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BCC Minutes 01/25/2008 W (w/CRA & CRA Advisory Boards) January 25, 2008 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS JOINT WORKSHOP BETWEEN THE CRA BOARD AND CRA LOCAL ADVISORY BOARDS Naples, Florida, January 25, 2008 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as has been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 10:30 a.m. in WORKSHOP SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CRA CHAIRMAN: Commissioner Donna Fiala Commissioner Tom Henning Commissioner Fred Coyle Commissioner Jim Coletta Commissioner Frank Halas ALSO PRESENT: Jim Mudd, County Manager David Weigel, County Attorney David Jackson, Bayshore Gateway Triangle CRA Executive Director Penny Phillippi, Immokalee CRA Executive Director Page 1 January 25, 2008 CHAIRMAN FIALA: The CRA board meeting will come to order. Please all rise and say the pledge of allegiance with me. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN FIALA: I want to thank you all for being here today. This is -- to me these are probably the most exciting meetings of all because everything about them stays positive and uplifting. So I just really enjoy them. Before we begin, though, and I -- and before I turn the meeting over to David, I'd like to ask Tom Henning to say a few words, please. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, good morning. I-- CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I apologize to the CRA board. I -- I need to ask the board of commissioners something. I was asked by the County Manager's Office and Bill Clone to send a letter on behalf of the board on supporting his application for the CWHIP program. In this application it -- or this letter it shows the time lines, the time frames of what the board has executed. On the last page has 1 through 5 and it says, (as read): Furthermore, subject to the availability of the county funds and commitments as follows. The county staff has gotten this from the n an item that was on our agenda that we committed to another CWHIP application which is if funds are available, impact fees were deferred. And -- and it just goes down through the whole thing. You know, to me and Leo Ochs believe that this is nothing different that what we would do for -- for Fountain Head and Fountain View. So I'm asking my colleagues do they have a problem for me to sign this letter and give it to Bill Clone as part of his application for CWHIP? COMMISSIONER HALAS: I don't. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, I'm sorry. You didn't -- did you get one? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh, yes. I've been reading it. And Page 2 January 25, 2008 Commissioner Halas here with me. CHAIRMAN FIALA: I think Commissioner -- oh, Commissioner Coletta started to talk and then you next. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, once he starts talking, he never stops. So-- CHAIRMAN FIALA: I love this group, don't ya? COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- I'd like to get mine in and I don't have a problem. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'll tell you what. I'lllet Commissioner Coyle go first because he is the elderly person here. COMMISSIONER COYLE: No, I'm not. That's Donna. CHAIRMAN FIALA: That's me. I'm the oldest one here. Boy, did he have my -- me pegged; right? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I -- I'm finished. CHAIRMAN FIALA: No, you didn't. What -- how do you feel about this letter? COMMISSIONER COYLE: I just told Commissioner Henning that it was fine with me. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: It's fine. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Fine. I -- for the most part fine. I just wish I had it a little bit sooner, so I might have questioned staff on some of the direction. But, I mean, this isn't in any departed from anything we've been doing, there's nothing dramatically different within this letter that's -- we've done as a commission in the past. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. The only thing different was what we already haven't approved is what I stated which we did with the other CWHIP application which was -- yeah. Page 3 January 25, 2008 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So on the record what we're doing is we're taking -- what we're basically -- put the final window dressings on the last one we did and carrying it forward. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Besides the already approved action for falling -- the falls, Bill Clone, I should say. We all know it as Bill Clone's project. We already did a lot of things and that was just stated and memorized throughout it. And the other one was just taking it from the MLU that we did for full support. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Under those circumstances I have no problem. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Any further comment? All those in favor -- is there a motion? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. No. CHAIRMAN FIALA: No motion. COMMISSIONER HENNING: We don't want to take a motion here. It's just reporting to the board and -- and -- and giving direction. And I think my colleagues have, Madam Chair. CHAIRMAN FIALA: They have, sir. And county attorney is nodding. So it looks like move forward with your signature. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Okay. And now without further ado, I'm going to turn the meeting over to turn -- actually, I'm going to turn the meeting over to David Jackson. And -- and then David will introduce his people and we'll -- we'll progress from there. MR. JACKSON: Thank you, Madam Chairman. This has been a duly advertised workshop. You have a quorum from the CRA Commission, CRA Board. Here you have several people from each of the Immokalee and the Bayshore Gateway Triangle local advisory boards. For my board on the left there you have Mr. Ron Fowle. He's been on the board for quite a long period Page 4 January 25, 2008 oftime and he's our senior agent. Then we have Mr. Steve Main, a business owner on Bayshore Drive. Mr. Lindsey Thomas, he's in his second term as chairman of the advisory board. He's also a local business owner and works in the triangle area. And Karen Beatty, she's been here for a couple terms. She's a resident in the Bayshore area. Also in the back here, Jean Jourdan. She's our project manager. And anything you hear about that happened today or last year, it's going to happen, it's all done by her. And Sue Trone, she's done all the graphic materials that you've got there. She's our operations analyst and she's newly arrived and is going to be a rising star in the CRA in the future. I am the Executive Director for Bayshore Gateway Triangle area. And I'll turn it over now to Penny Phillippi who is the new person. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Do you want to introduce your other board members there as well. MR. JACKSON: I don't have any other board members, however, we do have representatives from the area of Sondra Quinn who's the president of the Bayshore Cultural Arts. We have Rick Edson. He's a board member on the Naples Bay Corridor Alliance. Dwight Oakley, he's on the Bayshore Cultural Arts as member and is also a local architect and lives in the Bayshore area. Chellie Doepke, she's on the Bayshore Cultural Arts thing and an active participant in most of the cultural things. In the back is Dwight's wife, Sue. And of course our counselor for the CRA, Margie Student-Stirling. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you very much. MR. JACKSON: Yes, ma'am. MS. PHILLIPPI: Good morning. I'm Penny Phillippi and I am the Executive Director for the Immokalee CRA. It's a brand new position, but our advisory came out in force today to support us. Our Chairman Fred Thomas is here. Denise -- Dr. Denise Blanton, Rick Ayers, Eva Deyo, Bob Soter and hiding is Gary Dantini with the Code Enforcement. And our other guest, of course, is Susi Winchell from Page 5 January 25,2008 EDC. So, David, is there anything else? (No response.) MS. PHILLIPPI: Okay. Well, thank you very much. MR. JACKSON: Ma'am, following the agenda there what I'd like to do for just sequential order is to have the chairmans of each of the local advisory boards address you as the board. Then I will present the accomplishments for the Gateway Bayshore Triangle CRA component for 2007 and what we expect in 2008. I'll turn it over to Penny. She'll do the same for the future for the Immokalee area. Then open board discussion at your direction, Madam Chairman, to interchange ideas, thoughts, direction and programs with the advisory board members. At this moment with your concurrence I'd like to turn over to Mr. Lindsey Thomas who's the chairman of the Bayshore Gateway Triangle local advisory board. MR. THOMAS: Goodmoming. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Good morning. MR. THOMAS: Thank you for allowing us to have this meeting here to discuss not only what we've done last year but what we hope to do this year as well. Mr. Jackson and staff has prepared a presentation that will describe most of the significant activities that we've been doing in the Gateway Bayshore Triangle area. There are two points that I wanted to bring up that we're very proud of. And I think, in fact, a lot of people both in the Triangle and the Bayshore Gateway area. One is the commitment of our board to provide $500,000 that we did last year for the purpose of building storm water retention ponds down at the end of -- MR. FOWLE: -- Pelton. MR. THOMAS: Thank you. And that will affect approximately 300 property owners within the Triangle itself. It's interesting because the Bayshore Gateway CRA area actually is made up of almost 1,800 Page 6 January 25,2008 acres of which I think the assessed value of all those lands within their -- currently on the tax rolls is over a billion dollars. So as we enhance and increase the worth and quality of life in this area, we're hoping that will also be a benefit to the county as well. Additionally, we are very proud of additionally putting in $200,000 allocated to the county government for the DOT to complete the lighting of Davis Boulevard. That is something that's been needed both safety as well as enhancement. And there -- I was surprised to find there is over 35,000 vehicles a day traveling that segment of the road. With that I'll turn the presentation back over to Mr. Jackson. MR. JACKSON: Mr. Thomas. MR. THOMAS: Thank you very much, Commissioners, for allowing me to come before you today. Hopefully this is the last time you see me do this kind of a role now that we have a new executive director which I'll talk about in just a little bit. Okay. To put everything in context we need to know how we got to where we are right this minute, what we've accomplished last year to get us ready for where we are and what kind of a vision we have for our community in the upcoming future. The freeze of'89 and NAFTA inclusion changed the economic status ofImmokalee completely. We went from forty-eight independent farmers, smaller farmers, to three. We begin then to start looking about changing our industrial base. And thanks to you, you-all took the airport authority and put it in the airport board so we could begin our industrialization on that end. You helped us through the efforts of the EDC to get an enterprise-owned development agency to provide incentives for businesses to come to our area. We later develop the CRA which is funding our master plan so that we can begin to look at things in the future. Now, we're looking and what kind of things we're seeing around us we're working very hard to do. We know we need to do something about our roads. So working with the state DOT, we're talking about Page 7 January 25, 2008 widening 82 from 75 to 29, bringing a bypass 29 around the east side of the airport. That would take all the heavy tractor-trailer rigs off our main street. And our main street can begin to function in a way that nobody ever thought about before. And I'll come back to that in just a moment. Through the efforts of the east of951 horizon group we're going to be looking at doing some corridors west going from 846 or Immokalee Road up to 82 that would relieve some of the traffic -- traffic congestion that's going through our town. We are going to try to become an industrial hub for you-all so we can bring a lot of money in for which very little services are going to be needed back. But we're not in a static situation, folks. We're in a very dynamic situation. And I'll show you that. Oh, I need to go this way. Okay. Just to the south of us in this area right in here is Ave Maria. In order to provide the necessary retail for Ave Maria, Seranoa has been -- I didn't mean to do that. Seranoa has been developing. That's this section of land that's in the urban area. And this area all out here, all the way out to here, that's all part of Seranoa. And that's -- CHAIRMAN FIALA: Can I stop you for a second and say tell us what is Seranoa for the listening audience. MR. THOMAS: Seranoa is the name ofa community that was once the farms. In fact, that's the reason why that was called Good Night Curve was the big farm out there. And then a retirement group bought that farm and leased it out and they called it Seranoa. Okay. That's how it got the name. Okay? But it's a big open farm area right here. And to provide retail services to Ave Maria, that's going to be developed. Now, Fred Thomas was concerned for years that this section of it would be the one that would be developed because that was in the urban area and that can be developed most quickly. And by doing anything there that would kill all of our little stores on Main Street if you had a Wal-Mart or a Target or something in there. So we had a Page 8 January 25, 2008 major concern about how quickly and what could we get to be done. But then we had a saving grace because right across the street over here where this little X is, the casino's going to bring a multi-story hotel. And that multi-story hotel does something for Immokalee that nobody ever thought would be good or something that would be desirable in Immokalee and that's a tourist zone that comes up First Street to Main, around Main to Roberts Ranch. Now, when I first came here nobody would have thought of this as a tourist zone. In fact, the only reason why you went out to Lake Trafford was to fish. But we learned when the Seminole Tribe put the casino in, that folks would come out here just to look at the birds, look at the environment. And we are the best place in this country for high-end echo tourism mixed up with downtown zone that would be like a Caribbean Gatlinburg, if you will, where folks will come and get a taste utilizing the natural resource that we already have walking our streets. The multi-cultural diversity and all the great things that are happening there. And because they're not going to develop this part, but they're going to develop it down here, we have a little more time and I can relax a little bit. Because that'll give time for the Indians to develop this so we can have a tourist zone going up through the top. So those are the kind of things we're working on. The other thing to know when we talk about industrial development, which is to be out in this area, is that we are very centrally located in Florida. Immokalee is very centrally located. If I ask the average coastal person how long does it take to get to Orlando, they'll tell four and a half hours five hours. Being in Immokalee it takes you three hours if you come through Immokalee because we're two -- two and a half hours from the airport in Orlando. We're two hours and twenty minutes from the airport in Tampa. Ninety minutes from the airport in Miami. So we're a good place for any industry to come to come here. So we're going to be working on things to do that. Thanks to the EDC we are now the hub for the rural area Page 9 January 25, 2008 economic concerns, new high-tech industry that will be marketed region wide. We're talking about health and human services sciences. And they will be located at our airport. And there will be a region wide, South Central Florida region wide marketing of that district. And that patterns itself, that hooks itself up to the new industry -- I mean, the new health facility that the Florida State University is going to do and those kinds of things. So it's important for us to be ready to make the transition so that we can have a downtown that looks kind of Mexican and Guatemalan and Haitian. Okay. Which means a different kind of a land development overlay that we'll be coming to you with sometime shortly. But our greatest accomplishment this last year, our greatest accomplishment this last year was getting a new executive director. She's only been here two months, but she's already bonded with us. And I'm still getting nasty phone calls from Highlands County about taking a great asset from her -- from them. Okay. And all I can say to you folks is please be good and nice to her, then you never have to see me anymore. Thank you. MR. JACKSON: Madam Chairman, CRA Commissioners, I'm going to give you a quick overview. It's a visual. There's not much reading. So it's all eye candy. If you would just put your eyes on the screens and I'll go through it rather quickly and I'll verbalize what each of the pictures and events happened as we go through the process. I will talk about what we accomplished, the Bayshore Gateway Triangle component of the CRA for 2007 and what we plan on doing and what our goals and objectives are for 2008. As I lead off on it, the first graphic there is a picture of the Davis Triangle back in the '60s maybe even the '50s. And as you look at it, this is Davis Boulevard and you can see it stretches out. And on the tip of that arrow, you're into the swamps. Okay. There's nothing out there. And if you look at this, this is 41 going down to 951. And back Page 10 January 25, 2008 in this -- that's Airport Pulling. Okay. What's on the other side of Airport Pulling? Nothing. Okay. So that's how much your area has grown over time as expansion has come in and grown. And if you look at that same area right now, this is what we have today in our aerial area. For us we have the tax incremental financing. You understand the program about how we get our funding and where it comes from. It's from the property taxes that are collected in the area above what the county gets. From my area you get one million -- one point one million dollars per year out of this area. And then we get whatever above that into our fund. This is our -- our revenues over the last four years. Again, it shows that we had had a steadily increase, not necessarily all about the CRA, but then again it has a lot to do to the CRA and what the economic status of the area has been in Naples. Our 2000 budget, a quick pie chart, it's in your program that shows where our revenues came from and where we were at over the last five years. You can see that we've had a steady increase in revenues, but we've also had steady increases in reserves. And we -- and we look at the same thing on the expenditure side. We have our -- most of our money is looking into land acquisition. And we are also over the last five years you can see we have a couple spikes in the loan segment where we tried to leverage our funds instead of using all of our reserves. So we're pretty much quickly balanced out. Again, if you want to look at the area where my area is and how it relates to the rest of Collier County, we're right on the fringe of the developed portion of the City of Naples. We are at the -- that's where the name Gateway came from to the county at the Davis Triangle area from 41. What I'm going to talk about here in 2007 and our accomplishments I want the CRA Advisory Board and CRA Board to understand that all of our accomplishments are due to my two staff employees and a collaborative effort with the county staff under Jim Page 11 January 25, 2008 Mudd. We could not have done it without the county staff. It's collaborative. We participated and they participate with us. I think that partnership is keen. We've got to keep it going. It's one of those things. When you got the big mo -- momentum, you got to keep it rolling. Because if we falter -- and we know the economy is trying to kick us in the teeth right now -- but if we falter, this area may slip back into the old designation, but that's not where we want to go. Proceeding on with the slides, one of the first programs was the Haldeman Creek Storm Water Dredge Project. That was a great project, all funded by county and from the SFWMD people, the South Florida Water Management District. That's been a very good project. But also we have another area of the Triangle. This is another picture of the '70s and you see the three circles there. In the Davis triangle there were three storm water ponds. That's water. Where that water is now there's buildings and parking lots, 100 percent impervious surface. So the question is where does the water go? Okay. It used to go to these places. This is some of the problems that we have in very large storm events. Okay. This isn't the normal occurrence. Your ten-year storm, your 25-year storm or hurricanes and this is the kind of event and effect that we have in some of the areas, mostly in the commercialized area. But that's being solved by the county. Okay. The storm water department is putting together the pond. You guys spent quite a bit of money on acquiring the land. And it's right there in the Triangle area just off of L ynwood and Francis. This is a LIDAR map of it. The red area is where the Phase 1 of Palm will go. And the Forsyth parcel 1.6 acres about was purchased by the county in 2007 of which there was a $529,000 contribution from the CRA to make that happen because we know we need future expansion. It's one of those things, you can't buy dirt inexpensively once it's been built on. So we got on that. This is another great project that the storm water department did. It's down close off of Thomasson in the Bayshore area. You can see Page 12 January 25, 2008 the water and they had some localized flooding area. They came in. And this is the project when it was completed, a very good project. It's really, really nice and they liked it. The blue aerial shows -- aerial -- excuse me -- the blue arrow shows where the -- that ditch was improved next to the Avalon Elementary School. But what we've done is we were asked by the storm water department is to coordinate with the Cirrus Pointe Development and the Abaco Bay Development to get them some easements and right-of-way access so they can continue that ditch to the north and help out with that. And right now that's in negotiations. And we did that through the neighborhood association. Because we had a -- we had a rapport with them. We talked with them. One of the other things we do is the site improvement grant program. I'm going to show you three examples, before and after of which we take money, give grants as an incentive for people to improve their property, make it better than what it was which increases property values which increases the tax incremental that we get and that we re-invest. This is a multi-family residential. They had the roof blown off during the Wilma and now it's been replaced and repaired. And this is a private residence. He had a dirt driveway. He's now got a brick paver driveway and an aluminum roof that is to hurricane code. We also did a study for the Shadowlawn and Bayshore area. If you look at the lower right-hand picture there, this is Shadowlawn Drive that goes by -- past two churches and elementary school, two-lane road. We looked at it. We're trying to provide some improvements to it. We don't want to make it like Bayshore, four lanes and landscaped and all. But as you see it transition here. We want to improve it for the pedestrian, for the children, safe areas, lighting. Because right now it is lacking in those things. And that is currently on the Board of County Commissioners' short list that goes to the Ferguson Group up in Washington asking for some Page 13 January 25, 2008 transportation funding to improve this segment of the road. I've also looked at Bayshore Drive. Here it's a very much improved road. However, we do have some pedestrian issues. And in the study we looked at it. And you'll see it. It'll morph here. That there isn't a place for pedestrians to get from one place to the other that -- the recommendation to the MSTU, the Municipal Service Taxing Unit, is to provide safe islands for the pedestrians that are crossing the street from one side to the other. We did a Thomasson Drive corridor study. This is the area we looked at. And why are we doing a study at Thomasson Drive that goes from where the Colliers built the Thomasson Drive new extension to Publix. Well, here is why. We need to look at this two-lane road that needs to be improved. We got to build for the future. Right now Remington Lakes is a condo project that will soon go to the county for approval, 320 condo units at this location. Right here is the 31 acre new site for a middle school. What does a middle school bring, buses and parents and kids. Okay. And they're going to be traveling the road to get there. The other project is Sable Bay. It's back in the Collier's hand. It's right now a DRI that's been downgraded to a PUD for 1,999 new homes. Okay. A lot of people back on the road and they're going to be using this for access. And right now under construction is Hamilton Harbor with 432 boat slips. This is the recommendation is to improve that road, leave it as a two-lane but also provide for a bicycle safety and pedestrian access. We need to look for funding on that, but it's a program to improve the infrastructure. The county's been very good. In our area this year in 2007 there was a large number of streets that were resurfaced. Okay. I think it's called micro asphalt -- micro surfacing. And it was great. It really was a boon. They come back in and painted it and it really looks nice. Page 14 January 25, 2008 And it helped the area because people notice that you guys are investing in staying in our area. Mr. Thomas talked about the Davis Boulevard lighting project. We contributed $200,000 toward that project. It's going to be happening soon. We're looking at lighting on the South Bayshore area. It's a two-lane road. No lights. Dark. I mean real dark. So we're looking at that for improvement. Now, we also have an MSTU working in our area. That's been there since 1997. They are in charge of taking care of Bayshore Drive proper and all the landscaping in it. This year they funded some designer polls for stop signs and lights and signage in the area. And they'd recently gotten a LAP. It's a Local Area Program Agreement with FDOT to put more lights in the Bayshore Drive area around the bridge. And that's coming from the MSTD. The MSTU has also worked hard in getting Cat shelters for the Cat bus that's along that area. So those are installed. We have a residential infill project which we're looking at an area that was designated slum and blight. It's got some good people living in there, but it's got some challenges also. And so we looked at this residential project. And you have approved just the purchase of 14 mobile homes and trailers. And one of the reasons we targeted the area, here's some statistics from the sheriffs department that talks about why that area -- it's a blue light special. Most any night you're going to have one or two sheriffs departments there, police -- not police, sheriffs deputies in the area active. And in the daytime we've got code enforcement that's there. So there's a lot of activity. And you can see that the numbers are really high for the neighborhood. We've acquired these 14 properties that are in blue. Our goal, providing we can find the funding and we get the program established, we want to acquire the other areas that are in red and green. If we can do that, we can make an impact and change the neighborhood. Right now all the red properties are the high code violation locations. Page 15 January 25,2008 Significant fines and penalties on them. And I'm sure that code enforcement can give you more data on it. In the residential infill we want to take those older mobile homes. Some of them are built in the '50s and '60s. Definitely if you try to move them, they'd fall apart. We are demoing them. And what we plan to do in the future is to build a 160 mile an hour wind loaded home, foundation home on those sites and get them to be owner occupied, not rentals. You know, create us a neighborhood. There's a couple of our code enforcement helping people. There's a sheriffs department out patrolling the neighborhood. This is one of the actions that came from code enforcement. It was an infraction. This was a flop house. It is a two bedroom, one bath building that had eighteen people living on it in six mattresses. Code enforcement got involved with it. And the two buildings that you see there were destroyed. And now they have a clean open space that we hope a new commercial building goes on. Also code enforcement action on South Bayshore we also had some significant problems with one property owner that seemed to collect a lot of stuff on all of his properties. And it was -- been cleaned up and there's still a lot of action going on it. So it's an ongoing thing. We're working at it. How do we plan for the future? Let's look forward to 2008. One of the things we want to concentrate on is that the places we love don't happen by accident. You make them happen. And that's what you do through visioning and what you do with programs. This is Commissioner Fiala's pet project, the Davis Boulevard Sprint building. It's now Embarq. And one of the reasons is it's on the main -- main thoroughfare. And you've got this old barbwire fence. And we've been talking with a corporate agencies. We says, Hey, can we landscape it? Can we make a better fence? Can we do better? They're in negotiations or discussion with us. Nothing resolved yet, but we're working on it, Commissioner. Page 16 January 25, 2008 The other thing we're looking at is once the pond is built, we'd like to go for a FERDAP grab or some other type of program to put in some kind of a walking trail around the pond, a place for people to walk and exercise. And we're looking at that in the future, probably 2009, but we'll be bringing that program to you. The other thing we're looking at is a pathway to Sugden from Bayshore so people don't have to get in their car and drive there. That they can walk, roller skate, take their children and buggies and whatever. To date we've collected about $77,000 that will soon be matched by a couple other donations and -- to build that path. Also for the future we're looking on a neighborhood focus initiative. This comes from the redevelopment plan. What we plan on doing there is going into the neighborhood. Right now we'd like to establish some residential sidewalks. There's places like this. There is none where do people walk, in the middle of the road. Okay. And collect a lot of water. This is so we want to try to provide better drainage. And like this street here, there is no storm water drainage system so water just runs wherever it can on flat surfaces. You like to get some swales and stuff set in there. And I know that there's a new policy coming out about tertiary system, but we can use some of our redevelopment money to help with that. We also have a landscaping offer to the people to maybe do something in their neighborhood. If the neighborhood wants to do it, lighting, trees, sidewalks, benches approved by them, designed by them, approved by you, constructed by us. Bayshore Drive Corridor we will need to look at the corridor for Bayshore right now. And for one of the reasons the Triangle area is pretty much built out for the most part, pretty much built out. But the Bayshore Drive Corridor in the commercial sector, if you take a look at it next to where our 17 acres are, you see there's a lot of vacant land. Vacant land doesn't contribute anything to the community. It's good that it doesn't have a blighted building on it, but it does not contribute Page 17 January 25,2008 to the tax base. It doesn't bring a business. It doesn't create a job. It doesn't create something for the neighborhood for a place to go. So we need to look at that corridor and we need to get buildings built. And then we need to get businesses in them, quality business, and that's what's going to be our program we'll be bringing to you soon. One of those things is here is a list of proposed incentives that are legal incentives that can be provided by the redevelopment agency to spur economic growth in that area. These haven't been fully staffed through your advisory board, but they will come up through you and through the legal system and they'll be presented to you. And we would hope that you would support them because they do make sense and they do help the area. One of the proposals we have currently to work on you'll see is if you look at North Bayshore Drive, a very nice corridor, well built out, 100 feet of right-of-way. But then if you turn around and go south of Thomasson Drive, you're looking at a two-lane road. It's dark. There's no sidewalks. There's no bike path. And it's pretty much a safety thing. So we could probably take -- if you look at the today schematic and probably build something like that tomorrow. Now, that's just a concept. It's not real. We need to look at it and you need the consultants to come in and you need to plan it and bring it to the CRA Board for approval. Of course, it will be staffed through county transportation. They'll have to be supportive of it. Let's look at future development. Quickly I'll go through here. I've heard Mr. Joe Schmitt and last night I listened to Nick Casalanguida talk about all the development that's happening on 41 from the intersection of Davis all the way past 951. And you-all know about it. You see it every day whenever you have these proposals to build. A lot of activity on that corridor. But this is an eye test, but in our area there are a multitude of other private projects that are going on also. Page 18 January 25,2008 Some of our challenges and some of our benefits are listed up there. I won't read them to you, but it does show that we do have some benefits. Arboretum Village mixed-use project that was approved. It's in site development plan phase. Remington Lakes Condo Park coming soon to you. The new school, botanical place, 20 acres. It's been built out and it's completed now and mostly filled up. It's a mixed income development. Abaco Bay was a conversion from apartments to condos. Fisherman's Village's still a paper project and it has some legal issues, but we hope that will come to fruition in some form in the future. The Odyssey which is a Treviso Bay project. It's a marina project on Bayshore Drive. It has been approved and it's in the site development process right now for approval. Hamilton Harbor under construction. Okay. These are all draws. They're going to draw a lot of people. Cirrus Pointe site development plan approved. And they're looking for ways to build that when the market recovers because it's one of those things they work on. Botanical Gardens 160 acres. They've got their site development plan. They've got half the money they need to build. And as soon as they get a significant amount more, they'll be there. Land development in our area there, you see the yellow circle, CRA owns at your approval a 17 acres of site that we'd like to work with. That site is located right here from the aerial just to give you a sight to where it is. It's just north of Botanical Place and Jeepers Drive and south of Lunar. And in that area it's a pretty nice space. And what we'd like to do is provide some kind of a mixed-use project in there maybe some kind of cultural facility of some sort. With a future thing in the yellow area as to maybe through the Board of County Commissioners, because they will have to be the one to approve it, is a designation of a possible Collier County Cultural Center or a regional impact center. Right now we have a needs assessment that's under Page 19 January 25,2008 way. We'll be bringing to you that when it reads out. We don't know what the results are, but we'll let you know when that happens. That's a future plan. And this is the site, again, looking from another way and you can see what a beautiful site it is when it backs up to Sugden Lake there, Sugden -- Sugden Park and Avalon. That's something to look for. So what are we doing? We're looking for sustainability. We want the Bayshore Gateway Triangle area to be a contributing part of Collier County. We want it to contribute to the county. We want it to contribute to the tax base. We want it to be a quality place to live and a quality place to work. And that's what we're working towards and we're doing it every day. Now, can we get there? Yes. Patience, persistence and dedication and that's where we're at for today. So as we work forward to that in your packet we've listed our goals for 2008. I didn't enumerate them, but they're in there and those are open for comments and discussion with the advisory board because those are recommended by the advisory board. And at this time I'll turn it over to Penny to talk about Immokalee. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Before we start, if -- ifI may, are there any questions from commissioners? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Do we have any speakers on this particular item? MS. FILSON: I have speakers, but I believe public comment's at the end of it. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. MS. FILSON: But I'll be happy to call them now. CHAIRMAN FIALA: I just thought if something pertained to this while we're still on that subject. MS. FILSON: Do you want me to call them next? CHAIRMAN FIALA: How many speakers do you have? MS. FILSON: Four. Page 20 January 25, 2008 CHAIRMAN FIALA: Are any pertaining to this particular CRA? MS. FILSON: They don't say on here. MR. JACKSON: All four of them do. All four ofthem-- CHAIRMAN FIALA: Pertain to this one? MR. JACKSON: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRMAN FIALA: I would like to address this now so we don't have to switch gears back and forth. Thank you. MS. FILSON: Okay. The first speaker is Rick Edson. He'll be followed by Dwight Oakley. MR. EDSON: Okay. I'm Rick Edson. I'm a part of the Naples Bay Corridor Alliance. And what we are is a community group that involves businesses, residences and new developments within the Bayshore area. We call it the Naples Bay Corridor and we are there to work together to develop a vision of what this could be, what we might be. I think there's been an awful lot that's going on. If you look at what's happened, the MSTU's built a great road. The CRA has done a tremendous amount of work in improving the water drainage and buying up property, but that's nowhere near sufficient. Where we are today we've got a great road and we've got a lot of land. We don't have the projects. We don't have the investment tools to move this forward. And what we're trying to do is have a coalition of players that develops a vision and a picture that we can share with everybody in the community, work with the CRA so we can move forward and plan to be somewhere rather than wake up somewhere. And if you think about what it could be, for example, when we say cultural center, this is not a place where people come in and go to a singular event and leave. We've seen a lot of those developments. Some places where I lived in Chicago, they built the United Center in a blighted area. No improvements to the area whatsoever except for the physical place where the building is. People come in. They go to Page 21 January 25, 2008 an event and they leave. Our vision is to have something in the community where we have a vibrant community. What we have today is a skeleton. We don't have the skin and bones, the personality, the character and the impact on the community that we can have. What we need to have is an area that is -- got cultural business. People can live here. They can work here. They can come and experience. A family can come here and go into a cultural center, have lunch, shop, maybe go to a bakery. Show their kids how pottery is made. Experience that. Interact with that. Maybe see how glass is blown. Maybe learn to fish. Expose them to a cultural learning experience where they can grow. Come spend time, provide a positive economic base. A place where people can work, enjoy and engage with the community. So it's not just a place where people come in, go to an event and leave. But this is an opportunity to be a vibrant community that contributes to the tax base, contributes to the cultural impact of this. And it's not about anyone of those individually. It's about those collectively. So we're working on a vision, a layout and a way for people to interact and understand what this can be and to move forward. We need your help. We need tools. We need a way to encourage people to come in. When you think about the economy being slow now, the real estate market being slow, that's not a problem. That's an opportunity for us. That means that any tool the CRA has is more powerful because of a backdrop. There aren't any other options. So we look for your help. We've done a great job so far. We've got a long way to go. Thank you. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Dwight Oakley. He'll be followed by Sandra Quinn. MR. OAKLEY: Good morning. I'm Dwight Oakley. I'm a resident of Bayshore and have been for the last three and a half years. I'm also a practicing architect. I work and live on Bayshore. Page 22 January 25, 2008 I'm here also to reenforce and to encourage the commissioners to really continue to work with the CRA advisory board. What they've been able to accomplish and what the MSTU has been able to accomplish is fantastic. Even in the three and a half years I've certainly seen great improvements. With regard to the cultural or the potential of a center being created on the 17 acres that's made available to us within the CRA district, it's just a great opportunity. It's really fascinating. I know that you obviously see information on other communities throughout the country. This is almost a prototype for one of those projects to come along and enhance this portion of the community in Collier County. It can't denote again how important and what a great economic engine this cultural center or educational facility might be for us. So it's -- it's a great starting point. It could serve as an anchor for this area to really grow. So on that basis I please encourage you to continue working with us and we look forward to coming back to other meetings. I've been active in putting together drawings and very early sketches with regard to the 17 acres and showing other members of the community what may occur on that site. And I'm happy to share those drawings with you at some stage if you wish. But, again, the potential's fantastic. There's a great deal of excitement in the -- in the area. Again, I'm anxious to be a part of that process. So thank you again very much. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Sondra Quinn. She'll be followed by Challie Doepke. MS. QUINN: Madam Chairman and commissioners, thanks for the opportunity to make comments on this project. I'm Sondra Quinn. I'm president of Bayshore Cultural Arts and I also live in the Bayshore area. And I guess my -- my request today is for you to consider and support a cultural district when it is presented to you sometime in the Page 23 January 25, 2008 future. A cultural district designation for our area would combine the mixed-use residential and commercial that has always been planned with a regional cultural center. And designation of a cultural district would provide an opportunity for us to plan for performance space, for live/work studios, for galleries, for artists and organizations in the community that are not right now being served. They're not able to -- they don't have locations to perform, rehearse or to do their work. This would also support the goals of the United Arts of Collier County. And there was a study that I know you supported that was done several years ago. It would also provide some accessible and affordable offerings to segments of the community. And it -- it's something that is a -- that is actually augments and supports what's already going on in Collier County. I mean we've got fabulous performance halls and fabulous art museums, et cetera, but it doesn't meet the needs of the entire community. It just meets the needs of part of the community. I guess the big thing that's important about this is with a cultural district designation it would allow us to seek funds from the state and from the federal government and that makes a huge difference as you know. So I would hope it would be some sort of a private-public partnership. So, again, please, please consider and support a cultural district designation. And I leave you with a vision to think about. A vision that is a regional cultural, education and entertainment center that supports the community's activities, cultural and art events, live/work studios in a village concept with a very strong educational overlay. Thank you. MS. FILSON: And your final speaker is Challie Doepke. MS. DOEPKE: Good morning. My name is Challie Doepke. And I'm with Bayshore Cultural Arts. I'm also on the advisory committee for Collier County's schools. They have a vision of having a performing arts school in Collier County. Page 24 January 25, 2008 As I said, I'm here on behalf of Bayshore Cultural Art and representing over 20 organizations that have responded to a needs assessment questionnaire that I sent out last fall. We have worked with AMS, the national firm hired by the CRA. And preliminary results indicate a serious need for venues for performance, teaching and live/work studios in Collier County. There is work being done to form a creative and performing arts school within the county. And with the redevelopment effort taking place in the Bayshore Gateway Triangle, the focus on creating a cultural district is a timely one. We have enormous public support for a cultural district on Bayshore including that of the art council world famous conductor William Knoll, nationally recognized conductor and pianist; and even a letter of support and interest in doing an annual residency here by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops. We see great benefits for the redevelopment of the Bayshore Community by creating an environment where all can live, work and play. And ask for your vote of support when the subject of establishing a cultural district is presented. Thank you for your time and consideration. MS. FILSON: That's your final speaker, Mr. Chairman -- Ms. Chairman. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you very much. Now, we'll move on to the Immokalee CRA. MS. PHILLIPPI: Good morning. Thank you once again. I want to say at the very beginning I'm very happy to be in Collier County and I'm very happy to be in Immokalee. I want to be the first to commend David Jackson and his staff for the beautiful yardstick they've -- they've laid down on the ground. They've done an outstanding job. And, boy, you really have something to be proud of with this group of folks. And we're hoping that next year we can be right up here with some of those kinds of things to show you, some Page 25 January 25,2008 programs that we've developed. Today what I would like to talk to you about though is -- because I'm at ground zero -- and our advisory board has been working for four years to develop a master plan. And it's a good plan. And everyone in the community supports the plan, are excited about the plan. They want something to happen. They want to see us deliver a product. And so that's my charge in the upcoming year. And -- and we'll just go through some of the goals that are outlined in that master plan. They recently had a workshop and came up with a vision. And the vision is simply the Immokalee CRA will ensure that our home, Immokalee means our home, is always welcoming to visitors and to future families in an environment that provides worlds of opportunity for investment, enjoyment and a diversified quality of life. And I think in the nutshell -- I mean, it was -- it took a lot to get the whole room of people to come up with one vision, but it needed to be said. And I think that really embodies what -- what they really want to do. Our first goal is to guide land use. That was always been their initial goal. They want to maintain the quality of life and enhance it. To enhance the natural beauty, the environment, the small town character, the stable neighborhoods, the agriculture, the tourism and the Immokalee Regional Airport as a port of entry. I want to say to you that even though this goal embodies all those things and they look really abstract, when I first came to Immokalee and what -- what convinced me to be in Immokalee and stay there is I saw life. The place was -- it's teaming with life. It's a healthy, alive, vibrant community. And there's no other way to say it. There are young couples walking down the streets holding hands. There are young mothers pushing shopping carts. There are children playing all over the place. And in their faces you see hope. And as you do in all youth, hope for the future. And I think that -- all these things embody those people who are there and ready to make their future in Page 26 January 25, 2008 Immokalee. But how can we bring this big goal to fruition? And it is through our master plan. It is through the implementation of our master plan. So we are promised at the end of this month that we will have all the comments back from our Collier County Comprehensive Planning Department on this master plan so that we can use -- we have in place ready to go the planning firm of Jacobs, Carter & Burgess. We're ready to hit the ground running as soon as we get those comments in our hands and begin forming this master plan that is the vision of all the community into the legal document that it needs to become in order to go forward. And it's not an easy task. You can see. These are the things that it -- that it's going to require. This -- once we get a master plan completed, it must become a comprehensive plan amendment. And all of you have done plenty of comprehensive plan amendments, approved them. You know the things that we have to do as well as get the master plan into the proper format and -- and language. We have to do the things that would address the land development code. We have to do a transportation plan, a capital improvement plan. And then we can start talking about implementing that master plan. We have a time line set out for these -- these huge objectives that are -- I mean, we are at the cusp. We are right now ready to step over the threshold and -- and push these things into motion. But our consultant believes we won't have our master plan implementation ready to go until May of 2009. So we're walking slowly through a lot of these things thinking about what are some of the things we can do while at the same time that we're getting those things done. We have -- this is a brand new goal and the CRA has decided to -- the advisory board has decided to create an Immokalee Revitalization Overlay District. And in that we want to incorporate all the elements of the residential, the institutional, the commercial, the Page 27 January 25, 2008 vehicular, the pedestrian environment into an integrated commercial and civic design that reflects the community focus. And, again, I've got to say how are you going to do this? We're going to fast track the development of an overlay district for Immokalee. We're going to have that completed sometime we hope this month. We're going to hold public meetings in March. This is how fast we're going to move on the overlay district. We're going to get it to the comprehensive planning department and then hopefully to the Board of County Commissioners before this year is out. We want to create a community-driven design for Immokalee that emphasizes that multi-cultural nature that Mr. Thomas was talking about earlier. And we want to have a lot of marketing plans. We want to develop an enhanced marketing plan with the EDC and with our chamber of commerce that can realistically market Immokalee as a -- as a multi-cultural tourist attraction, a place that you'd want to go and visit. Then Goal 3 is a long-standing goal for decent affordable housing. It was really interesting as we -- we didn't put anything in here about code enforcement, but code enforcement has actually either-or and demolished and rehabbed over 100 units in Immokalee just this past year. We're -- and what we're really looking for are -- we want to encourage and facilitate partnerships between for-profit and nonprofit providers of affordable housing, but we want to set up a real process for the selection of those partnerships. That's one of the big things we have to do. And we have to define our housing program. We don't have any housing programs yet. We need to define the parameters of what those programs are going to look like. And, of course, we want to continue to coordinate our activities with the Collier County Housing Department. The proposed overlay, we believe, will -- will reduce the cost of housing by addressing a different set of requirements for landscape Page 28 January 25, 2008 and agriculture density, inclusionary zoning and such incentives as a community land trust. These are all things that have long been in the master plan from the very beginning. Now, we're simply going to create a program to implement those items within the -- within the overlay district. And we're not saying a set of codes that are better or worse than the ones that already exist. We're simply saying a different set of codes that will more closely align with the needs of the Immokalee community. Another huge goal for the entire county, I know, but also for the Immokalee CRA is the conservation, protection and management of our natural resources which are abundant in the Immokalee area. We have a -- we formed a reciprocal partnership with the Conservation Planning Advisory Committee. And we're currently -- we currently have a subcommittee investigating the feasibility of a habitat conservation plan. This is a huge undertaking for the small advisory board and a limited amount of staff, but we're -- we're going forward with this partnership with the Habitat Conservation Planning Advisory Committee and looking strongly -- leaning heavily on them for support. MR. THOMAS: Penny, can I interrupt right there? Next Tuesday is election day. And most of our leaders in the community will be working the poll. So we can't be here to help support Habitat Conservation Collier's acquisition of the Pepper Ranch which is a part of this overall goal of maintaining it for the environment for echo tourism and stuff like that. So we hope you'll keep that in mind and be supportive of it next Tuesday. Thank you. MS. PHILLIPPI: Okay. Goal 5 is we're looking for high quality, diverse recreational opportunities in Immokalee. And we're going to explore the possibility of land donations to strategically place certain kinds of parks and recreation facilities. And I was just so pleased with Mr. Jackson's plan for the recreation because we have a lot of places we can go walking and hiking. And we have those five -- those four Page 29 January 25, 2008 county parks already in Immokalee. And so we really have to strategically plan on how we're going to move forward with that. Then Goal 6 is growth and development supported by roads, sidewalks, bike paths, so on and so forth. And on the -- on February 28th we're holding a community meeting with our transportation planner, Mr. Nick Casalanguida. I hope I got that right. He's a great guy. He's agreed to come out. And we're passing out fliers in Spanish and we're -- we're putting up bulletins. We're really advertising this so that the community can come to this meeting and talk to the county planner about what roads need to go through. We can't get from what place to what place, what's -- what's needed. We have huge transportation -- I'm sorry. We have a huge amount of pedestrian traffic. And so we need to create a realistic pedestrian environment so that people can walk safely to and from wherever they're going. So we really need the community to come out and talk to the transportation planner so that he really understands the needs of the community. And -- and I think that will help him better with his planning as well. Because sometimes we get -- get to thinking about the bigger picture and the bypass will alleviate some of the traffic and all of these kinds of things. But to hone it down to where the person walking the street can actually have a voice will be a huge asset, I believe, to the planning effort. Weare taking as I -- as I mentioned earlier we're undertaking a capital improvement plan. We're developing that with our consultants as well. We're going to have continued representation on the east of 951 Horizon Study Committee and on the State Road 29 Committee. We're going to continue to stimulate community awareness. As you know 70 percent of the population, the permanent population, of Immokalee is Hispanic. So it becomes vital to us who are trying to implement change within the community to tap in to the folks who are represented especially the dominant population and get them involved in the activities. That's going to be an active effort this year. And we Page 30 January 25, 2008 hope to expand the Adopt-a-Road Program and implement an Adopt-a-Street Program. That will help a lot with our litter and code enforcement kinds of things. In Goal 7 we're going to enhance the diversity of the local economy. And it's totally necessary at this point. If20 percent of the migrant farm workers didn't come this year, then certainly the downtown merchants are feeling a 20 percent loss at the cash register. So it comes -- it becomes very important, then, to start to diversify that economy. And we're going -- that's going to be one of our biggest initiatives. First, we'll start by reviewing some of the incentive programs that the Bayshore has laid out. By the way, every time I call these folks, they're right there and they're more than willing to help. It's just the greatest crew over there at Bayshore. I just can't say -- sing their praises enough. Then on a case-by-case basis we're going to support the development of incoming businesses with CRA funds if that's at all possible. We're going to develop an enhanced marketing plan again. This comes into every goal that we put. Sometimes you hear the same thing over and over, but that becomes a huge part of what my job is going to be during this coming year. And then we get to Goal 8. You'll be happy to know there's only nine. So we're at Goal 8. And we want to promote tourism and culture as a means of diversifying Immokalee's economy and providing greater recreation and entertainment opportunities. We're going to work with the Tourism Development Council to develop a plan to promote tourism. We're going to include implementation strategies that will market eco-tourism. It's one of our biggest assets. That's one of the things we can market fairly easily. We're, again, going to create that community-driven design for Immokalee that emphasizes the multi-culturalism. And first we'll develop some store-front grants to implement that theme. We'll Page 3 1 January 25, 2008 include the theme in our overlay district. We'll develop printed material depicting that theme for marketing and we'll execute a demonstration project downtown. Quite possibility the demonstration project will be the CRA office. Currently we're in the kitchen in Mr. Coletta's office at 310 Alachua, but that's okay. It's okay because we have a vision for what downtown Immokalee looks like. And we have an opportunity to be the first ones who step out and -- and make that demonstration project happen. And we are going to incorporate and support everything, of course, that the Tourism Development Council is doing and hopefully that will be reciprocal. We'll set up a reciprocity with that group as well. Then Goal 9 we want to improve the range and availability of human services for the Immokalee residents. We want to, first of all, research other areas to determine how to get more medical facilities, emergency facilities. We're going to pursue CPTED which is crime prevention through environmental design with the Collier County Sheriffs Department. This is a planning tool where, perhaps you know, but the communities are designed to prevent crime by more lighting, road stopping at certain places, those kinds of initiatives. And we're going to pursue the Neighborhood Watch Program also through the Florida -- I mean, Collier County Sheriffs Department. So that concludes my presentation. And I hope that kind of gives you an idea of what we -- what we plan to do in the upcoming year. And hopefully next year we'll come back with a whole lot of we did this and this and this. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioners, questions? Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, thank you. Ms. Phillippi, I want to tell you that was one of the greatest presentations I've ever seen come from this C -- CRA Master Plan Group. It was absolutely Page 32 January 25, 2008 wonderful. MS. PHILLIPPI: Thank you. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right from the mission statement which I commend you all for putting together a mission statement that is so concise and on the point. You mentioned one thing. And I just wanted to clarify a point. The master plan that's coming through that we're going to be reviewing and I'm sure you're going to find tremendous support on the part of this commission is that truly a plan of the people of Immokalee, but it doesn't really address the issue of codes, land development codes. It's going to fall short of that from what I can see. We -- we're not getting to the point where we're getting into such things as the restrictive coastal codes on a community, an inland community that's competing with LaBelle, Arcadia, towns that have less restrictive codes and it's a burden to the industry in that area to be able to go forward. Is there anyway that we might be able to move this forward? In other words, to be able to run a parallel course with some code changes to be able to look at land development codes as an overlay or special district or however it works to be able to make those changes that everybody in Immokalee has been asking for for the past five years, make it happen in the shortest period of time possible? MS. PHILLIPPI: I believe that's what 1-- MR. THOMAS: Excuse me. In her report she mentioned that within the next 30 days she would have something coming to you in that direction running parallel to the master plan. Didn't I say that right? MS. PHILLIPPI: If you remember Goal 2 -- in the new Goal 2 of the master plan we plan to fast track an overlay district. And in that overlay district we'll define specifically the kinds of things that you can do, whether it's architecture, landscaping in different sections of the -- of the area. And then it'll be one large overlay district for the Immokalee or urban designated area. Page 33 January 25,2008 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right. And I appreciate you repeating it again. Because this is really the one biggest thing. I mean, everybody's looking for future plans for Immokalee. They want to -- they want to see the visionary plan 30 -- 30 years out. They want to see these code changes take place today. Well, actually two years, three years, five years ago, but it's something that we can't wait any longer for. So in 30 days we're going to have a report back here? MS. PHILLIPPI: Yes. I can bring the report back in 30 days, yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thirty days from this date? MS. PHILLIPPI: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So I mean this -- this group, this committee, they have an objective now to come back within 30 days with a comprehensive plan to be able to present to us what they'd like to see in the code changes that would fit hand in glove with the Immokalee area? MS. PHILLIPPI: What I'll bring back in 30 days is the draft of an overlay district for the Immokalee urban designated area. And I don't know if in 30 days I will have had time to go take it to the public, but I can bring you the first draft in 30 days certainly. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I appreciate that. MS. PHILLIPPI: Okay. Any-- MR. THOMAS: Let me add something else if I could. Let me add something else. I've done a lot of travel, Costa Rica and places like that. We have the natural resources in Immokalee to do the following. Have an 800 number for any of you can call and say we want to get close to nature. I happen to be a turkey hunter or a salt water fisherman or fresh water fisherman. We can provide a location without any road improvements or anything, a location in a nice little house out in the middle of a farm field where you can stay for the week. As a part of that thing we're going to take you out fresh water fishing or turkey hunting. Okay. Two or three nights a week we'll Page 34 January 25,2008 take you to the casino if you want. We'll be able to take you to eight Fifth Avenue South or the Piazza around Ave Maria one day of the week. But when you go fresh water fishing or salt water fishing or turkey hunting we can do something for you can't get done anyplace else. When you come back with your fish, we'll take you to a farm field where you can pick the vegetables that go with your meat so you can eat from God's hand to your mouth. That's a major high-end eco-tourism that could compete with Costa Rica, Venezuela, any of those places. The last time I was in Costa Rica I went down there to fish. Fifty other couples came down there to see the turtles laying eggs. You can do that around here all the time. When we saw an alligator out on the road, the boat captain got on the radio. Next thing I know every tour boat was out there to see that one alligator. We have alligators all over the place. We got panthers. We got this. We got everything. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Mr. Thomas, your love is showing through. MR. THOMAS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Let me ask, are there any other questions from commissioners? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FIALA: I have a couple myself if you don't mind. Do you have any incentives in place to encourage downtown business owners to improve their appearance? I know it's a part of your plan. I was wondering if there are incentive dollars to help them do that. MS. PHILLIPPI: There's dollars available, but we haven't defined any programs right now. When I say we're at ground zero, I say to you these are the things that we need to develop this year. We need to create the program for incentives for the store front, for businesses to -- to locate there, for homeowners to improve. There are Page 35 January 25, 2008 no programs currently that exist. MR. THOMAS: Remember, we've been trying to get a new land development code so that we can do exactly what you want to do. So we can provide incentives to do the kind of things we want, but we had to get the plan done. That's why at Commissioner Coletta's request that we're going to do a dual track to get that on up there so that we can provide incentives because we wanted to be in place. We want to -- got to be in place when the big box is put down Seranoa. CHAIRMAN FIALA: That's great. A second thing is with the effects ofNAFTA that were referred to earlier in the presentation, have -- have those effects in any way affected your housing programs? MS. PHILLIPPI: Well, I can say a couple things about the housing programs. In almost all of the state of Florida there's an overload of inventory. There's a huge inventory, a stock of vacant units. That doesn't exist in Immokalee. Where we do have vacancies are in those migrant farm worker rentals. Those rentals are -- they have some vacancies left. But when you talk about housing in the sense of any other community, there's -- there's an abundance. I mean, you can buy houses. The prices are coming down and all that. There is not a glut of housing in Immokalee currently for very low for moderate or for work force. There are some very high-end ones that you can buy right now, but it's a whole -- it's a whole another housing market in Immokalee than your accustomed to in any other part of Florida actually. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you. I wanted to mention to code enforcement guys sitting there and I notice both CRAs referred to them a number of times. My hero Mario Bono is sitting right there. He -- he goes in. In both of our areas we have a lot of code enforcement issues. And -- and we need work -- we need to work with them. And they have been working so well with us identifying things that -- that really need to be identified and in Page 36 January 25,2008 helping us to clean them up. It does make a much better appearance to the whole community when code enforcement rides strong. So I just want to just -- just give them a pat on the back. They deserve it. MS. PHILLIPPI: I agree with that. And I want to say that Gary Dantini is actually a member of our advisory board. So it's because of -- and he brings monthly reports. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Thank you very much. MS. PHILLIPPI: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FIALA: I had a couple more questions for David too if you don't mind. Did anybody else have any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FIALA: Nothing? Okay. Let's see. Sidewalks, you were mentioning sidewalks in the Triangle area there, David. MR. JACKSON : Yes, ma'am. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Are they -- are they going to be able to put any sidewalks on Lynwood and Shadowlawn do you know or is that still -- MR. JACKSON: Lynwood is a challenge. Mr. Fowle will speak in depth with that. He's been working for a long time working with the county manager. There is some underground issues that have to resolved. And I think there's another government agency that has some impact on it. The goal is on Lynwood and Francis in the Triangle area to put in sidewalks where we can. Shadowlawn may be one of the easiest ones to start with providing we get the funding. But when you get into the residential areas there are certain ones that are impacted pretty heavily and that -- in Lynwood -- Lynwood is one of those streets. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Fine. Would -- were the -- were you able to buy those ten flop houses yet? MR. JACKSON: The owner has not returned. We have a contract waiting in place at the agreed price which has been appraised Page 37 January 25, 2008 and all set up, but we have not had the owner return to sign documents. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Oh, okay. Fine. Thank you. Let's see. I don't believe I have anything else either. Any -- we have no more speakers? MS. FILSON: No ma'am. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Anything else from either CRA? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Ms. Chairman -- CHAIRMAN FIALA: Oh, yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'm sorry. Go ahead. Let the CRA members talk. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yes. MR. SOTER: I just want to say the reference to the kitchen. As you can see our new executive director can certainly stand the heat. We appreciate the opportunity to be in Commissioner Coletta's kitchen and it also gives us county connectivity to your data system. So thank you for making that initial office available to us. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Part of my kitchen cabinet. MR. SOTER: I'm sorry. I'm Bob Soter, S-o-t-e-r, from the Immokalee CRA. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yes, sir. MR. HEERS: In reference just briefly -- my name is Rick Heers, Executive Director of IHOPE. And I just want to say thank you to the Board of County Commissioners because we have 27 of our first 28 FEMA mobile homes being lived in right now by people who have never lived in their own home before. Most have been living in shacks or rentals. And we have 36 more really very nice mobile homes that are sitting out at the airport awaiting our setting them up for 36 more families. We have many more families that could use them than the 36, but FEMA is no longer providing those mobile homes for non-profits. They're coming up with a new program that Page 38 January 25, 2008 I'm sure will take some time to develop. But I want to thank you because that is -- it's a small portion, but 64 families in Immokalee are going to be very, very grateful for the opportunity to live in their own home. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you for that report. Commissioner Coyle, did you want to say -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: I would prefer to first listen to the advisory board. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Very good. Yes. MS. BLANTON: Denise Blanton. I wanted emphasize a couple of points that I think are significant in our community. And I think Penny spoke to the decrease in migrants as 20 percent. I think that's a conservative estimate. What I'm hearing is more like 40 percent decrease in migrants in Immokalee. That comes out of our tax collector's office. It comes out of Collier Health Services where people are not coming for medical appointments. And I think that in large part the word on the street at least is the changes made by the sheriffs agency. People are choosing not to come to Immokalee to work. They're locating in other areas. So we -- if we have anything that has extra capacity, it's those facilities designated as farm workers only. There's extra capacity there. On the Loop Road one thing that I -- the song I always sing on the Loop Road in our community is let's remember when we're looping our community and enhancing the things going on around it that we make very sure that we're also balancing the improvement of the internal roads in Immokalee. One of my favorite pictures of the county manager is him going down the road when Livingston opened. My interpretation of the picture, it was even the newspaper that took it, anyway, was that, you know, we did it kind of thing. And I know improvements to airport have been made, et cetera. And I would say to you that those roads Page 39 January 25, 2008 like New Market Road going through the community, Lake Trafford Road, that we make sure that -- just like Bayshore that those roads built in the '50s come up to a standard. Because we don't want everybody looping around Immokalee. We would collapse in on ourselves. We still want to attract people into our community and facilitate the internal circulation. One other interesting thing about Immokalee that you would never believe I don't think is the fact that we are becoming the university hub for Southwest Florida. We have had the University of Florida Research Station in Immokalee, Southwest Florida Learning Research and Education Center I think close to 40 years. We plan to welcome -- and hopefully our governor will join us -- Florida State University's Medical School for interns. Hodges University recently was gifted a facility in the community. And as you probably know, Hodges' emphasis is on adult learner's increasing their capacity and developing new skills to improve their ability to have different jobs. We are 40 minutes the back way to FGCU. And Ave Maria is I'll say within spitting distance, 10 miles -- 10 minutes type of thing. So with that and with the designation from the Heartland Group that we won thanks to EDC, it's bio medical. And all those facilities -- the idea is sort of like the silicon valley, to have a convergence on Immokalee of higher education, post-graduate education. And we hope that that is something that we can build as a collaborative. So that's my short list. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. And I'd love to hear from everybody else. MR. THOMAS: Just one more point. CHAIRMAN FIALA: All right. MR. THOMAS: This is very, very, very preliminary, but your County Extension Director, Robert Hulman, has arranged for several community leaders, part members of the Chamber of Commerce -- Page 40 January 25,2008 Chamber of Commerce to go to the experimental farm over in Lee County. Because they're growing a crop that can be harvested and used for fuel. Immokalee High School students working with one of their professors had developed the first fully operational vehicle on recycled corn oil. We're going to go look at that and see if we can get that same thing duplicated in Immokalee. Because that may be a new industry for us that's more predictable than our past agriculture by growing a crop that can be refined to fuel oil. So that would really help us. A good clean business to help us bring back some of the things. Just want you to know these are very preliminary but we're looking at these possibilities that we had to make sure all the road grids work and all the other things work to make that happen. Thank you. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Did you have anything to say? Okay. How about -- MR. THOMAS: I'm actually looking for some direction from the board as it relates to the Supreme Court decision. And I understand sometime in December or February there's going to be a clarification of that position as it lets CRAs be able to leverage their capabilities. If that decision in February or that clarification in February is not clear as far as the CRAs being able to borrow funds to be able to enhance the programs, what will be the next position as I guess that we would have to go to a referendum? And I'm not sure if we're equipped to be able to do that. I assume a referendum would be county wide, not just within the area. And can we look to the board to help give us direction and support of how to make that occur? COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's going to be -- the Board of Commissioners would put that on a referendum under the advice of the advisory board and the CRA board. Commissioner Coyle is -- is well aware of that. I think the rest of the boards are well aware of that. We have plenty of time. Page 41 January 25,2008 MR. THOMAS: Hopefully won't have to do it. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Oh, IHOPE so. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Amen. MR. THOMAS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN FIALA: That really cripples the CRA. MR. THOMAS: Some of our folks that were working on it. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Any other comments? Yes, Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I -- I -- I would like to try to put all this in perspective ifI could very briefly. The CRAs wouldn't exist if it were not for the fact that the Board of County Commissioners created them. The ideas would not have been generated if it were not for citizens who served on the advisory boards and the economic council that helped us with a number of things. But none of those things would have been put into action plans if it were not for the efforts of people like Fred Thomas and David Jackson. That they have to be recognized for the wonderful job that they have done. And there has been remarkable progress. This is not something that happens overnight, but -- but there has been remarkable progress. We want it to go faster, but I'm -- I'm convinced we're going in the right direction. So I would like to thank David Jackson and Penny Phillippi for their presentations. They were very well done. And I am really looking forward to the time, you know, as Penny gets her feet on the ground we won't hear quite so much from Fred Thomas. CHAIRMAN FIALA: Any other questions, comments from anyone? (No response.) CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. The CRA meeting is adjourned. Page 42 f-' r~ ~., f ';, ,;' r= [) . -.- January 25, 2008 ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the Workshop meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 11:55 a.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIA DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ,,,'Y!"''' d4~ DONNA FIALA, CHAIRMAN ATTEST: DWIGHT"E;BRQCK, CLERK ~~k . ,'AttAst IS tB:C~II'- ." I .'. ~\.. S 1Q'Mtijr:f.' ~.,.'. ';;'C ~t..~"',) These minutes approved by the Board on ~s presented or as corrected . / TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INe., BY CAROLYN 1. FORD, RPR Page 43