impervious coverage. The website, when you go and look at the assessments of the properties, are so inaccurate it's not even funny. When you look at the industrial parks, there's parking lot that are exempt from the shaded areas. Lime rock areas on some properties are exempt. Lime rock areas on others that aren't exempt. You look out in the Estates, I've got 5,000 square foot of shell that is included in this. But to prove you guys wrong, I've got to pay to September 6, 2018 Page 108 have a survey done. I would like to see their survey that shows what I have. So we've got to do all the paying to prove what we've got from somebody that has never even looked at my property that's telling me what I have. It's not realistic. When the industrial park -- I think about 10 years ago. I'm kind of guessing at this. About 10 years ago, they came through and they put all city sewer and city water into the industrial park, and they redid a lot of the stormwater drains. We were assessed for that in the industrial park. We've already paid for it, and now I'm going to pay for it again $3,000 a year for -- until it gets voted down, which I've never seen done in any bureaucratic group. So that's it. I won't use up all my time. I appreciate all your time. I appreciate you guys being here. I hope about two hours ago you guys already made your decision. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Patrick Leon. He'll be followed by Tim Akhundov, Joseph DeMeo, and Clint Holland. MR. LEON: Hello. My name is Pat Leon, and everything that I had to say has been said, but just to reaffirm, we -- the county came up with impact fees for keeping up with growth. Are those impact fees being used for this stormwater management or not? And if not, why? The budget's been mismanaged as far as what was shown today on different things being borrowed against other things and other departments being slacked off. So that needs to be straightened out. So the house needs to be cleaned before it's presented to us to buy something new. Schools are being taxed, which was mentioned. Low-income housing's being taxed. That does a lot of good for low-income housing for Collier. Houses that aren't on lots are being taxed because the house is no longer there, but they're using old photos. So there's a lot of flaws in the system, and I think my September 6, 2018 Page 109 recommendation, like was said earlier, we need to take this burdensome study and collectively come up with an equitable plan that will better serve us all, one that will be put on the ballot so that we have some more input into it. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Tim Akhundov. He'll be followed by Joseph DeMeo, Clint Holland, and Kathleen Raimondi. MR. AKHUNDOV: Good evening. Tim Akhundov. I live in Golden Gate Estates. I live, invest, and build in Golden Gate Estates. I moved here from Russia, so I'm well used to being slapped with artificial taxes out of the blue. What can I say? I oppose this tax. And let's not call it fee, you know. It's a tax. Why I oppose it? Two points: One, when I build a house in Golden Gate Estates -- sorry. When I build a house in Golden Gate Estates, I have to pay for the right-of-way, dig the ditch, lay the culvert pipe, put the concrete sides, put the apron on top, do everything. After that I'm paying the county to inspect that, and I do it all by the code. When county does something like this, we have what's happening now on the Eighth Street Northeast where the county is extending the road. They just widened the ditch four times, and they left the old tiny culvert pipes, which are situated right now with a new ditch higher than the water level. Well, I mean, that's just an example. Another thing -- another point why I'm opposed to this tax is because I've been building here for 10 years, and compared to 10 years ago, impact fees have gone up almost more than -- almost two times for the same size of the house. At the same time, the rate of growth in Golden Gate Estates is abnormal. So right now -- I mean, I can give you one example. Before I could call the county and have the inspection done the next day; now I'm waiting one week. Okay. And that shows to you how much growth is going on. September 6, 2018 Page 110 So I'm kind of talking simple math. If you have increasing impact fees, increasing taxes, and all that is multiplied by the growth level, and at the same time you have the same number of canals and the same number of ditches, if you cannot use that money to manage this system, we should not be talking here about new taxes. We should be talking here about budget management efficiency. That's what I have to say. (Applause.) MR. AKHUNDOV: And you know what, one gentleman over there said that we in Golden Gate Estates, we serve a good purpose of recharging. So let's remember that this is water recharging, not recharging your money coffers. Okay. (Applause.) MR. AKHUNDOV: And just to finish this, there's just one more thing. I am opposed to this thing not individually. I'm opposed to the whole methodology of all of a sudden collecting just because you can. Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Joseph DeMeo. He'll be followed by Clint Holland, Kathleen Raimondi, and then Guy Raimondi. Is Joseph DeMeo present? (No response.) MR. MILLER: Clint Holland? Mr. Holland will be followed by Kathleen Raimondi. Is she present? Thank you. MR. HOLLAND: Hello. My name's Clint Holland. I'm a homeowner, a real estate investor, and the business administrator for First Baptist Church Naples. I really hope someone else steps up here and talks about commercial properties because, unfortunately, I need to focus on the church. My focus and concern is for 501(c) tax exempt entities. The First Baptist campus is being charged $33,787 for stormwater utility fees. If September 6, 2018 Page 111 this was a tax, we would have been exempt, but it's a fee, and we're not. We did not budget for this, so I want to really point it out, like a lot of other people, and hopefully there's a lot of other tax exempt companies that will call you and tell you how unfair this is. This fee will take away from other services that we provide. We are a very community-oriented organization. We have a service heart, and we do a lot for the community. A lot of tax exempt organizations quietly provide services for free that no one ever hears about. A couple examples: During Irma we opened as a storm shelter. You requested it. You called us and said, we need help. We stepped up. We were approved for 150 people; we took 250. We weren't the only church. I've been told that Temple Shalom and also St. Agnes Catholic Church did the same. And I'm sure there's some other churches that I'm forgetting or am not aware of. We did this thing for free. We didn't come back and charge you, so I just want to point that out. After the storm, First Baptist Church housed over 250 relief workers that were either Red Cross or other related charities. These groups stayed in our facilities for two weeks. We didn't come back and charge you or ask anyone to pay for us. FP&L used our facility for staging areas, as did other utility companies, to stay on our site while the storm was coming and after the storm. Again, we offer this for free. We are a community-oriented church like other places. Last month our campus was used for CERT training. I'm sure a lot of you are aware of that. CERT training is regional and national first responders. They came to our church. And it was probably 2- to 300 people, used it for emergency drills. Again, we provided our facility to help you. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel, for asking about nonprofits. I read in September 6, 2018 Page 112 the article in the newspaper today and welcomed revisions being offered. I'm not sure that all the issue have been addressed -- oh my -- are being addressed, and would like the community -- would like the Commission to offer -- think about the 12-month extension. I just want to end on one point. I had many other things that I'm not going to get to. Thank you for your time. Please consider how much nonprofit charities do behind the scene that never get noticed. This utility fee will impact them financially and, in turn, the services they provide. Please keep that in mind. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Kathleen Raimondi. She will be followed by Guy Raimondi, F. Passidomo, and then John Pacetti. MS. RAIMONDI: Hello. I'm Kathleen Raimondi. Thank you for letting me speak. I just want to say that I agree with almost everything I've heard, and I might reiterate some of the things if I have time. But I would like you to think about something. Apparently this started when I became incapacitated the day after Hurricane Irma. Our driveway was blocked completely, and I spent the day with my husband trying to remove all of the trees and branches and everything that fell over, because we had horrendous catastrophic damage, and we lost our roof and our pool cage, and we lost about 75 percent of the foliage on our property. We have a heavily wooded lot. So, by the way, when it rains, the roots drink it all up. We don't actually need stormwater management either. But if it wasn't -- my thanks to Commissioner McDaniel's office, the sheriff's department who came and knocked on the door because my brother wanted to know if we were okay, going door to door to see if we were okay. If it wasn't for the North Collier Fire Department, who was very generous with helping us when we needed it -- but that night I went into such severe chest pains. And we had no September 6, 2018 Page 113 cell service. And somehow my husband's old weak-signal phone got through, and EMS came. And they got up my driveway, and there was no water. And they got down our street, and there was no water. So I would like you to think about this: I ended up having open-heart surgery. I went to North Naples, and they threw me out. They said, go home. You've got stomach problems. Gave me a pain pill. Two weeks later after laying in a house of 88 degrees or higher with no heat -- I mean, with no air-conditioning -- and everything was done in town. All the HOAs were taken care of before the Golden Gate Estates. The Golden Gate Estates suffers a lot. We're always the orphans of this community. So I would like you to think about having a heart and not charging the people in Golden Gate Estates to fix things up in town when we need hospitals, and we need things ourselves. So what everybody else has said is true and correct, but if you want to have the reputation of Collier County raised, instead of doing something like this, which is so unfair -- and I agree with the tiers. We're in the wrong tier. We're paying a Tier 3, the same price as multi-million-dollar property homeowners. It's unfair, it's unjust, and it should go to a resolution. But I want to give you one tip. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You're done. MS. RAIMONDI: Look at what Naples Community Hospital's cardiac institute is doing. They're putting it on the map because they're building the reputation. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We're done. We've been very respectful for everybody's three minutes. Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Your next speaker is Guy Raimondi. He'll be followed by F. Passidomo, John Pacetti, and then Joshua Maxwell. MR. RAIMONDI: Yes. I'm Guy Raimondi, and I'm glad that I September 6, 2018 Page 114 came tonight, because I learned a tremendous amount of information, and I'm overwhelmed. I don't know if you are or not, but I think if you vote on this tonight, there should be no vote -- and a no vote. If anyone votes yes after hearing what I heard tonight, I hope those commissioners realize that they're not doing their job, and they won't be here in the future, okay. And I have to take my hat off to one commissioner that did not vote for it, and I appreciate that very much because it seems one of them used his head, okay. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Questionable. MR. RAIMONDI: And I take my hat off to him. And I think the other ones need to be re-educated and take into effect all the things that people have said tonight. And for the people who are flooding, let's take the money and take care of those people that are being flooded. We're not. And we shouldn't have to pay for that, but it should be in the taxes like a regular tax, and we should be able to vote on it. And that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is F. Passidomo. She'll be followed by John Pacetti, Joshua Maxwell, and then John Marker. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And what's the F stand for? MS. PASSIDOMO: Francesca Passidomo. I'm sorry. I didn't know you were going to actually read my first initial. I'll be brief. I'm here on behalf of Kyte Realty. And they own several commercial properties throughout Collier County. They maintain all of their water management on site, and they don't discharge into county facilities. I highly recommend that you take into account Stantec's recommendations as far as credits, and I further recommend that you stack credits, so if you maintain water on site and don't discharge into county systems, that it's a 75 percent credit with the understanding that September 6, 2018 Page 115 there's some impact on the roadways with customers coming in and out of shopping centers so not a 100 percent reduction. On a personal note, I'm really impressed by my community tonight and the discourse that's taking place. I think it's been civil and educated and well reasoned, and so that's just a personal note. Okay. Have a great evening. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And your smile's just like your mother. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is John Pacetti. He'll be followed by Joshua Maxwell, John Marker, and then Maurice Gutierrez. MR. PACETTI: Hello, Commissioners. My name's John Pacetti. MR. MILLER: Sorry, sir. MR. PACETTI: I'm a local land surveyor, and I also live in Golden Gate Estates. And I'd just like to bring a couple things to your attention. Any water that may end up in the swale in front of my property comes from the roadway. It doesn't come from my house. And I hardly ever see water in that swale, and when I do it flows down a couple culverts about 300 feet to a canal that is not managed by the county. It's managed by South Florida Water Management, and then it trickles out the Gulf of Mexico eventually. That is one of the biggest reasons why I oppose this tax increase. And based on the enormous turnout tonight, I think many of the residents of Collier County feel the same way. I really hope you guys will listen to them. If you are going to raise our taxes, I think you should look at a ratio of impervious to pervious square footage. On every final survey that I have to do for the City of Marco Island, I have to put a table on September 6, 2018 Page 116 there that has the calculations of impervious to pervious. Now, a 2,000 square foot house on a quarter acre does not have the same impact as a 2,000-square-foot house on a five-acre tract of land. That's just common sense. So I believe you need to look at a ratio if you are going to tax us. And that's all I have to say. Thank you, and God bless. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Joshua Maxwell. He'll be followed by John Marker, and then Maurice Gutierrez, and Christine Lis. MR. MAXWELL: Good evening. Thanks for saving some of the best speakers for the last. I've noticed we've started to have this ratio discussion come up, and I'll get into that a little bit. My name is Josh Maxwell. I live at 1471 31st Street Southwest, for the record. Born and raised here in Collier County. My family moved here in the late '40s to kind of fish when they retired, and the rest of the family came down in the '50s, so we've seen a lot of the growth. We've seen a lot of the ditches and canals be dug. My parents bought on Logan Boulevard in Logan Woods before Pine Ridge Road was in and built before there was Pine Ridge Road. And the flooding you see on Logan Boulevard didn't happen in 1981. It all drained into the deep cypress. It drained -- the Harvey brothers did a better job managing the stormwater with the tomato fields than the county does currently. So I just kind of want to start there. We're not dealing with the current issues we have with stormwater: 30 years mismanagement and 30 years of taking our tax dollars and not applying it properly. Right now you have my house -- initially it was at 4.8 ERUs. That's $582 a year. I pay $3,062.57 for my stormwater tax this year -- for my overall tax, I'm sorry. That's a 19 percent increase to my taxes. That is a huge, huge overreach on a tax increase to my house. I got a notice that we're going to reassess it because it was September 6, 2018 Page 117 improperly done the first time. There was a lot of pervious area that was calculated as impervious. So my new rate will be $436 a year. That's 14.3 percent. And I'm also told that if you guys approve it, it might as low as 192. That's a 6.3 percent increase on my taxes. And everybody's saying it's not a tax, but the Tax Collector's collecting it as part of my property taxes. So I'm an educated guy, but I'm still a simpleton, and I don't see how that's not a tax. The fact that we're not taking into account that I have over 118,000 square feet of total lot area and you guys currently have me calculated around 13,000 square feet of pervious -- impervious surface, how is there no ratio that goes into my benefit? There's a lot of rainwater that goes onto my property that percs into the soil and doesn't go into, you know, the ditch in the front. My property is sloped from the front in the pines to the cypress in the back along the canal. Where's my credit for having a stormwater ditch already through my canal? And I see I've only got 20-something seconds left, so I'll finish with this. I saw that you guys had five different options, and it looked like the county went with the Cadillac. Well, I drove here today in a 17-year-old Ford pickup, and it works great every day, and I ask that the county look at the Ford option, not the Cadillac. We don't need $21 million of new taxes coming into the county. Let's do something that's more appropriate. Let's spend this money appropriately. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is John Marker. He'll be followed by Maurice Gutierrez, Christine Lis, and then H. Michael Mogil. MR. MARKER: Commissioners, how you doing? I'm John Marker. I live at 18th Street Northeast. Last time I was in here was -- Tim Nance was running for office. September 6, 2018 Page 118 And at that time, water management shut the weirs off and put two foot of water across my property, and it sat there, and then finally WINK News came down. And it went down, but it sat on my property for another month and a half. I use all my property. I love my property. But the bottom line is, I had a meeting with Travis Gossard and Mark Berchum (phonetic) out on my street. It wasn't a good one. But it got straightened out, and they told me straight up my property is designed to flood. The water goes in there because you overflowed the canal, and it don't go out. And I can't see how you can tax me for something that God's given me. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Maurice Gutierrez. He will be followed by Christine Lis, H. Michael Mogil, and Dean Sarns. MR. GUITERREZ: Good evening, Commissioners. Man, incredible amount of information. Thank you for holding this meeting, because I don't think we could have asked for this much at one time. But I find it ironic that, you know, we moved to the Everglades, pay a developer with your nod to drain it, and now we're being charged for the rain that falls on it. Being down here forever, I just find a little irony in that. I serve on the MSTU board on Bayshore, and an MSTU tax is above our tax we pay on our property. I'm very aware of the amount of monies we have spent on projects like the lakes there in the Triangle that were enlarged and lift stations added, Karen Drive, which has flooded for 30 years and ignored until we took care of that. And I find it a little lack of equity associated with a tax above our regular tax in a neighborhood that manages these issues. Now, let's just add another one on top of that called Haldeman Creek MSTU. Because, after all, we've got to pay to keep that creek deep so that the Glades and this complex drain into our water system. September 6, 2018 Page 119 They don't pay into it, yet they receive a benefit. Why aren't they on the MSTU tax rolls? So here we are taxed, MSTU taxed for drainage, MSTU Haldeman Creek tax, and this will be another straw on the camel that we are absorbing yet we control and have the water run out of the flowway that the state dug. The information tonight that has been given, I think, is an eye- opener, and I hope that you can retain a lot of it so we can understand a little better how to alleviate this issue, because stormwater is going to be our future. Without it, we run out. So let's keep an understanding of the fact that we need to do something, but the fact that the way things have currently been evaluated and drawn up the monies that will be paid into this fund or this tax I think needs to be a little closer studied, because I don't see where -- I have no swales. I happen to live on a canal. So why is it that I'm paying to keep that Haldeman Creek deep yet paying again for the rain that falls around my house? Thank you for your time. And hopefully the rest of us will be able to walk around with umbrellas and not have to pay for the runoff on those. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Christine Lis. I do not see her. H. Michael Mogil is next. He'll be followed by Dean Sarns, Rae Ann Barton, and Alexander Schobei (sic). MR. MOGIL: Good evening, everybody. Everybody said everything I wanted to say, so I wrote a new talk. I want to wax philosophical for a minute. We're here tonight talking about a stormwater tax and yet the stormwater tax is linked heavily to development in the county. Why aren't we talking about development in the county at the same time? We're looking at this one little piece of a very, very, very big picture instead of looking at the picture. September 6, 2018 Page 120 So I'm going to invoke John F. Kennedy here and say that we chose to go to the moon not because it's easy but because it's hard. So I'm going to challenge the commissioners, staff, and I'm even going to throw out a challenge to the people in the community, 125 or so smart people that testified tonight, that you have expertise in the community that could help you put this problem in a better light. Why don't you tap us to be part of a committee working with the commissioners or staff so that we're in it rather than being told it? Okay. I don't have time to do it, but I volunteer. I tutor kids in this county. I tutored nine kids the other day. I'll make time to do it. I think other people will as well. Use us. I volunteer the rest of the audience. My wife says I'm an A personality. But I want to do another challenge. Commissioner Taylor, I'm going to single you out in this because you answered my question about this six, seven, eight months ago. You said that after the recession in 2008 you lost 40 people in the county, and the county had taken a look at everything. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Three hundred twenty-five people. MR. MOGIL: Okay. Well, I heard 40, but my ears -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Three hundred twenty-five. MR. MOGIL: But I'm going to challenge the Board, the commissioners, and the staff to reinvent the county. What are we doing in the county that maybe doesn't need to be done? What are we doing that's not being done well? Let's go back and find money and resources in there to maybe help find people to clean out the swales and stuff like that instead of business as usual. It's a challenge. I do it every year in my house to make my budget meet. I'd like to see us do it every year in the county. Last but not least, I'm going to go on the record as saying no to this proposal right now. It needs much more review. It's not only not September 6, 2018 Page 121 for prime time; it's a Grade D movie. Thank you for your time and I, again, volunteer to help. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Dean Sarns. He will be followed by Rae Ann Burton, Alexander Schobei, and Doug Rankin. MR. SARNS: Hi. My name's Dean Sarns. I live in Golden Gate Estates. The first I heard about this was in the mail, so looked at the HOAGGE website, and all that they talked about was the one-cent sales tax. And we heard about flooded homes tonight. Couldn't those be covered by an MSTU, you know, of their area because, you know, the people that receive benefit pay for it? And -- you know, what's the problem, you know, the big picture? It's the nutrients, you know, in the water, the algae that we hear in Fort Myers. You know, rain falls on our fertilized yards. Everybody's putting fertilizer on, it seems like. This soaks in, and it goes underground and probably into the SWFWMD canal, like at my house. So why don't we tax fertilizer? There is a fellow, Paul Frank. He could grow anything, and he was amazing. But, you know, no one walks on water. And once he fertilized before a no-named storm, and when he did things, it wasn't small. And quite a few people were upset because the fertilizer went out into Naples Bay. And, you know, by taxing fertilizer, you could get a handle on the nutrients. It would be -- you'd lead all of Florida. I mean, Okeechobee needs to be cleaned. And, like, in front of my house, the county came and put a ditch in that's a two-to-one slope. Your Land Development Code calls for a 4-1 slope unless there's rock holding it. And there's no rock. And I fear about -- that's what's going to happen to Golden Gate Estates to get water retention into Golden Gate Estates. And, you know, what's going to hold back the ocean when the hurricanes come? Because I went into Royal Harbor because I heard that there was flooding there to check on a World War II vet, and my September 6, 2018 Page 122 truck was trudging through about two, maybe two-and-a-half feet of water, saltwater down Sandpiper. So I just -- you know, there's a lot of issues. And, you know, this is flat land. And, you know, if we put all these canals in to get rid of the water, it's just going to affect Naples Bay more. So thank you much for your time. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Rae Ann Burton. She'll be followed by Alexander Schobei, Doug Rankin, and Boniface Williamceu. MS. BURTON: Hello. My name is Rae Ann Burton. I live at 2530 31st Northeast, Golden Gate Estates. I am here because of the stormwater fee. It's a tax. It is put on our tax statement, and if it's not paid we can lose our title. That's blackmail. Where did the water management tax that has been collected all these years go? Why wasn't it taken care of in our Estates? You are now charging, I checked the web, public schools, public buildings. We've already paid taxes on them. Now you're going to charge us again. Do you realize that this very complex has a tax fee of $26,703.60? I verified it. I can give you copies. It is a double taxation. This is the form that you get off of the -- for checking what your cost is. I compared it to the actual global view, and it's the same. Also, my land is 1.4 acres. During Irma, I went through -- and this is what I got. My land retains water. This is the backyard. There's another one. There's this and my neighbors. This is between the front yard. And here's the other one. This was just this past few days. You'll notice there's a little white square at the front. It has "no stormwater tax" sign. I agree there must be money to fix what has not been fixed, but this hasn't been fixed for years. We have been neglected. We have September 6, 2018 Page 123 been the stepchild of the area. An aerial flyover does not give correct impervious area of our property. Stantec's issued a disclaimer on their information on (sic) data was obtained without independent verification and gave judgments on various critical factors which are incapable of precise measurements. This was added to your report. Therefore, I respectfully request that this should be tabled till a better study can be made and the public be allowed to vote on the fee or eliminate it completely. Get your money from a loan or mutual funds. Thank you. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Your next speaker is Alexander Schobei, who will be followed by Doug Rankin, Boniface Williamceu, and then Michael Ramsey. MR. SCHOBER: Hi. Good evening. My name's Alexander Schober. I'm an associate architect, project manager, urban designer trade by landscape architecture, and my master's is in landscape architecture. I just recently bought a house, and I was kind of surprised by the whole thing. And I'm amazed at how taxes -- I was actually born and raised in Naples. My family lives here, aunts, uncles, and they all pay taxes, and most of them are getting between 2,300 and $3,000 for each of -- everybody seems like the general public is paying almost, like, $3,000 in tax. There are people that have been here for 40 years or 50 years that pay less, but then even a family that I have that lives in Port Royal pay a whole lot more, Aqua Lane Shores. It seems like it's an unreal amount on how much money you have to pay. Minimum wage is not increasing. You're getting -- I mean, for a family to pay that much, for an average family to pay that much, it just seems unreal. And then on top of it, we live in -- we just recently purchased a September 6, 2018 Page 124 two-bedroom, two-bathroom house, and the driveway is concrete going to it. And the reason that it's concrete is to get through the swamp, to get through the cypress trees on the right and to the left because if I were to put pavers in, they would, like, wash away. You would have to drive through mud to get your house to be pervious. So we're looking at 5,000 square feet of concrete of hard surfaces, which is comparable to some of the houses that I design. They're 5,000 square feet of impervious area. And they're -- and you're looking at a lot that's only 10,000 square feet. So -- and we're on 1.1 acres, so we're looking 50 -- 1.1 is 50,000 square feet of area in comparison to the 5,000 square feet of concrete driveway and the house. So we have -- I just oppose the tax because, like, of how much we're paying and how much you're assessing that my -- that I'm using because of the concrete space, and we're only in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house. New people that are coming into the communities are buying new houses. They'll look at the taxes, and they'll be like, oh, my God. We were on the breaking line of not being able to afford our house because of it being so close on a budget on a mortgage. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. MR. SCHOBER: Thank you for your time. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Appreciate your -- MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Doug Rankin. He'll be followed by Boniface Williamceu and Michael Ramsey. MR. RANKIN: Good evening, everybody. I'm Doug Rankin. I've lived in this community for 35 years. I've lived on this coast for 61, and my family's been here for about a hundred, I think, in this coast. I'm a Republican, as you all are, too, and as Republicans we don't raise taxes unless we make sure we're adequately spending the money September 6, 2018 Page 125 we have. And we have -- if we have to raise taxes, we man or woman up and raise them. We don't spend -- and according to what I've clocked with staff, you spent about 3- to $500,000 to get us to this point to disguise a tax as a stormwater thing that is so complicated that some of the math my engineer kids understand that I can't even pronounce make this look simple. They make that took simple. This is the stack of paper I just printed out for one part of this thing for tonight. This is insane. You're going to spend five percent of this just administering. I don't know -- where did we have an extra half million dollars to spend on this nonsense tonight so somebody wouldn't have to man up or woman up, because I understand it costs a quarter mil to raise the same 20 million, and that would cost you a few hundred dollars. It wouldn't have cost thousands and thousands of dollars of staff time and advertising and postage and all this other nonsense to come up with something that's so complicated. You're dealing with the largest county east of the Mississippi. It's not all occupied. Bigger than the State of Delaware. And it's all flat, and it's all different. And you're going to spend hundreds of hours or thousands of staff hours and people hours every year. And this thing is going to turn into a consultant and engineer's slush fund, is what it's going to do. Because if -- you have a group of money here that's dedicated to something, and you don't even tell me what you're going to spend it on. I agree with the -- see, we have -- one of the things I love about Collier County that we used to have here, we used to have people like some of these people I saw speak here that used to run things all over the world sit on our advisory boards. Now we don't have them anymore because one of the former commissions kicked them all off. We need to go back to that. And if you-all want to raise a quarter mil, then raise a quarter mil. September 6, 2018 Page 126 That will cost you a couple of grand in some advertising, not a half a million dollars. And all this staff time. How many staff people are going to be dedicated to straightening this mess out every year? And every time somebody comes up here -- and you're not going to be able to bamboozle. This is Collier County. You've got some damn smart people that live here. So if you could raise it, and if you had an extra half million, let's spend it. And I haven't heard a thing about stopping the nutrient runoff into the gulf. And right now that's what we should be talking about. We've got the city draining directly into the gulf, and parts of this county drain directly into the gulf. That's what we should be talking about now. Thank you. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Mr. Rankin? (Applause.) COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Mr. Rankin, just so you know that the city's proposed, you know, stormwater fee in the city has been over for over 10 years. By the way, my front yard floods -- MR. RANKIN: I know, but -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: -- all the time. $65 million new stormwater program suggested for City of Naples. MR. RANKIN: Well, I know, because my old partner used to be the last part-time city attorney. He was responsible for a lot of engineering, a lot of that. It all drains either directly into Naples Bay or directly into the gulf with no filtration. All of the oil and grease and fertilizer off all those yards is straight into the gulf or straight into the bay. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's right, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, Doug. MR. MILLER: Boniface Williamceu. Boniface? (No response.) September 6, 2018 Page 127 MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, in that case, I can tell you your final speaker on this item is Michael Ramsey. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Ah. How did you work that out? MR. MILLER: Mr. Ramsey -- pardon me. Mr. Ramsey has been ceded additional time from four other folks: Deborah Farris, is she present? Yes. Michelle Scavone? Yes. Tammy Burger? (No response.) MR. MILLER: That's not Tammy Burger. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: She's not Tammy Burger. MR. MILLER: Gary Burger? (No response.) MR. MILLER: The Burgers are gone. Mr. Ramsey, that will leave you with nine minutes for your time. MR. RAMSEY: And I promise you I'll only take 8.59 seconds. Okay. My name is Michael Ramsey. I'm the president of the Golden Gate Estates Area Civic Association. This has been a very interesting night. I have to say I've -- it's been interesting listening to the speakers. Made some good points, very impressive. I hope everybody was listening. Points I'd like to make that we still have concerns with. I know you've seen some of my letters. We've been talking with a lot of people about this. My group and a lot of my homeowners have one issue that they're wrestling with right now that's still a main issue. They know there might be an issue with this, and they're trying to wrap their arms around it, but they would like to see a needs assessment, a detailed needs assessment so we can understand what you're trying to do. Right now my group is having a problem with that. It needs to be a detailed needs assessment saying this is a problem, and this is how we fix it. We're struggling with that. Number two, we have concerns about the business issue with this. September 6, 2018 Page 128 And if you don't know about it, anybody, you need to go investigate it about the Tamiami Ford parking lot. This may be where businesses is going. The Tamiami Ford parking lot is like a mini-parking lot. They've had to raise it up like a bridge, and the water drains underneath it. This is very expensive. So I think we need a little workshop of where we may be going with this. That is a very unusual construction issue to double build your parking lot, and I think that's where we're going. Number three on businesses. Every business owner I've talked to in the county that's going to be hit with this, they're going to redirect their costs to the residents. So your projected costs to the residents may be low. On top of that, we've heard about the issue with the schools. That will be redirected to us, too. So there might be more cost to the residents than you may realize, and we need to look at that. Last, in the Estates, I'm worried now after we did our Growth Management Plan, and we're working on it now, that this stormwater tax is going to make it almost impossible for a smaller business to survive on 10 or 15 acres. We're trying to keep a low density, semirural character with small businesses to cater to the community. This is going to make it very difficult to survive. Plus, they will be passing off the cost to us, too. Last, I think it should be noted that I think everybody's trying to understand this. I hope you guys heard everything today. Make your best decision. Thank you. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: With that, did I hear he was our last one, Troy? MR. MILLER: That is correct, Mr. Chairman, our last speaker. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And we are a little early for our September 6, 2018 Page 129 break, but I -- had marked as 9:38 for the break, so you want to go ahead -- let's -- we'll take a break in a minute, Commissioner Taylor. MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman? I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I'm going to close the public hearing portion of it. MR. OCHS: Can the staff have an opportunity to respond to a few of these issues? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes, sir. I think it's very important to listen to their response. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, you know, I don't want to have a debate on the accuracy of the public speaking. It's up to my colleagues if you want to hear staff. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I've heard enough, quite frankly. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Me, too. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I think Stantec did not do us any favors on this. I hate to say that, because I have friends there. (Applause.) COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I think we should postpone this for further study, and I'd make that motion that we not do anything this evening and we postpone this. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I'll second that motion. I feel the same. (Applause.) COMMISSIONER FIALA: We could have done a better job, and we need to do a better job, and we need time to do that. And it's been very interesting and enlightening. I mean, I learned so much tonight that I did not know of and I wasn't aware of and nobody informed us of. And so this was very interesting, and we -- I heard you speak and I heard you speak loud and clear, and so I agree with Commissioner September 6, 2018 Page 130 Saunders. I do believe that we need to put this off for another year. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: All right. There's been a motion and a second. Is there any further comment? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I would just say that I'm -- I mean, I certainly would bow to my colleagues, but I do think it's unfair not to allow staff to set the record straight. I think there's been a lot of unfortunate misinterpretations of -- and perhaps it's just lack of knowledge, and I can respect that. I'm not suggesting -- you came to this issue very late, but I think it would be very helpful for staff to set it straight, but it is 9:24, and -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's not a matter of being in a rush, Commissioner Taylor. It's -- there again, I mean -- and I think people understand the fact that, you know, our staff made the presentation. People come with their own opinions. Some of them are correct, some of them are skewed. And it's -- we're not here to necessarily debate this. If we want to debate it and go through those processes, that's an entirely different process. Commissioner Solis, you still with us? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yes, I am. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Do you have any comments? How do you do? Do you have comments? COMMISSIONER FIALA: It's six o'clock in the morning over there. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I do. I mean, I would at some point want to hear from staff regarding some of the issues that have come up but, clearly, there's the numbers to put this off for at least a year. My concern is there are some public safety aspects of this that we've talked about, and we're going to be kicking the can down the road. I also agree that I think the analysis could have been better. I hate to say that as well. But I think -- September 6, 2018 Page 131 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Truth. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: At this point I would like to hear briefly from staff on some of the things that have been said, because there are certainly issues that weren't presented or weren't discussed in the prior meetings that we had, and we've had many meetings on this issue. So, obviously, it's if -- if the votes are there to move it forward for a year, then that's fine. But at some point I do think the staff needs to address some of these issues and some of the claims that have come up, because they're important. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Agreed. And I've got a bunch of head nods up here. We're going to give staff a few minutes to speak. And -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. Could I add one thing, though? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Of course. And I haven't had my comments yet. I've been letting you-all go, so... COMMISSIONER FIALA: While staff is coming up, I would like to see if they couldn't involve the community while they're moving forward. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That's part of my comments. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, is it? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I didn't mean to steal your thunder. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: No, that's all right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Because I think we all need to be included. And we just were not aware of what was going on. And if we're included, we can also point to some places where they would stumble and fall unless they knew what was really going on in the communities, and that's an important thing, too. So I think we all need to work together and communicate. September 6, 2018 Page 132 Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm sorry that I stole your thunder. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That's all right. I'll repeat what you said. MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. MR. OCHS: You know, if it's the pleasure of the Board and you know where you want to head on this, I think it is important to hear from the staff, and I think you-all agree. Whether that needs to be tonight or a follow-on report at a board meeting that's noticed to the public, we're available to do that as well. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It would be my preference that we do do that. I mean, I'm counting here, and I think we've come -- there is a consensus. I'm not looking to dissuade what, in fact, our staff says. I think we're all aware that some of the representations that were made were not as accurate as they necessarily could be. And I really want to say -- I would like to say my comments, if I may, before I call on the vote. These are difficult times for our community. And it's hard for our staff who are given direction to take on a path to cure -- there's a true need. Almost everybody who came here tonight has admitted the fact that there is, in fact, a true need to support the subsurface infrastructure for our community. And there's no argument about that. And it's hard for our staff and the consultants that have been hired by prior decision makers to cover that need. And this is one of the methodologies that were suggested to do so. And I want to say this: I've watched for the 18 months that I've served as county commissioner. There's no malice over there on that wall at all whatsoever. They've done the best they can with what they have to work with. September 6, 2018 Page 133 So there's a lot of questions. One of the issues, County Manager, with regard to this subject is the public notice process and the timing. Again, I talked about this. This wasn't done with malice. And a lot of you read what they wrote about in the paper, what Brent wrote in the paper. We were all out picking up sticks. Now we're going to have a chance to actually have some more public information, some more public input, better education, correct the known blatant errors that are within the system right now with pervious and impervious designation and the like. So with that, I would prefer we just go ahead, call the question, and let's take care of Pelican Bay. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah, we still have a budget hearing. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. Yeah, we've got more work to do after you-all go. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Two more meetings. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: So it's been moved and seconded that we defer this for up -- I believe it's -- I don't want to repeat what you said. It was a -- necessarily it's a 12-month deferral. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah, it will be deferred till next budget cycle. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Seconded. Any other discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: All in favor? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Opposed, same sign -- September 6, 2018 Page 134 COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: -- same sound. And that was not for an opposition. Are you in opposition or for the deferral, sir? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No. I was in favor of the deferral. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: 5-0. Okay. There you are. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And now we're going to take a 10-minute break. (A brief recess was had.) MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mic. PELICAN BAY SERVICES DIVISION BUDGET CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. We have a live mic. If everybody could please take their seats, silence their phones. We're going to move to the second portion of our hearing tonight, which is Pelican Bay. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. And I'll turn the microphone over to Mr. Isackson, your Budget Director. MR. ISACKSON: Thank you, County Manager Ochs. Mr. Dorrill is at the podium. He'll make a brief presentation. You see the agenda on your screen. And the final action tonight will be, essentially, approving the resolution which sets the assessment in place. Mr. Dorrill. MR. DORRILL: Good evening, everyone, and in an interest to be brief, there are just several things that I need to make sure are part of the record. As you know and as we've discussed not only at our board meetings but also your budget workshops, this year's proposed September 6, 2018 Page 135 combined Pelican Bay Services budget is $7,638,900. That is a 12 percent overall increase, and I'll get to that in just a second. As part of that, the assessment roll -- and this is a non-ad valorem special assessment and combined ad valorem millage only for streetlights, but for that portion that is required to be noticed and part of the record as part of the Uniform Method of Assessment subject to the Florida Statute $4,176,200 is for operational and maintenance costs. There are 7,615.29 assessable units within Pelican Bay or an individual per-unit assessment of 548.396. In addition, on the capital side, the capital assessment roll is $3,558,800. That's 467 and point 322 cents for the same number of assessable units in this particular regard. If you have or have seen your overall agency summary, that is a $348 increase one time in the assessment. And I can tell you just as an overview that the 70 to 75 percent of the assessment increase, or the $348, is in three areas, the most important of which to your board is the one-time reimbursement of funds that were borrowed from other funds to respond to Hurricane Irma. $1.4 million or almost 70 percent of the increase tonight is attributable to inter-fund loans that we used to meet our expenses for Hurricane Irma. Most recently was a discussion at yesterday's board meeting to appropriate up to $475,000 for the reconstruction of U.S. 41 landscape berm that runs parallel to U.S. 41 for almost two miles. So that is an example of, in addition to the cleanup and the demolition debris, that was a discussion of your board at yesterday's meeting that was authorized. In addition to the $1.4 million one-time increase for the loan repayment, there's an additional $500,000 in associated capital improvements. And not to discuss a sore subject, but it has to do with Pelican Bay with lake bank erosion and repairs to the water September 6, 2018 Page 136 management system. And this is the first year of costs that are associated with our beginning to reconstruct, believe it or not, what is now 40-year-old infrastructure. This is the 40th anniversary of the community. The only other increases that are material have to do with the general wage adjustment or other indirect allocated expenses that you apply to individual fund departments like ourselves. I should tell you that while the budget chairman is here this evening, he's not intending to speak unless you have specific questions other than to tell you that they have invested hundreds of hours as a budget and finance committee, and this budget tonight comes to you on a vote of 8-3. Two of the three nay votes are representing commercial interests in the community, and we recognize that, and they are both very valued and trusted members. Final point: One of the things that we committed to do when we saw you at the budget workshop earlier in the summer was to re-evaluate the overall methodology that is used to fund Pelican Bay Services. It is a combination of a flat uniform assessment and a millage that pays for our streetlighting cost and fund. And your budget committee met last month in August to begin that process to run a whole series of different proration models and hope to make further recommendations to the full board at Pelican Bay sometime this spring in the second quarter of the fiscal year. At that point, I'll stop. I do know that you have some registered speakers, and then the budget chairman has been with me this evening in the event that you have questions. MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, we have six registered speakers. Your first speaker is Susan -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Before we go there, my colleagues, do we have any questions of staff with regard to this at all? And do you want Mr. Isackson to speak before the public speakers? September 6, 2018 Page 137 MR. ISACKSON: I have nothing to add, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. Then off we go. MR. MILLER: Your first speaker is Susan O'Brien. She'll be followed by Phil Fitzpatrick. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: This is a long evening for you. MS. O'BRIEN: Good evening, Commissioners. My name's Susan O'Brien, and I serve on the Pelican Bay Services Division Board. And I want to thank you for your endurance. You've really listened to a lot of citizens, and that's really an important part of the process. So we really appreciate that opportunity. Four months ago on May the 2nd, our PBSD Board approved recommending a 56 percent increase in the non-ad valorem assessment for FY '19; 56 percent. And as you know from the budget workshop, there was considerable pushback from Pelican Bay residential and commercial members. We had a special meeting, and we had over 100 people at that meeting. And the pushback was from both commercial and residential members because of the large increase. The good news is that in the last four months there have been two major developments that can result -- could result in potentially a reduction. And let me tell you first there have been productive discussions between PBSD Board members and representatives of the Pelican Bay Property Owners Association which represents about 1,700 homes in Pelican Bay about looking at long-term financing for major projects in Pelican Bay. And what we mean by that is perhaps some bond issue which we stretched out over maybe 20 years or more to pay for some of those major improvements. So there's $800,000 in the proposed budget for two major projects. So if major funding in another way is going to be pursued for those, potentially some of that $800,000 would not be needed for next year. The second major development relates to Hurricane Irma. And to September 6, 2018 Page 138 date, as of August 31st, only $319,000 has been used for Irma recovery. So we currently have a balance in the net cost center of a million dollars. We're going to have over a half million dollars in reserves in the FY '19 budget. So there's really no reason to have another -- to collect from our community another million .3 for Hurricane Irma recovery. Mr. Dorrill just mentioned the 41 berm project. There's $675,000 in the budget for that. That's not right now scheduled to come out of that recovery money, that 1.3 million. So the assessment could be reduced. And in a nutshell it could be reduced by about a million and a half to $2 million resulting in an assessment of 750 to $820. So I respectfully request that you consider asking our board to take a final look at this so that what we ask the people to pay in Pelican Bay reflects what we know now in September instead of what we knew in May. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Don't go away. MS. O'BRIEN: Okay. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Taylor? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I have a question. You're debating whether to pay this -- pay out in cash without an assessment because of the balances you have in different areas, or you're debating whether you're going to borrow the money and then pay the debt service and issue a bond over 20 years. What is the -- what is your struggle on that? What -- why haven't you come up with a decision on that now? And I'm not -- that's not a criticism. I'm just curious about the process that you're going through. MS. O'BRIEN: Well, you know, as the last four months have evolved and we've had discussions at PBSD board meetings and other discussions -- I know Mr. Shepherd has talked with some September 6, 2018 Page 139 representatives of the property owners association. We've talked about not taking -- using just the non-ad valorem assessment every year to fund major projects but to use another alternate funding source, perhaps municipal bonds, to do that. That means that the $800,000 that we would be charging Pelican Bay now perhaps is not needed. There's also -- we also have in the proposed budget $1.3 million for Hurricane Irma recovery. We've only spent $300,000 to date. The project Neil talked about is in another fund. So we have a balance of a million dollar, and we're not expecting right now anything not to reimbursed. But if we get, let's say, a half million dollars that we need to reimburse, we have a million dollar to do that. So why do we want to go to our citizens now for $1.3 million that we probably aren't going to need? So, thank you for the opportunity. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. MR. MILLER: You next speaker is Phil Fitzpatrick. (No response.) MR. MILLER: All right. I do not see him present. Kathleen vanBergen. She will be followed by Dr. Joseph Doyle. MS. vanBERGEN: Good evening. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Very patient lady. MS. vanBERGEN: Good evening, everyone. For the record, my name is Kathleen vanBergen. I'm the CEO and President of Artis Naples, a commercial property in Pelican Bay. Forgive me for relying on my notes. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: No, no. MS. vanBERGEN: At this hour. Thank you very much for being here and for hearing our comments today. I have to say that what's keeping me going is seeing the spirit of democracy live. Thank you very much. And thank you, Susan, for your tireless work on the Board and for September 6, 2018 Page 140 representing the new information that is now apparent prior to the decisions that were made earlier in the late spring. We value living in a beautiful, safe, cultural community that is well planned and well maintained. The mission of Artis Naples is to enhance our community by creating and presenting world-class visual and performing arts through concerts, exhibitions, events, and education programs. Currently we welcome more than 300,000 people to our cultural campus annually, including 45,000 students. We, Artis Naples, are a well-managed organization that plans a multi-year budget cycle where 35 percent of our 30 million annual revenues are donated by residents annually. Our fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30th, and the timing of the proposed amendment places undue stress and pressure on the organization, not allowing us to include it in our currently approved board budget. It's not considerate of the businesses, commercial properties in Pelican Bay to require an increased assessment only one year after experiencing additional expenses due to Hurricane Irma and during a period where we are recurring -- I'm sorry -- recovering from our own unplanned expenses and making investments in our own properties to best prepare for future storms. We maintain our own property insurance, safety, and security all to the standard as outlined and defined by the Pelican Bay Services Division. While we do not pay property taxes due to a state mandate as a non-profit, we do pay Pelican Bay service fees as calculated using the ERU, equivalent residential unit, based methodology. Our fees this year would increase $50,000 based on this assessment. We oppose the assessment largely due to the timing of the September 6, 2018 Page 141 priorities and lack of our ability to plan. We are focused on our own project, which is to re-open the Baker Museum, which has been closed for a year due to hurricane damage. This project in itself represents a $25 million capital investment in Pelican Bay's future. We do support reviewing the funding structure as well as the expense structure of the Pelican Bay Services Division. If it's truly necessary, we would support a more gradual approach and payment to the reserve. Thank you very much. And may we all enjoy a quiet storm season. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, your final registered speaker for this item is Dr. Joseph Doyle, who's been ceded three additional minutes from Sandra Doyle, who is present. DR. DOYLE: Good evening, Commissioners, Dr. Joseph Doyle, here on behalf of my mother, who is the property owner in Pelican Bay. And as you know, I've been here throughout this entire process, the spring, to the meetings that Board Member Susan O'Brien spoke about, as well as to the budget workshop, and I'm asking that this board override the Pelican Bay Services Division request for the assessment. This assessment needs to be pared back. You've heard very well put by Susan O'Brien what needs to be done. I think it's outrageous that the budget committee and a majority of the Pelican Bay Services Division Board wants to collect $1.3 million to replenish Irma reserves when only, first of all, 300,000 has been used. A million is still sitting there. And we're still waiting to be reimbursed by FEMA, and we're talking about next year's budget, which begins in October. So -- and this hurricane season's almost over. I don't -- there's a big disconnect there. But the major thing here, and I alluded to it earlier this evening, and I alluded to it as well in the past, Pelican Bay infrastructure is now September 6, 2018 Page 142 35 to 40 years old. There has been talk among the community that we need to look at repairing that infrastructure with a 20- to 30-year bond issue of maybe 20 to $30 million it would cost to do the lakes, the stormwater, et cetera, et cetera. But the point is, what -- this budget that you're looking at tonight is trying to fix a long-term problem with short-term financing. We need to look at long-term problems with long-term financing. I learned that in my MBA course. So I'm requesting that this board pare back this assessment. You know, and if you can't do it tonight, to continue this to the September 20th meeting so that Mr. Isackson and the Pelican Bay Services Division Board and administrator can work on this over the next two weeks, okay. So, you know, we have the 1.3 million that I just talked about with Irma. We have the $500,000 that's earmarked for erosion-related work. That's what I'm talking about is long-term type of projects that the community is well aware of. There's no rush to do it this year. Those lakes aren't going to fail this year. It could be pushed to next year to a longer-term type of bond issue. You know, Pelican Bay needs -- is really an MSTBU, but we really need to be a CDD, okay, and that's a whole 'nother ball of wax as to how it's structured, okay. So if you look at some of these different reductions, we should get down to about $754. You know, the current proposal is going from $652 per ERU that we've been paying this year to 1,017. My mother is on a fixed income. That's a hell of an increase, 56 percent. And you also heard from Artis Naples; they're a not-for-profit. And you've in the past heard from Mr. Staros from the Ritz-Carlton. That's a huge increase for him as well. So these people are not here tonight. Mr. Staros was called out of town. But I'd like to hear them speak at public comment two weeks September 6, 2018 Page 143 from now if you need to hear from them, if they haven't sent you an email, et cetera. You heard from them at the June workshop. This 1,017 is unacceptable, and I'm asking you to pare it back. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Doc, don't go away. Commissioner Saunders? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Mr. Dorrill. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Is it for Dr. Doyle, or are we done with him? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: No. I have a question and a comment, but not for Dr. Doyle. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. You're free to go. DR. DOYLE: Thank you. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: We had this conversation last year. I think you said last year that it's not going to hurt the Pelican Bay District if this is deferred to our second meeting. I don't think there was anything negative in terms of your financing and that sort of thing. Is that correct? MR. DORRILL: No, sir. And with all due respect -- and I -- because I remember adding to the conversation with Mr. Klatzkow. There's only -- for the non ad valorem assessment, there is only one public hearing that is required. And to reinterpret that to extend or require a second hearing causes me some statutorial-type concerns. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. I'm going to rephrase the question -- MR. DORRILL: Okay. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- because I'm not suggesting that we have two hearings, but I am suggesting that we might want to continue this hearing. In terms of trying to focus on this, you know, we've been here for four-and-a-half hours. My mind's a little bit mushy right now, and I've September 6, 2018 Page 144 heard the comments. And so the question is, if this one hearing is continued so we can have a little bit better analysis of this, does that create a legal problem and a financing problem for you? MR. DORRILL: Not a legal or financing problem. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. MR. DORRILL: As a staff person though, I think you insult your advisory board just a little bit given the fact that this isn't really my budget. This is their budget. And it would probably be worth our while, if there is some consensus, to at least hear from your budget chairman so that he can affirm these three major points that I have made, if that's the pleasure of the Board. And with all due respects to Ms. vanBergen, who I've never met, her assessment will not increase $50,000. Her assessment will increase about $13,000. You only pay the equivalent of 36.7 equivalent residential units. So if you do the math, it work out to about 13,000, not 50-. MS. vanBERGEN: Fifty total. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Mr. Chairman, this is Andy. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yeah. We're going to get to you in a second, Andy. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Can I make a comment? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Actually, you know what, go ahead. I've been wanting to hear from you because -- and on a personal note, just so you know, I mean, I'm not comfortable in going against the Board's recommendation, the budget board's recommendation. I mean -- and I believe it's up to the residents of Pelican Bay to be making these decisions and the commissioner from the district who I'm sure is far more intimate with what's going on than I am. So I'm very uncomfortable. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I'd like to comment on that because -- September 6, 2018 Page 145 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: All right. Let's go. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- I think that's the same conversation that we had last year, and that is that the residents of Pelican Bay elect a board who spends a lot of time analyzing the needs of the community, the aging of the infrastructure, and the needs that Pelican Bay faces in remaining what many would consider and I consider being the crown jewel of the coast. So I agree with Mr. Doyle that -- I mean, not Mr. Doyle -- Mr. Dorrill that, you know, we need to defer to the community that's looking at the needs and developing its plan for its budget. And I don't know that we shouldn't do that today or two weeks from now. I think that's the recommendation from the advisory board that has been doing a very good job taking care of the infrastructure within the Pelican Bay Services Division area. I see no reason to start second-guessing what they're doing. I mean, there's some very, very sophisticated, very intelligent people on both the Finance Committee and the Board that have spent an inordinate amount of time on this. So I wouldn't be in favor of putting this off any further. This is the same conversation that we had last year. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Agreed. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'm okay with that. That's fine. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I am as well. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That's fine. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I am as well. And, Mr. Dorrill, if I might ask you a quick question. Did I not hear that your board actually voted to approve these fees in an 8-3 motion? MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. MR. DORRILL: And we are in some serious discussions with September 6, 2018 Page 146 senior staff here about assuming infrastructure responsibility that is not currently our responsibility to replace substantial public assets for the pathways and additional drainage facilities. And I'd like to see those through, because we're talking about maybe $15 million worth of infrastructure that's going to be discussed in the months ahead. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Fiala, your light was on. Is that from before, or do you have a question? COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. I was just wondering, somebody on this board -- and maybe it was Commissioner Saunders, I don't know -- suggested that maybe we delay this till the next meeting just to hear from your board just to hear that this is something that they really want to do. Is that -- COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, I had kind of raised that just because of the lateness of the hour and some of the complexity here, but I'm satisfied with what Commissioner Solis has indicated, and so -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: The Board's voted 8-3. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. RESOLUTION 2018-136: APPROVING THE SPECIAL ASSESSMENT ROLL AND LEVYING THE SPECIAL ASSESSMENT AGAINST THE BENEFITED PROPERTIES WITHIN THE PELICAN BAY MUNICIPAL SERVICE TAXING AND BENEFIT UNIT - ADOPTED MR. DORRILL: If it's appropriate, then staff recommendation is that the Board adopt the budget and the associated resolution authorizing the Chairman to execute same, approving the special assessment roll and leveling the special assessments against those benefited properties within the boundaries of the Pelican Bay Services September 6, 2018 Page 147 -- Municipal Service and Taxing Benefit Unit. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I'll make that motion. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's been moved. And? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's been moved and seconded. Any other further discussion? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. There is a little bit further discussion. My curiosity is pricked here. It really is. It's piqued in this. We have two -- I understand there's very sophisticated financial folks. I respect the fact that it's very late, but I need more of an understanding of why there's two diametrically opposed ideas that, to me, seem sound, both. And if -- and I just think we owe it to the people in Pelican Bay, but also this board, to hear it. And I'm not suggesting we do it tonight, but I sure think if it is not any trouble to continue this -- but we're in the middle of a vote, I understand that -- to continue this for two weeks and then get that presented to us. MR. DORRILL: I would ask you not to on behalf of the Board direction that I received and in anticipation of a more elaborate plan that is scheduled to be presented to you during the second quarter of the new fiscal year concerning the complete methodology and long-range new infrastructure projects that we have discussions underway. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So you're telling this board that these -- this proposal for these new infrastructure projects are critical in the decision-making to assess rather than to dig into funds that are already existing? MR. DORRILL: I think the primary concern of your board has to do with reserves for cash flow and reserves for contingency and making sure that those funds that were borrowed from the streetlighting district in the Capital Improvement Fund are repaid, and September 6, 2018 Page 148 then the additional issue that is there that is before them, in the last month I've spent $40,000 on emergency drainage repairs that were not budgeted. And I don't think we can put off for another year 40 years worth of deferred maintenance. And so, again, this isn't my budget or my plea. I'm pleaing on behalf of the total 11-member board that I work for there. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And then 8-3 voted in favor of it with public participation of in excess of 100 people during those meetings, if I was hearing -- I'm hearing properly. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And, again, I share the concern. It's just -- and I'm really -- you know, I'm not -- I don't feel -- I don't feel qualified to be -- other than listening to the public and knowing that the final decision rests here, I have to rely upon the community that elects their board and has voted to move forward with this. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. I'm fine. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. How much does FEMA owe you, or how much are you expecting to get back from FEMA? MR. DORRILL: Well, the rule of thumb that I have been given is a maximum of I think it's 85 percent. I'm looking at your budget director. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: What year? MR. DORRILL: If we receive it at all. That's the question is when. And the biggest concern is the one project that I just alluded to that goes into our entire cash flow issue, $475,000 U.S. 41 landscape reconstruction, is not FEMA eligible and was not an insured asset. So we're out-of-pocket for that one, just by way of example. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I understand that. And let's face it, that is your signature right there on U.S. 41, and it's something that everyone is proud of. September 6, 2018 Page 149 The reason I ask that is, if next week -- and you didn't tell me how much it was. But if next week it arrives, then do you cut back on this, or do you move forward with that? MR. DORRILL: Our board discussed that at length, and they want to repay themselves from the loan that was advanced to initiate this regardless of if and when we get the FEMA money. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Thank you. MR. DORRILL: The total amount was a million 400,000 that was projected. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: All right. There's a motion and a second. Commissioner Solis, do you have anything to say? I keep forgetting about you. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Nothing else, thanks. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Any other further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: All in favor? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Opposed, same sign -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: -- same sound? (No response.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: So moved. I'm going too quick on him. He's voting yes, so... MR. DORRILL: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes, sir. Thank you. Mr. Isackson, did you have some things you needed to talk to us September 6, 2018 Page 150 about? BCC FISCAL YEAR 2019 BUDGET MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, I'll dispense with some of my opening remarks, but let me put a few things on the record. We're moving, Commissioners, to the -- Leo, if you can put that on the visualizer, please. We're moving to the final portion of the proceedings this evening, which is the Collier County's FY 2019 tentative budget, and as the commissioners are aware, the agenda contains a specific sequence of items to be covered, and pursuant to statute, this hearing was advertised as part of the TRIM notice, mailed to all Collier County property owners. The final budget hearing is two weeks from tonight, or September 20th, 2018. This hearing will be noticed as part of the statutory advertising requirement contained in the truth and millage statutes. The notice of proposed tax increase ad will appear in the Naples Daily News on the 17th of September 2018, and this type of ad is necessary since the county's tentatively adopted aggregate millage rate is greater than the current year aggregate rolled-back rate. At that meeting on September 20th, final tax rate and budget decisions will be made. Commissioners, I just want to deviate a little bit since your action on the stormwater utility. You're going to be voting tonight on the tentative budget which includes the stormwater utility in its full presentation from the June workshop. My staff will go back and make required changes to the budget based on your action tonight. Those changes will be incorporated into your packet on the 20th. So the action you will be voting on on the 20th will reflect the modifications that this board made tonight. September 6, 2018 Page 151 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you for that clarification. That was a conundrum for me. MR. ISACKSON: We will have -- agenda and speaker slips available, and anyone interested in addressing the Board regarding the county's budget must complete a speaker slip. The TRIM notice mailed to all property owners indicated that by close of business on September 14th, 2018, is the deadline for property owners to contact the Property Appraiser and file a petition for market value adjustment with the Value Adjustment Board. Commissioners, Item 1A is the discussion of tentative millage rates and increases over the rolled-back millage rate. State law requires that the first substantive issues to be discussed are, one, the percentage increase in millage over the rollback rate needed to fund the budget and, two, the reasons ad valorem tax revenues above the rolled-back rate as calculated on the State's DR420 forms are being increased. Rolled-back rate is defined as that tax rate necessary to generate prior-year tax revenues, and this tax rate is calculated not including taxable values associated with new construction, additions, deletions, and rehabilitative improvements. The board-adopted budget guidance for FY 2019 included a millage neutral operating levy position, the same tax rate as last year and, for that matter, since 2010 for the General Fund. For the Unincorporated Area General Fund, the millage rate was, once again, set at FY 2007 rate of .8069 pursuant to board guidance with the additional marginal ad valorem dollars above the millage-neutral operating levy of .7161 devoted to continuing the median landscape capital program. Levies for the General Fund and Unincorporated General Fund together represent over 97 percent of the total aggregate taxes levied across all Collier County taxing authorities for FY 2019. September 6, 2018 Page 152 The FY 2019 tentative General Fund and Unincorporated Area General Fund operating and capital budgets as presented are based upon board-adopted budget policy. Both the General Fund and Unincorporated General Fund proposed tax rates are higher than the rolled-back rate. Collier County taxable value has increased over the past seven fiscal years, and the increase in FY 2019 is 5.63 percent and 5.86 percent within the General Fund and Unincorporated General Fund respectively. Within an increasing taxable value environment under millage-neutral operating and capital guidance, the rolled-back rate will be lower than millage neutral. This event occurs in FY 2019. The General Fund budget model places a premium on preserving and protecting sufficient cash balances, maintaining adequate reserves for a coastal location, ensuring that the county's excellent investment quality credit rating is maintained, and it allocates sufficient resources available to maintain our substantial public-safety infrastructure and operational investment. Mindful of this model, the Board each year decides on tax-rate policy, and budget decisions are crafted around board-enacted budget policies. Commissioners, referring to Exhibit 1 on Page 1, millage rates for each Collier County taxing authority have been established pursuant to board guidance. The roster of tax rates adopted by the Board on July 10th, 2018, represent the maximum tax rates that can be levied in FY 2019. The Pelican Bay MSTBU millage rate is .0857 per thousand dollars of taxable value, and based upon this respective district's MSTU DR420 maximum millage levy entry, if all dependent millage rates are not approved unanimously, it is recommended that this rate be voted on separately under Agenda Item 1E when we get to it. This rate September 6, 2018 Page 153 will require a two-thirds vote of the Board. Likewise, the Haldeman Creek dredging MSTU millage rate is 1.0000 per thousand dollars of taxable value, and this rate requires a unanimous vote based upon this respective district's DR420 MMP millage entry. The cumulative aggregate rolled-back rate for all Collier County taxing authorities, exclusive of debt service, totals 4.0636 per one thousand dollars of taxable value. The proposed aggregate tax rate for all Collier County taxing authorities, exclusive of debt service, totals 4.1767 per one thousand dollars of taxable value. This represents an increase of 2.78 percent over the aggregate rolled-back rate and necessitates a notice of property tax increase ad for TRIM purposes and not simply a budget summary ad. Once again, Commissioners, your final millage rates will be adopted by the Board on September 20th, 2018. I'll stop there before I get to Item 1B, Commissioners, and ask if there's any questions. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, let me read a few things into the record regarding review and discussion of changes to the tentative budget. For tonight's hearing -- this is Item 1B. For tonight's hearing, changes from the FY 2019 July tentative budget, as noted within Exhibit 1, pertain to receipt of the Tax Collector's budget, which was received in August, changes discussed and recommended by the Board at the June budget workshop, adjustments to certain impact fee and gas tax trust funds reflecting revenue actually received above the level of forecast in July, other routine revenue or expense adjustments required September 6, 2018 Page 154 to support capital projects or operations as the Fiscal Year 2019 begins including accounting for and budgeting the impact of Hurricane Irma insurance and FEMA reimbursements received. These budgetary resolutions are found within Exhibit 1B on Pages 5 through 35. A summary of these actions is described within Exhibit 1B, Pages 1 through 4. The total gross budget changes amount to 52.39 million of which 23.6 million is the customary submittal of the Tax Collector's total commission budget to the Department of Revenue on August 1st. Further changes totaling 11.3 million included slightly over a million in gas-tax revenue, 9.3 million in additional road impact fee revenue, and 1 million in other impact fee revenue with all gas tax and most impact fee revenue adjustments resulting in corresponding reserve increases. The exceptions are an additional $1 million programmed to Big Corkscrew Regional Park and an additional $896,000 reducing the General Fund's loan to the impact fee trust funds. Any release of these dollars in FY 2019 from fund reserves will be through applicable executive summaries and Board action. Finally, this hearing provides for budget adjustments after receiving 17.5 million in insurance and FEMA reimbursements which will be accounted for and budgeted for upon their receipt by depositing dollars to the initial donating fund and returning received reimbursements to either capital projects or reserves. It is anticipated that further adjustments may be made at the final hearing and during FY 2019 as reimbursements are received. According to the Tax Collector's statement of commissions, expenditures, the FY 2019 budget, their budget totals $23,611,200 and is offset by service commissions or charges. The Tax Collector is a fee-based operation, and this year's Tax Collector total commission's budget represents an increase of 8.77 percent from 2018. September 6, 2018 Page 155 Of note, turnback from the Tax Collector, as well as all constitutional officers, is significant each year and represents excess commissions over actual expenses to run the operations. Year-ending turnback by the Tax Collector to the General Fund for the past two fiscal years, FY '16 and '17, has totaled $6,219,523 and 5,658,196, respectively. Turnback from all constitutional officers to the General Fund for the same periods total $7,152,804 and $9,440,385, respectively. Commissioners, there are no proposed changes to the maximum millage rate set by the Board on July 10th, 2018. And, Commissioners, I'll stop there, and the next section will be public comments and any questions that you might have. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We do have a question. Commissioner Taylor? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Did I hear that we actually got FEMA reimbursement or we're expecting FEMA -- MR. ISACKSON: No. We've gotten both FEMA reimbursement, Commissioner, and insurance-proceed reimbursements the total of which, right now, with this particular budget, is 17-and-a-half million. You're going to get some further adjustments at your next hearing based on what we've just received, but not in time for the packet this evening. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Good. Thank you. MR. OCHS: The FEMA reimbursement, if memory serves, Mark, is just shy of $10 million. MR. ISACKSON: Yeah, I think that was the number. MR. OCHS: And the balance of that 17- is insurance reimbursement -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. Good. MR. OCHS: -- from your property insurance. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Outstanding. September 6, 2018 Page 156 Public comment? MR. MILLER: I have one registered speaker, Ted Nering. I do not believe he's here, but I wanted to call the name. Ted Nering. That's it, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We'll close the public comment. Commissioner Solis, I'm -- I don't want to skip over you. Do you have anything to say? You don't have your light pushed here, so I can't tell if you want to talk. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: None, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. Thank you. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Thank you. Item #1D TENTATIVE MILLAGE RATES AND PERCENTAGE CHANGES IN PROPERTY TAX RATES - READ INTO THE RECORD MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, that brings us to Item 1D on the agenda, which is the announcement of the tentative millage rates and percentage change in property tax rates. TRIM statutes requires that the rolled-back millage rates, the tentative millage rates, and the percent changes from the rolled-back rate be read into the record at this time, and I'll begin, Commissioners. It will take me a few seconds to get through this. Bear with me. Commissioners, the General Fund proposed millage rate is 3.5645; the rolled-back rate is 3.4622. That's a percent change from the rolled-back rate of 2.95 percent. Water Pollution Control, the proposed millage rate, .0293; the rolled-back millage rate, .0284. A percent change from the rolled-back rate of 3.17 percent. The Unincorporated Area General Fund, the proposed millage September 6, 2018 Page 157 rate, .8069; the rolled-back millage rate, .7860. That's a percent change from the rolled-back rate of 2.66 percent. The Golden Gate Community Center, proposed millage rate, .1862; the rolled-back millage rate, .1787. That's a percent change from the rolled-back rate of 4.2 percent. The Victoria Park Drainage MSTU, proposed millage rate, .0323; rolled-back millage rate, .0323. No change from the rolled-back rate. Naples Park Drainage, proposed millage rate, .0057; rolled-back millage rate, .0057. No change from the rolled-back rate. Vanderbilt Beach MSTU, proposed millage rate, .5000; the rolled-back millage rate, .4781. That's a percent change from the rolled-back rate of 4.58 percent. The Ochopee Fire Control, proposed millage rate, 4.0000; the rolled-back millage rate, 4.7442. That's a percent change from the rolled-back rate of minus 15.69 percent. The Goodland Horrs Island Fire MSTU, the proposed millage rate, 1.2760; the rolled-back millage rate, 1.2541. That's a percent change from the rolled-back rate of 1.75 percent. The Sabal Palm Road MSTU, there is a -- the proposed millage rate is 0.0000; the rolled-back millage rate is 0.0000. The Golden Gate Parkway Beautification MSTU, the proposed millage rate, .5000; the rolled-back millage rate, .4644. A percent change from the rolled-back rate of 7.67 percent. Lely Golf Estates Beautification MSTU, proposed millage rate, 2.0000; the rolled-back millage rate, 1.8885. Percent change from the rolled-back rate, 5.90 percent. The Hawksridge Stormwater Pumping MSTU, proposed millage rate, .0398; the rolled-back millage rate, .0398. No change from the rolled-back rate. The Radio Road Beautification MSTU, proposed millage rate, .0100; the rollback millage rate, .0959. That's a percent change from September 6, 2018 Page 158 the rolled-back rate of 4.28 percent. The Forest Lakes Roadway and Drainage MSTU, the proposed millage rate, 1.3793; the rolled-back millage rate, 1.2652. Percent change from the rolled-back rate, 9.02 percent. The Immokalee Beautification MSTU, the proposed millage rate, 1.0000; the rolled back millage rate, .9726. A percent change from the rolled-back rate, 2.82 percent. The Bayshore Avalon Beautification, proposed millage rate, 2.3604; the rolled-back millage rate, 2.2832. Percent change from the rolled-back rate, 3.38 percent. The Haldeman Creek Dredging MSTU, proposed millage rate, 1.0000; the rolled-back rate, .6859. It was a 45.79 percent increase over the rolled-back rate. The Rock Road MSTU, proposed millage rate, 3.0000; the rolled-back millage rate, 2.7546. A percent change from the rolled-back rate of 8.91 percent. The Forest Lakes Debt Service, proposed millage rate, 2.6207; the rolled-back millage rate, 2.5027. Percent change from the rolled-back rate, 4.71 percent. Collier County Lighting, the proposed millage rate, .1549; the rolled-back millage rate, .1549. No change from the rolled-back rate. The Pelican Bay MSTBU, proposed millage rate, .0857; your rolled-back millage rate, .0828. That is a 3.50 percent increase over the rolled-back rate. And, finally, Commissioners, the aggregate millage rate, proposed aggregate millage rate of 4.1767; your rolled-back millage rate, 4.0636. A percent change from the rolled-back rate of 2.78 percent. Item #1E September 6, 2018 Page 159 RESOLUTION 2018-137: ADOPTING THE TENTATIVE MILLAGE RATES – ADOPTED MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, Item 1E on your agenda is a resolution to adopt the tentative millage rates which I just read into the record and reminder that if it's not a unanimous vote, I'd ask you to revisit the Haldeman Creek and the Pelican Bay MSTUs with their respective vote tallies as I indicated: A majority vote for Haldeman Creek and Pelican Bay as two-thirds. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And the resolution is included in our packet here, or are you going to read it? MR. ISACKSON: The resolution is under Item 1E, Commissioners. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. So that resolution -- MR. ISACKSON: So it would be a motion to approve the resolution, please. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Make a motion to approve the resolution as spoken or discussed or as presented. How's that? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'll second that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's been moved and seconded that we accept the resolution as presented. Any discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: All in favor, say aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Opposed, same sign, same sound. September 6, 2018 Page 160 COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: So moved. 5-0. Item #IF RESOLUTION 2018-138: ADOPTING THE AMENDED TENTATIVE BUDGET - ADOPTED MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, Item 1F is a resolution to adopt the amended tentative budget which you'll find under Tab 1F. And your action on this item will include the changes discussed under Agenda Item 1B, which I mentioned, and the amended tentative budget can be adopted by a single majority vote. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Move to adopt the amended tentative budget with the changes as discussed. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'll second that. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's been moved and seconded that we accept the proposed tentative budget. Any discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: No lights. All in favor? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Opposed, same sign, same sound. (No response.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I waited for him that time. MR. ISACKSON: Finally, Commissioners, the final public hearing on the 2018/'19 Collier County budget is Thursday, September 20th, 2018, at 5:05 p.m. in the Collier County Government Center, W. September 6, 2018 Page 161 Harmon Turner Building F, third-floor boardroom, Naples, Florida. That's all I have. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Outstanding. Any other comments from my colleagues? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yippee. The meeting's almost over with. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's going to be here in a minute, as soon as I hit this gavel. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So you asked -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis -- I did ask you if you had a comment. Commissioner Solis, thank you so much for joining us, sir. I know it's very, very late where you are. Do you have any comments before we go? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I appreciate everyone indulging me and letting me appear by phone. I also apologize for sounding a little off. Apparently I sounded like -- I received an email just now from someone saying that I sounded like I was drunk. It's actually a pretty decent case of bronchitis. So I apologize if I sounded a little off on the speakerphone. But thank you for indulging me and letting me appear by phone. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Absolutely. We're happy to have you. Hope you get better. And with that, we are adjourned. ***** September 6, 2018 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 10:30 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECI 1 's TS I DER ITS CONTROL .10° WIL 'IAM L. McDANIEL, JR., CHAIRMAN ATTEST "_ = _ CRYSTAL K. KINZEL, CLERK , V. est as to r;hairman s AnatUre cni'j. These minutes approved by the Board on OCR. 9, 2o( , as presented or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF U.S. LEGAL SUPPORT, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS, COURT REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC. Page 162