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BCC Minutes 05/22/2007 W (2007 Legislative Session) May 22, 2007 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, May 22, 2007 Legislative Workshop 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 district as has been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 10:00 a.m., in Workshop Session in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: LEGISLATORS: Jim Coletta Tom Henning Frank Halas Fred W. Coyle Donna Fiala Garrett Richter, Representative Mike Davis, Representative Burt Saunders, Senator John Norman, for Rep. Rivera Mike Minozzi, City of Marco Island Bill Barnett, City of Naples CHAIRMAN: ALSO PRESENT: Jim Mudd, County Manager David Weigel, County Attorney Crystal Kinzel, Office ofthe Clerk of Court Page 1 Board of County Commissioners Collier County Legislative Delegation Post 2007 Legislative Session Workshop Tuesday, May 22, 2007 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. AJ!enda I. Introductions II. 2007 Legislative Session Summary III. Property Tax Relief & Reform/Special Session Open Dialogue & Discussion IV. Public Comment V. Adjournment May 22, 2007 MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, Legislators, Senator Saunders, Mayor Barnett, Councilman, Chairman Minozzi, you have a hot mike. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Great. Well, welcome. Welcome to our Board of Collier County Commissioners' meeting special legislative delegation briefing. I appreciate very much that you came out here today. It looks like we have a very lively audience and, undoubtedly, we're going to have a number of speakers signed up to speak. We have a two-hour time frame to work within, 10 to 12. I would suggest that we bring the questions to conclusion as far as this panel goes around 11:30 and allow the last half hour for comments from the audience so that we can get public input. And with that, Mr. Mudd, what would be the best way to approach this, by our agenda or should we go right -- MR. MUDD: I think go by the agenda as posted. In the number two block, when I talked to Representative Davis, this was going to be a time when he and his fellow legislators would have an opportunity to talk to the board and to the public about what got accomplished during their session in Tallahassee, and then the third agenda item is property tax relief and reform. That's basically an open dialogue and discussion, followed by public comment and then adjournment, sir. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Mudd. Well, let's do this. Let's go around the table with introductions. Of course, I'm Jim Coletta, the chair. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Donna Fiala, District 1. COMMISSIONER HENNING: County Commissioner, Tom Henning. MAYOR BARNETT: Bill Barnett, Mayor of City of Naples. COUNCILMAN MINOZZI: Mike Minozzi, Council Chairman, City of Marco Island. Page 2 May 22, 2007 MR. NORMAN: John Norman, for Representative David Rivera. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Wonderful. SENATOR SAUNDERS: Burt Saunders with the Florida Senate. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Mike Davis. Better late than never. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We're glad you're here. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Thank you. Thanks for the invitation on behalf of the delegation. REPRESENTATIVE RICHTER: I'm Garrett Richter. Good to see you, Mike, really good, thinking I was the only one from the House. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Fred Coyle, commissioner for District 4. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Frank Halas, county commissioner, District 2. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Fine. And with that, why don't we go right to the legislative session summary. Mike, Representative Davis, are you going to be doing the presentation on that? REPRESENT A TIVE DAVIS: Yeah, I'd be glad to, and I thought we'd keep it fairly brief because in conversations that you and I've had and I've had with our county manager as well, we wanted to allow some time for presentations of materials that I know that your staff have prepared. So -- and it's kind of, I think, probably in a lot of cases, what got done, you were aware of it being done, and so maybe run -- and I thought, once again, to honor the seniority of the House and Senate, to recognize Senator Saunders so he could go over sort of the Senate perspective accomplishments, and then next recognize Representative Page 3 May 22, 2007 Richter to -- also the City of Naples and Marco that are here today. Senator Saunders? SENATOR SAUNDERS: Thank you, Representative Davis. I appreciate that. I think what I'd like to do for a few moments, if! might, is talk a little bit about some of the environmental issues that we dealt with this session, because I was a little surprised as I heard your discussion this morning from the survey that only 30 or 35 percent of folks in the survey were concerned about the environment. That surprises me because I think that most people in Collier County are concerned about the state of the environment throughout Florida. So there are a couple of things I want to talk about real quickly. I had the opportunity to chair the Environmental Resource Preservation and Conservation Committee in the Senate, and that was a bit of a shift for me because I've spent a lot of time dealing with economic development and dealing with healthcare issues. But there were a couple major things that I wanted to accomplish this session, the primary one being to find a way to clean up the Caloosahatchee River and the issues associated with polluted water from Lake Okeechobee into that river. Folks in the audience from Sanibel, for example, certainly are aware of the environmental problems. But it spills over beyond just the immediate environmental problems associated with pollution into Lake Okeechobee. It spills over into tourism. People will stop coming to Collier and Lee Counties if we continue to have severe outbreaks of red tide, if we continue to have severe pollution in our bays and waterways. And so we were able to put together the Everglades and what we call the northern Everglades, which is the chain of lakes from Orlando south to Lake Okeechobee, the Kissimmee River basin. The Corps of Engineers many years ago channelized the Kissimmee River, and so whenever there's a major rain event, water flows into Lake Okeechobee very, very quickly. And because of the Page 4 May 22, 2007 quick pulse of water going into Lake Okeechobee, then water is released into the Caloosahatchee River and the St. Lucy River resulting in significant pollution throughout Southwest Florida. And we've been able to expedite, spent a substantial amount of money restoring the Kissimmee River basin. That will slow the flow of water into Lake Okeechobee. It will also clean the water going into Lake Okeechobee resulting in less pulses of polluted water into the Caloosahatchee River and the St. Lucy River. In addition to that, we have a substantial amount of money for projects along the Caloosahatchee River to help clean water flowing naturally into the Caloosahatchee River from Lee County, for example. We have about $500 million in Everglades restoration money in northern restoration projects. And when you take a look at the budget that we had this year, that is a huge amount of money. This is the first year in anyone's memory that we actually had less general revenue to spend than we had the year before. That's unprecedented, and we had to be very careful about how we spent those dollars. So I think from an environmental standpoint, a lot of good news for Southwest Florida. In reference to economic development, another area that I had some focus as a member of the Board of Directors of Enterprise Florida, we have a very substantial amount of money going into the promotion of the TV production and big film industry in the state -- pardon me, I apologize -- recognizing that this is a very clean industry and one that was literally leaving the state because of competition with other states that had incentive programs. Tremendous amount of money into the governor's quick action closing funds so that if there's a business that's looking to locate in Florida, the governor has an amount of capital that he can apply to helping ensure that those businesses move to Florida. We've been very successful in making Florida probably the most Page 5 May 22, 2007 business-friendly state in the nation, and that's a big change from where we were about 8 or 10 years ago. And so we all recognize that in order to promote government programs, we need to generate more revenue for government to function, and the best way to do that is to promote economic activity as opposed to raising taxes. The one issue that we're going to talk about today that we did not finish -- and, quite frankly, it's a good thing we didn't -- is the issue of ad valorem tax reform. I think everyone in this room recognizes that we need to have substantial ad valorem tax relief for our citizens, but also we need to do it in a very responsible way. We don't want to damage our local governments, we don't want to damage our fire districts, we don't want to result -- have a result where we have less fire protection, less police protection, less emergency services, for example. And we don't want to tie the hands of local governments but we recognize that many of our citizens are leaving Florida because of the high cost of property taxes as well as the high cost of property Insurance. And I think, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, I will leave it at that. There may be some discussion about what we did with property casualty insurance as another major issue of the session, but I think our focus today is probably going to be ad valorem taxes. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, I agree. I think you're going to find that that's probably the main reason that the audience is here today, at least the vast majority of them. So possibly we might cut right to it and get into the property tax reforms, where we are -- where we've been, where we are, and where we possibly may be going with it. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: I'll have Representative Richter just give a brief -- just a few of the things that he could hit upon that occurred during the session, and I think certainly we could move on, Page 6 May 22, 2007 Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. REPRESENT A TIVE RICHTER: Thank you, Representative Davis, and thank you, Chairman Coletta. It's an honor to be here. My wife was able -- this is, as everybody, I believe at the table, and most in the room may know this was my -- I finished my first 90 days of public service here in this public arena. And my wife was able to join me in Tallahassee. I was -- had that opportunity, and at one of the spousal events up in Tallahassee, Diana went with other representatives' and senators' spouses to an automobile museum. And in the museum there was a car, a Duesenberg. And she learned that day that the Duesenberg, the car, the automobile, the Duesenberg, is the origination for the term, that's a doozie, and that would be the way I would sum up my first session is, it's been a doozie. It -- as everybody knows, and Senator Saunders just alluded to, the session began with a special session on insurance and the skyrocketing insurance premiums that the Senate and the House and the governor all wanted to address in order to low -- lower property premmms. And we went through that discussion, and a bill was crafted, and that was passed 118-2 in the House of Representatives, and passed 40-0 in the Senate that is intended to lower property owners' insurance premmms. A number, from what I've learned since that process took place, a number of the people will begin to see the impact of that legislation probably sometime after their June statements come out. But essentially, what it did in order to accomplish that goal is that one of the major parts of that legislation is it put the citizens of Florida in the reinsurance business by establishing a catastrophe fund with a ceiling of $32 billion and the ability to puncture that ceiling and go to $38 billion in the event of a hurricane -- a disastrous hurricane or, as Page 7 May 22, 2007 we've experienced here before, a series of hurricanes. That's good and bad. The -- good from that is that private insurance companies can purchase reinsurance from that public fund at a lower premium cost, and they are required, in fact, to pass along those premium reductions to policyholders. That was the intent to get those premiums down. That's good because that meets the objective of the legislation, the objective of the governor, and the objective of the House and Senate. Of course, the caution and the risk or, as I said, the bad to that is that we are -- if we are hit with multiple hurricanes that ruin homes, then the policyholders and the citizens are going to be on the hook for that. So there was some -- also some good that came out of that first legislation and special session relative to mitigation, which, quite frankly, means hardening of your homes, building your homes so that they can withstand hurricanes and come out of a hurricane situation with less damage or less likelihood of ruin. So there was money allocated in the budget to continue the Our Safe -- Our Safe Florida Homes Program, continue inspections, and there was a -- they developed a commonalty in the building code in the State of Florida whereby prior to that legislation, there were multiple building codes. The panhandle had one which was not as stringent, and so now the whole state has a stringent building code, so mitigation was good. And the other good piece that came out of that legislation was some opportunity to share risk with more flexibility relative to deductibles and what people get insurance on. So the doozie of a session started for me with the insurance. Then we all went through the process, the freshman, through the learning process. The elder statesmen that knew it kind of hit the deck running, and we went through various discussions relative to bills and Page 8 May 22, 2007 sponsoring budget requests. I was pleased and proud, Mike Davis joined me in sponsoring a budget, Mike for the Marco Island, Winterberry Bridge that I think we've managed to get through. And we're pleased to see that come through. We also were able to -- Representative Davis and I lobbied hard to receive some matching funds from a Cortellis grant funds in order to establish a world-class dental facility which is a partnership with Collier County Edison College and the University of Florida to provide dental care to low income folks in Immokalee, and that was $4 million. They came with a matching fund from -- and matched with money from some generous citizens here with funds from the wine festival to establish -- to establish that facility. The one mandate that I learned that the Florida legislature has each year is only to pass a balanced budget. That is the only mandate that is required. Everything else is done for the perceived betterment of the State of Florida. And on the next to last day of session, a budget, a balanced budget, was, in fact, passed. And I think it was either unanimous or there may have been one or two no voters on that. So essentially it was l17 -lor 2 or so. But the good news on that budget that I've learned is that it is the first time in years and years and years -- how many years I don't know, maybe always -- that the budget, that the Florida budget, does not provide -- does not have any recurring expenditures covered with nonrecurrIng revenue. In years past there were recurring expenses in the State of Florida's budget that were -- that were allocated or covered with nonrecurring revenue. The Constitution provides that 3 percent of the budget can be nonrecurring revenue on recurring expenditures, but this budgets has none of those. The budget is a very slight increase, but Senator Saunders Page 9 May 22, 2007 indicated it was the first year in many years that the revenue sources declined. And the budget that was passed is a little over $600,000 greater than last year's budget, and that's within a $71.9 billion budget. That budget has -- roughly 34 percent of it is targeted to healthcare throughout the State of Florida; 28 percent to education, 18 percent to economic and infrastructure, and then the remaining split up between safety and environmental and government efficiency and jobs and entrepreneurship. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Representative, if! may, I'd like very much to hear about House Bill 1375 and how that went forward, too. I know you worked on it with Representative Davis, so before we go REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Before the housing bill, Mr. Chairman. REPRESENTATIVE RICHTER: Thank you for teeing that up, Mr. Chairman, if I might, and turn it back over to Representative Davis, that -- within -- melded into some of the bills that Mike worked on over the years was the Community Workforce Housing and Innovation Pilot Program, which, on the last day of session, we -- there was a proposal and an amendment made that entitled that program the Representative Mike Davis Community Workforce Housing Innovation Program. And so I think the best person to talk about that program is its author and sponsor, Mike. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Thank you, thank you. We did-- we did make some more strides this year. And it's interesting last weekend -- goes to show you how exciting my life is. I was channel surfing and watched the five of you on TV for a little while. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Scary, huh? REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Nothing against any of you, but you would have thought I would have been watching a baseball game or something. But you were talking about affordable housing and some things Page 10 May 22, 2007 you've done in Collier County. I think it may have been playing off the EDC presentation that you had the other day. And it occurred to me that the reason -- much of the reason why I'm involved in this issue is because of where I come from and the issues that are here and the issues that have been talked about and the discussions I've had with frankly all five of you that relates to that very subject over the last year and a half. So it continues to mature. We did some more things this year that -- the CWHIP program, we got up to $62.5 million in funding as far as grant monies that will be available. And I know Collier County and the very fine group that had applied last year plans to go forward again this year, and I'm optimistic that they'll get some funding, which will be a good thing because that will provide some good workforce housing for some citizens in Collier County. It's a program that applies statewide, so it's -- and to 99.9 percent, it is -- it is -- there's nothing that requires local government to do anything. It is -- it's meant by its very nature to be something that if you choose to embrace a particular part of it, that's fine. If you choose not to, that's fine, too. That's entirely up to you all, because I think there's some tools that you would find useful and there's some tools you would probably find not useful for this county. They may be more appropriate for a large metropolitan. So I appreciate you all's feedback as you work through affordable housing issues and as you read the bill and understand and hear from staff, because that would help me a lot. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, affordable housing is still a big issue for Collier County. We just had our annual survey reports, and the majority, by far, of the people in Collier County still think it's a major issue, and so we're very, very appreciative of the doors that you opened for us and the opportunities that you've made available to us by the bills that you've been sponsoring and moving forward. Page 11 May 22, 2007 With that, let me go to Commissioner Henning. He had a question. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, thank you. And with that bill, they've dedicated the program to Mike Davis, right? It's now called the Mike Davis -- REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: It wasn't long enough, Commissioner, so they made it even longer. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, I see. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: That's -- apparently that's the way government works, I don't know. But it's certainly an honor by my colleagues. Senator Saunders sponsored the amendment in the Senate, and then we went over to the House side and a colleague of ours sponsored it over there. Yeah, certainly quite an honor -- to have a particular portion of law named after you is certainly quite nice. I enjoyed that very much. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That was an honor for my wife and I to enjoy that on television, and the poems also. The reason I wanted to tell you the -- my wife and I received a notice of cancellation of insurance two weeks ago and was very disappointed in that, but it was a blessing in disguise because we found an insurance company that will -- that exceeds the coverage that we had for almost half the price. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Wow. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And my wife is absolutely ecstatic. It will give her an opportunity to pay debt that we wasn't able to do because of the rising cost of insurance in the State of Florida. So, you know, if you're responsible, thank you very much. If you're not, thank somebody. It's worked out well. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: If! get any calls from constituents, could I ask maybe that they call you? COMMISSIONER HENNING: My wife handles that department. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: I see, okay. I'll give Darcy a call. Page 12 May 22, 2007 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I also would like to thank you, Representative Davis, for what you've done with the affordable housing bill. It's a great move, and it certainly will be of benefit to us all, so thank you very much. And I also think that the work that you've done on property insurance is a good start. I think many of the provisions that you've passed will result in reductions in -- substantial reductions in property Insurance. But I would like to go to another issue, however, and that's HB7203. That was the glitch bill to SB360. You will recall during our last post legislative session we expressed great concerns about SB360, and we were promised that our concerns would be addressed, and unfortunately, they never were. SB360 got worse this year with the passing ofHB7203. It's a further erosion of our ability to assure concurrency. And if you'll take a look at our citizens survey here, transportation, building roads, and the movement of traffic is the top priority for our citizens in Collier County by a wide margin. This bill that was passed in the waning hours of the session with little public review or input further diminishes our ability to provide adequate transportation facilities in the county because it permits developers to proceed without regard for whether or not there is adequate road capacity to accommodate their building. So it's a serious, serious problem that affects the majority of people in Collier County. It's too late to do anything about it now, but I feel compelled to mention it, that we're not making any progress on retaining the ability of local governments to manage growth in a way that preserves the quality oflife in our community. The legislature is taking that out of our hands, and I see no movement one way or the other -- no, that's not true. I see no movement to the better to help us resolve that problem. So I would Page 13 May 22, 2007 hope we would keep that at the front of our minds for the next session, and if we could stop this, I'd appreciate your help. I understand you're just a few people, but it would be good if somebody voted against these things. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner -- I'm sorry, Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think it's Frank next and then me. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Oh, I'm sorry. Frank, and then Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. I want to thank the -- take the opportunity at this time to thank everyone that's here. I wish that there was a couple of others that could be present today. But I want to thank -- in regards to the insurance, maybe Representative Richter could give me an insight of what the reserves are that are there in the Citizens Insurance, and we had talked about possibility oflifting a cap to 38 billion. But obviously that's going to be a load if we did have such a catastrophe in the state for the people that do have Citizens Insurance. The other thing that -- understand that we have a balanced budget, but some of the things that bother me through the years, we have 67 counties, and I believe there was a bill that was passed up in Tallahassee this year in regards to the schools, and I believe it was the amount of $545 million. It's my understanding that that's going to be -- that's basically sent down to the 67 counties to share that cost in. So I'm wondering why we don't have everybody sit at the table when we're talking about property insurance or -- excuse me -- property taxes because of the fact that on one side of the ledger we're trying to cut property taxes, and then on the other side, we're increasing the amount of mandates that are coming down from the county -- to the county. So I have some concerns on that. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Someone want to address that Page 14 May 22, 2007 at the moment or -- REPRESENTATIVE RICHTER: Well, I can begin to address it. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Good. REPRESENTATIVE RICHTER: Thank you, Commissioner. Relative to a specific amount or number that is in reserve in the Citizens or the catastrophe fund, I do not have a number for you. I can tell you though one observation that you made, when Citizens runs at a deficit, then that deficit is currently made up through an assessment and it's not assessed back to just the Citizens policyholders. That assessment goes to all policyholders in the State of Florida, and that's why I indicated that we are all on the hook for that cat. fund. The ceiling within that cat. fund is $32 billion. Now, that doesn't have to be tapped unless there is a hurricane. So the insurance -- the bill that was passed would have been great if they could have just put an amendment on it at the very end that prohibits God from sending hurricanes because then we wouldn't have had to invade the reinsurance fund. But needless to say, that amendment wasn't followed, and if it was, it probably wouldn't has passed. It would have been probably vetoed so -- by a power higher than the governor. But the -- there were deficits that were spread via assessment. And if you look at your insurance, anybody that has -- gets an insurance premium notice, you'll see a line item on there for an assessment. Relative to the education comments that you made on the education, one of the things that -- and this is my understanding as a new guy on the block. One of the things that the State of Florida is now certainly dealing with is the Constitutional amendment that was passed relative to classroom size, which the citizens in the State of Florida did pass. And if anybody remembers the debate and the discussion surrounding -- surrounding that constitutional amendment was, Page 15 May 22, 2007 where's the money going to come from to implement classroom size? So there -- the -- that is an issue that the citizens voted on a number of years ago, and it didn't have as direct of an impact as it does until you get to the actual time frames to begin to implement that. So there was an increase in the required local effort as I looked through the budget. And Collier County, quite frankly, is a benefactor of that. In Collier County the funding on a per student basis in our K12 system is roughly $900 -- I believe the math was $917, if memory serves me correctly, greater on a per student basis than the average for the State of Florida. So I just really provide that with no conclusion other than, that's just comment and information. COMMISSIONER HALAS: But that's mandated down to the counties, the 67 counties to come up with the funding? REPRESENTATIVE RICHTER: That's in -- on the -- your proposed tax notice, that's the education line item, yes, it is. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yep, okay. SENATOR SAUNDERS: Mr. Chairman, if we might stay on the property casualty insurance issue for just a couple more moments, because there is -- there is a shift of potential liability from insurance companies to the State of Florida, which basically means to the citizens of Florida. There really -- I was reading an article not too long ago about the insurability of hurricanes. And if you think back to the September II th terrorist attacks, right after the -- that attack, there were experts that were saying, you can't insure against terrorism because the risks are so great that it's impossible to insure against. Well, fortunately we didn't have any more terrorist attacks in this country and people are able to insure against terrorism. That's an issue that, at least to some extent, is controllable. I recently read an article about hurricanes, and the conclusion was that you cannot insure against hurricanes because the losses are so great. The same argument that was made in reference to terrorist Page 16 May 22, 2007 Issues. Unfortunately with hurricanes we do know that they're going to keep coming back, and there are certain things we can do to control losses by, as Representative Richter said, hardening homes and doing those types of things, but we're going to have those substantial losses. And the only way to ultimately solve this problem is for the federal government to adopt a windstorm -- a national windstorm protection program similar to the national flood program and include in there things such as earthquake losses, hurricane losses, tornado losses, and spread those risks throughout the country; otherwise, Florida and the -- all the coastal states along the Atlantic coast and the Gulf coast are going to be subject to increasing problems with Insurance. And just to put this in perspective, we were able to drive down the cost of property casualty insurance. But the way we did it is twofold. Number one, we froze the rates for Citizens at their December 2006 levels and we froze those rates for three years so -- and those rates were already artificially low. And we froze those rates for three more years. And we said that if you have an insurance policy and it costs 15 percent or more than the Citizens costs, then you automatically can get into the Citizens. Well, you know that over a period of a couple more years, people's rates are going to be higher than the Citizens rates and they're going to be able to get into the Citizens. That will make Citizens the largest insurer, if it isn't already, for property casualty losses, wind losses, in the state. Now, if we have a major hurricane event, Representative Richter was talking about the $32 billion that our taxpayers are on the hook for. And $32 billion, if you look at what happened in the last several years of hurricanes, it's not hard to imagine getting there with one or two storms. And that could put us at a very substantial financial risk. It could affect our bond ratings, it could affect a lot of things. Page 17 May 22, 2007 So I mention that -- we're going to -- we're driving down rates, you're going to see lower rates throughout the state, but we're doing it artificially, if you will, and we're bearing that risk, and we're hoping that we're not going to have a major storm, but we will, and we will all pay the price. So I would urge you to talk to your federal representatives about the need to develop a federal windstorm protection program, because, quite frankly, that's the only way we're going to get out of this mess. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Representative Davis? REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: One little question. In your affordable housing bill, one of the things you mentioned is properties are only eligible where monthly rent, taxes, insurance, and utilities do not exceed the 30 percent of the gross income. I was wondering if that might include or does include things like CDDs -- that's something new that's coming before us -- CDDs now for affordable housing, or at least this is a proposal from the EDC, and also homeowners association and maintenance fees. They've built a nice place for our work force, but then they have to pay a maintenance fee and homeowners association fee, and I'm afraid it overtaxes them. I was wondering if that all falls under that 30 percent of the median income. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: The 30 percent -- and I'd have to see it in context. But the 30 percent being the extremely low, or ELI COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: -- as it's referred to, is separated, just that portion. Of course, you know that other income levels would be different and under different standards -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: What's happening is, in a couple Page 18 May 22, 2007 places where people were eligible, I mean, they were ready to go, except the maintenance fees tipped them over to the other side and then they couldn't buy. And I thought, you know, maybe -- I don't know if anything could be tweaked to help people be able to afford it. But anyway, I just wanted to mention that -- REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- that's something that we've noticed here. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Certainly look at that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Then I wanted to -- oh, that's great. Thank you very much. Then in relationship to what Commissioner Coyle was saying about House Bill 7203, just for our audience, because we happen to have these books in front of us but you don't, he was referring to how this can help -- hurt our county as well as all of Florida. One of the things says, bills make it easier for develop -- for development to occur regardless of transportation concurrency issues. Do you realize the impact of that? And then there -- and it goes on to say things like, the bill relaxes concurrency standards, and it goes on and on to tell how everything that we've put in place to try and make sure that our infrastructure is in place before development occurs is completely overruled by the state so that it ties our hands, and that's why we're fighting so hard. We're trying to present responsible growth to our community. And I'm sorry, but then they overrule us and say, I'm sorry, you can't have responsible growth. We're going to do it this way. So I just wanted to emphasize what Commissioner Coyle was just saying. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: One note before we go on. We have 24 speakers. MS. FILSON: No, I'm sorry, sir. We have 12. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's the last time I ask Page 19 May 22, 2007 Commissioner Halas to check it out for me. Okay. Continue as we're going. COMMISSIONER COYLE: He just doubled it. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle, you're in charge of keeping track of this from now on. Please continue. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's a job I can't do. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Did you -- anyone want to respond to Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I was just making a statement really, but if you'd like to. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Well, certainly -- you know, certainly it's heard as it was with Commissioner Coyle. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mayor, do you have any questions? MAYOR BARNETT: No. I'm here for educational purposes only today. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I notice you've been unusually quiet, and that had me concerned. MAYOR BARNETT: No, I'm fine, and I am getting a lot of sleep at night, I promise. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: How about you, Councilman Minozzi? COUNCILMAN MINOZZI: Not so far. I will later on. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Thank you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We have more comments on taxes, and that's what probably the majority of speakers are here to speak about. SENATOR SAUNDERS: That's a giant pink elephant in the room right now is taxes. We're all avoiding that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yes. Page 20 May 22, 2007 COMMISSIONER HENNING: When we go to the speakers -- I mean, we have some elected officials in the audience. If you'd be so kind to -- we'd get them up to speak first because they really represent the community just like we do. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Before we go to the speakers -- and I agree, we probably should go to them next -- Commissioner Coyle does have a presentation. You going to make it there, Commissioner, or are you going to use the podium? COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'll go up there. I'd like to thank our legislative delegation for giving us this opportunity to share our perspective concerning the proposals for property tax reductions which are under consideration by the legislature. I would like to specifically thank Senator Saunders, Representative Davis, and Representative Richter for being here. I wish the other members of our delegation were here because there's much, I think, we need to share. I do recognize John Norman who is a legislative aide to Representative Rivera, who is present. I think I speak for all of the Collier County Commissioners when I say that we support tax reductions, but government bureaucracies at all levels are inherently inefficient. Local governments, however, have closer contact with the taxpayers and are more aware of the needs of our communities and constituents. We engage our communities to plan what they want their communities to look like. They drive the budgeting decisions. We have over 50 citizens advisory boards in Collier County that tell us what citizens want in Collier County. We have a Productivity Committee consisting of members of our community who have exceptional credentials, as chief financial officers or chief operating officers of major corporations and/or significant successes in operating private businesses. They review our expenditures. They review our budgets. They help us formulate budget policy so that we can control Page 21 May 22, 2007 costs at the county level. The BCC, Board of County Commissioners, reviews and approves the budget and every substantial proj ect contained in it. We then review and approve the expenditure of funds for each of those projects. The Clerk of Courts then reviews each of those expenditures to make sure they've been properly authorized and preaudits them as necessary to assure that we have, in fact, received the services that we contracted for. So we are responsible spenders of taxpayer money. The tax reductions, although desirable, must be reasonable and they must not damage the quality of life of our constituents. This slide shows us what the problem really is. I used to have a sign in my office that said, there are two steps you need to take in order to achieve success. First is identify the problem, second is solve it. I don't think we've identified the problem, but we've set about solving it in many different ways. But let's take a look at -- at this curve. We can see the percentage change, the blue line, in Collier County. From 1993 when the Save Our Homes Act was approved until -- until about the year 2000, we can see the property taxes did not increase dramatically. They averaged at about 4.4 percent for that entire period of time. Then in 2000, fueled by a building boom and a frenzy of speculation, the average increases were 16 percent per year, and it's that big increase that we see that has caused a substantial rise in property values. It is that speculative bubble that has occurred during this period of time which has caused the problem. Now, who are impacted the most by this problem? From the year 1993 until the year 2000, certainly it was not those people who were homesteaded because Save Our Homes limited their annual increases to 3 percent per year. In fact, they still have not suffered greatly from this speculative bubble. The people who have experienced the really big tax increases are Page 22 May 22, 2007 first, those people who have recently moved into the county and purchased during this speculative bubble, those people who are not residents but own property in Collier County and they have not been protected by the Save Our Homes, and commercial property owners. I would suggest to you that we should find a more equitable way to tax our people. But punishing those who have Save Our Home exemptions is not the way to do it. The accounting theorist would argue that the government should adjust millage rates so that you could maintain a relatively low level of taxation taking into account consumer price indexes. But government policy is not determined by accounting protocol. It is determined by economic forces, and by that I mean that property values as they increase have caused most of the very significant problems we have in Collier County. Property insurance increases as property values increase because insurance companies calculate risks and loss on the basis of replacement costs. If replacement costs are high, then the premiums are going to be high. Private property insurance has increased 233 percent over the period of time that I have just been discussing. Impact fees have increased 254 percent for two reasons. Number one, they had not been adjusted at all for 10 years and then, secondly, the land acquisition costs for roads, parks, water and sewer plants, and other infrastructure escalated. Also, the cost of construction escalated, because with the building boom, there was a shortage of contractors, less competition, higher prices. Some of our contracts came in as much as 70 percent higher than our estimates and our budget. Affordable housing supply has declined due to increasing property values. The median home price in the year 2001 was $238,000. The median home price today is actually $440,000, and it's gone down from a peak that was close to $500,000. The price has almost doubled because of this inflationary bubble in property values. Page 23 May 22, 2007 And finally, government spending has increased due to higher land costs and increased costs of labor and materials for infrastructure and development. Three years ago the construction of one lane mile of new road cost $3 million. Today it costs $6 million, and we're looking at 9 or 10 million dollars per lane mile within the next year or so. So an adjustment of government spending to correspond with the consumer price index is simply not realistic for setting property values, property taxes, or for setting of budget. Now, let's talk a little bit about the proposals that are before us. The legislature has suggested a range of different kinds of proposals, and you can see here that the governor's plan results in, oh, about a 21 percent decrease in taxes. The House plan, with a rollback to 2004 represents about a 17, 18 percent increase -- decrease in property taxes, and the more reasonable Senate plan is about a four percent decrease in taxes. Now, the -- we do not have sufficient information to evaluate the House's most recent proposal of granting tax exemptions, but I think it is safe to say that that particular scheme will result in a very, very substantial reduction in tax receipts. A quick look at how taxes are divided between governmental agencies in Collier County will lead you to the conclusion that these tax increases are impossible. Now, if you'll see -- if you will notice -- if you will notice that schools represent 48.2 percent of the entire tax expenditure, property tax expenditure. In Collier County I believe the legislature has pretty much agreed that schools will be exempt from these property tax reductions. There's also been agreement that voter initiatives like Conservation Collier and the Naples Zoo will be exempt from these tax reductions. We expect that the South Florida Water Management District, which is an unelected taxing authority appointed in Tallahassee, will Page 24 May 22, 2007 be excluded from these tax reductions, and if cooler heads prevail, the fire districts will be excluded from these tax reductions. Now, that essentially leaves a budget of about $303 million. The sheriffs office, Collier County, and the other constitutional officers. So if the desire is to get a 20 percent reduction in taxes, which is $176 million in savings in Collier County, and that reduction is to be borne only by, essentially, the sheriff, the constitutional officers and the county government, that means it's a 60 percent reduction in the budgets of those agencies. That is clearly impossible, it cannot be achieved, and I cannot believe anyone would support such a proposal. This slide shows how we spend, Collier County government, spends the general fund taxes in Collier County. The red line represents the total tax revenue for Collier County. The red line shows where money goes. Roads. We've just said that roads are the most important issue for our constituents. Capital projects. We just had to build a jail at a very substantial cost because 30 percent of the beds in the jail are occupied by criminals who are in this country illegally. We have EMS and we have the sheriffs department. Which of these vital agencies are we going to cut by 60 percent? That's where the money goes. We have no other source to provide the funding for these agencies. In conclusion, I would like to say to you that the taxpayers of Florida have been told their taxes are going to drop like a rock. That can only happen if they're deprived of essential services or replacement taxes are levied. In any event, they're likely to be unhappy. We are about to enter a critical election period. Now is the time for truth and clarity. We do not need an electorate that is angry or suspicious of the intentions of their elected representatives. We do not need to rush into a tax overhaul proposal that will fail to provide the Page 25 May 22, 2007 promised results and will inevitably produce many unanticipated consequences. As a matter of fact, the legislative revenue expert advised the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission -- his name is Allen Johansson (phonetic). He's a staff director of the Senate Finance and Tax Committee -- advised them to focus on small-scale incremental changes rather than broad-based but risky restructuring. That is very wise advice. Over the past few years the legislature has backed the local governments into a corner. The legislature has weakened our home rule ability, forced upon us millions in unfunded mandates, failed to deliver promised funding for transportation infrastructure, and threatened our budgets with Draconian tax cuts. We should be working together with the legislature reviewing state spending and state taxes, and local governments reviewing local spending and local taxes. It is not in anyone's best interest to go into a big election year with the legislature and local governments at each other's throat. So I ask the legislators to please take some time and study the issue more thoroughly. Collier County did not need the state's prodding to reduce taxes. We reduced taxes. We returned to the taxpayers $23 million last year. We will further reduce taxes this year, I am confident. But working together, the state legislature and local governments, we can provide our constituents realistic tax relief, not a package that includes sound bites. Thank you very much. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Commissioner. Any comments before we go to the public speakers? SENATOR SAUNDERS: I have a couple. First, Commissioner Coyle made a couple comments that I think are instructive, one was-- the first one that I made note of was the comment, do not rush into a Page 26 May 22, 2007 tax overhaul that will have unintended consequences. I was part of the governor's task force that was appointed to study ad valorem tax relief and reform, and we were set up to respond and provide recommendations for the 2008 legislative session. We were disbanded because there was a strong political drive for tax relief in 2007. And what the legislature's beginning to find is that this is a very, very complex problem. I think Commissioner Coyle was very articulate. It's very complex. It's not just simply rolling back taxes and saying, hey, we've cut taxes. The second thing that Commissioner Coyle said was his sign in his office says, identify the problem and then solve it. Now, what we try to do in the Senate is just that, to identify what the problem is and then solve it. We've taken a look at this bubble of increased revenues over the last several years, and in the Senate proposal we're trying to smooth out that bubble. We recognize that we want to make sure that we smooth out that issue but also make sure that we don't have a big bubble like that again in the future, because that's what people can't plan for. You can plan for 3 or 4 or 5 percent increases in your ad valorem taxes, but you can't plan for a 200 percent increase in your ad valorem taxes. So I think we've come up with a way to solve that initial problem. There's going to be, in my view, a very substantial fight in the legislature in June over just how deep we're going to cut. And I want to thank Commissioner Coyle for providing that information. Also the fire districts have been providing us additional information. It's not simply -- it's not as simple as a lot of people want to make it sound. You can't just simply roll back taxes and expect everything to come out properly. I do want to disagree with one thing Commissioner Coyle said, and that is that the state has failed to provide the infrastructure funding. If you take a look at 1-75, which is almost a $600 million Page 27 May 22, 2007 project, about $500 million in state funding is going into that project. We have provided a tremendous amount of money for road infrastructure, for school infrastructure, recognizing that these are areas that are critically important for the economic well-being of the state. But, again, back to the issue of tax relief. There will be substantial tax relief after this 2008 -- 2007 special session, but it will be only the first volley. There will be additional issues that we're going to have to deal with. There will be constitutional amendments that are going to be proposed for 2008, and so local governments are going to be have to be more efficient. But I think, at least as far as the Senate's concerned, we do recognize that we have to be reasonable in this, you know. We can't just simply tell local governments, cut your budgets by 30, 40 percent. That just isn't workable. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Let's go to Commissioner Henning, then Mr. Minozzi. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Senator, I like the Senate plan personally. I think it was a compromise, if! might add. But if we're talking about 2007 rollback on property taxes, the thing that's not going to look good to the citizens is you increase property taxes on -- for school infrastructure -- and I understand because of the voter mandate -- but it is not fair and equal. Just my observation. Thank you. And I did talk to one of the committee people on the water district, and that is on the table and -- the legislators to look at it, holistically. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Well, we're going to Counsel Minozzi. COUNCILMAN MINOZZI: Yes. I'd like to make a few comments regarding the effects that this legislation would have on Marco Island. Page 28 May 22, 2007 You may know that Marco is, in a few months, will be celebrating our 10th anniversary. We became the 400th city in the state. And if you'll look on the map, we're about as far southwest as you can get. The only city further south would be Everglades City, and I see Mayor Hamilton is not here. Let me just go ahead and point out a few of the effects that this might have on a city like Marco. The city tax on Marco, property tax, represents 73 percent of our general fund revenue. Our general fund revenue is $19 million, and it's used for all basic services, and that includes police and fire rescue aside from running the city itself. By splitting the Senate and House version so -- you know, again, we don't know which version you might pass or what compromise might pass. We're just splitting that and taking somewhere in between. This represented a 23 percent reduction in property tax income for the city. We derive 75 percent of our general fund from the property tax, so we would lose 6.9 million out of$14.3 million in tax revenue. That's 46 percent. I'm just going to kind of touch on a few of the things here. A city like Marco has, from the very beginning, operated extremely conservatively financially. We have, as you probably know, a cap in place, although, I think, mechanically the cap could change, but basically by following this cap, we have been very, very conservative. As a matter of fact, in the last several years we have actually reduced our city tax mainly for homesteaded people and have reduced taxes to some degree for those who are non homesteaded. So to use a system like this where one size fits all, we feel, would be very, very unfair for a city like Marco. We just spent the entire day yesterday chipping and chopping away, as I'm sure, you know, most municipalities will be doing, at our budgets, and we're certainly -- you know, we're -- at this point, cannot make final decisions until we see Page 29 May 22, 2007 what happens. We've already eliminated and continue to eliminate expenditures, as an example, of things like Fourth of July fireworks, YMCA contributions and youth programs, contributions to annual arts festival, children's summer camp, streetlights, bike paths. These are relatively simple, although certainly not easy, adjustments to make, and we've had to make some of these adjustments. But these cuts would be far, far more reaching. We would not be able to operate our police and fire department under -- you know, with such a major cut in revenue. Obviously employees' salaries and -- for the rest of it. We do have some suggestions. I do have a -- kind of an in-depth synopsis, which I will be giving to you, but we do have some suggestions that -- in fact, our city manager said, you know, he's willing to help with some of this legislation in terms of how we can close some of these inequities and certainly be very happy to discuss some of these. But one of the things that, you know, I am most concerned about, as is our council and our city management, is that if these cuts reach into the areas that would affect bonded debt, I mean, this would absolutely destroy the city, particularly -- you know, we've got -- old municipalities, we've considerable bonded debt, much of which was done by referendum where the citizens actually said, let's purchase this and let's -- by paying bonds, and these cuts, as far as we can see, would actually create cuts that would affect paying back our debt. And, of course, having a problem with your debt would absolutely financially destroy a city. So there are many considerations. We're looking forward to seeing you, Mr. Saunders, down at Marco tomorrow because he'll be coming to Marco where we can discuss in further detail. But we're hoping that while we recognize that certainly there has to be some kind of tax reform made, we're just hoping that it can be done where Page 30 May 22, 2007 we would not use a one-size- fits-all approach and that cities, as I believe most have, where they've operated very responsibly, would not get hurt the way this potentially can hurt us. But I thank you for your consideration. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: What I'm going to do -- I still have a number of people here that want to speak, but I'm very concerned about the public part of this program. We have a 12 o'clock absolute where we have to break off. I'm going to go to the public speakers now, and the remainder of time that we have left will be used for this panel to continue discussion going towards noon. Would you call the first public speakers. MS. FILSON: Yes, sir, and we now have 15 speakers. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Now we're cutting off the speakers at this point in time. MS. FILSON: Orly Stolts. He'll be followed by John German. If the second speaker could please come up and stand onboard. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I need each speaker to state their name for the record, and also there's a three-minute time limit. MR. STOLTS: Good morning, everyone. First of all, my name's Orly Stolts with the North Naples Fire Control and Rescue District. I want to do a rollback of my own. One of the years that we talked about that we've heard coming out of Tallahassee is 2002. Let's roll back to 2002, if you will. 2002, if you would look at that year, we were right on the heels of 9/11. Our politicians that are up at Tallahassee today, probably the leaders of the House and the Senate, where were they in 2002? I checked it out, I looked at a few of them. They were at their local areas representing their local folks there as politicians. You would find them in the newspaper standing next to the firefighters shaking their hands, telling them, you're doing a good job. You have my support. The next picture you'd see, they'd have their arms around a law Page 31 May 22, 2007 enforcement officer telling them, you have my support, and that's where you saw them in 2002. Where are they today? They're sitting up there making some pretty big decisions in a short period of time that affects your first responders very greatly. The other day the governor was at the hurricane conference. Our local Fox 4 News was there. They said, Governor, how will your tax rollback plan affect your local emergency responders, police and fire? He says, don't worry about it. Police and fire will be fully funded. Great. I'm thinking this is good. He's on the right track. Two weeks ago he was in Orlando speaking to a group of folks there. One of the persons in the audience says, how will this tax rollback affect your law enforcement and your fire within the State of Florida? He said, these people are stupid if they're telling you that this tax rollback will affect law enforcement and fire. Now, I found that pretty offensive because I'm going around here telling people -- I must be one of the stupid ones -- that this will affect. Apparently our message from the fire service is not getting to the governor because he's continuing to say, this will no affect us. We're supplying Senator Saunders with some information on how it will affect our fire district. It will affect our fire district greatly. We're talking 40 percent rollback. We're talking closing fire stations, shutting down fire engines, taking ladder trucks out of service, sending people home and telling them, thanks for your short career in the fire servIce. We're going to supply him with information, I hope he takes that with the rest of our representatives that represent us locally and actually lay it on the governor's desk because I'm beginning to wonder whether he really works up there. Is he really even there? Does he know what's going on? Does he understand what is going to happen to his local emergency services? When the next tornado touches down in the State of Florida or Page 32 May 22, 2007 hurricane comes rolling in, or God forbid another 9/11 takes place, it's your first responders that are there first. They're the ones that need the funding. They're the ones that need the help. FEMA will be there, some day. Hopefully FEMA's in better shape than it was in the past because the first responders didn't get a whole lot of help from the government. It was your first responders there for many days doing the work. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. MS. FILSON: Next speaker is John German. He'll be followed by Donna Caron. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: To help guide the speakers, there is a time clock set up -- you'll be able to see it -- directly on the other side of the room. MS. FILSON: I'll look for the -- there's one here, too. Go ahead. MR. GERMAN: Good morning, Representatives. I'd like to thank you all for coming here and listening to us. My name's John German. I am the assistant fire chief in North Naples. I've worked there for 26 years. Tax reform is a great thing. We appreciate all the work that you've put in in this legislative session before and after to try and make that better for the taxpayers of Florida. I'm here to ask you to do what you already know, is to exempt the independent fire districts from this legislation. That's the bottom line. The independent fire districts provide fire and rescue services to Southwest Florida by and large. There are very few cities down here that are providing that. And the ones that do do it very adequately, and there should be provisions for them also. But we need to have just a blanket exemption for independent fire districts. We provide fire and rescue services on a daily basis. We augment the U.S. Coast Guard's mission by having boats ready and available for water rescue. Weare -- we represent the workers for the district response teams for Page 33 May 22, 2007 hazardous materials and counterterrorism. And we have the make-up of your Urban Search and Rescue Team post hurricane. And now Florida has done a tremendous job with your help in the legislature after Andrew preparing the state for hurricanes. That's come forth and been proven in the last three years with all the hurricanes that traveled through Florida. Major hits, and we were ready and prepared, and we thank you for that. After 9/11 Florida stepped up to the plate and provided counterterrorism protection for its citizens. And we've got some major hotels in the state. We have some very important people that come here to visit, and we have some very regular people that come here to visit, and they're all protected equally because of the work that you've put forward, and we appreciate that. Like I said, the bottom line is, if I could make it -- this known to your other legislative representatives up there in Tallahassee that we need to have the independent fire districts exempted from this legislation, we'd be glad to help provide you with whatever information we've started to provide some of your offices with already if that will help you get the message across, and that would keep Florida safe. And we appreciate what you've done in the past and hope to continue that in the future. Thank you. MS. FILSON: Donna Caron. She'll be followed by Becky Pogan. MS. CARON: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Donna Reed Caron, and I live at 790 Wiggins Bay Drive in the northern part of Collier County. I followed the property tax debate carefully in the past few months, and I just would like to relate a few of my profound concerns. First I direct this question to the state delegation. What has happened to the original concept of Save our Homes? The premise of both the homestead exemption and the Save Our Homes tax cap is to prevent Page 34 May 22, 2007 citizens of the state from being taxed out of their primary and often only residence by rising property values. Similar protections exist across the country and in essentially all states where land and property valuations tend to occasionally become detached from reality, and nobody seems to be complaining. From the political debate, however, one could conclude that this common sense tax provision has morphed into some sort of tax break for selfish and greedy residents that grossly and unfairly and disproportionately burdens -- let's see. Who would those people be -- property speculators, real estate agents, multiple homeowners, and commercial interests. They think we need to get our priorities back to the original premise. I'm also concerned about what appears to be an attempt to further erode the autonomy, power, and authority of our local county government, as would certainly happen if property taxes were rolled back completely and/or even partially. Given the choice, I would much prefer to deal with tax problems, or any other problems for that matter, with local officials who, in recent times at least, have seemed quite willing to listen and effectively respond to the sentiments supported by the public, their local public. Conversely the response of our state delegation to the political wildfire over property taxes leaves me with the unfortunate impression that the priorities have shifted from what is good for long-term interests of Collier County to the short-term well-being of the bureaucracy in Tallahassee. Why do I see things that way? Well, growth at the state level is such that I just don't believe people charged with overseeing this gargantuan operation can at the same time also relate to local level problems. And of course, those unfunded mandates just keep on coming. If the state government, with all its resources, can't figure out how to pay Page 35 May 22, 2007 for new services, how is a far smaller and more narrowly funded administration supposed to figure it out? If! could just take one more minute. Let's not forget that while we're hearing PAIS statements coming out of Tallahassee about the newly discovered evils of the property tax, you all just voted to place the bulk of a $400 per student increase in the school tax right back on our local property tax bill. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I do have to ask you to wrap it up. MS. CARON: One final note for the special session. The Florida State Constitution makes it a direct delegation of authority to the counties for funding services with ad valorem taxes. I don't believe that's something that can just be brushed aside as a solution to a problem for which there is little or no consensus. Thanks. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Becky Pogan. She'll be followed by Robert Metzger. MS. POGAN: Good morning. Becky Pogan with North Naples Fire District. I'm here to urge you to exempt independent fire districts from the property tax reform legislation. There have been many proposals thrown around. We don't really know where that's going to end up, but what we know is that it will have a devastating effect on your fire service. As an independent district, 95 percent of our revenue comes from property tax. We have no other source of revenue. We have no authority to collect any other taxes or fees, and we have no way to make up for that kind of loss in revenue. To further compound the problem, emergency services are labor-intensive services. Our highly trained professional firefighters are our commodity, and if we are forced to face a large reduction in revenue, the only thing we can do is cut operating costs, which are 80 percent personnel related. In the different proposals that have been thrown on, what that means for the North Naples Fire District is laying off 52 firefighters, Page 36 May 22, 2007 52; 10 fire inspectors; eight administrative employees. That's 70 employees; 40 percent of our personnel. That means at least a 40 percent reduction in our ability to respond. That means closing at least two of our existing seven stations and putting on hold the four stations that are in various phases of construction that -- for demonstrated areas of need already. That means not only a loss of life and property -- and those aren't scare tactics. That's factual. If our response time is cut down by 40 percent, that's going to result in a loss of life somewhere down the line. It also's going to result in an increase in your property insurance. There's been a lot of discussion about the reduction in property insurance. Property insurance carriers look at the number of people you have to respond to a fire, where the stations are located, the number of apparatus, the type of training. All of those are calculated in the premiums. And so you may see a reduction in property taxes, but you're going to see an increase in property insurance. So, again, we urge you. The effect will be devastating on your fire service and devastating to the residents of this county and this state. So we urge you to exempt independent fire districts. Thank you. MS. FILSON: Robert Metzger. He'll be followed by Gina Downs. MR. METZGER: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Robert Metzger. I'm one of the assistant chiefs from North Naples Fire. And I don't know if I'm the last one that you'll hear from North Naples. My predecessors have done a pretty good job of outlining the impact. I would add that in today's edition of the Naples Daily News, there's a guest commentary letter from our fire chief, Michael Brown, which does a very nice job of outlining in detail the impact not only to the fire districts serving North Naples, but it's a similar impact to Page 37 May 22, 2007 every other independent fire district here in Collier County. So I'd ask you to reference that sometime today if you get a chance to do that. The real issues here aren't the impact to the operating fire districts. It's really the impacts to you as residents in those districts, as residents of the county that receive the services because what you're used to right now, if the existing -- if current language actually passes, and it's -- it goes into legislation, into law as it's written, you won't have the same service, you won't have the same response, and that's not something that we want to tell you. We'd love to be able to tell you that we can pick up the slack, we can adapt. But as Mr. Coyle did such an eloquent job of telling you, the kinds of cuts that are envisioned are impossible. You will not get adequate service that will provide for the emergency medical responses that you've come to depend upon, that will provide the kind of timely fire response that will, in fact, save lives and property. I mean, there was a part of me that actually debated saying, maybe you shouldn't even bother calling 911 if those kinds of real emergency conditions exist because we can't guarantee the kind of response for you in that situation if this tax reform goes through, because we won't have the people, we won't have the stations from which we need to operate. And the demand for our service has done nothing but increase over time. So I ask you to please consider exempting independent fire districts from this legislation. Thank you. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Gina Downs. She'll be followed by Bruce Burkhard. MS. DOWNS: Hi. I'm Gina Downs. Thank you for listening to me today. I have a PowerPoint presentation. I hope that goes well. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Ma'am, the time limit's three minutes. I understand that you're making a special request with a number of people in the audience that are supporting that request that are signed up to speak? Page 38 May 22, 2007 MS. DOWNS: I am. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. If! may, the people that are relinquishing their time so we can have this PowerPoint presentation, please raise your hands and call off your names. MR. SPANIER: Donald Spanier. MR. BURKE: Jim Burke. MR. BURKHARD: Bruce Burkhard. MR. MESSANA: Frank Messana. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. MS. FILSON: Got them. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Please continue. MS. DOWNS: Okay. MS. FILSON: So it's lO minutes, Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Ten minutes. MS. DOWNS: Okay. MS. FILSON: Okay. MS. DOWNS: That's it. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you very much. MS. DOWNS: Thank you. I recently had dinner with friends, depicted here. The people that I had dinner with were from Connecticut, New York, Michigan, and New Jersey. I'm from Maryland. This is a pretty common mix at a dinner table in Naples. Something else we all had in common, within the last three or four years, we all had become permanent residents in Collier County. Some of us became permanent residents, others bought new homes in Collier County. It was interesting around the table. Every person there said that their property taxes are lower in Collier County than they were in the states that they moved from yet the state government tells us our property taxes are high. In all 67 counties, not just in Collier County. So I do some comparison shopping. There are 10 counties in Florida with populations between 200,000 and 400,000. Collier's Page 39 May 22, 2007 population is about 325-, 326,000. So looking at those 10 counties, I compared our tax millage rates to see if our millage rate was high. It was not. The average millage rate in the state in 2006 was 18.47. Collier's millage rate -- cursor's not working for me. There it is. Collier's millage rate in 2006 was 11.97. That's 35 percent below the average millage rate in the State of Florida. I went back six years comparing millage rates, little bit above, right there on the red line, for Collier County, and we were still one of the lowest. In fact, for six years we have been one of the lowest. We are currently the fifth lowest out of 67 counties. Oh, yeah, but we're a really wealth county, so there's a lot of tax dollars coming in. So I compared the tax revenues for the same 10 counties, the actual tax dollars being collected. And, yes, the second line there, right there, is Collier County. Our per person tax revenue exceeds the state average by about $300 per person. Does that make us one of the highest? No. I looked at all l6 counties which have a per person tax revenue higher than average. Collier County was the fifth highest. So where are all these tax dollars being spent? That must be the problem. We know it's not because of our tax rate because that's low. It's a time-honored tradition to always claim that your county government or your state government has too many employees and they're paid too much money, so I looked into that, too. I compared the same 10 counties, same populations. The average number of employees with a government job in the state is 13.6 percent, the black line right there. For Collier County, the average number of employees for-- working for our county is 9.6 percent. That's 30 percent less than the average. That's not fat government employment. Next I compared wages for those 10 counties. The state average wage is 41,272. The average in Collier, the second column, is 42,792. Page 40 May 22, 2007 Weare 3 and a half percent higher than the state average. Okay. Our government employment number's favorable, so it must be those other expenditures that you're worried about. I looked into those other expenditures. There are eight categories of expenditures in any county government. The first graph in green is your government general services. We've already looked at that. Second column is Collier County. As expected, that's a little bit below average. The second chart in blue is public safety. Again, a little bit above average. The average in the state is 27.4 percent. In Collier it's about 2 percent higher. Public safety is more than just police. That's police, fire, prisons, and EMS. The next chart in red was a physical environment. That would be electric, gas, water, and sewer. And yes, Collier County's a little higher than the state average by about 4 percent. The last expenditure chart that matters a lot is the transportation, and we're about 2 percent higher right here than the state average. These four categories make up about 75 to 85 percent of any county's budget, expenditure budget, that is. Sorry, I lost my place. Here we go. The next slide is the lesser expenditures, economic environment. Here's Collier County. We're well below the state average. Human services, again, Collier County well below the state average. Expenditures for culture and recreation, in this year, 2005, which is what all these graphs were from -- there were no stats available for 2006 -- we are above the average of6.3. If I'm correct, I believe that's the year that the water park went in. The last chart is our debt service, and that is about 1 and a half percent higher than the state average. So next I compared Collier County with the entire average of all 67 counties in Collier County. Again, as I mentioned, this pie chart should be -- those first four expenses that I looked at -- should make Page 41 May 22, 2007 up about 75 to 85 percent of your county expenditures. In Collier County, our piece of the pie is about 85 percent. For the -- all counties in Florida it's about 75 percent. There are no red flags in Collier's financial picture. There is no precise pie chart that fits 67 counties. Each county faces distinctive conditions, each county must plan for their unique requirements. This county is meeting our needs. This county is planning for appropriate growth in our future. Our population has grown between 2000 and 2005 by more than double the state average. That's not going to slow down any. I compared, using the state's own numbers, the projected growth for our county as opposed to the protected growth for the entire state. In 2006 to 2010, the black line -- I have to look up for the cursor. There it is -- the bottom black line shows the state is projecting growth in the -- the average for Florida at 8.6 percent. The red line here is Collier County. We are more than double the state average until the year 2010. 2010 to '15, the yellow line. Our projected growth in the State of Florida is 9.3 percent. Collier slows down a little bit. We only show we are 80 percent higher than the average at that period in time. The implication is that all 67 county governments are guilty of reckless spending. Where are these unwarranted expenditures? No one has shown me that. The state has no business micromanaging 67 counties. We have 67 local governments who are charged with doing just that. This county does not appear to be a county gone awry. It does not need to be taken to the woodshed. The biggest problem facing Collier County, by your own nun1bers, is growth. We've had double the growth until 2006. We're going to have double the growth until 2010. We slow down and are 80 percent above growth in 2010 to 'l5. This county appears to be collecting the necessary revenues to meet its little needs. It pays -- it faces typical and predictable expenditures. Page 42 May 22, 2007 We have and have historically had one of the lowest millage rates. That's the reality of the picture you need to be painting when you represent Collier County in the state. Weare a community that demands and receives a high level of public service. We vote in additional taxes to maintain a zoo, we vote in additional taxes for conservation efforts, we vote in additional taxes to maintain our waterways. You know what our growth level is and what it will be. That level of growth cannot be accommodated by a reduction in county government income. Identify the problem and solve it, you say. I haven't seen anybody be specific and identify a problem. My summary. The state sends representatives in here today to tell us we're fat. The state ended its year in 2006 with a $6 billion surplus. That's about $300 for every citizen in Florida. We're not going to see any of that money. It's going to be put aside for future needs. They allege that 67 counties have money to burn. They're going to fix that problem for the citizens. Where is the problem? No one has been specific. Is there one area of expenditures that we are excessive in? If so, we need to work on that, but please identify the problem. This county is growing at a phenomenal rate. You know that, we know that. What's the state solution for that growing problem? Cut our budget. Not a good plan. How ironic -- how ironic in yesterday's front page of the paper they talk about property tax reform. The legislators who were interviewed said they want to see a reduction in property taxes that does not do serious damage to local government. So what are you looking for? A little bit of damage? A medium amount of damage? You came here to do damage to the people you're representing. I don't Page 43 May 22, 2007 get it. Another graph I didn't have time to add to my chart, if you want to represent Collier County at the state level, bring us revenue dollars, help your county. Don't hurt it. Federal spending versus the average federal spending, Collier County takes in about per cam -- 2,500 per capita. The state average is 4,491 for each county. We're not getting our share of the federal spending. That's 36 percent below average. Sales tax dollars. Collier County takes in 31 percent less than the state average in sales tax dollars. Bring that back to Collier County for us. Transportation dollars you mention you worked on. The comparison was per capita $7.08 for Collier County residents. The state average, $75.01. That's 90 percent below average. Bring us more tax dollars for transportation. Grant money. This is a smaller amount. The Collier County per capital grant money is 236 per capita. The state average is $257. Not a big change in amounts, but that amounts to $8 million in grant money that we are not receiving that the rest of the state, on average, IS. SO if you want to represent Collier County, I ask that you please do it to our benefit, not to our detriment. (Applause.) MS. FILSON: The next speaker is -- the next speaker is Gary Eidson. He'll be followed by James Cunningham. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think that was part -- taking up that time. MR. EIDSON: No, I wasn't excluded. MS. FILSON: No. I pulled the names out, Commissioner, of the four. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Sorry, Mr. Eidson. I didn't mean any harm, trust me. MR. EIDSON: Hi. My name is Gary Eidson, and I'm-- appreciate being here today. I live in North Naples. I'm a Page 44 May 22, 2007 homesteaded retiree. I used to live in Massachusetts, and one of the things that happened up there was that people in our local community, long-time residents, had to leave town because of the escalating real estate taxes, and they couldn't pay them. And I like my taxes down here. I love them. They stay about the same. I can predict them. That's called Save our Homes. I also like knowing that Collier County gives me a good value for the tax dollar I spend. Can you believe it? I actually like the money I spend here. Let's take a look. Collier County, we got -- 56 percent of our residential waste is recycled because we had the money to buy the bins to go out, 90,000 bins, to institute a program that's going to save us millions in the future. I like the water system here. When I moved here it was horrible. Today it's one of the best in the business, and we're doing $90 billion worth of water a year. Since 2000, when we had no road system, we now have 115 new lane miles, and we've got 156 on the books that will be completed between '03 and '05 (sic). That ain't too shabby. The next thing I'd like to mention is that the state mandates that we have parks. And people think that you have to -- that's just a freebie. But no, you have to have parks. The state requires that you have parks. We did it with impact fees. Our ad valorem taxes, however, stayed the same, and that was despite the fact that that was an unfunded mandate. The -- the legislature is declaring that they're going to cut our taxes. What they're going to do is rearrange them, and they can't -- they want -- they want us to -- they can't eliminate the costs that we have in our county. So what they want to do is just shuffle them around. Now, how is the county supposed to cut taxes? I know this sounds familiar, but Fred Coyle and I did not talk before this meeting. Substitute fees for taxes to maintain services. How does that help us? Page 45 May 22, 2007 Same money. We can't lower the sales taxes. That's protected. We're -- the fire department is pleading with us not to hurt them. If we did, our insurance rates go up. Where is the savings? Such a deal. Two hundred million shifted from transportation to the general fund. That's where the 30 million bucks probably went that we couldn't get for Davis Boulevard. That was a big help. We appreciated that. Six million dollar windfall state surplus. What does that do to help unfunded mandates? Well, you know, it's just a crazy thing. Let the counties do their job. Protect Save our Homes. You know something, it was the retirees that built this state, and now all of a sudden you want to jump back down their throat. That's ridiculous. You could adjust the cap. Maybe 3 percent's a little too generous. Move it up to 3.1, 3.2. Don't create a new tax system. Save our businesses, eliminate personal property taxes -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Edison, could you wrap it up, please. MR. EIDSON: Oh, sure. I'll be glad to. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. MR. EIDSON: Don't raise the sales taxes. One solution does not fit all things. Use the strengths of the well managed. Don't chastise them. If the county can't manage itself, if a county can't, fix the county, not the entire taxation system. The last thing I'd like to say, control your expenditures, not the county's. Continue to save our homes. Don't wreck them. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. (Applause.) MS. FILSON: The next speaker is James Cunningham. He'll be followed by Chris Straton. MR. CUNNINGHAM: For the record, James Cunningham. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Senator Saunders, Representative Davis, as well as Representative Richter. They have been very open to the large numbers of firefighters locally, as well as elected officials, Page 46 May 22, 2007 as well as administrative personnel. They've visited Tallahassee during the course of session and otherwise, and have had your arms open in willingness to meet with us, and we applaud you for those -- for your efforts. I speak on behalf of the North Naples Professional Fire Fighters. Although I speak on behalf of them, we are very similar to a variety and majority of the fire districts, not only here in Collier County, but also in Southwest Florida and throughout the state. We want to let you know that we support property tax reform but it has to be a responsible property tax reform. Based on the myriad of proposals that have been published thus far, most of the fire districts in the area are facing potentially a 30 to 50 percent elimination of their budgets. These types of cuts, with no alternative revenue sources, place the public at risk, and through reduction of the stations and apparatus which will obviously delay response time, increase the loss of life and property and obviously raise insurance rates because the ISO ratings would have to increase. So the things that we would get, as you've already heard today, on the property taxes side, would be offset by the costs that we're going to have to burden with the increased homeowners' insurance rates. It's also important to note that we've all seen increases in our fire budgets and all county and government budgets, but these increases have allowed fire districts to begin to move towards compliance of national fire protection standards. And something I've not heard of today is, not one single fire district within county -- Collier County meets the national protection standards for the number of staffing on the apparatus. We do not meet the standards for the response times that are outlined at the national level. Because we fall short of these over the course of the increased ad valorem revenue that have been created, we've been able to start moving towards reaching those goals and reaching the national Page 47 May 22, 2007 standards that already exist that have been out of reach for us. And at the same time, we had to simultaneously look at the serious population booms as we've seen addressed and try to meet those needs and increases to responses on top of that. Not only have we had the record population growth in the building permits, we've had to meet these needs in the ever-changing national standards trying to protect the lives and property of persons here locally. It's ironic that this debate is occurring at a time where brush fires are being measured by the square mile versus by the acreage. We're looking at hurricanes that have come in with record numbers and staggering forces. Houses have been leveled, lives have been devastated, and as of this date, there is no provisions to exclude essential services. Therefore, it is the firefighters' position that we support property tax reform at a responsible level, and at this time we would like the state representatives to not only look at exempting the fire districts, but also look at the potential of putting in non ad valorem fees that, through the elected governors -- the governing bodies that we have locally, by a supermajority, would be able to reinstate any harm that may be handled by the property tax reform. So in closing, I would just ask that you leave the first line of the defense of our national security and the first responders to do the business that they do best and leave that position and the power to local governments to find the needs that are most essential to the needs here locally. Thank you for your time. (Applause.) MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Chris Straton. She'll be followed by Dave Stedman. MS. STRATON: My name is Chris Straton. I'm the president of the League of Women Voters of Collier County. And I have for each of you a copy of the statement of finance and taxation policy positions Page 48 May 22, 2007 for the League of Women Voters of Florida who, at our national state convention, continue to have tax reform as a priority action issue for us. So I'll distribute those. But what I want to do is to take this opportunity to encourage anyone that is in this room or is watching this on TV, either live or on a rebroadcast, to contact your legislator -- your local legislators are in the blue pages of your phone book, or you can go to the League's website, which is www.lwvcolliercounty.org. Our elected officials represent their constituents. The constituents need to share with them their personal opinion about the need for, quote, property tax reform, end quote, being done at the state level. I would also urge you to contact Governor Crist, Senate President Ken Pruitt, and House Speaker Mario Rubio to let them know that -- what you think about the need to, quote, fix the property tax situation. I would like to share with you some of the positions that the League has on this issue. The League of Women Voters of Florida has studied this issue of taxation in Florida over many, many years, and three have some sound principles. Our taxes -- excuse me -- our tax system should be equitable, it should not unfairly burden part of the population, and it should result in sufficient revenues to adequately respond to the needs of Floridians. I find it ironical that the governor recently appointed a taxation and budget reform commission that will be looking at exploring what changes need to be done to the state taxation system. The current proposal is for them to have the -- their report in the March time frame. I would urge people to tell their elected officials, what's the rush, let's wait, and let's take a measured look at this. I also find it ironic that the state legislators are focusing on reforming property tax, which is the purview of the local governments and their source of revenue. There's a lot of money that's not being collected by the State of Florida Page 49 May 22, 2007 in sales tax revenue. And I would think that it would be appropriate also for our state representatives to look at how much money they're giving away through the sales tax system. Thank you. MS. FILSON: David Stedman. He'll be followed by Steve Meek. MR. STEDMAN: Good morning or -- yeah, good morning. I'll be brief because I'm pretty much going to reiterate what a lot of my fire service colleagues have already pointed out, that you must exempt the special districts. We don't -- we, as an entity, don't have the luxury of partitions off nonessential services to save money. This is a complete and total degradation of service when you take part of our budget away. It's -- we're not at -- as I say, there are no essential services that we can -- unessential services that we can cut back on. You're going to degrade the ability for us to provide emergency services to our constituents. Secondly, when the money is collected here locally, the money is spent here locally. Every dollar that is collected here locally, a dollar is spent here locally. I have no illusions to the fact that if the money is sent to the state, that every bit of money that is sent to the state will not come back to this county. We will become a donor county. It may not be this year, it may not be next year, but eventually we will look -- there will be a redistribution of revenue not in our favor. That's a pretty simple idea. So what will happen is the residents will -- they will have less taxes, at least to begin with. My own opinion is that won't last. But even less money will be spent here locally. So you're already going to devastate our budget by 50 percent with this tax reform, and shortly therefore, we won't even get that 50 percent. We'll get some smaller portion of that whereas some portion will be spent in other counties because we don't have the same -- your ability to represent us is diluted at the state level in a way that it's not diluted here. I'm in favor of tax reform, but I'm in favor of doing it at the local Page 50 May 22, 2007 level. And I know there's at least a couple of commissioners who are in favor of doing some sort of tax rollback. But I am completely un in favor or against collecting the taxes at a state level because I don't -- do not trust the state to send back an equitable amount. Thank you. (Applause.) MS. FILSON: Mr. Chairman, your final speaker is Steve Meek. MR. MEEK: Good morning. My name is Steve Meek. I live here in Collier County. I've been here for about 35 years. A few weeks ago I spoke before the commission and the council as a matter of fact, when they had a joint meeting. Commissioner Halas brought up something to me at that point. I was talking about the inequities, basically, that we have, and the inequities that I'm referring to is people who have Save Our Homes -- over 17 years, and I have that established because I live here. I have -- I am paying less taxes this year than I paid last year. And I'm paying the same amount of taxes I paid 17 years ago. Now, I know the 3 percent is on the appraised value going up. But unfortunately the people in this community are not paying for that 29 percent increase in the budget last year. That's for sure. That's why everybody likes it. But I'm a landlord. And most of what I rent to are low-income renters. I would just like to give you have a little bit of an idea what happened last year alone. I would have had to raise rents on my tenants anywheres from $18 a month for the lowest one that went up, to as high as $70 a month. Now, these are people that are paying 750 to $900 a month in rent. Now, this is affecting all commercial business. I think that's where the fix really needs to be put. I also believe that somehow we have to increase taxes for people who have Save Our Homes. If there's a 3 percent, the concept was, their taxes shouldn't have gone up 3 percent. That's not what happened. Their appraised value was capped not to go up 3 percent. Page 51 May 22, 2007 So since values went up across the community, what happened is, in essence, they didn't pay any more tax increase. So it's very easy to sit back and say, gee, I like spending all this money, as some of the speakers have said today, when their taxes aren't increasing. If! were spending your money or your money or your money, it's easy. It's not my money. And that's what you're doing to me, you're spending my money to get what you want, and you're hurting a bunch of little people, and I think that's a big inequity. And I think that's one point -- I just want to leave that one right there. I only have one other thing to comment on, and that's insurance. Again, being a property owner here in Naples for many years, I had considerable damage when Wilma came to town. And one of the things that I noted -- and I'd like to speak to our representatives here about that and our community -- is that the cost of getting work done doubled and tripled during that period of time. That drives up your cost of insurance, folks, and that's something I don't think anybody's really seriously addressed, that we have to have some type of controls. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. MR. MEEK: The state, the community, should put a limit on how much a square per shingle. They shouldn't take 150, $200 a square shingle -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'll have to ask you to wrap it up, sir. MR. MEEK: -- and raise it to 600. I know. I'm right at the end. Okay. I'll leave it at that point. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Very good point. MS. FILSON: That was your final speaker, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We're down to seven minutes before the magic hour of noon comes and we all turn into pumpkins. So what we're go to do is we're going to allow the last seven minutes for our legislative delegation to make any closing comments, and we'll start with you, Garrett. Page 52 May 22, 2007 REPRESENT A TIVE RICHTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Boy, I have a lot of thoughts running through my mind right now listening to everybody come up here and speak. And I want to first off begin by thanking everybody in the audience, everybody that stood up to the microphone to speak to represent your thoughts. Thank you very much for making those thoughts known to us. I'd also -- I think I'm very -- I'm on safe ground by speaking for my colleagues here relative to all the firemen in the room because I know we've had private conversation. And we all agree that, you know, the firemen, you folks here in the room, you run into the building when everybody else is running out, and we recognize that. And I think one of the -- one of the things that I hear unanimously that Commissioner Coyle and a number of speakers said __ what I did hear unanimously is that there is, almost unanimously -- not from all speakers, but among the elected officials -- there's a need for tax reform. There was a statement made that ad valorem taxes have stayed the same over the years. They have not. The good presentation that Gina Downs presented indicated that the taxes have not stayed the same. And Gina, thank you for your communication with me. I appreciate the correspondence we've had back and forth. I will tell you, I'm proud to represent Collier County. And I know if I just look at Senator Saunders, Representative Davis, and myself, I think collectively the three of us have lived in Collier County for probably over 75 years. So we are proud to represent the county, and we're doing the best we can. Somebody this morning told me that the definition of a democracy was three wolves and a sheep sitting down trying to decide what they're going to have for dinner. We have a form of government that's a republic, and that's why the Constitution's set up with local government and elected officials in the state. How did we get to this point in time? I don't really know. Page 53 May 22, 2007 Senator Saunders or Representative Davis might be able to better explain that because of their history in Tallahassee. But I can tell you that there were some 300 idea raisers and town hall meetings throughout the entire State of Florida, and the two resonating comments from citizens throughout Florida -- thank you, when you talked about having people contact us. The comments were that something has to be done with skyrocketing insurance rates and property taxes. Collier County might be unique. I don't want to go on and on here. But there are -- there are concerns. I believe very, very sincerely that this entire debate has -- is still active. It has been like changing the tire on a moving car. It's gone out from a swap tax of 2 and a half percent sales tax. Gary Eidson, you said you don't want a sales tax. Well, I think -- I think that proposal was probably off the table. I won't know till the middle of June, but I do know for that to happen, it would take a supermajority vote of the citizens in the State of Florida. So it's not like things are being done in a vacuum, in my opinion. There are a number of different proposals. I do believe that at the end of the day, the citizens in Florida are going to see property tax reform. I think it is appropriate. I think a number of comments that have been made here today point to the need for it. Mr. Meek, your comment about fairness and commercial owners and homestead owners and nonhomestead owners. This system is broken. It's an unfair tax. Ad valorem tax is an unfair tax. It is a broken system, in my opinion, and it needs to be fixed. It needs to be fixed with caution, as the senators indicated and the commissioners have indicated. And I will take, along with my colleagues, I'm sure, will take your comments and your opinions back to Tallahassee as the debate continues. Page 54 May 22, 2007 I would just conclude my comments by saying, I know when it comes down to this, we're given two buttons to select from. One button says yes and the other button says no. The button doesn't say, yes, but, no, but, yes, we want it this way or we want it that way. The reality is, it's a lot easier for me to solve these problems in my back yard over a cup of coffee than it is at my chamber desk in Tallahassee because we have to choose button yes or button no. And if there's five things you like and there's one thing you don't like, we have to decide how much we don't like that one thing because sometimes the baby gets thrown out with the bath water. I will, however, tell you that I think -- I'll finish my comments where I started, and that is, I believe that we are all intent on bringing responsible and meaningful tax reform to the State of Florida and firefighters, EMS, HAZMA T folks, government's primary job is to protect people, and folks standing in the back of the room and seated in this room, that's 100 percent of your job is to protect people, and I hope at the end of the day that we have served the purpose of protecting the people first and treating the tax system fairly, and responding to the majority of pleas for property tax reform. And I thank you, again, very, very much for your input. It was valuable, and I listened to each and every one of you. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Representative Davis? REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be very brief. Allow some time for Senator Saunders as well for that Senate perspective. I can only reiterate what my colleague said on the House side. I think all of you read in the newspaper how I feel about this issue just yesterday. I've talked with a couple of you in depth about it. We have to go slow. We have to do it right. And the gentlemen and ladies from the fire district know how I feel. I've spoken with them about it. We've got to keep them whole. Page 55 May 22, 2007 If we can't protect the citizens that live in our community, then we've done something wrong. So I'll leave it with that and turn it over to Senator Saunders to provide him a little bit of time. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Senator Saunders? SENATOR SAUNDERS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to thank all of the citizens that have been here. Very articulate presentations, a lot of information that we need to take up to Tallahassee with us. I will tell you that, first, in terms of dealing with the firefighter issue, there's obviously no more important function of government than protecting our citizens from violence and crime and danger. And so I can assure the firefighting community and the law enforcement community that there will be an effort to exempt them from any effort to roll back taxes. (Applause.) SENATOR SAUNDERS: And I'm confident that that position certainly will get a good hearing and hopefully will prevail. I will tell you that, you know, one of the questions that Garrett Richter raised was, you know, how did we get to this point and how did this all come about. And the problem is that politicians have gotten ahold of an issue that they think is an extraordinarily popular issue. There's some politicians that think that this will catapult them to the governor's mansion at some point in the not too distant future, and Garrett's not one of those. REPRESENTATIVE RICHTER: No. SENATOR SAUNDERS: The speaker of the house may very well be. And that's kind of the bad news is that this is an issue that has so much momentum. There is a feeling in Tallahassee that we have to do something. Page 56 May 22, 2007 Now, the Senate has taken a position that we're going to take the slow approach to this, we're going to take a reasonable approach to this, and ifthere is some rollback, it's going to be to the 2005/2006 time frame to kind of even out some of that big spike in taxes. But as Commissioner Coyle pointed out, that would be a very reasonable approach in terms of the amount of cost to the counties. It's my view that there will be an effort to present a very steep cut in taxes to the legislature, and it's also my view that that probably won't pass, that there will be an effort to make sure that if we do something during this special session, it's going to have to be reasonable. But I would hope that members of this commission and other commissioners will get the word out to their delegates, their representatives. This has been a very enlightening meeting for me. You know, we're sitting here for two hours talking about how well Collier County government is run, and you've got speakers here, speaker after speaker, has talked about how reasonable this county's being run, how reasonable the taxes are. And, quite frankly, I found that to be a little surpnsmg. And I would hope that your colleagues around the state are doing the same thing because that's what it's going to take to stop this train before we have a train wreck. But it sounds like to me that your delegation will certainly be making sure as best we can that this is a -- we have a reasonable result at the end of the day. So thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Senator. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for being here today. That concludes this part of the meeting. We'll be reconvening here at one o'clock. Page 57 May 22, 2007 ******* There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 12:03 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ~~ JIM OOLETT A, Chairman ATTEST: DWIGHT:c(,~eROCK, CLERK , . ,I", , ,.'"'" " 1:1,,\~Jru';0L-1 ~c s 1 gnat tire GIll- These minutes1app~d by the Board on presented v or as corrected & Ii r2/ (J9- , as I TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICES, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS. Page 58