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BCC Minutes 06/23/2006 B (Budget Workshop) June 23, 2006 BUDGET MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, FL June 23, 2006 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board( s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in BUDGET WORKSHOP SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Frank Halas Jim Coletta Tom Henning Donna Fiala Fred Coy Ie ALSO PRESENT: Jim Mudd, County Administrator David C. Weigel, County Attorney Page 1 NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING Notice is hereby given that the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County will conduct Budget Workshops on Thursday, June 22, 2006, Friday, June 23, 2006 and Mondal' June 26, 2006 at 9:00 a.m. Workshops will be held in the Boardroom, 3T Floor, W. Harmon Turner Building, Collier County Government Center, 330 I East Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida to hear the following: COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS FY 2007 BUDGET WORKSHOP SCHEDULE Thursday, June 22, 2006 - 9:00 a.m. General Overview Courts and Related Agencies (State Attorney and Public Defender) Airport Authority Administrative Services Transportation Services Public Utilities Public Services Community Development Debt Service Management Offices (Pelican Bay) County Attorney BCC Friday, June 23, 2006 - 9:00 a.m. Constitutional Officers: Elections Property Appraiser Clerk of Courts Sheriff Preliminary UFR Discussion 1 :00 p.m. Public Comment Monday, June 26, 2006 - 9:00 a.m. Wrap-up (if required) June 23, 2006 MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. Mr. Chairman, you have a hot mic. (Commissioner Coyle is not in the boardroom.) CHAIRMAN HALAS: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We're out of recess. We're continuing on yesterday's budget for 2007. At this time we're going to take something a little out of order. We're supposed to start off with the constitutional officers but county attorney David Weigel has other commitments so we want to go ahead and take David Weigel and then we'll get back onto, with the constitutional officers. David. MR. MUDD: Commissioners, if you go to your Board of County Commissioners tab and you go to Page lOin that tab you have Mr. Weigel's budget. MR. WEIGEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and commissioners. I guess at this point I would say if you have any questions I look forward to respond to any questions. As you can see we have endeavored to stay well within the guidance instructions from the county manager's report, office. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Are there any questions from my fellow commissioners on this? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HALAS: David, I guess you did a great job. Thank you very much for the presentation. MR. WEIGEL: I thank you very much, and thank you for the bump in early in the schedule. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you. MR. MUDD: Commissioners, that will bring us to where we -- Mr. Chairman, I told you it would be kind of quick. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Two minutes. SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS Page 2 June 23, 2006 MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. We start now with the constitutional officers. And the first constitutional officer this morning is the supervisor of elections, Ms. Jennifer Edwards. MS. EDWARDS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Good morning, Jen. MS. EDWARDS: Good morning. MR. MUDD: If you go to constitutional officer tab, go to Page 6 and you have the supervisor of elections budget. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. MS. EDWARDS: Good morning, commissioners. And I too have stayed under your broad cap, and if you have any questions of our budget at this time I will answer them. ( Commissioner Coyle is now present in the boardroom. ) CHAIRMAN HALAS: Are there any questions from the commissioners in regards to the supervisor of elections budget? COMMISSIONER COYLE: I would just like to say that the supervisor of elections is one of those people who always stays within the guidelines, most of the time, and always does a good job with her budget. MS. EDWARDS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Fiala. Your light was on. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, was it? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Good morning. MS. EDWARDS: Morning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yesterday -- no, I'm sorry, it was Wednesday we had a discussion about your training center. MS. EDWARDS: Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is there a need to have that full time or is that just going to be seasonal, election time? Page 3 June 23, 2006 MS. EDWARDS: I understand that you are talking about our new location that the county manager has located for us in the Golden Gate Community Park facility. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes, ma'am. MS. EDWARDS: Yes, we will be using that full-time. We not only are training over a thousand poll workers for our elections but we also hold focus group meetings with our coworkers and do our own internal training in that facility. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Maybe you could get together with me offline and give me a synopsis of how many days a week or how many hours a year or something like that that you anticipate. MS. EDWARDS: Is there another use that you have in mind for it, because at the beginning of this process we had talked about sharing it with the parks and rec department. But then I think that because of scheduling issues, that became questionable. So, I'll be glad to work with others. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, the original intent was for park use. And I think it's appropriate to try to make it multi-functional, for different uses. I just didn't realize there was a need for full time training. MS. EDWARDS: When we had the discussion with the parks and rec staff, the response that we got from them was, well, you all need it so much we just aren't going to be able to schedule there. So that was their response. We'll be glad to work with them and see if there are some times when we are not using it that they can use it and make it multi-use. But as I always say as we go through discussions with the county manager, we're always looking for additional space. So if we could ever get one large building where we can have everything in one place that would be the perfect situation for the elections office. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: What do you anticipate as the growth Page 4 June 23, 2006 rate for your organization? MS. EDWARDS: You talking about staff? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Yes. Is your staffpretty much geared to what the growth rate of the county is? MS. EDWARDS: Yes, it is. I have been in office six years. We have had three new positions during that time. And what we find in our office is hiring temporary staff is much more effective because we don't have a large number of staff that aren't as busy at different parts of the cycles, election cycles. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Jennifer, could you take just a minute and tell us about citizen involvement, how you're using them in this coming election, how people could get involved, if they'd like to, with the elections office. And also if you could tell us about early voting. MS. EDWARDS: Well, early voting will be at eight locations this year. In the past we had seven locations. We've added one. We've added the library on Central. We'll also be using the Golden Gate library, the Orange Blossom library, the Immokalee library, the city hall in Naples and the city hall in Everglades City. That's the eight. The hours will be 10:30 to 6:30. We've asked that we change the hours because we think that's more convenient for the voters, especially the evening. And we will begin that on August the 21 st and it will go up through Saturday before the elections. We, of course, are always looking for new poll workers, and we have a program called Adopt A Precinct that has been very successful. And we also have a new program this year called the Diplomatic Corps, and that is a program in which we have over 40 individuals who are doing voter outreach. And we've already begun that program. F or example, we're at one of the local banks, Bank of America, every Monday doing voter registration and voter outreach. Page 5 June 23, 2006 So we're always looking for people that want to come into our office and be a part of our team to do voter outreach in the community. All they have to do is give us a call, 774-8450, and we'll be glad to put them to work. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Any other questions in regards -- pertaining to the budget? Seeing none, thank you very, very much. MS. EDWARDS: Thank you. PROPERTY APPRAISER MR. MUDD: Commissioner, the next constitutional officer on the agenda is the property appraiser. (Commissioner Coyle has left the boardroom.) MR. SMYKOWSKl: I will cover that. For the record, Michael Smykowski. We're on Page 4, the Property Appraiser's budget. Overall, he has a 6 percent budget increase so he is well within the guidelines. He does have three expanded position requests for customer service representatives. Currently there is one position at the satellite facility in Golden Gate, and what Mr. Skinner is proposing to do is to have two staff members at Golden Gate and two at the North Naples Government Services Center. So that has opened recently and we've already seen a fairly strong turnout in terms of number of customers walking through the door. Obviously, in season that will probably even pick up to a greater degree once people figure out they can transact a lot of business on the north end of the county without having to make the trek all the way down Airport Road to the main government center campus. So his proposal is to have two staff members at each of the satellite facilities. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Are there any questions? Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to the next one. Page 6 June 23, 2006 CLERK OF COURTS MR. MUDD: Commissioner, the next constitutional officer is the clerk of courts. MR. SMYKOWSKI: It begins on Page 12 in your constitutional officer tab. MR. BROCK: Good morning, commissioners. If you have any questions we'll be more than happy to answer them. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Are there any questions? I had submitted a letter to you and I haven't gotten anything back on that yet. MR. BROCK: Weare in the process of trying to assimilate the information. Once we do that and go through it, we'll be more than happy to give it to you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Will that show up as a reflection on the budget adjustment or anything? MR. BROCK: No. CHAIRMAN HALAS: No. Okay. Are there any other questions? Seeing none, you did a great job. MR. BROCK: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: The next one is the sheriff. DEBT SERVICE MR. MUDD: The next constitutional officer is the sheriff. And I'm going to ask Leo Ochs to make a phone call to figure out where the sheriff is. But while that is going on let's have Mr. Smykowski come back up here and do debt service, and -- while that's moving forward so we can keep -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: In your debt service tab on Pages 2 and 3 is a macro summary of all of the county's general government debt service funds. Page 7 June 23, 2006 CHAIRMAN HALAS: That's the overview; is that correct? MR. SMYKOWSKI: No, sir. There is a separate tab for Debt Service. MR. MUDD: Right behind Public Utilities before Management Officers. MR. SMYKOWSKl: Page 2 and 3 is a macro summary. For the benefit of the viewing public, we talk about Debt Service. Debt Service is really not unlike a mortgage in that it is, the budgets are for the payment, repayment of principal interest on loans or bonds that have been issued to finance major capital construction projects that typically have a long-term useful life. You are typically talking 20 to 30 years. Obviously, there is some benefit to financing, just as most people -- Naples being a bit of an exception, there are a lot of houses that are purchased with cash here -- but in typical America most people are financing their home typically over 30 years, a long-term asset, and making payments. You are not utilizing up front cash. And in the case of new facilities that you might be building that are going to last 30 or 40 years, you are not forcing the current year taxpayer to pay cash for a facility that new residents who move here 20 years from now will be taking advantage of. So you try to finance, match the payment to the useful life of the asset. Overall there is a 17.6 percent increase in the debt service budgets. In fund 216 on Page 7, which is one of our sales tax bond issues, a fairly recent one, in fiscal year '06 there was only a partial principal payment, which is typical of a new issue. The full principal payment is scheduled in fiscal '07. I will note in Page 8 in the Caribbean Gardens, that is funded by the 1.5 mil tax levy. We do have a commercial paper loan that was used to purchase that property that must be refinanced by December, 2006. So we'll be working in conjunction with the clerk's staff. We work cooperatively, myself, with the clerk's staff in developing the Page 8 June 23, 2006 debt service budgets, and obviously that's something we're going to have to take care of. The fund 232 is the Pine Ridge and Naples production park. It's a special assessment bond that, we look to pay it off in fiscal year '06. There is an issue, there is some residual cash in that fund. We'll look at the potential of either refunding or making some additional improvements within the Pine Ridge and Naples production park areas. Conservation Collier, that's funded by the quarter of a mil tax levy . We have a fixed rate bond. And other than that there are no questions. In this area, once the board has made the policy decision to take out the loan or bond, there really is little discretion in terms of repayment. Obviously, to protect the financial interest and financial rating of the county repayment is an important element, so this is an area that the board really has no discretion in once, again, the decision is made to proceed with the issuance of a bond. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Are there any questions? Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Are any of those due this year or paid off this year, I should say? Because I know we did some consolidation last year to payoff some old debt and roll over some new debt. MR. SMYKOWSKI: We rolled over some of the commercial paper and refinanced that. And, as I indicated, the Pine Ridge and Naples production park, the special assessment bond, there is enough cash in that fund to payoff, we're going to work with bond counsel, again, with the clerk's staff and the county's financial advisor. We'll have to bring that to the board via an executive summary to initiate the process to pay that loan off. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No other general government bonds? Page 9 June 23, 2006 MR. SMYKOWSKl: No, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. MR. MUDD: Mike did mention, Mr. Smykowski did mention that the Caribbean Gardens, we have one tax year that we levied on that particular item so that reduced the debt service fee. We'll have this time in November, and when we're finished with that we'll make a determination if it's better to go to a bond issue or to do a short-term commercial paper product, because we might end up with about a $25 million difference with those two tax levies on that particular product. We might estimate based on those first two years of collection that that $40 million will be paid off in approximately four, four and a half years. And to go out to a 20-year bond item and stretch that out where you can't have an early payoff would probably not be the best instrument. So we're going to go through that call with your finance committee here over the fall time period. And that's the big item that we have. (Commissioner Coy Ie has returned.) CHAIRMAN HALAS: Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. SHERIFF MR. MUDD: Sheriff, come on forward, you are next in line. COMMISSIONER COYLE: You spoiled all my fun. You took the clerk's budget while I was out of the room. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It was planned that way. MR. MUDD: And I'm on Constitutional Officers, Page 22. MR. RAMBOSK: Good morning. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Good morning. MR. RAMBOSK: Good morning, commission members. On behalf of Sheriff Hunter who will not be able to be with us today, he's Page 10 June 23, 2006 in Washington D.C. working on immigration issues, he has asked me to thank you for the opportunity to discuss our budget with you. Kevin Rambosk, Undersheriff with the Collier County Sheriffs Office. I have with me today a number of people: Chief Smith, whom I think you all know; Carol Golightly, our Finance Director; Jean Myers, our Finance Manager; Chief Bloom with the Operations Department, and Chief Williams with the Investigations, should you have any individual questions with regard to operations in anyone of these areas. If I may. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Yes. MR. RAMBOSK: This has been a pretty unique year, I think, for all of us. We faced a lot of challenges, from hurricanes to significant growth, recruitment and retention issues, increased responsibility day to day, and we would look forward to those challenges. And in fact, I think as a community we have been very successful with each of those. And that's due in great part to the community members, to working together as a community with other government entities such as yourself and of course our members who contribute daily. As we look forward to this budget year we see many expectations from the public, which we want to address. We see a demand for service increasing and we also see more challenges and opportunities. Weare looking at some things that are important. We're seeing -- well, we are holding the line on crime, which is a very good thing. Weare seeing an increase in violent crimes, which is not a good thing. We see the potential for increased natural, and as you see this morning the potential of man-made disasters that we may have to face and have to be prepared to face. And that's going to put us all in a position with regard to fulfilling mandates that were not here last year. For example, we have to now address the Jessica Lunsford Act, and that's with training and procedures that we've not ever had to do but it's critically important for safeguarding our children from predators. Page 11 June 23, 2006 We now must be trained in incident command, that's mandated by the federal government. Again, to allow us to provide the service that is demanded of our community. More importantly, though, is how we're going to accomplish this and how we're going to accomplish it with the staff that we've got, which is important and something that the sheriff has stressed to us in being able to provide without seeking significant increases in positions. The ways I believe we'll do this is we will work together with organizations such as your staff, and we think that we can do that better. And we would like to propose with your permission that you allow us to work more closely with them in a variety of areas. And we would like to begin as early as Monday and make contact with your staff. But in the furtherance of the budget we would like an opportunity to provide any operation that you might need and turn it over to the county manager. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I have some questions. I was looking at your budget and your expanded forecast for FY 2007. You are looking for an additional $1,089,500 but when you look at the bottom line there is also, it looks like there is an additional $18 million. What is that going to be used for, and it looks like you are going to have an increase in manpower by about 25.25 people. Can you give us some idea of what the additional 18 million is going to be used for, is this going to be used for pay increases or what? MR. RAMBOSK: Significantly, it will be used for portions of cost of living, pay increases, certainly, some equipment purchases and some programmIng. CHAIRMAN HALAS: And can you, can you break this down in more general terms in regards to about what percentage of the $18 million would be used for training and what percentage would be used for equipment, do you have that available? Page 12 June 23, 2006 MR. RAMBOSK: Sure, we can do that. If we're -- and particularly let me get back to the expanded positions. As you are aware a number of those are grant positions with only actually three additional positions above what has been requested and authorized through grant funding, so we're really looking at those three additions, although we understand that it is now time to pay for the grant positions. So there is an element of those. And I believe as we've discussed before we're being very cautious about moving forward in the future with grant positions. When we come to you and make a request for a grant position we understand and we ask that everyone understand that once approved we will have to ultimately fund that position. So we look at it as a new position when we ask for it rather than having to come back and fund it. CHAIRMAN HALAS: When those grant positions end up with __ we do not get any more money from them, do you look at them as cost effective before you decide that it's going to be put on the taxpayers' shoulders in regards to continuing to have that position? MR. RAMBOSK: Absolutely. We evaluate every grant position to determine whether it should continue, whether its original intent benefitted the community as it was intended. If it does we will make the recommendation to you to move forward with funding. If it does not we'll remove it. And we're also looking at ways in which we can incorporate that funding within our existing budget as well. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you. Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Kevin, tell me what contact specifically you would like to begin by Monday. I'm not suggesting we're opposed to any contact at all but I would like to get some idea as to what we're talking about. MR. RAMBOSK: For example, following the productivity committee meeting the other day the manager and I had a brief discussion on ways in which we could enhance human resource Page 13 June 23, 2006 cooperation. We think that has some potential. We've been doing some of it in the past. We think it's not only looking at how we recruit, how we purchase, cooperative, particularly training, cooperative training amongst us. I think we envision an opportunity to sit down and say, okay, what specific items can we do better with, and rather than wait four to six months to decide that we think we should get started right away. So what we would like to do is to sit down with your staff, outline what we think we can do better together with, bring that back to you and the sheriff and begin to work on it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good. Good. I'm glad to see that. Now, has there been any indication that the supplemental manpower in the judiciary has been instrumental in reducing occupancy of the jails or is it too early to make that determination? MR. RAMBOSK: I would say it's probably too early to make that determination. I can tell you that our arrests are up, and of course that puts a demand on the jail structure. COMMISSIONER COYLE: To follow on to that, can you provide us information concerning the additional cost that is associated with the illegal immigration problem in Collier County from the sheriffs pages? MR. RAMBOSK: The sheriff is looking at that right now. We don't have that information with us but we know from some preliminary data that we've looked at, for example we have a roster of individuals we're looking for in the Immokalee area. And of that posting, which included 20 individuals, 12 of those we believe are illegal immigrants and they are all or most are violent criminals. So if that trend maintains right through the entire process, through the corrections and jail process, we believe there will be a significant number. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And that, I presume, translates into a significant expense to the taxpayers of Collier County. Page 14 June 23, 2006 MR. RAMBOSK: Yes, it does. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I would appreciate it if you could help us quantify that, so any information you might be able to provide would be very helpful. I believe the court is going to try to provide us similar information. So if you could do that, it would be greatly appreciated. And where I'm going on this is, there might be some things that we can suggest or do that might help you with that process. And if we haven't thought of all the ways and you have some other ideas I would be happy to hear them. Now, one other issue. You brought up the Jessica Lunsford Act. Some citizens have suggested that we develop tighter rules here in Collier County with respect to restricting where registered sexual predators can actually live. I think there are limits now statewide as far as schools are concerned but I'm uncertain as to whether that takes into consideration playgrounds. And there are some citizens who are suggesting that we as county commissioners pass a local law that prohibits a sexual predator from living within a specified distance of a playground for children. What impact will that have on the sheriffs office from the standpoint of enforcement? MR. RAMBOSK: Well, certainly as you are aware, every time we enact legislation that requires more enforcement. There will be a demand for our services to enforce. However, one of the ways in which we're addressing some of the requirements we have today is expanding the role of our youth relations deputies to bring them out of the school with additional duties either to and from which can address this problem. We can probably do a similar, use a similar method with any additional requirements that we place upon us. So we would look at trying to accomplish it with what we've got through assignment of staff as opposed to increases. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. It would appear that the Page 15 June 23, 2006 primary focus would be to take the list of registered sexual predators and compare that with an address cross reference to find out if any of them are living within the specified distances. Beyond that, I don't know that there is any specific requirement to patrol the areas. If you can establish they are not living within the defined area they are not in violation of the law as far as I know. MR. RAMBOSK: Correct. We would, just like other crimes we would have to observe them in an area that they are not supposed to be. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Good. You've answered my question. The final question is one that really applies to everybody and I just need to understand it a little more clearly. We all make staffing projections and we estimate personnel costs, and if we don't staff up to the desired level, if we're unsuccessful in hiring the people that we need to hire, then we don't achieve those levels of expenditure. What happens to that money, where does it go as far as county is concerned? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, if they don't spend on their operational based on the folks that they project to have, their forecast comes down for what they are going to spend and those monies come in and they go back into the reserves of Collier County, okay, they get stripped out of their budgets. And the only way that one of your departments can move those dollars to something else is they come to the board and ask you for a budget amendment in order to move those dollars around in that particular year. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So the department heads just don't have the authority to take savings in personnel costs and move them to another line item for another reason without getting approval. MR. MUDD: That's right. They don't have that. And that's very good. And in the constitutionals' particular case, if they don't spend the dollars that has been budgeted in a particular thing they give it back to the Board of County Commissioners by, I believe, it's 1 Page 16 June 23, 2006 November is the deadline that they have to come back to the board and say -- and it's turn, and we call it turnback. Some weird terms that I'm not used to. But turnback is the term that they use in that particular -- and that's a one-time source that is coming back. I believe one of the things in this budget proj ection is that the sheriff is going to turn back $2 million is what is estimated in the budget that was given to this Board of County Commissioners. And those dollars have been put into your UFR amount of money already based on that projection. So that's what we have. Now, in some particular areas, and I still have to talk to Kevin about this, and I don't mean to catch you short, for instance in your, I guess it's a 190-something fund for the 311, these 311 dollars are going up a little bit in his reserve account that's close to $2 million. He's getting prepared to basically outfit the new EOC with a 911 and he's got consoles and things like that that he's going to have to buy with those particular dollars. So he's prepped for that, as I'm trying to prep our folks. So he's taken a look at those particular items and talking to us about how well those particular accounts are transpiring. But if they can't use it, it gets to turnback and they just don't go out there and spend it willy-nilly that kind of way. They are very frugal with their dollars as far as the turnback piece because that is a law of Florida Statute for them to do it. But on the county side it goes back into our reserve funds and they have to come to the Board of County Commissioners to do anything besides taking it back to reserves. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Before I turn this over to Commissioner Henning I have one additional request I would like to have in regards to upgrades, training and equipment, and that is the amount of money that you anticipate you'll be using for expenditures in regards to the illegal alien. I'm sure that's probably part of that in the 17 million. Page 1 7 June 23, 2006 MR. RAMBOSK: Certainly that includes any mandated training that will be required this year, and part of that training is involved. What we would like to do is break that out for you, include that in the report that we're going to provide back to you based on Mr. Coyle's-- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much. Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Rambosk, quite a bit of savings through reorganization or whatever in Pelican Bay that I read a few months ago. I think it was like $600,000 savings to that district. MR. RAMBOSK: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Have you applied that to any other road patrol or any other operations? MR. RAMBOSK: No. As a matter of fact since that was a contract that was over what we would normally use, we've reduced the budget by that amount. So it's not incorporated in because as you know those dollars go directly back to Pelican Bay. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I understand that. Maybe I misspoke. Are you applying that philosophy to your other road patrol districts? MR. RAMBOSK: Oh, yes. The urban style policing, we are. Our pilot program was in district one or North Naples area. We are asking each one of our district commanders to look at how to accomplish that same service delivery method in each one of the districts. As we're able to move forward, and the only thing really holding us back with some of that is the filling of our positions. We are currently total positions about 100.5 positions down effective today. We've got 105 conditional offers out today. As those positions fill and we make some internal reassignment and rearrangement of staff, we -- -- our hope is to expand that program throughout the entire county. Because, you know, we receive a lot more questions from the eastern parts of the county, where growth is significant, looking for their service levels to equal what we are able Page 18 June 23, 2006 to provide throughout the more busy locations, and that is the sheriffs goal to do that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So that would be a huge savings or -- whether it be a turnback or asking for less revenue from general funds, once that program is implemented. MR. RAMBOSK: The better utilization of those resources and about the same dollars because we've gotten most of the positions funded today, so I don't know that we would be giving back any dollars but we certainly would be able to increase the level of service, put more patrol districts in your neighborhoods with the same number of people. But that also includes the decision to move to a 12-hour deployment schedule as well. But that has been a very cost effective means of providing additional staffing to the street without having to come back and ask for extra dollars. So in answer to your question, yes, we'll be able to put out more resources and not have to ask for dollars today. However, as the county grows we will be asking for additional staffing with regard to the population. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Did I misunderstand? You talked about two different things. I was more, I was thinking about the 12-hour shift per person. MR. RAMBOSK: Okay. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think that's what you did for Pelican Bay. MR. RAMBOSK: We did that for, actually, all of our districts today to start all of the districts moving towards that urbanized policing. Our only dilemma today is some of the districts are not fully staffed. As they get fully staffed, yes, we'll be able to move into that method. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So it just equates to more servIce. Page 19 June 23, 2006 MR. RAMBOSK: Yes, higher level of service with the current staffing that we have been authorized today. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner, maybe just, I'm sure you probably understand this, but the MSTBU that Pelican Bay had in regards to the service that the sheriff was providing was above what normally they provide for other communities. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, I totally understand that. And I fully understand it's paid within that MSTBU. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Exactly. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And the benefits should be to that district if there is a savings or whatever. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Correct. So what they end up now, they, they share the same deputies as everybody else up in that particular district. MR. RAMBOSK: Yes, they chose to look at the new strategy urban policing and decided amongst themselves that they didn't require that additional staffing in Pelican Bay. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, I just wanted to go back and touch on the idea of shared facility, shared resources that are out there. I think that's probably one of the more remarkable things I've heard here today. It's a wonderful idea and direction. I mean, the productivity committee has been telling all of us for some time that we ought to look into this. It's something that I would like to see followed through on because the savings for future tax years, I think, would be quite remarkable, I really do. Such things as sharing the motor pools and possibly IT might be able to find some common grounds, and if we can avoid some of those duplications of efforts we see, too. Hopefully, you stepping up to the plate like you did today will bring the other constitutional officers in right behind you so we can start working towards it.w Page 20 June 23, 2006 Here is my concern. We're going to be going into a summer recess very shortly. We're going to have one more meeting in July, then all of August we're off. I would hate to see this whole effort become something that is going to fall by the wayside until sometime in September. I was wondering if we should be considering giving direction to the county manager to be able to start exploring it and move it forward if something hasn't already been done or if he doesn't need direction from us. I know previous directions has been given before. I think the question is probably more for the county manager then back to you for comments. MR. MUDD: It's something that Kevin and I are talking about and we'll be getting together over the summer and then we'll break out into groups to see if there are things that we can mesh our stuff together. One of my comments was, you know, I get this great candidate, somebody sends me a resume. I send it to our HR folks. Our HR folks get it out to the divisions. Do my HR folks get it to the constitutionals? And all of a sudden I get back and it's, we don't need the body, but it might be somebody that fits quite well into a constitutional office. So -- and that was just -- that was anecdotal but that was a particular instance that just came in and I'm going, you know, I don't have fit but this is a great person, and if we're all struggling to try to find -- and this is somebody that has come to us and said here I am, I would like to work, and oh, by the way I just bought a house here. You know, when you get those, especially where you don't have to go through the cost of moving them in and doing all of those, it's a godsend. You just have to put the person in the right job. And we can do that a whole lot better as far as recruiting is concerned. Sometime he might get, he puts an application out in the sheriff and law enforcement type magazines and whatever to recruit. They get overwhelmed with this certain application or applications but Page 21 June 23, 2006 yet that person -- and he fills it, but he still has six good candidates and they are all kind of sitting there and he has to turn them back, and I might have eight code enforcement officer vacancies where those folks could fit into and we could all win. We just need to tie all of those things together just a tad better and I believe we'll get after that. I don't like to waste those opportunities. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The subject matter that you are going to be exploring is going to be very broad, it's not going to be limited to just a couple things, everything from motor pools to IT to possibly insurance purchases? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. We're going to talk about all those things, and with the new motor pool on County Barn where we're going to co-locate ours and the sheriffs, I think there are going to be plenty of opportunities. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I hope this doesn't become an exclusive club, that you allow the other constitutional officers to come in when they reach that point of enlightenment. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: An admission fee, but other than that. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Fiala. MR. RAMBOSK: For the record, we have been doing things together with actually each of the constitutionals and your staff for sure and we just have had a good relationship, developed a good interworking relationship. We believe that we can take that a lot further and we would like to move on that more quickly than later. That's what we're saying. And really it's more of an operational based request because of the things we do day-to-day than the requirements that we have to fulfill. If we can do that better, if we can do it with the other constitutionals to serve the community as a whole, that would be great. Page 22 June 23, 2006 CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Two questions, please. The first one is you mentioned that you have a list of 20 illegals, 12 of them being violent criminals. When they are illegals, can't you just pick them up and deport them whether they are doing anything wrong or not, being that they are not here legally in the first place. I mean, that's a crime right there? MR. RAMBOSK: No, ma'am, unfortunately we are not able to. We have had some limited success with the very violent criminal offenders that we've been able to get ICE involved to remand them, but very, very difficult today for enforcement just based on that, unless we have some other criminal act that we can hold them for. COMMISSIONER FIALA: The second thing, that's so -- it must be frustrating to you guys too. MR. RAMBOSK: Very frustrating. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I bet. I noticed you were saying that you are using this new philosophy and you described it -- as much as I hate to say this on the record -- I noticed how high the service, the calls for service are in East Naples compared to everyplace else in Collier County. My goodness, we double and then some Immokalee. And we've gone up 23,498 just this past year. Because of the problems that we're dealing with there, do you have extra staff there? I know at one time you had taken some of the staff and moved it elsewhere. But I was wondering if you have relocated them. MR. RAMBOSK: We relocate on an as needed, weekly, daily basis. Every two weeks we have a compo stat process which tracks the crime trends in each of our districts. The district lieutenants develop a plan of address, make requests from other districts. They will bring in resources, address an ongoing problem for as long as need be and then they will move to another area. So, yes, we do have additional resources when we need them and as requested by the different district Page 23 June 23, 2006 lieutenants. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I just don't want to pass the opportunity. If -- could we just give direction to the county manager to begin working with the sheriffs department and any other constitutionals immediately during the summer? That is an opportune time. With the commission not in session for roughly two months, we'll have one meeting at that point in time, that frees up staff to some degree to do things that are very productive, because we take up a lot of their time. So when we're not in session, that is a perfect time for you to be working together on things like this. And so I would encourage you to go ahead and go at it. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Got my nod. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Me too. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. MR. RAMBOSK: We would also like to take the opportunity to give up a position, and that's for building security here. So that can be removed from the budget request. In fact we're talking about two bailiff positions to assist the new judges, and no more. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Any other questions? We appreciate your cooperation and I hope that this is a long-lasting relationship and I hope that's something that's just being started and that we can have other people, other constitutionals join forces so that we can try to be more efficient here in Collier County. Thank you so much. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Mr. Chairman, could I just ask one question -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Sure. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- that goes beyond the budget, but just something to think about. I understand your problem and concern about the inability to take action whenever you identify or even arrest an illegal immigrant. Page 24 June 23, 2006 There are laws we can pass, county laws. Would they be of any benefit to you in being able to take action with respect to people who are here illegally, a violation of county laws? MR. RAMBOSK: We are actually reviewing some of what other communities have done, particularly out west. A number of states and communities have done that. We're doing it for immigration purposes. You will probably see a request for sexual predators in our shelters, for example, that we would like to come back with an ordinance on. So, yes, we would like to look at all those and bring them back when appropriate to review them. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Please consider -- you might be already considering, we have the ability to sanction people or companies or employers who violate the law. We have the ability to say, if you hire illegal aliens you cannot have a government contract, end of story, or you are suspended from any government contracts for five years. I'm not suggesting we do that. But other communities have done that. And that seems to aid in enforcement because it places the responsibility on employers rather than having the sheriffs office be the only enforcer of that process and the only person who is ferreting out the illegals. If you would give some thought to things like that, it would be helpful. And maybe working together we can come up with a workable solution that doesn't discriminate against our legal guest workers, those people should be welcome in this community, they do a lot of good for us, but the people who are here illegally should not be tolerated, in my opinion, and we should do everything in our power to make sure Collier County is not considered a safe haven for illegal immigrants. MR. RAMBOSK: We fully agree with you and we will look to see what's available and bring that back to you. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good. Thank you very much. Page 25 June 23, 2006 CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: At a Republican executive committee meeting a month or so ago we had a lady get up and give a speech about illegals. It was just an outstanding speech. I think it stirred us all. And she made a couple of suggestions, and there are some probably that we can't do but possibly some that we could. She had said that we should end -- every time, as you all know, every time a Cuban comes over in a boat and lands on our land, as soon as they set foot on our land each person -- and it's only Cuban people now -- each person who lands here illegally on that boat, we give them $10,000 and welcome them. And when Sheriff Hunter mentioned that a couple of meetings back, I couldn't believe it, I never heard that before. And I did not realize a family of five coming over here gets $50,000 for being illegal on our land. I realize we can't stop that but it sure should be stopped at the national level. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I would go to Cuba for that kind of money. COMMISSIONER FIALA: The second thing is something we could do maybe locally here. Every time we find someone hiring an illegal person we could fine them $25,000. This is something else she said in her speech. And maybe that would curb the encouragement of hiring illegal people. And thirdly, she said maybe we shouldn't be providing all of the services that we offer. We never ask anybody's, for anybody's green card and then even if they produce it to verify that it's legal, and maybe we should be tightening our laws to be able to do that and work more closely with you. And maybe that's something else you and the county manager could talk about. I know that you and I have already talked about possibly an ordinance, an open air camping ordinance of some sort or another to help us a little bit here in East Naples. But that could even be expanded to something else to give you more tools in Page 26 June 23, 2006 your toolbox, you know, to help you along. And I think everyone here would be happy to work with you. MR. RAMBOSK: We would be happy to look at that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. MR. RAMBOSK: Mr. Chairman, one last thing. I would be remiss if I did not thank you for your support throughout the year, that, and the commission. And particularly the support we get from the county manager and his staff that facilitate us in enabling us to do our job day to day. So thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much. I don't think there are any further questions. Thank you very much for the opportunity to sit down with you and go through the budget. County manager, we want to go back to BCC. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. We're just getting our notes together. CHAIRMAN HALAS: All right. MR. MUDD: This will take us back where we left off yesterday, and that will be, we've done debt service, that will bring us to the management offices and we've done Pelican Bay already. If I could please have Jack Wert, John Torre, Dan Summers and his crew, Chief Rodriguez, Jeff Page. Plenty of chairs, don't be shy. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. MANAGEMENT OFFICES (TOURISM) MR. MUDD: Commissioner, we're under the management office tab, and you have the macro on Page 2 and 3 of the particular items. And then let's go to -- we can go from left to right with Mr. Jack Wert for tourism, and he can start. And it's on Page 10 of your book. MR. WERT: Good morning, Mr. Chairman and council, commission. My name is Jack Wert, Tourism Director. And as you know the mission of the tourism department is to advertise and Page 27 June 23, 2006 promote Collier County as a destination of choice for people coming here for vacations and meetings, and more importantly to bring a positive economic impact to the community. And I think over the past year we certainly have demonstrated what tourism can do for our community with about $1.1 billion economic impact to lots of businesses here. I want you to know that our budget has been presented to the tourist development council and they looked at it at their April meeting and unanimously recommended it to you for your review. And subsequent to that, the Category A, the beach and inlet projects that we're anticipating for next year, along with the Category B event grant request, the Category C-l, which is our Collier County Museum, that budget was looked at and recommended as well as some Category C2 grants, which are non-county owned museums. All of those were looked at at the May meeting of the tourist development council and again were unanimously recommended for your review. We're looking at a flat revenue for next year based on all the projections we are seeing in the, throughout Florida. We see that we should be about flat at about total of $13 million gross for the tourist tax. One thing I wanted to bring to your attention is that I think we've done a pretty good job this year of requesting reimbursement from both FEMA and from FDEP on reimbursement of various expenditures we have had on the beach and inlet projects. And to date we have invoiced about $11 million to those two agencies. We've currently received about 3 million of that so we're just shy of a third done. Looks -- all of it has been invoiced and we have it on pretty good authority that we'll be receiving that money. So that will help us a lot in paying back some of the money that we fronted for all of the beach and inlet projects in the past year. I think you have the budget before you. We have certainly kept within the guidelines that county manager has given us. And we're Page 28 June 23, 2006 looking forward to a good year. And hopefully we won't have any effects from the windy season this year, we won't have to use any of our reserve funds but as you know we do have a reserve fund for emergency advertising. Weare in the process of building up over the next two years to a million and a half dollars. And so we, that is included in the budget in putting a half a million dollars towards that fund in this next coming budget year. So we feel the tourist budget is in good shape and certainly will try to answer any questions you might have. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I have one question, Jack. I haven't found it yet and maybe it's just me. That was in regards to non-county museums. I thought we cut some of that expense. MR. WERT: We actually did. From what was recommended we are recommending a lesser amount, and the contracts you will see coming before you probably in September will reflect a smaller amount -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. MR. WERT: -- but we always know that those are open to discussion and those groups will probably come back at that time and ask for the full amount that they ask for. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. MR. WERT: So we're anticipating that and we're budgeting the higher amount just in case that happens. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. You answered my question. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Once we complete the depot, and we're looking forward to doing that, will you be able to use that as part of your tourism promotion area to display brochures and so forth and even hold meetings and things to do with tourism there, to use it to, I mean you guys have helped a lot with the, financially with the depot and I would love to see you benefit by some of that help. MR. WERT: We definitely have discussed that with the museum Page 29 June 23, 2006 staff and, yes, we are certainly looking forward to using the front part of that facility for displaying brochures, to making it kind of an information center for people coming by the location is certainly ideal for that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. MR. WERT: In addition to that there are several areas of the depot that we certainly could use in the future for events. We're working very closely with all of the museums in Collier County trying to work together. We're actually going to put together a tour of the museums on a regular basis, working with a transportation company to do that. So we see that the historical and cultural part of what we offer here in Collier County will be greatly enhanced, as we get that depot open, that will be certainly a very important part of that whole tour. COMMISSIONER FIALA: On Marco Island there is not a whole bunch to do there and for their concierges they have challenges in front of them to point people to different given places? And right now there is a group, the Marco Island Historical Society who is planning on building their first phase on property right there, which I think is going to help a lot as far as giving people another thing to do on Marco Island as well as other places, coming in to see a lot of artifacts. Will you be in any way helping them, do you know or have they not asked you for any help? MR. WERT: To this point, actually, we have helped them. We did have a C- 2 grant to that group two years ago as they were going through the feasibility and design phase of that and we assisted them with the funding of that. They have not asked at this point but certainly would be one of those organizations that we would certainly look to help if we can. If we have some funding available certainly that would be something we would look at in the future. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Any other questions from thea Page 30 June 23, 2006 commissioners? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HALAS: Jack, you did a good job. MR. WERT: Thank you, sir. MANAGEMENT SERVICES (COMMUNICATION & CUSTOMER RELATIONS) MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that would bring us to Cmmunications and Customer Relations Department and that's on Page 18 of your book under Management Offices. MR. TORRE: Morning, commissioner, John Torre, Director of Communications and Customer Relations. As county manager said my budget is on Pages 18, 19 and 20. The bottom line increase in FY '07 is the result of providing staff and operating expenses for the North Collier Government Services Center on Orange Blossom. The three positions at the center are not new positions but instead vacant positions that were transferred from elsewhere in the county manager's agency. F or the second year in a row operating expenses have been reduced in the department and in FY '07 capital outlay has also been reduced. With that, I'll stop and answer questions. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Are there any questions from fellow commissioners? Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What do you mean by, I mean, you are transferring -- . MR. TORRE: There were three vacant positions that had been vacant for quite some time that were moved from elsewhere into the North Collier Government Center. One in parks and two in administrative services that had been vacant. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. And I would imagine the Page 3 1 June 23, 2006 board approved these. What position are you talking about parks and rec. and administrative services? MR. TORRE: I think two were security guards at facilities and one was -- it was a parks position. I don't recall specifically what it was. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. And you are going to use these. MR. TORRE: They are working now at North Collier, the three people that are there -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: I understand. MR. TORRE: -- are filling those vacancies. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You are replacing some plasma TVs where? MR. TORRE: In here. COMMISSIONER HENNING: In here? MR. TORRE: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I thought they had a longer life expectancy. MR. TORRE: I was told that these two larger screens are starting to show signs of wear, they start to blink on and off. And that is sort of an indicator that they are about to expire. COMMISSIONER HENNING: All right. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, we won't spend the money unless the screens expire but we do need to budget them just in case it does. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I understand. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Are there any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much. MANAGEMENT OFFICES (EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT) MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that moves us to Emergency Page 32 June 23, 2006 Management Department and that starts on Page 22 of your book. MR. SUMMERS: Commissioners, good morning. Dan Summers, Director of the Bureau of Emergency Services and your Eemergency Management Director. Bear with me. I'm kind of all smiles this morning. Number one, it's Friday. Number two, there is nothing on the seven-day outlook that I need to worry about. And three, I think we bring you a very good budget presentation today. I would like to make just a few opening remarks and introductions, if I may. To my right, Jeff Page, your Chief of Emergency Medical Services. To my left, Chief Rod Rodriguez from the Isles of Capri. Chief Paul Wilson is under the weather today so Chief Rod and I will pinch hit for Chief Wilson. As you know, within our division we have, of course, Ochopee Fire, Isles of Capri and the Medical Examiner's Office, Dr. Marta Coburn. That's a contractual relationship with Dr. Coburn. She unfortunately has a case today and couldn't be with us. I want to take the liberty of introducing two new valuable teammates, an Administrative Assistant from Isles of Capri is Barbara Shea. Barbara is now with us there. And a new Senior Administrative Assistant, Christine Chase in our department. So we're back up to full staff at emergency management, including our replacement of our volunteer coordinator. So I wanted to make those introductions if I could. I would like to kind of jump around the radar just a little bit and give you a little bit of overview of where we are with the bureau of emergency management, our bureau of emergency services as well as emergency management activity. One of the highlights in the emergency management program is to ask for a new FTE, which is a full-time human services program manager. You all saw the struggle that we went through with nursing homes, rest homes, assisted living facilities and special needs populations. The new Senate bill, the new House Bill 7121 has got a Page 33 June 23, 2006 lot of new, even more implications for dealing with medically frail and special needs individuals and we really want to bring a full-time human services type, if you will, into the bureau so that we can meet your goals, which is to do everything humanly possible during these disasters to address that. There is also a unique situation under emergency management where we've asked for some additional job bank funding or temporary or contractual money so that I can build a contractual relationship with an employee beginning October 1 so that we can have better presence in Immokalee. You know, those emergency management planning issues are rather unique and we work very closely with the non-profits there but without a doubt we've got to do something. We've got to add more to that. Hurricanes and wildfires all have had implications on our budgets this year as it relates to overtime. And thankfully we are so, we've done so much better in the wildfire scenario than most of the parts of the state who are really struggling. We have had a good year in completing a number of grant projects at Isles of Capri and Ochopee with some modernization of some apparatus, which, Commissioner Fiala you're aware that made a big impact on the ISO rating and will have a positive impact on homeowner's insurance ratings for those districts as well. Our new growth units with EMS are footnoted in your budget and you're aware that's recent activity. There's two things that are kind of unique with what we're doing with MedFlight. We just recently had a safety award with MedFlight. One of things that we want to do is we want to get an additional spare rotor blade in here. While we see nothing that is an immediate grounding necessarily of that aircraft, but there is some trends with rotor blades associated with that line of Eurocopter, MedFlight helicopters, and we have a great inspection program for that. But to get a new blade is a six month lead time. To rebuild a blade also can Page 34 June 23, 2006 be a six month, and it has to go back to Germany to be rebuilt. So I think it's mission critical to minimize our down time to get a spare blade here. There is another thing that you do in med and frequently in aviation operations, that's you do what's called a fleet study. And you -- we, with only one helicopter here and the ongoing activity that we have, the helicopter is routinely down for maintenance, and that maintenance schedule varies. One of the things that you want to do every couple of years with, although it's a fleet study and we only have one aircraft, is that we want to look at issues like down time, cost benefit for replacement. We also want to even get into the discussion of a secondary aircraft. Not necessarily a second crew but a second aircraft. Even if we were to make a decision on a replacement aircraft our lead time just to order a MedFlight type helicopter is about three years. So we want to do some review in that particular area. Our medical examiner, again, had some increases this year related to the need for an autopsy technician, which is hard to come by, and some new additional facility operational costs, insurance and those type of things. Last but not least on the operational side is that there are some reserves that you'll note in Ochopee and Isles of Capri. I think it's important with the growth that we're having in those areas and the early planning stages that we have for secondary stations within those districts or the outlying part of their district that, while we work on programming those issues and do some planning that we maintain those reserves if at all possible. You did, I was noticing earlier yesterday that you had some questions about grants and I hold my head very highly about the grants that we have done in emergency services. We have been very successful and probably utilized all of our opportunities for the FEMA fire grant. That helped replace literally four pieces of apparatus with Page 35 June 23, 2006 FEMA's support. Again, the Fire Act and dealing with the rural apparatus. Jeff Page and his team have been very successful with the EMS grants. And I have some very good news for you. I learned just yesterday that with our beginning to close our FEMA reimbursement, close the package, that doesn't mean we have all of the money back yet but we have an award from FEMA to the tune of about $3.89 million for hazard mitigation. That's a bricks and mortar type opportunity and that's the largest one-time hazard mitigation grant opportunity I have had in my career, and it speaks volume. That is an allocation, if you will, and there's a mitigation committee strategy that works on that. But that's phenomenal for us to be able to come back with an additional almost $4 million. Our team has been very good with 50/50 matches with forestry. We've struggled in the system a little bit with the terrorism grants, those things are running about two years, and if you have seen anything on C-Span there is still a lot of overhauling going on with terrorism grant activity. And last but not least, all the really evolutionary, if you will, activity that Governor Bush signed this year with House Bill 7121, which we also have grant applications in for some additional money in support of our emergency operations center construction, also some special needs sheltering retrofit monies, which we probably won't see until next year but at least it's in the system. So lots of good things going on there. Emergency management and MedFlight are pretty close to your target budget balance. Our forestry contributions remain the same and we certainly got our money's worth this year with our cooperators agreement with the forestry. Our Goodland fire district allocations remain the same. And again, we continue to -- there are some personnel requests with Ochopee and Isles of Capri so that we can maintain those ISO ratingi Page 36 June 23, 2006 standards and continue to meet the national standards with minimum staffing on our apparatus. So that is a very, a really, a quick overview. I think you see what we do almost every day and some of the successes that we have had in Collier County with emergency services. I'm really happy to be in front of you today and let me see what questions you might have. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I'll start off. As you know we had Hurricane Wilma strike this particular area. We had some serious concerns about special needs. MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HALAS: What are we doing to be proactive in regards to updating the special needs list to make sure that people are well informed, that if they have mothers or mother-in-Iaws, aunts and uncles that are in need of special needs, that we know about it prior to the event? MR. SUMMERS: Commissioner, that is one of the areas that I take probably the most sincerely in one of our emergency management areas. Our emergency management technician has just completed a mail out of every -- almost about 1300 updates of special needs registration. There is a huge database. And just to be honest with you it's almost impossible for one person to maintain nursing home, rest home, assisted living facility, plan review and to maintain this ongoing data base not only in English but issues in Spanish. The House bill even requires home health agencies to have a more, have a closer liaison relationship with emergency management and support that special needs registration. So we've just done a mail out, we're in the process of updating that database now. This human services program manager will help our emergency management technician get a handle on all of those issues with registration, database, transportation of that special needs individual, sheltering that individual and, as you know, we even have to deal with what I call Page 37 June 23, 2006 case work on steroids after the disaster. In other words, outplacement or outsourcing or rereferring that individual to other long-term care options. And so we're making good strides. I think if we can get this person on board and if we can get through October, and I know we're holding our breath here a little bit, but I think we'll continue to have one of the best programs going. I have to mention the partnership with Dr. Colfer. It's the relationship with the health department, her nurses, and, as you know Governor Bush recognized her special needs care as being one of the best in the state. So we're going to continue to strive to do that. But I have an uphill battle with climbing numbers. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Another question I have is, the aircraft that you are talking about, what's the likely expectancy of that and how many flight hours do we have on there presently? MR. SUMMERS: We have 2800 hours on the Eurocopter EC-135. We have a full-time mechanic. We do most of our mid-level maintenance here and our high-level maintenance, if you will, is outsourced. We work with one vender every year that knows that aircraft from head to toe. And that's part of what we're going to do with this fleet assessment, quite frankly, is to look at life. There will be some options there from the jet turbine experts as to, you know, do we change our cycle with engine change-outs, would we be better to have a second aircraft and balance our flight hours with our flight demand. So those things I'll take a look at. I will tell you that all the air issues associated with aircraft longevity are based on preventative maintenance and even upgrades in the life cycle in the fuselage. CHAIRMAN HALAS: That was my next question, was how often do you have a full power plant airframe inspection of the aircraft? MR. SUMMERS: Chief Henderson, Terry Henderson our chief Page 38 June 23, 2006 pilot ought to -- I'll try to get you some hard numbers on that. But I know that we look at seven- and 800-hour maintenance schedules as being our largest jet. (Commissioner Fiala has left the boardroom.) MR. PAGE: There is a 400-hour maintenance and then an 800-hour maintenance that happens every two years, the 800-hour. But typically about two years. MR. MUDD: Let's talk about downtime a little bit, because you hit an area that disturbs me greatly, because that's when we don't have any MedFlight. You do the 400-hour and it flies to where? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Tampa? MR. PAGE: The 400-hour we can usually do in-house unless there is some bigger problems that we can't handle, address. The 800-hour has to get-- MR. MUDD: How long is it down for the 400? MR. PAGE: About two weeks. CHAIRMAN HALAS: The 400-hour checkup. MR. MUDD: And when you do the 800-hour, this is the one where you have to fly out of state. MR. PAGE: Yes. It goes to Louisiana and that can typically take a month. MR. MUDD: And one of the things I wrote down when you said coordinate with the sheriff, when we were doing those things, now they have mutual aid agreement with Miami Dade and with Lee County so they try to cover us during those periods of time. But if their MedFlight is being used at the time that you are calling you have a shortage. I'm going to -- part of that interrelations issue that we're going to talk about with the sheriff I'm going to talk about when we're down in maintenance, to have -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: He's got two helicopters. MR. MUDD: -- to have a paramedic in the helicopter at least to get him on station. And then if ground transportation is the only way Page 39 June 23, 2006 to pull then that will be coming, but we'll have a paramedic on the ground as fast as we can. We're going to work out those protocols and whatnot. I wrote it down on my list as one of those things that I wanted to discuss. MR. SUMMERS: And thank you. And just so -- that's why we want to get the assessment, you know, and these numbers are real numbers. And there is such a shortage of aircraft. I mean, there are 20 new MedFlight programs that will be online in the continental U.S. this year alone. That's more aircraft than -- that's two years' worth of production time just in MedFlight type apparatus, aircraft. So those things we have to take an early look. CHAIRMAN HALAS: What was the life expectancy of the aircraft? MR. SUMMERS: I said it was somewhat dependent on engine change-out and performance issues. I don't have a hard number but I'll get that for you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much. Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Once again, too, if I could piggyback on what we've been talking about with the helicopters. I know there is much concern in Everglades City over the cost of the helicopters. In some cases, you know, the helicopter came and there was no need for it. They still had to transport the person and they still charged him for it. Very, very expensive. How much does a normal helicopter flight cost, I mean, for a person in need of medical attention? MR. PAGE: Typically it would be about $800 an hour -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Expensive. MR. PAGE: -- for the helicopter itself. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Isn't there a per mile too? MR. PAGE: Okay. If you are talking about the cost-- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm talking about a bill. Page 40 June 23, 2006 MR. PAGE: Okay. The logistical charge for a helicopter transport when we use the helicopter say in Everglades City is about -- MR. MUDD: Commissioner, if you turn to Page 42 of your tab, I think that will help a little bit, Jeff. MR. PAGE: As I was saying, the logistical transport, typically is what would happen in Everglades City, would be thirty-two or $3,200. You see a $5,000 charge, that's for trauma alert transport or from a car accident. The mileage is $85 a mile. And again, we'll be coming back to the board, it may be in September, we're hoping for July, with a rate review for you to look at. I can tell you that in looking at comparable Part 135 providers in the state, we're seeing some at $6,100 for a liftoff and mileage as much as a 105. Some of those liftoff charges are as high as 10,000 for some companIes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Believe me, it really hurts, especially if people do not have insurance. And if they do have insurance it only covers a portion of it. I guess it covers in most cases just what an ambulance would normally cost, right? MR. PAGE: Typically, Medicare will pay almost $3,000 for a helicopter transport. Insurance companies for a car accident usually handle the whole bill regardless of the cost. So I think that the logistical portion -- many of the Part 135 providers in the state really don't have logistical transport, so that's more geared for the Everglades City residents to cut that cost. But typically everyone else has one charge and it's in excess of 5,000. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: One of the problems we have at present in Everglades City is the fact that they only have one ambulance in Everglades City but of course it gets called out quite often for accidents on 75 or if there is another, if there's a need for an ambulance someplace else they move it back and forth. And that raises the problem. If you don't have an ambulance available and you have to bring it from as far away as North Naples Page 41 June 23, 2006 it's not feasible to try to travel over the roads, you know, you lose that golden hour for sure, and even in minor accidents. So in some cases you're kind of forced to use the helicopter even for minor events. But still, once you are there, the patient has to bear the cost of it, which raises a real problem. I'll be honest with you, you've done a great job of working with the people of Everglades City on this issue. It's still, it's a great concern because also, too, where are these air ambulances needed the most? They're needed in the rural area of the county. You get to the more congested area of the county and it doesn't make much sense to send an air ambulance out to pick somebody up on a congested highway with all of the wires and everything. You try to transport them three or four miles to a hospital. I'm not too sure what the answer is. I do know that they are looking at a possible place for an ambulance and fire station at Port of the Islands, which may have a tendency to put another ambulance in service, and then the areas we have could be used for extraordinary circumstances, the far reaches of 75 or trauma cases that are in Immokalee or in Everglades City. MR. PAGE: Right. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I don't know, it's a real situation. I wish there was a simple answer. MR. SUMMERS: Well, Commissioner, that's actually some of the things that we want to dig in with some of the national experts on this fleet study. It could be issues of placement of the aircraft. I'm not just talking about subsequent aircraft or necessarily talking about maintenance but we also want to look at what is the best synergy in our system and that's part of what we'll do with this fleet assessment. (Commissioner Fiala has returned to the boardroom.) MR. SUMMERS: And, again, absolutely part of that being driven by aircraft cost and placement and transport issues, as you've mentioned. Exactly what we want to look at. Page 42 June 23, 2006 CHAIRMAN HALAS: I'm surprised that the City of Everglades doesn't take that on as an issue of buying an ambulance. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, to be honest with you, they kind of assign that to their commissioner. But the City of Everglades won't buy an ambulance. City of Naples didn't buy an ambulance, neither did Marco Island. It's not something that you want to have private enterprise out there doing. MR. SUMMERS: And I agree with you, sir. I think that if we can put something together in our programming for Port of the Islands that will be some back-up there. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. You are doing a wonderful job, by the way. I do appreciate everything you do. MR. SUMMERS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: At those prices I'm going to get a medical alert bracelet that says please don't call a helicopter. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Put on it do not resuscitate and I'll pay for it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, that's sort of what I had in mind. I would like to see a report before we start talking about buying a fleet of helicopters. I would like to see a report of the -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Cost effectiveness. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- that the incidents that the helicopter has responded to with a description of the nature of the injuries or the nature of the patient's condition. I know that sometimes you do that for relatively minor things because you don't have a ground unit available. So I would just like to see how many of those we really run into. MR. SUMMERS: Commissioner, that too will be part of our overview of that. And you know, with all of the years of pre-hospital care experience I have, a lot of times you forget just what that drive is Page 43 June 23,2006 like on 1-75 and what those drive issues down there -- and to see patients that you -- you know, our success is based on that golden hour, that clock can get away from us real quick even in general medical cases as opposed to trauma. So again, part of our effort to take a good look. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good. Now the other thing is you have made the recommendation in the budget under the medical examiner's budget that the commission approve an increase in the fee for authorization for cremations in Collier County. You haven't mentioned that here. Do you want us to try to make that decision here or are you going to bring that to us separately? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that is on -- I'm looking for it right now, it's on Page -- Mike. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Thirty-four. MR. MUDD: Thirty-four. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, we've received a -- we asked for a legal opinion on this particular issue. And the county attorney has opined that this ordinance would be illegal. And that causes me great concern because there are 18 medical places in the state that are, out of 24, that are already using it. So we're going to keep talking about that a little bit. If this budget changes we might not have that $56,100, I believe, 51,900 as a revenue and that would be an additional cost to the general fund. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So you are going to sort out the legality issues of this thing and contact some other counties and see how they justified it; right? MR. MUDD: Yes. I'm going to ask the county attorney's office to do that, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: It's obvious to me the opinion I just received on 8 June doesn't jive with other 18 districts, okay, so there is something Page 44 June 23, 2006 that is askew or somebody didn't ask hard questions when they set it up in the other districts, so I'm going to try to get to the bottom of it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Are there any other questions? None. Thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate it. And we'll take a 15 minute break. (A recess was taken.) MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you, county manager. We are back from recess and let's see if we can finish this up. MANAGEMENT OFFICE MR. MUDD: We are still on management offices. The next presenter is Mr. Mike Smykowski under the management office tab on Page 8. MR. SMYKOWSKl: Overall, there are no expanded services recommended. It's essentially a status quo budget. The operating expenses were limited to a 1.3 percent increase and the same staffing level is recommended for fiscal year '07. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That was easy. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you very much, Mike. COUNTY MANAGER MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I'm on Page 7 right now. We'll talk a little about my particular budget for shop. One of the categories that I have is board-related costs. And I've tried to itemize those board-related costs on Page 7 at the bottom of the page. Page 45 June 23, 2006 You try to do the best you can with what you're allocated and the best you can come up with, what your estimates -- federal lobbyist, we started that last year, I believe the cost will come in around $110,000 in '07. State lobbyist 75. Grant locating up in that -- and that has to do with eCivis, and that was a three-year contract that we brought to the board and it had cost increases. It will go up around $1,250 in '07. Lobbyist tool software that we use to monitor the bills, also try to grab that information with Deb White to bring to the board. We've got an allocation for consortium day. I don't believe that we will spend $5,000 next year because we're not the host. But I won't know exactly how that turns out until the summer when I meet with the other county managers in the consortium of the six counties. The picnic, we need to have a picnic. We haven't had a picnic in a while. We were going to tag onto and use our employees, so to speak, as guinea pigs on Saturday to do a soft opening to the water park. I didn't know that -- well, we are elated by the success and the opening and the number of people that are coming to the water park in the last two days. And today I hope will be no different. It's exceeding our expectations as far as people that are coming to show an interest. And when I was going to use our employees as guinea pigs, so to speak, we had over, we had -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: 1100. MR. MUDD: We had almost close to 1200 by the time it was done that had signed up. So I would like to use the picnic opportunity this summer to -- and there is a rental hour for the facility when it's not open in order to do that. We'll work out those details. But, I'm -- I don't want to push Marla too much at this particular juncture because we're still waiting on a permit for our oven hood, okay, oven hoods seem to be a stopper for restaurants all over Collier County, and I'm in the oven hood do loop. So we'll work with that process. Page 46 June 23, 2006 Right now the -- do loop is an IT, where you just keep circulating your code for an IT program and you really get nowhere, you're just in that do loop. Well, I'm in a do loop just like everybody else is for an oven hood. I would like to be able to get that concession open and maybe use our employees as a bit of a guinea pig to see how the concession process is going to work. But we need to have that. Our survey for, citizens survey is budgeted for $25,000. Now we didn't do one in the in between years because we used the CBIA survey in the off years, so we do it every two years. The CBIA survey is done and they are meeting with each one of you to discuss that particular survey, or at least they're trying to. They're trying to get me to come to a presentation next week and I think I'm going to be there to see exactly what that survey says because I do not know at this particular juncture -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Excuse me, let me interrupt. Is that the CBIA one that's giving the results on Tuesday? MR. MUDD: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Are we going to be at F AC at that time or does it start later on that day? MR. MUDD: It starts later on that day, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. MR. MUDD: Tuesday is, basically they do a preliminary registration at F AC and then they have, it's kind of like the travel day for people to get there. We're going to showcase our government facilities at the north and Orange Blossom, the library and the government center and then the new Naples Water Park, we are going to showcase that in the afternoon. And then they have a dinner engagement on Marco. We're also going to try to give them the opportunity to go to Fifth Avenue and try the restaurants that we have in the area. And it goes full up, full bore on Wednesday. Okay. ICMA for $5,500. Performance measure, consortium, we're in a consortium with the State of Florida, other counties to measure how Page 47 June 23, 2006 well we do. We've got $3,000. We call it the jail committee but it's not, it's a -- it's a special group of folks that is chaired by Commissioner Coyle at your direction and approval that basically takes a look at opportunities to try to minimize overcrowding in our j ails, find different ways to do business in order to get the state attorney, the public defender, all the judges, the sheriff and everybody else to work together along with our facility staff to try to optimize that whole process and to do things the most economical way that we possibly can. They are getting into some very detailed areas. The first couple of meetings for the first year or so we talked more general topics, now they are getting into more specificity as far as what they are getting at. We believe that the court reporter at that meeting would help us immensely as we try to go through those particular details. Goal setting, we put down $4,000. We're going to try to take our ops track program and link it with all the other systems to come up with kind of what we call a dashboard in the red, yellow, green, side of the house to let us know if we're on track or if we're getting astray, to give us a color code so we can get it in a more automated particular item and travel aides and supplies at $11,700. So there is a net increase in that particular fund of 34,000, $34,100. That's a 12.5 percent increase. And then we basically held down the county manager's budget, kept it within guidance. We're at 9.5 percent in most cases, that's all personnel expense. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Any questions? Thank you very much for the overview. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS MR. MUDD: Okay. Now we're going to turn to the Board of County Commissioners. And that's on a tab that's right behind the Page 48 June 23, 2006 management offices. MS. FILSON: The only thing I've -- Sue Filson from the board office -- the only thing I've increased in my budget this year is 4 percent for the dues and membership for FAC. It increased to $28,800. However, by the -- in between the time that I submitted my budget the board approved recent changes in employee benefits, so there are several girls in my office who get extra vacation time. And I currently have $2,500 for other contractual services. And if the board's okay with approving this I would like to increase that to 3,000. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No questions from me. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Questions from any of the commissioners? Thank you very much. MS. FILSON: So the increase is okay? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Yes. MS. FILSON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. We're going to leave our travel budgets the same? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Sure. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. COMMISSIONER COYLE: We're going to reduce Commissioner Coletta's travel budget, aren't we? Can I get three votes to reduce his travel budget? There is one, we've got two now. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I just carry sandwiches with me wherever I go and that will bring down the cost. I was fortunate like you and had a small district. I could do it on a bicycle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Right. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'll be honest with you, I think the travel budget is low for what we are. We've been the same travel budget now for what, three, four years? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Five years. MS. FILSON: I believe it's more like six years. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Meanwhile, what happens is is Page 49 June 23, 2006 that we have to keep coming back to the -- every item that we put in except for Florida Association of Counties has to come back to the commission for approval. It doesn't matter what it is, it's in there almost always on the consent agenda where everybody can see what it is we had to spend it on. The problem I see is, you know, I wasn't as active as the chair was this year, so my travel budget is going to work out fine. The problem is that if you have taken an active part then you have to keep coming back to the commission. The amount of money in there, I think, is more than adequate. I don't think -- but I almost think the best thing to do would be have the travel budget exist in one fund, being that we have to have it approved item by item as we go into the year. A lot of excitement over that suggestion, you notice that? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So you mean put it like into one pot? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: One pot. We still have to approve every item, you know, that comes before us so that if we -- if one commissioner can put more time into it. I'll be honest with you, this past year I was just overloaded and I couldn't do some of the things I normally do. But Commissioner Halas picked up the slack and really went to town and took care of it. And meanwhile you have to come back with your hat in your hand for doing the county, extra work for the county. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I know you had to beg for some extra dollars and then Commissioner Coyle donated from his fund to help that fund out. I see what you are saying. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Why don't we just put it in one big fund. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm for that. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I don't like that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That is going to be real problematic. Page 50 June 23, 2006 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: How is that? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, because there are so many functions that we're invited to and if somebody feels a need for any particular year to go to a lot of functions, then that can really deplete the fund. It's work. What's wrong with coming back and saying hey, you know, I need some extra travel monies. I mean is it the ribbing that you don't like? CHAIRMAN HALAS: That's exactly right. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You don't like the ribbing? CHAIRMAN HALAS: That's exactly right. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I promise you you won't get any from me anymore. I apologize if I offended you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Exactly. I think we are elected officials and I think we can conduct ourselves in a manner that is -- whereby I don't think we're in the kitty, on the dole of any kind. That if we need money to go out of town that that is something that I feel that as elected officials we should have that ability. If we run short then we have to come up here and beg for it and I think that's a little bit demeaning. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: What I was proposing would not take away any scrutiny. We would still be dealing with it. In fact, I would go so far as if every time there is a request by a commissioner for money from the travel fund that it lists everything that he had for the year down there at the bottom so everyone can see what's taken place. Actually, it's kind of like awarding a medal to a person, the public can actually see how much time you spent away from the comfort of the home. Travel, and we don't get to travel first class and we're held by all sorts of restrictions, what kind of meals we can buy. It's not what I would call the greatest situation in the world. It's just saying is it the biggest issue I'm going to deal with here on the budget, absolutely not, it's a minor issue. And if the Page 51 June 23, 2006 commission doesn't feel comfortable with going with one pot, that's fine by me. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Even on per diem, you don't -- it doesn't pay for your meals. You have to shell out of your pocket just on per diem when you are out of town. Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: The problem with putting it into one pot is that there is no yardstick by which a commissioner can project what they are going to be able to spend on travel. They will never know what they can -- where they can go and how much money they will have in their budget to support it. Because if all of the commissioners are just using money out of one big pot we're not going to know from one minute to the next how much has been obligated. And I think that it's worked real well for the duration of this county commission to have each of us allocated a certain amount of travel, and I don't, I certainly haven't resisted giving anyone my unused portion of travel, and I'll continue to do so. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's fair. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you. That's it. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I just want to make sure that, I'm on Page 4 under Board of County Commissioners. When you look at your budget, I just want to make sure for the viewing audience if somebody looks at that page and says, well, the commissioners spent $12.8 million, that's not the case at all. There are things in your budget that just don't fit anyplace else, okay. I'll be honest with you, Mike called it odd ducks. They just don't fit very well. If you would please turn to Page 7. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Page 7? MR. MUDD: Page 7, please, and you'll see right there under program summary, you had $2 million in your budget for the juvenile detention center, okay. It's a state cost to us that they basically charge Page 52 June 23, 2006 us that says here is Collier County's cost for the juvenile detention center. You have the Naples CRA, and you're going to hear about that in just a second because Mr. David Jackson is going to talk about his particular budget. That's included in your budget. You have the airport authority in your budget, okay. Because those two directors work for this board. So just so you know and so somebody just doesn't look at the first page and say what's going on, there is more to your particular budget. You've got insurance premiums for centralized insurance processes, you've got countywide costs for $311,000 for countywide costs not attributable to a department such as for tax bills, utilities for common areas and tax deed sales. So there are some things that are in the budget that are grouped in your particular section and I just wanted to make sure you were aware of that and so was the viewing audience. With that said, I would like to have Mr. David Jackson come in and talk to you a little bit,. and you've heard a little bit about his budget prior, but just as a review, on Page 1 7 his budget is laid out for you. And there isn't anything really there that is earth shaking -- sit down, David, you're doing fine -- that's earth shaking that you haven't already seen it. But if you have any questions at all of Mr. Jackson and he can -- if you have anything you would like to highlight, David, that would be good too. MR. JACKSON: Good morning, commissioners. David Jackson, Collier County community redevelopment agency. I would like to be very succinct and there is some update information to let you know what the CRA is going to be doing in the out years for the budget. I would like to address you as the commissioners under two hats. The first is the CRA board. There you provide the leadership for the redevelopment of this area. Under the Board of Commissioners hat you are the guardian of the funds. So in those two veins you have to Page 53 June 23, 2006 pay very close attention to what we do and we try to keep you very much up to date on it. Right now proj ected growth rate in the CRA district is still running about five to 9 percent as proj ected into the out years, which is running about with Collier County. Commercial tax increment is going to be growing on us. The growth in new development coming online in the next two years is going to be about 4.3 million additional new revenue sources or tax base coming in on the commercial side of the properties for known development. As an aside with that in the residential, the additional tax value that is going to happen over the next two years will be $157 million in new construction in the CRA area. And what that does for us is increases the tax base which increases our tax incremental financing and we can take that and reinvest it back into the area. Then what does that do for us? In the last report we just received, and Commissioner Coyle and Commissioner Fiala, I've already forwarded you those proj ections and the other commissioners I have copies available for you, is over the life of the CRA they proj ected a low, medium and high scenario depending on growth. You are looking at the low scenario because I tried to be objective on what we do in the CRA but I used the pessimistic numbers for the TIF projections. We are looking at about $120 million over the life of the CRA, that's a big chunk of change. It isn't coming out of the general fund, it's money that you've never realized so it's not -- if you never get it you can't have lost it, but it will be there when the CRA goes away. It will be a windfall for the budget when it comes online. With a 42 percent increase in our budget this year I'm expecting next year's out years we're going to increase 50 to 70 percent because it doesn't do us any good to take our money and put it in a bank and look for interest. Page 54 June 23, 2006 We're going to focus on several things and you're going to see more of it in here. The first one is infrastructure. We've got to look at the CRA boundaries on the infrastructure problems. Because if the CRA was not there to look at it and fund it the county would have to do it because this is all in the public realm. So my venue, what I project for you to do is to do it now, obligate the funds early, get it done now . You increase the tax base, you payoff that debt and return it back into a contributing portion of the county just like the rest of the county is. So what are the infrastructure projects? Basically in the Gateway area, Commissioner Fiala, your district, we're looking at stormwater. You know that that is one of our willy nilly things we've got going in our area that's very important for us to fix it there. We're looking at Shadowlawn Drive and Commercial Drive, those two corridors need to be addressed. And we're looking at residential streetscapes and we're looking at parking. We do know that there may be a mini triangle catalyst project and we may have to fund something like that. In the Bayshore area, which is Commissioner Coyle's district, stormwater to a lesser degree needs to be addressed and we are doing that here currently with the loans and money that we're looking at. Bayshore Drive south to Thomasson Drive that goes down to the new Sabal Bay development. Thomasson Drive, we've got to look at that from Rattlesnake Hammock, U.S. 41 all the way out to Hamilton Harbor and where the county pier is -- or the county boat ramp is. We've got to look at that. It's an infrastructure need that is going to be impacted soon. And we also looked at residential streetscapes and paving. So basically in our budget as you see it here it's not -- there are no surprises in it. And we will be looking forward to investing more on other projects. Do you have any questions? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Are there any questions? (N 0 response.)o Page 55 June 23, 2006 MR. MUDD: Thanks, David. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much. MR. MUDD: And that basically completes the Board of County Commissioners. I want to go back-- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Could I just ask a question? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Of course. COMMISSIONER COYLE: David has asked us to commit to funds now for some of these proj ects. And by approving the budget are we agreeing to do that? MR. MUDD: He's now budgeted for those, whatever is in the budget. Now when he does the expenditure he still has to come back to the Board of County Commissioners if there is a contract to be let or whatever, it has to come back to you as the CRA board and then you get to wear your board hat in order to approve that recommendation. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good. Okay. MR. JACKSON: These are coming online, commissioner. These things are individual projects that we know they are coming. They haven't been fleshed out, they haven't been approved, they're still conceptual, but we know that they are all in the planning process. Individually they'll be brought to you fleshed out, go through all the departments in the county and then presented to you for funding. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good. Thank you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: He's also got $1.8 million in reserves that would be available for some of that the infrastructure or whatever needs as dictated by the CRA. But obviously, he would be bringing those back to the board for approval. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And just for clarification so that the public understands, this is not a request for a fund transfer from the general fund, from ad valorem property taxes. It comes from tax increment financing for the Bayshore redevelopment area itself. So he's really asking for approval to use funds they have collected, and Page 56 June 23, 2006 they have. MR. JACKSON : Yes, sir, absolutely. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Good. MANAGEMENT OFFICES (CAPITAL) MR. MUDD: Commissioners, I just want to go back to management offices, if I can. And I've asked Dan and Jack Wert to just stand by in case you had any questions on the capital side. And I'm on management offices, Page 71. And that basically talks about the dirt, the tourist development fund 195 and those particular issues that are budgeted in the '06, '07 budget is on the projects that he's got on his capital side in 195. And you can go down that list, you can see that the parking garage has pretty much been completed as far as the cost. You can also see in '05, '06 a $23,570,000 expenditure that basically is, or budget item that was used to renourish the beach that we finished just before Memorial Day, and the expenditures that are there pretty much on that list are there as reoccurring expenditures for monitoring and whatnot that we have. There is one proj ect that will start on 1 November, and that has to do with Caxambas Pass dredging. We didn't get to that particular project this year but we have the contractor selected. We've negotiated to get his contract down a bit. I had to personally get involved in that. And that particular contractor will be here on 1 November to get that done. Yes. On Page 72, one of the things that makes this kind of an interesting year for Mr. Wert is how the board has set up their policy on tourism development category A funding. It talks about setting reserves aside at half a million dollars a year until they get up to a $10 million reserve cap. And that starts right after the major renourishment got done, so in '07 it will start with 500,000 and then it Page 57 June 23, 2006 will build to $10,000 (sic) so that you've always got a reserve in case you get a catastrophic problem on the beach. You're going to need some up front funding before FEMA kicks in, and then you never get your full 100 percent back, you get something less than that depending on how generous they feel in any given year and what policies that they changed. And oh, by the way, commissioners, if you think I'm kidding about policy changes, they just changed the policy on picking up debris in gated communities again, and it's gone to the dark side. So we get to fight again to get that done. Everything that this board did and commissioners were involved in for Wilma debris removal, and we even got our congressman involved, he even went to the President of the United States, they somehow forgot where we were and the new policy basically goes back to saying that we're going to have problems with gated communities. So I will tell you we're going to have to work through that this year again to get that resolved, so. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Oh, boy. MR. MUDD: So they do change their policy is what I'm trying to say with this reserve fund. FEMA will change policies depending on funds available at the time and some things like that from year to year. So you really don't know hard fast after one year ends as far as hurricanes are concerned until next year what that policy is going to be. So having a reserve of $10 million is prudent on our part and prudent when you approved this particular policy. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I would like to say at this time that it was through the efforts of the county manager and also the utility director, and I worked them pretty hard, that we were able to find that finite window of opportunity to where we were able to address this issue with the debris in gated communities, for the residents here in Collier County to remove that debris out of gated communities. And it saddens me that FEMA has overlooked what the effortss Page 58 June 23, 2006 that we -- I thought that we set a milestone in regards to addressing this issue because no matter whether you live in a gated community or not you're still a taxpayer in the United States. So I feel that everybody should have that benefit. But I guess we'll have to work through that, and I just want to thank those two people for their strong effort and finding that opportunity to where we addressed our federal elected officials to whereby they carried a letter when President Bush came to Southeast Florida and landed at Miami and the letter was presented to him. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Mr. Chairman, may I suggest that we provide guidance to the county manager to start working on the resolution of that now and let's not wait until we have an emergency; let's work to resolve that now. The fundamental issue in my mind is that FEMA is funded by federal -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Dollars. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- tax dollars and everybody in a gated community to the best of my knowledge pays federal income taxes. Now, why they are being deprived of the opportunity to get federal tax monies spent in their communities is beyond me. And I think we should mount whatever challenge is appropriate to get that issue resolved as quickly as possible. MR. MUDD: If the board is going to direct staff to do that, and we will, and I believe it's good direction, can you also agree as a body that if I need a letter signed by the chair that he could speak for the Board of County Commissioners on this particular item? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Absolutely, as far as I'm concerned. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, especially if we're gone this summer and you need it. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Let's put it to a formal vote. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay, then that's my motion. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I second it. Page 59 June 23, 2006 CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Motion on the floor for the chair to have the ability to sign a letter in regards to addressing cleanup in gated communities, and we have a second. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And that the staff proceed immediately -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- towards trying to resolve this Issue. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I second. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I'll call the question. All those in favor signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Aye. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Aye. Opposed by like sign. (No response.) CHAIRMAN HALAS: Do you have anything to add to that, Jim? MR. DELONY: No, sir. We are working on this. We have not weighed in on this matter enormously to the board in the past. The key point is, it's policy decisions, sir, Mr. Coyle, to answer your question, your point. What are they going to deem as eligible? This board was very clear to the community and to the world, for that matter, that we were only going to pick up eligible, FEMA-eligible debris. We want that eligibility criteria to embrace the same level of service that we provided during Hurricane Wilma. That's the bottom line. Not to expand it outside of those parameters but address eligibility in terms of what FEMA will participate in cost share. That eligibility criteria would not change from what we had in Wilma. I Page 60 June 23, 2006 think that's a reasonable accommodation of some of the other concerns that have the federal sector on, you know, private property and that stuff. The bottom line is we're just trying to pursue what we thought what you determined to be the right level of service for our taxpayers, and we will pursue that as directed. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Private property owners pay taxes. MR. DELONY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That should not be the criteria. MR. DELONY: We understand that. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And we shouldn't let them get away with that. MR. DELONY: Sir, we will keep you informed of our progress with regard to negotiating with the Homeland Security folks. MR. MUDD: And we will use your authority to the chairman to help us in that regard. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good. MR. MUDD: Because I believe that goes a long way by him having the ability. And I would -- when you did the motion you said letter, it might be letters, okay. COMMISSIONER COYLE: To lots of people. MR. MUDD: Whatever it takes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: To legislators, President of the United States, everybody else. MR. DELONY: We understand your intent, sir. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I can assure you that I spent a couple of hours in the county manager's office along with the utility director stomping my feet and jumping up and down, saying that we needed to have FEMA address this particular issue, and of course when the FEMA people came here, and it was really because of the efforts put on by Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart and also Congressman Mack that they were able to address this issue with the President of the Page 61 June 23, 2006 United States, George Bush, and we were able to get some relief. And I thought that we had set a precedent so that no matter what happened in this community that we had the ability and there would be the ability of other communities throughout the United States that could fall back on this. But obviously it's fallen through the cracks and I don't know if our emergency manager director has anything to add to this. Commissioner Fiala. Or do you want to wait until after he's done? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. MR. SUMMERS: Dan Summers, Director of the Bureau of Emergency Services. Commissioners, it is frustrating for me, as I have gone through these events and seen policy from FEMA written in Jello and it makes it very, very frustrating for us. I will tell you the point I want to make is that this board -- the timing is good here because I believe, based on an e-mail I got yesterday from the International Association of Emergency Managers, that Thursday there is supposed to be another bill back on the Senate floor whether to let FEMA stay under Department of Homeland Security or pull it back out as an independent type agency with cabinet authority . I think it's good if we express this to our Congressional delegation because if that bill comes back up there might be an opportunity for some tweaking there, some tweaking within the Stafford Act if this thing in fact makes it to the floor next week. So. And our association is really frustrated with which direction, neither bill has got a lot of teeth in it but we'll see ultimately what happens. As you know, we need them to be -- we'll be fairly self-sufficient but we really need to make sure that that Stafford Act guidance remains solid so we can plan from year to year. So I echo the frustration on the change in policy. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Are you saying that we need to get this Page 62 June 23, 2006 letter out ASAP? MR. SUMMERS: I think the letter timing is okay. I think it might behoove our federal lobbyist group just to check in with our two Congressional delegations on this FEMA reorg and just let them know that we have this on our radar screen as well and see what they can capture. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, I wanted to speak to the guy with the great tie. MR. DELONY: That would be Mr. Summers, I suspect. I'll tell my tie picker you said so, she'll be pleased. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I noticed in different areas right out by the roadway there is a bunch of dead debris from last year, probably brought out after all of the FEMA hurricane stuff was picked up, and of course when it sits there along the roadway and nobody claims ownership of it or anything, number one, I would believe that if we get some good strong winds then that is going to be blowing all over, that could be problematic. And number two, what do we do for now and for future when debris like that is hauled out to the roadside but it isn't in any area that has -- looks like it has ownership for anything. Do we let -- we've let it sit there this year but -- MR. DELONY: Well-- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, that's all right. MR. DELONY: First of all, we should not let it sit there, that's a code violation. That should be addressed and proceed to resolution through the efforts of our code enforcement agency as well as our ordinance enforcement. I know that my colleague to my rear here that works hard to keep our roadways clear and safe and does a valued job in my view, works to that end as well. So we work those hot spots throughout the year. We should not accept that. That is not a business method. We as a delivery team and Page 63 June 23, 2006 at your direction had a very public expression of when we would stop the debris mission and we stopped it accordingly. Our callbacks have been minimal. Compliance is tough and that's what we're talking about. And so I -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: I thought maybe it was some kind of a policy when -- maybe it does -- whatever we have in place now doesn't cover it, like the stuff on U.S. 41 East right near Bayshore Drive, been sitting there all this time, piles of it, big piles of it. And I was just wondering do we have some kind of policy in place to remove that stuff. MR. VLIET: John Vliet, for the record, your Road Maintenance Superintendent. Normally what happens is since that hurricane there has been several hot spot areas. We do speak with Mr. DeLony's departments about it. We do contact code enforcement and ask them to go out and issue a violation notice. Also, I'm not familiar with the one on 41 but I will certainly look at that one. COMMISSIONER FIALA: There is actually piles of them all along. It's not just one pile. It's kind of hard to miss. MR. VLIET: I have to look and see if it's within that state right -of- way. COMMISSIONER FIALA: It looks like it. It looks like it's brought right up to the roadway. MR. VLIET: I will look at that, ma'am, and if is in the state right-of-way I'll direct some crews to remove that because it's very difficult to put ownership on anyone. There is issues, if it's vacant lot, there is debris piled in front of it then nobody knows who put it there. And actually what I found is it was carried from across the street in some cases. But we are looking at every one of those issues as they come forward to us. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just thought that maybe if you need something from us to help you guys, you know, some type of Page 64 June 23, 2006 policy so that when somebody does carry their debris to somebody else's yard or something and everybody doesn't want to claim it, but we probably need some way to legally remove it. MR. DELONY: Commissioner, we have those means, I believe, in our current body of ordinances and policies right now. And I just spoke to Mr. Schmitt. We'll take another look at it. I think we're okay. It's just a tough mission. It's just a tough mission, and vigilance and letting us know when you find one, and sometimes it may not be in the right-of-way; it may be on private property so we are not able to use some of the assets, we have to go through a different mechanism. Lastly, as you know, this resolution through the ordinances and through the code enforcement process sometimes take a little time. Through your office if you will notify us where you got those, John and I and Joe, we'll gang up and see what we can do. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. MR. DELONY: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Any other questions? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I still need to finish on Page 72. You need to -- you need to understand and know this. Mandatory annual budget allocation of funds in maintenance or reserves. A, catastrophic review shall be accumulated in the budget with one million dollars in '04, with half a million dollars thereafter. So that particular policy says at this particular time in the '07 budget you should have $2.5 million. If you go down to C it says that now that the year is over for the major renourishment you should have an additional $2 million. So that should be a total of $4.5 million. I would like you to turn to Page 69. I would like you to go down in the middle of the page where it says reserves for capital, reserves for catastrophic. Add those two numbers together and you should have $4.5 million. You have 3.1, okay. I'm not asking the board to allocate general fund dollars into the tourist development category, Page 65 June 23, 2006 that's not what I'm trying to get done. What I'm trying to let you know is that policy is a tough policy. Mr. Wert is working diligently to make that happen. I believe the shortage that you have in that fund of a total of$1.5 million had to do with the cost of the major renourishment project that went on -- that went from the north part of the county all the way through the City of Naples. I wanted to make sure you were aware of that. And Mr. Wert -- and I will bring this up every year to make sure that that fund is growing the way it should be and bring it to your attention so that you know. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you. Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I just wanted to make sure that the changes specified on Page 72 are the changes that were reviewed by the TDC and our advisory committee. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, those are the ones you voted on. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So these are not being proposed as additional changes of any kind? MR. MUDD: No, sir, no. Those were the ones you did. And I just wanted to get the best guidance at the time that we had and make sure it was a tax so I could talk to you about it a little bit. And the next item on capital outside of Clam Bay restoration and Pelican Bay irrigation has to do with EMS impact fee 350 allocations for capital. And I wanted to make sure that you are comfortable with those particular items that are listed on Page 77 and 78. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's great. MR. MUDD: Okay. Commissioner, that pretty much takes us through the budget. What I would like to do is I have staff here if you have any questions on the UFR list. At one o'clock we do have public comment time certain. Several people have asked to come speak to the board. I know I have two speaker slips right now. Sue, how are you doing?g Page 66 June 23, 2006 MS. FILSON: I have three. MR. MUDD: You have three speaker slips. And that -- if you give them three to five minutes, let's go through the five that are here, and if they are here and you could get done with five they don't have to wait until after lunch, I don't believe. But we have staff here to talk about any questions you have on the UFR list. What I will also mention to the board is you set the official millage, okay, after the last hearing in September, okay, for the tax year. I just want to make sure that you understand that particular item. You set the official tax rate when the second hearing, and Mike goes through all of that stuff that he reads through and you finally approve, because he has to read it twice. And any changes in between as we go through those two hearings you set it at the last day and that is the rate that goes on the tax bills in November that get mailed out. In-- COMMISSIONER COYLE: I need to ask a question. I've seen the UFR list. I don't see it in this packet. CHAIRMAN HALAS: It's on Page 12. MR. MUDD: Page 12. MR. SMYKOWSKl: Under your general overview tab, commISSIoner. MR. MUDD: The other thing I will say to you is in July, and it has to be the latter part of July, you have a requirement as the board to set a tentative millage rate, okay. When you set that tentative millage rate that goes out in notices, I believe, that the tax collector sends out. Mike, you can help me on this. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The property appraiser sends out the TRIM notices. We have to provide him the tentative millage rates by August 4th. And then by August, I believe it's 25th, he sends out the TRIM notices which shows the impact of not only tax rates tentatively adopted by the Board of County Commissioners but also by all of the other taxing jurisdictions in Collier County, the schools, the independent fire districts, the water management district and the like, Page 67 June 23, 2006 so that each individual understands the implications of the proposed tax rates and the changes to each individual property's taxable value prior to the public hearings. That is the official notification for the first public hearing in September. MR. MUDD: And the thing that I wanted -- and so from a publicity side, i.e., it gets mailed out by the tax collector and they get to compare what they paid last year with this year and from a PR side in that mailing, if the millage rate is less then you kind of get a positive PR piece out of it from that mailing, okay. I probably didn't state it quite eloquently enough but that's the short of it. The other thing that you also have to know is if you set that millage rate at a rate in July, in September, you can go lower than that millage rate but you can never go higher than that millage rate. So there is only one way to go in September from that millage rate. You can either leave it the same or you can cut it. But you can't increase it. So it's something that you need to be aware of. And I wanted to make sure that this board understood that one more time as we go through the process. And we only do it once a year so it's always good for a reminder. CHAIRMAN HALAS: One question I have is when is the peak of our hurricane season? MR. MUDD: Well, we're in it. But for Southwest Florida habitually it has been the latter -- come on up here, Dan, and if I say anything out of line you can hit me with a book later -- but habitually it's been the latter part of August, September. And I wanted to think that Wilma would never come on October 24th but that's when it hit us last year. MR. SUMMERS: Absolutely correct, sir. CHAIRMAN HALAS: All right. Thank you. Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Just briefly I want to repeat what you just said, that if we do nothing to the millage into September Page 68 June 23, 2006 nothing actually changes, we make our decision then, except the fact if we do it early and we get into a financial pinch we can't roll back the other way; that's correct, right? MR. MUDD: You can't increase it. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You can't increase it. MR. MUDD: After you make -- if you make a decision in July to decrease it, okay, it's decreased, okay, and the only way you can go is go deeper into it in September but if we get hit with something you can't increase it. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So the July meeting is when we make a decision like that whether to consider it at that time or consider it in September. PRELIMINARY UFR DISCUSSION MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Now the UFR list, real quick, is provided for you on Page 12 and 13 of the general overview and I covered it a little bit yesterday when we went over it. If you have any questions at all on that UFR list there is staff present to answer those particular questions for you. And if not, then we can get into the five public speakers that are here to comment. And no staff will be here this afternoon if you have other comments on the UFR list if you think of something. I understand. And public comment still is advertised for 1 :00 p.m. so we need to -- you as a board need to readjourn, after lunch you need to come back at 1 :00 to listen to folks. I know the expressway authority is scheduled to present their needs at 1 :00 for sure. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just a fast question. Yesterday George Yilmaz really impressed me when he was talking about the two people, and the word he used was desperately needed. I wrote that down. But that isn't here, that must have already been approved on the expanded list, right? Page 69 June 23, 2006 MR. DELONY: For the record, Jim DeLony, Public Utilities Administrator. No, ma'am. If I might, if I can remember. We desperately needed to perform the function, and the recommendation under this specific UFR was we can do it contractually or we could hire a couple of folks in-house to do it. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Save money. MR. DELONY: The fact of the matter is is that we will do the mission. We're budgeted to do the function in the current budget. But if we're able to use -- if we're able to get additional FTEs we'll use in-house assets to do that. That is pretty much described not on this particular UFR but all the UFRs in public utilities. What we've laid out in the budget there are essential functions that have to be performed to sustain compliance and meet demand. And we're going to pursue it either through contractual means or we're going to use in-house forces. If in-house forces aren't available because we're not able to get additional FTEs per board direction, you've given me the budget authority to do it contractually if you approve this budget. This is or scenario and the or in this particular case has a cost benefit ratio if we go in-house as opposed to contract. And that is true for every single UFR and that's what is reflected on that page that Mr. Mudd refers to. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Could you reiterate the cost savings? MR. DELONY: For the overall all ten UFRs for the public utilities budget we believe that we could have -- the whole cost savings for those ten UFRs is about $627,000 as we program it if I'm correct. CHAIRMAN HALAS: That's after you've taken into effect that we're paying them not only their salaries but benefits and everything else -- MR. DELONY: Yes, sir. I'm sorry, I gave you the wrong-- $591,000 in terms of cost savings. The or condition. Contractual is more expensive than government hire, that's the bottom line, that's just Page 70 June 23, 2006 the way it is. These are not inherently governmental functions, they are contractible. My recommendation though is that we hire the folks we need to do it in the most cost efficient manner, and that was my recommendations on that UFR. But we're still going to perform the function in the budget that we presented to you earlier. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you. MR. DELONY: The savings, again, let me just be clear, that we're projecting is $591,800. CHAIRMAN HALAS: That's after hiring and their salaries and all their -- MR. DELONY: Yes, sir. I'm sorry, I gave the wrong number earlier. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you. Any other questions? PUBLIC COMMENT MR. MUDD: Commissioner, let's go to those five speakers. The first speaker that I have is Patricia Huff. MS. HUFF: This podium? MR. MUDD: Any podium that you want, ma'am. MS. HUFF: Good afternoon. My name is Patty Huff and I'm on the board of the Friends of the Museum in Everglades City. Two years ago we came before this board and expressed our plans to purchase the Rob Storter collection comprising of over 300 items. To bring you up to date we took possession of the collection in November 2004 and have been raising funds ever since through donations, sponsorships and selling of prints and cards. The Rob Storter collection is unique and invaluable in documenting the early pioneer days of Collier County. The interest has been overwhelming and widespread, with sponsorship from people around the country. One particular painting by Rob Storter illustrating the Dr. Lykes ship moving cattle between and Punta Reyes Page 71 June 23,2006 and Cuba sparked the interest of many members of the Lykes family who recently became one of our Storter Club sponsors. It tells the story of the commerce of the cattle business a hundred years ago, and the Lykes family is continuing that tradition today. The collection not only represents our past but also how Collier County developed both culturally and economically over the last century. In the last 12 months selected pieces from the Storter collections have been exhibited in many different location, including the Naples Depot open house with over a thousand people attending. It is currently on display from May until October at Rookery Bay. This week they are hosting the Gulf of Mexico Alliance with 45 participants from five different states -- Outside Collier County we have been invited by the Bonita Springs Historical Society to exhibit the collection at the newly renovated Lisles Hotel. And coming up next year the exhibit will travel to Miami for display at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida. This will be our first exhibit on the east coast of Florida and we feel it is an excellent opportunity to reach a wider audience. Betty Briggs, Rob Storter's granddaughter, had a vision for this collection and we share that vision with her. The Friends of the Museum created a business plan, and in partnership with the Collier County Museums, we intend to carry out this plan in three stages. Weare currently still in Phase one with the acquisition and promotion of the Storter collection. Phase two will be setting up a traveling exhibit and schedule exhibits throughout Florida and promote the collection at museums, art shows and schools. Phase three is our business-to-business program. The Rob Storter collection is so comprehensive it involves all area of economic growth and we wish to continue promoting the history of Collier County through related organizations and exhibiting at the Florida State Fair, the Florida Cattlemen's Association, the Audubon Society, the Boca Page 72 June 23, 2006 Grande tarpon tournament and the IGF A and the fish and wildlife commISSIon. When the Friends of the Museum signed a contract with the Storter family, we took on a monumental task. Through our hard work and in-kind services we have paid $78,000 of the principal. That leaves us an outstanding balance of 72,000. It is our request that the Board of County Commissioners recognize the value and the importance of our heritage and help us payoff the balance. This will give us more time and money and energy to support the Collier County museums. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much, ma'am. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Nicole Ryan. I think some of the speakers signed up to come -- just early, to come back at 1 :00, so I'll save their names. Carol Mozeman. She'll be followed by Barbara Quartz MS. MOZEMAN: Hello. My name is Carol Mozeman. I'm president of the Friends of the Museum of the Everglades. And I'm here to ask that you fund the additional funds for the Storter collection. Rob Storter, the Rob Storter collection is invaluable in chronicling the history of Collier County, including Everglades City, Marco Island and Naples. Rob Storter's perspective as a commercial fisherman, fishing guide and family man gives us insight into the daily lives of those who pioneered Collier County. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Question, if I may. MS. MOZEMAN: Yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The Storter collection, right now you say that the balance is 72. How much have you paid into it? MS. MOZEMAN: I believe about 78,000 at this time. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So you're halfway there with private donations. The collection, when this collection is completely Page 73 June 23, 2006 paid for where does it reside, who is responsible for it? MS. MOZEMAN: Right now the Friends of the Museum of the Everglades have purchased it. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So it will be the property of Collier County? MS. MOZEMAN: That remains to be seen. I honestly don't know, sir. MS. HUFF: Our intention -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I think we need to clarify that because you know, it's -- MS. HUFF: I'm chairman of the committee of the Storter collection. And yes, our intention has always been from the beginning to donate the collection to Collier County museums. And it is the intention of the Briggs family -- the Storter family that Betty Briggs is the granddaughter of -- when we signed the contract we said it would stay within Collier County and basically in the Everglades area. But we have it right now stored in Naples in a storage unit and when we turn it over to the Collier County museums we'll work together with them, with the friends and the Collier County Museum. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: How much of a bulk is this collection? MS. HUFF: There are 312 pieces. That includes paintings, films, we have -- and includes the carvings and things like that. It's over 312 items that we've documented and cataloged. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You know, it would be helpful maybe if -- I don't think we're going to reach a final decision this meeting, probably in July -- but maybe if you could have a book of the Storter collection that you could leave someplace where people can look at it, it might help to understand the significance of this particular collection as far as the history of the Everglades and Chokoloskee area goes. MS. HUFF: The last time that we presented to the board we had Page 74 June 23, 2006 the Crackers in the Glades book, which actually discusses the Storter family and all of the paintings. And then we do have -- on Exhibit right now at Rookery Bay too we have each of the items on display there. And wherever the collection travels and is exhibited we have all of the items on display. (Commissioner Coyle has left the boardroom.) COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm sure my fellow commissioners are aware of what this is all about even though it was last year. Thank you very much. MS. HUFF: We just had, you know -- we need to keep the collection together was one of the requirements when we purchased it, that we keep it in Collier County and we keep it together and the pieces aren't separated. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I did go see it over at Rookery Bay. And at first I was just looking, and then I thought, well, I'll just start to read, and it was just fascinating because he actually tells you of daily life at that time and in the terminology of that period. It was an awful lot of fun. Thank you. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Barbara Quartz. MS. QUARTZ: I'm Barbara Quartz. I have been a board member and volunteer at the Friends of the Museum of the Everglades since 1998. The Storter collection is charming and showing the early life of Everglades City, Marco, Naples, particularly Naples as a small, small town. We would appreciate your assistance in completing the payment for this collection. And I do urge everyone to go, if they have the chance to go see it. It is charming. But you have to spend the time reading his notes on his paintings. That's the charm of it. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Marion Burke. Page 75 June 23, 2006 MS. BURKE: Good morning. I'm Marion Burke. I'm also a volunteer at the Everglades museum and also a secretary of the Friends of the Museum. And if you like the word desperate help, we need desperate help for the Storter collection so that we can continue it on and bring it to Naples too. I think if you all get a chance to look at it you would love it too. His paintings and his writing is super. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much. MS. FILSON: That's your final speaker, Mr. Chairman. MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, for one fact, for just the board on this particular comment. Last year on your UFR list the Storter collection purchase was for a $150,000 on the UFR list. One of the things that they basically said to you was they didn't sit still and they tried to work it from their public and they have worked $78,000 to that $150,000 purchase. And even though it says 75 on your thing they basically told us 72. So I just wanted to make sure that you are aware of that fact. CHAIRMAN HALAS: If we have no other public speakers why don't we recess for lunch and be back here at 1 :00 p.m. Thank you very much. (A recess was taken.) (The proceedings resumed at 1 :00 p.m.) MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a hot mic. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much, Assistant County Manager. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The next part of this proceedings, of course, is public comment, and if you would all turn your cell phones off or pagers. And we're limiting each speaker to three minutes. And, Miss Filson, how many do we have at the present time? MS. FILSON: Ten. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. I'll wait and see if the county Page 76 June 23, 2006 manager has got any further direction before we start into it. County manager, do you have any further direction to give us other than we're going to start into the -- MR. MUDD: We're going to do -- we're going -- I know for a fact that we have people from the expressway authority that want to talk about their -- their requirements for next year. And I did mention that at the board meeting. I know that we have City of Naples representatives that want to be able to talk to the board of county commissioners on their fund requirements or their -- or their requests for next year, and whatever other slips we have for public comment. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Is there any particular order you want to take them in or we'll just go ahead and start off however they came in the door? MS. FILSON: Okay. The first one is Nicole Ryan. She'll be followed by Anne Goodnight. MS. RYAN: Good afternoon, commissioners. For the record, Nicole Ryan here in behalf of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. The Conservancy was extremely impressed with the watershed management plan presentation that you heard back in May during the year based amendment transmittal hearing. And we were also very impressed with the ambitious 20/10 time line that you put into place during the amendment transmittal in order to get those watershed management plans done, especially since they had been overdue from 1993 and then 2000. But the transmittal is really only step one. Now the funding needs to be allocated. The Conservancy is asking that you include the proposed $6 million of funding for watershed management plans through the unfunded requirements. These plans would cost 2 million per year for the next three years and that would allow you to meet your 20/10 Page 77 June 23, 2006 deadline time line in the Growth Management Plan for the watershed management Plan competition. The Conservancy appreciates that there are many difficult decisions to be made during the funding and the budget cycle. We also understand that there are more projects that can be fully funded in the unfunded requirements category. However, timely watershed management planning will ensure that Collier County has the necessary tools in order to be proactive and potentially avoid some costly retrofits through the total maximum daily loads requirements that are going to be coming down the line. Allocating the $6 million now will also indicate a solid commitment on the part of Collier County to meeting this 20/10 deadline, something that we're sure the state would appreciate. The bottom line is that new watershed management plan deadlines within the transmitted GNPs cannot meet their 20/10 deadline unless the funding is allocated. Therefore, we're asking you to consider allocation of the $6 million through this budgetary cycle in order to make that commitment to meet the $2 million per year allocation and the 20/10 deadline. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Anne Goodnight. She'll be followed by Fred Thomas. MS. GOODNIGHT: Good morn -- good afternoon, commissioners. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I'm here to speak about the fish branch culvert that is part of your budget process and I'm representing the Immokalee Water and Sewer District. I'm the chairman of the Immokalee Water and Sewer District. The Immokalee Water and Sewer District is a government entity. We are all appointed by the Governor of the State of Florida. Page 78 June 23, 2006 There is -- through the stormwater budget, I guess, there was some money that was allocated in there, an estimated $160,000, I think. I haven't seen your figures. I'm just going by our figures. And they're saying that they're wanting us to pay, the Immokalee Water and Sewer District, to pay for moving our water and sewer lines. And we are just a user base, USDA funding group, and we don't have this money to move the lines. And, so, we're asking that -- you know, that the -- that the commission instruct staff to -- we don't have that. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Go ahead. MS. GOODNIGHT: Okay. All right. That to instruct staff that when they do work of moving roads or -- or culverts or whatever, that they let us help them with the engineering as far as where our lines are going to be and everything, but not send us a bill for -- for doing this because we don't have the money to do that. Any questions? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Any questions? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is that -- is that on this list of unfunded -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Is this on -- on the unfunded-- MR. MUDD: No, sir. MS. GOODNIGHT: No? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. MR. MUDD: But to bring it up a request and what I will-- what I will have is I will have staff take a look and see what -- see what the -- the difference is and bring that particular item forward to the board. MS. GOODNIGHT: Okay. We don't know right -- right now what the cost is. MR. MUDD: Not off the top of my head, ma'am, no. CHAIRMAN HALAS: No. Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If I may? I'm sorry. I had to Page 79 June 23, 2006 step out. I had a little family emergency. You were dealing with the water and sewer issue? MS. GOODNIGHT: Yeah. And the -- and the fish branch culvert, yes, sir. That's what I was here talking about. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right. And the fact that -- that it's working fine the way it is, but it has to be moved because of what the county needs to do for the drainage. And you agreed to bring it back for consideration? CHAIRMAN HALAS: We're going to put it back on. But look at the -- the actual costs in regards to moving lines and so that they don't get -- get with the costs -- MR. MUDD: Yes. It will come -- it will come back to the board once I figure out what that cost is, sir. I don't have it right on top -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: And that will be on the -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. Once again, I apologize for not being here. MS. GOODNIGHT: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Unfunded mandates. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Fred Thomas. He'll be followed by Jack Johnson. MR. THOMAS: The hat I'm wearing today, commissioners, is I'm the vice-chair of the Immokalee Water and Sewer District. And I've got some detailed information for you. Weare funded by user fees and from when we can get competitor grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we get those to handle some of the work that we're doing. In fact, we run a very tight shop, very tight shop. It should be considered by you folk that whenever transportation or any other branch of county government is doing anything, impacting on our sewer lines that are already in place, that you all should be able to count on us for engineering support to help design, Page 80 June 23, 2006 locate, those kinds of issues, but that the county should pay for any of those kind of moves because it wasn't government agency working hand by hand with another government agency. That's all I would like to say about that. And the figures I have is that we're talking about right now I think it's $45,000 is all we're talking about to move the lines all the way to Fish Creek. That's all we're talking about in this particular situation. But, on the overall of what we're looking at, many -- for many years I used to sit and talk to County Manager Neil Dorrill about this whole situation about a tax base here in Collier County. And we had the lowest millage rate in the state, the lowest millage rate in the state. I about a house about ten years ago. It's two and a halftimes the value now. The state won't let you get your fair share of those dollars that you should be getting. And when I sell that house, I'm not going to give you a rebate for the services you provide. We need to leave the millage rate alone. We need to build up the reserves. We need to get the best schools, the best roads, the best parks and recreation, the best infrastructure we could possibly have, then we also need to take some of that money and put it in reserve before we think about lowering any millage rates or what have you so we can handle storms like Wilma when they come through. And when we get to that point, then we can look at these kinds of things. But until we get to be perfect, we need to let people -- because you can't get nothing -- something for nothing. And I am a resident here. I'm a retired resident here. I'm telling you, we shouldn't be able to get something for nothing. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Coletta, do you have something to say or -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Page 81 June 23, 2006 MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Jack Johnson. He'll be followed by Tammie Nemecek. MR. JOHNSON: Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm here to speak specifically about the fish branch Lake Trafford Road situation that Mr. Thomas and Ms. Goodnight have addressed already. The problem has existed for quite sometime. I've been fighting the windmill myself for eight years. Commissioner Coletta came out and visited with me last week as well as the department head of stormwater management. Basically, there's a waterway that drains 4,000 acres that comes to that point in Lake Trafford Road that has two six-foot-by-ten-foot box culverts in it. The county at some point in time put in a sidewalk that has two 48-inch round culverts. If you do the math, that's about 22 percent of the volume. And you've seen me before and I keep preaching the same story and I just can't understand why can't anybody get it. But you'll-- that's why the water doesn't go away. 4,000 acres, I've been on that land for 25 years, I fought the fight for eight years. I'm here again. This is the last you'll see me, I promise you, but I just can't figure out why we can't understand two 48s versus two six-by-tens. The approval was given last year for that project for completion in July, then September, then December, and what we found out was that the Water and Sewer District has both a sewer and a water main on either side of Lake Trafford Road. County staffhas said, okay, we can't do that. We can't do anything on the sidewalk. We've got to do the box culvert issue. To do that, the county says that water management -- or excuse me, the Water Sewer District has to move the lines. They don't have the money. You know, all I want to do is just make the water go away. It Page 82 June 23, 2006 seems like to me that we could just put two bigger culverts in the sidewalk and solve the issue but speaking with the commissioner and stormwater last week, that's not what they want to do. So, I'm asking that you would fund that project, that you would fund not only the project which has been previously approved at 300 something thousand dollars for the extension of the box culverts, but also kick in a little extra to help Water and Sewer District move those lines because the problem does exist of something that the county did. The county put in the sidewalk. The county made an error in the size of the culverts. And I don't know who, I don't care who. But what's going to happen, we keep -- we keep issuing permits for Habitat to build on both sides of this natural waterway . We depended on those sides of the waterway for sheet flow to alleviate the flooding. We approved the project and it's built out on the west side of the branch. That's restricted about, I don't know, 300 yards of sheet flow, which staff said there was no sheet flow. They were wrong. We've now approved future projects, what will restrict the sheet flow on the east side of the branch, so the water has to come down the branch. The water can't go down the branch because it's restricted by the sidewalk culverts. I'm just asking that somebody would please fix this problem. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If I may? Yes. Jack? MR. JOHNSON: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. You made -- the first-- the one comment you meant about this would be the last time you're going to come here, it's not. We're going to need you here again. It's all right. But you're part of the establishment now where you have to be here for different other issues. Page 83 June 23, 2006 But in any case, overlooking that little thing, I was there in person. I seen what he meant. It took a little while to understand it. Do we have anybody from stormwater here that might be able to brief us a little bit, because there is some actions taking place. There's no one from stormwater at this time. CHAIRMAN HALAS: They're all hiding. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: They're all hiding. They seen you coming, Jack. But in any case, they -- they did say that there -- MR. JOHNSON: They didn't like to be called stupid, did they? Okay. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No. I appreciate it, Jack. But we'll keep on top of this and I -- Mr. Feder, could you help us? MR. FEDER: Probably not in specifics. I know that we have a project out there. I know that typically where we have a project, if there are utilities that have to be moved, since they get to utilize the right-of-way for free, that we acquire the utilities to move to the quiet question, to the size of the culverts. W e'lllook at that. I know the sidewalk was put in there relative to school, sometime ago, as I understand it, but again we'll get the particulars. We'll be happy to meet with Jack and to anyone out there and going through the item. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah, because this was funded and then I guess it slipped because of the sewer and water problems with the pipes and that wasn't-- MR. FEDER: And we have some significant development out there, Al Had, and others that have made commitments for road widening and other issues that haven't come about yet. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And it's more involved than just Jack -- MR. FEDER: Yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- and a bunch of his livestock. Page 84 June 23, 2006 It's all the residents who live along that road. MR. FEDER: Understood. And there's other issues that we're looking at out there as well. MR. JOHNSON: I guess that's my point. In parting, you know -- I mean, not many people care about a bunch of cows, and I can understand that. But having been a life-long resident, having served on the fire district for a long time, Carson Road, West Clock Street, everything basically north of Lake Trafford Road and east of this branch is flooded. And the only relief that comes from that flooding is fish branch. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Yes, sir. We'll get -- we'll get with it. Thank you very, very much. MS. FILSON: The next speak is Tammie Nemecek. She'll be followed by Robert Young. MS. NEMECEK: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, commissioners. I'm Tammie Nemecek, Pesident of the Economic Development Council. It is always a pleasure to come and speak to you to show the success stories and sometimes the challenges we face in our continued efforts to diversify the economy and grow high wage jobs. We've had a challenging year with the lack of affordable housing, rising costs of land and land availability, and rising costs of generally doing business, but still have several success stories to share. One in particular, March performance which is a recruitment project that we have worked on for the last four years has finally been able to finish their project and has moved into their building in Collier County, 40,000 square foot building, creating 40 high wage jobs over $56,000 for our community. We have been successful in branding the Immokalee Regional Airport as the Florida trade port and bringing a great deal of heightened interest to the Immokalee area., Page 85 June 23, 2006 Unfortunately, the permitting delays have basically brought recruitment efforts to a standstill with regards to the airport. Permitting issues have long haunted and hindered our efforts. Whether they are local, state or federal, the hoops that businesses have to go through make it extremely difficult to keep businesses in our community as well as entice new companies. A positive enhancement with our local permitting took place earlier this year with their leadership to agree to allow the hiring of a special projects manager, Cheryl Soder, to facilitate and improve the fast track program. Weare already starting to hear positive comments from our clients with the help that Cheryl has been able to provide. But I still contend that we have a long way to go to make this area truly business friendly. From increases in housing cost, as I mentioned, business costs, increase in development fees, the list of potential companies willing to stay and grow in Collier County and the ones we might have to potentially recruit here is significantly dwindling. We also completed this year an analysis of the land use in Collier County, which has identified the need for an additional 3,700 acres of entitled land for business park uses that we need in Collier County by the year 2030. A recent success to this announcement though of the need for this land is the establishment of a new business park in eastern Collier County by Barron Collier Corporation. The Silver Strand business park, just minutes away from Immokalee and the new town of a Ave Maria will significantly enhance our efforts to bring businesses and jobs into the eastern Collier County community. We are working closely with Barron Collier, Community Development and Environmental Services and the Governor's office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development to fast track the permitting for this park and anticipate that we could have potentially a Page 86 June 23, 2006 company sited in this park within the next two years. It is our best and highest hope at this time to start bringing jobs to eastern Collier County. With the number of challenges we face, we also see a great deal of opportunity. There has been a definite increase in the number of quality inquiries from businesses that are interested in expanding our moving to our community. Weare in constant competition with communities in the region, state, nation, around the world for projects that will be bringing significant economic impact and jobs to our area. We need to keep a constant and consistent message that Collier County is a viable choice that is not just a place for people as a tourist destination, but a place where they can locate and grow successful businesses. This messaging will come in several different forms from direct contact with site selection consultants, business partnerships, partnerships with Enterprise Florida and participating in the state's marketing programs to our own business intelligence, which leverages relationships and research to find companies that will be prime candidates for possibly relocation or expansion in Collier. The $160,000 request that is included in the unfunded requests is the first of what we hope to be recurring financial support from Collier County for a comprehensive marketing and public relations campaign for the community that is needed to meet our joint diversification goals. As always, the EDC is willing to match this additional amount dollar for dollar. With our fund raising efforts and private sector support, we are currently in discussions with. Paradise Advertising, who currently works with the Convention and Visitors Bureau and -- and Marketing Promotions to put together a prioritized plan for the EDC, which will allow us to maximize that $160,000 request and leverage it with our private sector support, as well as funded programs June 23, 2006 on a regional basis and through Enterprise Florida. Thank you for this support of the request. I am here to answer questions and have -- may -- and hope that you will see this request as one of your priorities. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you, Tammie. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Robert Young. He'll be followed by Carol Pratt. MR. YOUNG: Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm here to speak just for my wife and myself. As property owners in Golden Gate Estates and in Naples, and I'm going to speak to the idea of the possible adjustment of the millage rate. I don't know much about that subject, but I did hear there was some possible idea there might be some type of refund or reduction and I'm not in favor of that. We've been living in the estates for approximately the last 20 years and we've been paying taxes on properties which when we first moved there, of course, for many years we were on a dirt road. The road was recently paved and we have been paying taxes on other properties there where there's no paving on the road and that -- I'm sure that money has been used along with other moneys for paying -- paving roads and -- and other parts of the county. We've been happy to pay taxes when we see that Airport Road is being improved. We see Golden Gate Boulevard being improved. We see Vanderbilt Beach Road going on in progress and so forth. However, we have been paying taxes and we think that money has been going for development of the area closer to the -- to the -- to the Gulf Shore, which we didn't complain about. We're happy to see all the development going on. But if there's a possibility that a reduction in millage rate, as someone mentioned earlier, I think we're already very low as far as the other communities in Florida. Page 88 June 23, 2006 I think that that money could well be used for continuing development in the east of 41 and other parts of the county where it's needed. It wasn't too long ago I heard about an idea that residents on dirt roads might want to help pay for them. Well, I think there are thousands of people even on undeveloped properties have been paying taxes for -- ever since Golden Gate Estates was established, and still they don't have paved roads. But I think we could -- and we should consider the continuing the development there for the benefit of all of Collier County and that way as the county grows and the population increases, that we will have sufficient reserves to do whatever is needed. So, I appreciate your time and -- and I think there are some other people living in our area and near Wilson Boulevard who feel the same way. So, I thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you, sir. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Carol Pratt. She'll be followed by Steve Olivera. MS. PRATT: My name is Carol Pratt. I live in Golden Gate Estates. Mistakes have been made in the past. There's been poor planning and lack of communication between the different county departments and divisions. And no matter whose fault it is, the residents of Golden Gate Estates are paying the price for those mistakes. Everything that the county can do to help make the residents of the estates more whole should be done. Since you insist upon putting Vanderbilt Beach Road through, make no mistake, for the record, I am still opposed to it, it should go where it was -- should -- you should put it where it should go and that's north of the canal and not where homes now stand. Use the excess funds of over $20 million to re-engineer or Page 89 June 23, 2006 redesign or whatever you do to golf courses and use eminent domain on them, ifnecessary, in lieu of taking people's homes. Thank you. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Steve -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you. MS. FILSON: -- Olivera. He'll be followed by Sara Timmons. MR. OLIVERA: Good afternoon. Steve Olivera. Golden Gate resident, 30 year, Naples. The past 20 years, those of us that have been here, we have been amongst the privileged and our community always rating well within the top ten places to live. And in the most recent years we've even been more privileged to Santa Clara, Santa Barbara and Naples, Florida, number one best investment regardless of the price. How lucky have we been? Last week, the national news reported, and these same groups that we -- we've held praise and -- and they're all experts, they have just come out, and I think you might be aware of this. It's on our national news. Neil Kabuto is the segment that I saw. They're now reporting that our million dollar homes in Naples in the experts' opinions are now 103 percent over value. That means a $2 million home in Park Shore, Naples Park -- not in Naples Park, Park Shore and Pelican Bay is actually worth a million dollars. Anybody that's bought their home in the past five years, the most affluent amongst us has just taken a psychological hit because we haven't actually seen it yet. But when these people report their -- they've been very accurate. You know, I think we all have to agree they've been very accurate. This hasn't hit in medium homes yet here. It's still being evaluated. We have to look at -- and when we look at your concurrency, our road issues here, the quality of life which this -- these reports are Page 90 June 23, 2006 based on, this is telling us a story. Weare -- I think it's critical. I think this is serious. We really need to pay attention. We need to make changes to whatever it is, you know. Any of you had been here, our traffic is getting worse and worse and worse. What -- whose fault, what's the blame? It's complex and complicated. I'm not faulting anybody, but obviously there's a serious problem. (Commissioner Coyle entered the room.) MR. OLIVERA: If these reports continue, people that have been coming aren't. The people that we need -- the developers that are coming here plunking down millions of dollars to create, help us create this community, are going to walk away from us, leaving us holding the bag. We'll still have people here. They'll have bought the houses cheaper, but they'll still be here. We'll still be needing roads. What are we going to do? What do we do? Do we reevaluate that $2 million home where we're collecting taxes on now? Do we actually go in there and the next person that buys it for a million dollars, our tax structure going to fall? I mean, perhaps the county manager can weigh in on this. I mean, I really think that that report was very alarming. If you hadn't saw it, they're going to be doing it, another report. You look at our -- again our concurrency. We have commitments to Ave Maria, to these people. We've made commitments. We're failing just in Ave Maria alone. We're at 50 percent failure. In other words, our committed roads to them, half of them aren't done and will not be -- it will be debatable whether 50 percent of them be completed on time. The other 50 percent are not in the inventory and we don't have the money . We're not counting a special district, we're not counting Trafford. This is a very large -- we need -- we probably need to Page 91 June 23, 2006 increase $6,500 per person to bailout of this. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much, sir. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Sara Timmons. She'll be followed by Tim Nance. MS. TIMMONS: Hi, commissioners. I'm Sara Timmons. You all know me if you've read the paper. Anyway, I think that the excess money should be left alone. I don't think it should be returned. I don't think we should change our tax structure, but I do think that the people in Golden Gate Estates who are going to be affected by Vanderbilt Beach Road deserve special compensation because we are being asked to give up our homes or our land and, more importantly, our way of life for future development. And that will benefit people who don't live in Florida now and may not even be born. So, keep that money and just give it to us. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Thank you. MS. FILSON: Tim Nance. He'll be followed by Jim Jack. MR. NANCE: Good afternoon, commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Tim Nance. I live in the northern Belle Meade. I would also like to speak to the issue of the perceived surplus and moneys that the county thinks that it might although it might not think it has so after January the 1st, but maybe you do now. I would like to also address the quality of life issues that I think are playing -- starting to play out very poorly within the working people in eastern Golden Gate Estates and the needs that they do have. And a lot of those are tied to the infrastructure that we have and the need we have for roads. Particularly, I'd like to address the commuting problem, both going to work, to infrastructure that they need, such as groceries and goods -- and other goods and services. I think the coastal part of the county is well appointed and I think Page 92 June 23, 2006 the commission has done a very good job catching up for past mistakes. But I believe that residents on eastern part of the county now feel like it is their opportunity. It's their time to get some of the infrastructure out there updated and improved. And I would request that the commission do act on -- in that direction and direct the money towards the very critical -- particularly the road infrastructure that we need. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you, sir. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Jim Jack. Bill Barton. He'll be followed by Ron Wallace. MR. BARTON: Good afternoon, Chairman Halas, . . commISSIoners. For the record, my name is Bill Barton. I'm here today to speak to you for a few moments in my capacity as chairman of the Southwest Florida Expressway Authority. By way of introduction, you all are fully familiar with the authority that was enacted by -- enacted legislature this past year. However, during the creation of the authority, the legislature forgot to fund it. So, that's part of what I want to talk to you about today. As you well know, the -- the sole objective of the authority is to dramatically accelerate the implementation often-lane section of 1-75 through a 35-mile corridor in Lee and Collier County. Our start up for the authority, you have been good enough to loan us your staff, Lee County has been good enough to loan some of their staff. Your Don Scott has -- has been elected as secretary of the authority . David Loveland, who is with the Lee County transportation staff has been elected as our treasurer. And David and some of his staff are Page 93 June 23, 2006 here today in case we need to call on them. And let me at the expense -- or at the -- the advent of embarrassing them a little bit, let me tell you that they have -- both your staff and the Lee County staff have -- have just been outstanding in this start up of the authority. They have come to the table. They have allowed us to move very rapidly, I think, in our first two meetings, and you should very pleased with -- with your staffs participation in that regard. Our objective at the authority is twofold. The first is to do whatever we can to try to accelerate the additional four lanes toll -- four toll lanes of 1-75 with a start dates simultaneous or at least during the six -lane construction, which is, as you know, is due to start in 2007. I will tell you there's a window of opportunity there, but it's a very, very small window. Whether or not we're going to be able to climb through that window is yet to be seen, but I want you to know that we're working very hard to keep that window open and to expand its horizon so that that's -- continues to be a possibility. In the event that we cannot get started within that time frame, our -- our second objective would be to start construction on those toll lanes shortly after the completion of the six laning, which is now expected to be finished in about 2010, 2011. So, those are the two windows that we're looking at right now, either of which would indeed dramatically accelerate the advent of that ten-lane section. And, as you may know, proj ections right now for the six -laning completion will show segments of that highway already back at level of service F when it opens with six lanes. So, that's how critical it is that -- that we move forward with this ten-lane section. If we're going to move forward, obviously we're going to have to Page 94 June 23, 2006 have some funding. Without it, we're just a ship that's out there floating with no power. We've got to have dedicated staff. We can't continue to rely on yours, as good as they've been. They're currently being pulled away from their -- their normal duties. We've got -- one of the -- the things that that dedicated staff will do is immediately begin to identify other sources of funding, so as we go forward, the -- the sources of funding will be more aligned to the spe~ific purpose rather than requested from -- from the counties. Traffic revenue studies are imperative. If we don't get those started quickly, I can tell you that window of opportunity will slam closed within a matter of six months. We just simply will not be able to make that early start date unless we can get traffic and revenue studies underway quickly. We've got to have engineering and financial -- professional support, also obviously takes funding to get that accomplished. We've asked David Loveland's office to prepare for us a budget and our -- our initial look at that budget shows us that that start up, the study and professional support, that I mentioned, and the first year's budget will run just over $2 million. Obviously we have no history at this point, so a lot of these are projections, but they're reasonable projections. Could it come in less than that? Absolutely. And that will be a -- one of the obj ectives of the authority is to bring that budget in as low as we can without cutting the corners that would make our work less fruitful. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Bill, so what you're asking us is to look at the possibility of funding at least a million dollars? MR. BARTON: No, sir. We're looking for -- for each of the two counties to give consideration to loaning us in that first year 775,000 each -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Page 95 June 23, 2006 MR. BARTON: -- because we're also applying to the State of Florida's revolving trust fund for a $500,000 loan. Our objective on that would be that -- that the security for that would be the same as the security for Collier and Lee County, and that is projected revenue excesses when this toll facilitY is in place. Obviously that's probably seven, eight years down the road. However, I want to be real candid with you, and that is that the State of Florida may come back and insist that the counties secure that $500,000 loan. We're going to resist that because we think it's inappropriate. But I want to put it on the table so you'll understand now and not be surprised if I have to come back later. There are other alternative sources of funding and one -- as I mentioned earlier, one of our primary objectives in dedicated staff will be to start to identify those very quickly. And I will tell you that I have already opened communication and dialogue with a state representative, Mike Davis, to introduce state funding for us in the next legislature. So, that's already in the works. In the event that other sources of funding can't come through, I -- I would also tell you there's a possibility I'll be back here next year looking for additional loan for a second year and our current thinking is that that might be in the range of 625,000. Obviously, we would not have some of the studies that we need right now, nor would it have the start up costs involved in it. Total exposure to the counties. Year one is 75 -- 775,000; year two, ifnecessary, would be 625, bringing the total cash outlay in the form of a loan to 1.4 million. And then there is the possibility that the county might also have additional risk, not cash requirement, but additional risk of 250,000 on security for the state revolving loan. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Page 96 June 23, 2006 MR. BARTON: So, that's -- that's where we are today. We need to have you consider that. As I have said earlier, if -- if this authority is going to be successful in moving forward and accomplishing what we all know needs to be accomplished, we're not going to do it without funding and this is the -- appears to be the resort of last -- the source of last resort or maybe the source of first resort and those two may be the same. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I would just hope that we had that window of opportunity to tie in the -- the expansion of the four lanes with the six lanes, because I'd sure as hate -- heck hate to see us commit the six lanes and then have to tear the whole expressway apart to address the issues with the bridges and everything else just to add the additional four lanes which we really need. But the cost is -- would be unbelievable. And if we can consolidate all that together, I think that would be a great way of doing it. And I wish you all the luck in the world. MR. BARTON: Early estimates, commissioner, is that there is probably a 200 to $250,000 savings available if we can get that accomplished. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Wow! MR. BARTON: Plus, instead of three to three and a half years of construction turmoil, if we have to start the four laning -- or the ten laning second, then we're going to have the disruption of construction for more like six or seven years. CHAIRMAN HALAS: That's what I was getting at. MR. BARTON: Yeah. CHAIRMAN HALAS: It's just -- Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. I -- I'd like to emphasize the reason for it being, of course, is the fact that if you have the forces already in place, you don't have to marshal them again to get to where you need to be because you have -- you save that cost. Page 97 June 23, 2006 Now, how you get there is another thing, but there's a good possibility in the near future we'll receive a nonsolicited proposal that will come forward that will outline exactly what the contract for this particular contractor to pick up and go forward. But that's neither here nor there. If we don't have the ability to be able to keep this up and alive. Mr. Mud. MR. MUDD: Mr. Barton, if you could clarify for the record. You said the savings from doing it at the same time that they're doing the two-lane expansion was $250,000. And that's -- MR. BARTON: 250,000,000. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. You said-- MR. MUDD: Okay. I wanted to get a correction on the record, okay. Because it's -- I believe -- I'm going 250,000. Why is he even here? But 250,000,000 is a different story, sir. MR. BARTON: Yeah. I -- thank you for correcting the mistake. It was between 200 and $250 million. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Mr. Feder, I know that you've had tremendous experience in this before from your exposure to Tallahassee and all the other authorities you've been involved in. Your comments would be most appreciated. MR. FEDER: For the record, Norman Feder, Transportation Administrator. My comments mayor may not be. If you're asking personally and then I'll go back to the board. Personally, my observation would be that in spite of the desire and the long wait for six laning, that if anything, the six laning ought to wait and we ought to move on the eight laning to develop these toll lanes, allow then to the interchanges to be improved and the last thing building the six lanes. The six-lane concept comes within the median, which is exactly where your toll lanes need to go. And to develop a six lane with a Page 98 June 23, 2006 continuous right-turn lane, which is what it will become without having the interchange improvements and creating the added costs to the needed ten laning of 250,000,000, and probably be more before it's over with, is probably not a very viable vehicle. I also understand that what I'm recommending and what I just said is the possibly of delaying the six laning and that would probably be heresy. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You're absolutely correct. I -- I don't think that this particular counsel has been put together, this authority . We already entertained that particular fact that we -- we don't want to delay the public benefits any longer than necessary. I mean, the idea that it might expand that time another year or two before we have the road down was something that the authority was not receptive to, not that they can't discuss it again, and we appreciate your input at the meetings that we have. MR. FEDER: I will tell you though obviously the dollar request you have here, if we're going to explore this, we need to do it now. The idea of having that many years of construction and that much undo of six laning, I think it's worth the efforts of understanding that up front -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: I agree. MR. FEDER: -- and making sure if we had any option to move forward on it. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Nevertheless, we still need the money to be able to get the start up money to able to go forward. And where would be the most appropriate place to ask for it, Mr. Mud. Would that be from the -- on the UFR list? What part of the UFR list? MR. MUDD: Sir, that's -- that's on the general fund side of the house. I mean, the expressway basically benefits everybody in the county. And, so, I would add it under the UFR list where you have Page 99 June 23, 2006 the most amount of dollars that are available. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I have a question. My understanding is if we six lane the express way at the present time and then go back and address the additional four lanes or toll roads, that we're probably looking in excess of just the -- the four-lane tolling along with all the bridges, over a billion dollars. Is that correct? MR. BARTON: That's the estimate, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Wow! Okay. Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Haste makes waste. And I understand that the impact of Mr. Feder's observations, but I quite frankly think he's right. You know, is there anybody here who can tell us what the configurations of the intersections are going to be with the toll lanes and all the other lanes developed? I don't think so. And I think if you start building part of this thing without giving consideration to its final configuration, we're going to get into more delays and more budgeting problems and more cost overruns, more change orders than we really ever want to think about. Just imagine having toll lanes on the inside, you know, the median. Where are people going to get off? How do you get off of a toll lane in the middle of the road if you want to exit at Immokalee Road? You have to build an elevated ramp to go over the outside lanes? I don't know. But if you're going to do that, you better plan on building it first rather than going back and tearing up everything later. And I would be very reluctant to proceed in a way which is designed to get something done quickly without thinking this whole thing through. There should be a design of this entire roadway, at least a Page 100 June 23, 2006 conceptual design of this entire roadway with all of the anticipated improvements before the first decision is made about which lanes you want to build. It is just crazy to proceed in any other way and if it means you spend a little more money up front getting a good design and a good clear understanding of the configurations of all of these interceptions and the ramps, entrance and exit ramps, that are going to be required, you know, we really need to do that now. We can't -- we can't wait and put in two lanes and think about that later on. It's just -- just crazy. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Well, I've got a question to ask. I don't know if the expressway authority has looked at this, but as we know, we're in desperate need to do something with 1-75 as far as widening it. And I think that what Commissioner Coyle brought to the table is very viable. I believe that the cost right now with just six laning that, I think we're looking at about $490 million; correct? MR. BARTON: Four sixty-nine, I think is the number, but -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. MR. BARTON: -- that's right ballpark. CHAIRMAN HALAS: And then with the additional billion dollars to replace all the interchanges and the bridges, that's a huge bill at the present time. And to tear up the expressway twice, I wonder if we've given it really some serious thought about as an interim time is looking at State Road 82 and 29 to see what we can do to work that out as a safety valve for 75 so -- so that we can take this huge major undertaking and get it all done at once? And in the meantime, maybe look at State Road 82-29 and see if what we can do to accelerate that as a safety valve, because when we start tearing this thing, whole -- whole thing apart, we're going to need someplace to direct that traffic when we start getting into that kind of Page 101 June 23, 2006 a thing. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Mr. Feder, I'm going to ask you back up again. 29, 82, the way the process is going -- it's for you. The way is process is going -- tell them to stop calling. The way the process is going, if you know 29, you know 82, even if they put it in the fast mode at what point in time could we expect to see that road four lane, six lane, whatever, all the way from Fort Myers back down to 29 and 75? MR. FEDER: We're just starting up a project involved in an environment study. As you know, that's the first of about a six-to-eight-year process typically. And that has some issues associated with it relative to habitat and other items as you heard the other day. So, if you're asking me if there's really fast track, all the moneys were there and the intent to get it done five to six years at the earliest and probably more likely eight to ten. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So, in other words, five to six years wait there before we could kick into the -- the next mode, which would be go back and be able to start the whole project at 75. Now, none of these ideas are bad. But the truth of the matter is that there's more here than meets the eye. There's such things design and build. And Bill will tell you, too, that we're already thinking about the fact that when they get the right-of-way for the -- this road and they start to build it, regardless of what they do, they're going to get the right-of-way for six lanes. They're going to build all the drainage ponds for six lanes. MR. BARTON: Actually for ten -- ten lanes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: For the ten lanes, ten lanes. They're going to have provisions put in it. And I mean this is very early. In order for us to get to the next step, we need to have a staff, we need to be able to have a mechanism to be able to make it Page 102 June 23, 2006 work. We can talk about the design of this road until we're blue in the face up here, and we're never going to settle a thing. This is why you got an authority in place, but the authority can't function if it doesn't have the dollars -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: We understand that. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- to be able to go forward. I just want to bring it up. There's more to it than meets the eye. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Well, Bill made that very clear what he's looking for. And we're just kind of adding to the -- the idea that, you know, I understand what he's up against and that we're trying to address that. Commissioner Coletta. MR. BARTON: In -- in my closing the gentlemen -- ladies and gentlemen, and I do appreciate you allowing me to be here today. I'm going to follow up just a moment on Commissioner Coyle's thought process that if we get too fast, we're going to hurt ourselves. And Commissioner Coletta will vouch for me when I said that at the last authority meeting it was moi that suggested that we should not take off the table the possibility of delaying that six year -- or six laning for a year. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Exactly. MR. BARTON: And Mr. Feder shared with me just briefly the concept he just presented here and that is that perhaps we ought to be giving serious thought to the first phase of construction including the four toll lanes. Then you end up with eight lanes at the end of that initial construction period. It will greatly enhance the revenue side because the -- the desire to use those two toll lanes, which are voluntary, is going to be increased because they'll be offset by two free lanes instead of three free lanes. I'll tell you, that concept to me has a lot of forward thinking in it, Page 103 June 23, 2006 and I will assure the commissioners that a lot more thought has been given to it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And -- and -- I'm sorry. It's not my turn yet, is it? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Yeah. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. And you're saying that didn't get a lot of support on the -- MR. BARTON: No. That concept has not been breached -- or broached before the authority at this point. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's why I think it's -- it's very important when we're -- we're getting ready to make a decision soon about $775,000 for one year of funding to help the toll way authority move ahead. I'm -- I'm -- I'm interested in -- in trying to define the scope of the work that will be done with that money and what deliverables are we going to get. And -- and where I'm really going there is at least a conceptual sketch of this project, that -- that shows a sketch of the -- of the -- of the toll lanes integrated with the additional free lanes, all of the intersections for the entire length of the project, so that people begin to get an understanding of how these things can best be integrated. The engineers can visualize this stuff fairly well. Others have great difficulty with it. And -- and I -- I really am -- I've seen lots of these projects on the ground, as have you, and I have seen lots of them that do not work very well, where you have to bring the toll lanes to an end, have them merge with the free lanes, work their way across two or three lanes of traffic to exit at a conventional intersection, that defeats feats the purpose of having a very fast toll lane to get from point A to point B and then you slow down and you -- you're tied up in traffic for 30 minutes trying to work your way to an intersection. CHAIRMAN HALAS: We're just here right now just to figure out if we're going to give him the funding. Page 104 June 23, 2006 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, no. No. It's more than that, because if we say, here, take $775,000 and go away-- CHAIRMAN HALAS: We're not going to say go away. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- without -- without specifying what we would like to have done with this. And I -- I'm sure you don't intend it. It's just going to be office expenses. MR. BARTON: No. No, sir. In fact, I can provide you with a thumbnail sketch, and a significant amount of those dollars go to traffic and revenue studies, which are imperative. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. MR. BARTON: And once that money is spent, although it's spent in the year 2006, you don't have to go spend it again in 2008. Now, you may have to update it in 2008 with additional and new traffic revenue -- or traffic condition information, but to update it is a small amount compared to the original. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But -- but in order to do that, wouldn't it be beneficial to you to know whether you're going to build two toll lanes initially, at least concurrently with the addition of the other two free lanes? MR. BARTON: Well, commissioner, I think you reverse it though. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. BARTON: My inclination right now is that what we ought to be doing -- asking for a revenue -- a traffic and revenue study is to look at both, because the study itself is likely to aim you in the proper direction rather than to guess at the proper direction and go do a study to justify it. You know, that makes little sense to me. But to say, look, here are two concepts. We need both of them looked at. That helps us then to define which of the two is the more appropriate. Page 105 June 23, 2006 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, the -- the Florida Toll Way Commission, I believe, conducted a study, a feasibility study. They were supposed to provide the results. I think they did. MR. BARTON: They did, yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And, now, to what extent does that fail to meet your needs? MR. BARTON: That -- that study is -- was done in-house by them, and it's much less detailed than the study we would do. And it was aimed at one thing. It was aimed at whether or not this facility would satisfy state law that would allow that the toll road authority to actually build it. That was their objective. Our objective is totally different. Our objective is how much is it going to cost, at what point in time, and how much revenue can we expect at that point in time? That then tells us how much money we're going to have to get from other sources to get this project accomplished. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Why don't we do this? Why don't we have you come forward with an idea in which you are proposing and then maybe we can have a workshop early in the fall and go into further discussion in regards to exactly, you know, some of the concepts and ideas. Does everybody agree with that? MR. BARTON: Well, commissioner, not -- not to push you, but I will tell you that it's our hope that this funding can be available to us in the fall rather than start to consider whether or not it's available -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Yeah. MR. BARTON: -- or not. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I understand where you're coming from. But I think in order instead of taking up time up here, what we need to do is you come forward and -- and give us a -- basically a blueprint of what you need. I'm sure that the commission here will take a look at it. Page 106 ----. ~-,-_. June 23, 2006 But then, let's say after you get the funding, you can sit down with us at a workshop and have the expressway authority sit down with us at a workshop, so we can kind of hash this all out and catapult with some -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I think-- CHAIRMAN HALAS: -- ideas. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I think that's an excellent idea, but in order to be able to come up with the ideas and some data, we need to be able to have a staff. At present we've got two people that are on loan to us and -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: But you didn't listen to what I said. I said, we -- if he comes up with a proposal just basically what the outline is, what -- why -- what they're going to do with the 750,000, I think we can make a determination from that to say, yes, you need the money and let's go forward. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But the problem is our budget year starts October 1 st and the decision has to be made by the -- by September what? CHAIRMAN HALAS: I think what I said is that ifhe comes forward with a proposal of exactly what they're going to do with the cash outlay of the money, we can then say, yes, we're going to put that into the equation for the budget to start in the cycle of October the 1 st. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So, in other words, I ask for the money to be put on the UFR list with the idea that we can still make our decision come September. CHAIRMAN HALAS: That's exactly right. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's acceptable. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Page 107 June 23, 2006 MR. BARTON: Let me tell you what -- what we had hoped and envisioned, and that is that we could get an expression of intent from both the Lee County and the Collier County commission sufficient to cause us to be able to start thinking about and looking for an executive-director as a for instance. If we felt fairly comfort -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Can't do that today. MR. BARTON: No. I understand that. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Yeah. MR. BARTON: But if we, within the next month or so, felt fairly comfortable that those funds were going to become available in the next budget cycle, then it's not inappropriate for us to advertise now and begin the interview processes. And as you well know when you're hiring that kind of an individual, 60 to 90 days is absolutely necessary. We've got to get some resumes in, we've got to interview some people. But on the day that those funds become available, I'd like to hit the ground running, because if we don't, I'm going -- I'm telling you right now, the window of opportunity is going to go away and we'll be stuck then with six laning first and the additional four laning later. That's just the way it is. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Henning. MR. BARTON: So, if we lose two to three months right now, that takes away about 25 percent of the time we've got before FDOT is prepared to let a contract. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I thought I had a solution to this problem, but after I heard the executive summary, I'm -- I'm going to keep quiet. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I don't know why we can't make a decision in July. Page 108 June 23, 2006 MR. BARTON: That would be perfect. COMMISSIONER COYLE: You know, that to me-- MR. BARTON: And -- and, as I said, even if it's nothing more than a -- than a very strong intent, then I don't feel bad going out in the marketplace and asking people to spend their time and effort to get us resumes and us to spend time and effort to begin to review those, so that we can hit the ground running when the new budget year begins. COMMISSIONER COYLE: You know, if -- if you could do as __ as Commissioner Halas has suggested is provide us essentially a budget or a forecast and -- MR. BARTON: We will do that. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- define the scope of the work that's going to be done in the deliverable and -- and we -- we're back in July, late July, to have a meeting concerning the budget. We'll set the millage at that point in time, which means we'll -- we should know by that point in time what we're going to fund as far as UFRs are concerned, so I don't know why we can't make a decision like that at that point in time. Is there any reason? CHAIRMAN HALAS: We don't do the final-- we don't do the final UFR list until September, my understanding. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, if we set the -- if we set the millage -- well, that won't affect this year's budget. That's right. MR. MUDD: Sir, if -- if -- if I may. What I'll have is transportation have an executive summary with this back -- I'm going to use Mr. Don Scott since he's wearing two hats and I'll put it under the county manager's side of the house so that you'll have that particular piece, and at that time we'll ask you at that time to add it to the budget, okay? And then at that juncture you'll have what you want is some kind of a -- a firm commitment from the board and -- and then we can do it that way. Page 109 June 23, 2006 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. If I may? The -- we're going to need a course to help with our staff and our budget department, and we'll have to be able to direct the county manager to be able to do that, to work in conjunction with the Lee County elements, too. We've got to get a buy-in from them. Of course, I would assume that's going to be one of the conditions if we ever get to the point for approval that the Lee County commission be there with the equal amount and equal commitment. But, meanwhile, in order for it to happen, we do need staff to be able to have it be done; the only staff available, of course, the existing staff that's in Collier County or Lee County. MR. BARTON: And for your information, Commissioners, I -- I am currently scheduled to speak to Lee County commission next Tuesday. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Good. MR. BARTON: And Commissioner Halas, on your suggestion of a workshop, I would not only be willing to do that, I would embrace the idea. It's imperative from -- from my point of view and I think I speak for the authority that both commissions be intimate parts in this process because this is -- this is your backyard. So, I want -- I want you -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: You can have it. MR. BARTON: I want input from you and I want you to know everything I know about this process as it goes forward. CHAIRMAN HALAS: We could have both commissions together, a workshop and that-- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Bill-- MR. BARTON: That would be great. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- share with my commissioners the concern I had when the proposal was first brought up and what I said we had to do. Page 110 June 23, 2006 MR. BARTON: The commissioner said we needed to move forward as quickly as possible. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And bring it to this commission. MR. BARTON: Bring it to this commission. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Not that I want to put words in your mouth, you know. MR. BARTON: That's precisely what he suggested. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Well, I'll just weigh in as long as others are weighing in and I'll just say 775 is a very little price to pay to get this thing up and rolling in a timely manner and for us all to be able to use that road years sooner. So, I -- I think that -- you know, I agree with everything that the other commissioners have said, but it's -- it's -- it's good that you're -- you're taking the -- the high road right now and getting this thing started early and I'm glad we're going to have the workshop to discuss everything that can be done. And like Commissioner Coy Ie says, he wants to know exactly what it's for, but if it's all that we think it's going to be, it's going to be __ you know, imperative that we do it first and quickly. MR. BARTON: Thank you, commissioners. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Thank you, Bill. Appreciate it. Next speaker, please. MS. FILSON : Your final speaker is Ron Wallace from the City of Naples. MR. WALLACE: Ron Wallace, Director of Construction Management for the City of Naples. I'm here this afternoon at a request of the city manager following up on a request he had made to the county manager regarding entering into a funding partnership with the city on three separate capital improvement projects that benefit both city and county residents. Page 111 June 23, 2006 I'm not sure if any of you have seen this request or the dollar amounts. Basically, the three projects are improvements to Sandpiper Street, a connection of the Gordon River green way from the airport to the new Pulling Park that's proposed on the west side of the river, and a new rec center at Fleischmann Park. I can go through each one of these items and give you some idea of what -- what they are, and what the impacts are and the costs if you haven't had a chance to look at them. But, quite frankly, I'm not sure how much information you have been provided. MR. MUDD: Ron, they've got the letter that was sent on the 15th of June -- MR. WALLACE: Okay. Thank you. MR. MUDD: -- within a day of my receipt. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Any questions from commissioners? You have nothing else to bring forward, well, we're going to take it under advisement. MR. WALLACE: Okay. We do have other city staffhere. We are requesting a 50 percent match as is stated in the letter. The city has budgeted for design and construction. The -- just -- real brief. Just to add something to this to maybe -- you can consider Sandpiper Street is a city -- is a street that runs through the city and the county. Approximately a third of it is inside the city limits, another third of it is split between the city and the county where the county is responsible for maintenance. It is the right-of-way has been -- or the right-of-way maintenance has been deeded to the county. The southern third of it is primarily in the county. The Gordon River green way obviously is a connection from the county to the city, and it will be used by a number of visitors and residents. And it's part of an overall plan that I think we're all Page 112 June 23, 2006 involved with, with a number of other groups. The last item though, I would like to mention Fleischmann Park. Obviously, with all of the growth that is happening throughout the county, that park has been impacted tremendously. The city has already spent upwards of five to $6 million in improvements there, and we're proposing another four to $5 million for a new rec center. So, we have committed up to $10,000,000 and what we're asking for here is basically a $2 million contribution to that rec center, which is utilized primarily by county residents as well as city residents. But I think the percent is 75 percent of that -- of the use there is by county residents. So, we appreciate your consideration. CHAIRMAN HALAS: And if we get in with the cost share then, will there be -- will it be equitably between the city and the unincorporated area of the citizens so that the unincorporated areas of citizens aren't paying an additional burden? MR. WALLACE: Yes. I believe that if there is a partnership, then that takes out that the -- the concern that city residents are paying and county residents are using at the same rate. That has been a discussion on -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Right now -- MR. WALLACE: -- other programs. CHAIRMAN HALAS: -- I think the county residents are paying more than the city residents as far as the use of it; is that correct? MR. WALLACE: Correct, yes. If the fund -- yes. If there's a partnership, then that obviously offsets that, yes. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Great. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just a point. I've seen the June letter, but it's not in this packet. Was it supposed to be in this packet? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. What I was trying -- I had a request that Page 113 June 23, 2006 came in after you already went -- or you already received this book. And I -- you have a presentation and I'm looking for the board's direction to add this to the unfinanced requirement list, so that you have it into your consideration. And that's what I'm -- what I'm trying to get to. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So -- but it's not incorporated in anything we have in this book. MR. MUDD: No. The only thing that's -- the only thing of this particular item that's in here is you have a $500,000 line item for Fleischmann Park and that was based on a previous letter from Mr. Lee to me. It went to in front of the -- that particular request went to the pay rab, and the pay rab, they recommended that the county fund that $500,000. So, it's there on the list. There are -- there are a couple of items here that have to do with the pay rab. When this is over, I'm going to go to my parks and recs director and basically get them to discuss those particular items, okay, because that's your committee that does parks and rec, fees and -- and -- and plans in order to get that done. But I want to make sure that the board is giving me direction to add this to the unfinanced requirement listing. Then I will add it to it and I'll bring it back to you in September with that complete listing. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But is the $500,000 that is -- that is in this proposed budget duplicative of the $500,000 that's being requested by the city today? MR. MUDD: No. They're asking for a million dollars more on top of the 500,000. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Okay. CHAIRMAN HALAS: The other question I have for the county __ or the county manager is there's a letter dated March 30th, 2006. And it says in that, the city is requesting a contribution from the Collier County in the amount of $6,100,500 to assist in Phase I and Page 114 June 23, 2006 Phase 2 of the Fleischmann Park master plan. Is that what your -- some of your requests also, sir? MR. WALLACE: No. The city has gone ahead and done that work and it is almost complete. This is a request specifically for the rec center. I believe the -- was there funding? I'm sorry. I need to just ask Dave Lichens (phonetic), the Director of Community Services, if there was any money contributed towards that, but -- now, the city had gone ahead and done that work, that Phase I, which was basically site improvements, and this second phase is for the rec center itself. So, this request is for the construction of the rec center. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. MR. WALLACE: And if you do not have the specifics of this letter that break it down, I -- I'll be sure to leave a copy with it, because it's important. And if you don't, I'll-- I'll be able to -- I would be glad to explain them. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I believe the county manager's got a copy. He'll make sure that we get a copy of that, sir. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But just -- just so that you can say one more time, you wanted how much for what thing? Just -- just list, you know. MR. WALLACE: Okay. Sandpiper Street improvements, which are roadway enhancement and beautification of Sandpiper Street from Curlew to Marlin Drive, the construction estimate is $2 million, the design budget is $200,000, and we're asking for a 50 percent match. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Of the -- of the design? CHAIRMAN HALAS: 2 million plus the design. MR. WALLACE: The request is for both. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So, what is that total, please? MR. WALLACE: 2.2 million or 50 percent of 1.1 million. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Go ahead. MR. SMYKOWSKl: Just for clarification though, the -- the Page 115 June 23, 2006 letter does indicates that the construction of $2 million is planned for fiscal year '07-08 in the city letter, so -- MR. WALLACE: That's correct. That is correct. Weare budgeting for design for all three of these projects this year and construction the following year. The Gordon River green way, we have $200,000 budgeted this current year to do the design. Weare in the process of negotiating a contract with a consultant. That will be fully funded by the city. The request is for 50 percent of the construction estimate, which is $1 million for the following year, or $500,000. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. MR. WALLACE: And Fleischmann Park, we have budgeted $400,000 next year for the design of the rec center with the intent of budgeting four million the following year for construction, and again we request 50 percent for both. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Any other questions from our commissioners? No. Thank you very much. Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I -- I spoke to the county manager during lunch break, and there's some possibilities of funding some of these things, and I just might want to add to that the anticipated gas taxes. I mean, the gas taxes and the shared revenue from the state. Those funds really can be used to take care of some of these unfunded requirements. If you remember during the budget guidance, the county managers said -- gave guidance -- we gave guidance, 12 percent to the constitutional officers, and it was stated that we can stay within 12 percent as long as we didn't have some unfunded mandates coming Page 116 June 23, 2006 from the state and the federals. It's the same thing. The mandates are the same thing. So, really, we should be, in my opinion, that 12 percent increase and if we could stay into that, I think that we can hold our heads up high, at least I can, and say we still increased access taxes but, you know, overall, if you take a look at it, we double the -- the moneys for roads, we're going to house the -- the judges, we've got tons of stormwater projects that we didn't do it in the previous time. But I do want to comment on one thing, and some of the folks that says we have the lowest millage rate, well, we may have the lowest millage rate, but our -- we're second in the state as far as taxation per capita for the total county. I mean, I -- I just want to commend the county manager for doing a good job of staying -- even though you're at a 16, I'm sure we can get down closer to 12 and still provide some of these unfunded mandates within some of the things that we're discovering. But, county manager, if you want to just share a little bit of what we found during our break. MR. MUDD: We had conversation with Commissioner Henning and he made a -- a statement, and I wish this was bigger, and I -- and I'm going to blame our state lobbyist not being bigger. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Cut and paste he did. MR. MUDD: Yeah. Remember, he cut and pasted and that's what I got. So, remember your -- your budget books or, excuse me, your post legislative workshop that you had, and -- and Norm Feder is here, and I believe Marla Ramsey or your library director is here. I could talk to a couple of issues. But the first point, I went down the appropriation. Commissioner Henning made a statement that the appropriations that were supplied to us by our lobbyist weren't in the budget. And -- and I went over this morning and -- and checked these till Page 11 7 June 23, 2006 __ and notched them all down, which one was state, which was South Florida Water Management District, Big Cypress, which one was schools, which one had to do with the children's museum. And there's two items on the list, one of which is at the very top, and you can see a line that says, waiting for a contract. That had to do County Road 951, Collier Boulevard from County Road 890, which Pine Ridge Road to Golden Gate Boulevard. And it says, add lanes and reconstruct, and there is a state allocation of $4.9 million and change that's there. And as soon as Norman has that contract from the state, then he adds that particular amount of money into his budget in order to get that construction done. And Norman can talk a little bit about that, I believe, on how that process works. The -- the last item on that list talks about the South Regional Library, library construction project, and that's $500,000. And when Miss Mathis briefed yesterday, she mentioned that when we get the letter; i.e., the contract from the state, that's when she adds that particular item to her work program, and she can talk about how that gets added into the particular process. Commissioner Henning mentioned that in our discussions right after you broke for lunch were, is there -- is there an opportunity to offset ad valorem dollars in these two particular accounts. I -- I -- I can tell you in the South Regional Library, I don't believe that's the case because their budget's already pretty tight, but I'm going to let Miss Mathis answer that question in more detail. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I don't think that they can either on that grant, but -- MR. MUDD: And -- and -- and then Norm, if you could top that particular item at the top. MR. FEDER: The item at the top is for Golden Gate -- from Pine Ridge up to Golden Gate Boulevard. It was a trips grant. It is a Page 118 June 23, 2006 project that's going out in fiscal year '08, not necessarily in '07, which is what we're dealing with in budget. We didn't show it yet even in our work program, the five-year work program, because we haven't gone through with all the funding. That's one of the reasons in an outer year we pulled out Everglades Boulevard as an example. It's also an item that we get paid back. It's a reimbursement item. So, in fiscal year '08 when we come back to you with a budget, we should have exercised all the agreements that will be shown in there. We'll modify our work program as well and present it at that time, but until we have all the agreements, we don't show it. We can't get reimbursement until after we've started the construction to get it reimbursed. So, most of it will be a fiscal year '08 to '09 before the money realized, but once we have the agreements, we would reflect it in our '08 budget request. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. My mistake. I thought our lobbyist said that it was going to be this fiscal year that we would receive those. MR. FEDER: Originally they're looking at '07 dollars and the trip money and they understood we asked for it to actually be put on the section, which will be in '07, which is from Immokalee down to Golden Gate Boulevard, and they said, no, they want to keep it on the second section and they will allow it to move to the next year. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Well, be that as it may, the -- and I -- I really feel the revenue sharing and gas taxes are going to come in more. And I think that we can just tell the county manager to, you know, bring back his recommendations on these UFR things and bring that back in our -- in our meeting in July. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't have anything. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Oh, I thought you had. Page 119 June 23, 2006 Is there any discussion from us? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I might have, but I can't remember. COMMISSIONER COYLE: No. I think that's a good idea. But I -- I think there's -- there's a bit of clarification. You made a minor adjustment to the UFR list. No. The funds that were available for the UFR list is roughly $20 million if I remember correctly. MR. SMYKOWSKl: Yes, sir. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, one of your fundamental assumptions was that you were going to propose a -- a millage rate decrease, but please explain the -- the relationship between that proposal and the $20 million roughly that will be available for unfunded requests. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Bear with me for just a second, please. I beg your -- all right. This is -- this is about as ugly as you can -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh, that's pretty. MR. MUDD: This not about -- this is about as-- COMMISSIONER COYLE: You put a lot of work into this, didn't you? MR. MUDD: Well, if you can give me ten minutes, I can gussy it up a little bit, but that isn't bad writing in between. And all I was doing was searching for projects. All right. And -- and let me try to explain. And it's my -- and one good news thing is I didn't get a consultant to figure it out for me. The -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Maybe you should have. MR. MUDD: No. It's okay. Commissioner, as I said yesterday, for -- for moneys that are uncommitted at this particular time, and I -- and I made a clarification to a newspaper article in the Naples Daily News that said that there Page 120 June 23, 2006 was $23 million as far as the -- as far as uncommitted funds. And I mentioned to you yesterday that it was more like $50 million. Well, if you add those three figures together, it's 49. And, you know, I didn't put the -- the -- the thousands of dollars off to the side, so for this -- for this discussion, let's just say it's $50 million. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is that what that says at the top there? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It's 22. MR. MUDD: It's 22 million, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: Okay? And the 25 percent to the 16 percent in those brackets, the reduction -- the -- the increased assessed value of Collier County came in at an average of 25.2 percent, 25.2 percent to go to 16 percent, which is basically what was in your guidance. And to -- and to -- would represent a $22 million decrease in the budget. And that would go from a millage of about 3.87, and you see it right there, going down to approximately 3.5. And it -- and it comes out to be a .28 mill decrease. That $22 million is not shown in your budget book, as I -- as I described to you yesterday. I said, we prepared this budget based on budget guidance. Okay? The budget guidance said 16 percent and above, adjust the millage rate, and it's a savings to the taxpayers and that's what you wanted to see at budget time, and that's what we presented. And everything, 16 percent and below, you have visibility on. Okay. On your UFR list underneath the 16 percent, and that's savings from interest, 16 percent and below, you have $20 million, and it's $20.2 million on your UFR list, and I showed you that yesterday, along with $7 million in your -- your unincorporated millage fund, which is your MSTD fund. Page 121 June 23, 2006 So, there's a total of $50 million out there that's uncommitted at this particular time, of which we've discussed on your UFR list only this portion, okay, which is the $27 million that you're shown. There is still $22 million on top of that reoccurring money that this board has the option to take if you follow the budget guidance that you gave to the staff in March to reduce the millage from 3.87 to 3.5. And Mike's got it right here, 3.5912, which equates to a .2860 millage rate reduction. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Just so -- if I could just summarize so that I make sure I understand it correctly. We -- we could take the $27 million that you have identified as being available for unfunded requests and we could allocate that entire $27 million to those unfunded requests if we desire to do so. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. And still give a-- COMMISSIONER COYLE: We would still be giving the tax payers $22 million back. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. I just want that to be clear to everybody who's listening. And there's no assurance that we want to spend all the $27 million either. We might spend -- send some more money back. But -- but the way it sits right now, unless the board changes it, we've got $22 million we're sending back to the taxpayers. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. All right. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I -- I wanted to know -- just a little side note. A few years back I think we allocated money to the FP &L green way and they were supposed to be building that and I don't know how -- about $1.3 million. I wonder what either happened to the green way or what Page 122 June 23, 2006 happened to the money? MR. FEDER: For the record, Norman Feder. The green way is still a viable project. It's in design phase right now. One thing we've experienced is an effort to try and get easements throughout the length of that project and we're continuing to work that through. The other thing is helping put some of it and coordinating it with the County Barn and the Oasa (phonetic) proj ect, but the proj ect is still viable, still moving, but it is going to take longer to get all the easements along that line than was originally anticipated. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I don't know if anybody else remembers, but I do remember the county manager saying that he thinks he can come in at 12 percent increase as long as we didn't have any state mandates. And that's what the minutes reflect and that's what correspondence that I've received reflects. So, if we could stay close to that, I'd be -- I'd be tickled pink. And -- and still hammer away at some of these things. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think that's where we are. CHAIRMAN HALAS: He wants to go down to 12 percent instead of 16. MR. MUDD: You're at 16 and Commissioner Henning is requesting to go to 12. And what that would -- and what that would do, okay, he's asking to drop four more percent, okay, on the rollback, and that would be an additional -- this is a estimate on my part -- $10 million off of the general fund cut at $20 million that's sitting there. Now, the -- the part that -- that I'm a little uncomfortable with is that recommendation is if you'll -- if you'll look at where the money -- where the money sits, and most of -- and almost all of that $20 million is one time funds that were interest from the Clerk and returned back from the Sheriff. Page 123 June 23, 2006 And, so, that's -- that's something that I'm going to have to dig into a lot more to figure out exactly what it is. But it's about a $10 million additional. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, if it's one time, you can't keep on giving it year and year. I mean, if you -- if you lower it, give it back to the taxpayers and lower the millage rate, that's going to be problem the following year; correct? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, that isn't -- that isn't what we need to do. But I'm just saying what I remember the guidance was and what was said in the -- in the -- in the -- in the guidance part of the County Commissioners' agenda, and that's what I heard. But to -- to say we're going to lower it just one time, only to increase it the following year, I'm not sure if that's the best thing, best thing for us to do. But if you can bring it back down as much as you can so you have that reoccurring, I -- I still believe that you can hit some of those things. And I -- and, again, I think that we can all hold our heads high and say, yeah, we did raise your taxes, but here's -- here's some -- some of the great things that we're doing like transportation, twice the amount of budgeting that we did last year. You know, there's a lot of good things in there. Can we do better? Yeah. We sure can. I believe that we can. And we should strive for that. But, you know, the thing is, is -- is you need a super majority vote on the -- on the budget and we need to work together. I've had a mission and I know some of you have a mission and I'm -- I'm going to change some of my philosophies to accommodate my colleagues, but I need something in return. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Coletta. Page 124 June 23, 2006 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I guess the question is, is, you know, what exactly don't we need in this world? What is our priorities -- what are our priorities? I think our priorities have always been roads. I don't think that's ever changed. I believe that's still the same now. And we've been-- we've been pushing for a long time. So, if we're going to cut, what are those things that our citizens can live without? What's in that budget that we can take the fluff off of that is not absolutely essential? So, we're getting down to the ambiance that makes Collier County special; the pathway, the parks, the maintenance of it. I can remember before past commission -- commissioners cutting budgets to the point they didn't have the money to be able to maintain the parks, to be able to take care of the grass, take care of the equipment that was there, just to be able t save a little bit on it. Then you had to pay in the long run because eventually you have to make a catchup on it. So, if we're going to come to the point that we're going to cut, all fine and good. Let's get our priorities straight in this world. What is the most important thing that we have to do? Health, safety and welfare is number one. The roads are very important. We recognize it as the number one priority, and then we start working backwards from there. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'm -- I'm very encouraged that -- that we can reach an agreement to substantially reduce taxes and still get our work done, and all the essential work done. But -- but we need some clarification not only for ourselves but for the general public. You know, we've talked about a budget that's roughly $1.1 billion, 1.1 billion, but only two hundred and what, sixty-seven million of that, 267 million -- 276 million is ad valorem property Page 125 June 23, 2006 taxes. The rest of that money, and I'm sure the public does not understand this, the difference between 1.1 billion and 276 million in property taxes is enterprise funds, they're fees paid by developers, they're impact fees and, yes, there are gas taxes and sales taxes in there, but there are no property taxes in that difference. So, when we're talking about reducing a property tax rate, we're affecting only that $276 million increment of an $1.1 billion budget. Now, I would say to -- to the public that you probably don't want to reduce the difference because the difference is user fees, water and sewer fees. People have got to pay for those services. Developers have to pay impact fees. Developers have to pay services to get permits processed and to get inspections done. Do you really want to reduce those? And I would suggest you don't. We should charge people the cost of providing the services that we as a government provide. So, we -- we have to make sure we understand the difference. When you talk about a budget of $1.1 billion, much of that does not come out of the pockets of taxpayers, and certainly none of it comes out of the ad valorem property taxes. Only the 276 million is -- is gathered by -- by payment of property taxes. So, now, to -- to get to the real issue, since we're talking about property taxes, we're talking about whether or not you have utilized a 16 percent increase in property taxes in your budget or have you utilized the 16 percent total increase of the $1.1 billion budget to formulate your budget? Did I make -- did I make any sense? Do you understand where -- what I'm talking about? So, just tell me which one we did, the 16 percent of property Page 126 June 23, 2006 taxes. MR. MUDD: Yes. MR. FEDER: Okay. MR. MUDD: Okay? But the budget -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Right. MR. MUDD: -- lay the budget on everyone was to try to hold the line at 12 percent across the board -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes. MR. MUDD: -- on everything. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes. MR. MUDD: Okay? And I provided you those numbers on Page 2 to let you see that I've done that. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. You know, let me --let me deal just a minute with the concept that we need to keep all this money so that we can build infrastructure and particularly roads because we need roads pretty badly. We can get there without keeping all this money. We don't have to delay roads. We can still get the roads built, okay, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But if -- if you -- if you take all this money from property taxes and you push it into road construction, next year what Amy Patterson will have to do is she'll have to give credits for all the impact fee calculations for any ad valorem property taxes that were used for growth related infrastructure development. Am I right? MR. MUDD: You are right unless you set up an instrument that says that it is a loan to that impact fee and to be repaid -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: They have to pay it back. MR. MUDD: And paid back by that impact fee. And we've become very good at setting up those instruments -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: -- so that -- so that we don't get into our -- we don't Page 127 June 23, 2006 get into the credit issue. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. So, it's very important that we understand that risk. If we get involved in that, we could very well impact our future impact fees. Now, the best -- the really simple way to do this whole thing is the way we discussed earlier today. Let's get more of this stuff done through developer contribution agreements. If growth is going to pay for growth, then let's have it pay for growth. Right now we're paying for 30 percent of that with ad valorem property taxes. Increasing that percentage in my estimation is not a good thing to do for our taxpayers. So -- so, I believe we can get the roads built, we can get them built on time by using developer contribution agreements and -- and still refund some of these taxes to our taxpayers. I don't think we should feel obligated to spend all of the money that we get just because the taxpayers' property values went up. And I would -- I would say one thing. We -- we didn't really increase the property taxes of our -- of our residents. What happened was that we have created a county together where property values have increased, so our homeowners' property values have increased, their wealth has been increased and their taxes went up, but not because we raised them. So, I think we ought to give them some money back by -- by reducing the millage rate. And I guess now it's just a debate about how much. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Why don't we take a 15-minute break and we'll start off with Commissioner Fiala, Commissioner Henning and then it will be Commissioner Coletta when we return. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think Commissioner Henning was before me. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Page 128 June 23, 2006 (A recess was had.) COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Let's go. MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, you have a hot mic. Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Thank you very much, county manager. We're back out of recess and hopefully we can get this taken care of so -- and we've had a long, long week here, so -- MR. MUDD: Okay. The -- I need you to turn to Page 4 of the general overview and -- and also look at Page 5. And in the budget guidance, to be specific -- where is it at, Mike? Okay. It says general fund millage rate, FY07 budget policies. And FY07 general fund ad valorem tax revenues will be capped at a maximum increase of 16 percent. Any increase above 16 percent in taxable value will result in a millage rate reduction. While there has been a cooling in the local real estate market, the taxable value for FY07 will be based on market activity during calendar year 2005, which was the height of the local real estate market. And then there's a table that basically shows where it -- where the different rates are underneath. General fund budget allocation, that the board continues to budget policy limiting general fund agency budget appropriations to -- to no more than their respective percentage in the adopted FY07 fund budget and that's basically the pie with the maximum agency budget increase of 12 percent. This will provide the board with some discretionary funding. Tax revenues between 12 percent and 16 percent increase and taxable value to address special needs, the portion of the Caribbean Garden purchase above $40 million or unfunded mandates from the state or federal governments. And I believe that's what Commissioner Henning was alluding to Page 129 June 23, 2006 in that particular case. I believe my comments on the record and -- and this is from memory now. We talked about state unfunded mandates and the discretion -- and the discretionary items of the Board of County Commissioners. And so that was laid on. So, when -- when we put Page 4 in your book -- when we put Page 4 in your book, we're basically following that guidance and laying out everything above 16 percent to -- to be rolled back. And that's a recommended tax rollback of $22,006,158 and the proposed millage rate for FY07 following your guidance of 3.5912. If you now take a look at Page 5, you will see all the millage rates. I have to blow this up a little bit. You will see all the millage rates laid out based on that budget guidance. First line, general fund, decrease from 3.8772 to 3.5912, which is a $28.60 reduction per hundred thousand taxable value on your home. Water pollution control, 114. Mr. Ray Smith briefed you yesterday and he basically said in his comments that -- that his millage rate would go from .0347 to .0321. And Mr. Smith based his budget on 16 percent, and he put some moneys into his reserve account in case he has some of his high priced equipment that breaks down, because he didn't have much there. So, that would be a reduction of 7.5 percent. The other areas, the unincorporated general fund would remain the same, and you can see on the list of proposed millage rates and the changes from the previous year on all the other MSTUs and fire control districts that the county has on that particular chart. What -- what I'm needing as a county manager is what do you want me to come back to you through Mr. Smykowski on the 25th of July to set the upper limit rate to the millage? And that -- that is Page 130 June 23, 2006 important. Remember, I said in my previous conversation today. I said, once you set that rate, you can't go above it. So, if you decide to cut some, then there's where you are and that's where you stand when you do your September budgets. Now, if you want to decrease more in September off of that millage, then you have that opportunity to do so. Staffs recommendation following your guidance is provided on the overhead. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Start with the questions that were -- or commissioners that had questions before the break and starting with Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No. Commissioner Henning was first, Fiala -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- and then I was last. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. I'm -- I'm going to answer the question also because I -- I really need to leave here shortly. You have a substantial amount that's not reoccurring; correct? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. And I have to go back and scrub that. And I -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. MR. MUDD: -- I need to get that done. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Whatever is not reoccurring, apply that to the UFR list, make recommendations. That's a -- you know, I'm in favor of it, because again it doesn't make sense to use that -- those nonrecurring to lower the millage rate even more only to raise it the next year. Okay? The -- the next thing, I -- I want to correct something that Mr. Feder corrected me on about his capital improvement plan. It hasn't doubled, but it is 200,000 -- $200 million, what's Page 131 June 23, 2006 appropriated, and it probably will be adopted and it will probably be amended up. That depends on the projects that he comes forward during-- during the mid year. But I want to -- I want to correct something that was said. And I don't want to give anybody the impression that we're cutting services. In fact, we're increasing services by $200 million over last year. That's -- that's not coming off of property taxes as Commissioner Coyle pointed out, but we're not cutting services like that that was stated. We're increasing services. So, with that, I -- I hope my colleagues answers -- gives the county managers some guide -- that guidance so we can move on. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I -- I was pretty impressed that the millage rate is dropping and yet we could still have such a good budget and still answer the needs for our community, and I -- and I really think you prompted that drop, and I -- in fact, I'm sure of it. I'm delighted to see that. I think that that's good, yet it still gives us some UFRs there. And Commissioner Coletta was talking about the roads. I think he's right, but I had a couple of questions about that. On -- on this UFR list, there -- there were quite a few things for transportation. Say, for instance -- and -- and I have it all marked as something that I would like to see you first go for by the way every single -- I think every single one of them. But I wanted to know if then if we approved like the five million for the lime rock conversion and if we approved the 10 million for the right-of-way acquisition fund, that doesn't have anything to do with the impact fees; right? We -- that would not then affect us at all; right? MR. MUDD: No, because the right-of-way acquisition fund that Page 132 June 23, 2006 you would put forward -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. MR. MUDD: -- would be a loan to Norman, and when the impact fees came in for that particular road, he would repay where -- that right-of-way acquisition fund. And, so, it's basically you're establishing a revolving fund, where there's money initially outlaid. Norman has a loan. And when his impact fees come in, he replaces those dollars. So, it's -- it's always a $10 million revolving fund in that particular case. MR. FEDER: And that would be on the right-of-way and -- and to add to that on the lime rock, that isn't an impact fee issue anyway. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right. Right. And I knew that. I just wanted to -- MR. FEDER: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- state that up front because that's -- that's something else that's on here and yet I think it's much needed. If we -- if we -- Commissioner Henning was talking about cutting it to 12 percent. Are still saying that? COMMISSIONER HENNING: What I said was there's a substantial amount of moneys that are not reoccurring, substantial amount of moneys. Apply those to the UFR list and whatever is -- it is reoccurring, reduce the -- the millage. MR. MUDD: Sir, and I'd like to -- I'd like to take that particular guidance in digestible doses for -- for my particular case because I've got to be able -- I am -- I am certain without a shadow of a doubt that everything above 16 percent that I've provided on this -- on that slide right there that you got on the overhead right now is all reoccurring and you can roll that back and you cannot have -- and you will not have a problem in Collier County for this next FY. I can -- I -- beyond a shadow of a doubt, over and -- but when Page 133 June 23, 2006 you want me to go into the UFR list right now, based on what I've seen and where the dollars are coming from, I have to do some more homework. I have to dig into this budget some more in order to find that out. So, if the board is going to make a recommendation today for the 25th of July for Mike to -- to come forward, my recommendation is you do what's on this chart that's on the overhead right now that's on Paragraph 5 of your thing. I will go back and look at this UFR list and scrub the heck out of it and -- and where the moneys are coming from, so I can provide to you the first meeting in -- in September those things that are reoccurring as far as dollars, revenues coming in, and -- and not -- and then we can get at Commissioner Henning's particular case if those dollars are reoccurring, you want to roll back on those particular items. So be it. That's your discretion. But I -- I -- I would hope you wouldn't make that decision today, that you would go with what's on the chart for 16 that I'm very, very comfortable with and then let me get in there. And if you go below 16 today, I -- you get in my uncomfort zone. That -- and I'm not saying you need to make me comfortable. I'm just telling you I want to do the right thing for Collier County and I -- and I don't want to roll back on one time money because that's a big mistake. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. Okay. I'm not -- I'm just going to repeat myself briefly. The reason I was looking for the excess funds because beyond knowing that's going to be coming in future years. Contingency fund where you put it in there not to offset developers' contributions. I think we've done an excellent job in Collier County with developer contributions and we're not going to change that format in the future. Page 134 June 23, 2006 However, that's said. I can see that that's not going to be the way it's going to be. I do have extreme concerns that we take a budget that's been all put together on the guidance and we're talking about additional rollbacks and then putting stuff on the UFR list to compete with items that are very much needed, and I -- I see that raising all sorts of problems. As much as I don't like it, I could accept the budget as it is with the budget guidance. As far as 16 percent being the hallmark, 12 percent -- unless you can show me what particular items, and I think the budget guidance shouldn't be so much reoccurring funds or whatever. It should be by priorities. Those items that aren't required to whatever -- ever elements that we want to come up with. What items are the fluff that we got in there that are over and above our annual reports that we do, what are the items that we're going to remove, that's fine. Let's go for it. Keep the priorities where they have to be. If we get to that point that we're going to cut, we need to really go into it and look at what we're going to remove from it. As it is today right now, I'm willing to accept the -- the cap of the 16 percent rollback too, but I -- I won't go with giving guidance for the 12 percent. I think that sends a mixed message that may lead us the wrong way. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I'm in favor of what you come up with as far as the budget guidance of limiting the rollback to 16 percent from the 25 percent. Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I -- I support the budget as it -- as it is now, but -- but I -- I -- I do believe that we should give the county manager flexibility to conduct an analysis to determine if there are future savings available. Okay? Page 135 June 23, 2006 And -- and have the -- what we have here as the maximum budget, we'll -- we'll -- we'll roll it back and send 22 million back to the taxpayers. MR. MUDD: For sure. COMMISSIONER COYLE: For sure. And then you will analyze recurring and nonrecurring revenues and come back with us -- come back to us with a report as to what you think you can do with some of that. And -- and we might then have the option of using it for unfunded mandates or turning that back to -- to the -- the taxpayers. MR. MUDD: An additional roll-- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. Additional rollback. MR. MUDD: You'll be able to do that in September. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And -- and we'll just make that decision at that point in time based upon what you tell us. But -- but could I take just a minute, and I don't want to -- want to get into big -- a big discussion about this, so if this is controversial to the other members, just tell me and I -- I'll stop it. But -- but I -- I still have a problem with us competing in the EMS and fire department business with fire departments that have EMS capabilities. I -- I would like to feel that we're getting -- we're going to get out of that business pretty quickly and that we ought to move ahead and see if we can't get an agreement with the fire departments to consolidate their operations, not under us. Consolidate their operations. We give EMS to them. We have a separate fire board and centralized management and -- and save taxpayers a ton of money and get us out of the business of managing independent fire departments and, in fact, competing with -- I'm sorry. Managing dependent fire departments. And get us out of the business of competing with the independent fire departments and their EMS personnel, because they're hiring EMS Page 136 June 23, 2006 personnel and they're paying them more than we can afford to pay them. We've got over a half -- almost a half million dollars in this budget just to supplement our EMS services. And, quite frankly, I think they can do a better job of it. I mean, that's what they're doing anyway. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Are you soliciting comments? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. Well, yeah. Just if it's too controversial -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let him go, let him go. COMMISSIONER COYLE: If it's going to take too long, if you don't want to -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: He's going to touch -- because he's bringing up a real neat issue. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. I just like to get the board's sense of this and see if the board thinks it's a good thing for us to convey to the fire departments. They are suspicious that we want to take it over. And I don't want to take it over. They're better qualified to do that than I am. I would just like to see them consolidate. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I think that's the best thing we could do is have those fire departments, well, basically, come all together under one umbrella. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. CHAIRMAN HALAS: And -- and I think it would save the taxpayers an awful lot of money. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And I -- I think if -- if the county manager and -- and some of the fire departments were to get together and he would convey that message as a sense of the board, maybe it could initiate that discussion and we could really be -- be a lot more effective in spending taxpayer money. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Commissioner Coletta. Page 137 June 23, 2006 COMMISSIONER COYLE: You're -- you're -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I can't contain myself. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Your time has expired. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, no, no. I've got to. I-- COMMISSIONER COYLE: He's jumping out of his seat. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: This man, he's absolutely correct. And this is something that we've been talking about for a long time and I've been working with several different fire departments on this. And they do have some efforts going in place. It's because they've got a little bit of encouragement from us, but they have started some sort of work out there as far as the exploratory. But it hasn't gone anyplace. Now, I will tell something. If you're really serious about this, if it isn't too late, you can put it on the ballot. Would you like to see this happen? COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'm wondering if they might-- might interpret that as a -- as a ploy to try to force them to do something. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Not if you worded it right. Would you encourage the -- the fire departments in Collier County to -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- consolidate? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, I would, but I would like to get their input on the ballot question. I wouldn't have any obj ection to it, but I don't want to destroy the spirit of cooperation by going around it. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Why don't you continue and then stick with trying to figure out what we're going to do with the millage here, get that done. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, but it -- Page 138 June 23, 2006 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, let me -- let me comment on that, too, then. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- it does affect that though. It really does affect it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Why -- why do we have to -- I mean, we already know that they're trying -- that they're working on consolidating but, yeah, it's going to take them awhile because there's a lot of issues they have. But why -- why don't we then give the EMS to them as it is and say, now you guys -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: No. The problem -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- figure out how to handle it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: The problem is that then you have -- have it split up among a number of different independent districts that were -- are competing among themselves and you might not maintain the same high standard of -- of -- of-- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, what I was saying -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- responsibility. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- is that might encourage them to consolidate a little more rapidly if they have the added responsibility of -- of the EMS under their-- COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'll tell you what I think would be a bigger incentive, is to say to them, if you will consolidate -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Then you got it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- we will transfer it all to a consolidated organization. And if you do that quickly, we'll give it to you quickly. We're still going to maintain some kind of control over standards, okay? I mean, we still have to issue certifications and things like that, but we need to move on this thing. It's -- it's -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I guess we all are in agreement. MR. MUDD: So -- so, I just want to make sure for the record Page 139 June 23, 2006 that I've got this down pat. No. We need to do this because I've said the them thing that you just said, okay, and it -- and it got misinterpreted like we want to take over fire. CHAIRMAN HALAS: No, we don't. MR. MUDD: My -- my -- my thought when I met -- the first time when I met with the chiefs' committee was if you guys would have one fire district, I'll give you one EMS district. Okay? But I'm not going to take EMS and fracture it up into 11 damn different -- excuse me -- I'm sorry -- at 11 different -- but I did say -- I did say the other word to them, that -- that -- that I'm not going to take an organization that's unified that's working great that's got -- that's got one standard and fracture it out to all the independents and all the dependents, everybody now has their own little independent EMS. And I'm going to be no better off as a county than we are today. There's going to be four fire districts, then the North Naples District, okay. That's probably the jewel of the fire districts as far as income. And it's okay. And all we have to do take a look at their budget and we will know. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Oh, we know. MR. MUDD: Okay. And, so -- so if I fractured EMS into 11 pieces, then I'm going to have one set of paramedics -- or -- or -- paramedics go into a -- to a -- an incident to help recover or help somebody resuscitate that might not have the best equipment. And -- and I have another set that got top of the line everything between chair lifters and -- and -- and gurney lifters going downstairs and resuscitation equipment. And -- and guess what. That's not right and that's not fair to the taxpayers of this county. So, my -- my -- my comment has always been you can become one, we'll give you one and then you'll all be one big issue and that's exactly what I heard this board just talk about just a second ago. The fire districts need to work together to unify. When that Page 140 June 23, 2006 particular issue is done, then the County Commission will be glad to move their one unified EMS and merge into their particular organization, unified organization. Is that what I heard? COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's -- that's exactly what -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: That's what you heard. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. MR. MUDD: Okay? COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think it's unanimous. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I thought that -- what about the -- what about the -- yes, it is. MR. MUDD: Did the court reporter get all of that? Good. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What about the dependent fire districts that are now under county? MR. MUDD: They would -- they would become unified with the other fire districts. There would only be one in Collier County. COMMISSIONER HENNING: But here's the thing. We've been talking about this before. I don't want to talk about it forever. Okay? So, there's a point when we need to gather and say, well, what do we do now? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Fish or cut bait. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Fish or cut bait, that's right. And we need to send that message to the fire districts and, oh, by the way, they have a big windfall this year that they ought to assist the taxpayers, and that -- that ought to be a message, too, along with the other taxing districts. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, let-- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Let's get to the point at hand here and get the millage here. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, we did. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, we did, I think. We agreed on it. Page 141 June 23, 2006 COMMISSIONER HENNING: We're all done. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I think we agreed on that. CHAIRMAN HALAS: All right. You've got a unanimous vote of -- of the point thing in the back that says -- MR. MUDD: Consensus with signing overhead on your Page 5. CHAIRMAN HALAS: All right. Good. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Question. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But that's -- if we could just take a quick minute and get a sense of something official to communicate to the fire districts to get this thing moving as Commissioner Henning is suggesting. Can we -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Well, I think what we've done is in the past we've told them that they needed to consolidate and they just kind of looked at us like, oh, really, okay. So, I'm not sure how we can get the message out unless it's -- unless we put something on the ballot and make -- and, therefore, the people speak and say it's time that the fire districts get consolidated under one umbrella. And it's not under -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's it. CHAIRMAN HALAS: And it's not under the jurisdiction of the county manager. It's strictly under the jurisdiction of themselves. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I -- I don't have a problem with that as long as the fire districts won't -- won't interpret it -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- as -- as an attempt to stab them in the back without consulting them about it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. It's the impression I get, I'll tell you. I -- I just feel that, you know, we can -- like Jim Mudd just said, Page 142 June 23, 2006 you know, we've got it all on the record. We've said it very clearly. We can even put it in -- in a letter stating exactly what -- MR. MUDD: If you'd like-- COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- we've said again in -- MR. MUDD: If you would like me to draft a letter for-- COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- front of the court reporter, writing it -- MR. MUDD: If you -- I'm sorry. I interrupted. If -- I think I'm coming -- if you would like me to draft the letter for the chairman's signature to -- to -- to attach the record from today so that they understand exactly what was said and so that there's no misunderstanding whatsoever, I'll be glad to do that. And -- and if you let your chair sign that, as the board consensus, that would be great. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And if the Naples -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: But wait. COMMISSIONER COYLE: If the Naples Daily News would run a banner headline tomorrow, that the commission encourages consolidation of -- MR. MUDD: I know Mr. Hannon writes these stories, but I don't think he's the headline -- he's not the headliner in the paper. He can suggest though. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: May I? CHAIRMAN HALAS: Sure. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. We've got to get to stop talking just for a minute to catch up. You're doing good, by the way. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I've been quiet all day. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And I think we ought to have Commissioner Coy Ie as our lead person on this, but I still think that while the time and the initiative is still there, because it won't come back again for a couple of years, that this should be a ballot question Page 143 June 23, 2006 and it shouldn't be anything that's that obtrusive. Would you, the people of Collier County, be interested in seeing a consolidated fire department with EMS being a part of the element not under county control? Something like that, very simple. And if nothing more than a straw poll to be able to give guidance to us and to the fire departments. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Commissioner Coletta, I really think you're heading down the wrong road, in fact, two ways. And it's first the one we call that even state it, because it might look like it's a heavy hammer. And, secondly, different districts feel very passionate about this article. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Oh, they sure do. COMMISSIONER FIALA: This -- these are the people that come in and rescue them and save them, and if we say, do you want to consolidate it so you want have this anymore -- that personalized thing, they might not like the idea. I think we would be barking down the wrong road for that one. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, and again, too, that gives us the direction that we need to go and than they're still on their own and nothing's changed. CHAIRMAN HALAS: When you say give us the direction again, that's implying that we're trying to control them. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh, not at all. I'd love to see this -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: I don't think we should say we would give them, you know, as direction from us because -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No. The ballot is direction from the populous of this county as to what they would like to see. It's plain and simple. It's the way of democracy that's worked for a couple hundred years now. And just a -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: I like the idea of a letter. CHAIRMAN HALAS: A letter is good, but I don't know what Page 144 June 23, 2006 weight the letter is going to carry. MR. MUDD: Well, commissioner -- you know, Commissioner Fiala, you all have good ideas. The intention is very -- is very good. Okay? This has been -- this has been a problem that's been longstanding because there's -- it's getting to the point in time that fire districts are -- are not giving the same kind of service because of tax proceeds that are comIng In. So, there's -- there's differentiating inserted. May I recommend that we go with the letter this time, and then if there's no action and there's no movement on this in the next year, the next year you come back with that ballot question and you put it on there just as -- as Commissioner Coletta and we'll -- has suggested, and then -- and then you get at the point, so that we've got a good year to talk and see if there's any movement in this regard. And -- and if you believe it's still a problem at that particular juncture, then you can always go to that ballot question and get it to the particular issue, but you give them a chance to have some movement in this next year. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But my concern is the fact that I don't know what kind of ballots are going to be going out the following year. It's usually -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: It will be 2008. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. That's two years away. CHAIRMAN HALAS: That would be two years away in 2008. MR. MUDD: Unless there's a -- unless you have a special item on the ballot that you would like to put there, this board can pay the money to have a special ballot, one question asked. COMMISSIONER COYLE: No, not for a straw ballot. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Any -- so, the direction we're going to give the county manager then is we'll formulate a letter and I'll sign it and we'll see where it goes from there. Page 145 June 23, 2006 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's the plan, I guess. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just make it clear that it's -- it's their -- their operation. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Yeah. COMMISSIONER COYLE: It's not going to be subordinate to us. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I think that's got to be very clear. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right. That's very important. You're right. CHAIRMAN HALAS: That's very clear that we're not involved in that -- in getting involved in -- that we want to have control of them, but that they have to come up and make sure that there's -- it's equally disbursed amongst all the county in regards to the type of service that all the residents expect. Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: One fire one EMS joined together. CHAIRMAN HALAS: Yeah. MR. MUDD: The -- I believe -- I believe we're -- I believe we've covered everything unless you've got some more? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Not -- not me. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, but how many say-- CHAIRMAN HALAS: And the filibuster doesn't have anything more to say. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Do it, do it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Tom Henning said he's sorry but he had to leave so -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: Okay. Is that all? If that's everything for this, we're going to close down the -- MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I thank -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: -- initial budget guidance. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. I thank you for a good two-day Page 146 June 23, 2006 workshop. I think we got at a lot of the issues and -- and it was good to have the public comment. I don't believe we had the public comment last year. I think-- CHAIRMAN HALAS: It was great thing. MR. MUDD: -- it was good form -- CHAIRMAN HALAS: It was a. MR. MUDD: -- to listen to those particular issues as you think about the UFR list and whatnot over the summer months, so I thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HALAS: I'm looking forward to Bill Barton coming forward with a list of -- or give us an idea, a thumbnail look at what he needs there for the funding because I think it is very, very important, but I think we also need some guidance, so that the public realizes that that money is -- is going to be put in good hands for a good reason. So, with that, we are adjourned. Page 147 June 23, 2006 ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 3:24 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ~~ FRANK HALAS, CHAIRMAN A TTESl':;. , DWIGlIt E:~,BROCK, CLERK ~....~ W ... -G..;:i . 'w ~ .At..~- '1,.1:* Cli,ll'llaJl , . ~ 1 'Jfl!1t1.""~;' "', These minutes approvegpy the Board on f- f ':l-s;t 6 Cp , as presented ~ or as corrected Page 148