Agenda 06/23/2020 Item # 2B (May 26, 2020 BCC Meeting Minutes)06/23/2020
COLLIER COUNTY
Board of County Commissioners
Item Number: 2.B
Item Summary: May 26, 2020 BCC Meeting Minutes
Meeting Date: 06/23/2020
Prepared by:
Title: Executive Secretary to County Manager – County Manager's Office
Name: MaryJo Brock
06/08/2020 1:34 PM
Submitted by:
Title: County Manager – County Manager's Office
Name: Leo E. Ochs
06/08/2020 1:34 PM
Approved By:
Review:
County Manager's Office MaryJo Brock County Manager Review Completed 06/11/2020 10:55 AM
Board of County Commissioners MaryJo Brock Meeting Pending 06/23/2020 9:00 AM
2.B
Packet Pg. 13
May 26, 2020
Page 1
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Naples, Florida, May 26, 2020
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County
Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as
the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such
special districts as have been created according to law and having
conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in
REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex,
East Naples, Florida, with the following members present:
Chairman: Burt L. Saunders
Andy Solis
William L. McDaniel, Jr.
Donna Fiala
Penny Taylor
ALSO PRESENT:
Leo Ochs, County Manager
Nick Casalanguida, Deputy County Manager
Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney
Crystal K. Kinzel, Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller
Troy Miller, Communications & Customer Relations
May 26, 2020
Page 2
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mic.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Ladies and gentlemen, the meeting
of the County Commission will please come to order.
I'd like to welcome everybody here, and thank you for
continuing to practice social distancing. We encourage people, when
they're out in public, to wear a mask. It's not mandatory or anything,
but it certainly is, I think, the right t hing to do. I see a gentleman
coming in now with a mask on. That's a very nice one. So thank you
for working with us on that.
Item #1
INVOCATION AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's begin with the invocation and
the pledge. And as we've done for the last couple of months, we're
going to ask our resident clergyman, Commissioner McDaniel, to
lead us in the invocation and pledge.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: If you would please bow your
heads with me, ladies and gentlemen.
Heavenly father, we want to thank you for the many blessings
that you bestow upon us. Father, your miracles are about us every
single day. Please help us to know and appreciate and give our
thanks to you for those miracles. Father, as always, please hold our
first responders, nurses, and doctors in special care.
Yesterday, Lord, was a day of remembrance for those who have
sacrificed for the many freedoms that we cherish every single day.
Please bless those, our first responders, our first -- and those on the
front lines who protect us every single day. In thy holy name I pray.
Amen.
With me, ladies and gentlemen.
May 26, 2020
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(The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Ochs, let's go through the
changes to the agenda. I know you've got a couple.
Item #2A
TODAY’S REGULAR, CONSENT AND SUMMARY AGENDA
AS AMENDED (EX PARTE DISCLOSURE PROVIDED BY
COMMISSION MEMBERS FOR CONSENT AGENDA.) -
APPROVED AND/OR ADOPTED W/CHANGES
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good
morning, Commissioners.
These are the proposed agenda changes for the Board of County
Commissioners' meeting of May 26th, 2020. And we have one item
that is being continued at the staff's request. It's Item 16C2 on your
consent agenda. That's a contract award for paint and related items.
That will be back on your agenda at your June 9th meeting. We've
got a little bit of cleanup to do on that.
That's the only change from the agenda that I have,
Mr. Chairman.
You did ask me to acknowledge a couple of the proclamations
that are on your consent agenda. Normally those folks would be
here, but under the circumstances with the pandemic, they're not here
in person to receive these proclamations.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Once we complete the
agenda, let's go through a couple of those. We have some employees
of the month, and I thought it would be appropriate for the manager
to read his typical statements for those employees. Hopefully they're
watching and, as you said, we don't want them in the room, but we
want them to know that we appreciate what they do. So we'll go
May 26, 2020
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through that after we approve the agenda.
MR. OCHS: Very good.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Any changes? Commissioner
Solis, do you have any --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And no disclosures.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Ditto.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Commissioner
McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No changes and no
disclosures either.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No changes. No disclosures.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And I have no changes and no
disclosures. So we need a motion to approve the regular, consent,
and summary agenda as amended.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Second.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a motion and second. All
in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Passes unanimously.
Mr. Ochs?
May 26, 2020
Page 5
Item #2B
APRIL 28, 2020 BCC MEETING MINUTES - APPROVED AS
PRESENTED
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. You have the minutes of the BCC
meeting of April 28th, 2020. Motion for approval, please.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Do we have any changes or
corrections to the minutes?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: If not, we need a motion to
approve.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to approve.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a motion and second. All
in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It passes unanimously.
Item #3D
EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH – RECOGNIZED
(SEE ITEMS #16H1 AND #16H2)
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, that moves us to our employee
recognition awards, Item 3D, you asked me to acknowledge. Thank
May 26, 2020
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you for that, sir. We have two Employee of the Month recognitions
on your consent agenda today.
The first is acknowledging our February 2020 Employee of the
Month. That's Ellen Cheffy, Growth Management Department.
Ellen has been with the county since 2018. She's an Operation
Analyst in our Growth Management Department's Operation Support
Division. In this particular role, Ellen is a key member of a team
that's involved in several administrative initiatives supporting GMD
operations. Most recently Ellen took on a long -standing assignment
of cataloging and preserving and disposing of a 15,000-square-foot
warehouse full of old documents and plans in Growth Management
that have been lingering for a while to get cleaned up. And Ellen
jumped on that. She leveraged the department head and the director's
support to get everyone's attention, organized training sessions with
technical systems manager, and established a clear timeline to get
that task completed.
I can tell you the project is off to a great start, and with Ellen's
leadership and determination, this huge undertaking will be
accomplished for the first time in over a decade. So we're very
grateful for her initiative, and that's why we are pleased to recognize
Ellen Cheffy as our February 2020 Employee of the Month.
Thank you, Ellen.
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Our second Employee of the Month recognition is
for the April 2020 Employee of the Month. That award goes to
Grace Angel.
Grace has been an Animal-Care Specialist in the Domestic
Animal Services Department since December of 2018. Since that
time she's proven herself to be an invaluable member of the team.
She's one of the front-desk employees, and she handles even the most
challenging public interactions amazingly well, regularly offers her
May 26, 2020
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assistance to other team members, and has taken the initiative
recently to improve the educational materials that are provided to our
customers, particularly those that are coming in for adoptions the first
time.
She's also taken advantage of continuing education opportunities
specifically related to animal welfare, and in that role, Grace was
recently given the green light to explore opportunities with Maddie's
University. This is a well-known and respected learning management
system across the country for animal shelters.
So it's her attitude, her smile, and unfailing sense of humor that
consistently puts her customers first and her team members and
volunteers at ease, and it's why she's so deserving for the April 2020
Employee of the Month award.
Congratulations to Grace Angel.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you, Mr. Ochs.
And thank you to Ellen and Grace for your service to the county and
to the community.
MR. OCHS: Thank you for that opportunity, Mr. Chairman.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Can I just mention one other of the
proclamations. I didn't know if we were going to do that. But I think
there's one that's a very important one that's on the consent agenda.
It's the proclamation. It's 16H1, a proclamation designating
May 20th -- or May 2020 as National Drug Court Month. And one of
the wonderful things that's happened in Collier County is that
because of this court that everyone on the dais has provided, our drug
court is now a mentor court for the entire country.
A mentor court serves as models -- mentor courts serve as
models for communities interested in starting a drug court or for
May 26, 2020
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established courts interested in learning innovative practices. They
do this by hosting and providing technical assistance to other drug
court leaders and by participation in national planning and policy
initiatives. This is recognition that -- you know, that the support that
we've given the drug court has made a big difference and is
recognized nationally.
So I wish we could have had them here and congratulated Judge
Martin and the many people from all the different offices, the
Sheriff's Office to, you know, the prosecutors, public defenders,
everyone that participates in that, because it's made a big difference.
It's been recognized nationally. And it's great to see that the efforts
that we've put into that and the support that everybody here has given
it has made that much of a difference. So thank you.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. I'm glad you pulled
that off to have that conversation. And perhaps as we go forward
with these meetings where we've discouraged too many participants
from our staff to be present, maybe on these proclamations you could
just read the title of those. We'll approve them on the consent
agenda, but we'll continue to give a little bit of recognition to those as
we did with that one and as we did with the Employees of the Month.
MR. OCHS: Happy to do that.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Are there any other proclamations
that we would want to have --
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. There's one more. It's Item 16H2 on
your consent agenda, and it's a proclamation designating May 2020
as Trauma Awareness Month in Collier County, and that is a
recognition of the great work that our regional Trauma Center does
for the entire region. That is the Lee Memorial Health System that
provides that trauma care service for our region of the state, and I
know our own EMS helicopter frequently takes patients up there, and
they receive excellent trauma care. So we wanted to acknowledge
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that proclamation as well.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you.
Item #6A
PUBLIC PETITION FROM JAMES A. BOATMAN, ESQUIRE,
REGARDING SLOWING DOWN INSTALLATION OF 5G
TECHNOLOGIES IN COLLIER COUNTY - COUNTY
ATTORNEY TO PROVIDE DATA FROM OTHER COUNTIES
AND BRING BACK AT THE NEXT MEETING
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, that takes us to Item 6A this
morning. This is a public petition request from James Boatman,
Esquire, regarding slowing down installation of 5G technologies in
Collier County.
Mr. Boatman, are you here this morning, sir?
MR. BOATMAN: Yes, I am.
MR. OCHS: Please step forward to the podium.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Good morning.
MR. BOATMAN: Good morning and welcome.
MR. OCHS: Under our rules, sir, you have up to 10 minutes to
make your petition to the Board.
MR. BOATMAN: I appreciate your time this morning. Can my
10 minutes start when I get my notes in front of me?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Certainly. We'll give you that
extra 15 seconds.
MR. BOATMAN: Thank you.
I'm here this morning to speak to the Commission about a
critical issue that's facing not only this county but governme nts and
communities across the nation.
Even though I'm a litigator, I'm not standing here in any
May 26, 2020
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representative capacity vis-a-vis my position as an attorney. I'm here
because I love this county. I don't know and can't think of any place
in the world that I would rather be living right now in this time.
There's no more beautiful place, there's no more free place in terms of
how our citizens are able to pursue their life, and there's no more
healthy place, quite frankly.
And the issue that we're facing with 5G is that the telecom
industry has gotten way ahead of us. And I'm not going to make any
presumptions about what anybody on this commission knows about
5G, but I'm here to provide some information so that henceforth
nobody can claim ignorance.
My wife and I of 28 years have four kids, two biological, an
adopted three-and-a-half year old, and we have a foster care child that
we would like to adopt. And I believe it is incumbent upon us to
steward this county well.
There are going to be voices that want to tell you that you have
no power, that they've already beaten us to the punch, that the FCC's
already got it figured out, that the legislature's already put a statute in
place to bind your hands.
I'm going to ask this commission not to -- to not hide behind the
fig leaf of futility. The bottom line is that if you will govern well in
this situation and do your fact finding, your traditional public policy
analysis as to whether or not this purported benefit to humanity is
worth the risks, if you'll just do that assessment and leave the legal
team to make the determination as to how best the Commission can
move forward if it, in fact, makes the determination that there are
public policy problems, then that will be well serving the citizenry.
Before I move on to some facts regarding 5G, I just want to thank the
Commission for the amazing job that you have done over the last 10
to 12 weeks. I've scoured history, and I don't think there's ever been
a more difficult time to govern. You'd think that with all of the data
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and information that we have available to us to allow you to inform
your decision making, that good data would be easy to come by, and
we all know that that's not true.
It was, in fact, part of my sifting through data and information t o
try to discern the truth about certain things that have been happening
over the last 10 to 12 weeks that had me stumble across this 5G issue.
Now, let me first tell you that the issue of 5G is not something
that's relegated to tinfoil hat aficionados. That's not the case. I
practice in both state and federal law -- federal court. I handle
complex matters, and I have looked at enough information to
convince me to spend hours and hours of my own free time delving
into source documents to determine whether or not there's any truth
to this situation.
I'm not standing in front of you as a person who's afraid of 5G.
There are methods and there are protocols and there are things that
we can do to roll out certain of this technology in a way that makes
sense from a public policy standpoint.
I don't operate in fear anyways. I'm one of these crazy
Christians that believes that there is a God in the universe who
actually is fully informed about all of these issues and that can be
glorified in the outcomes, even in the face of stupid, barbaric, or just
feckless decisions by those whom he gave free will. But I do believe
that we're given the obligation to steward our communities and our
families and our resources.
Now, if you're anything like me, up to about 12 weeks ago, I
didn't really know anything about 5G. I had heard about the issues
involving China and the national security issues, but I had largely
ignored it. I hadn't ignored it as much as it was just real quiet.
There's not a lot out there. When you go start trying to research this
situation, it's going to be very interesting to you how muted the issue
is from an informational standpoint even though it has broad-ranging
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implications. And if you look at our data sourcing and where we get
our data and then you look at the interests that are peculiarly or
particularly impacted by a dissemination of information that may not
be all rainbows and unicorns on the issue of 5G, you'll begin to figure
out why it is that it's hard to get the information.
And, for the record, back to the idea of conspiracy theory.
Every good investigator is a conspiracy theorist, so don't let that
moniker be something that makes you fearful or decide not to go
down a path of further inquiry just because something is labeled as a
conspiracy theory.
You know who really loves it when you refuse to consider a
conspiracy theory? The conspiracists.
I'm encouraging focal point on source documentation, because
not all conspiracies are accurate or well founded. But when I began
to look for source documentation and I began to peer into the
wormhole which is the 5G issue, I came across some amazingly
frightening information. I have at your table, or I have given to
Mr. Miller, a packet of information that I'm not going to go through.
I have two minutes and 47 seconds left and, as a lawyer, that's only
a -- that's less than a .1.
I'm giving this information to you with the idea that I'm going to
be back here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to die in this
county. And so as long as I'm here, I'm going to be trying to
communicate information on 5G and perhaps other things. But I
want you to look through that information, because according to
thousands of scientists, the millimeter wave radio frequencies
associated with 5G have been causally related to alteration of heart
rhythm; altered gene expression; altered metabolism; altered stem
cell development; cancers; cardiovascular disease; cognitive
impairment; DNA damage; impacts on general well -being; increase
in free radicals; learning and memory deficits, particularly in the
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young; impaired sperm function and quality; miscarriage;
neurological damage; obesity; diabetes; oxidative stress; and that
piece -- that one handout that I gave you is the tip of an informational
iceberg.
The effects in children include autism, attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder, and asthma. And recent evidence, including
the latest studies on cell phone use and brain cancer risk, indicated
that RF radiation is a proven carcinogenic to humans and should now
be classified as a Group 1 carcinogen along with tobacco smoke and
asbestos. I don't know about you, but that's kind of shocking to me. I
had no idea. And the 5G stuff is particularly troubling for reasons
that we don't have time to bare into today.
Now, what is the ask at this point? Because I have 49 seconds.
I ask that we continue this conversation. If you want to set up a
committee or you want to relegate staff resources, that's clearly your
business. But I have a lot more to say on this, and this is a critical
issue. And I'm asking Collier County, let's continue to be the most
beautiful and free and healthy place for people to grow children and
to grow businesses and to retire. If you turn a blind eye to this 5G
issue and try to hide behind the fig leaf of futility, it will be a
catastrophic mistake that literally history will look back upon and
determine that you have not undertaken good governance.
I have very strong convictions that you will do otherwise, and I'm
hoping that you will.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Boatman, if you'd stay there
for just a few moments. Generally we do not engage in conversations
with people that make presentations like this. We do sometimes
decide whether or not we're going to direct staff to take a look at
certain things. So there may be some questions. I have a couple, but
let me see if my colleagues have any questions for Mr. Boatman on
this particular issue or for -- Mr. Boatman, I do have just a couple.
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Are there any other communities, cities, counties, states in the
United States now that are taking a hard look at this? Has your
research reflected that there are other communities that are looking at
this issue? And if you know those, if you could let me know what
those are.
MR. BOATMAN: There are. I will get that list of communities
to you at a later time. I can tell you that Florida League of Cities has
sued Telecom. They have, just about three weeks ago, suffered a
procedural setback in that the action was dismissed, but it was a
procedural dismissal, and they're going to be back. But the Florida
League of Cities is suing right now on this very topic.
And there are -- when you start to look, there are proliferations
of sort of anti-5G activity going on. Because it's amazing, they have
taken away the local government's ability to speak at all into this
extreme public policy issue. These antenna are going to have to be
placed every 250 to 750 feet, and they've taken away your ability to
say anything other than whether or not the structure meets certain
nominal requirements. You can't say anything or ask any question
about the box that goes into that which is communicating the radio
frequencies which have been told to be carcinogenic.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: My recollection is if we have a
light pole, our streetlighting, they can put those on any light pole; that
we have no regulation over that. We can charge, I think, a fee.
MR. BOATMAN: It's maxed out at, like, $250. It is --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I didn't have any specific
questions for you, Mr. Boatman, and I appreciate you coming in and
speaking to us today. But I've read enough about this, conspiracy
theory or not, that it's certainly something that we need to pay
attention to. And I would suggest, if we can, let's have a public
hearing on it. I mean, do an exec sum -- and I'll do it or you do it,
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somebody do it, and then -- and let's bring it up and see if we can
work with our legislators to not get shot out of the saddle before we
have a chance to say so.
We've been making moves, and I've been supporting them, by
allowing for catalysts, if you will -- I call them bouncers -- to be
attached to our telephone poles and such just to amplify our capacity
to get on our Internet just from a -- from an economic standpoint. It
can be huge for rural economically deprived communities to be able
to have access to be able to get out.
And I've been an advocate for those things, but on the same
token, there's enough -- from what I've been able to read, there's
enough information for us to keep a close eye on this.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Just curious. I mean, I'm looking at
my phone, and it says "5G" on it. I mean, have we rolled 5G out in
Collier County? Is it already here? Because my phone says 5GE.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Uh-oh. Make sure you stay at
that end. I'm pointing at you again. Make sure --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'm just -- I mean, yeah, I'm just
curious as to --
MR. BOATMAN: It's already here in pockets.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. So --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: What's our timeline?
MR. BOATMAN: Well, it's --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: What's your end game? What
do you want us to do? If you were waving your magi c wand, what do
you want us to do?
MR. BOATMAN: Set up a meaningful committee that will
assess every area that should be rationally considered from a public
policy standpoint, including health, aesthetics, property values.
May 26, 2020
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You look at what happens statistically to a property value of a
home where one of these antennas is placed. It plummets. In fact, it
can become unsellable, and they want to put them every 250 to
750 feet, and they put in the chapter that they passed to force this
down your throat the ability for Telecom to sue local governments if
you try to slow them down. I mean, I've never seen anything like it.
The gentleman right now that's heading the FCC, who was put
there by President Obama, was in-house counsel for Verizon. I'm not
anti-Verizon, really. I have Verizon. I've always loved Verizon, but
the 5G stuff, we have to govern how it's rolled out, because they got
way ahead of us.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I did have one more question, and
it's a question for our County Attorney. I mean, we are preempted on
things every day. It happens every day. And, you know, before I
think we should spend a lot of time and energy on doing this, I mean,
or looking into this, I'd like to understand from a legal perspective
from our County Attorney, one, is it our state legislature that's
preempted us or is the federal government and the FTC [sic], and
how preempted are we?
MR. KLATZKOW: Completely preempted by both the state
and the federal government. This is not a local issue. The rollout of
national telecommunications system is a national issue. Congress has
delegated to the FCC all issues with respect to the safety of it. There
have been several lawsuits over the years on this, and each and every
one of them resulted in a local government has no power over this.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. So does this mean, then,
when they do this now -- I'm very lax on knowing what-all is
involved. Does this mean they can spy on us all the time? I'm just
going to flat out ask.
May 26, 2020
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MR. BOATMAN: Well, Commissioner, that's an excellent
question. Because, in fact, that's at the core at what 5G is all about. I
don't think anybody in this room thinks we need to be able to
download Netflix any quicker to our phones. That's not what 5G is
all about. 5G is about locating where you are as a human being so
that they can better monetize that reality.
In addition, like -- the 5G allows them to put facial recognition
on the same backpacks that have the communication devices to not
only determine whether it's you, Commissioner Saunders, but
whether you're in a good mood or a bad mood or maybe you look
sick, and so maybe you should be confined to your home. This is
really interesting, and this i s not conspiracy.
The first rollout of 5G was Wuhan, China, and if you study a
little bit about it, it's like -- it's remarkable.
And let me just say one thing on the issue of preemption, because I'm
telling you something; that's exactly what they want this commission
to conclude. Do you know what it doesn't preempt? It doesn't
preempt the Constitution. This is a Fourth Amendment issue.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let me make a suggestion, because
I think this will be consistent with what a couple commissioners have
said.
I'd like an analysis from our County Attorney as to what other
communities -- we have the Florida League of Cities, so that may be
an easy source of information. Take a look at their complaint,
perhaps talk to their legal department, a nd get a sense of what our
authorities would be going forward, and perhaps give us a report at
our next meeting. Not a public hearing. I don't think it's a good idea
to have a public meeting on this issue until we know whether or not
there's anything we could do, because this is the type of issue that
could generate a lot of interest, and I don't want to disappoint a whole
lot of people by having them come to a meeting to talk about this
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when our County Attorney may very well tell us that there's nothing
we can do. I think that's the first step.
Let's see if there's -- I think there's a consensus -- seems to be a
consensus that we don't want to just let this issue go away, but we
also, I think, need to understand what, if anything, we can do.
And I think we have some examples that you've mentioned, and
perhaps, Mr. Boatman, you can provide information to our County
Attorney, help him get that started, because we're not giving him a
long time frame here to come back with a report on what we could
consider.
And, Mr. Klatzkow, our next meeting is in about three weeks. Is
that enough time, or would you want that to be the second meeting in
June?
MR. KLATZKOW: No, that's sufficient time. I've already done
the research to give you the answer that I gave you now. It's just a
question of putting it into writing now.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Well, I understand, but I do want
you to check --
MR. KLATZKOW: We'll get a full --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- with the Florida League of
Cities, because they're taking some action and they generally do a
pretty good job, so they've got to have some basis for that.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And they're not -- they're not
acting independently from the cities.
MR. KLATZKOW: Let's not make any assumptions as to
what's going on. I'll give you a full report.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Any other comments from
the Commission?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And the thought was -- and
I'm all for a report, and if we are handcuffed already, then fine. But
the public hearing aspect of it I can understand it, but we're
May 26, 2020
Page 19
actually -- we're actually doing virtual interface with folks now, are
we not? So, I mean, if you wanted to go the public --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I just think that we have to have a
bit of an understanding of whether or not there's anything we could
do.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You know, it's a fine step to
do that, and then we can make a decision on our --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That's not to suggest that we would
do anything, but, you know, just if the two of you could work
together a little bit on that and come back in a couple weeks.
MR. BOATMAN: If I could -- one more thing. What it's going
to come down to is a lawsuit by the county that attacks the
fundamental decision by either legislature or the feds that 5G rollout
is consistent with the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens.
That's a constitutional issue that has to do with federalism. This is
the kind of case that could well matriculate up to the Supreme Court
of the United States. But if we're just going to point at the work done
by the lobbyists, I can already tell you that the determination that's
going to be made. This is going to take battle lines. But that's why I
think while we're discussing what options the county has, why not
begin the public policy questions? Because if you came to the
determination --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Boatman?
MR. BOATMAN: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We've gone a whole lot further
than we normally do.
MR. BOATMAN: Yes, sir. I appreciate that.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And we've asked, I think, the
County Attorney to help us along on this. I would certainly not
support even the thought of filing a lawsuit that may go to the United
States Supreme Court until I understand that we have some basis for
May 26, 2020
Page 20
doing something. So that's where we are as far as I'm concerned, and
I think the Board tends to agree with that.
Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah. I would just also be
interested in what the Florida Association of Counties' position is as
well. I mean, I think those are two good organizations, and we're a
member of one, and I'd like to know what theirs is as well.
MR. KLATZKOW: The issue that's been litigated primarily is
the amount of money. As you know, they've been throwing the
devices in our right-of-way, on our poles, and the dispute that the
Florida Association of Counties have had is actually with the
compensation issue more than anything else.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That's what I had understood as
well.
All right. Let's move on. Thank you, Mr. Boatman.
MR. BOATMAN: I really appreciate it.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Let me ask -- we have several
people in the audience -- are there any particular items where
members of the public are particularly concerned about? Because we
can jump around here a little bit to accommodate.
MR. MILLER: I have one registered public speaker here
present for Item 14B1, and then remotely, although I don't think
they're on the line yet because the items have not come up yet. I have
one for 11H, and one also, I do believe, here for 14 -- for 14B1, so --
but I don't think they're on the line yet, sir.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Any problem with
jumping over to 14B1 to accommodate the speaker and then --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No. I'm just having a little
technical difficulty down here.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Is that okay, Mr. Ochs?
MR. OCHS: I don't know if we have --
May 26, 2020
Page 21
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Let's just go straight
through the agenda for the time being, then.
MR. OCHS: Thank you.
Item #11A
AN AGREEMENT WITH THE FLORIDA GULF COAST
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR
PROGRAMMATIC SUPPORT TO THE COLLIER COUNTY
ACCELERATOR PROJECT, IN THE ANNUAL AMOUNT OF
$377,651.29 AND AUTHORIZE THE NECESSARY BUDGET
AMENDMENTS - MOTION TO APPROVE W/CHANGES –
APPROVED
MR. OCHS: You're moving to Item 11A, and this is a
recommendation to enter into an agreement with Florida Gulf Coast
University and their School of Entrepreneurship for operation of the
Collier County Business Accelerator Program.
Mr. Callahan will begin the presentation.
MR. CALLAHAN: Good morning, Commissioners. For the
record, Sean Callahan, Executive Director of Corporate Business
Operations.
As the manager mentioned, we are here to discuss FGCU's
involvement with Naples Accelerator. We do have a couple of
faculty members from the university as well as the president of the
university that would like to speak on the item.
So I'll move briefly through just a refresher to how we got to
where we are today. Then we can move through that and take any
questions either along the way or at the end of the presentation.
Pleasure of the Board, so...
Just very briefly, a reminder. You guys -- the Board established
May 26, 2020
Page 22
the accelerator program back in 2014. There are two different
iterations of the accelerator. The Naples Accelerator here, which is
focused more on business, technology, those sort of resources, and
then the culinary accelerator out in Immokalee, which is focused on
the food industry.
The agreement with FGCU today will primarily address the
Naples Accelerator, so that's where we'll talk about. So the Naples
Accelerator was funded by a combination of county funds and grants
from the state. We entered into an agreement with Economic
Incubators, Incorporated, EII, and they were the contract operator
from 2014 to 2019.
In April of last year, the Board gave direction to staff to initiate
two separate things. One, to separate the relationship of the
accelerator program from EII and, two, to pursue an agreement with
FGCU to operate the accelerator moving forward.
We then ended the relationship after some different negotiation
with EII in July of 2019, last year. And since then, we've largely,
particular to the Naples Accelerator, though, the same in Immokalee,
we took it over with county staff by integrating some of the staff that
they had there.
The Naples Accelerator, we purposed some of internal staff
from the Office of Business and Economic Development, and they've
largely been re-purposed to take over a limited scope of operations
over there.
So there's no programmatic aspects that are currently occurring
at the Naples Accelerator, but we have made a lot of progress in some
of the different business operations over there.
So we've worked with the Clerk's Office to clean up the different
payments that were coming in from the vendors. We certainly
appreciate their help with that, and the financial operations have been
assumed by an internal finance and operations group that we have
May 26, 2020
Page 23
here at the county to process those different payments where there
were issues before.
In January of this year we initiated a compliance scope of work
between our internal staff, IT, Risk Management, and our Internal
Controls Division to clean up some of the different fragmented
vendor relationships that -- we had the IT network over there that was
a little bit fragmented -- and come up with some ways that we could
reduce costs and re-purpose staff, which has helped us along the way
to line up the Naples Accelerator for takeover from another contract
vendor perspective.
Just very quickly with budget considerations, I would remind
you that particularly with the Naples Accelerator, in the last full year
of operations from EII, which was Fiscal Year '18, you can see the
program costs ran about $719,000 for the accelerator. Under our
limited scope of which I'll remind you that I pointed out we aren't
really runner any programmatic aspects of the accelerator over there
as much as they're intended. We're running at about $450,000 a year,
and with the added scope of work that FGCU will tell you a little bit
about, our reduction in costs, our re-purposement of different staff,
we think we could add that program and keep the cost of the Naples
Accelerator under about $600,000 for the fiscal year when you look
at the budget.
So just very briefly -- and I don't want to steal FGCU's thunder,
but some of the strengths from a staff perspective of where we see
this agreement, you have a public university that will be conducting
oversight of the programmatic functions of the accelerator. We'll
have access to the full faculty at FGCU.
There's partnership opportunities. So I know other entities and
other folks in the community have expressed an interest in some
aspect of the accelerator. There's no reason to say that with FGCU
on board we couldn't pursue some other partnership opportunities
May 26, 2020
Page 24
with those.
The vetting of participants will be done up front by a committee
that's established by FGCU. Then there will be a time-delineated
structured program. So you'll get participants in, ve tted up front, and
out the door hopefully starting businesses here in Collier County with
a structured program that gets them along the way.
So with that, I'm going to turn it over to President Martin here
from FGCU who's going to address the Commission, and then he will
introduce Dr. Sandra Kauanui who will tell you a little bit about how
FGCU would run this proposed program moving forward.
Dr. Martin.
DR. MARTIN: Well, thank you, Commissioners. Thank you,
Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and, for the
larger university, endorse what I think is going to be a marvelous
partnership that fits our mission.
Just so you know, and I think you do know, FGCU is referred to
as a regional comprehensive institution, and we take that seriously.
Comprehensive in the sense that we teach at the undergraduate and
graduate level, we do research and discovery, and we connect to our
community, and that's our outreach commitment.
And we're regional because we are designated to clearly serve
the five counties of Southwest Florida. And part of our strategic
plan, which was approved by our board and then the state board
about two years ago, commits us, as we should be committed, to
building these kinds of partnerships with the communities we serve
and the people we serve.
I will tell you just on a personal note, as you may know, much of
Florida higher education is governed by performance metrics. There
are 10 that we have to perform up against for our funding and a
variety of other areas, and we certainly do, but there's one important
metric that I hold in mind every day I go to work, and that's this one.
May 26, 2020
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I want to arrive at the time when every citizen of Southwest Florida
has a reason to be glad that FGCU is here, and we're working on that
every day. And this is an opportunity to do that, to build a
relationship with this community and this county and the citizens
here that help us all advance the economy and the society and the
well-being of the people of Collier County and beyond.
And I think, as some of you know, I spent much of my career as
an economist. I think most economists would reject me now as part
of the club. I've been away too long. I crossed over to the dark side
and became an administrator. But, nonetheless, falling back on my
old time as an economist in several states, I don't think there's ever
been a time that's been more important than this. We are going
through what I think will be a fairly significant economic
transformation nationally -- globally, nationally, certainly in Florida,
and unquestionably in Southwest Florida.
And this is an opportunity as well as a challenge for us to take
on a very important point in time to not only help restore a robust
economy to Southwest Florida, but to do so in a way that will create
greater diversification of this economy over time so that waves of the
kind we've had, whether it's been water issues, red tide and
blue/green algae, whether it's been a hurricane, which I've managed
to manage my way through to date, and now a pandemic, which is all
new to all of us.
If we can find ways to be more resilient economically, we'll all
be better off. So that's what we're committed to in this partnership.
I'm going to introduce Dr. Kauanui in just a moment. But I do want
to thank Mr. Callahan, Mr. Ochs, Commissioner Taylor in particular,
because we've had a number of conversations about this. Our team
on our end, Dr. Mike Rollo, Dr. Aysegul Timur and, of course, Sandy
Kauanui who I'm -- in just a moment.
But I do want you to know that this is a venture that will be led
May 26, 2020
Page 26
by our entrepreneurship institute, and in a very short period of time.
This is not an old piece of FGCU. We've gone from a startup as an
entrepreneurship institute to what Princeton Review rated the number
one entrepreneurship program in Florida and one of the best in the
world, and that's been happening very quickly.
So we bring a lot of energy, and I think we bring a lot of success
already to this partnership. But that's what it is. It's a collaboration.
We look forward to it blossoming into more than we start, because I
think there are many opportunities for us to go beyond where we are.
But this is a great start for us to continue to be a comprehensive
regional university and service to the people of this community and
beyond. And if we do it well, it will be a model for others.
And, Mr. Chairman, you want to --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yeah. I wanted to ask a question.
Any questions for Dr. Martin before we go to the --
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I had one question for you to think
about, and I'm sure you have. Are there other -- if we go forward
with this, looking into the future, are there other funding
opportunities so that we can wean that off of county -- off the county
taxpayers? So that's just something for you to ponder. But I would
like an answer before you-all are finished today.
DR. MARTIN: Mr. Chairman, I think you and I have had this
conversation in the past. We're always looking for other funding
opportunities, believe me. But I do believe that to be so. I think this
is a wave, a great wave of the future of what universities do, what
communities do, and particularly what we can do in the whole broad
category of entrepreneurship.
So I do believe there are chances for us to find both
private/public partnerships as well as public/public partnerships,
foundation support and a variety of other things. And already we've
May 26, 2020
Page 27
seen some of that entrepreneurship within our entrepreneurship
institute take off.
The other thing I think we can do over time is as the
entrepreneurship program at FGCU continues to grow, I think it will
bring new products and new businesses to this region, and I think that
will be a way for that -- those new businesses to support what helped
get them there. So I believe you're exactly right.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: More of a -- just a statement than a
question. But thank you for being here and for engaging in this. I
mean, this is -- I was just going to echo what you said. I mean, this is
a time for innovation, right? It's really being forced on us. And so I
think that this is an opportunity for the county to continue its mission
to diversify our economy but also, with the university's help, to really
be innovative in how businesses are going to do business in the future
in light of this pandemic. I mean, this is, I think, one of the most
exciting things that I think has come across the desk here since I've
been on the Commission. I think this is fantastic. So thank you for
spending all the time and effort that's gone into this.
DR. MARTIN: Thank you very much. We've got a great team
on both ends of this, and that's why I have nothing but optimism
about where this can take us.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Great. Thanks.
DR. MARTIN: Now let me introduce the founding director of
our entrepreneurship program. Dr. Kauanui has taken an idea and
turned it into an enormous program at FGCU. Just so you know, our
major in entrepreneurship is the fastest growing major on the campus
because it really has attracted the attention of young people who want
to go out and make a difference every day where it makes a
difference.
And so I'm going to let Sandy give you an overview of what we
May 26, 2020
Page 28
have in mind. But I do want you to know that this is one o f the forces
of nature on our campus, Dr. Kauanui is. And so I always try to get
out of the way when she arrives, and that's what I'm going to do right
now.
So, Sandy, I'll give it to you, thanks.
DR. KAUANUI: Thank you very much.
I guess being an entrepreneur since I was a kid has helped a little
bit. But I have a mentor that has given me a quote that I'd like to -- a
mentor and one of our donors and one of the people that have
supported the School of Entrepreneurship. And his comment -- he's
101 years old, probably watching right now -- results are obtained by
exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems. Innovation is
shaping -- will shape society after this pandemic is done, and it is up
to us to see if we can't be part of that. So I think we have a great
opportunity moving forward.
I just want to give you a little bit of background on what we
have done in the last few years and where we are, where we're going.
We -- as Dr. Martin said, we ranked No. 30 in the country in
Princeton Review for entrepreneurship. When I told somebody a
couple years ago that was my goal, they looked at me like I was crazy
because we were barely even starting the program at that time.
But the thing that is it most important to me is why we were ranked.
We were ranked because our students are doing so well, because
they've graduated, they've started businesses, and they've been
successful, not because we published a journal article, and that is
very, very important to me.
Since fall of 2018, in the last two years we have 319 businesses
that have started, 459 full-time employees, and they have generated
gross revenue of 13.3 million in gross revenue. That, to me, is what
has made us successful. And those -- those data points will be -- are
being checked right now for this year's -- for us to turn in for this
May 26, 2020
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year.
But we're very proud of what our students have done and how
well they're doing. And we're keeping them in Southwest Florida;
that's another very important thing.
We have experienced faculty that work with us. Most of our
faculty have been entrepreneurs. I was an entrepreneur for over 20
years, sold my business successfully, did very well, and I thought,
well, what am I going to do during retirement? Ah, I think I'll go get
a Ph.D. and teach, and that's what I thought I was going to do.
I actually thought I was going to come here when I came out of
California, and I was going to be here a couple years, and then I was
going to retire. That didn't work either. But this is -- this is what
entrepreneurs do. They create things. So I'm excited because I'm
creating something.
We have been extremely successful with our Runway program
with our students with them starting businesses. We started that
program -- and this is why I feel obligated to do what we're getting
ready to do. I feel obligated to do this because if we hadn't gotten
$250,000 as a partner with Naples Accelerator several years ago, we
wouldn't have what we have today. That was the first money we had
ever been given to do anything for entrepreneurship, and this is what
we've created out of it.
So this is what I want to see happen in Naples Accelerator. I
want to see the same success that we've had with our
entrepreneurship program and with our incubator that we started, our
Runway program. And we also have the Veterans Entrepreneurship
Program and that is -- that has grown astronomically as well. And we
are -- right now I think the last numbers I saw, the Veterans
Entrepreneurship program -- Veterans Florida's Entrepreneurship
Program, has generated $26 million in gross revenue, their veterans,
and we represent 60 percent of it. So I'm pretty proud of that one,
May 26, 2020
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too. We currently just started a growth program for our veterans
program.
So our goal is to accelerate the success of early-stage
companies, and this is how we hope to do that. We're going to begin
by -- with Naples Accelerator to go through and market and promote,
along with Naples Accelerator, to bring in people who are potential
entrepreneurs that have an idea and they want to take it to market,
number one, and also entrepreneurs who already have a current
business but want to grow that business. I think both are our target
market.
We will then interview them, they will pitch to be able to be
allowed into the program, and we will then determine which ones of
those people should start in our cohort. Our cohort will go on for six
months. During that period, we will do an initial assessment of what
their needs are. We will -- we will then choose and select faculty that
can bring the value added that they need to help them move forward,
and we will have one-on-one training with our -- with the
entrepreneurs as well as group training.
So I think it will be a combination. We need to have them be --
an entrepreneur needs to be able to sit down and talk specifically
about what their needs. We also want to do training, group training.
We will have -- now that everybody's comfortable with this --
probably if I'd said this to you six months ago you'd have said, ah, I
don't know about that. We're going to have virtual on-demand office
hours so that -- so that if an entrepreneur's in his office and he's
working on something and he needs some help, we don't want to --
and their person isn't there to talk to, we don't want them to sit back.
We want them to be able to get on a virtual access to the faculty and
have the discussion.
One of the things we want to do is to -- although we are bringing
in several people that we're going to hire, the goal is to make all of
May 26, 2020
Page 31
our faculty available, not just our faculty, but other faculty across the
campus, that we can bring in if that particular entrepreneur has a
problem in a specific area.
So if somebody's working on solar, then we'll find an engineer,
and we'll offer them a stipend to come in and help them. This is what
we want to be able to do is to bring the resources of FGCU from
across campus into the Naples Accelerator to help our entrepreneurs
grow.
At the end of six months, we will have -- I've talked Tim
Cartright into -- I think most of you know Tim. He runs the
Florida -- the Tamiami Fund and Venture Capital Fund. I have talked
him into helping me, and he will be putting together a pitch
competition -- not a competition, but a presentation for all of the
cohort at the end of the -- end of six months. And at that point we
will bring investors in and potential people who are looking to invest
not only from companies -- because there's several startup
companies, there's several venture capital companies around in the
area, as well as individuals who might want to invest in our
entrepreneurs' ideas.
We will have consistent reporting of program metrics. As you
see, I have numbers as to how we have done every month, every
semester, every year in all of the things that we do. We're going to
do the same thing for this program. We want to have data. We want
to have metrics so we can prove that this is being successful;
otherwise, it's not worth it for you, and it's not worth it for us.
This is just -- I'm not going to go through all the details of this,
but this is -- this is an accelerator program, and it goes through a
process of all the different areas between orientation through equity
and funding and a showcase at the end which allows the entrepreneur
to showcase their -- what they want to do, what their needs are, and
what they're willing to give out in equity for some investment money.
May 26, 2020
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This is what we're going to take them through; however, even
though this is a staged thing, we will be looking at where they are
when they come into the program and what their needs are. So for
some it's going to be right from the beginning and it's going to be an
orientation, and they have to come up with their validation. For
others they're halfway through the program. They can -- they need --
but they need a lot more work in the middle of it. So this is
something that we're going to be flexible with.
So we will have this -- we will be doing this at Naples
Accelerator. We will also, again, have virtual office hours, ways for
them to meet. We have some technology right now that we have
taped a lot of examples of different things that you need to know how
to do. We're going to make that readily available as well.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Let's see if there are any
questions from the Commission. I don't see anybody's light lit up.
Does that conclude the presentation from the --
DR. KAUANUI: Any questions? I've got --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: At this point there are none.
DR. KAUANUI: There are none.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Don't leave.
DR. KAUANUI: Okay. Do you want me to run away?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I do have a --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I do have a quick comment.
And, Dr. K, it's good to see you again. I think it was a couple years
ago you and I had that discussion about investments in the accelerator
program when I came up. Did you find her a better spot, Dr. Martin?
Because it was tough to find her when I was up there a couple of
years ago.
DR. KAUANUI: Hey, we're getting to break ground on a new
building. We have donors that have provided us the funds for this.
May 26, 2020
Page 33
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well -- and I just want to say
thank you for coming here. And I'm looking forward to watching this
partnership and its progress. You know from our previous
conversations I'm very data driven, and it's a requisite for us, and I
think expressed by our chairman earlier with regard to the funding
aspects, as to how, in fact, this program goes forward.
So, I'm -- I am personally looking forward to this partnership
and this relationship.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Ochs, anything further on the
presentation? I know the Clerk has some issues that she has raised,
and I want to get into some of the contract questions. I don't know if
this is the right time or if there's some more that you're going to
present.
MR. OCHS: We don't have anything else to present, sir.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Ms. Kinzel, if you could
come on up, that might be the easiest thing.
DR. KAUANUI: Do you want me to stay or go?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Let it be noted that the Clerk's
not following the arrows.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yeah. Go ahead and have a seat,
and we'll...
THE CLERK: Hello, Commissioners. Good morning. Thank
you for the opportunity to speak.
I had the opportunity to speak with most of you. I apologize,
Commissioner Fiala, Friday -- because we moved the one-on-ones
back to Friday, we had an urgent meeting with the Chief Judge
regarding the court functions, so you and I weren't able to spend time
that we usually do on agenda items. I apologize. So I hope this will
help give you a brief background.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: But you did, then, telephonically
talk to me all about it, so...
May 26, 2020
Page 34
THE CLERK: Yes. So, Commissioners, when we spoke, I tried
to bring up some of the concerns that I had. Obviously, not for the
program.
We're actually mentoring some Florida Gulf Coast students. We
work with them on their accounting programs. We like to build
strong accountants, the next generation of professionals here in
Collier.
I am all for economic improvements. I've lived here since '88,
and we've gone through a lot of changes in Collier County.
Obviously, one of the concerns I have is our prior history with
the prior manager of the accelerator. We went through about five
years and $6 million of -- and those were just the hard costs of
payroll, rent, spacing. The added staff time just for administration in
some of the issues that we encountered under that construct of
services or programs was very difficult for our agency.
And I want to start right here, right up front; we've had about
four meetings with staff. I want to thank Sean and these guys. They
have scrambled to get us information. We have tried to meet on a lot
of the contract issues because, obviously, as the Clerk of Courts and
Comptroller, one of our primary goals is to pay promptly and also be
able to audit.
We look for public purpose, and we look for the legality of the
payment. When you look at the contract that specifically is before
you, we found some things that give us concern on measurables,
deliverables. A lot of what they've given us today, they seem to be
data driven. We're going to work with them on those data elements.
But what we're kind of looking for are tangible goals. And what
I've passed out today -- Leo, I think you've seen these on the
deliverables, but --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Does Dr. Martin and --
THE CLERK: Oh, I did bring them some.
May 26, 2020
Page 35
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: If you could give those to the
FGCU folks.
THE CLERK: Some of the concerns that we have begin with
the deliverable measurements associated with payment requests. And
if you look on the executive summary, the initial cost was
377,000-plus to go to Florida Gulf Coast for some staffing, some
operating costs, and those types of things. In addition to that, you've
got the additional rent payments and things that are made directly by
the county for the facility.
So far we've paid over $800,000 in rent for the Naples
Accelerator. And I know that when we terminated the agreement last
year, there was a lot of discussion on, could there be some
consolidations of space? How could we save some money in those
areas?
We have, and over the last year, we've still got about 440-some
thousand that was paid over the last year since we terminated EII.
And I'm probably speaking very quickly for Terri. I just realized. I'll
slow down a little bit.
I didn't want to belabor issues with you, but -- so we're
concerned about the rent and looking for another facility. I know that
staff has been looking. They haven't been successful, according --
yet in finding a different location. But, obviously, the expenditure of
those funds concerns us.
This is up now to about 594,000 for the Naples Accelerator.
That's about where you were with EII for both accelerators. So this
will actually be a little bit more.
And if you look at the deliverables -- and I've given you an
outline, so I won't read it aloud to you. But some of the things that
we see, for example, on the staff, the staff -- there aren't any tangible
deliverable results. They've discussed, oh, they'll have these
attendees at the program, they'll do virtual classes, but we don't even
May 26, 2020
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have an idea of how many attendees or participants they're looking at.
In some of the literature it said that they wanted to increase, I think,
about 30 percent to their program data. So I think we're missing
some data that we might be able to organize properly to show
deliverable results.
One of the measures was 35 percent of the enrollees would
graduate. Well, if you have two people and one graduates, that's
50 percent. So what's the total goal of actual results for the dollars
that you're being asked to spend or contribute to the program? So
that would be a number one.
On number two, monthly reporting. And I don't want to bring
up bad memories but, for example, EII produced a lot of reports.
They all said they weren't accomplishing anything, and we had great
difficulty: What, then, is the public purpose of the payment we're
making? Because they could not defend the businesses that were
created, and they were a little hesitant on how high paying were those
jobs, tracking jobs.
Now, I know the university, data driven, they've probably got a
lot more information than where we have experienced in the past, but
it's not articulated in your actual contract.
The quarterly program review. There are some things on here
that would work out, events held, number of companies, startup funds
raised as part of their reporting, but there are not any goals defined in
your contract. What's your expectation for the money that you're
paying?
If they send a report every month that says zero, zero, zero, we
didn't do this, do I still pay them? And those are some of the pitfalls
that we encountered with EII when we weren't able to, you know, to
validate jobs and programs. So we're a little concerned about that.
An annual plan. This schedule and the deliverables is indicating that
you won't even have an annual plan for this program until af ter
May 26, 2020
Page 37
October. I think they follow the state budget cycle. We're obviously
on a little bit different budget cycle. So we -- we're kind of interested
in that. Normally you would incorporate the plan in your contract so
that you would know what it was that you're actually funding. And
so we would like to see some more tangible items. And I think
maybe you have that in the way of reports since this is an ongoing
program that they're extending into Collier.
And committee appointments. As a deliverable, appointing the
committee -- and I understand from today's presentation that's to
interview the applicants and accept applicants. But how many? How
many meetings? How many committees? There's nothing tangible.
Just creating the committee doesn't really provide you or the
taxpayers a result for the money that they're spending.
So I wanted to get with you. And as I said, we've been about
four meetings with staff already. I gladly met -- I know some of the
people from Florida Gulf Coast. I met a couple more people today. I
would like to get with them, do a little more refining of what we
would be given in order to make a valid payment and shore up the
contract for you.
So with that, if you have any questions. I wanted to get in here
at the very beginning of this one, because we do want it to be right. I
want to be able to cut a check right away, and I want to be able to
prove to the taxpayers what they're getting, so...
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have several questions or
comments.
Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. I'm going to go slow.
THE CLERK: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Is the existing contract that is
before us fulfillable for you to legally pay if they support the
documents that they've provided within this, yes or no?
May 26, 2020
Page 38
THE CLERK: No from a public-purpose standpoint. And let
me articulate why. In other words, they have defined that they will
give us these six reports, okay. So if they give me six reports that say
zero, I did nothing, is the expectation I would pay?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I understand where you're
going.
THE CLERK: Right.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: But you are -- and what I want
to do is -- so we don't go down another rabbit hole that we went down
before, you are not the policymaker with regard to the expe nditure of
these funds. It is this board, as far as I understand. Somebody
correct me if I'm wrong.
And I don't want the Clerk's Office to be making determinations
about the validity of the expenditures. It is this board's decision
today whether or not to enter into this contract, one; two, whether or
not to expend these taxpayers' funds and then determine the data that
comes back from this organization with regard to the validity of this.
I'm well aware of the history that transpired here.
My question to you was -- because what I heard from you with
regard to these contractual issues, were more conjecture with regard
to the goals of the program as opposed -- because I believe it's this
board -- it should be this board's choice as to whether or not we
continue with this program or not, and that was why I asked that first
question with regard to the legality and capacity for you to pay under
the terms and conditions of the contract that we have today.
Then going forward, knowing that we -- if we get all zeros back
on these reports, how long do you think it is we're going to continue
to stay with this program? Not very long. I can share with that you
personally. And I would rather us not have -- and so I would rather
us, the Board, be the determining factor as to whether or not we want
to continue with this program. If we put -- and I don't want it to be
May 26, 2020
Page 39
an open-ended adventure.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: But if we put too many --
wish list is a better way to say it maybe. How many -- how many
zeros are acceptable? It's up to this board to make that determination
as to whether or not we want to go forward with this -- with this as an
expenditure of our taxpayers' money.
THE CLERK: Okay. Well -- and let me answer a couple of
your questions.
You're absolutely right, the Board of County Commissioners
makes the policy regarding the program, but my role as Clerk is to
also make sure that there's a valid public purpose being served by the
expenditures. And when you have a contract that really doesn't
define what it is you're getting in return, I think that most people --
and you said that you really want goals. When you ask how long
would we accept reports with zeros, well, we did five years with EII
without evidence of their success.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's not the --
THE CLERK: And I know that, but I'm trying to stop that path
right now.
So you do the policy, but the Clerk does have a very specific
role of auditing to what you're putting together and also making sure
it serves a valid public purpose. And that's where I want to be on the
same page with you. I want to be on the same page with Florida Gulf
Coast so that we don't have any ambiguities.
I don't want to get a pay request and I say, they did nothing this
month. I don't want that to be my role. I want it to be constructive
up front.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: As do we. And I don't want
us to continually commingle what's transpired in the past with what's,
in fact, going to go forward. I think I've heard here today that now is
May 26, 2020
Page 40
the time for us to be as innovative as is, in fact, possible. The
circumstances are today none like we have ever seen before. And
you know me; you and I have had some very nice conversations
about what's transpired with the accelerator program, whether the
government should be involved or not at all, not-for-profits, private
entities. We've -- is the contract legally payable?
THE CLERK: I'm struggling. That's why I'm before you. No,
that's my fear and concern. When the deliverable was just to prepare
a report without a definable result of the reports or numbers of people
that you expect or any measurable item, that's concerning to me as to
whether I'd be able to make a legal payment, exactly.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. So why don't we just base
this whole contract on FGCU data, which will vary from month to
month, and you can just compare it back to their data? What's wrong
with that?
THE CLERK: Well, because your contract doesn't outline what
is the -- first of all, I have no idea what data they've collected. I have
no idea -- and I want to work with them to discover that. But he is
exactly right on that type of policy. This board should define what it
is you expect to see for the expenditure of this money within this
contract. What do you define as success?
There's nothing in this existing contract that says it's a pass
performance. It requires you to provide people that will be there to
teach. And even in college classes -- and this is where I might have
an advantage if I get together with Florida Gulf Coast. For example,
if you sign up for -- you know, the professor's going to have a class.
If two people sign up, they don't usually -- they usually cancel those
classes, and you have to go sign up for something different. We have
no measurement or result or heading in this agreement as it's written
right now.
May 26, 2020
Page 41
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We do have a termination
provision that we're going to talk about, and if we get reports with
zeros in them, that's where we're ultimately going to be, from my
view. But I interrupted. Commissioner Taylor, are you complete?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: May I say this?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Wait your turn, Mr. Chair.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes, I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I had to, because you're always
telling me to do that.
With all due respect -- and I understand that you feel -- you're
very concerned about this in your experience with EII, and I
understand that. But I think my colleague to my left is right, the past
is the past.
We are -- one of the major recommendations coming out of the
huge effort, what is it, 2011, 2013, 2014, for economic development
is entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is not your drugstore kind of
effort. Entrepreneurship is about creativity. Entrepreneurship is
about people having ideas and being nurtured.
This is critically important. You cannot compare it to bacon and
eggs, because it's not.
So you have an institution. And why is it successful? Because
FGCU is sitting here. That's why. They wouldn't do this. What are
they going to do? They need -- they need $300,000? Oh, please.
Come on. They don't need that. They're doing it because there's an
opportunity now. There are people here that want this.
And if they go forward, and if we go forward with this, we will
be watching as they will be watching. But this is not -- this is -- you
can't compare it to EII. I want that in the past.
THE CLERK: Okay.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I know too much about EII. It
May 26, 2020
Page 42
was not -- it's a horse of a different color. This is an opportunity
based on economic development within our county to bring a
program to here on -- well, on, what is it, Pine Ridge, and to develop
ideas, which is critical.
THE CLERK: And, Commissioner Taylor, I thoroughly
understand that. And with all due respect, in return, everything that
they have sat here and outlined for you as part of this program was
the exact -- the exact concept that we heard from EII. They were
bringing in businesses to consult. They were going to have --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: There you go again. There you
go again.
THE CLERK: But you say it has to be new and innovative, and
I'm saying I'm seeing exactly where we went down with EII that
created the problems in the constructs of the programs. They wanted
to be innovative. They brought in people from industry. They held
the classes. I've actually gone to the classes at EII for businesses and
branding. So I think it was innovative, and I've read all their white
papers, and I went through that history for five years.
So I think in credit to the original EII concept, it was very
similar. It was innovative, and it was to bring in new businesses, and
it was to encourage businesses. It gave them a landing place, and
then they were going to be fostered to create their own businesses,
which this is starting at a little bit different level with a college
graduate from one of their other feeder programs but similarly
situated on what you're trying to create, which is, I think, economic
development in Collier County.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So my question to you is, if we
approve this as it's written based on FGCU data and include that in
Deliverable 2, Deliverable 3, Deliverable 4 -- no, not Deliverable 4.
In the committee, we can make that. If we approve that, are you
going to pay?
May 26, 2020
Page 43
THE CLERK: First of all, I can't commit to pay until I see
what's billed in the invoice and what your contract ends up.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No, no, no, no. You --
THE CLERK: I am here because I want to pay for the program
that you want implemented. That's always our goal, okay? I am
willing to work directly with FGCU to get maybe some tangibles that
are associated with the deliverables as they're defined, and I'll be glad
to move forward with that.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a couple other
commissioners with questions. Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I had a couple of questions.
First of all, go back to us, Collier County, and what do we do best?
We run government. That's what we do, and that's what we do best.
We don't run school systems, and we don't run programs training
other students. And so -- and we've done very poorly, to say the
least.
Now, maybe associated with FGCU, it would have a much
better -- and it makes me feel better, because we have now an
educator doing the educating rather than us trying to do that.
Now, I think our major role in this whole thing is, they want our
money. They want our money to help them train students, but not
just for Collier County residents, for everybody. So is that what we
want to do? I don't -- I think there are ways that are cost savings
along the way here, being that we're just -- you know, we're
encouraging them to create entrepreneurs, but th ey could mostly be
out of Lee County.
If we want advance the money to FGCU in order to get that job
done, fine. Do we want to keep a location here in Collier County?
That's another big expense. We've got a lot of expenses here to get
into a business that we weren't set up to do. We're set up to do
government. And that's -- those are the biggest things I have to say.
May 26, 2020
Page 44
There's -- I've got way too many notes to read all of them, but that's --
that's my point.
We've never been successful at this. I think FGCU will be. And
I wonder, like, for instance, they want to train entrepreneurs. I
remember one of the classes was they had a farming class, and the
guy from Yugoslavia was learning how to farm so he can go back to
Yugoslavia and teach them. Now, how did that benefit us at all? It
didn't.
But, anyway, I don't know if we want to just give money just to
Collier County residents. I don't think so, because FGCU brings all
of them in. I don't know, as these people graduate from ever, will
they ever come back to us? That's another thing. They might just be
staying in other communities.
So those are things I'm concerned with. It's a lot of money, and
we've wasted millions already. So I'm just very concerned about the
dollars. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I'm going to echo what
Commissioner McDaniel and Commissioner Taylor have very
eloquently said and the points they've made. And I take umbrage
with the statement that we have wasted money, because I don't think
we've wasted money.
We are here to help the residents of Collier County. Now more
than ever we need to do what we can to help our economy and our
businesses and grow the county and put people back to work, okay.
To associate and compare Florida Gulf Coast University to an entity
that was created out of volunteers is totally inappropriate and, I think,
fabricated.
FGCU, as we heard, has ranked No. 30 in the country. They are
successful. So we are not going out on a limb and associating
ourselves with an entity that doesn't have a track record. They are a
May 26, 2020
Page 45
top entrepreneurial program in the entire country. And to imply that
we are doing the same thing we did before, I think, is totally
inappropriate.
I think the question that's been posed several times is the right
question. Will you pay these -- pay the pay applications on this
contract? We need to help our residents start businesses, be
innovative in this world that we're in now. This is the way to do it.
There's no better entity around to do this with.
Whether or not we think one or two students is enough is a
policy decision for us to make, not you. And, I mean, I'm just beside
myself. We are in an economic meltdown, and we're talking about
whether or not FGCU's going to provide us reports with zeros in it.
That is just -- that is just -- that's -- I don't even want to discuss that. I
mean, that is just ridiculous.
THE CLERK: In fairness, that is not what I said.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: That is what you said.
THE CLERK: I said, I'm looking at the construct of your
contract. I have repeatedly said that I totally appreciate Florida Gulf
Coast. We work with their mentorships, okay. But you also have a
lot of businesses in this town right now that were successful that did
make headway, and they're hurting, too.
So, you know, I appreciate all of those businesses within our
county. This is not to detract from helping the businesses of the
county. It is so that I can make a proper legal payment up front with
a proper contract.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Let me just make one last point. I
mean, there -- there are termination policies both way -- or provisions
in the contract. If we don't think that the value is there, we have the
ability to terminate the contract. That is --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Vice versa.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And vice versa, and that is a policy
May 26, 2020
Page 46
decision for us to make alone. And to -- we need to do this. We need
to help diversify the economy. I was on the study that was done back
in, I think, 2011 with the partnership for, right, Naples Economic
Future.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Opportunity Naples.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Opportunity Naples it was called
eventually, right, you know. And we spent months coming up with a
plan that this is part of, and our residents need this. We need to
develop the economy and diversify the economy. We need to help
people be innovative and start innovative businesses because of the
world that we're in. We need to do this.
And, you know, concerns over whether or not we're somehow
going to be dealing with an entity that doesn't have a track record, it's
just -- I think it's just a totally inappropriate thing to even have in this
conversation, because FGCU has an incredible track record on
entrepreneurship, starting this program, a nd now being recognized
nationally as one of the top programs. What are we worried about?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I have a -- this is not for
Ms. Kinzel. I do have a couple questions for Sean and perhaps for
FGCU. There are a couple contract terms I'd like to discuss with you.
One gives the manager the ability to extend the agreement. I
don't think that should in there. I think that any extension of this
agreement has to be -- has to be by the Board. I'm not exactly sure
where that is. I think it's right up at the beginning of the agreement.
It says, the County Manager may, at his discretion, extend the
agreement under all terms and conditions contained in the agreement
for up to 180 days. That's what we're here for. So I'd like to consider
having that provision deleted. I don't know if that's going to create a
problem, but it shouldn't.
And in reference to the Paragraph 8 on the termination, either
party can terminate this. We can terminate this if we're not satisfied.
May 26, 2020
Page 47
Obviously, if we get reports -- and I'll use the Clerk's terminology --
you know, if they're all zeros, we're not going to be satisfied, and
we're going to want to terminate the agreement. I don't anticipate that
happening. I know it won't happen. But theoretically it could.
Now, there's a termination for cause. I'm sorry. That's an
automatic. We can terminate for cause. If we wanted to terminate
for convenience, there's 180 days notice, and I think that number
should be shortened because, first of all, it's a one-year agreement
that will be renewed so, obviously, six months into that agreement is
most -- will be most of the agreement by the time we got to any kind
of discussion for termination for convenience.
I think it would look better for all parties concerned that if we're
not satisfied with the agreement with the information that we're
getting, the progress of this, and we want to terminate, it certainly
would be better to terminate for convenience than it would be for
cause. I think that just would look better for everybody.
So I'd like to ask FGCU if they'd be willing to shorten that 180
days termination for convenience, shorten that to 90 days so that if
we are unhappy, we can give you some notice without having to say
we're terminating for cause.
Dr. Martin, would that be a problem?
DR. MARTIN: We'll take it back to our -- and we'd be
delighted to discuss that. We went through our --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'm sorry. You're going to have to
use the microphone. I'm sorry.
DR. MARTIN: We went through our legal office to get to this,
and I'd like to go back and confirm that with them, but we're certainly
open to a conversation.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I think the Board would like to --
my sense of this, the Board wants to approve this today.
DR. KAUANUI: If we can't be successful, I don't want to do it.
May 26, 2020
Page 48
DR. MARTIN: Well, yeah. And to be candid, this is a
partnership, right? We've got to -- at some point in a partnership we
trust one another.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's right.
DR. MARTIN: If you try to create a contract which --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All I'm trying --
DR. MARTIN: If there's never a possible contingency, you
don't have a partnership.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All I'm trying to do is reduce --
DR. MARTIN: So if you want 90 days, sorry -- I'm going to --
Sandy.
DR. KAUANUI: Yes, I'm okay with that.
DR. MARTIN: If you want to do 90 days, that's fine.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay.
DR. MARTIN: But I also want to make clear, you know, we're
doing this because we believe that together we can make a dif ference.
Can I tell you exactly what that difference is going to be today? Hell
no. Go down and ask Reinhold if he could have told you 10 years
ago where Arthrex would be. Of course we can't. But we do have a
commitment to some common goals, some common objectives, and
common values. And I -- we're committed to that. So if this will
make it easier --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I just think it would -- for me, it
makes it a little bit easier.
DR. KAUANUI: I do have something else. We started our
program with $250,000, right? Okay. We only brought in 30 kids
the first year. Eight of those finished, and those eight are a good
portion of the millions of dollars that are showing up on those
numbers.
So were we successful the first year? Absolutely. But those
eight businesses have done very well. Now, I am not going to take --
May 26, 2020
Page 49
the only -- the only students -- the only student we will take who have
started businesses already have to understand that when they get
through this program, they have to stay in Collier. So there is no
question that -- I'm not looking to bring people in and send them back
to Lee or anywhere else. They're going to stay in Collier, or they're
going to have to pay the back rent, and that's in the contract, okay.
So I am clear of what the goal and objective -- but short term,
it's going to take a while to build it. And so -- but I can tell you, the
first group that went through are some of my most successful
entrepreneurs today.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. Let me ask the Board
if -- I think everyone has kind of expressed their views on this. I
know everybody's lit up. I'm supportive of going forward with this
with those two contractual changes which I think are relatively
minor.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I would agree.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And I think it would be appropriate
at this point to have a motion concerning the agreement. I know
everybody is lit up.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'll make a motion.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just have a question.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Are you -- do you still have that
building downtown down on Fifth Avenue, the FGCU building? Is
that yours?
DR. MARTIN: That's not ours. It won't be our much longer.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Again, we'll need you to talk into
the microphone, if you would.
DR. MARTIN: No, we're looking for another location for the
Renaissance program.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right.
May 26, 2020
Page 50
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'd like to make a motion based
on the two provisions brought forward by our chairman that we
approve this contract and that we welcome FGCU and the School of
Entrepreneurship into Collier County.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Is there a second?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'll second.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a motion and a second.
Do we need any discussion on the motion?
Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Can I make a comment before
we vote?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Sure.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I mean, I'm certainly in
support of the motion, and I just want to -- where'd you go? You
were over there.
I just want to say this. This is -- and it's a note that I had from
the beginning. This is an investment into our community on a
long-term basis and a partnership relationship that didn't just start.
Dr. K, Dr. Timur, we met years -- well, Dr. Timur and I are friends
for far too long. So I want to thank you-all and I want you to know
that there is sincerity with regard to what we're looking to do.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And I will add that I appreciate
FGCU being here, Dr. Martin and Dr. K, I think was what your
nickname is there. I appreciate you being here. I think this will be --
you know, I've been kind of twisting back and forth on this. You
know, should we spend taxpayer dollars to do this? And I think
there's one comment that was made, and I'll make this comment, and
I've heard this before, that innovation is going to drive the economic
recovery from this pandemic that we're all experiencing. And I think
this program will generate innovation, and I'm confident that a good
portion of the people that participate in that program are going to be
May 26, 2020
Page 51
innovators who are going to stay right here in Collier County. So I
support the motion, and if there's no other discussion, I'll call --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: One more question.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So now if this is not working and
it's very clearly not working in one year, we can stop rather than it
continue on, right?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Both ways. Both ways. They
can fire us; we can fire them.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Absolutely. We can terminate this
for convenience with 90 days notice or for cause with no notice at all,
so yes. The ongoing relationship will depend on success, and I think
we're all confident that there will be success. Any other comments?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Just one thing, struggling with
the role of government in this pandemic and what we're doing. And,
if anything, our vote today gives hope, gives a future, gives tomorrow
to what we're facing, and that's invaluable.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well said.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. We have a motion and a
second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously.
I think we need a court reporter break.
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So we'll be back at, let's see, 10:45.
May 26, 2020
Page 52
Will that be sufficient? 10:45.
(A brief recess was had from 10:36 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll
please take your seats, we'll reconvene the meeting.
Mr. Ochs.
Item #11B
THIRD AMENDMENT TO PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
AGREEMENT #18-7404, COLLIER COUNTY SPORTS
COMPLEX MARKETING AND SUPPORT, TO SPORTS FIELDS,
INC., FOR MANAGEMENT, OPERATION, ADVERTISING AND
MARKETING OF THE PARADISE COAST SPORTS AND
SPECIAL EVENTS COMPLEX, AUTHORIZE THE CHAIRMAN
TO EXECUTE THE AMENDMENT, AND MAKE A FINDING
THAT THIS EXPENDITURE PROMOTES TOURISM –
APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
Now, that takes us to Item 11B. This is a recommendation to
approve a third amendment to the professional service agreement
between Collier County and Sports Field, Incorporated, for the
management, operation, advertising, and marketing of the Paradise
Coast Sports and Special Events Complex.
And Mr. Callahan will begin the presentation. Sean.
MR. CALLAHAN: Good morning, again, Commissioners. For
the record, Sean Callahan, Executive Director of Corporate Business
Operations.
I want to introduce a couple people in the audience. We have
Will Spence from the corporate office of Sports Force. We have Ms.
Amy Fouty who will be the general manager of the complex once it
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opens. We also have Marissa Fahey in the audience who will be,
from the county's side, our contract agent and manager on site at the
complex every day.
So to get them to work, we're bringing forward today the full
operating and management agreement for the Paradise Coast Sports
Complex. Point out just on the front, it's been very much a
partnership between county staff, our CDB staff, and Sports Force
Parks as well.
So I wanted to start off -- and when we took this to the TDC, we
talked about what we've heard from the TDC and some different
things that we've heard from board members about our sports
programs.
So a few observations. You know, people have asked for a
larger, more leveraged investment in sports development and
marketing; more accountability in post-event reporting. So
transparency and understanding what the different room nights and
return on investments; economic impacts, those types of things, for
the money that we invest in sports development; a better capture of
event revenue; and then an increased understanding of the marketing
demographics by which we try to attract people.
So I'll make a bold claim. By the end of this I hope that we
demonstrate how this contract structure will do that. We could
accomplish all of those things with our partner in SF, in Sports Force.
So just to put some things on the record, talk a little bit about
how we got here. The TDC and General Fund investment was made
in the development and construction of an amateur sports complex a
couple years ago. We plan to go forward with that. That plan's
evolved over time. We went from a municipal type to a
professionally developed sports and special events complex
integrating some other things beyond just sports into the facility.
Sports Fields, Inc., was retained as a design consultant in 2018.
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So during the first stages of design of the complex, they weighed in,
helped us make changes, recommendations for how to maximize,
capture of the different revenue lines that go into the complex and
develop a complex that can be best suited for this type of operation.
We amended that contract in August of last year to put them into a
limited startup mode, and we are transitioning now in the full
operation in June with an expectation that the park will be open at the
end of June, early July.
So overall complex operating budget. The funding sources for
the sports complex operations come from the General Fund this year
and also the TDC to come up with a line item of about $3.4 million.
Now, that budget is allocated between SFI operations as our
contractor vendor -- and I'll get into what that means -- and then
county operations and other costs that are associated with the facility.
So we'll have five full-time employees that are county employees at
the park along with our contract vendor.
And there's other contractual services, utilities, CDD fees, all
kinds of other lines that make up that county operations cost.
So some of the common different operating structures that we
considered before we settled on this one, we could operate it with
internal staff, meaning it would become another parks and rec
complex much like North Collier Park; we could hire a professional
firm like Sports Force and pay them a fixed fee for eternity to operate
the complex; we could do some type of a fixed fee a nd a percentage
of certain revenues. So in other areas that we've researched, you pay
a management fee, and they get a split of a particular line item like
concessions or merchandise; or you can go fully to program-driven
compensation, which is what we've done here. So it fully
incentivizes the contractor to drive programming and keep their costs
down.
Now, the advantages of this type of agreement structure are
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transparency. Every dollar in and out of the complex, whether it be
from a sponsorship or an event or a beverage sale or a food sale, is
accounted for. You can see it come in. You can see it go out.
We've separated the programmatic and fixed costs. So when
you build a sports park of this size, you're going to have some
expectation of fixed costs to operate it regardless of what type of
management structure that you come up with.
So we've done a good job of separating out that
programmatic-driven cost from the fixed cost. So the costs that
would be there regardless and then the programmatic costs that are
driven by the actual event programming that goes on at the facility.
Now, we based the compensation model on that programmatic
revenue to where there's a fixed fee at first, but it's rapidly phased
out, and there's control points on a level of income that can be earned
by our contractor or underperformed by the contractor before it
triggers some type of a contractual renegotiation.
What I did, as I mentioned earlier, it incentivized the contractor
to drive programming, keep your costs down, and then that split of
our business income we use to offset the fixed costs of the facility.
We align the goals of the parties throughout the park. We focus on
self-operated events. So, whereas, the main structure of how we
achieve sports events now is to go out and find a promoter and drive
those ourselves. We'll be working on holistically creating
self-operated event to where every revenue line and every income
line comes back into the park, and then we creatively structure
partnerships through SFI, be it with other businesses, be it with sports
promoters, or be it with other established sports programming.
Just to hit on something before I get into the budgetary
considerations. So we've obviously seen a decrease in our TDT
revenues that we're expecting some reduction, and we're expecting a
reduction in the General Fund next year just because of the
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coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic that's out there. And as I
mentioned earlier, the sports complex is funded by a combination of
General Fund and TD.
So we worked with our vendor. When you -- when this went to
the TDC, the net cost to the county was higher than it is right now.
We sharpened our pencils and reduced various line items and
compensations, along with revenues as well, and reduced the net
impact and the net costs to the county by about 20 percent for the
remainder of FY '20, and 18 percent in the next fiscal year.
So you really have to squint to see these, and I apologize for this.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: This is on purpose.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Back up one second. Back up
one slide, please.
MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I just
wanted to look at that again. Just the top line. I wanted to go through
the TD -- if you would, just go through those revenue streams again
just briefly.
MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, sir. So the actual complex is funded
by a combination of General Fund, about $2.9 million, almost $3
million, and then a $466,000 transfer from TD.
So when we look at the impact of what this pandemic's had,
we're expecting reductions. We've already seen the TDT reductions
in real time. The General Fund's expected to be impacted a little bit.
So we've worked with our contractor from their initial pro formas to
bring this operating agreement and reduced them by about 20 percent
in FY '20 for the remainder of this year, and then -- 21 percent -- or,
sorry, 18 percent in FY '21.
Did that answer your question, sir?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, sir.
MR. CALLAHAN: So business income. I talked about splitting
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out the programmatic income. And you can see through the various
line items that will account for that. So there's event income,
tournament fees, all of the different programming that's driven at the
great lawn which will become a community gathering place and also
be able to host special events.
Other income from sponsorships, and then cost of goods sold.
So there will be cost of goods sold that are in support of these
programmings. It will be costs for manufacture or for functioning
and operating those events. And from those, the income against the
cost to goods sold gives you your business income.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is sales tax in here, too?
MR. CALLAHAN: No, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sales tax? No?
MR. CALLAHAN: There's currently no funding for the sales
tax going to the sports complex right now, ma'am.
So you come up with that business income. And as I mentioned,
that will be reconciled and split between us and the contractor on a
50/50 basis. And then you have the facility fixed costs that are those
costs that are associated with operating this, which we split them out.
And we've gone back and forth and back and forth to determine what
those costs are, and here's where we've settled.
So at the bottom of the page, the most important thing is, you
take the business income set against the total fixed costs, and you
come up with your net income. The business income, if there is some
to be realized, will be split 50/50 between the county and the
contractor in addition to a management fee that's paid to the
contractor, and that gives you your total costs for SFI operations
which, as you can see across the board, it's reduced in '20 and '21.
But we'll land at about $2 million for the rest of that --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Why do you have parentheses
around those? Because typically that would indicate a loss, and just
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--
MR. CALLAHAN: Well, it's the total costs for their operations.
So the business income is never going to outpace the actual fixed
costs of the facility. Does that make sense?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: You have business income -- I'm
just a little confused because of the parentheses around there. I'm
assuming that that -- what does the parentheses mean on all of your
numbers down at the bottom there?
MR. CALLAHAN: That's the net cost to the county. And,
Commissioner, I apologize, because FY '20 and FY '21 should be in
parentheses as well, and that may be why it's confusing to you. So
that's what we're paying out as the county for this operation of this
SFI.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. All right. Then all those
lines are the same?
MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, sir. And I apologize for that. The
parentheses should be on the first two, and that's probably why it's
confusing when you look at it. I apologize for that.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay.
MR. CALLAHAN: The management that you see in here, as I
mentioned, will be rapidly phased out. So for FY '21 we're expecting
we're going to pay a management fee of $350,000 to SFI to operate
this complex. And year over year we'll start to reduce that. Year
over year the loss will build the programming sometimes you'll see in
the pro forma, and eventually we'll get to a point where SFI's total
compensation is driven solely off the business income of the facility.
Now, I mentioned the caps. So we are going to pay those
management fees as prescribed in that last slide to a certain extent. If
the program income becomes too much, there's a $500,000 cap. So
in any year that the combination of the management fee and the
business income split for the contractor gets to $500,000, you begin
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to reduce the management fee even more rapidly. And you can see
that outlined, even at their pro forma levels, we're going to eventually
run into that to where you have a more rapid progression of red uction
of that management fee, and if they should exceed their pro formas,
which I think we're all expecting with this complex coming online
and just the demand that's going to be there to use it, that we'll begin
to rapidly decrease that management fee at a much quicker pace.
Anytime the total business income exceeds one and a half million
dollars, we will renegotiate the contract. That's a point that we came
to that we believe the contractor will be incentivized that we would
take a more advantageous deal to the county.
And anytime the 70 percent -- less than 70 percent of the
planned pro forma budget is below that, we would also trigger a
renegotiation of the agreement. So there's caps high and low, and
then there's also a capital reserve that's set aside off the business
income at the top that's set aside for a capital reserve to replace
different assets at the complex.
So the claims I made in the beginning, just to hit on those again,
accountability and transparency. Every dollar in and out of this
contract -- of this complex through this agreement is visible and
auditable by the county.
SFI is working on a room-booking platform for integration into
the complex revenues, which is going to give us more accurate
reporting of room nights and also hel p to capture some of the
different revenues that are associated and put them back on into the
bottom line of the park.
And then we'll have county staff on site to make sure that all the
deliverables in their contract are being met. And I introduced the
staff a little bit earlier that are here.
Leveraged investment. So captures of shares that are not usually
available with external promoters. So sometimes promoters will
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bring an event here. They'll go out and sign sponsorship deals with
Adidas or otherwise that we don't get any share of. Now these -- for
the sports complex, we'll be able to see those, and those will be
integrated back into the bottom line of the park. And then any split
from those revenues for the contractor, obviously, will cover our
facilities fixed costs. The income's capped, and we're going to phase
out that management fee as quickly as possible. It's renegotiable at
certain levels of income, high and low. And those homegrown events
that I talked about earlier will limit our need to actually spend tourist
development tax dollars to go out and attract these events.
Marketing and advertising. So SFI is going to handle marketing
of the complex and events at the complex. All of that's going to be
captured in a central CRM, customer relationship management
system, and all of that advertising and sponsorship revenue, as I've
said, will come back into the complex, and we'll have systems in
place for the county to have transparency and approval for all
processes for those marketing partnerships and sponsorships.
So SFI comes to the county first to make sure that any
sponsorships or partnership that's going to be associated with the
sports complex is signed off by us and approved.
This is the latest facility update. So if you see, there's -- updated
fields are here, and that's the latest layout that we have for
construction. We're very happy to tell you that the first phase of the
complex will be open July 2nd. I believe we're having our soft
opening and a ribbon cutting for you followed by a reception that
night.
And at this point I believe I'm going to introduce Will Spence
who is from the corporate offices of Sports Force Parks. He's the
regional manager and will take us through a little bit about how they
view their brand and what they're excited about with partnering with
the complex.
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MR. SPENCE: Thanks, Mr. Callahan. Commissioners, good
morning. Thank you for having me.
I guess we'll start this by, we're excited to get sports back, and
not just sports back going here, but back throughout our other parks,
which I'll talk about in a second.
The updated plan was built and all brought holistically under
one footprint with a perimeter fence so we can control different
sports at different times. It allows us to leverage the facility and run
maybe a softball tournament along with a lacrosse tournament or vice
versa to maximize what we like to say footsteps in the park in every
blade of synthetic turf that we can so we can actually maximize the
facility.
This is a video that -- sorry. A video of one of our parks in
Mississippi.
(A video was played.)
MR. SPENCE: A short marketing piece we put together for our
park located in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and it really gets -- it really is
a snapshot of our brand. So -- whoops. There we go. A little heavy
on that, sports. There we go. Now we've got it.
Sports Force Parks were driven by three core principles, and it's
what drives everything we do. Sports, family, and fun is -- we'll talk
about that. Sports is -- we leverage a world-class facility, exceptional
tournaments that really create great lessons for the athletes and create
a fun environment as well.
Family. We put a lot of events, whether they're amenities or a lot
of -- events going on, whether they're in the evenings or during the
tournaments, again, to engage all members of the family to really
create a fun experience.
And then the fun part about it is we work to engage local
communities so that way when people come to these tournaments and
these events from out of town, they actually can now do things
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outside and really create a tying in of a great tournament and a family
vacation and really create memories, which is what it's all about.
Partnership, as we talked about, we focus a lot on our own
homegrown or in-house grown programming, but we also work with
partners as well to leverage the facility. As we've called out up here,
you can see some different partners that have been in the community
already. A new one that was added, which is the Naples Cup, which
is a three-week event in January, which will be all different age
groups leveraging the park as well, and we've worked with other
promoters, as you can see, between lacrosse, other football -- I'm
sorry, football and soccer as well to leverage those type of events in
the community.
As Sean mentioned before about the different controlling and
the transparency on a lot of revenue streams, what we like to call
these levers in our world, if you will. Certainly, as you can see,
registration fees, we can control some gate and some parking
opportunities. Food and beverage, which is a huge upside, and
there's a lot of great food and beverage opportunities at the complex.
Merchandise, branded merchandise we find in our parks that,
when people go around, they're able to -- you know, they want to
wear something with a logo, and they wear that proudly as we go.
When I travel, I wear our logos all the time, and I get asked all the
time, where's that at? What do you do?
Sponsorship, as he mentioned, it's a chance to work with our
sponsors, leverage the great sports that are going on, and then keep
those revenues in-house, and then hotels. Again, as we talked about,
working on making sure the hotels are being kept in the county, make
sure we work on transparency, and that the monies are being
controlled and kept local.
Again, internal lodging advantage, we talked about. Again, just
control that experience. We work diligently with the hotels, and
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they've liked our program so far. It really standardizes the struct ure
and creates long-term experience -- long-term relationships and, more
importantly, gives transparency to the counties so they can see where
these rooms are coming from, where people are coming from, allows
us to tie into the marketing data as well and, again, the dashboard
gives the TDC opportunity to see all of this as well. It keeps the
revenues with the park where needed, and then as I called out before
keeps the revenues in the park and the community.
You know, local sports is really what it's about as well. We
talked about the -- you know, driving the footsteps on the weekends
and tournaments, but also we're looking to do things, take advantage
of a lot of areas. As Sean mentioned, the great lawn, the pavilion
area. We're working with local sports leagues, developing
programming, working with high school programs. We have some
ADA programs as well that we do, outdoor fitness, and cultural
events. I know that the -- Amy and her staff have been working with
the United Arts Council and -- for events every month at the park and
other people to bring other events during [sic] park during different
times of the day -- or of the year.
You know, obviously we're in a different time, as we've all
talked about, and one of the things that we've talked about, we have
parks in Ohio, we have a park in Mississippi, and excited to be here
in Naples, and spent a lot of time really talking about really
protecting the guests, the staff, and the brands, and the brands being
Sports Force Park brands, certainly Paradise Coast brand, and I'll tell
you, as I've been working with my staffs -- because as we're getting
ready to turn on, we're excited because we're going to start this
weekend in Ohio, start this weekend in Mississippi as well.
We also have another brand in Georgia, which we'll be doing
some programming in two weeks, but I've -- we've been planning,
right? Planning. Planning. It's all we've been doing. And one of the
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planning things I've been telling my staff is we've got to plan for
change because things are changing so rapidly. We think we've got
things in place, what we can do from the cleaning or social distancing
and, for example, in one of our parks, it was going to be required for
face masks, as you mentioned before, for coaches and players who
are in the dugout to be wearing that. And we all got all set up for
that, got the signage and the communication out, and then two days
later they said, nope, they don't need to do it. So talk about it is
constantly changing.
But we've put a lot of programming in place. There are
minimum standards. We are going above and beyond. We have very
high standards at our company. Our company, Sports Fields,
Incorporated, builds playing fields for some of the best: NFL, Major
League Baseball, the top brands in the country, and we bring that
same focus to our Sports Park brand.
Again, we work with our staffs to make sure we're going
through the proper training. I think the optics are entirely important.
And this is not just for anything we're doing to keep the parks clean.
This is all about our guest experience as well. If you tell somebody
you're going to do it, you better be able to do it, because they're going
to have eyes on it, and certainly in today's age they'll tell you when
you're not.
So if we say we're going to clean something, we're going to
clean it. If we say we're going to take care of something in a timely
fashion, we're going to do that. And it's really working to -- and it's a
lot of change management, teaching our people how to do those t ype
of things.
And, again, we communicate with our guests. One of the best
parts of what we do, because we control the message in-house, is we
have the opportunity to talk to our guests. We gather their
information early so we communicate with them frequently and often
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meaning social media, emails, things along that line to get the word
out.
So this kind of dealt with the social media -- or the current
COVID things, but it kind of tied into everything that we do with our
brand.
And with that, I thank you. If there's any questions, I'd certainly
be happy to answer them.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Are there any questions
for --
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I don't see any.
Any questions as far as staff? Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Do you want me to hit the
button?
And if you would bring the site plan back up for the facility
again. I just -- if you can. I just wanted to see -- one of the things
that I really -- there you go. Don't let him hit the buttons anymore.
When and where will the field house be? Let's go where will the
field house be, because when has to do with money.
MR. CALLAHAN: If you look down here, there's the large
championship stadium venue, which is currently under construction
and going to be completed in November of this year and open.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes.
MR. CALLAHAN: And the field house is actually adjacent to it
right back here.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. That was one of the
original selling points to me with this, with regar d to this, is the Cat 5
hurricane shelter that's east of I-75 and a capacity for us to really take
care of our residents. I mean, it's inevitable we're going to have
another storm someday, and so that's -- that was one of my -- the
balance of this is amazing. Don't get me wrong. I mean, year-round
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jobs, year-round tourism, joining in partnership with other businesses
within our community, but it's as important from a public purpose
standpoint just to ensure that that field house comes online just as --
MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, sir. And I can assure you that staff is
wracking our brains after every single federal grant that we can
possibly identify to make sure that --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And how many square feet is
that proposed to be; do you recall right off?
MR. CALLAHAN: I'm going to look back at Nick, but I think it
was --
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Ninety thousand.
MR. CALLAHAN: Ninety thousand. I was going to say
80-something.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Ninety thousand square feet.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I was just going to say
congratulations on all the work that SFI and staff has done. I mean,
it's -- I think it's a great deal.
And I just recently went out to see the park, and while you can
look at these diagrams on the visualizer, it really does not do it
justice, I think. It's going to be a fantastic facility. And I think that it
will be one of the things that I keep hearing from younger folks that
it's going to be a place to go for the day. I mean, you know, whether
you're watching a tournament or not, I think it's going to be a great
addition to what Collier County has to offer, and I can't wait for the
soft opening. So, congratulations. It's going to be fantastic.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I had one question, because I've
not gone through in great detail. In the agreement is there -- I
understand you've got caps and that sort of thing and renegotiation
things. Is there a termination provision in there? And if so, what is
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Page 67
the --
MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, sir. It's 180 days.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Now, the 180-day
termination provision is simply for convenience; is that -- or is there
cause or --
MR. CALLAHAN: There's a termination for cause much like
it's standard in any other agreement, and the termination for
convenience is six months. It's 180 days.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Good, good.
All right. No other lights are lit up. Do we have registered speakers?
MR. MILLER: No, sir, not for this item.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. I think we're ready for a
motion.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I want to move approval of this
contract as written.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and
second. Any discussion on the motion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Seeing none, I'll call for the vote.
All in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously.
Thank you, and we're looking forward to the opening in June.
May 26, 2020
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Item #14B1
AN AGREEMENT FOR SALE AND PURCHASE TO ACQUIRE
DEL’S CORNER CONSISTING OF THREE CONTIGUOUS
PROPERTIES LOCATED ON THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF
BAYSHORE DRIVE AND THOMASSON DRIVE, CONTINGENT
ON THE CLOSING OF THE TRIANGLE PROPERTY SALE,
RECOGNIZE AND APPROPRIATE BAYSHORE CRA FUND
(187) CARRY FORWARD, ESTABLISH BUDGET FOR THE
TRIANGLE PROPERTY SALE, AND AUTHORIZE NECESSARY
BUDGET AMENDMENTS – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, we've got three speakers registered
for this next item, so thank you for allowing us to move it up. We're
going to now hear Item 14B1 --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay.
MR. OCHS: -- under the Community Redevelopment Agency.
So I think this would be Commissioner Fiala to chair this portion of
the meeting, sir.
This is a recommendation that the Board, acting as the CRA,
approve an agreement for sale and purchase to acquire Del's Corner
consisting of three contiguous properties located on the southeast
corner of Bayshore Drive and Thomasson Drive contingent on the
closing of the Triangle property sale.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And Commissioner Fiala will
be chairing the meeting, so I'll turn the gavel over to Commissioner
Fiala.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Thank you very much. The CRA
meeting will now be in effect. Thank you. And we'll wait for our
speaker.
MS. FORESTER: Good morning, Commissioners. For the
May 26, 2020
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record, Debrah Forester, CRA Director.
This morning we're here to ask you to consider the purchase of
this piece of property at the corner of Thomasson and Bayshore
Drive. At our last meeting, you asked us to go back and see if we
could amend that agreement to include that contingency based on the
sale of the mini-triangle. We have done that, so that agreement
before you today is with that contingency in place.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Madam Chair, I had asked for
the contingency dealing with the sale of the -- or the closing of the
property at the Triangle. I'm satisfied with the language that's
contained in the agreement, that this agreement's contingent on that
actual closing. So with your permission, I'll make a motion to
approve.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'll second.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you very much.
MR. OCHS: Madam chair?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: And second the motion, Commissioner
Taylor.
MR. OCHS: Madam Chair, excuse me. You do have some
registered speakers.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Thank you very much.
MR. MILLER: Your first registered speaker is Donna
McGinnis, and she will be followed by Maurice Gutierrez.
MS. McGINNIS: Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you
for the opportunity to talk about this. I'm Donna McGinnis. I'm
president and CEO of Naples Botanical Garden, which is Del's
next-door neighbor. We're right across Bayshore and have had a
wonderful experience having Del and his family as a neighbor.
Just to give you a little bit background of the garden, it's about a
10-year-old organization now open to the public. We have about
250,000 visitors a year, 20 percent of which, or about 50,000, are
May 26, 2020
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tourists who come to this area. We have 12,000 households that are
members of the garden, 100 employees, and about 400 volunteers.
We have a $10 million operating budget. About $5 million of that is
our annual payroll. And right now we are in the process of building a
$13 million greenhouse complex which so far has been funded
exclusively by donors to our organization.
We are, because of great relationships with the county,
partnering right now on several projects around sustainable
landscaping, environmentally smart native tree choices for tree
replanting, and we've been really excited to be involved in the sports
and event complex, especially around sustainable landscaping that
will need less water and fertilizer and really making that great lawn
beautiful.
We have, you may not know, a joint campus with FGCU, which
is on our property. We do a lot of research and a lot of work with
students and are looking at how we can leverage our joint complex
even further in things like clean water and stormwater management.
The Bayshore area is very healthy. It's vibrant and growing. It's
been a fantastic example of what can be done with both public and
private investment. There's the new roadway and a lot of
beautification underway right now along Thomasson, some additional
boat parking that's going to be going in on Hamilton and, of course,
we have a lot of new homes going in. So we've had Windstar for a
while, but Mattamy Homes, Isles of Collier, and a couple other
builders are putting housing in right now, so we know that our
neighborhood is growing very quickly.
Some fantastic neighbors who are here in the room as well.
Great new businesses like Ankrolab, 360 Market, Celebration Park
with the food trucks, Amanda Gerand's (phonetic) art studio, a
Montessori school, ice cream, tacos, just about everything you could
imagine. And so we're really thinking about Del's Corner because
May 26, 2020
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they've been a great neighbor, but we know it is zoned for just about
anything, and we really feel that this provides a fantastic opportunity
both to protect the investment of taxpayers so far as well as to
leverage more investment should the county invest in this property,
and it's a fantastic opportunity for some public/private partnership,
which the garden is really interested in.
So we hope you will support this action and take ownership of
the corner. Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Maurice Gutierrez. He
will be followed by Bill Drackett.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you.
MR. GUTIERREZ: Good morning, Commissioners. Thank
you for the opportunity to speak briefly on this, and I will keep it
very brief.
This opportunity has come up before. I apologize. Maurice
Gutierrez, for the record. Has come up before, and I feel our
financial responsibilities have not allowed us to pursue it. But now
we're looking at a reasonable cost but, more importantly, what we do
not own, we cannot control.
This is a benchmark corner. It will set the future theme of where
we're going in the nine short years we have left, and the worst that
can happen is we end up with a gas station or a storage facility. Keep
that in mind. That is something that would not benefit the
community, although it would benefit the developers, and devel opers
are always driven by costs and profits. The CRA does not work that
way. It works for how can we give back to the community.
And this is, I think, one of the golden opportunities that we had
to revisit and bring before you, so I do hope you support it, if not
from an investment point of view, from an ability to control what
actually does end up there.
Thank you very much.
May 26, 2020
Page 72
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Bill --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: It could have been a nice storage
unit, too.
MR. GUTIERREZ: One with pretty flowers, but not quite so
much.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: With your name on it, ma'am.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Bill Drackett. He will be
followed by a remote speaker, Laura Burns.
MR. DRACKETT: Good morning, Commissioners. Bill
Drackett, resident of the Bayshore Arts District and also president of
the Cultural and Performing Arts, or CAPA, as we are better known.
And as Donna said, and I will add to, CAPA continues to work
to come to this neighborhood. We are very excited about the
possibilities. We -- being a long-time resident I know the importance
that Del's has had in the past, and we respect that and honor that
and -- but are excited about the economic possibilities of the county
being able to get hold of this very important, really, landmark aspect
of this area and of the arts district and being able to control its future
and to bring what we all know and all hope, as Maurice said, in the
next nine years to continue to develop this area. And CAPA is very
excited that hopefully we will be the next to come to the area.
Thank you very much.
MR. MILLER: Madam Chairman, your final public speaker on
this item is a remote speaker, Laura Burns. Ms. Burns, are you there?
Ms. Burns?
MS. BURNS: Good morning. Can you hear me?
MR. MILLER: Yes, ma'am, please go ahead. You have three
minutes.
MS. BURNS: Fantastic. So good morning. My name is Laura
Burns, Executive Director of the United Arts Council of Collier
County, for the record.
May 26, 2020
Page 73
Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the
acquisition of Del's Corner in the Bayshore/Gateway Triangle CRA.
We based our opinion of this support around the multiple surveys and
the community engagement and input in the CRA vision, the Arts and
Culture Strategic Plan, and the community engagement process with
that and also the community engagement process and now active
development of a Public Art Master Plan for the Bayshore/Gateway
Triangle CRA.
The outcomes of this survey showed there -- or these multiple
surveys have showed there is broad community support for
developing the district as a cultural locus indicated by 82 percent of
those surveyed saying that arts and cultural -- they would like arts
and culture to be more accessible to them, 81 percent say providing
more and different arts and cultural activities in the area is important
to them, and 79 percent say arts and culture contribute to economic
vitality.
Equally important is that this project, coupled with existing and
planned enhancements, could even help Bayshore emerge as an
economic catalyst for the community. Because of our impact study
through Americans for the Arts, we know with conservative reporting
that the arts pumped over 107 million in annual economic activity
here in Collier County. That generated just over three-and-a-half
million in local government revenue, and with that, our local
audiences contributed over 61 percent of those dollars.
And in these -- this current environment, with the smaller radius
of travel and the natural anchors of the Naples Botanical Garden and
Sugden Park, we believe these numbers will likely grow along with
the keen community support for the purchase of Del's Corner and the
vision that Bayshore and -- the Bayshore community and the CRA
have for this area.
So, again, it's our pleasure to speak on behalf of support of this
May 26, 2020
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motion, and thank you for considering all the growth and
development opportunities through arts and culture in Collier County.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you very much, Ms. Burns.
And with that, we have a motion on the floor and a second. Are
there any further comments?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN FIALA: If not, all in --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I've had my hand up.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Oh, I'm sorry. You're so short.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I am. And I --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I'm sorry. And Commissioner --
actually, the Chairman had told me that you had your hand up, too.
I'm sorry, I forgot.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Ms. Debrah, can you come
back, please.
Have you had a formal advertised CRA meeting for the
Bayshore district to make this decision?
MS. FORESTER: No, we have not been able to do that because
of the COVID.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I understand why. I'm just
asking. And the decision to do this was because the property was
offered to the CRA, and then you chose to poll the membership of the
board. And in the last meeting -- or in the last meeting in the
executive summary I read that the proposal was seven for and two in
opposition of.
MS. FORESTER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: So I'm going to be the l one
ranger here, I think. I can see what's going on. But I want to say this,
several things. Number one, there hasn't been a public meeting with
regard to this expenditure. It should be -- because we're expending
taxpayer funds, advertised, and the taxpayers who are contributing to
May 26, 2020
Page 75
this should have a voice. Two, I believe the purchase is speculative
in nature. We already own 12, $13 million worth of -- and a lot of
good has come. I understand, Commissioner Fiala, the
circumstances. But we are making this acquisition on the premise of
another closing which hasn't yet transpired on time at all forever.
And I -- and I believe we are in the process of spending money that
we don't have. We're going to put ourselves in a precarious position
here of being a contractual owner with the predication of closing on
this piece of property on another piece of property's closing and those
revenues coming in and then in betwixt and between having to decide
whether or not we go forward when another -- when another
contractual purchase comes in.
I'm not in support of this right now. I think we should have a --
minimumly have a CRA meeting. All due respect to the existing
board and the neighbors that are in the area, I haven't -- I believe that
it should be -- it should be further vetted.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you very much for your
comments.
Any other comments? Yes, Commissioner Taylor.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'd like to thank the owner of the
property, Theresa Ackerman, for her cooperation, her understanding
of the CRA and her understanding of the importance of securing this
for the CRA and also for the public in the area. Without her
cooperation, we wouldn't be here today. So thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you very much. With that being
said, no further comments, all in favor, signify by saying aye.
Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Opposed, like sign.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
May 26, 2020
Page 76
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I wasn't the lone ranger. How
do you do?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you very much. It passes 3-2.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I thought I was going to be all
by myself.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Mr. Ochs, which item
would you like to get to next?
Item #11C
APPROVAL OF THE FALL TRUCK HAUL BEACH
RENOURISHMENT PROJECT FOR THE NAPLES BEACH
FROM DOCTORS PASS SOUTH TO THE FLORIDA
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION (FDEP)
BEACH MONUMENT R-60 SCHEDULED FOR NOVEMBER
2020 WITH A NOT-TO-EXCEED PROJECT COST OF $2,000,000;
AUTHORIZE ALL NECESSARY BUDGET AMENDMENTS;
AND MAKE A FINDING THAT THIS ITEM PROMOTES
TOURISM (PROJECT #90068) – APPROVED
Item #11D
A WORK ORDER WITH TAYLOR ENGINEERING, INC., TO
PROVIDE PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING SERVICES FOR
NAPLES BEACH RENOURISHMENT FROM JUST SOUTH OF
DOCTORS PASS TO FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION (FDEP) REFERENCE
MONUMENT R-60 UNDER CONTRACT NO. 18-7432-CZ FOR
TIME AND MATERIAL NOT TO EXCEED $102,585, AND
MAKE A FINDING THAT THIS ITEM PROMOTES TOURISM –
May 26, 2020
Page 77
APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Sir, we'll go to Items 11C and 11D. These are
companion items. We'll take 11C first, please. It's a
recommendation to approve the fall truck haul beach renourishment
project for the Naples Beach for the area immediately south of
Doctors Pass for a -- scheduled for November of 2020 with a
not-to-exceed project cost of $2 million, and authorize the necessary
budget amendments to set up the project budget, also make a finding
that the item promotes tourism.
Mr. McAlpin is here to make a presentation if necessary or to
answer questions from the Board.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Move approval.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion. Is
that on Item 11C and 11D?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion. Let's
see if there are any questions or comments from the Board.
MR. OCHS: 11D, just for the record, is the engineering services
that will make the project ready to go to bid.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'll second.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and a
second, and that motion includes the finding that this is a
tourist-related expenditure.
MR. KLATZKOW: And just for the record, Gary, would you
confirm that the TDC heard this matter yesterday and made a
recommendation.
MR. McALPIN: Yes, that is correct. They heard this last week
on Friday, and they approved it on Friday.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and
May 26, 2020
Page 78
second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously.
MR. McALPIN: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you.
Item #11E
EXECUTIVE ORDER 2020-04: ESTABLISHING HYBRID
VIRTUAL QUASI-JUDICIAL HEARING PROCEDURES
DURING DECLARED EMERGENCIES – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we move to Item 11E. This is a
recommendation to approve an executive order establishing a hybrid
virtual quasi-judicial hearing procedures during the declared
emergency.
Jeremy Frantz from our Zoning Staff is here to make a
presentation.
Mr. Cohen? Mr. Cohen will begin.
MR. COHEN: Thaddeus Cohen, Department Head, Growth
Management.
We spent, per your direction, being able to pull together -- I
want to thank Len Price and her team, Troy in particular, for
modeling what we're getting ready to explain to you after what you're
doing currently here as the Board of County Commissioners to be
May 26, 2020
Page 79
able to move forward with some of our quasi-judicial hearings.
Again, also with the County Attorney's Office who took a look at the
procedures so that we could have a seamless process as we start to go
forward.
With that, Jeremy Frantz will kind of walk you through some of
the issues that we had to face. One of the things that I can say is that
staff had a dry run recently to kind of get ourselves familiar with the
processes, and we're looking to do that again possibly this Thursday
with one of the members of the commissions so that we can work out
any bugs we have before we actually have the next upcoming
meeting. So again, with that, Jeremy Frantz.
MR. FRANTZ: Good morning. As Thaddeus said, Jeremy
Frantz, LDC Manager with the Zoning Division.
You all have had some experience with remote participation in
these meetings, and as we look at some of our quasi -judicial hearings
coming up, we just have some additional challenges here and there,
so I'll just try and walk through some of those elements that are --
that you'll find in the procedures that are a little bit different than a
normal meeting.
So to begin with, ex parte communications, the procedures
indicate that disclosures by commissioners that are going to be
appearing virtually at these meetings would be made in writing prior
to the hearing and that no ex parte communication would be allowed
beginning five days before the hearing unless that's specifically
waived by the individual commissioners.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Excuse me. When do they
waive that? Do we waive it now or --
MR. KLATZKOW: You waive it when you meet the person.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So it's --
MR. KLATZKOW: It's not binding on you. That five -day was
primarily for the Planning Commission in mind, who I know many of
May 26, 2020
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them are meeting remotely.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Say that -- I could not
understand you.
MR. KLATZKOW: The five-day rule is primarily for the
Planning Commission, many of whom I know will be remote
appearance. I know you have your regular Monday meetings. They
can continue if you want.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: What do you mean? Monday
meetings?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: No. What he's talking about is a
lot of us have our constituent meetings on the Monday before board
meetings, and that's what he's talking about.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Our meetings with the constituents.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: It's -- can I just --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah. Just to -- I'm trying to
understand. So it's -- I guess it's requiring applicants that want to
touch base with the Planning Commissioners so -- they're on notice
that they have to do it five days before the Planning Commission.
MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah. Do it early rather than later because
it's harder for them to --
(Simultaneous crosstalk.)
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right. So they don't get jammed up
at the last minute with --
MR. KLATZKOW: Right.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. All right. I get it. All right.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And just, why would that
stipulation be on them and not us?
MR. KLATZKOW: Well, it can be. This is waivable by you.
May 26, 2020
Page 81
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Not waivable by the Planning
Commission or any other quasi-judicial board?
MR. KLATZKOW: No.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Why is that an advantage,
Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I think that -- I mean, as I
understand it -- and I'm trying to understand it, was -- I mean, I think
for us it's a little different. We have an office and everything, and the
Planning Commissioners -- having been a Planning Commissioner,
you get a lot of calls the day before the meeting and -- which
would -- I'm assuming that it's just to make sure that that doesn't
happen to them and put them under a lot of pressure with all these
calls and things on an agenda item the day before a meeting.
MR. KLATZKOW: You've aides. They do not.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right.
MR. KLATZKOW: It's much easier for you to do the ex parte
communication than it is for the Planning Commissioners, especially
the ones who will be appearing remote.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right.
MR. KLATZKOW: That's why I want to give the applicants a
heads-up. If you want to talk to a Planning Commissioner, do it
ahead of time to give that Planning Commissioner the ability to put
together whatever ex parte he needs for the meeting.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: If they have to do it in writing, then
they would have to put that together and -- yeah, I mean, I guess I
understand it.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm just trying to balance it.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. And I think that the
notices that go out to the parties should indicate on there those types
of restrictions.
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, sir.
May 26, 2020
Page 82
MR. FRANTZ: Just looking at some of the general meeting
procedures. In addition to communicating ex parte issues, we'll also
be communicating a number of the changes to the applicants and the
agents. One of those things is that they'll waive the right to contest
procedural irregularities. We've already been working wit h some of
the applicants for the initial Planning Commission meeting to get
those waivers.
For virtual participants, for people who have registered as a
public speaker virtually, they will not be sworn in as a witness. They
won't be subject to cross-examination or qualified as an expert -- as
an expert. And staff participating --
MR. KLATZKOW: Well, for clarification, by virtual
participants, we mean it would be basically the public. We're not
referring to if an expert wants to do virtual.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: If they have a witness. They can
still have a witness; is that correct?
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, but not to be sworn in as a witness
and not subject to cross-examination. It's for the public.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We're not changing --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I don't know that --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's go ahead and use the button
so I know who's --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Sorry. I'm sorry.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, sir. Forgive me. We've
never allowed for cross-examination from the public, in my
recollection.
MR. KLATZKOW: What I do is -- I cut and pasted Florida
statute right into your procedures so that nobody could contest it.
And that's word for word from the Florida Statute.
May 26, 2020
Page 83
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah. I just want to make sure I
understand. Virtual participants shall not be sworn in as witnesses --
and not required to be qualified as an expert witness. Okay. So have
you given any thought to how this would affect a subsequent legal
proceeding, say, a challenge to, I mean --
MR. KLATZKOW: That's why they're waiving any procedural
irregularities.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: So in order not to waive it, they
would have to show up in person; is that the intent?
MR. KLATZKOW: No. The intent is if you want to appear
during these COVID days and ask the Board for some sort of rezone,
then if anything goes amuck during the process, you're just waiving.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Just waiving it.
MR. KLATZKOW: You're waiving it. If you're not
comfortable with that, you can wait until after the crisis has passed.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. And so -- and then on the
other side of that, say, people in opposition, if they want to appear
virtually, then the same thing applies to them, right?
MR. KLATZKOW: The app --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: They won't be sworn in as a
witness. So, theoretically, if they're not sworn in as a witness, we
can't really rely on anything that they've testified to in a
quasi-judicial -- I just want to make sure I understand, when we're
doing this, what it's going to mean.
MR. KLATZKOW: Normally what we do is we have the court
reporter swear everybody in the room who's going to speak.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right, right.
MR. KLATZKOW: There is no statutory requirement that the
public is sworn in. It's just something we've customarily done.
May 26, 2020
Page 84
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Oh.
MR. KLATZKOW: I thought it was impossible, if you have,
like, 100 people remote, to swear them in. You would have no idea
who's saying "I do," or not.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right.
MR. KLATZKOW: We just cut and pasted the statute to get
away from our typical procedure where we swear everybody in
saying the public does not have to be sworn in.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay.
MR. KLATZKOW: Now, if somebody wants to bring in an
expert remotely, they will have to be sworn in. But since there's only
going to be a handful of those, that process should be easy.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. So I guess to answer my
own question, then, so none of these changes would affect, say, either
an applicant challenging a denial or somebody from the public
challenging an approval, either way? It shouldn't have any effect --
MR. KLATZKOW: The applicant can challenge the denial
something like it was not based on substantial competent evidence,
right?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right.
MR. KLATZKOW: But he cannot challenge it because of a
procedural irregularity.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Procedural irregularity.
MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: But evidence --
MR. KLATZKOW: I mean, we have staff members, for
example, who are in quarantine. They may be appearing remotely. I
do not want to get involved in litigation tha t I've got a staff member
appearing remotely.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay.
MR. KLATZKOW: And you couldn't do that when the
May 26, 2020
Page 85
applicant is the one insisting to go forward with these applications
during this time.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. Okay. I think I understand.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right.
MR. FRANTZ: I think the last point on this slide was, again,
that staff may be participating virtually, and we'd worked through the
swearing in of those staff potentially one time for all of the state of
emergency.
The hearing procedures -- and I think, you know, Jeff has
mentioned it. We're still following the existing procedures,
primarily, but there are, you know, just some uniquenesses to this
virtual participation.
So some of the things that -- and, again, when we're getting to
the Planning Commission where we know we'll have some of our
commissioners virtual, the voting members, we're indicating, not
required to be present for the vote or the quorum, that they can be
conducted by roll call.
The applicant and their witnesses, we do require them to be at
the meeting unless that's waived by a majority of the voting members
of that body.
Again, as we all know, the public may attend in person or
electronically. The remote participants are not allowed to re ceive
speaking timing from another person. I think -- you know, again, it's
going to be difficult to determine, you know, who they're getting that
from and whether they're on the call.
And just a note here that this aspect, the remote participation is
provided as a courtesy. It's at the user's risk. We're doing everything
we can to test the system, and we'll be providing some assistance
with making sure that the system is up and running on the day of.
But if the individual is having difficulty connecting on the Zoom call,
you know, they're responsible for making that connection.
May 26, 2020
Page 86
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I just had one question
on the previous slide. It had to do -- and this is just me. I'm over
here thinking about this. And wouldn't it be -- couldn't we do
swearing in in writing -- in writing with an email from the
participant?
MR. KLATZKOW: What we're doing is when they register to
speak --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right.
MR. KLATZKOW: -- Ms. Price will be putting in a provision
there that it will be an affirmation that they swear to tell the truth.
But we really have no way to notarize that, but -- practically, but they
will be writing in an affirmation that they do swear to tell the truth.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well -- but -- and that was my
question. Wouldn't an email from the speaker that's being sworn in,
or all the speakers that are being sworn in an email from them that
says, "I do"?
MR. KLATZKOW: We're getting that. We will be getting tha t,
yes. But I don't have anybody to swear them in on there. So it's not
your typical oath, because an oath is before, typically, a notary, and
the notary swears you in. And here it's just going to be a statement
that I swear or affirm to tell the truth.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I understand. And I just -- I
see procedural issues with calling experts and cross-examination and
so on -- and I suppose maybe we'll work through these things. It's not
a -- this is kind of -- I'm happy we're moving forward. It's just a -- it's
just something that I can see popping up as a --
MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah. We may have to adjust based on our
learning experience with this.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. Exactly, okay.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Anything else in your
May 26, 2020
Page 87
presentation?
MR. FRANTZ: I just had, you know, one note about how
people will connect. We'll be providing a link on the county's
website. They'll have the opportunity to take a survey, which is how
they'll actually register to speak virtually at the meeting. Of course,
if you're coming to the meeting to speak, you can do it the typical
way.
And then if you're just trying to watch these virtual meetings, of
course, that's going to be in the same way that you would now on
online or on Channel 97.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Do we have any registered
speakers?
MR. MILLER: We do not, sir.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Any further questions,
comments from the Board? I don't see anybody lit up here.
(No response.)
MR. FRANTZ: Just one last note, if I could, about the approval
that you-all will provide today. We've got the finalized procedures
written out. They were provided as a part of the executive order as
well as a separate attachment. That separate attachment's labeled as
Attachment 2 in your packets. That's the version that you should be
making sure to approve today.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And this is point of
clarification. These rules and procedures are for all of our -- what we
had previously deemed as not necessarily nonessential meetings,
CRAs, MPOs, and other meetings, along those lines, Planning
Commission, and the like? All of these -- all of our meetings are
going to go back?
MR. KLATZKOW: These are for quasi-judicial proceedings.
We can do remote meetings with those other boards as well.
May 26, 2020
Page 88
MR. OCHS: Yes. The Board's already authorized us to do
those virtual meeting with those boards that are not quasi-judicial --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We're going to start.
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. We're already underway.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We're going to start those up
soon?
MR. OCHS: TDC, for example, last Friday was done virtually.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis, how did
that go? I didn't mean to catch you off guard there. I know you're
our representative on the TDC.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah. The TDC went really -- you
know, I mean, there's periodically maybe a technology issue. It
might be at the other end. But, no, I think it worked really, really
well. Gary McAlpin was there remotely, and I thought it worked
really, really well, and we could all see everybody that was speaking.
I think it worked well.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Any other questions?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That was point of clarification
for me.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Then we need a motion.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll move for approval.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Second.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a motion. Commissioner
Taylor seconded. All in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed?
May 26, 2020
Page 89
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously.
Thank you very much for that.
Item #11F
TO TOLL FOR SIX-MONTHS THE REQUIREMENT FOR A
LAND-USE APPLICANT TO HOLD A SECOND
NEIGHBORHOOD INFORMATION MEETING (NIM) WHEN
THEIR LAND USE PETITION ACTIVITY EXTENDS BEYOND
ONE YEAR FROM THE DATE THE FIRST NIM – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, Item 11F is a recommendation to
toll for six months the requirement for a land-use applicant to hold a
second neighborhood information meeting when their land-use
petition activity extends beyond one year from the date of the first
NIM.
Mr. Frantz, we had -- Commissioners, I think we had eight
applicants that were ready to go, had conducted their NIM, and then
because of the deferral of land-use hearings that the Board ordered a
couple weeks ago, eight of those now have fallen beyond the
one-year activity threshold that's in your -- was it in the Land
Development Code or the administrative procedure?
MR. FRANTZ: The administrative code. So I don't have a lot
to present to you. It's a fairly straightforward item. You know, as we
stated, the administrative code requires a second NIM unless there's a
hearing that's held after one year. We'd like to toll that requirement
for an additional six months. There was a question of which, exactly,
items would that be.
Now, we put together a map showing the location of these eight
petitions that Manager Ochs referenced. We also have a list here at
May 26, 2020
Page 90
the end.
These items could potentially expire. They aren't necessarily
expired now. You can see the date that some of these NIMs were
held, October, December of last year. They haven't expired yet, but
based on the continuances of meetings there's the potential that they
could, so this six-month tolling will ensure that we don't have to hold
a second NIM in those cases.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Move for approval.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. We have two other --
Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I just wanted to say, if these
things have -- excuse me, have come due and haven't been able to --
if there's -- if they've made any major changes in that period of time,
that would be difficult, because then a NIM would be required, I
would think.
MR. FRANTZ: Yes. And, typically, if there were a major
change to what the project is proposing, we would require a second
NIM regardless of the timeline.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. That's fine. That's what I
wanted to clarify.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And I'm just trying to understand.
The year period, was that just a number we -- a time frame we picked
out of the air? I'm just trying to figure out, was there a reason that it
was a year that maybe I'm not thinking of, just so I understand why
that was a year?
MR. KLATZKOW: It's just you had to pick a number sometime
in the past, yeah.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. Fair enough.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion. Is
May 26, 2020
Page 91
there a second?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and
second. Any discussion on the motion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: If not, I'll call for the question. All
in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously. Thank
you.
MR. OCHS: Thank you, Commissioners.
Item #11G
RESOLUTION 2020-87: THE ACQUISITION BY GIFT,
PURCHASE, OR CONDEMNATION OF FEE INTEREST IN
HOLDOUT PARCELS REQUIRED FOR THE FUTURE
DEVELOPMENT OF ESSENTIAL GOVERNMENT SERVICES
AT THE RESOURCE RECOVERY BUSINESS PARK NORTH OF
THE COLLIER COUNTY LANDFILL – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: We move to Item 11G. This is a recommendation
to adopt a resolution authorizing the acquisition by gift, purchase, or
condemnation of fee interest and holdout parcels required for the
future development of essential government services at the Collier
May 26, 2020
Page 92
Resource Recovery Business Park north of the Collier County
Landfill.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let me see if there are any
questions. If not, is there a motion to prove?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'll move approval.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll second with a comment.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That I don't like
condemnation, but I know it's a process we hav e to go through
sometimes.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Condemnation has been described
as the highest and best use of property by many lawyers that do
eminent domain.
We have a motion and a second. All in favor, signify by saying
aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously. Thank
you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Nice presentation.
MR. OCHS: Thank you, Kari.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: The level of exasperation in this
executive summary was palatable. I understand it, and I respect that
you brought it to us in that fashion.
MS. HODGSON: Thank you. I appreciate your support,
Commissioner. Have a good day.
May 26, 2020
Page 93
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You're welcome.
Item #11H
COVID-19 STATUS REPORT AND PROVIDE FURTHER
DIRECTION AS APPROPRIATE - MOTION TO CONTINUE
CURRENT RESTRICTIONS UNTIL FURTHER DISCUSSION AT
A SPECIAL BCC MEETING ON BEACHES THAT WILL BE
HELD JUNE 2, 2020 – APPROVED; MOTION TO PERMIT THE
USE OF SHORT-TERM RENTALS USING THE SAME
ENFORCEMENT CURRENTLY IN PLACE IN LEE COUNTY
AND INCLUDING PROHIBITION FROM COVID “HOT SPOTS”
AS DETERMINED BY GOVERNOR DESANTIS – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we move now to Item 11H. This
is a recommendation to accept the COVID status report from the
staff.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. And as we get into that,
there are going to be two issues that we need to discuss as part of this.
One is how to deal with our beaches going forward, because we have
that situation where the beaches are closed for certain part of the day
on Saturday and Sunday and then also they were closed on Memorial
Day, and the second that we need to discuss as part of th at is the
opening of the short-term rentals.
The plan that was approved by the Governor -- by the
Governor's agencies limits our use of those to Florida residents only.
That's not a requirement. It just happened to be kind of a cut and
paste from other counties that have looked at that issue.
So two issues we need to decide. Do we want to change the
beach situation, and do we want to open-up the short-term rentals to
anyone from anywhere other than COVID-19 hot spots? So keep that
May 26, 2020
Page 94
in mind as we're going through this conversation, because we'll need
motions on both of those issues.
MR. OCHS: Thank you, sir. Mr. Carnell?
MR. CARNELL: Yes, good morning. For the record, Steve
Carnell, Public Services Department head.
Before we get to the discussion on the beaches, we would like to
give you an update from your Department of Health. Ms. Vick is not
available today so, in her stead, John Drew from the Department of
Health is going to brief you.
MR. DREW: Thank you, Steve.
Thank you, Commissioners.
John Drew, Florida Department of Health in Collier County here
on behalf of Stephanie Vick.
MR. OCHS: Arrow down on the keyboard.
MR. DREW: Arrow down on the keyboard, okay.
So I want to start with -- we just have a few slides here to
present, so I'll start with the numbers that most of you have been
hearing on a regular basis.
Our case count, this is as of May 24th, so as of Sunday -- we put
the slides together Monday morning and so the most recent available
data was from Sunday. We have 1,208 Collier County cases, Florida
residents, Collier County residents, and 1,282 cases altogether. So 74
nonresidents that are positive.
And then our total testing, so far we've done 13,877 tests with a
positivity rate of about 9.2 percent, and we, unfortunately, have 46
Collier resident deaths and five nonresident deaths, for a total of 51,
and the -- that's all. The detail is there on the deaths from the
hospitals and Medical Examiner.
So the next set of slides is the gating criteria data. You're all
familiar with those, the White House and the Governor's gating
criteria. And if you'll allow me to just go through them really quickly
May 26, 2020
Page 95
until we get to the decision slide, and I'll stop and see if there are any
questions.
But first our influenza-like illness syndrome in Collier County,
you can see there's a very slight uptick in that one. These are
emergency room visits, both the influenza-like syndrome and the
COVID-like illness syndrome emergency room visits. You can see
there's a downward trend on that one. And then we have the
percentage of positives, percentage of persons who tested positive.
You can also see a nice downward trend on there, and the shaded area
represents the 10 percent target. So as long as we're under that
shaded area, we are considered to be in good shape.
And then these are the ventilator capacity in the hospitals. You
can see at the bottom, or the brown color, is the ventilators that are
currently in use, and then the next, light green, are the ventilators that
are immediately available, first-line ventilators, and then the other
number, the dark green, are ventilators that can be used in a surge
situation, so we are in good shape with that.
And, lastly, the hospital bed capacity, same scenario. The
bottom dark numbers are COVID-19 patients in the hospital, so beds
being used by COVID-19 patients. The next number is beds -- filled
beds by any other patients, the orange number are available beds that
are staffed, and the gray number is available beds that would require
additional staffing to fill them.
So that brings us back down to decision matrix. And so the
gating criteria one, the symptoms is an "and." So in order to give us
a yes on that group, we're supposed to have two yeses, and remember
we had a slight uptick in the ILI visits, so we gave that one a no. And
then the -- but all the others are yes, a downward trajectory of
positive tests as a percentage of the total tests is a yes. The sufficient
hospital ventilator capacity and sufficient hospital bed capacity are
both yeses.
May 26, 2020
Page 96
So -- and then the -- I'll just remind you that the gating criteria,
the way it has been presented, is that -- to use it as a decision-making
tool for moving into your next phases of opening, and we've -- we
had that soft opening, the Governor called it a soft opening, with the
25 percent capacity as a general thing, and then we move to the
50 percent capacity. So the idea is to wait two weeks and watch the
data for two weeks. So it's only been one week since that second
opening.
So I'm going to pause there for questions about the gating
criteria. Any?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I don't see anybody's button
pushed, so...
MR. DRACKETT: I'll keep moving then.
So this one, I apologize ahead of time, the two lines here, when
we put this chart together yesterday, we were a little bit in a hurry.
But those should be shifted to the left just a little bit, about three days
to the left. But those lines are representing the May 3rd first Phase 1
opening and the May 18th Phase 2 opening.
And these are -- this is strictly hospitalizations. So the yellow
line is the non-ICU COVID-19 hospitalizations, and the blue line is
the ICU COVID-19 hospitalizations. And you can see the chart goes
all the way back to the beginning of when we started tracking this
information back to March 26th. And the reason we wanted to just
bring this to your attention, you'll note that we just told you that the
hospitals are -- the capacity is fine. There are no issues there. And at
the same time, the number of cases admitted into the hospitals is
gradually increasing. And you can see that those -- the Phase 1, the
partial opening and the Phase 1 full opening, there's a little bit of a
consistency or an increase at each one of those spots.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I do have a question, Mr.
Chair.
May 26, 2020
Page 97
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Just -- so per this graph -- and
you -- if you go back one slide, I think you -- there was
representation there of 69 people, maybe -- that one there that showed
that there was currently 69 people hospitalized in Collier County that
are testing positive right now. Is this a cumulative total, or is this
how many are in there today?
MR. DREW: Today. It's a day by day. So, yeah. So on 5/24,
on Sunday, there were 69 in the hospital at 10:00 a.m., or before
10:00 a.m., which is -- the hospital report's 10:00 a.m. to the
emergency status system.
And so here, this goes all the way. It says 5/23, but those are
every other day. The labels are every other day, so it doe s go to 24.
So that should add up. The blue plus the yellow should add up to 69
because they're the same number.
So, we bring this to your attention just for awareness and as a
reminder to the public that it's still important to practice our social
distancing and to practice good hygiene and hand washing and all
those things that we've been talking about all long, because the virus
is still -- it's still there. It hasn't gone away.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. I believe we have
registered speakers or --
MR. DREW: Yeah, I have one registered remote public
speaker.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Why don't we go ahead and hear
the remote speaker.
MR. MILLER: I'm going to need to take control of that
computer over there for just a second to get this ready, if you don't
mind. And your registered public speaker is Steve Perkins.
Mr. Perkins, are you on the line, sir?
MR. PERKINS: I am. Thank you. Can you hear me?
May 26, 2020
Page 98
MR. MILLER: Yes. If you could speak up just a bit. Let me
just adjust you here. Okay. Go ahead, sir.
MR. PERKINS: Okay. Thank you very much. Steve Perkins,
Naples Park.
And in transparency, I am in the cohort of those 65 and over
listed in the Governor's Phase 2 opening plan and encouraged to
remain at home due to underlying conditions, so I really appreciate
being able to speak to you today in this meeting. And the group that
does this is doing a great job, by the way.
It's difficult for me, at least, to understand how Collier County's
rental safety plan can or will be enforced. When Collier submitted its
initial plan -- and I have not seen any redrafts of it -- to Florida
Department of Business and Professional Development, I requested
from Secretary Bashear's office, how that plan could be enforced, and
the reply I received was, quote, each county's re-opening safety plan
should provide guidance for who is responsible for enforcement of
violations. If enforcement responsibility is not outlined, please
contact your respective county for advisement. So I guess I would
ask you to consider my comments and recommendations today of
asking for that advisement.
How will renters' properties who do not meet the safety plans
criteria, out of state, non-Florida resident, et cetera, or from one of
the out-of-state places with a certain tripwire (sic) be identified in
residential neighborhoods such as Naples Park? How will those
owners of property be identified and held responsible for
noncompliance? When identified, how will action be taken and
followed up to enforce compliance?
Now, I've heard time and time again from Commissioners about
wanting numbers. Numbers are the equalizer in almost any
discussion and argument. So in review and inspection and critique of
the safety plan, how is that data going to be collected on compliance
May 26, 2020
Page 99
and enforcement due to the success or difficulties going forward?
And I'm not trying to pretend anything here. This COVID-19
pandemic has challenged each person. It has strained our systems
and processes statewide and nationally and, in doing so, it's shown
light on existing weaknesses of those systems and processes we're
dealing, and in many cases there are few resources and little ability to
monitor or control or take action. That's the issue I'm talking about
today for noncompliance on short-term rentals, especially in
residential neighborhoods like Naples Park.
On the good side, it's also shined the light on the helpers and the
strengths, and I'm grateful for that. And whatever comes from
today's meeting going forward with the safety plan and with
short-term rental in general, I ask that you widely disseminate Collier
County's process on how to submit a call for service to investigate a
short-term rental of a suspected violation for the safety plan. Do that
through our county social media, the Sheriff's social media. By the
way, the Sheriff's social media is outstanding. They do a great job.
Put flyers on door handles similar to water main breaks if you have
to, but get that information out there so that people know how to take
action.
Put in place now good processes for data collection about how
the safety plan and its enforcement, the compliance were successful
or not, and then in your weekly reviews that was in the initial safety
plan, use that data to collect any data to determine needs for
enforcement.
There are also some sort of lessons learned documents that,
going forward, we can make things better.
I thank you for your time, and I wish you luck on this difficult time.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you, Mr. Perkins.
All right. Any other speakers?
MR. MILLER: That is our only registered speaker. And if
May 26, 2020
Page 100
you'll allow me just a second, I'll get the PowerPoint ready to go
again for this gentleman.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And as we get into the discussion,
I'd like to ask the Manager a couple quick questions. In terms of
from a law enforcement perspective, how did things go this past
weekend and the prior weekend with the closure of the beach for this
short period of time, and how did the parking go? Just a kind of a
short analysis of how things went. And if you have any information
about how things went in the city, that would be helpful. But
primarily with the county, obviously.
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. We've got -- we're up on that in about
two slides, if you hold that for just a second.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay.
MR. DREW: Thank you. So just two more slides. We want --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were
finished.
MR. DREW: No, no. That's okay.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I apologize for that.
MR. DREW: That's okay. Whoops. I lost control again. Oh,
there we go.
So just two more slides here. We wanted to bring your attention
to the fact that a lot of the cases, the new cases and a noticeable
proportion of the hospitalizations, are coming from Immokalee
residents. And so this chart kind of demonstrates what's been
happening with Immokalee COVID cases.
The yellow is the total number of Collier County cases per day,
and the blue line represents the number of Immokalee residents per
day. So you can see how at the beginning the ve ry small percentage
of the cases were Immokalee residents, and then we did that big
testing event out in Immokalee, and that's where you see that spike is
from. And since then, the percentage of cases of Immokalee
May 26, 2020
Page 101
residents has been averaging around 30 to 40 percent of all the cases.
And it's concerning because, as you all know, Immokalee accounts
for about 10 percent of the population. So the percentage of cases is
higher than we expected.
And we checked with the hospitals. They weren't able to get us
the data from the last two weeks before I came in this morning, but
you can see the two-week period from May 3rd to May 16th, at NCH
33 percent of the patients admitted were Immokalee residents and at
Physicians Regional 24 percent where Immokalee residents.
I didn't get it exactly the same way, but NCH gave me an email
this morning just to show the progression. In March, only one
Immokalee resident was admitted; in April, seven; and in May so far
34 have been admitted into NCH. And Physicians Regional says that
their percentage for the two weeks from May 10th to May 23rd is
about 25 percent. So holding steady.
And so we also wanted to -- this is directly related. So the
Immokalee cases are being traced. We're doing contact tracing as
quickly as possible to identify those cases. And we had -- Stephanie
previously talked to you about the agreement with using some county
employees to help with our contact tracing. So there have been 13 --
I mean, there have been 10 county employees trained on May 13th,
and the first five are going to begin on June 1st, and then there will be
five more on standby.
And then we wanted to just explain or tell you a little bit more
about what we're doing in Immokalee to handle this issue, and as you
know we've been doing lots of outreach there with our vans and our
PA announcements, multiple languages, lots of different outreach
activities have been happening there, and so we're continuing those
outreach activities and doing an enhanced emphasis on community
education.
We're working to identify additional testing locations
May 26, 2020
Page 102
considering the accessibility factors for Immokalee residents. We're
doing continued distribution of PPE to community agencies and
healthcare providers in the Immokalee area so that we can help to
ensure that they have plenty of PPE to care for the people there. And
we're doing continued contact tracing working to get those contacts
traced as quickly as possible after identification of a positive case.
And the one other piece of data I have over there is that the
contact tracing as of May 25th -- this is for the whole county. Out of
1,212 resident cases -- I showed data earlier from Sunday, but I was
able to get this together with Monday's data. 1,212 cases. Out of
those, 90 percent have already been investigated.
Now I'm finished.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. And first off, I have a
couple of things I'd like to say. I want to thank the Health
Department. They've been extremely cooperative in working with us.
I have asked Stephanie -- Stephanie Vick, our director -- to enhance
the calls they -- originally when the Health Department took over the
partners calls that we were doing twice a week, they moved them to
once a week, but then, when we were successful in standing up the
National Guard's testing facility, which increased the amount of tests
that were conducted, I suspected as we were going along, with more
information we were going to need more communication.
I would ask for my colleagues' support today, if we can,
someway, somehow assist in getting more testing to that community.
Prior to standing up the National Guard testing facility, there were
approximately 300 tests conducted in the Immokalee area;
approximate. And, again, there's no absolutes with this. But there
were approximately 300 tests. We had about 70 or so positive cases
in those 300 tests.
And so the percentage of positive cases for our community was
May 26, 2020
Page 103
higher than what had been transpiring on the state level, and then --
and so it continued to follow. When you do more testing, then you
have more positive results. And we've actually seen a fairly
significant increase in positive cases in the Immokalee -- in that area
code of Immokalee -- in the 142 area [sic] code.
Now, I want to ask the Health Department, John, if you will,
please, to consider the asset base that's available in Lee County as
well as Collier County. Immokalee, as we know, has no hospital
facilities. And they are equidistant to Lee Health as they are to
Collier County's hospital facilities, ICU beds and hospital beds. And
so -- and I can also say there's probably an increase in residents of
Immokalee seeking assistance because we've been communicating
with our partners.
We all know that Immokalee has a unique circumstance with
transient workers, folks who come here sometimes not legally. They
are trained to not answer the door when a public official shows up.
And I have promised every single call, no one will be deported for
seeking to get tested. No one will be deported and/or denied care
irrespective of their capacity to pay.
So this increase, I think, necessarily can be a positive for our
community because the trust level is being enhanced to instigate
people to seek to get tested. When you are symptomatic, of course
it's important that you do go do that and then, two, seek treatment so
that we can better contain what's, in fact, going on.
You know, Stephanie and I have had regular conversations with
regard to what's been transpiring. There has never been a reduction
in the positive cases for folks who have recovered from the virus.
Statistically, a good portion of those 1,200 in our county could be --
should be statistically removed from that list of total positive cases,
because we've never taken one off the list and, statistically, a large
portion of them have recovered already.
May 26, 2020
Page 104
That's not specifically the case in Immokalee. Immokalee,
before we stood up the National Guard testing, as I said, we had
about 70 positive cases, and we've jumped to 390 as of this morning.
So it's imperative that -- and our Health Department's in charge
of this as far as the contact tracing goes and ensuring that the asset
basis that are, in fact, available are availed to the community as we
go forth.
Remember that, and this is -- there are no absolutes in this.
Approximately 10 percent of the people who get tested test positive,
and approximately 10 percent of those people require a hospital bed,
and approximately 10 percent of those people require an ICU bed,
and approximately 10 percent of the ICU beds require a vent. So
even with 392 positive cases, 10 percent, that's 40 hospital beds,
10 percent's four ICU beds, and 10 percent's less than one vent.
And we have an asset base, cumulatively, between Lee County,
Lee Health -- and I get emails and communication from the director
of Lee Health as well as Naples Community Hospital and Physicians
Regional. Just, I'm monitoring these assets every single day.
So, I would implore my colleagues to, if you can, help us -- I
need more tests in town. We stood up that National Guard facility
and allowed for 2,000 tests, and 1,400, I believe 1,388 actually got
consumed.
We need more testing in that community. We know that there
are living circumstances that are less than favorable in certain areas
in certain conditions. We know there are language barriers. We
know that there are financial barriers. Those barriers need to be
overcome, and information is the key to that -- is the key to success
for that.
So if I can have anything publicly today, please, ask the
Emergency Services Department in Tallahassee, Jared Moskowitz, he
was extremely cooperative with Senator Passidomo and the Health
May 26, 2020
Page 105
Department when we stood up the National Guard facility a couple of
weeks ago. He -- that, I believe, is the key to success for our
community, and then overcoming those barriers of income and living.
We do have assets available. The wraparound services are, in
fact, there. The County Manager and I and Stephanie, or Ms. -- I
think it was Kathleen was on that call way back in early March. We
ensured that the wraparound services were, in fact, there, because
sometimes -- sometimes people can't self-isolate. They can't
quarantine because of their living circumstances. And then,
culturally, it's acceptable in certain cultures for many families to live
together. So that isolation and quarantine isn't necessarily possible.
So -- but those services are, in fact, there. We've got those
assets in place to take care of those specific items alon g the way, but
the main thing is -- and I don't know if a letter to the Governor's
office and/or the Emergency Management Services in Tallahassee
would assist us or not, but I would -- I would love to see more testing
as soon as possible.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Well, I think it would be
appropriate for the Manager, working with the Department of Health,
to make a request --
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. Do it today.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- on behalf of the Board. And if
you need a letter, just draft it, and I'll sign it. Very good point.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: May I ask Bill a question?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes. If you'll push your button, I'll
recognize you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. There you go.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: You're recognized.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. Bill -- I mean,
Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's Bill.
May 26, 2020
Page 106
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Being that the location you know,
they're all kind of cramped together there -- somebody was writing to
you, I think -- because I got an intervention in that -- that said that
they're trying to find places to place people so that they're not all
packed into one trailer here and there. Do you know anything about
that now?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I do.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Now. And, again, we do
these partners calls every -- twice a week. There's one today at 4:00,
and then on Thursday again at 4:00. And we're asking our partners,
the Guadalupe Center, the RCMA, the Unmet Needs Coalition, the
Benison -- Frank Greencon (phonetic) tested positive last week. He's
one of the main -- one of the main distributors of assets that come to
our community. And I don't mean to digress all that much, but
Hurricane Irma exemplified the needs of the community of
Immokalee. They were there before and currently still exist. The
Unmet Needs Coalition was put together by these partners in
Immokalee to address the needs of the community.
And so those cramped living quarters that are there, we have
partners who work with those folks. Not everybody in Immokalee
lives like that. I want to clarify that point. There are some really
quite nice places, but then there are some that are not, and the folks
don't have the capacity, individually, to quarantine and/or isolate
themselves.
But, yes -- and we do have those assets available. I call them
assets. It's hotel rooms and homes. We actually have a cooperative
agreement with the Housing Authority. You'll recall I was the
chairman of the Collier County Housing Authority. They've offered
up a portion of Horizon Village, which is a dormitory facility that we
have just north of the casino, which has beds availability if, in fact,
May 26, 2020
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people need to be quarantined and/or removed. And then we have
homes reserved as well.
So we kind of -- I don't want to say we're okay, but we're kind of
sort of okay with what's, in fact, transpiring. It's difficult, though,
Commissioner Fiala, because folks are hesitant to seek assistance if
they have other circumstances that would not necessarily allo w them
to ask for help.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thanks.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Any other questions for
the Department of Health?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Do we have any other
registered speakers? You only had the one, so...
MR. MILLER: That's all the speakers we have, sir.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And if -- I have one more
point if I can make, and I'd like to share this with my colleagues and
the folks that are watching, and this is just a statement. It has to do
with what we're going to be talking about here in a minute.
There has never been an initiative to stop the bug. Stop -- I call
it the bug. Stop the virus. It's been to slow the spread, slow the
spread, and that's to allow us to manage our asset base to be able to
care for our public. And so on the AHCA's website, the Agency for
Healthcare Administration, there is a census, a hospital bed census by
county by hospital for all hospital beds and ICU beds. And if you
haven't availed yourself of that yet, it's a very, very good asset tool,
especially for Immokalee, as I shared earlier, because we're
equidistant from Lee Health and Collier's assets. So, necessarily, we
have double the facilities that are availed just in Lee County
compared to what we have available in Collier. So that bed census –
hospital bed census that's put out on AHCA's website's amazing.
May 26, 2020
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CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Let's -- let's see if we can
turn to a couple decision points that we have to discuss. One of those
decision points is I think we can finish this meeting without breaking
for lunch. And I want to see if that's okay with the Board.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I am pretty hungry, but I can
wait.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And I've gotten from the court
reporter to keep going forward, so let's move forward.
MR. OCHS: We'll move quickly, sir.
Go ahead, Steve.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So you're getting ready to go
through --
MR. OCHS: The beaches.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- the beach issue. So let's focus
on that as one sole item. Again, everyone knows where we are with
those, and it's just a question of whether we maintain the course that
we're on, or do we make changes.
MR. CARNELL: Yeah. If I could, just to be clear, I think
everybody remembers the Board two weeks ago ordered us to work
with limited hours at our beaches on weekends, so we went to a
7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. schedule and then a 5:00 p.m. to sunset, and
we've run that for two consecutive weekends.
And the restrictions on those hours have proved effective. The
attendance -- we've had five days now, two days, the weekend, and
May 16th and, of course, the three-day Memorial weekend, and in all
five days, the attendance was very manageable, extremely
manageable. Rain was our friend in terms of helpin g to manage the
attendance as well.
But really no issues. The public, the beachgoers were extremely
cooperative, and we just really had no problems for the two
weekends.
May 26, 2020
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The other factor in this -- if you'll remember, part of the issue --
and I would say the same for the City of Naples. We talked to their
staff as well, and they had a similar experience at their beach ends.
One of the drivers in the decision that we made was, of course, the
influx of beachgoers from the East Coast. And I did want to let the
Board know that Broward County is opening their breaches effective
today and that Miami-Dade is scheduled to open their beaches next
Monday, June 1st.
So that gets us to the Chairman's point, which is really three
basic options as we see it for the Board going forward. You could
leave your current executive order in place until the next time you
meet, June 9th, two weeks from today, or you could consider
returning to regular weekend hours for either of the two weekends
coming, May 29th or June 6th, or you could also direct the County
Manager to restore full weekend hours after the East Coast beaches
are completely open.
So that's -- and we would recommend just moving forward with
re-opening and going -- re-opening -- going back to full weekend
hours at the beach is what I mean to say.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. You're talking about going
back effective immediately, not waiting?
MR. CARNELL: Correct, that would be our recommendation.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I think, obviously, I was in
favor of limiting the hours on the weekends. I did have a
conversation with Chief Bloom, and he -- yeah, he said that
everybody at the beach was very, very compliant. Everybody
understood why, by and large.
I think the gentleman from the public health had said that there
is a period now that we need to see since the second phase of
re-opening. You know, we need to see what effect that has. And
May 26, 2020
Page 110
what I would like to suggest is that we at least continue with the
restrictions on the weekends -- our next meeting will be when?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: June 9th.
MR. OCHS: June 9th.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- until June 9th. And that gives us
time, one, the East Coast beaches won't be open until the 1st
completely, and it gives us an opportunity to see what the effect has
been on -- with the further re-opening.
I can't say enough I think we need to be very, very cautious and
very methodical move forward. And if the trend continues, then I'll
support, you know, opening up completely. But I think it behooves
us to be very, very methodical in this, and we don't know what effect,
if any, hopefully none, the second round of re -opening is going to
have.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm -- I haven't changed my
position from the last time we voted on this, and I think it's time that
the restrictions be lifted and we go back to our full operating hours.
I've -- as I said, this has been a management process for us to be able
to ensure that the assets are available for the care of our community,
hospital beds, ICU beds, and ventilators, and the like, and I believe
that the restrictions should be lifted.
I said it the last time; I'll say it again today briefly. If you do, in
fact, visit our beach, if you go anywhere and you don't feel
comfortable, remove yourself.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: We did speak to Miami today
before this meeting, or during the meeting, and there's no guarantee
that anything's open June 1st. They haven't made a decision yet.
So my suggestion would be and my support would be, perhaps –
for me the issue's always been the East Coast visiting here and,
May 26, 2020
Page 111
frankly, that's the issue for the folks on the East Coast.
So I would like to see -- I wouldn't object if the County
Manager -- to restore full weekend hours and weekday hours, not just
weekend, but weekday hours, after East Coast beaches are open. It's
my understanding that not this weekend but the weekend before, Lee
County was really hit hard by folks coming over from the East Coast,
really hit hard. Apparently, they closed down Fort Myers Beach.
So it's an issue of understanding that we kind of do live close to
other folks, and if we want to preserve some kind of safety on the
beaches, I think it's important that we follow what goes on in the East
Coast and also work together with Marco Island and the City of
Naples.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel, do you
have another --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I do. And this has to do with
us, not them. This has to do with the information that we're all
looking at on a regular basis. If you look at the -- if you look at the
Health Department's dashboard right now -- and we're going to have
this same discussion when we start talking about our short-term
rental. The positivity rate, the restrictions that are put on these
positivity rates, so many per hundred thousand of population and the
like, are inflated. There have not been -- there has not been a
reduction in positive cases in the state of Florida since this pandemic
broke out, since the testing started.
And as I stated earlier, statistically -- I think Stephanie said two
weeks ago that there was one report early on that 76 of those people
who are showing as positive could be, should be marked as recovered
and off the list. That doesn't take away from the hot spots. It doesn't
take away from the percentage of increase of positive tests in
particular geographic areas, but it's hard -- it's hard for me to make
decisions based upon positivity rates and other particular areas with
May 26, 2020
Page 112
datasets that haven't -- that aren't actually accurately reflecting the
amount of positive cases that are in a particular community.
And, yes, there are people that are coming here from the other
coast. They have been coming here from the other coast, and I
presume that they will continue to come here from the other coast.
So I don't really want to base our decisions based upon that. I think
we are detracting from our residents' capacity as much as we are
theoretically deterring folks to come here from other parts of the state
and country.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And I respect your opinion, and
I know it hasn't changed, but neither has mine.
I showed a doctor, a pretty experienced doctor in pulmonary
medicine, the picture that I took at the pier, and the one comment.
There was one comment: Yep, I think COVID was spread that day.
What the city went through no city should ever go through that.
There was a complete disregard for parking. There was thumbing
their nose at social distancing. There -- people brought coolers, and
in those coolers were beer. So they were also enjoying themselves
tremendously on an extraordinary day at the beach. It was beautiful
that day, but it became harder to manage.
And so I think our restrictions are working. I haven't got an
email from anyone who's complaining about it, at least in my in-box.
And I think we -- why are we -- why are we turning away from
success? Just -- let's just do this gradually, in your words,
Commissioner Solis, methodically, and allow this to be the right
situation.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I have a question for Mr. Ochs.
Your recommendation and for our staff, your recommendation is to
go back to just the regular situation that we had prior to the closing of
the beaches. So they would be open, no restrictions?
May 26, 2020
Page 113
MR. OCHS: Correct.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: What is the basis for that
recommendation?
MR. OCHS: Well, we think we have the manpower that's
needed to maintain the social distancing even with the regular hours
and, quite frankly, the -- you know, the data that we are seeing from
the Health Department, the only upward trend in that report, excuse
me, was the influenza symptoms.
So we're ready -- and then, secondarily -- this is not the primary
reason, but also we're trying to get some other park and recreation
facilities open. The more we have to divert people away from those
areas to help with us closures and re-openings of the beaches, that
just delays some of the other facilities from opening.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Commissioner
McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yeah. Well -- and there
again, I'm just fortifying my point, repeating it necessarily.
It's just, there's -- we've got the assets in place. We didn't
necessarily have the issues with regard to our beaches and our
facilities, so there is that little thing called the Constitution that it
kind of flies along here with our rights to be able to come and go as
well.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Commissioner Fiala, we
haven't heard from you. Do you have any comment on this? You
don't need to. I just want to make sure you have an opportunity.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I would like to -- just, I
would like to end it on the 1st of June when the other beaches are
open, too, and we can move forward from there, and everything can
be open again. I understand that on Marco Island -- and this is only
hearsay now. I understand that the Marriott was totally full, the
Marriott on Marco. That's a huge total, but it was all full because, of
May 26, 2020
Page 114
course, there was no short-term rentals, so that probably had plenty to
do with it.
So people are coming over. But I think now that Fort
Lauderdale is open, that will lessen it, and then by the first of June,
that's what, five days away, six days away, then we can open them
all.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. The only issue there is we
don't know if Miami will actually open on June 1st. Now, we can
delegate to the manager the ability to open up the beaches on
June 2nd assuming that Dade County opens up. If you want to do it
that way, we don't need to have another meeting. We don't need to
wait until June 9th if the issue is waiting for Miami-Dade to open up.
Is that kind of your issue, Andy?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: It is.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. I think we've probably
heard enough discussion. Let's see if there's a motion to do
something here.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Note that I didn't hit my
button, Commissioner Taylor.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Weekday and weekend hours
also? Because I believe we are limited during the weekday, or am I
incorrect?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: No, no. There's no limitations
Monday through Friday.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I can't hear you.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Only the weekend hours. I
misunderstood. I'm going back to what the city -- the city's weekday
and weekend but the county is only weekend as it exists.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right, right.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I tend -- I've kind of gone back and
forth on this. I thought the compromise that we had last time was
May 26, 2020
Page 115
very good.
I'm going to go along with the staff recommendation, though,
personally. I think that we should go ahead and open up the beaches,
including on the weekends, as staff has recommended. And we did
not have that law enforcement problem before we closed the beaches,
and we didn't have a law enforcement problem afterwards.
And I've been to the beach several times. I see the deputies in
their little four-wheelers going back and forth, and folks that I saw at
the beach were social distancing.
And so that's kind of my view. So -- but we do need a motion to
do something here. So let's see if there's a motion here.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You making a motion?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll just mention real quickly, I
didn't get any -- no mail at all did I get from anybody complaining
about the beaches. Everybody was satisfied. Nobody was unhappy
with what was going on --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Felt safe.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- so I agree.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, I'd like -- are you going to
make a motion?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I was going to make a motion, but if
you'd like to, I'll defer to you. Either way.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: All right. Well, it may not be
exactly your comments, but what I'd like t o do is direct the County
Manager to restore full weekend hours after all the East Coast
beaches open in Miami, Dade, and in Broward.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm
Beach?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And Palm Beach. I think Palm
Beach is open, but that -- I'm fine with that, yeah. So those three --
MR. OCHS: Three counties? Not all the municipalities? Just
May 26, 2020
Page 116
the counties, you're talking about?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, I think it's my
understanding that -- and I may be wrong about this but, yeah, you've
got a municipality in Miami Beach. Miami-Dade County has four
parks. I'll bow to you, sir.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I would just say that -- yeah, I
mean, there's a lot of municipalities up and down there. I think it
would be a challenge for the County Manager to have to track all that
down, I mean -- and that's why I was just saying -- and I've contacted
or seen -- I haven't contacted him, but I saw something from
Miami-Dade that, yeah, there's no set -- nothing set in stone that it's
June 1st. I would just like to roll what we have going to the next
meeting, and at the next meeting, if all the beaches are open on the
East Coast, then I would support opening up completely. I mean, I
think that's the most manageable thing without causing the Manager
to have to contact probably 25 municipalities, and they might be
doing different things.
I think we just -- we should just roll it to the next meeting. I
haven't received any emails either complaining about the beach. In
fact, it's the opposite. I've received a lot of emails saying it was the
right thing to do. And, yes, it's inconvenience. It's -- but I think it's
the proper thing to do.
So rather than make it really difficult -- because I would agree
with that, but it's going to make it really difficult for the County
Manager -- let's just roll it to the next meeting. At the next meeting
we can verify what's going on on the East Coast, and then we'll make
a decision. And if everything on the East Coast is open, the numbers
continue the same way after the second phase of opening, then I
would support opening them up as well. Would that make it easier?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: It kind of makes it easier, but I
think from a practical standpoint, I think -- I know Broward's
May 26, 2020
Page 117
opening. I learned that today. I didn't know that before. But
Miami-Dade, they're meeting, actually, this week to determine their
date, and so that's all the mayors. And the County Commission,
there's not a Chairman over there. It's a mayor.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: It's a mayor.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So, apparently, I think it's easier
than you think. From a practical standpoint, no one is going to -- and
that would include the City of Miami Beach with all their -- you
know, South Beach, that whole great stretch of beach, so...
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, whatever the Manager thinks.
I mean, whatever would logistically be easier for making that
determination. I'm not -- I'm just wanting to make it easier to manage
that.
MR. OCHS: Yeah. I appreciate that, Commissioner, but we
can -- whatever policy decision you make, we'll implement it, and
we'll do it; whatever needs to be done.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel, your
button is --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm just -- they're in the
process of making a motion. I'll say my two cents when the motion's,
in fact, made.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala, do you
have --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. You know, because our
numbers as far as COVID haven't gone down, they've just stayed the
same, I think that we should also just wait just another week and
then -- at least a week, and then open them back up. And the reason I
say that is because we have less chance of having any of the germs,
or whatever you want to call it, the virus brought over here.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I would suggest as a possibility
May 26, 2020
Page 118
that we have a meeting next Tuesday for the sole purpose of
determining what we're going to do with our beaches.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Next Tuesday?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Next Tuesday. That would be
June 2nd. We'll know what Miami-Dade's going to do. We're only
talking about a week. We can do --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Those of us that need -- if anyone
needs to participate remotely, we can do that. But let's consider
doing that, and I'll just throw that out.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I like that a lot.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'm in favor of that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I did light up.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's good. Another week of
safety.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes. All right. So I'll support that,
to maintain the status quo with a special meeting on June 2nd to
revisit.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. I'll support having a
meeting on Tuesday, but I'm not going to support continuing on with
the restrictions.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Our staff has come to us and
told us that it's okay. We haven't gotten any emails of anybody
complaining, but we haven't gotten any -- I don't know about you, but
I've gotten a lot of emails about people's rights being trampled on.
So it's a Catch 22. As I said, I -- our staff -- the Sheriff has said
it's been manageable. Our staff is recommending that we open up
May 26, 2020
Page 119
without restrictions, and I don't think we need to make it that
complicated. We don't need to have another meeting. We just open
them up and go.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Then is there a motion?
Then I'll make the motion, if that's -- unless you have one.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Either way. I was in the process of
making a motion. I'll make a motion that we remain with the status
quo until next Tuesday and that we have a meeting for the sole
purpose -- the one agenda item will be to decide what to do with the
beaches.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and
second.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. I'll call for the question.
All in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Am I voting for a meeting on
Tuesday and restrictions, or am I voting on --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It won't matter how -- it won't
matter how you vote. That will make it easy for you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. It doesn't matter how I
vote. No.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Well, I mean, it's not going to
change the outcome. That's what I meant.
All in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
May 26, 2020
Page 120
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes 4-1. So we'll have a
meeting on Tuesday, and let's have a full report on the beach
activities and then --
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- what's happened over on the East
Coast. Now, we do have the issue of the short-term rentals, and the
restriction right now is short-term rentals are restricted only to
Florida residents.
MR. OCHS: Commissioner, let me get you to those. Yeah, skip
ahead to those, Steve, if you don't mind.
Yes, sir. I submitted a short-term vacation rental safety plan on
the 18th. It was approved, and it's limiting short-term vacation
rentals currently to Florida residents only.
Jack, you want to move these slides?
So that's the current plan that's in place, and approved by the
Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
Next, Jack.
These are provisions from approved plans in Lee and Charlotte
and Sarasota Counties that were approved late last week. You can
see that most of them are using this gating criteria where reservations
are allowed from all U.S. states if there's a COVID-19 case rate of
less than 700 cases per 100,000 residents.
In Lee County they continue to prohibit rentals of short-term
vacation properties to those persons that have traveled
internationally, and in Charlotte and Sarasota there's also reservations
that -- from people that are traveling from areas identified by the
Governor as hot spots are to be avoided for 45 days.
Next slide.
So these are some of the options available, obviously, to the
Commissioners. You can maintain the current plan that limits
vacation rentals to Florida residents only. You can consider adopting
May 26, 2020
Page 121
a plan similar to Lee and Charlotte and Sarasota that establishes this
entry threshold based on some COVID case rate data.
Other counties have approved plans where they haven't used the
case rate data, but they've placed restrictions on rentals to guests from
areas that the Governor in his previous executive orders has identified
as high risk, and what they're doing there is saying that anyone that
rents from those areas, that the renter must make sure that the rental
term is for at least the same number of days as the quarantine period
that the Governor put in his order. In most cases that's 14 days.
And then, of course, ultimately, decisions on international travel
and -- those are the options that -- as we see them available to the
Commission at this point.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Does our court
reporter -- do you need a break?
THE COURT REPORTER: No.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: She has another thing at 3:00; is
that right?
THE COURT REPORTER: (Nods head.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay.
MR. OCHS: I'm sorry. And I do have to say that I would
consider the current plan for Collier to be one of the more restrictive
that I've seen of the approved plans in the state. And, again, that
went in early based on a Lee County model that also had limited to
just Florida residents. They subsequently amended th eir plan to set
up this entry threshold based on COVID case rates.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You know, I look at this from a
very practical standpoint. What is more dangerous about a vacation
rental than a hotel room? And, you know, does that mean they clean
more in a hotel room and they clean less in a -- I just -- how are we
going to enforce this? If we're letting folks from maybe the world go
May 26, 2020
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into hotels -- and maybe that's up to individual hotels -- how can we
stop them from coming and renting in Collier County?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I would agree.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And I'm not a friend of vacation
rentals, please understand that. But to me this is -- and I respect
staff's efforts in this and to bring this forward. But I don't know how
we enforce it. I mean, they're open or they're not open. Who's going
to knock on people's doors, private home's door? Where are you
from? Who's going to do that? Do we do that? Are we going to do
that?
MR. OCHS: No, ma'am. I think most counties are relying on
the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to both
regulate and enforce these provisions. And you're right, from a
practical standpoint, you can't enforce that.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But they don't have any
personnel here, right?
MR. OCHS: Well, they probably will only deploy on a
complaint basis or case-by-case basis.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Can we ask -- oh.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well -- and I echo those same
comments, Commissioner Taylor. Similarly, with regard to the
beaches, I'm -- we have enforcement issues. The DBPR has virtually
no people to manage this from an enforcement standpoint. There's
discriminatory issues with regard to who you can and cannot rent to,
and then there's arbitrary issues with regard to no restrictions on
hotels. Our hotels were full last weekend. And then we're trying to
put some kind of a limitation on the short-term rental side of things. I
don't see -- I don't see how we can continue on with this type of --
with these type of restrictions.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala, you --
May 26, 2020
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COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. I was just wondering. I'd
like to ask Jack Wert a couple of questions, if I may. Being that we
had, I understood, full hotels even around the rest of the county -- I
just knew about Marco Island -- what did that do to the TDC
funding? And then what's the difference between that and when
there's short-term rentals involved?
MR. WERT: For the record, Jack Wert, your Tourism Director.
First of all, one weekend doesn't necessarily fill the coffers of
what we've lost. We've really lost all of that revenue from the past.
It certainly is a good indicator.
What we have seen, though -- and we have Mother's Day
weekend and now Memorial Day weekend as examples of what
happens. Immediately after the holiday weekend occupancy is high,
it drops way back down again, and pretty much during the week,
then, you don't see as much activity, and then it pops up again on the
weekend.
We really, from this point on, are mostly a weekend destination
for people in Florida, and that's really what we're seeing in the hotel.
So it was great to have a good weekend, but it really -- it does drop
back down again. So we need a couple of weeks to really see if that
demand continues at that kind of a level and we have a good
non-holiday weekend following.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think it's maybe, then, just very
difficult for the neighborhoods where the short-term rentals are
located because they -- a lot of people will rent them just because
they're cheap. A lot of people will rent -- the rooms are cheap. A lot
of them will rent because they have too many people for a hotel
room, and so they go into that area, or they're going to have a big
party and they don't want to -- they're not accepted in a hotel, but the
neighbors have to live with it then. And I just -- I just think that is so
wrong, because they're -- the neighbors, they're our taxpayers. Their
May 26, 2020
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neighbors, they're the ones that make our community thrive. But,
anyway, that's just my feeling.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well -- and this has to do with
the enforcement aspect of it. I concur with you. I mean, there is the
potential for bad actors in any particular scenario. But for us to limit
this based upon some kind of a positivity rate from other
communities, without -- without more accurate information, it's
really, really difficult.
I mean, I just -- well, I'm on the dashboard right here for the
Health Department, and Dade County's showing 17,000 positive
cases since the beginning, none of which have been moved. So
which number do you use when you're enforcing this positivity rate,
700 people per hundred thousand, or whatever the case is? Is it the
number that -- the cumulative total since the testing began, not when
the pandemic broke out? And that's an important aspect of this. I
mean, this virus has been amongst our population for quite some
time. So I've got -- I can't see how we can enforce restrictions upon
the short-term rentals when we have no restrictions going on , on our
hotels.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I was just going to mention that –
and I don't know if it related to the question tha t Commissioner Fiala
had. But at least in terms of the revenue, the TDC revenue -- and,
Jack, correct me if I'm wrong, but through the end of April
collections of the hotels was down 44 percent.
MR. WERT: Correct.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: The short-term rentals was down
1 percent. Now -- only 1 percent, not 44 percent. Now, I think there
may be a timing issue there because the short-term rentals don't
have -- they pay it to the Tax Collector quarterly. So there's a timing
May 26, 2020
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issue there. So we really don't know what the effect has been on the
short-term rentals, although through March, the first quarter, they
really hadn't seen much of an effect.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Could I suggest that this really is
not a revenue issue. This is an issue of whether or not we're going to
permit short-term rental.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'm going to tie it to that.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I just want to focus on --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think what's going on in terms of
the revenue collections is a sign of what's going on, right? I mean,
the hotels aren't full, the revenue drops. If the short-term rentals are
very active, then they're short -- their revenue is not going to drop as
fast. That's my only point.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Well, I think short-term rentals are
basically shut down right now.
MR. WERT: They are shut down.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: But that's my point. Right. I mean,
they should have zero. Their revenue should have gone down to
100 percent reduction. But it's only decreased by 1 percent in the
first quarter.
So my point is that that's evidence that the banning the
short-term rental hasn't meant a whole lot. Although, you know, the
emails I get, people want to comply with whatever the requirements
are that the county sets and the state sets.
You know, I think -- you know, again, I think it behooves us to
be very, very careful of this for our residents, and I think however we
cut this up and try to fashion something, it's going to have its pitfalls.
I mean, a lot of what we've done in terms of enforcement is -- you
know, we're just hoping people comply.
I would just be in favor of let's just continue with what was
submitted by the County Manager, and we'll discuss this again at the
May 26, 2020
Page 126
next meeting, and, you know, see what happens.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: One thing that could be
enforced, and I think it'd be pretty easy, would be crowding of a
home if there were parties and everything going on. That will be --
that would be very easy to address, and we do that now. So that's a
code issue.
MR. OCHS: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. So we need to kind of
wrap this up. I think everybody's talked this through. My view is
that we should adopt something similar to what they've done in Lee
County. I don't see any downside to having that restriction dealing
with the numbers of infections per 100,000 or whatever the number
is.
Is there a motion to do something with this?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Well, I'll make a motion,
then, just to get the discussion started.
I'll move that we permit the use of short-term rentals using the
same program that they have in Lee County, and I think it's similar to
Sarasota County and Charlotte County, dealing with the reservations
allowed from all U.S. states with COVID-19 case rates less than 700
cases per 100,000. So that would prohibit international travel just
like they have in Lee County as well. So I'll make that motion.
Is there a second? Well, that motion --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'll second it for discussion and
would make a request --
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Sure.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- maybe to amend the motion.
Would it be easier to do, in terms of what's allowed, to do what
Charlotte and Sarasota County's done and just rely upon what the
May 26, 2020
Page 127
Governor has said, these are hot spots, we don't do it from there? I'm
just getting at who's going to keep track of what's -- what their
infection rates are and all of that.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yeah. I'll amend the motion to
include the prohibition from hot spots but I thought -- quite frankly, I
thought that would take care of the 700 -- you know, 700 cases per
100,000. But I'll amend the motion to deal with the --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think it might just be easier. The
Governor has executive orders that say this is a hot spot. This isn't a
hot spot.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. I'll amend the motion to
reflect that.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And I'll second.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We have a motion and
second.
Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yeah, just one point. And,
again, you know, I've been an advocate of abiding by the CDC
guidelines and the Governor's guidelines along the way, but I'm
having a real difficult time with the datasets that are being provided
to us and the definitions appropriated by the CDC and the Governor's
office with regard to this. And though plausible, the enforcement of
this is, at best, improbable.
So I can't support the motion simply just because of the datasets
and the information that's availed to us.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. I just want to say, I cannot
support it either, and only because -- I did a survey with a bunch of
people on my list, and anybody who owns them, of course, is
favorable, and everybody who has to live with the results is not, so --
and that was, my goodness, about 92 percent to 8 percent. So I can't
May 26, 2020
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vote for it.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. All right. Any other --
any registered speakers at this point?
MR. MILLER: No.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Well, then if there's no
other conversation -- Mr. Ochs?
MR. OCHS: Just to be clear, sir, we're looking at the items
listed under the Charlotte and Sarasota County's side?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: There was another slide -- well, I'm
sorry. The next slide, I think, had as one of the recommendations --
right, place restrictions on rentals to guests from areas identified by
the Governor through the executive order or high risk. That's what I
was referring to. I thought that was in the Charlotte or --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: It is in there.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yeah. And that's part of the
motion.
MR. OCHS: Okay. We're not using the COVID case rate.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Correct.
MR. OCHS: We're just going to rely on the high-risk areas in
the Governor's orders.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: What about international?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That's prohibited.
MR. OCHS: That's prohibited still.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Any other clarification
needed, Mr. Ochs?
MR. OCHS: No, sir. Not from me.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a motion and a second.
I'll call for the question. All in favor, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
May 26, 2020
Page 129
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed, signify by saying no.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No, aye.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. That passes, 3-2.
MR. OCHS: Jack, go to Slide 28 real quick.
This is the last thing, just for the Board's situational awareness.
I wanted some visibility on this so that the Board knew that staff was
still planning on these events for June and July at county facilities.
Some of these are tentative based on whether the event promoter's
going to move forward. But we have some tournaments here
planned, and we're proceeding along the lines that they're going to go
ahead and attend. So unless there's any objection, we're going to
move forward with these.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let me ask you a question about
the July 4th fireworks. I know they're being canceled in a lot
different locations, and at some point I guess we have to make a
decision whether we're going to go forward with those.
Why don't you place that issue on the agenda for June 9th, and let's --
MR. OCHS: Okay.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- kind of talk that one through a
little bit, because that requires crowds, and that would be hard to --
hard to maintain.
MR. OCHS: I'll add that to Tuesday's agenda.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Any objection to having that
conversation?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Mr. Chairman, if I could, the provider
wanted to know before June. He's got to know. Fort Lauderdale's
still having them. I know Lee County's canceled them.
What we've talked about with SFI is a registration process
because we can control gate, and you can spread out on the lawn. So
what we've said is rather than just limit it to, you know, 5,000 people
May 26, 2020
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showing up, you can preregister online, get a ticket, and we'll control
access. So we might say the first 3,000 people, and they could spread
out on the lawn and watch it at 9:00 at night. It's a rather small
fireworks display. It's not very large. We can control access if you'd
like, but I've got to let them know -- the provider know by June 1st.
MR. OCHS: Well, Commissioners, you're going to meet on
June 2nd. I mean, they can wait a day.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Would June 2nd work?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: June 2nd can work.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's see how things are going, and
let's talk about that on June 2nd then.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And just so my colleagues know
this, because I've watched this evolve, one of the strong parts of this
sports park is that you can control access, and it was designed to
control access. So when you hear controlling access, know that it's a
doable thing.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right.
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, just before we leave, I want to just
reiterate a couple other things. Summer camps are going to be open
on June 8th, and we're going to try to do as many of those as we can.
All five of your county-operated fitness centers have opened
today. You have community pools at Eagle Lakes, Immokalee, and
Golden Gate Community Parks set to open next Monday, June 1st.
These are all with restrictions and social distancing put in place.
And your three regional libraries have opened to 50 percent capacity
today as well.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But Sun-N-Fun, right -- so the
folks, everybody knows that Sun-N-Fun, the pool's open at
Sun-N-Fun but not --
MR. OCHS: No.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Sun-N-Fun is completely closed,
May 26, 2020
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correct, so folks understand that?
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. We've got Eagle Lakes, Immokalee,
and Golden Gate aquatics opening up June 1st.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay.
MR. OCHS: That's all I have. Thank you, sir.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. That takes us to staff and
Commission general communications. Mr. Ochs, do you have
anything else?
MR. OCHS: Nothing else from me, sir, thank you.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Klatzkow, do you have
anything?
MR. KLATZKOW: Nothing, sir.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Did you want to check -- usually
you check with the Clerk. Do you want to check with the Clerk first?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Sure.
THE CLERK: No. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Nothing from me, thanks.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: (Shakes head.)
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No, sir.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. Just a couple of statistics.
Again, this is an update as of May 20th. First Florida Integrity Bank,
they've processed 1,649 loans locally for 186 million; 75 percent of
those loans are for less than $100,000 with a median income of
$33,000. And this is -- this has probably had a positive impact on
24,000 individual paychecks for two months. They say that they're
still processing new applications, but the volume has decreased
significantly.
May 26, 2020
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And Bank of America has funded 2,422 loans locally for $152
million with the average size of the loan being $62,000.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What is the time frame for these?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: This is as of May 20th.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: From what date?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: From the beginning when the
pandemic started.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, okay.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. This is specifically
related to the pandemic.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. I have -- anything else?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's it.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I have one item. We all received
an email in reference to the Tigertail Park concession agreement and,
of course, attached to that was an article in the Coastal Breeze.
There's always more to a story than what you see. But I think -- I
think we need to have some analysis of this and maybe some report
to the Commission there as to what's happening there with the
concession and why this real negative press.
MR. OCHS: Right. We're prepared to tell you about it right
now, if you want.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right.
MR. OCHS: Mr. Carnell.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yes. Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Is the owner or the
concessionaire or anybody that's involved with this here today?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I didn't indicate to anybody I was
bringing it up, so...
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I really don't want to have a --
I would like -- I got the email. I've been in communication with
May 26, 2020
Page 133
them, I'm sure Commissioner Fiala has as well, and I don't think it's
right for us to have a report without the other side being here.
MR. OCHS: We've had a follow-on conversation with him
recently as well. I mean, I think we can give you a quick synopsis
here of what the issue is.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Any objection to hearing
the quick synopsis?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Let's go ahead and hear
that then.
MR. CARNELL: Well, I'm going to speak to the issue of the
concession agreements themselves, which not only involves the
concessionaire at Tigertail Beach but just about all of our beaches
have concession agreements. They're all a little different.
But the upshot, every single one of them has a component of
revenue where the concessionaire remits a percentage of revenue to
the county each month. And as you all know, we shut down the
beaches on March 18th, March 19th, that weekend, and the
concessions essentially closed with them. Some of them hung on for
a day or two because they were off site, but they all were essentially
out of business.
And then we reopened the beaches on April 30th, and all the
concessions opened back up same day, next day. Within second --
two, three days of re-opening they were all out there again in full
operation.
So the question's become, contractually they owe us revenue for
each month. Naturally, they wouldn't be owing us money when they
were closed. But there's a question about money earned before we
closed and what the fairest way is to resolve that. And we've had a
little bit of mix and match in terms of how each concessionaire has
handled it.
May 26, 2020
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Some of them remitted money for February. Some didn't.
Remember that they earned -- what they earned in February they'd
remit to us, like, in the middle of March. All right. So they have a
full operating month, and then they remit revenue afterwards.
Well, one individual remitted the money and then stopped payment
on his check for February earnings.
Our internal discussions have been thus far that it would be
premature to give people credit or to waive off their payments in
February because they were in full operation the entire month.
There's some thought from the concessionaires, however, that they're
cash starved and crunched and squeezed right now in terms of trying
to get started again.
So where we're going right now -- and we have not fully settled
on this. There's a little bit of internal discussion going on. But our
basic approach right now is to bring back an item to this board that
would recommend waiving remittance of the March and April
payments for all concessionaires and put them back on an even
footing. And we'll be coming in June, one of the June meetings, to
talk about that.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay.
MR. OCHS: And the gentleman at Tigertail Beach knows that
that's our intent.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. I appreciate that
explanation. That's very helpful.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But that doesn't work for Zach's?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What did you say?
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Taylor, would you
repeat that.
MR. CARNELL: We haven't talked to -- I'm not sure we've
talked to Zach yet about that. We've talked to him about other
options, but we'll work all that out and be coming back.
May 26, 2020
Page 135
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And Zach, I assume, must be from
Tigertail; is that --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Zach downstairs.
MR. CARNELL: Zach also has a concession at North Collier
Regional, too.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. I just didn't know who Zach
was.
Anything else?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I had a question, if I could,
just, basically, we're coming back in -- you're going to come back in
June with a synopsis of how much -- how much it is we're going to
waive or not waive and/or abate or --
MR. CARNELL: Yeah.
MR. OCHS: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay.
MR. OCHS: That will be on your June 9th.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's try to do this on June 9th.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yeah, not next Tuesday.
CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: No. Next Tuesday we're going to
deal with a single issue.
All right. I want to remind everybody to continue social
distancing, and masks are cool. I see a couple people in the audience
wearing those masks. Very cool. And keep wearing them when
you're out in public.
Mr. Ochs, thank you, and, staff, thank you, and we are
adjourned.
**** Commissioner Fiala moved, seconded by Commissioner Taylor
and carried unanimously that the following items under the Consent
and Summary Agendas be approved and/or adopted ****
May 26, 2020
Page 136
Item #16A1
FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE SEWER UTILITY FACILITIES
FOR TITAN AMERICA CONCRETE BATCH PLANT,
PL20180003664 (DISTRICT 5) - STAFF CONDUCTED A FINAL
INSPECTION AND FOUND THE FACILITIES ACCEPTABLE
AND SATISFACTORY ON APRIL 10, 2020
Item #16A2
FINAL ACCEPTANCE AND ACCEPT THE CONVEYANCE OF
THE POTABLE WATER AND SEWER UTILITY FACILITIES
FOR ESPLANADE GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB OF NAPLES –
POCIDA COURT, PL20180002606 AND TO AUTHORIZE THE
COUNTY MANAGER, OR HIS DESIGNEE, TO RELEASE THE
UTILITIES PERFORMANCE SECURITY (UPS) AND FINAL
OBLIGATION BOND IN THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF $25,421.29
TO THE PROJECT ENGINEER OR THE DEVELOPER’S
DESIGNATED AGENT (DISTRICT 3) - STAFF CONDUCTED A
FINAL INSPECTION AND FOUND THE FACILITIES TO BE
ACCEPTABLE AND SATISFACTORY ON APRIL 14, 2020
Item #16A3
FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE POTABLE WATER AND
SEWER UTILITY FACILITIES FOR TERRACINA GRAND,
PL20180000408, AND TO AUTHORIZE THE COUNTY
MANAGER, OR HIS DESIGNEE, TO RELEASE THE UTILITIES
PERFORMANCE SECURITY (UPS) AND FINAL OBLIGATION
BOND IN THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF $7,532.23 TO THE
May 26, 2020
Page 137
PROJECT ENGINEER OR THE DEVELOPER’S DESIGNATED
AGENT (DISTRICT 4) – STAFF CONDUCTED A FINAL
INSPECTION AND FOUND THE FACILITIES TO BE
ACCEPTABLE AND SATISFACTORY ON APRIL 20, 2020
Item #16A4
RECORDING THE MINOR FINAL PLAT OF 7-ELEVEN
#1045471, APPLICATION NUMBER PL20190002953 (DISTRICT
5) – LOCATED IN IMMOKALEE AT THE CORNER OF WEST
MAIN STREET AND NORTH 9TH STREET
Item #16A5
RECORDING THE MINOR FINAL PLAT OF GREYHAWK
MODEL CENTER REPLAT, APPLICATION NUMBER
PL20200000169 (DISTRICT 5) – LOCATED OFF VANDERBILT
BEACH ROAD
Item #16A6
RESOLUTION 2020-81: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE
CONVEYANCE OF PORTIONS OF THE RIGHT-OF-WAY ON
COLLIER BOULEVARD (CR 951) AND OTHER COLLIER
COUNTY REAL PROPERTY INTERESTS TO THE STATE OF
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (ALL
DISTRICTS)
Item #16A7
FOURTH AMENDMENT TO AGREEMENT NO. 17-7103 WITH
May 26, 2020
Page 138
Q. GRADY MINOR AND ASSOCIATES, PA., FOR THE
ADDITION OF SPEED TABLE ANALYSIS AND DESIGN TO
THE CONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATION SERVICES, IN THE
AMOUNT OF $8,646 FOR THE WEST GOODLETTEFRANK
ROAD JOINT STORMWATER-SEWER PROJECT (PROJECT
NO. 60142) (DISTRICT 4) – TO REDUCE TRAFFIC SPEED
ALONG RIDGE STREET
Item #16A8
THE CLERK OF COURTS TO RELEASE A PERFORMANCE
BOND IN THE AMOUNT OF $58,683.33 WHICH WAS POSTED
AS A GUARANTY FOR EXCAVATION PERMIT NUMBER
PL20160000402 FOR WORK ASSOCIATED WITH VINCENT
ACRES (DISTRICT 3) – CROSS SECTIONS WERE RECEIVED
AND LAKES WERE INSPECTED ON APRIL 21, 2020
Item #16A9
THE CHAIRMAN TO SIGN AMENDMENT NO. 6 TO
CONTRACT NO. 18-7245 WITH TAYLOR ENGINEERING, INC.,
TO ADDRESS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION REQUESTS
FROM REGULATORY AGENCIES DURING THE
CONCEPTUAL ERP PERMITTING PROCESS FOR THE
COLLIER COUNTY COMPREHENSIVE WATERSHED
IMPROVEMENT PLAN (ALL DISTRICTS) - AS DETAILED IN
THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Item #16A10
AWARD A BID UNDER AGREEMENT NO. 14-6213-135,
May 26, 2020
Page 139
GOODLETTE ROAD WEST BANK PILOT PROJECT, TO
QUALITY ENTERPRISES USA, INC., IN THE AMOUNT OF
$426,100.30 FOR THE GOODLETTE ROAD WEST BANK
STABILIZATION - PILOT PROJECT, AUTHORIZE NECESSARY
BUDGET AMENDMENTS, AND AUTHORIZE THE CHAIRMAN
TO SIGN THE ATTACHED WORK ORDER. (PROJECT NO.
50186) (DISTRICT 4) – ALSO PROVIDING EROSION CONTROL
FOR A SECTION OF THE CONVEYANCE DITCH LOCATED
ON THE WEST SIDE OF GOODLETTE FRANK ROAD
BETWEEN POMPEI LANE AND GRANADA BOULEVARD
Item #16C1
A BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE AMOUNT OF $246,000 FOR
CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE COLLIER COUNTY
COURTHOUSE BUILDING L, AND APPROVE THE
UTILIZATION OF COURT MAINTENANCE FEE FUNDING IN
FUND 181 (DISTRICT 1) – FOR RENOVATING THE FOURTH
FLOOR DUE TO AGE AND HIGH PUBLIC USE THAT WILL
INCLUDE PAINTING, REPLACING THE CARPETING AND
REPLACING WORN/BROKEN JURY CHAIRS
Item #16C2 – Continued to the June 9, 2020 BCC Meeting
(Per Agenda Change Sheet)
RECOMMENDATION TO AWARD INVITATION TO BID
(“ITB”) #20-7703, “PAINT AND RELATED ITEMS,” TO THE
SHERWIN-WILLIAMS COMPANY, AS THE PRIMARY
VENDOR, AND FLORIDA PAINTS & COATINGS, LLC, AS
SECONDARY VENDOR, FOR FURNISHING PAINT AND
PAINT RELATED ITEMS, AND AUTHORIZE THE CHAIRMAN
May 26, 2020
Page 140
TO SIGN THE ATTACHED AGREEMENTS (ALL DISTRICTS)
Item #16C3
TERMINATE AGREEMENT #18-7455 WITH GATOR DRAIN
AND PLUMBING, LLC, FOR CONVENIENCE, LEAVING THE
SECONDARY VENDOR, BC PLUMBING SERVICE OF
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA, INC., AS THE PRIMARY REMAINING
VENDOR FOR PLUMBING SERVICES UNDER THE
AGREEMENT (ALL DISTRICTS) – GATOR DRAIN NOTIFIED
THE COUNTY ON MARCH 16, 2020, THAT THEY WERE NO
LONGER INTERESTED IN PROVIDING SERVICES
Item #16C4
TERMINATE AGREEMENT NO. 17-7108 WITH ZACK’S FOOD
CART MINISTRY CATERING, INC., FOR CONVENIENCE
(DISTRICT 1) – AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Item #16C5
FOURTH AMENDMENT TO REAL ESTATE SALES
AGREEMENT WITH RICHARD D. YOVANOVICH,
SUCCESSOR TRUSTEE (AND NOT INDIVIDUALLY) FOR THE
EXTENSION OF THE DUE DILIGENCE PERIOD FOR THE
SALE OF THE 47 +/- ACRE PARCEL KNOWN AS THE
RANDALL CURVE PROPERTY (DISTRICT 5) – EXTENDING
THE DUE DILIGENCE PERIOD TO JUNE 30, 2020
Item #16D1
May 26, 2020
Page 141
RESOLUTION 2020-82: RATIFING THE COUNTY
MANAGER’S SUBMITTAL OF THE FY20- 21 COMMISSION
FOR TRANSPORTATION DISADVANTAGED SHIRLEY
CONROY RURAL CAPITAL EQUIPMENT SUPPORT GRANT
APPLICATION IN THE AMOUNT OF $89,012.70 FOR THE
PURCHASE OF ONE (1) FORD MINIBUS AND ONE (1)
VEHICLE ALIGNMENT MACHINE; AND APPROVE THE
AUTHORIZING RESOLUTION (ALL DISTRICTS)
Item #16D2
AWARD INVITATION TO BID (ITB) #20-7724, “GOLDEN GATE
BEAUTIFICATION MSTU GROUNDS MAINTENANCE,” TO
MAINSCAPE, INC., AS THE PRIMARY VENDOR, AND A&M
PROPERTY MAINTENANCE, LLC, AS THE SECONDARY
VENDOR, AND AUTHORIZE THE CHAIRMAN TO SIGN THE
ATTACHED AGREEMENTS (DISTRICT 3)
Item #16D3
AWARD INVITATION FOR QUALIFICATIONS (IFQ) NO. 20-
7675, “PARKS TREE MAINTENANCE AND ARBORIST
SERVICES,” TO SIGNATURE TREE CARE, LLC, THE DAVEY
TREE EXPERT COMPANY, P&T LAWN & TRACTOR
SERVICE, INC., E-SANTOS TREE SERVICE, INC., AND
SUPERIOR LANDSCAPING & LAWN SERVICE, INC., AND TO
AUTHORIZE THE CHAIRMAN TO SIGN THE ATTACHED
AGREEMENTS (ALL DISTRICTS)
Item #16D4
May 26, 2020
Page 142
AWARD INVITATION TO BID (ITB) NO. 20-7687R, “BUS
SHELTERS & AMENITIES REPAIRS,” TO WM. J. VARIAN
CONSTRUCTION, INC., AND AUTHORIZE THE CHAIRMAN
TO SIGN THE ATTACHED AGREEMENT (ALL DISTRICTS)
Item #16D5
AWARD INVITATION FOR QUALIFICATIONS (IFQ) NO. 20-
7676, “PARKS LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE,” TO
MAINSCAPE, INC., P&T LAWN & TRACTOR SERVICE, INC.,
R&N LAWN MAINTENANCE, INC., SUPERIOR
LANDSCAPING & LAWN SERVICE, INC., AND A&M
PROPERTY MAINTENANCE, LLC, AND AUTHORIZE THE
CHAIRMAN TO SIGN THE ATTACHED AGREEMENTS (ALL
DISTRICTS)
Item #16D6
THE FY20 PROGRAM OF PROJECTS AND SUBMIT A GRANT
APPLICATION FOR THE FEDERAL TRANSIT
ADMINISTRATION, 49 U.S.C. 5307 FY20 CARES ACT GRANT
FUNDS SUPPORTING TRANSIT SYSTEM OPERATIONAL,
CAPITAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS IN THE AMOUNT
OF $8,158,684 THROUGH THE TRANSIT AWARD
MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, ACCEPT THE AWARD AND
AUTHORIZE ANY NECESSARY BUDGET AMENDMENTS
(ALL DISTRICTS) – INCLUDING THE PURCHASE OF A 35’
FIXED ROUTE BUS, PURCHASE AND INSTALLATION OF
THE BUS DRIVER PROTECTION BARRIERS, FIXED ROUTE
SOFTWARE, FAREBOX REPLACEMENTS, ADA TRIPS, FUEL
May 26, 2020
Page 143
AND MAINTENANCE
Item #16D7
THE CHAIRMAN TO SIGN A SUBRECIPIENT AGREEMENT
WITH THE DAVID LAWRENCE MENTAL HEALTH CENTER
FOR $84,750 AS PART OF A ONE-YEAR BUILDING BRIDGES
BETWEEN JAILS AND COMMUNITY-BASED TREATMENT
FOR OPIOID USE DISORDER GRANT AWARD (ALL
DISTRICTS) – USED IN ADMINISTERING A MEDICATION-
ASSISTED PROGRAM
Item #16D8
A TERMINATION OF COORDINATION AGREEMENT
BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY, AS COMMUNITY
TRANSPORTATION COORDINATOR, AND THE DAVID
LAWRENCE MENTAL HEALTH CENTER, INC. (ALL
DISTRICTS) - THE COUNTY WAS NOTIFIED VEHICLES USED
TO HELP CLIENTS FIND GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT HAD
BEEN RETIRED
Item #16D9
THE “AFTER-THE-FACT” SUBMITTAL OF AN FY20 FEDERAL
TRANSIT AUTHORITY SECTION 5311 CARES ACT GRANT
424 FORM IN THE AMOUNT OF $1,378,420 TO BE USED FOR
COLLIER AREA TRANSIT SYSTEM OPERATIONS (ALL
DISTRICTS) – THE COUNTY MANAGER APPROVED THE
APPLICATION ON MAY 15TH, FDOT ADVISED THAT THE
AGREEMENT MUST BE FULLY EXECUTED BY JUNE 30, 2020
May 26, 2020
Page 144
Item #16E1
RECOGNIZING ACCRUED INTEREST FROM THE PERIOD
JANUARY 1, 2020 THROUGH MARCH 31, 2020 EARNED BY
EMS COUNTY GRANT AND APPROPRIATE FUNDS FOR A
TOTAL AMOUNT OF $1,037.68 (ALL DISTRICTS)
Item #16E2
AWARD REQUEST FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES (“RPS”)
NO. 18-7432-LA, “PROFESSIONAL SERVICES LIBRARY –
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE CATEGORY,” TO MICHAEL A.
MCGEE, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, P.A. D.B.A. MCGEE &
ASSOCIATES, STANTEC CONSULTING SERVICES INC.,
GOETZ + STROPES LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS, INC.,
JOHNSON ENGINEERING, INC., AGNOLI, BARBER &
BRUNDAGE, INC., CRIBB PHILBECK WEAVER GROUP, INC.,
COASTAL VISTA DESIGN, INC., Q. GRADY MINOR AND
ASSOCIATES, P.A., WALDROP ENGINEERING, P.A. AND W.
CHRISTIAN BUSK LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, INC., AND
AUTHORIZE THE CHAIRMAN TO SIGN THE ATTACHED
AGREEMENTS (ALL DISTRICTS)
Item #16E3
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS PREPARED BY THE
PROCUREMENT SERVICES DIVISION FOR CHANGE ORDERS
AND OTHER CONTRACTUAL MODIFICATIONS REQUIRING
BOARD APPROVAL (ALL DISTRICTS)
May 26, 2020
Page 145
Item #16F1
RECOGNIZE ELLEN SHEFFEY, GROWTH MANAGEMENT
OPERATIONS ANALYST, AS THE FEBRUARY 2020
EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH. THE AWARD WILL BE
PRESENTED TO THE RECIPIENT BY STAFF MEMBERS (ALL
DISTRICTS)
Item #16F2
RECOGNIZE GRACE ANGEL, PUBLIC SERVICES ANIMAL
CARE SPECIALIST, AS THE APRIL 2020 EMPLOYEE OF THE
MONTH. THE AWARD WILL BE PRESENTED TO THE
RECIPIENT BY STAFF MEMBERS (ALL DISTRICTS)
Item #16F3
EXPENDITURES FOR THE SOLE SOURCE PURCHASE OF
LIGHTNING PREDICTION AND WARNING SYSTEMS AND
EQUIPMENT BY COLLIER COUNTY FROM THOR GUARD,
INC., IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $100,000, FOR A
PERIOD OF FIVE YEARS (ALL DISTRICTS) – FOR THE
PARADISE COAST SPORTS COMPLEX AND PARKS
FACILITY
Item #16F4
AN AGREEMENT FOR SALE AND PURCHASE TO ACQUIRE
967 +/- ACRES LOCATED THREE MILES EAST OF COLLIER
BOULEVARD AND DIRECTLY NORTH OF ALLIGATOR
ALLEY KNOWN AS THE HHH RANCH OWNED BY FRANCIS
May 26, 2020
Page 146
AND MARY HUSSEY, ET AL AND AUTHORIZE NECESSARY
BUDGET AMENDMENTS. THE TOTAL COST FOR THIS
TRANSACTION WILL NOT EXCEED $10,030,025 (DISTRICT 5)
– FOLIO #’S: 00341960003, 00342040003, 00328560002,
00331320006, 00328640003, 00330480002, 00330840008,
00329240004, AND 00329760005
Item #16F5
A REPORT COVERING TWO BUDGET AMENDMENTS
IMPACTING RESERVES AND MOVING FUNDS IN AN
AMOUNT UP TO AND INCLUDING $25,000 AND $50,000,
RESPECTIVELY (ALL DISTRICTS) – FOR THE GUARDIAN AD
LITEM (COURT IT AND EMERGENCY RELIEF EXPENSES
FOR THE 36TH AVE SE FIRE
Item #16F6
COUNTY MANAGER TO SIGN A LOCAL MATCH
COMMITMENT FORM FOR THE EARLY LEARNING
COALITION OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA INC., TO PROVIDE
FUNDING IN THE AMOUNT OF $75,000 IN FISCAL YEAR 2021
FOR THE SCHOOL READINESS MATCH PROGRAM (ALL
DISTRICTS) - LINKING FAMILIES TO CHILDCARE AND PRE-
K SERVICES
Item #16F7
RESOLUTION 2020-83: AMENDMENTS (APPROPRIATING
GRANTS, DONATIONS, CONTRIBUTIONS OR INSURANCE
PROCEEDS) TO THE FISCAL YEAR 2019-20 ADOPTED
May 26, 2020
Page 147
BUDGET (ALL DISTRICTS)
Item #16G1
SUBMITTAL OF AN AIRPORT IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM
(AIP) GRANT APPLICATION TO THE FEDERAL AVIATION
ADMINISTRATION REQUESTING $2,027,700 FOR THE
CONSTRUCTION OF THE EXTENSION OF TAXIWAY C AT
THE IMMOKALEE REGIONAL AIRPORT WITH A TOTAL
ESTIMATED COST OF $2,253,000 (DISTRICT 5)
Item #16G2
SUBMITTAL OF AN AIRPORT IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM
(AIP) GRANT APPLICATION TO THE FEDERAL AVIATION
ADMINISTRATION AS PART OF THE CORONAVIRUS AID,
RELIEF, AND ECONOMIC SECURITY (CARES) ACT,
REQUESTING $462,000 TO CONSTRUCT TAXIWAY FILLETS
AND MILL/OVERLAY EXISTING PAVEMENT SECTIONS
TAXIWAY C AT THE IMMOKALEE REGIONAL AIRPORT
WITH A TOTAL ESTIMATED COST OF $462,000 (DISTRICT 5)
Item #16G3
AN AFTER-THE-FACT ACCEPTANCE OF THE ATTACHED
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION (FAA)
CORONAVIRUS AID, RELIEF, AND ECONOMIC SECURITY
(CARES) ACT GRANT AGREEMENT IN THE AMOUNT OF
$51,000 FOR ELIGIBLE OPERATING EXPENSES AT THE
IMMOKALEE REGIONAL AIRPORT, MARCO ISLAND
EXECUTIVE AIRPORT, AND EVERGLADES AIRPARK
May 26, 2020
Page 148
(DISTRICT 1, DISTRICT 5)
Item #16H1
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 2020 AS NATIONAL
DRUG COURT MONTH IN COLLIER COUNTY. THE
PROCLAMATION WILL BE DELIVERED TO THE
HONORABLE JANEICE MARTIN, PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE
COLLIER COUNTY DRUG COURT
Item #16H2
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING MAY 2020 AS TRAUMA
AWARENESS MONTH IN COLLIER COUNTY. THE
PROCLAMATION WILL BE MAILED TO LAUREN WARE,
COMMUNITY PROGRAMS COORDINATOR, LEE MEMORIAL
HEALTH SYSTEM, 4211 METRO PARKWAY, FORT MYERS,
FLORIDA
Item #16J1
TO RECORD IN THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS, THE CHECK NUMBER (OR OTHER
PAYMENT METHOD), AMOUNT, PAYEE, AND PURPOSE FOR
WHICH THE REFERENCED DISBURSEMENTS WERE DRAWN
FOR THE PERIODS BETWEEN APRIL 30, 2020 AND MAY 13,
2020 PURSUANT TO FLORIDA STATUTE 136.06 (ALL
DISTRICTS)
Item #16J2
May 26, 2020
Page 149
REQUEST THAT THE BOARD APPROVE AND DETERMINE
VALID PUBLIC PURPOSE FOR INVOICES PAYABLE AND
PURCHASING CARD TRANSACTIONS AS OF MAY 20,
2020 (ALL DISTRICTS)
Item #16K1
RESOLUTION 2020-84: REAPPOINTING STEPHEN MAIN,
CAMILLE KIELTY, AND LAFAYETTE INGRAM TO THE
BAYSHORE/GATEWAY TRIANGLE LOCAL
REDEVELOPMENT ADVISORY BOARD (ALL DISTRICTS)
WITH ALL TERMS EXPIRING ON MAY 22, 2023
Item #16K2
A RETENTION AGREEMENT FOR LEGAL SERVICES WITH
GARDNER, BIST, BOWDEN, BUSH, DEE, LAVIA & WRIGHT,
P.A. (ALL DISTRICTS)
Item #16K3
RESOLUTION 2020-85: REAPPOINTING EDWARD “SKI”
OLESKY TO THE IMMOKALEE LOCAL REDEVELOPMENT
ADVISORY BOARD (DISTRICT 5) TO A TERM EXPIRING
APRIL 4, 2023
Item #17A
RESOLUTION 2020-86: A RESOLUTION APPROVING
AMENDMENTS (APPROPRIATING CARRY FORWARD,
TRANSFERS AND SUPPLEMENTAL REVENUE) TO THE
May 26, 2020
Page 150
FISCAL YEAR 2019-20 ADOPTED BUDGET (ALL DISTRICTS)
*****
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 1:10 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL
___________________________________
BURT SAUNDERS, CHAIRMAN
ATTEST
CRYSTAL K. KINZEL, CLERK
______________________________
These minutes approved by the Board on ____________, as
presented ______________ or as corrected _____________.
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF FORT MYERS
COURT REPORTING BY TERRI LEWIS, FPR, COURT
REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC.