BCC Minutes 01/29/2008 R
January 29,2008
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Naples, Florida, January 29,2008
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 district as has been created according to law and having
conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in
REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex,
East Naples, Florida, with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN:
Tom Henning
Donna Fiala
Jim Coletta
Fred Coyle
Frank Halas
ALSO PRESENT:
Jim Mudd, County Manager
David Weigel, County Attorney
Sue Filson, Executive Manager to the BCC
Crystal Kinzel, Office of the Clerk of Court
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COLLIER COUNTY
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY BOARD (CRAB)
AGENDA
January 29, 2008
9:00 AM
Tom Henning, BCC Chairman Commissioner, District 3
Donna Fiala, BCC Vice- Chairman Commissioner, District 1; CRAB Chairman
Jim Coletta, BCC Commissioner, District 5; CRAB Vice-Chairman
Frank Halas, BCC Commissioner, District 2
Fred W. Coyle, BCC Commissioner, District 4
NOTICE: ALL PERSONS WISHING TO SPEAK ON ANY AGENDA ITEM
MUST REGISTER PRIOR TO SPEAKING. SPEAKERS MUST REGISTER
WITH THE COUNTY MANAGER PRIOR TO THE PRESENT A TION OF THE
AGENDA ITEM TO BE ADDRESSED. ALL REGISTERED SPEAKERS WILL
RECEIVE UP TO THREE (3) MINUTES UNLESS THE TIME IS ADJUSTED BY
THE CHAIRMAN.
COLLIER COUNTY ORDINANCE NO. 2003-53, AS AMENDED BY
ORDINANCE 2004-05 AND 2007-24, REQUIRES THAT ALL LOBBYISTS
SHALL, BEFORE ENGAGING IN ANY LOBBYING ACTIVITIES
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ADDRESSING THE BOARD OF
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS), REGISTER WITH THE CLERK TO THE
BOARD AT THE BOARD MINUTES AND RECORDS DEPARTMENT.
REQUESTS TO ADDRESS THE BOARD ON SUBJECTS WHICH ARE NOT ON
THIS AGENDA MUST BE SUBMITTED IN WRITING WITH EXPLANATION
TO THE COUNTY MANAGER AT LEAST 13 DAYS PRIOR TO THE DATE OF
THE MEETING AND WILL BE HEARD UNDER "PUBLIC PETITIONS."
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January 29, 2008
ANY PERSON WHO DECIDES TO APPEAL A DECISION OF THIS BOARD
WILL NEED A RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS PERTAINING THERETO,
AND THEREFORE MAY NEED TO ENSURE THAT A VERBATIM RECORD
OF THE PROCEEDINGS IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES THE
TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED.
IF YOU ARE A PERSON WITH A DISABILITY WHO NEEDS ANY
ACCOMMODATION IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROCEEDING,
YOU ARE ENTITLED, AT NO COST TO YOU, TO THE PROVISION OF
CERTAIN ASSISTANCE. PLEASE CONTACT THE COLLIER COUNTY
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT LOCATED AT 3301 EAST
TAMIAMI TRAIL, NAPLES, FLORIDA, 34112, (239) 774-8380; ASSISTED
LISTENING DEVICES FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED ARE AVAILABLE IN
THE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' OFFICE.
LUNCH RECESS SCHEDULED FOR 12:00 NOON TO 1:00 P.M.
1. INVOCATION AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
A. Pastor Les Wicker, First Congregational Church of Naples
2. AGENDA AND MINUTES
A. Approval of today's regular, consent and summary agenda as amended. (Ex
Parte Disclosure provided by Commission members for consent and
summary agenda.)
B. January 8, 2008 - BCC/EDC Workshop
C. January 10,2008 - Value Adjustment Board Meeting
3. SERVICE AWARDS: (EMPLOYEE AND ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS)
A. 20 Year Attendees
1) William Craig, Water
2) Kevin Hendricks, TECM
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January 29, 2008
3) Russell Muller, Engineering Services
4) Juan Ortega, EMS
5) Judy Puig, CDES Administration
6) Marjorie Student-Stirling, County Attorney Office
7) Valerie Thorsen, EMS
B. 25 Year Attendees
1) Gregorio Flores, Utility Billing
2) Gary Hamm, Road and Bridge
4. PROCLAMA TIONS
A. During the week of February 3-9,2008, the Florida Division of Emergency
Management together with the National Weather Service and the Collier
County Bureau of Emergency Services will urge residents to take measures
to make themselves and their families better prepared for hazardous weather
conditions.
B. Proclamation for "Turn It Off Days! We're Counting Every Drop." To be
accepted by Lynne Hixon-Holley.
5. PRESENTATIONS
A. Recommendation to recognize Christopher Atchley, Craftsman, Facilities
Management, as Employee of the Year for 2007.
B. Recommendation to recognize Murdo Smith, Regional Manager, Parks and
Recreation, as Supervisor of the Year for 2007.
6. PUBLIC PETITIONS
A. Public petition request by Stephen D. Kreynus to discuss paving of Desoto
Road.
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January 29, 2008
B. Public petition request by Patrick White to discuss Orders Finding Violation
relating to property owned by Jerry and Kimberlea Blocker.
C. Public Petition request from Mr. Don Beach to discuss reserving library
meeting room.
D. Public Petition Request from Leeanne W. Graziani regarding eminent
domain for Santa Barbara Boulevard.
Item 7 and 8 to be heard no sooner than 1:00 V.m., unless otherwise noted.
7. BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS
8. ADVERTISED PUBLIC HEARINGS
A. This item requires that ex parte disclosure be provided by Commission
Members. Should a hearinl!: be held on this item. all participants are
required to be sworn in. Recommendation to deny approval of Petition
A VPLAT-2006-AR-l0970, Lot 400, Indigo Preserve, to vacate the County's
and the Publics interest in a portion of a platted drainage easement running
through the westerly (rear) portion of Lot 400, Indigo Preserve, a
subdivision located in Section 27, Township 48 South, Range 26 East, as
recorded in Plat Book 40, Pages 54-57 of the Public Records of Collier
County, Florida, and being more particularly described in Exhibit A.
B. This item requires that all participants be sworn in and ex parte
disclosure be provided by Commission members. PUDZ-2003-AR-3601,
Tim Hancock, of Davidson Engineering, Inc., requesting a rezone from
Rural Agricultural (A) with a provisional use for a church authorized by
Resolution #91-3 and the Neapolitan Park Planned Unit Development (PUD)
approved as Ordinance #90-6, to a new Community Facility Planned Unit
Development (CFPUD) district to be known as the New Hope Ministries
CFPUD. This project consists of 37.95 acres and will consist of expanding
the existing church facility. The property is located on the north side of
Davis Boulevard and east of Santa Barbara Boulevard at 7675 Davis
Boulevard, in Section 4, Township 50 South, Range 26 East, Collier County
Florida.
9. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
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January 29, 2008
A. This item to be heard at 10:00 a.m. Presentation by Andrea B. Sims of The
Waters-Oldani Executive Recruitment, a division of The Waters Consulting
Group, Inc., regarding candidates applying for County Attorney position.
B. Appointment of members to the Collier County Code Enforcement Board.
C. Appointment of members to the Land Acquisition Advisory Committee.
D. Appointment of members to the Development Services Advisory
Committee.
10. COUNTY MANAGER'S REPORT
A. Recommendation to approve Exhibit E, Amendment #2 to Contract #06-
3914, Construction Management at Risk Services for the Collier County
Fleet Facilities with Wright Construction Corp. in the amount of
$9,272,848.00 for the Fleet Facility, project 52009, Phase 3, which includes
the construction of the new Sheriff's Fleet Management Department Facility
and the replacement of the existing Fuel Facility that is shared by both the
County and Sheriff's Fleet Departments. (Hank Jones, Senior Project
Manager)
B. This item to be heard at 2:30 p.m. Recommendation that the Board of
County Commissioners approve the application by Inovo, Incorporated for
the Job Creation Investment Program and the Advanced Broadband
Infrastructure Investment Program and provide direction on the request by
the Economic Development Council of Collier County related to the
payment of an additional $1,000 per job for 49 existing jobs to be retained in
Collier County and the development ofa Job Retention Program Ordinance
for future consideration by the Board of County Commissioners. (Amy
Patterson, Impact Fee/EDC Manager, Business Management & Budget
Department, CDES)
C. Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners evaluate and
consider the Planning Commissions policy recommendation in support of
continually upholding the current programmatic prohibition of Transfer of
Development Rights (TDR) severance from illegal Sending Land property
within the Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District (RFMUD). (Joe Thompson,
Senior Planner, Comprehensive Planning, CDES)
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January 29, 2008
D. Recommendation to adopt a Resolution of the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, to amend and clarify the
County's Stormwater Funding Policy; Funding of Storm water Management;
Findings and Purpose; Capital and Operating Budget; Definitions;
superseding Board Resolution No. 2005-115; and providing an effective
date. (Norman Feder, Transportation Services Administrator)
E. To provide the Board of County Commissioners with an update on petition
CPSP-2007-6, an amendment to the Potable Water Sub-Element of the
Public Facilities Element ofthe Growth Management Plan, to add reference
in Policy 1.7 to the proposed Collier County IO-Year Water Supply
Facilities Work Plan, in order to be consistent with the remedial
amendments to the Capital Improvement Element, Ordinance 89-05, as
amended; and to have the BCC authorize the Chairman to execute and
forward a letter to the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) in reference
to the adoption timeline of the aforementioned GMP amendment. (Randy
Cohen, Comprehensive Planning Director)
F. This item to be heard at 3:00 p.m. Recommendation for the approval of
the fifth Conservation Collier Active Acquisition List and direction for the
County Manager or his designee to actively pursue projects recommended
within the A-Category. (Alex Sulecki, Senior Environmental Specialist)
G. This item requires that ex parte disclosure be provided by Commission
Members. Should a hearinl!: be held on this item. all participants are
required to be sworn in. This is a recommendation to approve for recording
the final plat of Mockingbird Crossing, approval of the standard form
Construction and Maintenance Agreement and approval of the amount of the
performance security. (Stan Chrzanowski, Senior Engineer)
H. Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners establish a
Voluntary Separation Incentive Program, empower the County Manager to
implement the program and authorize the Chairman to sign the enabling
Resolution. (Len Price, Administrative Services Administrator)
I. Recommend Approval of Change Order #4 in the amount of$97,186 on
Contract 05-3772 with Miles Media Group for enhancements to the Tourism
Department Website. (Jack Wert, Tourism Director)
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January 29, 2008
11. PUBLIC COMMENTS ON GENERAL TOPICS
12. COUNTY ATTORNEY'S REPORT
13. OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS
A. To obtain Board approval for disbursements for the period of December 29,
2007 through January 04,2008 and for submission into the official records
of the Board.
14. AIRPORT AUTHORITY AND/OR COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT
AGENCY
15. STAFF AND COMMISSION GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS
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16. CONSENT AGENDA - All matters listed under this item are considered to be
routine and action will be taken by one motion without separate discussion of
each item. If discussion is desired by a member of the Board, that item(s) will
be removed from the Consent Agenda and considered separately.
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A. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT & ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES
1) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners adopt a
Resolution pursuant to Section 288.106, Florida Statutes,
recommending that the Governors Office of Tourism, Trade and
Economic Development approve Inovo, Incorporated as a qualified
target industry business, confirming that the commitments oflocal
financing necessary to support this target industry are in place, and
appropriating a total of $25,600 as local participation in the Qualified
Target Industry Tax Refund Program (QTI) for Fiscal Years 2009-
2012
2) This is a recommendation to grant final approval of the roadway
(private) and drainage improvements for the final plat of Heritage
Greens, the roadway and drainage improvements will be privately
maintained by the Heritage Greens Community Development District
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January 29, 2008
3) Recommendation to grant final approval of the roadway (private) and
drainage improvements for the final plat of Grey Oaks Unit Nineteen.
The roadway and drainage improvements will be privately
maintained.
4) This item continued from the January 15. 2008 BCC Meetinl!:.
Recommendation to grant final approval of the roadway (private) and
drainage improvements for the final plat of Majors Phase One, (Lely
Resort PUD), roadway and drainage improvements will be privately
maintained.
5) This item continued from the January 15. 2008 BCC Meetinl!:.
Recommendation to grant final approval of the roadway (private) and
drainage improvements for the final plat of Majors Phase Two, (Lely
Resort PUD), roadway and drainage improvements will be privately
maintained.
6) Recommendation to grant final approval of the roadway (private) and
drainage improvements for the final plat of Majors Phase Three, (Lely
Resort PUD), roadway and drainage improvements will be privately
maintained.
B. TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
1) Recommendation to obtain approval to convey a Construction,
Operation, and Maintenance Easement to Florida Power and Light
Corporation (FPL) for the purpose of replacing power poles to
facilitate construction of the Gateway Triangle Stormwater
Improvements Phase I, Collier County Capital Project #51803.
($31,660.84)
2) Recommendation to award Bid No. 08-5025 to Stahlman England
Irrigation Inc. for the Palm River Estates Unit 5 Imperial Golf Estates
Unit 4 Stormwater Improvements, Project Number 510143 with the
base amount being $312,097.89, plus the alternative of $5,583.90, for
a total amount of$3l7,681.79.
3) Recommendation to approve and execute the attached five-year Joint
Participation Agreement (JP A) Contract Number AOW89 with
Florida Department of Transportation in the amount of$408,790,
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January 29, 2008
including a local match of $204,395 for FY 2007/2008, to provide
Federal Pass-through Section 5311 operational, administrative and
managerial funding for the provision of public transportation services
in Collier County's non-urbanized areas as identified in Collier
County's annual grant application on file with the Florida Department
of Transportation.
4) Recommendation to approve and execute the attached five-year Joint
Participation Agreement (JP A) with Florida Department of
Transportation in the amount of $804,464, under State Transit Block
Grant Program Contract Number AOW93 providing for State funding
for eligible Collier County public fixed-route transit operational and
capital expenses in the amount of $402,232 as well as a FY2007-2008
local match in the amount of $402,232.
5) Recommendation to approve an Agreement for the donation of school
property required to construct improvements to Oil Well Road.
Project #60044. (Estimated fiscal impact $208.50)
6) Recommendation to approve award of Bid #07-4195, Traffic
Operations Signal Components to multiple vendors. (item-by-item
basis)
7) Recommendation to award Contract(s) #07-4168, Fixed Term
Professional Environmental Consulting Services to the following
firms: Johnson Engineering, Inc., Passarella and Associates, Inc. and
Scheda Ecological Associates, Inc. Estimated annual contract amount
is $500,000.
8) Recommendation to approve selection ofPBS&J Inc., a qualified firm
and award a Contract Under RFP #07-4174, FPL Trail Feasibility
Study in Collier and Lee Counties, for Project Number 601203 in the
total amount of$307,6l0.00 available in the Transportation Supported
Gas Tax Fund 313, FPL Trail Feasibility Study, Project #601203.
9) Recommendation to recognize and accept revenue for Collier Area
Transit in the amount of$7,000 and to approve needed budget
amendments.
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January 29, 2008
10) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approve a
Resolution certifying the dedication and acceptance of a portion of
Westclox Street, west of Carson Road, in Immokalee, to Collier
County pursuant to Section 95.361, Florida Statutes, by virtue of the
County's continuous and uninterrupted maintenance of the roadway,
and authorize the filing of the appropriate map(s) with the Clerk of the
Circuit Court.
11) Recommendation to award Bid #08-5033 Immokalee Road
Streetscape Beautification Project to Vila & Son in the amount of
$827,769.56 with 10% contingency of $82,776.96 for a total of
$910,546.52. (Project #660424)
C. PUBLIC UTILITIES
1) Recommendation to approve the acquisition ofa 3,000 square foot
Utility Easement near the southwest corner of389l White Boulevard
for a public water supply well site easement, at a total cost not to
exceed $14,900, Project Number 701582.
2) Recommendation to approve the acquisition of additional easement
area for an Access Easement to Lift Station 302.09 at a total cost not
to exceed $4,520, Project Number 730841.
3) Recommendation to approve, execute and record a Satisfaction of a
Notice of Claim of Lien for Sanitary Sewer System Impact Fee. Fiscal
impact is $18.50 to record the Satisfaction of Lien.
4) Recommendation to adopt a Resolution to approve the Satisfactions of
Lien for Solid Waste residential accounts wherein the County has
received payment and said Liens are satisfied in full for the 1992,
1994, 1995, and 1996 Solid Waste Collection and Disposal Services
Special Assessment. Fiscal impact is $98.50 to record the
Satisfactions of Lien.
5) Recommendation to approve a budget amendment for $11,446,766.41
to transfer funds for South County Regional Water Treatment Plant
(SCRWTP) Well field Expansion project 708921 Water Impact Fee
Capital Projects Fund to a 2006 Revenue Bond Proceeds Fund.
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January 29, 2008
D. PUBLIC SERVICES
1) Recommend to approve Resolution 2008- which supersedes
Resolution 2007-33 to increase the annual, non-resident beach parking
permit to $50.
2) Recommend Approval of Budget Amendment moving $2,161.50 from
Beach Access Landscape Project 902942 and $112,000.00 from
Vanderbilt Beach Walkway Project 900921 within Beach Park
Facilities Capital Fund 183 for a total of$114,161.50 to be place in
Vanderbilt Pedestrian Access No.3 Walkway Project 900451.
3) Recommendation to approve a $374,407.54 budget amendment to
fund the construction of a Boat Ramp at the Golden Gate Community
Park, Project 800317.
4) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Erika
Trinidad (Owner) for deferral of 100% of Collier County impact fees
for an owner-occupied affordable housing unit located at Lot 20,
Liberty Landing, Immokalee.
5) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Verdieu
Petit Homme and Marie L. Petit Homme (Owners) for deferral of
100% of Collier County impact fees for an owner-occupied affordable
housing unit located at Lot II, Liberty Landing, Immokalee.
6) Approve change order # lOin the amount of $35,945.00 for additional
construction administration, SFWMD well permit and modeling
study, site visits by electrical engineer, reduced water meter size, pool
lighting & night use certification and one year warranty inspection to
contract #99-2947, Implementation of a Master Plan for the North
Naples Regional Park.
7) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Marie
Mongene (Owner) for deferral of 100% of Collier County impact fees
for an owner-occupied affordable housing unit located at Lot 26, Trail
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January 29, 2008
Ridge, East Naples.
8) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Begerl
Chery and Mirna Chery (Owners) for deferral of 100% of Collier
County impact fees for an owner-occupied affordable housing unit
located at Lot 28, Trail Ridge, East Naples.
9) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Guerline
Fanfan (Owner) for deferral of 100% of Collier County impact fees
for an owner-occupied affordable housing unit located at Lot 21, Trail
Ridge, East Naples.
10) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Juliette St
Hilaire (Owner) for deferral of 100% of Collier County impact fees
for an owner-occupied affordable housing unit located at Lot 31, Trail
Ridge, East Naples.
11) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Gasner
Andre and Mathilde Andre (Owners) for deferral of 100% of Collier
County impact fees for an owner-occupied affordable housing unit
located at Lot 158, Trail Ridge, East Naples.
12) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Ricardo
Blanco and Anita Blanco (Owners) for deferral of 100% of Collier
County impact fees for an owner-occupied affordable housing unit
located at Lot 13, Block 6, Naples Manor Lakes, East Naples and
authorizes a reimbursement of the fees paid by Habitat for Humanity
of Collier County Inc on Building Permit 2007041984 in the amount
of $26,204.83.
13) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Adiel
Soler and Mirna Navarro (Owners) for deferral of 100% of Collier
County impact fees for an owner-occupied affordable housing unit
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January 29, 2008
located at Lot 159, Trail Ridge, East Naples.
14) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Dugue J.
Grand Jean and Yolene Grand Jean (Owners) for deferral of 100% of
Collier County impact fees for an owner-occupied affordable housing
unit located at Lot 157, Trail Ridge, East Naples.
15) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Esteban
Racero Jimenez and Maria Gamez (Owners) for deferral of 100% of
Collier County impact fees for an owner-occupied affordable housing
unit located at Lot 23, Trail Ridge, East Naples.
16) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Jean
Eltinor (Owner) for deferral of 100% of Collier County impact fees
for an owner-occupied affordable housing unit located at Lot 15,
Liberty Landing, Immokalee.
17) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves,
and authorizes the Chairman to sign, a lien agreement with Dollie
Gallegos (Owner) for deferral of 100% of Collier County impact fees
for an owner-occupied affordable housing unit located at Lot 14,
Liberty Landing, lmmokalee.
18) Present to the Board of County Commissioners a summary of the
Impact Fee Deferral Agreements recommended for approval in FY08,
including the total number of Agreements approved, the total dollar
amount deferred and the balance remaining for additional deferrals in
FY08.
19) To recognize that there is no funding requirement for the Inter-local
Agreement for multi- county Agricultural Extension Agents and the
$30,000 allocation to fund this agreement will be utilized to assist in
meeting budget reductions for the Collier County University
Extension department.
20) Recommendation to approve an Agreement for Sale and Purchase to
acquire a residential lot for expansion of parking facilities for the
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January 29, 2008
County's Bayview Park at a cost not to exceed $264,700, Project
800603.
21) Recommendation to approve an Interlocal Agreement with the District
School Board of Collier County for leasing approximately three (3)
acres ofland adjacent to Elementary School K and approve a budget
amendment for $400,000 from Parks and Recreation Fee Fund (346)
for Proj ect #800911.
22) Recommendation to approve an Interlocal Agreement with the District
School Board of Collier County for leasing approximately three acres
(3) ofland adjacent to Elementary School J and approve necessary
budget amendment of $400,000 from Parks and Recreation Impact
Fee Fund (346) for Project #80090 I.
E. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES
1) Recommendation to award RFP #07-4148, Security Services &
Equipment agreement between Collier County and Johnson Controls,
Inc. on an as-needed basis. (Not to exceed $150,000 per year)
2) Recommendation to ratify additions to and a deletion from the 2008
Fiscal Year Pay and Classification Plan made from October 2, 2007
through December 31, 2007.
3) Report and ratify Property, Casualty, Workers Compensation and
Subrogation Claims settled and/or closed by the Risk Management
Director pursuant to Resolution #2004-15 for the first quarter ofFY
08.
4) Recommendation to approve an Agreement for Sale and Purchase
with Raymond Bennett and Terry Bennett for 1.14 acres under the
Conservation Collier Land Acquisition Program, at a cost not to
exceed $27,820.
5) Recommendation to approve a Lease Agreement with Collier
Mosquito Control District for antenna space upon a County-owned
communications tower.
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January 29, 2008
6) Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approves
an Agreement to provide a maximum expenditure of Fifty-Four
Thousand Dollars ($54,000) from the GAC Land Trust to the Golden
Gate Fire Control and Rescue District to purchase six weather
stations.
F. COUNTY MANAGER
1) Recommendation to approve a Resolution providing for user fees for
Collier County ambulance services, billing and collection procedure,
hospital transport billing and up-dated fees to generate revenues of
approximately $103,750 which will help offset an anticipated shortfall
for the FY 08 budget, adjustments of EMS user fees pursuant to
Collier County Ordinance No. 96-36, waiver of EMS user fees for
special events, and a procedure for approving hardship cases and
payment plans; superseding Resolution No. 07-192; and providing for
an effective date.
2) That the board of County Commissioners, as the governing board of
the Ochopee Fire Control District, adopt a resolution accepting a
donation in the amount of $9,0 14.31, and any subsequent
distributions, from the estate and/or trust of Della E. Reynolds on
behalf of the Ochopee Fire Control District.
3) Recommendation to approve a $99,000 budget amendment for Fiscal
Year 2008 to make up for a shortfall of funds due to the Collier
County Board of County Commissioner's decision not to implement a
proposed fee collection structure for Emergency Management
Services.
4) Recommendation to approve a Certificate of Public Convenience and
Necessity for NCH Healthcare System for non-emergency ambulance
service and approve a budget amendment recognizing and
appropriating the $250 annual renewal fee.
5) Approve budget amendments.
G. AIRPORT AUTHORITY AND/OR COMMUNITY
REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY
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January 29, 2008
1) Recommendation for the CRA to approve a memorandum of
understanding between the CRA and Bayshore Cultural Arts (BCA)
for a non-exclusive use of Bayshore Gateway Triangle CRA office
space for BCA operations; to authorize the CRA Chairman to sign;
and to accept a BCA additional insured certificate of insurance for the
CRA.
H. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
1) Commissioner Coletta requests Board approval for reimbursement
serving a valid public purpose. Will attend Immokalee Rotary
Spaghetti Dinner, February 8, 2008. $100.00 to be paid from
Commissioner Coletta's travel budget.
2) Commissioner Coletta requests Board approval for reimbursement
serving a valid public purpose. Will attend the ULI 11 th Annual
Winter Institute on the Gulf & Pathfinder Awards Ceremony,
February 21,2008. $65.00 to be paid from Commissioner Coletta's
travel budget.
3) Commissioner Coletta requests Board approval for reimbursement
serving a valid public purpose. Will attend Cub Scout Wolf Pack #210
Awards Dinner, February 21,2008. $20.00 to be paid from
Commissioner Coletta's travel budget.
4) Commissioner Fiala requests Board approval for reimbursement for
attending a function serving a valid public purpose. Will attend the
Leadership Collier Alumni Challenge Celebration on Tuesday,
February 5, 2008, at the home of Todd and Angela Gates; $150.00 to
be paid from Commissioner Fiala's travel budget.
5) Commissioner Fiala requests Board approval for reimbursement for
attending a function serving a valid public purpose. Attended the
Naples Press Club First "Insider Breakfast of2008" on Thursday,
January 24, 2008, at the Bellasera Hotel; $12.00 to be paid from
Commissioner Fiala's travel budget.
6) Commissioner Fiala requests Board approval for reimbursement for
attending a function serving a valid public purpose. Attended The
58th Annual ENCA Banquet on Monday, January 21,2008, at Naples
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January 29, 2008
Lakes Country Club; $35.00 to be paid from Commissioner Fiala's
travel budget.
7) Commissioner Fiala requests Board approval for reimbursement for
attending a function serving a valid public purpose. Will attend the
Marco Island YMCA Stan Gober's Roast on Thursday, March 20,
2008, at the Marco Marriott Resort; $150.00 to be paid from
Commissioner Fiala's travel budget.
8) Commissioner Fiala requests Board approval for reimbursement for
attending a function serving a valid public purpose. Will attend the
Marco Island League Buccaneers Bash on Tuesday, January 29,2008,
at the Marco Island Yacht Club; $50.00 to be paid from
Commissioner Fiala's travel budget.
9) Recommendation for the Board of County Commissioners to approve
filling a vacant position in the Board's Office as an exception to the
current policy to not fill open or vacated general fund positions.
I. MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE
1) Miscellaneous items to file for record with action as directed.
J. OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS
1) To obtain Board approval for disbursements for the period of January
05,2008 through January 11,2008 and for submission into the official
records of the Board.
K. COUNTY ATTORNEY
1) Recommendation to approve an Agreed Order for Payment of Expert
Fees in connection with Parcel 134 in the lawsuit styled Collier
County, Florida v. First National Bank of Naples, Inc., et aI., Case No.
04-3587-CA (Immokalee Road Project No. 66042). (Fiscal Impact:
$51,000.00)
2) Recommendation to approve a settlement agreement in the lawsuit
entitled Virginia Devisse v. Board of County Commissioners, et aI.
filed in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit in and for Collier County,
Page 17
January 29, 2008
Florida, Case No. 05-807-Ca.
17. SUMMARY AGENDA - THIS SECTION IS FOR ADVERTISED PUBLIC
HEARINGS AND MUST MEET THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA: 1) A
RECOMMENDATION FOR APPROVAL FROM STAFF; 2) UNANIMOUS
RECOMMENDATION FOR APPROVAL BY THE COLLIER COUNTY
PLANNING COMMISSION OR OTHER AUTHORIZING AGENCIES OF
ALL MEMBERS PRESENT AND VOTING; 3) NO WRITTEN OR ORAL
OBJECTIONS TO THE ITEM RECEIVED BY STAFF, THE COLLIER
COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION, OTHER AUTHORIZING
AGENCIES OR THE BOARD, PRIOR TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF
THE BCC MEETING ON WHICH THE ITEMS ARE SCHEDULED TO BE
HEARD; AND 4) NO INDIVIDUALS ARE REGISTERED TO SPEAK IN
OPPOSITION TO THE ITEM. FOR THOSE ITEMS, WHICH ARE QUASI-
JUDICIAL IN NATURE, ALL PARTICIPANTS MUST BE SWORN IN.
A. This item requires that all participants be sworn in and ex parte
disclosure be provided by Commission members. Petition: RZ-2006-AR-
10422 Myers Enterprises of Naples, LLC, represented by Tm Hancock of
Davidson Engineering., Myers Enterprises, request a rezone from the
Industrial (I) zoning district to the Commercial district (C-4) for a 1.83 acre
project known as Naples Mazda. The property is located on Southwest
Comer of Airport Road and J & C Boulevard in Section 11, Township 49
South, Range 25 East, Collier County, Florida.
B. Recommendation to approve Remedial Amendments to the Capital
Improvement Element of the Growth Management Plan, Ordinance 89-05,
as amended, as set forth in the Compliance Agreement between the
Department of Community Affairs and Collier County, including
Petitioners-in-Intervention, and to transmit these Amendments to the Florida
Department of Community Affairs
C. This item requires that all participants be sworn in and ex parte
disclosure be provided by Commission members. Petition: PUDZ-2007-
AR-11121, Chestnut Ridge, LLC, represented by William Hoover, of
Hoover Planning and Development, Inc., is requesting a rezone of a 6.01-
acre site from the Estates (E) Zoning District to the Mixed-Use Planned Unit
Development (MPUD) Zoning District for a project known as Chestnut
Place MPUD to allow 24,000 square feet of commercial and/or office space
and 6,000 square feet of institutional space for property located at the
Page 18
January 29, 2008
southeast comer ofImmokalee Road (CR-846) and Everglades Boulevard on
tracts 113 and 114, in Section 29, Township 47 South, Range 28 East, of
Collier County, Florida.
D. This item requires that all participants be sworn in and ex parte
disclosure be provided by Commission members. V A-2007-AR-12232
John Hamilton, represented by Michael T. Traficante, Esq., requesting an
after-the-fact Variance of approximately 1.4 feet. The O.13-acre site contains
a single-family dwelling with a 3.6-foot side yard setback instead of the 5-
foot setback required when the house was constructed in 1973. The subject
site is located at 85 Shores Avenue, in Section 22, Township 48 South,
Range 25 East, Collier County, Florida.
E. This item requires that all participants be sworn in and ex parte
disclosure be provided by Commission members. PUDZ-05-AR-84 1 6
Pezzetino di Cielo RPUD, Distinctive Residential Development at
Livingston, LLC, represented by D. Wayne Arnold, AICP, ofQ. Grady
Minor and Associates, P.A. and Richard Yovanovich, Esquire, of Goodlette,
Coleman and Johnson, P.A., request a rezone from the Agricultural (A)
zoning district to the Residential Planned Unit Development (RPUD) zoning
district for project known as Pezzetino Di Cielo RPUD. The subject
property, consisting of 17.52 acres, is located on the east side of Livingston
Road, approximately 4.5 miles north ofImmokalee Road and 5 miles south
of the Lee County Line, Section 12, Township 48 South, Range 25 East,
Collier County, Florida.
18. ADJOURN
INQUIRIES CONCERNING CHANGES TO THE BOARD'S AGENDA SHOULD
BE MADE TO THE COUNTY MANAGER'S OFFICE AT 774-8383.
Page 19
January 29, 2008
January 29, 2008
MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd please take your
seats.
Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you have a hot mike.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Call the meeting of the Board of
Commissioners to order this day of January 29, 2008.
The -- would everybody turn off their cell phones or put it on
vibrate so we may conduct the business of the day.
First on the agenda we're going to have the invocation by
Reverend Les Wicker, and then after that, we -- Commissioner Halas
will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. So would you all rise and
JOIn us.
REVEREND WICKER: Let us pray. Oh, mighty God, for the
privilege of prayer in a public forum of government, we offer thanks.
How blessed we are to live in a country in which governing bodies
may call upon your name as a source of strength and guidance. May
we understand more fully the meaning of those words emblazoned on
our currency, "In God We Trust", and may we always trust in you.
The very thought of invoking a prayer for your guidance in a
setting of government is a privilege. May it be a privilege we treasure
and never take for granted, especially in light of the many who have
made the ultimate sacrifice, that your name may be lifted up, not only
in places of worship, but in places of government as well.
Thus we pray for your guidance and wisdom in the events which
will take place in this room this day. Hear us as we offer this in every
prayer in your name, Amen.
(The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: County Manager, would you please
walk us through today's changes.
Item #2A
REGULAR, CONSENT AND SUMMARY AGENDA-
Page 2
January 29,2008
APPROVED AND/OR ADOPTED WITH CHANGES
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Agenda changes Board of County
Commissioners' meeting January 29, 2008.
Item 3A1, William Craig will not be in attendance to receive his
20-year service award, and that correction's at staff's request.
Item 4A to be accepted by Dan Summers, Emergency Manager
Coordinator, again that is at staff's request.
Withdraw item 6B. It's a public petition request by Patrick White
to discuss orders finding violation relating to property owned by Jerry
and Kimberlea Blocker, and that withdrawal is at the petitioner's
request.
Items lOA, 17 A and 17C. The documents in the agenda backup
have the incorrect commissioner's name on the approval line. They
should read, Commissioner Tom Henning, Chairman. And that
clarification's at staff's request.
The next item is item lOG, continued indefinitely. This is a
recommendation to approve for the recording, the final plat of
Mocking Bird Crossing, approval of the standard form construction
and maintenance agreement and approval of the amount of the
performance security. And that continuation is at the petitioner's
request.
Item 10!. Replace the signature page for Miles Media Group
change order number four to add the county commission chairman and
Clerk of Court to attest the signature blocks. Also, the
recommendation on the executive summary for Miles Media change
order four should read, approve change order number four for $97,186
on the contract 05-3772 with Miles Media Group for enhancements to
the tourism website to include a web site story tracking program,
Google Maps, Blueway Web site Phase 2, e-blast program and other
necessary enhancements and upgrades, and to authorize the chairman
to execute the change order and subsequent contract amendment to
Page 3
January 29,2008
extend the term an additional two years after approval by the County
Attorney's Office, and that clarification's at staffs request.
Next item is item 16A4, continued to the February 12,2008,
BCC meeting. The same thing with 16A5 and the same thing with
16A6. These items were continued from the last board meeting at
Commissioner Fiala's request, okay, so that they -- that the
homeowners association and the developer could get together and
work things out.
In this particular case, things haven't been worked out yet and
staff is meeting with the developer and the homeowners group to try
to get that worked out by the next meeting.
So I'll read 16A4, A5, and A6. It's a recommendation to grant
final approval of the roadway (private) and drainage improvements for
the final plat of Major Phase 1, Lely Resort PUD. Roadway and
drainage ditch improvements will be privately maintained. It's a
staffs request.
The next item is for Major's -- that's 16A5, has to do with
Major's, Phase 2, same roadway and drainage improvements, and they
will be privately maintained. And 16A6 has to do with the final plat
of Major's Phase 3, at Lely Resort PUD. Again, roadway and
drainage improvements will be privately maintained. The next -- and
again, those items are continued to the February 12,2008 BCC
meeting.
The next item is to move item 16E6 to 10J. It's a
recommendation the Board of County Commissioners approve an
agreement to provide a maximum expenditure of $54,000 from the
GAC land trust to the Golden Gate Fire Control and Rescue District to
purchase six weather stations. That item is being moved at
Commissioner Coyle's request.
The next item is to move item 16F3 to 10K. It's a
recommendation to approve a $99,000 budget amendment for fiscal
year 2008 to make up for a shortfall of funding due to the Collier
Page 4
January 29, 2008
County Board of County Commissioners' decisions not to implement a
proposed fee collection structure for Emergency Management
Services. That item is being moved at Commissioner Coyle's request.
Next item is item 16F4. Additional backup information for this
item has been distributed and made available for review. That
clarification's at staffs request.
Item 16K2, a slightly revised executive summary and supporting
documents have been provided to replace the executive summary and
supporting documents appearing in the published agenda.
Clarifications were made to the executive summary and legal
sufficiency revisions are indicated in the attachments to the settlement
agreement.
Exhibit A to the termination of easements document also to be
included as an attachment to Exhibit A to the settlement agreement.
Again, that clarification's at staffs request.
The next item is 17 A. The following verbiage in the first
paragraph of Exhibit B is to be removed: One, any approval by the
Collier County Planning Commission must be subject to the adoption
of a companion small-scale Comprehensive Plan amendment, a
finding of in compliance by the Department of Community Affairs
DCA of said amendment, and the running of the time in which an
affected person can file a challenge to the DCA filing.
We got rid of that in the executive summary. We missed it in the
exhibit, okay. But we did hear back from DCA on that particular one
where we don't need a small-scale Comprehensive Plan amendment.
Next item is time certain items. Item 9A to be heard at 10 a.m.
It's a presentation by Andrea B. Sims of the Waters-Oldanti Executive
Recruitment, a division of the Waters Consulting Group, Inc. That has
to do with the county attorney recruitment.
Next item is item lOB to be heard at 2:30 p.m., and that's a
recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approve the
application of Inovo, Incorporated, for the job creation investment
Page 5
January 29, 2008
program in the Advanced Broadband Infrastructure Investment
Program and provide direction on the request by the Economic
Development Council of Collier County related to the payment of an
additional $1,000 per job for 49 existing jobs to be retained in Collier
County and the development of a job retention program ordinance for
future consideration by the Board of County Commissioners.
And the last item that's time certain is item lOF, to be heard at
three p.m., and that's a recommendation for the approval of the fifth
Conservation Collier Active Acquisition List and direction for the
county manager or his designee to actively pursue projects
recommended within the A category.
That's all I have, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
County Attorney, do you have any changes to today's agenda or
announcements?
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, we have no
additional changes from Mr. Mudd's comments. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Ex parte and any further changes to
the agenda by the board members.
Commissioner Coyle, do you have anything?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Mr. Chairman, I have no further
changes to the agenda and I have no ex parte disclosures for the
summary agenda or the consent agenda.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. I have no changes to today's
consent agenda.
On the summary agenda, on item 17 A, I have had meetings and
also some email in regards to this Naples Mazda that's located on the
southwest corner of Airport and J&C Boulevard.
Other than that, I have no other disclosures on the summary
agenda. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
Page 6
January 29,2008
I have no further changes to today's agenda and no ex parte
communications on today's summary or consent agenda.
Commissioner Halas -- or Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's right. I look like him.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No. My apologies.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have no changes to the -- to the
agenda and nothing to declare on the summary or consent agendas.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, good morning.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Good morning.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. I have no changes to the
agenda. And on the summary agenda, l7 A, I've had correspondence,
and 17C I've had correspondence.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Ms. Filson, do we have any speakers
on today's agenda?
MS. FILSON: No, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Then I'll entertain a
motion to approve today's regular, consent, and summary agenda as
amended.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So moved.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: So moved.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion by Commissioner Coletta,
second by Commissioner Halas.
All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries unanimously.
Page 7
AGENDA CHANGES
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' MEETING
Januarv 29. 2008
Item 3A1: William Craig will not be in attendance to receive his 20-year service award. (Staff's
request.)
Item 4A: To be accepted by Dan Summers, Emergency Management Coordinator. (Staff's
request.)
Withdraw Item 6B: Public petition request by Patrick White to discuss Orders Finding Violation
relating to property owned by Jerry and Kimberlea Blocker. (Petitioner's request.)
Items 10A. 17A and 17C: The documents in the agenda backup have the incorrect
Commissioner's name on the approval line. They should read: "Commissioner Tom Henning,
Chairman". (Staff's request.)
Item 10G continued indefinitelv: This is a recommendation to approve for recording the final plat
of Mockingbird Crossing, approval of the standard form Construction and Maintenance
Agreement and approval of the amount of the performance security. (Petitioner's request.)
Item 101: Replace the signature page for Miles Media Group Change Order #4 to add the County
Commission Chairman and Clerk of the Court attest signature blocks. Also, the Recommendation
on the Executive Summary for Miles Media Change order #4 should read: "Approve Change
Order #4 for $97,186.00 on Contract 05-3772 with Miles Media Group for enhancements to the
Tourism website to include a Web Side Story tracking program, Google maps, Blueway Website
Phase 2, E-blast program, and other necessary enhancements and upgrades and to authorize the
Chairman to execute the Change Order and subsequent contract amendment to extend the term
an additional two years after approval by the County Attorney's Office." (Staff's request.)
Item 16A4 continued to the Februarv 12. 2008 BCC meetinQ: Recommendation to grant final
approval of the roadway (private) and drainage improvements for the final plat of Majors Phase
One, (Lely Resort PUD), roadway and drainage improvements will be privately maintained.
(Staff's request.)
Item 16A5 continued to the Februarv 12. 2008 BCC meetinQ: Recommendation to grant final
approval of the roadway (private) and drainage improvements for the final plat of Majors Phase
Two, (Lely Resort PUD), roadway and drainage improvements will be privately maintained.
(Staff's request.)
Item 16A6 continued to the Februarv 12. 2008 BCC meetinQ: Recommendation to grant final
approval of the roadway (private) and drainage improvements for the final plat of Majors Phase
Three, (Lely Resort PUD), roadway and drainage improvements will be privately maintained.
(Staff's request.)
Move Item 16E6 to 10J: Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approve an
agreement to provide a maximum expenditure of fifty-four thousand dollars ($54,000) from the
GAC Land Trust to the Golden Gate Fire Control and Rescue District to purchase six weather
stations. (Commissioner Coyle's request.)
Move Item 16F3 to 10K: Recommendation to approve a $99,000 budget amendment for Fiscal
Year 2008 to make up for a shortfall of funds due to the Collier County Board of County
Commissioners decision not to implement a proposed fee collection structure for Emergency
Management Services. (Commissioner Coyle's request.)
Item 16F4: Additional backup information for this item has been distributed and made available
for review. (Staffs request.)
Item 16K2: A slightly revised executive summary and supporting documents have been provided
to replace the executive summary and supporting documents appearing in the published agenda.
Clarifications were made to the Executive Summary and legal sufficiency revisions are indicated
in the attachments to the Settlement Agreement. Exhibit A to the Termination of Easements
Document is also to be included as an attachment to Exhibit A to the Settlement Agreement.
(Staff's request.)
Item 17 A: The following verbiage in the first paragraph of "Exhibit B" is to be removed: "1. Any
approval by the Collier County Planning Commission must be subject to the adoption of the
companion small scale comprehensive plan amendment, a finding of "in compliance" by the
Department of Community Affairs (DCA) of said amendment, and the running of the time in which
an affected person can file a challenge to the DCA finding." (Staff's request.)
Time Certain Items:
Item 9A to be heard at 10:00 a.m. Presentation by Andrea B. Sims of The Waters-Oldani Executive
Recruitment, a division of The Waters Consulting Group, Inc.
Item 10B to be heard at 2:30 p.m. Recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners
approve the application by Inovo, Incorporated for the Job Creation Investment Program and the
Advanced Broadband Infrastructure Investment Program and provide direction on the request by
the Economic Development Council of Collier County related to the payment of an additional
$1,000 per job for 49 existing jobs to be retained in Collier County and the development of a Job
Retention Program Ordinance for future consideration by the Board of County Commissioners.
Item 1 OF to be heard at 3:00 p.m. Recommendation for the approval of the fifth Conservation
Collier Active Acquisition List and direction for the County Manager or his designee to actively
pursue projects recommended within the A-Category.
January 29,2008
Item #2B and #2C
MINUTES OF JANUARY 8, 2008 - BCC/EDC WORKSHOP AND
JANUARY 10, 2008 - VALUE ADmSTMENT BOARD MEETING
- APPROVED AS PRESENTED
Entertain a motion to accept the January 8, 2008, BCC/EDC
workshop and January 10,2008, Value Adjustment Board.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: So moved.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- approve.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion by Commissioner Fiala,
second by Commissioner Halas.
All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: (Absent.)
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries 4-0. Commissioner
Coyle has stepped out briefly.
Item #3A
SERVICE AWARDS: 20 YEAR ATTENDEES - PRESENTED
Next we're going to go to service awards. Commissioners, I wish
you would join me down in front of the dais to congratulate the
employees of the county for their years of service.
MR. MUDD: Okay. The first service award is for 20 years, and
Page 8
January 29,2008
it goes to Kevin Hendricks for Transportation -- in the Transportation
Division.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Isn't that cute?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Awe.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You need to take a picture.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We've got to get them up here
with you.
Take a picture with us and go back there and get one with them.
MR. MUDD: Kevin, get your picture. Kevin, group in there.
MR. OCHS: Get in the middle. Get in the middle.
MR. HENDRICKS: In the middle?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: In the middle.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I just hope nobody mistakes you
for a commissioner.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, can we take a picture back with
them?
(Applause.)
MR. MUDD: Our next 20-year awardee is Russell Muller from
Engineering Service.
(Applause.)
MR. MULLER: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Congratulations, thanks.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Hi, Russell. Thank you for your
dedicated service.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Hi, Russell.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Get your picture before --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let me get next to my buddy.
MR. MULLER: Thank you.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Russ Muller is the one that got me
started on cleaning up Bayshore back in 1991.
Page 9
January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Wow.
MR. MUDD: The next 20-year employee is Juan Ortega from
EMS.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, you're looking good.
MR. ORTEGA: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Your wife here today?
MR. ORTEGA: No.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Congratulations.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thank you so much.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you for your service.
MR. ORTEGA: Young lady.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's good, young.
MR. ORTEGA: Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. MUDD: Next 20-year awardee is Judy Puig from
Community Development's Environmental Services Administration.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
MS. PUIG: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Judy, thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you for all your service.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Congratulations. Thank you for all
your dedicated service.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Twenty years.
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Congratulations.
MR. MUDD: Judy, congratulations.
The next 20-year awardee is Marjorie Student-Stirling from the
County Attorney's Office.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank for your guidance.
Page 10
January 29,2008
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Marjorie, thank you.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Margie, congratulations.
MR. MUDD: Congratulations.
The next -- the next 20-year awardee is Valerie Thorsen from
EMS.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you, Valerie.
MS. THORSEN: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Congratulations.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you for your service.
MR. OCHS: Congratulations.
MR. MUDD: Congratulations. Now get your picture.
(Applause.)
Item #3B
SERVICE AWARDS: 25 YEAR ATTENDEES -PRESENTED
MR. MUDD: We have two 25-year awardees today, and the first
is Gregorio Flores from Utility Billing.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you for your service.
MR. FLORES: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Gregorio, th;mk you very much.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you for all your service.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Twenty-five years. Went fast,
didn't it?
Page 11
January 29,2008
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Another 25?
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Congratulations.
MR. MUDD: Gregorio, congratulations.
And our last 25-year awardee today, but not least, is Gary Hamm
from Road and Bridge.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thanks for your service.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Congratulations. Thank you very
much.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You guys have sure helped me a lot.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Hi, Gary. Congratulations.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Have you seen any changes in
the past 25 years?
(Applause.)
Item #4A
DURING THE WEEK OF FEBRUARY 3-9, 2008, THE FLORIDA
DIVISION OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT TOGETHER
WITH THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AND THE
COLLIER COUNTY BUREAU OF EMERGENCY SERVICES
WILL URGE RESIDENTS TO TAKE MEASURES TO MAKE
THEMSEL VES AND THEIR FAMILIES BETTER PREPARED
FOR HAZARDOUS WEATHER CONDITIONS - ADOPTED
MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, that brings us to proclamations
today, and the first is, during the week of February 3rd to the 9th,
2008, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, together with
the National Weather Service and the Collier County Bureau of
Emergency Services, will urge citizens to take measures to make
themselves and their families better prepared for hazardous weather
Page 12
January 29, 2008
conditions. To be accepted by Mr. Dan Summers.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Gives me great pleasure to read
this proclamation, especially with the past three years of what we've
endured here in Collier County.
Whereas, over the last three years, Collier County residents have
been exposed to major weather hazards including hurricanes,
tornadoes, wildfires, severe thunderstorms with lightning, flooding
and deadly rip tides; and,
Whereas, severe weather conditions have claimed the lives of
hundreds of Floridians and resulted in billions of dollars of damage;
and,
Whereas, during the week of February 9 -- excuse me -- 3rd
through 9th, 2008, the Florida Division of Emergency Management,
together with the National Weather Service and the Collier County
Bureau of Emergency Services, will urge citizens to take measures to
make themselves and their families better prepared for the hazardous
weather conditions; and,
Whereas, the Severe W eather Awareness Week aims to promote
weather safety, increased public awareness, improved preparedness,
and reduce the occurrence of death and injury as a result of weather
conditions; and,
Whereas, being prepared includes creating an emergency supply
kit containing items that will allow you and your family to survive for
at least three days in the event of an emergency, developing a plan that
addresses sheltering in place or evacuating the area, staying informed
about different threats that could affect community, and getting
involved by training in first aid and emergency response.
Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that the week of February
3rd through the 9th, 2008, be designated as Severe Weather
Awareness Week.
Done and ordered this 29th day of February -- or January, 2008,
Page 13
January 29,2008
Board of County Commissioners, Collier County, Florida, Tom
Henning, Chair.
And Mr. Henning, I make a motion that we approve this
proclamation.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a motion to move the
proclamation by Commissioner Halas. Second by Commissioner
Coyle.
All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Carries unanimously.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thank you for your dedicated
service to Collier County.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Dan, congratulations.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
MR. SUMMERS: Thank you, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, Dan.
MR. SUMMERS: Thank you very much.
MR. MUDD: Dan, you've got take your picture.
MR. SUMMERS: Whoa. Camera shy.
(Applause.)
MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, just so you know, we got some
news here the other day that Dan and -- Dan Summers and -- has won
the Florida Emergency Professional Association's Manager of the
Page 14
January 29,2008
Y ear Award, and he'll be able to pick that up.
And the other interesting one and the one that really makes me --
I'm not trying to underdo Dan's award because that's great, and we've
got probably the best emergency manager in the country, but we've
got a volunteer that won.
Fred Edwards is -- was awarded the Emergency Management
Volunteer award for the state, and he works down in our emergency
management.
And they'll go pick those up at a luncheon here in the next couple
weeks. But that was some really good news that we got, and doesn't
happen enough, I don't think.
Item #4 B
PROCLAMATION FOR "TURN IT OFF DAYS! WE'RE
COUNTING EVERY DROP." - ADOPTED
The next proclamation, a proclamation for Turn It Off Days!
We're Counting Every Drop. To be accepted by Lynne Hixon-Holley.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Good morning.
Whereas, there's an ongoing drought more severe than any other
for the past 100 years in Collier County; and,
Whereas, the South Florida Water Management District, a district
of the State of Florida water management office, declared Collier
County to be under Phase 3 water restriction usage described as
severe, to be in force January l5, 2008; and,
Whereas, the Naples Woman's Club, a nonprofit organization,
active in Collier County in the greater Naples community for over 75
years and having engaged in community improvement activities,
fostering cultural opportunities and philanthropic endeavors since
1932; and,
Page 15
January 29, 2008
Whereas, the Naples Woman's Club has been vitally instrumental
in the community acquiring a free library, Youth Haven, the Chamber
of Commerce, the Thrift Shop, and aiding as volunteers in many other
capacities; and,
Whereas, the Naples Woman's Club has joined in a
community-wide effort of various organizations as water conservation
partners to bring the water shortage and use to an acute awareness and
has devised a plan; and,
Whereas, the plan is to have the entire community join in a water
day experiment on Tuesday, February 19th and Wednesday, February
20th. In those 48 hours, it is requested that all residents, visitors, and
workers, engage in using all water conservation tips intensively to
show that such efforts do make a difference; and,
Whereas, county and city water authorities have the personnel
and desire to monitor the portable (sic) water usage before, during,
and after the two-day intense water conservation effort, and to
calculate on a percentage per capita basis which entity, the county,
Naples, Marco, or Everglades, have saved the most water and to be the
winner of Water Days Experiments entitled, Turn It om We're
Counting Every Drop; and,
Whereas, all in Collier County are invited to be players in our
own water Olympics. Can the citizens make a difference that will
register a decrease in the monitoring usage?
Therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners, Collier County, Florida, that the games begin at 12:01
a.m., Tuesday, February 19th, and end 48 hours later, and shall be
designated as Turn It Off Day! We're Counting Every Drop.
Done and ordered this day, the 29th day of January, 2008, and
signed by Chairman Tom Henning.
And with that, I make a motion for approval.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion by Commissioner Coletta to
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January 29, 2008
move the proclamation, second by Commissioner Halas.
All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries. Congratulations.
Thank you.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: You did it now.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you for all you do.
MS. HIXON-HOLLEY: We want the sheriffs department to
Jom.
MR. OCHS: Congratulations.
MR. MUDD: Congratulations.
MS. HIXON-HOLLEY: May I say a word?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Before you do, we have a photo
opportunity .
MS. HIXON-HOLLEY: Oh, all right.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: There you go.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Please, the podium of your
choice.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Up there.
MS. HIXON-HOLLEY: Over here?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Either one.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Either one.
Page 17
January 29,2008
MS. HIXON-HOLLEY: Doesn't really matter.
I accept this proclamation on behalf of the Naples Woman's Club
and my 12 water conservation partners, including the South Florida
Water Management District and many other water conservation
people.
We want to remind you, everyone is a player in these games.
These are our own Olympic games. The one -- the governmental
entity group who uses the least amount of water in this 48-hour period
will be declared the winner.
Your own Paul Mattausch of your county water department will
crunch the numbers. He will use various things to make it come out as
accurately fair as is possible in an endeavor like this.
So we ask you, particularly on Tuesday, February the 19th at
12:01 a.m. to begin thinking, save, save the little rain drop, and keep it
up for 48 hours.
When you fill up that glass of water from the tap to take an
aspirin, don't take a swallow and dump the rest. Just put in what you
use. When you brush your teeth; when you're brushing, turn it off.
We're counting every drop.
We really feel with everybody participating, we can make a
difference. The monitor -- the water monitors will prove it, and if we
don't, there is something badly wrong with us.
So thanks a lot. Incidentally, we invite you to a panel we're
having of our water experts, and it's really an outstanding panel, to be
held February the 13th at the Naples Woman's Club at 12 o'clock. It
will last one hour only. If your aide will let us know you're coming,
we'll reserve a special seat for you commissioners. And if any of you
want to come let us know.
And after that, remember to turn it off. We're counting every
drop.
(Applause.)
MS. HIXON-HOLLEY: Thank you.
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January 29,2008
CHAIRMAN HENNING: County Manager, I think we have
time for a couple public petitions before we have to go to our time
certain, maybe all of them.
MR. MUDD: Okay. Are we going to do the presentations first,
sir?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Oh, thank you.
MR. MUDD: Because I think you have a whole room full of
folks that are here for the presentations, and I believe it will get -- it
will get a little bit cooler in here, too.
Item #5A
RECOGNIZING CHRISTOPHER ATCHLEY, CRAFTSMAN,
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT, AS EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR
FOR 2007 - PRESENTED
First presentation is a recommendation to recognize Christopher
Atchley, Craftsman, Facilities Management as Employee of the Year
for 2007.
Christopher, if you could come forward, please.
(Applause.)
MR. MUDD: Christopher Atchley, Craftsman for Facilities
Management, has been selected as the Employee of the Year for 2007.
Chris is an energetic and dedicated employee, is an extremely
hard worker who is often complimented on the speed and quality of
the services that he provides his customers.
An employee of the county since 2004, Chris always goes above
and beyond what is asked of him. He treats each customer in a special
way and treats each task as if it were the most important assignment
he has ever undertaken.
As a result, Chris is appreciated by everyone he meets. Chris
responds quickly when something is needed and always follows up to
Page 19
January 29, 2008
make sure that everything is done correctly. His positive attitude and
demeanor, along with his sunny personality, always brings smiles. He
truly makes the county a better place to work and live. He constantly
exceeds expectations and takes great pride in his work.
Chris truly deserves to be named Employee of the Year for 2007.
(Applause.)
MS. FILSON: Commissioner Henning?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioners, County Manager,
members of the public, and the employees here today, it's indeed an
honor and a privilege for me to award and recognize Chris for the
outstanding achievements, and selected by the employees of Collier
County .
And it's a true honor to present this plaque and a small donation
of our appreciation for your dedicated service to the citizens and the
employees of Collier County.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
MR. ATCHLEY: Thank you.
Item #5B
RECOGNIZING MURDO SMITH, REGIONAL MANAGER,
PARKS AND RECREATION, AS SUPERVISOR OF THE YEAR
FOR 2007 - PRESENTED
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, our next presentation is a
recommendation to recognize Murdo Smith as Regional Manager of
Park and Recreation as Supervisor of the Year for 2007.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Murdo's for president.
MR. MUDD: Murdo Smith, Regional Manager for Parks and
Recreation, has been selected as Supervisor of the Year for 2007.
Page 20
January 29, 2008
Murdo has been an employee of Collier County for over 30
years. During that time he has worked hard to develop and maintain
relationships with his staff, supervisors, and members of the
community.
As a Regional Manager, Murdo chooses to lead by example. His
staff works hard because he works hard. He attends all parks and
recreation events and pitches in whenever needed. He does everything
he can to make sure the job gets done. He shows his staff that
sometimes it takes the whole group to get the task accomplished.
When his staff does well, he is the first to give them credit. He is
always quick to thank his employees for a job well done.
Murdo is seen as a mentor to the employees in the parks and
recreation department. He wants his staff to succeed and gives them
the tools to do so. Murdo is an excellent leader and is an asset to the
county .
He is truly deserving of the award as Supervisor of the Year for
2007.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Congratulations.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Congratulations. Thanks very
much.
MR. MUDD: It's humbling, isn't it, Murdo?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Could we get a picture of the
audience, too?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioners, again, indeed a
pleasure to recognize Murdo Smith for his achievements, not only as a
leader in parks and rec., but many of us as private citizens and leaders
of the community. Murdo has assisted us to serve and to make Collier
County a better place to recreate.
And I just want to give this plaque to you for Supervisor of the
Year for 2007.
(Applause.)
Page 21
January 29, 2008
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And a small check in appreciation for
your servIces.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, okay. Oh, wait just one more
second. Stay right where you are. Murdo, you go over there, and
Sandy, come on up and take a picture with all of them. Let him see
his fan club.
I'm sorry to order people around.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You're the person to do it.
Okay, everybody.
(Applause.)
MR. SMITH: Okay. I promise I'll keep this short. I've got to get
my speech out.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, Donna.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You're welcome.
MR. SMITH: Okay. First of all, I'm very humbled by this award
and I would like to thank the board for this honor, as well as Mr.
Mudd, Mr. Ochs, and the supporting guidance from Marla Ramsey,
Barry Williams, over the years. I could not have received this honor
without the support of the parks and recreation past and present staff.
They're a great group of people, and I feel very privileged and
honored to work with them over these years. They're all very special
to me, and I just think they're a great group of people, and thank you
guys for this. I really appreciate it.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Happy occasion.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Hey, wait. We're losing
everybody. Lock the doors.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Tell them, tell them.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: It will be a lot quieter now.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I guess they've got to get to
work.
Page 22
January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh. It was good seeing you.
Item #6A
PUBLIC PETITION REQUEST BY STEPHEN D. KREYNUS TO
DISCUSS PAVING OF DESOTO ROAD - PRESENTED AND
DISCUSSED
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us to public petitions.
Our first public petition today is a request by Stephen D. Kreynus to
discuss paving on DeSoto Road. Mr. Kreynus?
MR. KREYNUS: Commissioners, my name is Steve Kreynus. I
live off of DeSoto Road on Southeast 30th Avenue.
My concern -- I met twice with Commissioner Coletta and it
didn't reach my approval or my -- other people that live off DeSoto
Road.
There's three situations that I'd like to bring up that I have
questions in my mind and I don't have a satisfactory answer to.
They paved DeSoto Road north and south. Two different
companies did it. Better Roads and another company by the name of
-- I think it's Bonus (sic).
MR. MUDD: Bonness.
MR. KREYNUS: They did the north side, Bonness did, of
DeSoto Road, which is about four miles, and Better Roads did the
south side of DeSoto Road.
Actually, there's three complaints, but let's -- let me present the
first one. They claimed that they paved north DeSoto twice, and I'm
refuted. I have not seen them, and I called them twice, they never did.
They only paved it one time.
And I have here some core samples that were taken by the county
to convince me that they did actually pave it twice, but as you can see,
there is something wrong with this picture.
Page 23
January 29, 2008
This is south DeSoto which was paved twice, I know for a fact.
I'm saying north DeSoto was only paved once. If you can take a look
at the core sample, it kind of speaks for itself that it was only done
once, and that was back in July. And I called the county and asked
them twice now. They said they were supposed to pave it twice,
which they never did, to my knowledge. And with these core
samples, I just can't believe they paved it twice. That's north DeSoto.
And also south DeSoto, Better Roads did the paving of that. The
south side of DeSoto, approximately four miles, was like a washboard
when they finished it. I mean, it was just a ripple when you go down
it. And still to this day it was, meaning we didn't get our money's
worth or it was paved correctly (sic).
I called engineers twice on that and told them to stop it or go
investigate it, because when I first came in, the road was bumpy, but
they continued to and nobody foreseen it, so now what we've got on
the south side of south DeSoto is a bumpy rode that we have to live
with, and they've said they cannot repair it.
So that's where we stand right now, that north DeSoto, to my
knowledge -- and I have other people that will give affidavits if you
need them -- that to their knowledge, if they -- unless they paved it at
midnight when we were sleeping or something -- but they never paved
it twice.
And I guess, as you can see from the core samples here, if this is
two layers and this is the way it's supposed to have been -- of course,
south DeSoto was done with two layers -- that there's evidence that
something is very wrong with the paving of the roads. And it was a
really bad job on south DeSoto, and we've still got to live with the
ripples on that road. It bumps our cars all the way from the beginning
to the end, and they're saying there's nothing they can do about it.
The third thing is that if all roads are supposed to be paved twice,
they just completed in the last couple weeks Southeast 20th Avenue
off DeSoto Road. It was only paved once; so therefore, I leave it up to
Page 24
January 29,2008
you all. Are we getting our money's worth? Or it needs to be
something investigated here that these roads were paved according to
what the county contracted to do.
I guess Commissioner Coletta can add light on this because we
tried to beat -- we did everything possible that me and him could do
before we brought it here to kind of settle it, and it was never settled to
my satisfaction. Now we're living with bumpy roads down there that
was paid for and not paved properly.
Commissioner Coletta might add something to this because he
knew I was very upset about it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Are you done, sir?
MR. KREYNUS: Yes, I'm done.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there any questions or comments
from the board? Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I appreciate you being
here today. And the reason you're here today is because you weren't
satisfied with any of the answers that staff came forward with.
And I firmly believe in the process. And you're at that point in
time where you're before five commissioners that represent the whole
counties -- county, rather, and if they see something that they find to
be out of the sort after they hear from staff, they can take all sorts of
directions to try to remedy it, and that's why you're here today.
I didn't want you spinning your wheels in a thousand different
directions. I wanted you here today so you could be able to bring
what you call is the evidence there and to be able to speak your piece,
and also we can hear from staff, and then the commission may ask you
some more questions, they may not, and then we'll proceed from there.
Ifwe -- with the chair's permission, I'd like to call staff forward.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, the process -- and correct me if
I am wrong. If the commissioners want a report, they can -- they can
have it put back on the agenda.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The report's pretty brief,
Page 25
January 29,2008
Commissioner Henning. I don't think it's necessary to go on the
agenda.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do you have questions for staff?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, but staffs rebuttal to what
was just said is pretty significant, and it would be brief.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Does the commissioners -- how do
you want to proceed with this? Do you want to put it on a future
agenda or do you want to get the report now?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let's get --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'd just as soon get the report now
from staff. I think they've probably researched this fairly.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Good. Do you have anything else,
Mr. Kreynus?
MR. KREYNUS: No, that's it, thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Good morning, John.
MR. VLIET: Good morning. John Vliet, Collier County Road
and Bridge Superintendent, for the record.
Staff has looked into Mr. Kreynus' complaints. With DeSoto
Boulevard, it was in pretty much disrepair, severe wheel rutting, et
cetera. And what our contractors had done first is came through, filled
the wheel ruts, came back through, put what they call a level course on
top of that, and they actually came back and put a top course on top of
that.
Typically an overlay project which is basically a repair to a road
-- it's not a new-constructed road -- typically we put down 165 pounds
a square yard of asphalt.
Overall, the average thickness that we put down on DeSoto both
north and south for the entire project averaged two and a quarter
inches.
The rippling effect that Mr. Kreynus refers to -- we did look at
the south end of DeSoto, actually had Better Roads go back out with
their roller, their large rollers and basically, you know, based on Mr.
Page 26
January 29, 2008
Kreynus' complaints -- and they did reroll portions of it and smooth it
out a little bit more than what it was.
They have since straight-edged it. They have found two
locations that were outside of the 3/16th tolerance by about a quarter
of an inch, which overall, for a repair project, is extremely good.
The core samples were taken at various places, both on north and
south ends, and there are various thicknesses of asphalt due to years of
overlay.
I have to disagree with Mr. Kreynus, you know. The job is done
satisfactory in our opinion. And as far as lifts, sometimes you may not
have to put two lifts, but in this case we actually did two lifts plus
some wheel rut filling, and we're quite satisfied with what we've
gotten from our contractors.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Please.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. In order to be able to
prove that the asphalt was put down at sufficient quantities, how do
you go about doing that?
MR. VLIET: We receive weight tickets from the contractors.
Every truck that goes and dumps a load of fill material, we get weight
tickets, and that's how we make our payments as well is based on the
quantities that go on the ground.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And the tickets indicate that it
met that specific guideline that we have as far as the amount of
asphalt, or did it exceed it or was it short?
MR. VLIET: Y eah. We actually exceeded what we normally
put down, okay. As far as quantities, we've exceeded the average
quantity that we'd normally put down on a regular overlay, and that
was primarily due to the condition, the state that DeSoto was in to
start with.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's all the questions I got.
Okay. Any further ones?
(No response.)
Page 27
I .,._,-,~.,~--,-
January 29,2008
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
MR. VLIET: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Next?
Item #6C
PUBLIC PETITION REQUEST FROM MR. DON BEACH TO
DISCUSS RESERVING LIBRARY MEETING ROOM -
DISCUSSED
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, our next public petition is a request
from Mr. Don Beach to discuss reserving the library meeting room.
MR. BEACH: Location is good?
My name is Don Beach. I live in Golden Gate, and I'm here
basically to discuss meeting room arrangements, you know, through
the library.
For the past -- I'm specifically from PC Bug, a 501 C-3
organization focused on community and Internet education. We've
been meeting at the Reese meeting room between six p.m. and eight
p.m. for the last 15 years. And our membership is basic -- on the third
Thursday of each month. And our membership is basically made up
of Collier County senior citizens, although our meetings are generally
open to anybody who's interested in learning anything about
computers and the Internet.
In the past we could go to the library supervisor sometime in the
fall of each year and schedule our monthly meetings for the coming
year. This year we were told that the library is now implementing a
quarterly on-line room request system and we'd have to wait until
December, 2007 to request the room for 2008, actually only the first
quarter of 2008.
But then when we did so, we found that the library had scheduled
several programs for the specific time slot in several different months
Page 28
. - . '-----r---.--
January 29,2008
during the time in which PC Bug normally meets.
When Bob Hill, then president of PC Bug, called the Naples
library, he was told that we should take comfort in the fact that the
third Thursday was taken by the library themselves, as they, of course,
have preference, not some other group.
When asked why the library had set programs on these specific
dates, we were told that the library, at the library advisory board
meeting, that the staff who scheduled the library program some six
months before had looked at the schedule and found no other
programs scheduled for those times. This explanation makes sense
only in the most bureaucratic perspective, since the library itself,
through its own policies, prevented us from even making our regular
request and also because the limitations imposed by the on-line room
request system prevented us from even discovering that these
conflicting dates had occurred.
I fully note that Marilyn Mattes, the Library Director, has been
very helpful in resolving the specific scheduling conflicts for February
and March, and we appreciate her assistance, although word of the
agreement did not quite filter down far enough in the organization to
prevent some confusion and our being contacted last Monday that we
would have to move our dates once again. Again, I thank Director
Mattes for helping to resolve that situation.
Until this past week, it was apparently not possible for the library
system itself to be able to say for certain whether the library has
programs slated on the third Thursday of any additional months during
the course of this year. We would think that if there were any actual
programs scheduled at specific times, they would be entered on the
schedule and thereby be readily apparent.
Quarterly scheduling means that because of the way that the
on-line schedule calendar is configured -- because it is a piece of
software and it's purely configured any way you want it configured __
even as late as November 30th, no one could even see what programs
Page 29
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January 29, 2008
the library had scheduled in January or later.
For this quarter, even as late as February 28th, you will not be
able to see, much less schedule anything, even as soon as April 1 st.
It's very cut off. It's very opaque once you hit that date.
From a citizen's perspective -- from a citizen's perspective, it
would appear that as currently implemented, the library's room request
system is not working to provide an accurate view of upcoming events
for either the library or for groups. The current library room request
system -- and it is simply a request system. You don't -- when you
request a room, you don't get that room until after it has been
processed by someone physically at the library who then sends you
back an email that says that you actually have it -- strongly favors
programs conceived and implemented on a short-term basis and
discriminates against programs planned on a longer-term basis, which
also -- which often involves scheduling speakers months in advance.
The original request that you probably have in your paperwork is
to set the procedure to establish groups to reserve a library meeting
room for up to 12 months in advance of the event meeting date;
however, after several emails, discussions, and a couple of library
advisory board meetings, is has become apparent that the library
schedules their own programs six to nine months in advance, hence
allowing outside groups scheduled 12 months in advance might not be
practical -- although it would be optimal for the groups -- but it may
not be practical.
But on the other hand, the strict quarterly policy as implemented
is unduly restrictive. Perhaps the best balance would simply be to have
the on-line library calendar to show all future library programs as soon
as they are set and to allow groups to schedule meetings at the library
meeting rooms on a rolling six-months basis, which would -- since
they meet -- they schedule in six months to nine months in advance,
should be able to do stuff six months out, which allows people to
schedule in other programs.
Page 30
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January 29, 2008
This would allow everyone to see what is coming up, allow the
library to schedule in whatever programs they may need and whatever
time period and the time that they normally would schedule in these
programs, and to set a reasonable window for groups by allowing the
opaque situation in terms of seeing what's coming -- because we could
not possibly see what was coming -- that is currently caused by the
current scheduling policies.
Essentially what we would ask is to set a procedure for
establishing groups to reserve a library meeting room for up to six
months in advance of the event meeting date in order to accommodate
how the library actually schedules in their programs.
That's my -- that's my notation.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Questions? And so you're
requesting the board to?
MR. BEACH: Set a policy that allows organizations on a
six-month rolling basis to schedule in meeting rooms, which is --
seems reasonable.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is this for organizations?
MR. BEACH: Well, I would presume established --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Private.
MR. BEACH: -- organizations -- you know, we're a 501 C-3.
We've gone through the whole procedure to, you know, do that. And I
would presume that at least for, you know, established organizations
in that category to be able to -- be able to plan in advance. The
current situation is that we got hit, you know -- well, we avoided it
because of Marilyn Matthes. We appreciated her assistance.
We basically got -- were going to get run over by a freight truck,
and we had no clue that it was coming. If the schedule was simply
made open -- I presume it's usual open records and stuff like that
anyway. So you know, if that schedule was simply set up so that
people could see what was coming and allowed to schedule in after
the time period that the library normally schedules in their programs,
Page 31
January 29,2008
that would pretty much resolve most of the issues, and this current
situation would never have occurred.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I think that we need to set policy for
educational reference materials or whatever within the library system.
I think that's what it's all about. But I don't see -- I don't personally --
don't think that we ought to have a dedication for anybody, whether
they're 501 C or not. It should be something -- enhancement of the
county programs. And knowing that we're having limitations on
budgeting, expanding our existing programs, I'm not sure if you really
need it.
Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle was --
wanted to speak first, and then I would like to afterwards.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
I agree. We're going to be under some fairly strict limitations in
the future. Weare, in fact, considering scaling back the hours of our
library operations because of budgetary considerations. We're not
planning on closing any, but we're certainly considering a wide range
of cost reduction measures.
And it would be, in my opinion, not in the public's best interest to
let organizations block up time for the entire year, and I think you've
even acknowledged that.
But I also think that it -- it doesn't make sense, as an example, to
wait until December the 30th before people can schedule something
for January. A rolling six-month period might be appropriate.
Certainly you have to have some advance notification and opportunity
to schedule.
And I don't know what would be involved in modifying the
software that library might use to do this. But I'd be willing to bet that
the PC Bug organization could help the library out in making any
software changes to the scheduling program, but they might also make
changes so they'd be guaranteed their selections for the rest of the
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January 29, 2008
year.
But nevertheless, it's something that I think the library can do and
should do. I mean, it just makes sense to do it on a rolling basis, but
we have to be very careful that we don't let people block up things for
an extremely long period of time because we won't be able to serve
the general public's interest if we do that.
There are also opportunities to look at alternate sites for meetings
that are, perhaps, not at libraries. But -- and I would encourage all
groups who use libraries and other facilities to start evaluating that,
because we are going to be entering some very difficult financial times
over the next few years, and we're going to have to make decisions we
don't like making.
But that's my only comment and my suggested guidance.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta, Commissioner
Halas.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. In might add to
that. I think you're in the right direction.
I can draw, for instance, an example within my own district.
Before we had the Max Hasse Community Center, we had the library
and we had the cooperative extension out there off of Immokalee
Road. Neither one of them were set up where they could
accommodate us on a regular basis, a predictable basis.
The cooperative extension was a great place to hold meetings.
The only problem is, is that they had many events that took place that
were in line with their original mission that would conflict with trying
to schedule meetings on a monthly basis, and so we realized that after
a period of time.
The library was inconvenient the way the hours ran. We had to
be out of there by eight o'clock. The room was small. We realized that
we were up against a rock and a hard place.
And so what we did is we made arrangements to go to the fire
department. They had a meeting room there, and the civic
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January 29, 2008
association's been basically meeting there ever since. We've got a nice
community center, but it's a little bit overused at the moment.
But what I'm getting at is, is that I understand where you're
coming from. You're offering a community service, you're doing it at
no profit. You're -- it's an outreach that's absolutely wonderful to
many of our citizens, especially the elderly. And if we can
accommodate you in some way, we should; however, with that said,
the library's going to have a specific mission, and trying to define that
mission to fit everybody is going to probably be impossible.
But in the same light, I hope that we can come up with some
means and some way. And I realize that you have quite a bit of
equipment that has to be moved from spot to spot, and how do you get
it there. But maybe staff could work with you in some way they could
offer you the amenity in some other place in the county. And it might
even behoove you to consider on a rotating basis going to different
places within the county offering this service to draw new people in
that could use it. It's not always convenient, especially for the elderly,
to be able to travel any great distance.
Just a suggestion, Don. I'm not trying to tell you the library
should be written off. It's just that I do understand the depth of the
problem. And if we come to the point we have to cut the hours back to
-- what is it, till eight o'clock now, the library?
MR. BEACH: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: There's a good possibility that
there may be an hour cut off of that just to try to make the budget
work. So now you've got a problem with the library closing at seven.
And I'm not too sure where we go from there. I'm sure the community
centers will be able to make adjustments to be able to keep them open
more reasonable hours by cutting them off at the early end of the day.
I don't know. We're getting into parts of it we don't even know yet.
But, please, work with us. Don't give it up. Don't say this is a
venture that won't work any longer and put it on the shelf. Work with
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January 29,2008
staff closely, talk to these commissioners individually, and we'll keep
everybody apprised of the situation. Some way we're going to make it
work because we're a community, and this community consists of
everyone out there to make it work.
MR. BEACH: I appreciate that. And basically, what
Commissioner Coyle indicated, putting the reservation arrangement,
you know, six months in advance, would be fine. That allows the
library to schedule in everything that they would normally schedule
in, because we've been told, they schedule in six months to nine
months in advance. And we're -- we -- you know, whatever procedure
the library establishes to reserve the room, that's the procedure we use.
That's fine.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas wants to give us
some direction.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah. I think basically instead of
like just saying that you want to meet strictly at libraries, I think you
need to maybe get with parks and rec. I think they've got some spaces
available, and you may be able to have a time frame that you can set
aside so that you can meet there.
So not only libraries, but parks and recs. should be able to help
you out also. In fact, they're almost -- they're under the same director.
So hopefully that will give you some __
MR. BEACH: As long as we know what's coming up in terms of
library --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'm sure -_
MR. BEACH: -- programs, then we can adjust. And we would
be willing to do so. That's not a problem.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas -- or
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Do you have -- or how many
people do you have coming to these meetings?
MR. BEACH: Over the past year, we've been running around 40
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January 29, 2008
to 70, depending on--
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
MR. BEACH: -- the meeting.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I will-- I know that some of the
assisted living facilities have meeting rooms that they offer to the
community, and they welcome the community to come to them
because it gives their residents a chance to come to some of these
things as well. So that's just another thought for you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there guidance to our staff on this
topic? Did you want to ask them to bring back a policy for the board
to adopt?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, that was the intent of my
remark --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- is to suggest that the staff tweak
their scheduling process a little bit to provide for some rolling
opportunity. It just doesn't make sense to wait until the last day of the
month before you can schedule something for tomorrow, you see. It
should be on a rolling basis. People should be able to plan somewhat
in advance. Even the library does that. So once they publish their
schedule, it should be available to people at least on a 30- to 60-day
advanced notice.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Are you okay with that,
Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: (Nods head.)
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. We're okay with that. Thank
you, Mr. Beach.
MR. MUDD: Okay.
MR. BEACH: That basically would solve the issue, that way
nobody gets run over by a freight train because you can see it coming.
You can get out of the way.
Page 36
January 29,2008
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
MR. BEACH: That would be it. Thank you very much.
Item #9 A
PRESENTATION BY ANDREA B. SIMS OF THE WATERS-
OLDANI EXECUTIVE RECRUITMENT, A DIVISION OF THE
WATERS CONSULTING GROUP, INC., REGARDING
CANDIDATES APPLYING FOR COUNTY ATTORNEY
POSITION - APPROVAL OF THE SEMI-FINALISTS: ELAINE
ASAD, MARIA CHIARO, GARY GLASSMAN, MICHAEL
HUNT, JEFFREY KLATZKOW, JULIE LEE, RAYMOND REA,
WILLIAM SPILLAS, JOHN TURNER AND DA VID WEIGEL _
APPROVED; MS. SIMS WILL PRESENT FINAL CANDIDATES
AT FEBRUARY 12,2008 OR FEBRUARY 26,2008 BCC
MEETING
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We have a time certain that we're a
few minutes late, and that is item 9A.
MS. FILSON: Yes, Mr. Commissioner -- oops. I'm sorry.
MR. MUDD: Go ahead.
MS. FILSON: This is a presentation by Andrea Sims of the
Walters -- of the Waters Executive Recruitment firm regarding the
county attorney position.
MS. SIMS: Good morning. I wanted to go over the process that
we used in the recruitment and recommend and get your approval for
semifinalists that we will interview and have a further presentation at
the end of February for your review to select finalists for you to
interview.
Just to go over the process, we put together a brochure, had it
approved by the county's offices. We advertised in numerous national
organizations' magazines. In addition, we sent the brochure, both
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January 29,2008
electronically and through direct mail, to attorneys in Florida and
across the country. We also made significant direct calls to persons in
county and city attorney offices within the State of Florida.
We also were referred to the Florida Trend magazine's Florida
Legal Elite. They had a public -- they had a public attorney section,
and we called candidates from them.
We were very excited about the candidates that we received. At
the time that we selected people to receive questionnaires On the 14th
of January, we had received 27 applications. These resumes were
reviewed, and we were focused On those from Florida with public
experience, management experience in growth communities.
Eighteen people out of the 27 were sent questionnaires to
complete to gather more information On their background. Those that
had returned the questionnaires by January 22nd are included in the
books that you've received.
At the time that I -- we -- since the initial review we have
received 15 additional applications. Out of those additional
applications, two are worthwhile to consider, and I'll, you know,
handle that as we further discuss.
Out of the resumes that you've received -- and you have all the
resumes that have been received as of the 14th, even those that we did
not include. In addition you have the questionnaires. I'd like your
guidance On whether you would like recommendation for those we
want to move forward on, if you want to go over each person, or you
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Personally I'm comfortable.
Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. I'm very comfortable
with the recommendation to bring it back for -- I believe you're talking
about bringing it down to five recommendations?
MS. SIMS: No. I'm talking about bringing it down to--
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Thirteen.
January 29,2008
MS. SIMS: -- nine right now with the two additional, and we'll
ultimately get to five when I come back next. Because with these
question -- with the persons that I'm inter -- that I've selected as
semifinalists, I'll have a one-on-one interview with them, you know,
either in person or video conference, they'll prepare more written
information, provide a list of their top accomplishments, a critical
problem that they're currently working on, a copy oftheir ORC chart,
a list of references, and we'll go through about 12 due diligence
questions.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I understand what you're saying.
But it's five that you're going to -- you're recommending. Would it
make more sense -- I mean, we can always ask for a name to be
reconsidered if we wanted to. Wouldn't it make more sense to come
back maybe with three recommendations, and that would help to
narrow the field? Or do you think that they're all so equal that out of
five, that it would be very hard to pick.
MS. SIMS: I like to narrow it to nine or 10 at this stage to make
sure that when we start talking truly about their management
experience and vet with the due diligence that we make sure that we're
not narrowing it too closely. We want to present three to five to you
to interview because at that time they would have been referenced, we
would have gone through the civil, criminal background checks and
all of the like.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, you just said three to five.
MS. SIMS: For you to interview. That's when you're -- when I
come back on the 20 -- either on the 12th or the 26th of February, I'd
be recommending, you know, five people for you to interview.
Sometimes people will narrow it further and say, oh, I don't want to
interview five. I'm okay interviewing three or four.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. I understand.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No.
Page 39
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January 29,2008
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No. Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah. The information that you
supplied to us as a Board of County Commissioners, I was very much
impressed. There was a lot of research that went into this, and I also
did a lot of research on my own, and I came up with five people, five
candidates that -- with just the information that you supplied.
Are you saying that what you're going to do is, the additional
applications that you presently have, are you going to include them in
another book that's going to be presented to us to read their
biographies and their work experiences and things of this nature?
MS. SIMS: I would provide their questionnaires and their
resumes for you, you know, if you were, you know, to be interested in
seeing those two additional.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: So are you saying that this is just a
preliminary book, that we're going to get another book on top of this
with additional?
MS. SIMS: This would -- it would be just two resumes and two
questionnaires.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: With what we've already been
supplied?
MS. SIMS: Uh-huh.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. So then what you'll do at
that point in time is you'll scrutinize it in more detail, and then you'll
limit this to at least five or six people?
MS. SIMS: If you want me to go to five or six, I will. I'd prefer
to go --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I--
MS. SIMS: I'd prefer to, you know, keep it at a higher number.
But if you'd prefer to go to five at this stage, I can.
Typically we don't get to five until we have the in-person
interviews. The information you have right now is based on the
candidates writings and, you know, some quick telephone discussions
Page 40
January 29, 2008
that I've had.
We typically like to have more in-depth discussions. The
interviews I have with the candidates are usually at least an hour, hour
and a half. We go through several due diligence questions to make
sure that what, you know, they're presenting On paper and what we
ultimately present On paper is, you know, fully vetted.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Ifmy -- if the board here has this
same idea as I have, I would like to see where we have five
candidates, that you go through and scrutinize all of the -- all the
information, all the candidates, come up with five, and then what we
can do is look at it -- after we look at all those five candidate, we can
probably come up to a conclusion that two of them need to be thrown
out and we have the three then, so --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: You just want to short down the
process?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's what you're saying.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: But I'd like to make sure that we
start off with at least five candidates that they've come up with.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, let's make sure that we're On the
same page. What you're asking for is to approve your -- the top 10?
MS. SIMS: Uh-huh. That's what I was looking for.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right.
MS. SIMS: But it sounds as though there's interest in going--
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Let's just make sure that everybody
understands. So we go from the top 10. From top 10, you will do an
interview and make recommendation --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- of a top five?
MS. SIMS: Right.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. So now we understand that
process. And Commissioner Coyle wants to give some direction.
Page 41
January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I'm confused about the
numbers. There are 13 people in this document that are highlighted in
red that I presume are the 13 that you wanted us to approve today.
Now I've heard numbers of nine or 10 thrown around. We've got to
get specific. I've also heard discussion about we're going to add two
or three more to the list. I don't understand what we're doing here.
MS. SIMS: I want -- okay. Let's go through. In the master
applicant list that is in the table of contents, we had 13 people -- we
had 13 people highlighted in red. All of those people were asked to
complete questionnaires.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
MS. SIMS: Those that completed the questionnaires are included
in the book.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. So the only 10 that you're
recommending are the 10 that you identified On the separate
memorandum?
MS. SIMS: Right.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Not in the book?
MS. SIMS: Right.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
MS. SIMS: Right. They're in the back.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, you talked about an
additional two or three that you're going to be sending to us. Is that in
addition to the 10 that you're now recommending or were they
considered when you narrowed it down to 10?
MS. SIMS: No. I looked at -- I did my final review of all the
applicants. There's some people that had applied since I got the book
out.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
MS. SIMS: I looked at all the listings, and out of those that I
saw, I saw an additional two that could be considered. I would
recommend, if we were to consider those two, you know, I would
Page 42
January 29,2008
have them receive questionnaires and, with your permission, have
them interviewed. I would also recommend that we take the
application for Collier County from our website so there'll be no other
late applicants to muddy things up.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, that will mean there will be
10 people plus two more?
MS. SIMS: Uh-huh.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: That will be 12 people in the final
approved list?
MS. SIMS: Yes, that I would interview, and I would come back
to you with the pros and COnS on those people. And you -- you know,
and I would be narrowing that group to five.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. You would not expect us to
make a decision about which of the 12 that you have selected? You
would be expecting us to make a decision on the five or six that you're
recommending?
MS. SIMS: Because those would be the ones that would be
coming to interview with you all.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Right. Now -- but before we reach
that point, I think we must allow for the members of the board to
dispute anyone who might have been eliminated in your screening.
MS. SIMS: I agree.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. So the next time we come
together to do this, I would guess that we would be asked two
questions, number one, to approve the list of your final five or six
finalists and take into consideration any disagreements we might have
with respect to people who are left off that list.
MS. SIMS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Right.
MS. SIMS: If they're people that you feel that should have been
considered that -- whose resumes are in the back of the book right
now, I'm open to that.
Page 43
January 29,2008
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now just for the
commission's information, I'm not suggesting that I be -- I have the
right to pull somebody out of the rejected list and put them On the
recommended list. That should be a majority vote of the commission.
I don't think any individual commissioner should have the right to pull
somebody out of the rejected list and put them On the finalist list
unless there's a majority vote, okay? Otherwise, it will turn into a
CIrcus.
MS. SIMS: Oh, no.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And you're just saying out of the
short list, if there's somebody that you strongly feel about, you want to
have those requests to put those back in for consideration?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's right. But it has to be a
majority vote of the board. It's not just something that an individual
commissioner should be able to do.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Even from the short five to six you're
saying, okay.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes, yes.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. One thing that I want to say,
and then I'll give it to Commissioner Fiala, in my perspective, if
somebody's late with this -- with their application, you know, I don't
know if I'm going to have too much confidence in that person of
giving us information in a timely fashion. That's my perspective.
MS. SIMS: I understand.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And, you know, I don't think there's
any excuses, period.
So Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Y es. Would we ever be allowed, if
we have different contacts in some of these places, is it out of line for
us to, say, call a friend that we have living in that particular city and
say, how is so and so performing or how have they performed?
MS. SIMS: As part of the referencing process, yes.
Page 44
January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER FIALA: It would be all right if we did that?
MS. SIMS: Yes, if you would give us those names. We have
people in our office. What we do is, when we ask for references from
the candidates that are semifinalists, we ask for 10 to 15 and -- we ask
for 10 to 15. We want people that they've worked for, people that
have worked for them and peers in the industry.
Typically -- so we end up with somewhat of a 360-degree
review. The other thing is, because people are in the public sector if,
through our research, LexisNexis, through Googling their questions,
we will, you know, question, and if names come up, we will check
with those individuals also. If you have names for us in those
jurisdictions, we'd appreciate it if you'd give those to us so that we can
have the person do that.
We attempt to do it without bias. So I'm the lead consultant On
this and I'm the One who interviews all the candidates and collects a
lot of the information.
We have another person in our office who's a trained professional
who does the referencing process. Not to say that I'm, you know, that
I'm a biased person, but just to make sure that we have someone else
who hasn't had the frequent contact that I have through the
interviewing process to hear other things about the person.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. Just an observation
concerning Commissioner Fiala's concern. I think it's important that
we be careful that we not get into the same situation that the school
board is in right now.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's smart.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Ifwe start individually contacting
people we know in another city and getting them involved in the
process, I think that exposes us and -- so here's my suggestion. If you
-- if you know of a reference, then we do it in the public here, we
notify our consultant, our search firm, have you checked this
Page 45
January 29,2008
particular reference, and let that reference be checked independently
of any personal contact by us, because it could be viewed as an
attempt by One of the commissioners to interfere in the selection
process.
MS. SIMS: I agree with that, and that's why, you know, we
would have our office do that. When the people -- when you get the
final five here to interview, you'll have a book On the final five, you'll
have the management profile that I'll prepare based On my interviews
and the materials that they've supplied. You'll have a copy of the
ORC chart that they currently manage. You'll also have the
references. And you know, we -- we share the notes from the
references in the book that you'll receive so that you will have, you
know, full disclosure.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And just one final comment. I
agree with Commissioner Henning's position On close -- cutting off the
time. If people were late in getting in their applications, that's tough.
We set a deadline. Deadline should be enforced. I believe that we
should deal with the deadline. And I have no idea who submitted
things when. But in any event, I would agree with that position,
Commissioner Henning.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah, just to give Commissioner
Fiala some comfort, you can either Google these people or you can
also get On LexisNexis and also do research, and it gives us some
additional information on those particular people. That's what I was
doing this weekend.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, okay, thanks.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: It will give you a lot more insight
into the candidates.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I've never been to LexisNexis. I'd
like to learn a little bit more about it. Not now though.
Page 46
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January 29,2008
MS. SIMS: No. I was getting ready to say, you know, you're
doing a lot of the work that our office does, and that's fine, because we
want you to feel comfortable with the candidates that are presented.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And that's great that commissioners
are doing that. I personally made phone calls myself to try to get
some guidance from people in the community.
So we just need to narrow down the direction as you understand
it. So if you would repeat what you understand from the wishes of the
board.
MS. SIMS: Okay, then. What I'm hearing from the board is that
I -- what I need from the board is approval of the semifinalists that I
have listed, the short list.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do you need that in a motion?
MS. SIMS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Could we ask that she read the
names of those people so the public will understand?
MS. SIMS: Sure. Elaine Asad, Maria Chairo, Gary Glassman,
Michael Hunt, Jeffrey Klatzkow, Julia Lee, Raymond Rea, William
Spillias, John Turner, and David Weigel.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Entertain a motion at this time.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So move.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'd like discussion. There's One
individual that I was interested in. I don't know if my -- rest of the
board members are, and that was John K. Dickerson. Did anybody do
any research On that?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, let me recognize the motion and
see if there's a second, and also we can also amend the motion.
Commissioner Coletta made a motion to accept the one through
lOon today's list. Is there a second to that motion?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I second it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a second to the motion.
Commissioner Halas, you wanted to ask the motion maker to
Page 47
January 29,2008
amend it to add an additional person to the short list.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: One additional person, if we could,
and that would be John K. Dickerson.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: May I ask why, sir?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Because I looked at the background
and I felt very -- I was quite taken by the background that this
individual had. He worked for my former company, Ford Motor
Company. He was in the law firm there at Ford and was involved in
land negotiations and things of this throughout the country.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. To be honest with you, I
feel a little uncomfortable doing that, to be honest with you. We hired
a consultant to bring us to this point, and I feel --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, he was listed in the book
here.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right. He was in the book.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I know he's in the book,
but he's not one of the 10 recommended, and I'm keeping the motion
just --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah. That's why I just asked.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. So it's not seconded by the
second, and I agree with that. I prefer somebody to have some
background in Florida law personally.
So there's a motion and second On the floor. All in favor of the
motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries unanimously.
Page 48
January 29, 2008
So tell me what your understanding of the process that the board
-- additional to what your recommendations are.
MS. SIMS: Okay. I will take the 10, interview them, we'll share
-- we will be pushing to finish the interviews as SOOn as possible. If
we can have them finished by next week, that would be the best case
for us because we would be able to present the listing of candidates for
the short -- the final short list for your meeting on the 12th.
If we are not able to schedule them by the end of next week, then
that will take place On your meeting of the 26th. And at that time, I
would have had an -- a one-on-one interview with each of the
candidates. You'll have -- and I'll prepare the pros and Cons On each
of their candidacies.
We have a very strong pool, so you should feel very good that
there were so many people that were very interested. I'll be assessing
their management and, you know, future fit for the organization and,
you know, seeking your approval at that point.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. And I just ask you to work
through the county attorney -- or county commission's office manager,
Sue Filson, and Sue will work with the county manager to make sure
that we're not bungling up the agenda too much; is the good?
MS. FILSON: Can I just ask One question? When you bring the
final five back On February 12th or the 26th, we are not planning to
interview them at that time? The board will do that in March?
MS. SIMS: Right.
MS. FILSON: Okay, good.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any -- anything further?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Do we want to take a break
now or wait till this afternoon?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Did we vote On this?
MR. MUDD: Yes, you did.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes, we did.
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January 29,2008
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Could I just make one comment
about the future meeting? Be very brief.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Sure.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. I would suggest that we
give some thought about our protocol for questioning the people --
Once we get to the next meeting, and we've got the five or six finalists,
we need to, at the following meeting, develop the protocol for
questioning them. We -- I've been told we cannot exclude any of them
from the audience, so it would be unfair if we just brought one up and
asked them the questions and then somebody else comes up. They
already know what the other people have said. It gives them an
advantage.
So we need to develop a protocol that sort of levels the playing
field a little bit, and maybe do it the way you handle some of the
political forums where, you know, you put them in alphabetical order
and you start with the one, the first of the list for the first question, the
one at the end of the list for the second question, and the middle of the
list for the third question and so forth, and then that mixes it up a little
bit. But we need to give some thought to that so that at the next
meeting maybe we can make some decisions.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That is very good. I like that
suggestion.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Have them go outside.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I don't think we can exclude them.
They can go outside and still listen. That's the problem.
MS. SIMS: Yeah. I was getting ready to say, that makes it --
that makes it more of a challenge.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We can also expand upon questions
during that process. But I think that's apropos, and we'll have to start
thinking about questions that we need -- want to pass through Sue.
MS. SIMS: Yeah. I mean -- and again, you know we do public
sector search a lot and we do it, you know, even in Florida. And even
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January 29,2008
when they're public meetings, we recommend to the candidates that
they not -- you not, as a courtesy, not sit in on their, quote,
competition's interview. But of course, if they choose to ignore us,
that's --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: They could just go look at the
television somewhere and --
MS. SIMS: Or they could be sequestered in a room without a
television.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I don't think we can do that.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, good. Well, should we
take 10 minutes?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Good. We're taking a 10-minute
break. We'll be back at 10:40.
(A brief recess was had.)
MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd please take your
seats.
Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you have a hot mike.
Item #6D
PUBLIC PETITION REQUEST FROM LEEANNE W. GRAZIANI
REGARDING EMINENT DOMAIN FOR SANTA BARBARA
BOULEVARD - REGARDING PARCELS 134, 135, & 136-
DISCUSSED
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. The next -- going to go
back to public petitions. The next public petition is a request by
Leeanne Graziani to discuss regarding the eminent domain On Santa
Barbara.
MS. GRAZIANI: Can I provide a few copies of the timeline and
some pictures to the commissioners?
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January 29,2008
MR. MUDD: Sure. Just give them to me. I'll take them.
MS. GRAZIANI: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Can I ask a question to the --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Sue?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: No, to the attorney.
MS. FILSON: Do you want me to start now?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Oh, before the public petition,
Commissioner Halas has a legal question for County Attorney's
Office.
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: This particular public petition, I
believe, is there -- is this in litigation at the present time?
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, it is.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Should we be listening to this then?
MR. KLATZKOW: That's a policy question for the board. It's
in eminent domain at this point in time.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: And it is in court?
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, it is, sir.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Sir, I think maybe we shouldn't be
listening to this.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. I personally disagree. I think
we're here for the public, members of the public. Doesn't mean that
we need to take action on anything, but I think it's something that we
need to go through the process.
Commissioner Coyle, do you want to hear this public petition?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I don't have a problem hearing it.
I'm going to refrain from making any comments at all concerning this
issue since it is in litigation.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I feel the same way. I don't
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January 29, 2008
mind listening to it, but I feel that we would compromise our position
if we make any comments.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. I think this is a public
forum that's available to whoever wants to bring whatever subjects
forward, and I strongly encourage them to do it. But Once again, I
don't feel there's the need to make comments when anything's in
litigation.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Please, Ms. Graziani.
MS. GRAZIANI: Yes. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Continue.
MS. GRAZIANI: My name's Leeanne Graziani, and my family
lives at 2861 and 2801 Santa Barbara Boulevard, and I'd like to take
this opportunity to discuss the eminent domain process and how it
affects our nearly 500 linear feet or nine and a half acres at the
northwest corner of the Santa Barbara Boulevard/Golden Gate
Parkway intersection which are parcels 134 through 136 on the map
that I provided and on the visualizer.
And I'll quickly walk through a time line of events that have
bearing on our situation and reserve any of my remaining time to
respond to any comments following my presentation.
On October 22, 2009, the Board of County Commissioners
approved resolution number 2002-442, which is -- which authorized
the acquisition of the right-of-way required for the widening of Santa
Barbara Boulevard. The motion also recommended that where
property owners are willing to sell the parent tract and all
improvements and the county determines a significant impact On the
parent tract as a result of the project, staff is authorized to acquire the
parent tract at fair market value.
On April 16, 2003, at the Santa Barbara/Logan Boulevard
workshop, the BCC realized that approximately 10 homes would be
extremely impacted by the project and that the board should provide
those homeowners with the opportunity to sell their entire homesites
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January 29, 2008
to the county.
Commissioner Coletta added that a reasonable inconvenience fee
should be considered when offering to purchase those impacted
properties.
Our parcel 136, which is 11 foot from the right-of-way following
the taking was identified as one of those 10 homes, but we were never
advised that a list was generated as early as August of 2002 or that our
parcel was on that list.
Parcel 137, which is immediately adjacent to our parcels -- and I
did indicate those parcel numbers in the map that I provided you -- has
been left within 35 feet of the right-of-way and was also identified on
that list.
That property owner was also concerned about the continued
enjoyment oflife after the project due to the roadway's proximity to
their home. County staff recommended, and the BCC approved as a
consent agenda item, the purchase of that property at their June 6,
2006, meeting.
Within a short time after closing On the property, that parcel was
deemed surplus and resold to the sole bidder, who was the next door
church as a parsonage.
The summary that I provided to you just, right before the green
page, provides the status of the other parcels that was on that short list
of 10, some of which are no longer eligible for purchase, as the length
of the road project was shortened.
The six parcels, parcels 122 and 126, which are located on the
southeast corner of Santa Barbara and Golden Gate Parkway and
known as the Parkway Center PUD, were not identified on that short
list as eligible for buy-out; however, following protracted negotiations
relating to the PUD sunsetting provisions, compliance issues related to
the Growth Management Plan, property values based on more intense
zoning than had initially been sought or approved and securing
funding source buy-out, staff ultimately recommended and the BCC
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January 29,2008
approved at their September 12, 2006, meeting the purchase of the
entirety of the parcels primarily due to the property owner's reliance
On a cross-access easement approved after the original PUD was in
place. And to date, I don't believe the county's identified a use for that
property following the completion of the road widening project or the
intersection improvements.
Residential parcels 132 and 133 are just one driveway to the
south of our parcels, and staff recommended and the BCC approved
an increase in the compensation over what was originally offered
through the county's program that was substantially greater than what
was initially offered, and we are assuming that was likely because of
the flawed appraisal process by the original appraiser.
There was some initial confusion on our part as to whether the
county had placed commercial values based on a pending compo plan
amendment that was ultimately rejected, but the County Attorney's
Office confirmed on January 15th of '08 that that easement was
acquired at residential values. And I've got some pictures in there that
can show you that our properties are just about as similarly situated
and more impacted by the road widening, and we agreed to negotiate
with county staff using the same approach, but staff has asserted that
our properties are apples and oranges for those.
And we believe that the pictures provided which compare our
parcels 134 and 135 with parcels 131 and 132 in the after condition
reflect that our properties actually were more impacted in the after
condition.
Just to let you know, we've been through nearly a year of
construction now, and the negative impact On our property and our
quality of life becomes more obvious each day. We believe our
properties are the most heavily impacted by the right-of-way taking,
as we'll end up with 10 or more lanes in front of our house, plus the
bike lanes and the sidewalks.
The county appraiser -- county's appraiser suggests that the
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January 29,2008
addition of landscaping and a concrete wall will bring parcel 136 to
the before condition -- that's the one that's 11 feet from the
right-of-way -- but it's clear from the pictures, or even a drive by the
property, that that home isn't livable in the after condition as
determined by staff and outside consultants well before offer letters
were drafted or negotiations began.
We received our offer letter from the county in July of '05, and
our property was taken in July of '06. It seemed that our property had
gotten lost in the shuffle, so I contacted staff in March of '07 at the
start of the road construction and opened a dialogue to try to resolve
our situation.
We requested that the county either buy us out or, in the
alternative, settle with us in a manner similar to the approach used for
the nearby parcels 131 and 132, while recognizing that the home on
our parcel 136 was not livable in the after condition and would either
need to be rebuilt elsewhere -- and would need to be rebuilt elsewhere
on the parcel.
County staff acknowledged during several meetings and
telephone calls between March the 2nd and April 13th of 2007 the
serious situation we were in and requested that we be patient and that
they would work with the top people to find an acceptable solution.
March 30th of '07, county staff provided a counteroffer which
was still inconsistent with those nearby property owners and also
provided that the home on parcel 136 left within 11 feet of the
right-of-way was only 40 percent damaged.
Since that time, we've attempted to keep the lines of
communication open with staff and even offered last July to mediate
directly with staff and without attorneys in an effort to keep costs
down and come to a resolution.
The county has remained unwilling to buy us out and unwilling
to pay for rebuilding the house elsewhere On 136 and unwilling to
negotiate a settlement On our parcels 134 and 135 similar to our
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January 29, 2008
neighbors.
We nOw find ourselves proceeding to a costly and
time-consuming trial that we tried to avoid while not compromising
our property rights. We don't understand why we're being treated
differently than our neighbors. The BCC had a mechanism and
authorization in place for staff to buyout at least one of our properties
at fair market value, but we were not advised of that opportunity.
With respect to our other two parcels, which staff also had on a
list as early as August of '02 but didn't tell us we're within the parcels
heavily impacted, we're just asking that the same approach be used as
that that was used by our similarly impacted neighbors. And we're
just asking to be treated fairly and consistently and in the manner
originally authorized by the BCC.
So our respectful request today is that the BCC provide guidance
to staff to be consistent in treating our property as they have our
similarly situated residential neighbors, and also that staffbe reminded
that the original direction and authority was to purchase those parcels
which were identified as the most heavily impacted homes and,
therefore, are eligible for purchase at fair market value.
This is not a request on our part for the commissioners to
negotiate for us, but simply just to assist in reminding staff of the
direction or the authorization that was already established and which
has been used to successfully settle with nearby property owners in an
effort just to get this matter back on track and to let us get back to our
lives.
Again, thank you for your time and consideration of this request.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Ms. Graziani, the public petition is a
process afforded to the residents to petition their local government. In
that we allow the public 10 minutes for the -- convince the
commission to take action, whatever it is.
The commissioners may have questions of you and our staff. It
is not time to rebut. It's trying to come to resolution.
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January 29, 2008
So my question for staff is, did the board give authorization to go
to eminent domain? And ifso, and if the board wishes to retract its
previous guidance, does it fit the time line under our ordinance for
reconsideration in this case, eminent domain?
Mr. Weigel?
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Happy to respond.
The parcels discussed by Ms. Graziani are part of a board
directive relating to a road project sometime ago. The eminent
domain proceedings have been entered into a long time ago, and the
procedural aspect of reconsideration is not available at this point for a
determination -- a policy determination direction to the board given
long ago.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Is there any questions?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: County Manager have anything?
MR. MUDD: No, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
Item #9B
RESOLUTION 2008-30: APPOINTING EDWARD L. LARSEN
AND RE-APPOINTING RICHARD KRAENBRING TO THE
COLLIER COUNTY CODE ENFORCEMENT BOARD -
ADOPTED
Next we're going on to item -- section 9 in our agenda, and the
first one is to appoint members to the Collier County Code
Enforcement Board.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Motion to approve Richard--
reappoint Richard Kraenbring. Am I pronouncing it right?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Kraenbring, yes.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And also Edward Larson to
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January 29, 2008
replace Sheri Barnett who's going off the board.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right. There's a motion to reappoint
Richard Kraenbring and also Edward Larson.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a motion by Commissioner
Coletta, second by Commissioner Halas.
All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries, unanimously.
Item #9C
RESOLUTION 2008-31: APPOINTING WILLIAM H. POTEET JR.
(W/W AIVER OF TERM LIMITS), ANTHONY P. PIRES, JR., AND
JEFFREY S. CURL TO THE LAND ACQUISITION ADVISORY
COMMITTEE - ADOPTED
MR. MUDD: Commissioners, the next one is an appointment of
members to the Land Acquisition Advisory Committee.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Motion to approve the committee's
recommendation in the order of preference, and that is William H.
Poteet, Anthony Pires, and Jeffrey Curl.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I'll second that. There's a motion by
Commissioner Halas to appoint Mr. Poteet, Mr. Pires, and Mr. Curl.
MS. FILSON: And Mr. Chairman, Mr. Poteet has served more
than one term, so that will have to be waived.
Page 59
January 29, 2008
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And there's a second by
Commissioner Henning. And Commissioner Halas has stated to
waive the provisions of the ordinance, along with my second.
All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries.
Next item is to --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Could I --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes, please.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. When you write Mr. Schmid
back, would you tell him that he was more or less rejected because it
says he didn't meet criteria, but the proper information wasn't given to
us in time for --
MS. FILSON: Yeah. When he sent his application in, he had
indicated that he was registered to vote. When I sent the memo to
elections, they sent it back that he wasn't. So I gave him a courtesy
call. He said that he had just registered, and with the election and all,
I called over there like four times. I called right before I did the
executive summary. So I called this morning before the meeting and
they indicated that he had registered, but it was after the fact.
Item #9D
MOTION TO ACCEPT COMMITTEE'S RECOMMENDATIONS-
DENIED; RESOLUTION 2008-32: APPOINTING LAURA A.
DEJOHN AND RE-ADVERTISE FOR THE OPEN POSITION TO
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January 29, 2008
THE DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE-
ADOPTED
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Next item is 9D, to appoint
members, two members, to the Development and Advisory Services
(sic) Committee.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to approve the committee
recommendation.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a motion by Commissioner
Fiala to appoint committee's recommendation, second by
Commissioner Henning.
Yes, Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, just a comment. I think the
world of Patrick White; however, he does represent a number of
clients out there that have issues with code enforcement. So I think
there's a conflict here, a serious One. Until I --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: But this is for development services.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's correct, but they're the
ones that make the recommendations, and it could be top heavy as far
as trying to make sure that his clients are served or remembering
certain cases that he may have lost. I just think it's problematic
myself.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Well, there is a motion and a
second On the floor.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I understand.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I think the -- there's a little confusion
what the -- this committee does. It makes recommendations On -- since
it is an enterprise fund -- of things like Land Development Code and --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Exactly.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- and the operation of, you know, the
permitting and so on and so forth.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, I'm not confused, sir. I
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January 29, 2008
appreciate you asking.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Mr. Schmitt, would you clarify what
the duties are of Development Services Advisory Committee?
Mr. SCHMITT: For the record, Joe Schmitt, your Community
Development/Environmental Services Division Administrator.
Basically they act somewhat as -- I'll classify it as my board of
directors overseeing the functions and duties within development
services, specifically advising On operations, LDC amendment, other
type of activities are all vetted through the DSAC in regards to the
permitting and land use business.
So without going into the code, the LDC lists specifically what
they're responsible for, but they meet monthly and they provide
oversight and direction for my organization.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is that oversight including code
enforcement, the operations of code enforcement?
MR. SCHMITT: No, no, it does not involve code enforcement.
And unless and only if it's an LDC amendment that may impact a code
enforcement process, meaning development -- developing codes or
reviewing codes. But no, it looks at the enterprise type functions, the
zoning and land use business.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do our county attorneys feel that
there's any conflict of interest here?
MR. KLATZKOW: I think ifthere was a conflict at a particular
point in time, Mr. White would probably recuse himself at that point
in time.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Very good. Okay. My second
stands. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No, your first stands.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, my first stands, yeah.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And I'll stand on your first with my
second.
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January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any further discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All in favor of the motion, signify by
saymg aye.
Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: The motion -- what's that?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Motion failed.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: The motion failed 3-2, Commissioner
Fiala, Commissioner Henning voted in favor.
Is there an alternative motion, alternate motion?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. I'd like to make a motion
that we approve Laura DeJohn and readvertise for the other position.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'll second that.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a motion by Commissioner
Coletta to appoint Laura DeJohn, second by Commissioner Halas, and
in the motion also to advertise the second position.
Any discussion on the motion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All in favor of the motion, signify by
saying aye?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
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January 29, 2008
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries, unanimously.
Item #IOA
RESOLUTION 2008-33: APPROVAL OF EXHIBIT E,
AMENDMENT #2 TO CONTRACT #06-3914, CONSTRUCTION
MANAGEMENT AT RISK SERVICES FOR THE COLLIER
COUNTY FLEET FACILITIES WITH WRIGHT
CONSTRUCTION CORP. IN THE AMOUNT OF $9,272,848.00
FOR THE FLEET FACILITY, PROJECT #52009, PHASE 3,
WHICH INCLUDES THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW
SHERIFF'S FLEET MANAGEMENT DEP AR TMENT FACILITY
AND THE REPLACEMENT OF THE EXISTING FUEL
FACILITY THAT IS SHARED BY BOTH THE COUNTY AND
SHERIFF'S FLEET DEPARTMENTS - ADOPTED
That is it for section nine of our agenda. Now we go into the
county attorney's -- or county manager's part of the agenda, and this is
to recommend to approve Exhibit E, amendment number two of the
contract, 06-3914, Construction Management at Risk for Collier
County fleet facilities with Wright Construction, Incorporated (sic), in
the amount of 9,227,848 for the fleet facility projects, 52009, Phase 3,
including the construction of the new sheriffs fleet management
department facilities and replacing the existing fuel facilities to be
shared by both the Collier County and Sheriffs Department fleet.
MR. JONES: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record,
Hank Jones from Facilities Management. I'm here today with a brief
presentation on this last, final phase of three phases on this fleet
facility project.
We've been working on this project for about four-and-a half
years now. And the first two phases which you had approved, Phase
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January 29, 2008
1, shown in the left -hand panel there, was the relocation of an existing
guy-wire type communication tower you replaced by the free-standing
unit shown in the artist's rendering; Phase 2, which you approved last
November, was the construction of the new Baltimore County--
Baltimore, excuse me, past life -- BCC fleet facility. That is -- started
last January and completed on schedule and within budget in
December, late December, and was occupied early January.
And nOW we are into Phase 3, which is the final phase for
developing the property, and that is the new sheriff facility to be built
in place of the -- to demolish the existing old fleet facility.
There's a site plan showing briefly how the property was laid out.
The red -- County Barn Road is on your left. Phase 1 is the tower, the
new tower location. The old tower was about in the middle of the new
fleet facility, and shown in blue there, Phase 2, and the new proposed
sheriffs facility Phase 3 in green.
That's a picture taken late October of the new BCC facility as it
was nearing completion. The property -- unfortunately, camera didn't
pick up the tower or the front of the parcel.
Some of the history there, which I've already spoken to.
Skipping down, the permit for the Phase 3 facility has already been
issued in October. We received the GMP in November from Wright
Construction. There was a problem with budgetary constraints
because some of the facility came in somewhat higher than expected.
The vehicle wash facility came in a bit higher, and the fuel facility that
was added last -- a year ago, that came in slightly higher.
So we went through, scoured the construction documents,
scoured the estimate, and between myself and the representatives, both
the sheriffs fleet and the county fleet, we decided that the best course
of action was to eliminate the vehicle wash facility at least for the
present to bring this project within the budget constraints.
So we received the revised GMP from Wright in December for
the amount you see there, 9,272,848. There's a brief detail of the -- of
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January 29,2008
that project cost. The entire project shapes up as shown on this kind
of crowded slide, but. You can see that the only items left in the
project are the sheriffs fleet and some commissioning fees and some
contingency on the whole project, the three-phase project.
The funding is shown there and in your executive summary, and
we did meet with the finance committee, who approved the
commercial paper loan amount as stated.
Recommendations are that you approve the Exhibit E
amendment, authorize the chairman to sign it, of course adopt the
resolutions for the commercial paper loan and necessary budget
amendments.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle has a question,
Commissioner Coletta has a question, Commissioner Halas.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. To me GMP means growth
management proposal. What does it mean in your parlance?
MR. JONES: Guaranteed maximum prices.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay, good. Thank you very
much.
MR. JONES: Sorry about that.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Secondly, I've got figures which
indicate the costs for the phases. What was the original budget for all
three phases?
MR. JONES: The original budget going back five years was
approximately -- well, 10, 12 million dollars. The phase -- last
November -- excuse me, November of'06, item IOJ on your agenda
updated the three-phase project cost with the addition of the fuel
facility and more recent estimates of the entire three phases to the
22,9-, which was approved on item 10J in November, '06.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: So the figure of 22,9- was the
original budget, and you're still going to be able to complete it within
the original budget.
MR. JONES: Absolutely.
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January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is that a fair statement?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes. Okay, thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. I have just a little bit of
concern. This is -- we're going into an uncertain economic time, and I
realize that these funds have been dedicated before to this.
But one more time, the facility that is there now, they're going to
tear it down and then build the new part for the Sheriffs Department
to be able to utilize.
Help me with this just a little bit. Is there any reason why this
facility just can't remain as-is for a couple years and the facility be
used by the Sheriffs Department with some slight modifications to be
able to put this money aside?
MR. JONES: Yes, Commissioner. That was evaluated, of
course, early on. The existing facility has quite a few shortcomings,
size and configuration, one; but more seriously, the building itself is
deteriorating from age, and it would take some sizable investment just
to bring that up to meet the standard that the code requires. Yes. It's
an old prefab metal building that is experiencing some severe
deterioration.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We couldn't get three more
years out of it or it's going to fall down On top of us?
MR. CAMP: It would not be safe.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm sorry. I can't hear you.
MR. CAMP: For the record, Skip Camp. It would not be safe in
its current condition. It would take considerable additions in order for
it to be safe.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So in other words, our engineers
would be going in there and they'd probably certify the building as
unsafe and it wouldn't be able to be used? Is that what you're saying?
MR. CAMP: I'm not sure I want to say that on record, but the
building needs to be torn down, Commissioner.
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January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah, no offense. I'm just
trying to -- I mean, I've been out there, and I mean, I'm not an
engineer. And from what I seen, the building looked fine, it looked
adequate. But, you know -- and I realize that we have the problem
with the sheriff spread out all over the landscape, and we're spending
close to that, a quarter of a million dollars in lease money every year
to be able to keep them in place.
My whole thing is just -- and I understand what you're saying.
Just the present facility as it is now, with the understanding that two,
three years from now, if we could put this money aside to be able to
make our budget go a little bit farther and offer those other services --
I don't know how we could transfer the money back and forth. I only
see $33 in impact fee, so I don't think that's a big problem.
But I mean, the other monies, maybe we might be able to use
them to keep providing a level of service that people come to expect in
other ways. And you know, as long as I'm not placing the Sheriffs
Department or anybody in jeopardy, it's a comfort item where it's a
little bit uncomfortable to use the facility and it still works, I -- you
know, maybe we should look that way.
MR. CAMP: Commissioners, the current sheriffs facility is
grossly inadequate, and there's a number of items that I would be
happy to talk to you off record about as it relates to security and their
current environment, the way they're spread out through the
neighborhood, if you will. This project's been thought out for a long,
long time and -- well, you have our recommendation.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'll let somebody else take the
discussion from here.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. I think what you're trying to
get at is, this is a consolidation of some of the sheriffs problems?
Okay.
The other thing is that you said that you were going to eliminate
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January 29,2008
the vehicle wash facility. Isn't this part of the maintenance of vehicles
or not?
MR. JONES: Yes. It was planned to be a part; however, we --
the county's been doing without it for some time now. It was a thing
that would be nice to have and we probably will want to have it in the
future. But right now with the budget constraints, it was felt to be
more of an option than any of the other parts of the proj ect.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: How are they washing vehicles
today?
MR. CAMP: Let me add one other thing also, that the county
manager has asked us to work with the Sheriffs Office to have a
program for inmate labor, to have inmates start washing cars also.
We're looking at that.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Good, okay. That answers the
question. That's great.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Mr. Jones, the -- was this value
engineered?
MR. JONES: Not formally by committee, Productivity
Committee, but by myself. I went through this thing to try to look at
all aspects of it to make sure that we had the optimum mix of capital
cost and investment.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And I know you do a good job at that.
MR. JONES: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I was very pleased with your work on
the emergency management.
Now, Exhibit E, it also refers to Exhibit B, proposal to Exhibit B
of 12/19/2007, which is not in our agenda packet; is that correct?
MR. JONES: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Can you give us an overview of what
Exhibit B is?
MR. JONES: Exhibit B is a list of the drawings --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
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January 29, 2008
MR. JONES: -- of the architectural plans and mechanical plans.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there -- is there equipment
provided into this contract?
MR. JONES: There is some equipment provided in the contract,
and the commissioning material, budget that you saw there, is for
some additional specialized equipment which would have to be
installed.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. That equipment, if there's a
savings, is that going to go to the contractor?
MR. JONES: On this particular contract, I'd have -- I don't know
right now whether this amendment was -- whether this contract was
amended last year. I don't believe it was. So if there were GMP
savings and it was not amended, it would revert to the contractor --
excuse me -- to the county.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: To the county.
MR. JONES: Ifit was not amended, it reverts to the county.
I might point out though that Wright Construction who has done
-- make a little advertisement for them -- but they've done an excellent
job on the first, second -- the phase that they completed here recently.
They were exactly within budget, had no extras. Their GMP materials
they did issue to us were precise and there were no deviations from
them.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do we know what our capacity is as
far as bonding? Can you get maybe a percentage to -- County
Manager, do we know?
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. You -- you're at the limit when you bond
the $50 million for Norm Feder and his transportation plan, and this
has been included in that particular issue. That's why it went in front
of the finance committee in order to make sure it was okay.
If you remember, Norman came before you here several months
ago and talked about his five-year plan and how he might have to -- in
the first couple of years, might have to borrow money, and then the
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January 29,2008
latter part he would pay that money back. That $50 million to
Norman will take you right to the limit. So we will-- we will be out of
-- we -- we're done with our capacity. You've got a 13 percent cap
according to your Growth Management Plan. You'll be at it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And that's -- Norm hasn't done that
yet; is that correct?
MR. MUDD: Norm hasn't done that yet.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: So we have an opportunity to see
what our revenue stream is going to be within the next couple years
before we make that hard decision?
MR. MUDD: For Norman, yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, for everybody, for the people
who we serve.
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. So the way I understood it,
also from what I read, is this is about the last building now that we're
going to be building for quite a while; is that the case?
MR. MUDD: That's absolutely correct, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. I think we should put that On
the record as well.
MR. JONES: I might also add that as Mr. Camp indicated, this
existing building will need to be replaced in the very near future. And
right now, we have Wright Construction mobilized, on site as a matter
of fact, we have kind of held them up a month here while we got the
finishing touches On their gross -- guaranteed maximum price. And I
don't think there will ever be a time in the future that we can replace
this structure and move the sheriff for less money than this present
proposal.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good. And I know the labor's
available right now, too. I want to say how much better this place is
looking than it looked a few years ago. What a mess it was, and it was
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actually a disgrace to that surrounding community. So I'm really
pleased to see how the -- the improvements that have taken place.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Entertain a motion.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion to approve item lOA, second
-- by Commissioner Fiala, second by Commissioner Halas.
Any further discussion?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Just briefly. I'm still having
some problems. You know, I'm told that the building isn't safe. Based
upon a person's opinion -- and I don't think there's any private
engineer or anyone else that has certified the building unsafe, and also
the fact that there's security issues, which has never been explained to
me before and we can't talk about in public. So I could -- I could
support a motion to continue this until I get that information but I can't
vote for the motion as it is right now.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Any further discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All in favor of the motion, signify by
saymg aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: The motion carries, 4-1, with
Commissioner Coletta in the opposition.
Item #10C
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January 29,2008
THE PLANNING COMMISSIONS POLICY
RECOMMENDATION IN SUPPORT OF CONTINUALLY
UPHOLDING THE CURRENT PROGRAMMA TIC PROHIBITION
OF TRANSFER OF DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS (TDR)
SEVERANCE FROM ILLEGAL SENDING LAND PROPERTY
WITHIN THE RURAL FRINGE MIXED-USE DISTRICT
(RFMUD) - MOTION TO ACCEPT CCPC'S
RECOMMENDATIONS - APPROVED
Item lOB is a time certain for this afternoon. And item --
MR. MUDD: Brings us to 10C, sir, which is a recommendation
that the Board of County Commissioners evaluate and consider the
Planning Commission's policy recommendation in support of
continually upholding the current programmatic prohibition of transfer
of development rights severance from illegal sending land property
within the rural fringe mixed-use district.
Joe Thompson, Senior Planner, Comprehensive Planning, will
present.
MR. THOMPSON: Good morning. For the record, Joe
Thompson, Comprehensive Planning.
This issue was previously before you On November 27th. It deals
with primarily illegal lots and TDR severance eligibility. At that
point, staff had presented various policy options for you to evaluate.
The recommendation to staff after the evaluation took place from the
board was to take the issue back to the -- actually not back to the
Planning Commission -- take it to the Planning Commission for an
evaluation and assessment previous to -- the board would make any
policy decision.
We did that on December 20th. Staff presented before the
Planning Commission. Planning Commission took apart the issue.
There was extensive discussion, and ultimately they're forwarding
back a recommendation in their advisory capacity to the board that
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January 29,2008
there be a continual prohibition ofTDR severance from illegal lots.
And that's the Planning Commission's 6-1 recommendation to the
board.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a motion by Commissioner
Coyle, second by Commissioner Fiala to accept staffs
recommendations.
Now there's discussion.
MS. FILSON: What is your name?
MR. SCHULZE: Jim Schulze.
MS. FILSON: Oh, you're registered for 10C. You wanted lOB?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No, it's 10C.
MR. MUDD: No, it's IOC.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We're working on IOC.
MR. MUDD: lOB was the time certain.
MS. FILSON: Oh, I'm so sorry.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's all right.
MS. FILSON: I have one speaker, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. I have a question.
MR. THOMPSON: Sure.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there any proposal for resolution to
not create a Swiss cheese effect in the fringe with these, what is
so-called illegal lots?
MR. THOMPSON: Well, ultimately the resolution is built into
the program. Eventually, the goal is to have a governmental entity
available to accept property in conveyance. And ultimately, if you
were to have these holes like you reference in the Swiss cheese, they
would -- I mean, if they were, you know, obvious impediments to
ecological or hydrological restoration, you would have an entity that
would recognize that and go out and actively purchase these
properties. That would be the underlying assumption in the future,
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January 29, 2008
that the rural fringe will ultimately pan out.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Which government agency did you
speak to that is going to -- has interest in purchasing these illegal lots?
MR. THOMPSON: I haven't personally spoken to any
governmental agencies. I do know for the South Belle Meade it would
be the Florida Board of Trustees, so ultimately the State of Florida is
active in owning about 20,000 plus/minus acres in that area.
North Belle Meade, staff actually had a proposal from the Collier
Sewer and Water Conservation District with respect to their interest in
that area.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, thank you, Commissioner
Henning.
I'll tell you what my concern is, it's just like you mentioned, the
Swiss cheese effect. I know that the Conservancy is opposed to this.
The reaSOn they're opposed to it is because they're trying to limit the
amount of transfer of development credits that will be out there to try
to limit density; however, with that said, we're going to have an effect
that's going to take place a generation or two from now.
You're going to have empty lots that are going to be out there that
have no determination other than the fact that this present commission
calls them illegal.
If we could come up with some mechanism by giving them a
fraction of what the TDRs are, you know, and recognizing the fact that
they're only like a fraction of an acre, and then basing it upon that.
The one thing is, it gives it something as far as value goes so they can't
use it in a court case maybe a generation removed to be able to say
we've been denied due process. Our land has no value because of the
action the county commission took back in 2008, and we want it
changed.
And at that point in time, it may happen. Until these lots get into
a -- the hand of conservation organizations or a place to side in such a
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January 29, 2008
way that they can't be touched, we're vulnerable. We're vulnerable for
people to exploit it.
I'll remind you what happened with Dr. Hussey's property -- they
said it wouldn't happen -- was the fact that if we did nothing, nothing
would happen there. Well, they're in there clearing the property and
they've about got it cleared nOw for grazing under Right to Farm. We
made an error there and we're going to make an error in this case, too.
We've got to preserve this for future generations, and that's why I still
believe that we need to come up with a program where we can put a
value On these things.
Now I said my part. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, you sure did. Any other
comments? Let's go to the public speaker.
MS. FILSON: Mr. Chairman, I have One public speaker. Jim
Schulze.
MR. SCHULZE: Before I start, I'd like to comment on Joe's -- if
we allow -- we have an opportunity here to have the developers and
the builders pay for this land through the TDR program. Ifwe wait
and have a government entity, South Florida Water Management, pay
for this property, all we're doing is we're taking it from an opportunity
to have a developer pay for it to having the taxpayers pay for it. Why
would we do that? It doesn't make sense.
We lost the TDRs from Dr. Hussey's property. This property is
not going to make up for those TDRs. We're still not going to have
enough to make up for Dr. Hussey's TDRs. We cannot get Dr.
Hussey's TDRs back.
Nancy Payton -- that was one ofthe things that Nancy Payton
brought up when she spoke on this, and she does want our property
involved with this program because she does see the Swiss cheese
problem.
I would like to say that the Planning Commissioner Mark Strain's
remark about my request to allow these non-conforming lots the same
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January 29, 2008
rights as other non-conforming lots as being absurd as being very
irresponsible. Obviously he did not get the point.
I'm not up here to argue about my personal lot. I'm up here to
say that these lots are legal, non-conforming lots. There are 64 of
these lots. They vary in size from mine being smallest, .34 acres, up to
4.8 acres.
I have a list of all the people that Own these lots given to me by
Joe. These -- taxpayers, homeowners, business owners, landowners.
There's nothing absurd about us wanting a chance to have our land
rights restored.
I believe, as every attorney, engineer, and author of the TDR
program that I've spoken to On a personal level, that the staffs
interpretation of an illegal lot is wrong. These lots were intended to be
part of the TDR program and they are legal, non-conforming lots.
Commissioner Coyle, you made a statement in a recent meeting
on the homestead tax amendment. You told us that the chances that
this amendment would be taken to court -- and you also said that
although you were not an attorney, you believe that what's fair usually
wins in court. If we pay the same property taxes, isn't it fair that we
have the same benefits?
I've sent letters out to the landowners of these non-conforming
lots to inform them of what's happening. We intend -- the only avenue
that I see left to us is a legal interpretation, which is what the planning
board advised that we do.
I'm just asking -- you know, I don't know what the step from here
would be. If you want to table it until we get a legal determination
done or -- I don't know. It's up to you guys.
One thing I would like to point out, I did print out -- these are all
the TDRs that are for sale right now. There's like 30 of them, so we're
not talking about, you know, 64 lots flooding the market with TDRs.
There's 30 of them on the Internet right now for sale.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Is that your only --
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January 29, 2008
MS. FILSON: That's your final speaker, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Are you sure?
Is there any other discussion? Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, just One thing. Joe, aren't
these lots supposed to be buildable in order for them to be legal?
MR. THOMPSON: That was the initial recommendation. There
was various policy options that we presented to you on the 27th, and
the one that you concluded would be the most feasible was to actually
look at illegal lots that were developable. And when I say that, it was
from the property size and lot configuration perspective, obviously not
zoning. But yes, that was initially what you evaluated and was for the
Planning Commission to take a look at, as well as to look at the whole
Issue.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. Question, Joe.
Now, under the present Right to Farm Act, these lots aren't buildable,
the people still have the rights to be able to farm on them, correct?
MR. THOMPSON: Yes, they do, that's correct.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So they could clear this pristine
land to a certain degree if it's -- and use it for farming. At that point in
time they're no longer eligible for, what is it, 10 or 20 years?
MR. THOMPSON: It's a 25-year prohibition.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: A 25-year prohibition, but it
breaks up the whole landscape out there for what it is. It's no longer a
pristine environment and trying to restore it. This is going to be an
impediment to it. That's what I'm trying to get to. And if we had some
way to be able to have a value to it, they might be less inclined to
clear it for grazing, as Hussey did, or for general farming, and we
might be able to merge them together.
Nothing's going to happen that it won't cost the taxpayers. That's
the big thing. Puts it all On hold, it gives a little bit of value to it so
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January 29, 2008
that at some point in time we can act on it. Remember all the success
we're having getting money from water management for our projects?
That's what you want to do today is say that the water management's
going to have more money to be able to buy these lots some day.
That's not going to happen. These lots will eventually be given back
to the people by some future commission or future court system. It's
inevitable. Until we get it to the public domain, we're in danger of
upsetting the balance of the intentions of this program, original
intentions.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Well, you know, to me, this
executive summary doesn't provide resolution to what the board, at
least the three of us, understanding is. There's pristine lands in the
fringe and we need to remove those development rights. And I know
there's an opinion whether some have development rights or not.
The bottom line is, is it pristine or is it not? And what is the
resolution? I haven't heard it. I'm not going to support this executive
summary because I think we're here to provide resolutions to problems
within a reasonable meanS. We do have property owners, illegal lot
owners or whatever you want to call it. It's still land, and we need to
find resolution.
There are several TDRs provided to legal lot owners. I don't
think anybody said, you know, give them the same benefit as the other
ones. But be it as it may, we're going to move On.
Commissioner Coyle, do you have something to offer?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, just very briefly. You know,
I think it's important that we not overly sensationalize this process
because there are a couple of pin-sized holes in a doughnut of
hundreds of thousands of acres is not going to invalidate the in -- the
environmentally sensitive land that we have preserved. Let's not
overreact to this.
The CCPC looked at this very closely, as they do in all the
matters we send to them, and they decided that the system isn't
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January 29, 2008
broken. There's no need to fix it. So I feel that we should proceed
with this, leave the system alone, let it work, and my motion still
stands to accept the CCPC's recommendations.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. And if they really are
environmentally sensitive and pristine, they always have the option of
offering this for sale to the Conservation Collier organization to buy.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's true.
Okay. Any further discussion?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Just One point I wanted to
emphasize upon. I'll try not to be an over sensationalist, but the issue
is, is one, it's not going to cost the taxpayers anything to be able to do
this; two, we've got a TDR program that is not broken, that if there's a
--less TDRs available than there were before to be able to meet the
needs they originally projected, this would put a small minute number
of them back into the system. So I'm not too sure why we say the
system isn't broken. It's not broken. This is a minor issue for the most
part.
But be it as it may, we're all going to vote our conscience.
MR. THOMPSON: Yep.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No further discussion. All in favor,
signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: The motion carries, 3-2,
Commissioner Coyle (sic) and Commissioner Henning opposed to the
motion.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, no, not quite.
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January 29,2008
COMMISSIONER COYLE: No. Commissioner Coletta.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah, the other C.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The other C, right.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Coletta. Apologize.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's okay.
Item #10D
A RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS OF COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA,
AMENDING AND CLARIFING THE COUNTY'S
STORMW ATER FUNDING POLICY; FUNDING OF
STORMW A TER MANAGEMENT; FINDINGS AND PURPOSE;
CAP IT AL AND OPERATING BUDGET; DEFINITIONS;
SUPERSEDING BOARD RESOLUTION NO. 2005-115; AND
PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE - CONTINUED TO A
FUTURE BCC MEETING - APPROVED
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that would bring us to 10D, which
is a recommendation to adopt a resolution of the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, to amend and clarify the
county's stormwater funding policy; funding of stormwater
management; findings and purpose; capital and operating budget
definitions; superseding board resolution number 2005-115; and
providing an effective date.
Norm Feder, your Transportation Services Administrator, will
present.
MR. FEDER: Commissioners, within your package we have
provided to you two possible approaches to respond On the stormwater
funding policy. The first is to recognize that by action of the Florida
legislature, the formulation of the MSTUs requires essentially the
reduction or the corresponding removal from your budget ad valorem
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January 29, 2008
taxation or millage.
So, therefore, if you look to maintain the existing policy, which I
have up on the visualizer now, which is a proportionate share covering
both the secondary system, the tertiary system, and tidal, and the
reliance that it has On MSTUs, the fourth resolution, Exhibit Number
4, second resolution in your package, would address that, would
require that the board formulate MSTUs by mandatory structure rather
than voluntary, which has been part of our problems in addressing the
policy in the past.
And then if you want to maintain the resulting ad valorem, a
millage would have to, by supermajority vote, address that during
budget cycle.
However, in the last two efforts with your Planning Commission
and the Productivity Committee to address the stormwater program
and to define truly levels of service in the direction for the program it's
become evident that -- the difficulty in trying to move forward with
the proportionate share and the reliance On MSTUs and the
assumption that you can set a level of service On the tertiary system,
which has been evidenced by some of the issues we've had to bring to
the board on the tertiary system and the conflicts and discussion that
that has engendered.
Our recommendation to you is to adopt the resolution as
attachment 1 which focuses the attention of the stormwater program
on the secondary system. It's pretty much a parallel to what we do in
the transportation system where the state and federal government are
involved, I - 7 5, U. S. 41, pretty much what we call in stormwater the
primary system where the Water Management District, Big Cypress
Basin -- Clarence is here -- are in charge of the operations and
maintenance of that portion of the system.
The secondary system, which in transportation is your arterials
and your major collectors, is the secondary system as defined in
stormwater, which is really your conveyance from neighborhood
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drainage systems to the primary system and then to outfall. That is the
system that we're recommending we focus our attention to the .15
mills for stormwater and the grant funds that have been received,
which a lot have been from Big Cypress Basin, Water Management
District, but all the grant funds have been focused on those major
capital project or those secondary system improvements, not the
tertiary system.
With that focus, we'd be able to pay our attention to those
projects that are providing the greatest relief, the greatest relief for the
broader community. We would recommend that we only get involved
in the tertiary system improvements when there's a public health,
safety, and welfare concern, that would be an item we'd bring to the
board, along with the community.
And at that time the board would decide what, if any, level of
county involvement there would be or how the county would help that
community in structuring an MSBU or possibly an MSTU at that time
as well. But the focus would not be on the tertiary system. It would
be On the secondary.
That's pretty much, again, in the parallel to the road system,
where we do not set a level of service for the local streets, we do
maintain them. And we do go in to address health, safety, welfare
issues as they come up, but we don't look to expand the local road
system to address capacity, which in the case of stormwater, relates to
two separate issues; One is conveyance, flood control, and the second
being water quality or water recharge.
And so we have to balance those issues, but setting that level of
service on the secondary system is something working with your
Planning Commission and the Productivity Committee and bringing
that back to the board. We had gotten that direction in the AUIR.
So our recommendation is that you do adopt the resolution in
Attachment 1, focus the attention of the stormwater program on the
secondary system, and only address the tertiary where it's a public
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health, safety, welfare or where the board COnCurs that it's the best way
to address the problem that can't be addressed on the secondary
system itself.
Lastly, I'll mention to you, because you have the tidal program
that you had previously set up for half county, half grants or BCB, and
then a mandatory MSTU to follow, we would still recommend that
that be addressed On a case-by-case basis with direction from the
board as we're able to obtain the funding. We did one of the tidal
areas. I believe we have six others to be addressed over time. So
we're not recommending really any change in that area.
And with that I'm open to any questions you have.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas, then
Commissioner Coletta.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah. I have my concerns. The
secondary system, along with the help of the Big Cypress Basin, we
seem to have gotten that pretty much addressed. I think our biggest
problem is probably the tertiary system.
If we look at the Golden Gate Estates and we look at some of the
communities that Commissioner Fiala and myself have, the older
communities, because of the building that's taken place, new building
-- and some of the older neighbors are lying in an area where they're
almost in a floodplain.
Maybe we could end up saying that every One of these would be
a health, safety, and welfare issue.
MR. FEDER: First of all, Commissioner, the board can give
whatever direction, obviously, on that or on this policy. But I do need
to point out that the secondary system takes that flow from those areas
and brings it to the primary.
If you don't have the secondary functioning, which we do not
have for you at this time, your major projects that we're working on
and that have been in your program since I've been here are secondary
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capital projects; the whole LASIP project, the Gateway Triangle,
Gordon River. All of those are projects that are multi year and based
on the funding that we have, the major focus, and have been the major
focus of your funding over the last seven years for stormwater
improvements, and they need to continue. None of those that I've
identified have been completed at that time and are programmed
through the next five and beyond then.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: But if you address, such as the
LASIP program, Once you get that -- the secondary system working,
then you're going to have to go back and address the tertiary systems,
right?
MR. FEDER: Very much so, and that's why the policy may well
change should we get to the point where our secondary system is
functioning well along with Big Cypress Basin's efforts on the
primary. But initially focusing On the tertiary without completing the
secondary has been very problematic in the ones that we've brought
before, and really takes your focus away from completion of the more
urgent system, which is the secondary system.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thank you, Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Norm, On the tertiary, you're saying
one-half county, one-halfMSTBD.
MR. FEDER: That is the current policy as we've been seeking to
administer it. What we're recommending, that in fact our focus only
be on the secondary. Tertiary only by health, safety, welfare, if the
homes are flooding in the area, if the road is over topped and -- on a
continuous basis where we have problems in accessing it for
emergency response issues, or in any other situation, as was pointed
out, that the board decides is a health, safety, welfare concern, not
necessarily just that water retains in the canal at periods of time.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And what you're proposing is, on the
secondary system, is strictly going to the -- to the stormwater capital
improvement along with any kind of grants that you get.
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MR. FEDER: Also, of course, all of the system maintained,
secondary and tertiary. I'm talking about the capital aspects and the
focus of expansion of the system to meet both carrying capacity or
flood control as well as stormwater recharge and retention for quality.
Essentially, your focus is still, you have to maintain the full
system, secondary and tertiary, in our case the primaries, by the Water
Management District.
But as far as enhancements, to address your level of service being
established On those two factors and the balance of those two factors,
they'd be structured and concentrate On your capital improvement
program on the secondary system.
Did I answer your question, Commissioner?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Sure.
MR. FEDER: I hope I did. Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any other discussion?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I think my light is. Isn't it
on?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. What would you like to say?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Was Commissioner Coletta next?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I asked him. He said nO.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Age before--
COMMISSIONER COYLE: He said no?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: He said no earlier.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Go ahead, sir. I'll show respect
for your age.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I've never known him to decline an
opportunity to talk.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: On second thought, I reconsider.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I've got a problem with this whole
process, okay. When somebody's getting water in their home, they
don't care whether it's primary, secondary, tertiary, or tidal. They just
know they're getting water in their home.
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January 29, 2008
MR. FEDER: Agreed.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And I don't understand the logic of
labeling a system and then deciding that we're going to allocate money
to that system for repair rather than dealing with the problem of
flooding no matter where it comes from, okay?
Now, having said that, we're not going to have the money to
allocate to this program in the future. We will never be able to deal
with all of the stormwater problems in Collier County with the money
we have.
Now, we have just experienced a situation in a neighborhood that
had flooding problems partly because members of that neighborhood
had filled in the swales behind their houses so they'd have a longer
yard. We have seen circumstances where developers have planned
their developments in a way that does not adequately take care of the
drainage. There are places in my district I know where people built in
floodplains and now they want it solved.
These are not the government's problems. The government
should not have to be paying for all of these solutions. The persons
responsible for the problem should be paying for those solutions. And
what I would like to do is to develop a policy that does a couple of
things; number one, it makes sure that we, as a Board of County
Commissioners, do not exacerbate the flooding problem by approving
developments unless there is absolute complete certainty and financial
responsibility for that developer to take care of any potential flooding
problems.
Number two, that if people are experiencing flooding because
they built in a floodplain or because they did something to impede the
flow of water, it is their financial responsibility to fix it. If the
government has made a bad decision or if the state has paved or done
some construction On U.S. 41 that creates a flooding problem, as they
did in the mini triangle area, they should be held responsible for fixing
that.
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January 29, 2008
So I would like to have a policy that does those things. This
policy, in my opinion, is absolutely worthless. What it really says is,
we're going to take all of these problems -- if we just restrict it to the
secondary system -- and we're going to make individual
determinations and have to act like Solomon and splitting all of these
things into appropriate portions, and it also, at least one of the
recommendations, depends upon a supermajority vote of this board. It
presupposes the ability to get a supermajority vote to do something. I
think -- I don't think we should have a policy that's constrained by
that.
So my suggestion is, let's start getting the people who are
responsible for this to pay for it, and if it's us, yes, we have to do that.
MR. FEDER: Commissioner, in could -- and let me make sure I
am real clear On this because maybe my presentation wasn't clear
enough. I think exactly what have you in front of you, the first
recommendation, is doing that.
First of all, we have limited resources, as you point out, and that
is the case. We need to focus that resource On providing overall flood
relief as well as water quality and recharge. To do that, we need to
focus on the secondary system, not on the tertiary system.
Predominantly the tertiary system issues are issues of how the
land was developed and are localized and, for the most part, are issues
that need to be handled by that community, either by individuals or
through an MSBU -- I'm trying to recommend, but nonetheless --
structured there, not necessarily by a formula that says half of it is
county funded and half of it is local.
And where government has taken action that, in fact, has created
an exacerbation in a tertiary area. Maybe our portion is higher.
Maybe we actually have a portion to pay, and that's why I said they'd
be taken on a case by case.
A formula that we've had up to now -- and there's a second
alternative noted here -- structures a percentage activity that doesn't
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relate to, one, the limited dollars as you well pointed out; two, the real
responsibility for action.
The secondary system function is to pull off of correctly
developed tertiary systems and development to bring that to the
primary and to outfall. That is where our focus needs to be. Our
focus has been there as I've noted all these years, and yet we've had
these provisions that talk about half and half split on tertiary
improvements, and because of that, we bring some of those
community issues forward when we appear to have the support of the
community only then for them to not want to form the MSTU, and
other issues come forward.
So I believe what we're recommending to you, the first policy,
which does not talk about the supermajority -- that's if we keep our
current process -- is, in fact, going exactly to what you have asked for,
and that is focusing our attention on what truly is countywide
significance, and then only addressing the localized issue, which is
really the focus of the land as developed or responsibility of
maintenance of what's there from the property owners, by them, unless
it's something very specific to health, safety, welfare, and then it's
addressed proportionately, as it should be.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. I don't get any of that from
anything you said earlier or anything in this document. But if that's
what you intend to do, then I would support it.
MR. FEDER: That is exactly what the first resolution seeks to
do.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I don't like anything that
says, yeah, one-third of it is the county's responsibility and some part
of it is an MSTBU or MSTU. The problem, as I understand it, is that
we're going to be restricted with respect to raising MSTU and MSTBU
funds under the new state-mandated --
MR. FEDER: MSTU, that's correct.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- accounting process. So in my
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estimation, an MSTU and MSTBU is not an effective way to approach
this. I think special taxing districts are the only way we can approach
this. It's the only alternative we have left that is not being regulated
by the state government.
So we're going to have to do a better job of assessing
responsibility for the flooding so we'll know who to tax. And this isn't
a voluntary tax. You know, if you want it fixed, you pay for it, end of
story. If you don't want to pay for it, it doesn't get fixed, unless it's our
responsibility -- our fault. If we caused it, we have a responsibility to
fix it.
MR. FEDER: Exactly, Commissioner. And again, I apologize if
my presentation -- because I have two concepts here. I was trying to
identify where we are today, what would need to be done based On the
change in statute to keep that going. That's not our recommendation.
Our recommendation is the first attached resolution which
focuses on the secondary, as we discussed, that doesn't address tertiary
other than out of the .15 mills or grant monies that we get. It doesn't
address any MSTU formulation, or BU, and it only addresses tertiary
on a health, safety, welfare, and that issue would have to be brought
forward, and any involvement by the county, I would recommend--
obviously the board will make its decision -- but would be On whether
the county, in fact, has a responsibility or part in that, otherwise it
needs to be handled by that individual property owner or by that
community.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Just one quick final
comment. I don't know how it's going to turn out on the commission,
but if you produce something like that -- and if that's your
recommendation, I'll support it. But I think it's very, very important
that we take renewed interest and vigilance in reviewing developments
to make sure, 100 percent sure, that stormwater is adequately dealt
with.
MR. FEDER: And we have renewed our efforts working with
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CDES, and our land regulations are seeking to do that. I agree with
you, we need to be very focused on that in what we approve for
development.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. Mr. Feder?
MR. FEDER: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: What -- the difference between
a special taxing district and an MSTUB (sic), it's the same thing as far
as the state's concerned, isn't it? We'd have to have it passed by a
supermajority in order to be able to avoid having it taken off the back
end of our revenue stream?
MR. FEDER: If you formulated an MSBU, I believe that might
not be the case, if it is a taxing unit, or TU. And the distinction
between those, as I understand it, is One can be set up on a series as a
taxing among a group or an area. The BU is specifically site by site
benefit gain, therefore, requiring quite a bit of modifications. I'll defer
MR. MUDD: Yeah.
MR. FEDER: Jim.
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, the thing is, the BU is an
assessment, not a tax, okay, and that's the definition in the fine line
that you've got to draw. So the special assessment is an assessment.
It's not a tax.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And thus it doesn't come under
the rules that the state has put forth?
MR. MUDD: They just approved in JUne.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But that's under the BU?
MR. MUDD: That's right.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. Now, the BU, when you
say site specific, I mean, when it comes to drainage issues, you have
contributions being made by people that may not be suffering the
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January 29, 2008
consequence of it. Would they be people that would share in it?
MR. FEDER: That is the difficulty under BU and why the TU is
typically used. The BU, you'd have to show, for instance, what was
discharge generated by the individual properties and basically do an
assessment very specific to their individual contribution to the issue
addressed.
Now, you're saying that someOne downstream could be impacted
by that. They most likely are contributing as well. So if all
contribute, then you've addressed it. So you'd have to get your area
big enough in your assessment to make sure that your calculations
include it all.
MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, the county attorney has something
to say on this particular issue.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm not through.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I think that we really addressed the
different taxing --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, we did but I'm not through,
when you get a chance, Commissioner Henning.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. David, do you --
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you. Well, again, very briefly, between
the TU, the taxing unit, and the benefit unit, your county manager is
correct, you're talking in assessments rather than taxes. So there is the
distinction there.
What Norm was getting to right now is -- and this county has
developed, with methodology in the past relating to stormwater. It's
not just benefits to property when we talk about benefit units, but it's
the burdens that property creates from a stormwater consequence on
other properties. And a methodology can be employed to assess those
properties that create a burden.
And then the program, of course, is to alleviate the condition.
But there is a way to fairly allocate -- through assessments, not taxes
-- a determination of who is burdening other properties beyond their
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own, and then that's, I think, an important aspect of the benefit unit
concept.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. Appreciate it.
Mr. Feder?
MR. FEDER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I just want to make sure. Now,
what we're talking about is not the maintenance of existing facilities,
such as Golden Gate Estates where you have the drainage ditches that
go through the area and that Avatar left the funds for many years ago
and set up a special mechanism for property to be sold and the money
to be used to make sure everything was brought up to county
standards.
MR. FEDER: Actually, that would be secondary, but no. The
maintenance on the full system needs to be addressed. In our case
that's the secondary and tertiary system.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. Thank you, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I had a couple. Mainly talking
about who pays for what. There's many people that -- for instance,
Commissioner Coy Ie referred to the Triangle when the state came in
and filled up those lakes that normally would catch some of that
stormwater.
Now, we could tell the state we want them to pay to fix our
stormwater system, and you can guess how fast they're going to do
that and how much it will cost us in the courts to try and get it.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Davis Boulevard.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Other things where developers will
build a development and then turn it over to the homeowners
association. Try and get the money out of the developer who built in
an area and didn't do the stormwater management right, and they
might sue us and say, well, you approved it, so it's the county's fault.
I mean, when you start pointing fingers, you can get into some
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really murky waters there, I would think. I would think an overall
Comprehensive Plan that addresses the essential things that we need
out of a stormwater management system -- and that's what we're trying
to do is improve our stormwater management system rather than place
blame. And I would guess that your number One here does exactly
that.
MR. FEDER: Number one is focusing On secondary system,
which is the major component that is countywide. It is oriented at --
through our efforts with this board, as well as with the Planning
Commission and the Productivity Committee -- acknowledging that
stormwater is a resource.
We're not looking to replicate the Everglades by simply looking
at stormwater flow capabilities or flood control, getting rid of the
water. It is also making sure that we are retaining and recharging the
aquifer as well as making sure we have good water quality as it's
getting out to, let's say, Naples Bay.
So we're trying to address that. You can address that at the
secondary system level. Just like on roads, you can set a level of
service for the major road system. You don't set that for your local
streets. Now, you maintain those. If, in fact, I have a lot of accidents
occurring on a local street, I'll come in and try and address them, but
I'm not in there adding capacity or modifying those to meet the level
of service needs for the system. That is focused on the secondary
system. That's what we're proposing to you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I guess I'm still concemed.
Commissioner Halas and I both have these same problems.
MR. FEDER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I know that in the Triangle, for
instance, when they flood so badly, they can't park in their driveways
because they can't drive through all of that.
MR. FEDER: And that is -- that is all part of a second --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let me finish, if you wouldn't mind,
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please.
They even have problems with snakes and everything as they're
trying to walk through the waters and trying to get to their homes, but
these aren't -- these aren't secondary systems, are they? They're
tertiary .
MR. FEDER: That area is part of a master planning on a second
system and major capital project. As I mentioned, LASIP, Gateway
Triangle, Gordon River being major ones and others that we're
working with. We're also working with your CDES as they do the
floodplain mapping and other issues to further define some of the
projects. But in answer to your question, we are working right now --
we have for the last few years, as you know, through permits and
actions -- on the Gateway Triangle --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I know you are.
MR. FEDER: -- and that is a secondary project and a major one
force and one that we've gotten support as well out of Big Cypress
Basin, Water Management --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I was just using that as an example
for other areas also.
MR. FEDER: But that is an example of where your issues have
pulled up enough that you have definite concerns and it's important to
the overall community, and that's what we're addressing in the
secondary system.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And so we'll be doing that at other
parts of all communities as well. I know we're taking care of that one.
I just want to make sure that other parts of our community are taken
care of in the same way rather than just secondary but not tertiary.
MR. FEDER: And again, as I said, the way that that tertiary gets
drained out is through the secondary system, and that's what we're
focusing on.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. Let me just summarize. It's
kind of like your septic system, if you want to flush your toilet and
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January 29,2008
there's no capacity at the other end, being the septic tank or Jim
DeLony's, you're not -- not going to do you any good. But if you have
a clog in your toilet, Mr. Feder's still going to take care of that. That's
the maintenance of it.
He wants to improve the stuff after the toilet so that it can be
accepted, and that's what's recommended in here. The -- what's
recommended, and in my opinion, is a lot better than the first one that
we recommended because it's treating the citizens equally and not
preventing, On these older communities, to come back to the board and
say, hey, we have a problem in this certain community; we need to
overall fix it.
Yeah. We're not limiting ourselves to ever come back to the
board when you have a problem; is that right --
MR. FEDER: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- Mr. Feder? So, you know, it's a lot
better than what it was and it addresses the concerns of funding things.
So I mean, to me, it's good.
So with that, I'll entertain a motion at this time.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: To?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: To accept staffs recommendations,
would be the first one.
MR. FEDER: That would be resolution shown as Exhibit I?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: As -- in the attachment. I'll second
that motion.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there a first On Commissioner
Fiala's second?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I thought you --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No. I said I'd entertain a motion.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I'm so sorry. I'll make a motion
to approve the -- to adopt the resolution in attachment 1, amending
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and clarifying the county's stormwater funding policy; funding of
stormwater management; findings and purpose; capital and operating
budget; definitions; superseding board resolution number 2005-115;
and providing an effective date.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. There's a motion On the floor.
Is there a second? I'll second the motion for discussion.
Commissioner Coyle, did you have something?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes, I do. By Exhibit 1, I presume
you're talking about attachment one?
MR. FEDER: Attachment 1, yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, let me -- let me read
for you what this resolution does in at least One case. It obligates the
board --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Where you at?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: On page 2 under section 2,
subparagraph 2. It obligates the board to deposit proceeds from .15
mills of ad valorem tax revenues into this fund until and including
fiscal year 2025.
How do you know you're going to have that much money to put
into this program through 2025 when we're faced with the budget
restrictions we're going to be faced with? How can you possibly pass
a resolution that commits you to allocate funds out to that -- for that
period of time?
It says nothing about holding anybody else responsible. I do not
see anything about the creation or the responsibility of MSTBUs to
take up a portion of this funding. I do not see any -- anything in this
attachment at all which addresses the reasons for the flooding problem
and the resolution thereof.
It says that the Board of County Commissioners will allocate
money -- general fund money, I'm presuming -- to this program until
2025.
MR. FEDER: Commissioner, if! could. That statement is
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consistent with your action in 2005 out until 2025.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Hey, we weren't under the budget
restrictions in 2005 that we're going to be under from now forward,
okay?
MR. FEDER: Understood, understood.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I, quite frankly, do not like to have
my hands tied by a resolution that obligates me to vote to put money
into a fund for the next 17 years, and I don't know who's going to be
held responsible for it. I don't know who's going to participate in
funding this with me. I don't know if I'm going to be able to go out
and get money back from somebody who did something wrong to
complicate the drainage problems. It doesn't say anything about that.
It address absolutely none of the issues that I talked about earlier,
and that's my concern with both of these alternatives. It places no
responsibility on anybody but the Board of County Commissioners to
allocate money to this program for the next 15 years.
MR. FEDER: And its design, Commissioner, is to identify with
those dollars that were set by the board, how they will be utilized. It
doesn't speak to those other issues other than to identify, unlike the
current policy that those funds would not be directed at some of those
other problems, as you indicated.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: If you give me a policy that says,
here's our source of funds and here's how we're going to spend them, I
will feel much more comfortable, but that is not this policy. This
policy just essentially says, give me the money, and then it talks about
all sorts of things, and then we get into section four of the definitions,
and there's two pages of definitions.
I don't see anything here that assesses responsibility and requires
the establishment of an MSTBU anywhere.
MR. FEDER: There is nothing in here about TBU or TU. It is
talking about what the board had previously structured, .15 mills,
dedicated to stormwater, how we would spend that, rather than the
January 29, 2008
prior that had a set of proportionate levels for both secondary -- I
mean secondary and tertiary. This is focusing the attention solely on
the secondary, and it does say how the monies will be used. It says
you won't be using On tertiary unless it's a public health, safety,
welfare --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: It only talks about a level of
stormwater drainage. It doesn't talk about responsibilities.
MR. FEDER: And we will go by --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: May I offer something? Let's
continue this item.
MR. FEDER: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I mean, I understand what you want
to do, and there's question about -- in the resolution is --
MR. FEDER: We'll be happy to --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- what we're going to do.
MR. FEDER: -- respond to it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And we all need to feel comfortable
in something to make sure that we're all on the same page. We need
to hit the target.
Are you okay withdrawing your motion? Because I'm going to
withdraw the second.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sure, sure, as long as we can discuss
it at another time, and that's good, and you said continue.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. We need to -- we need to
understand, make sure the policy is what the board wants.
Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I was just going to say, if this is
going to be something that's going to require a tremendous amount of
discussion, we may want to workshop it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Sure.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That would be a suggestion,
because it's a deep issue, and it's going to affect us. And I tell you
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what, the commissions before us had nO success at all in putting
together plans even as detailed as this, so of course there's an awful lot
to it, a tremendous amount.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, I have a few questions. I don't
think it will take a workshop. But if we can't get through this process
so that we all feel comfortable, then maybe we should.
Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. My concern is, I want to
make sure that we keep that funding in source -- in place because it
gives us the ability to go out and get further grants to address this
stormwater issue. And it's my understanding that with -- the
stormwater issues that we have in Collier County here are in excess of
700 -- $700 million.
So this is not just a small problem. This is a major problem that
hasn't been addressed over the years, and I think we've come to the
point in time where we have to sit down and figure out the best policy
to address these issues so that people that live here presently and
people that are going to be moving here, that we can address the
stormwater problem, and that's where we stand today.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle, do you mind
meeting with staff to try to get those questions answered?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I don't mind, but I don't think it's
going to do any good. I couldn't explain anything more clearly than
what I've explained today. If the staff doesn't understand what I'd like
to see, we could sit down for another 20 hours and I don't think it'd be
any clearer. It just depends on what the staff wants to do. That's the
question. And I don't think the staff wants to do what I want to do.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Mandatory MSTU or --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah.
MR. FEDER: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, I appreciate--
and I think the commissioner had made himself very clear. What staff
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wants to do is what this board wants to do. What I was seeking to do
was to make sure that I clarified what we had tried to do with this. If
it did not succeed in doing what this board wants, which obviously it
has not at this point, I would request that we get a chance to go back,
work on this some more, work with the board either in further review
or in workshop or whatever format. Obviously we want this program
to succeed, but we want to make sure it does what the policy direction
of the board is.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. We're going to continue that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Well, then I'll ask my
questions when we continue.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. So -- and I -- we need to take
action On an item on the agenda, so I'm going to make a motion to
continue.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. And I'll second the motion.
All right.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All in favor of the motion, signify by
saymg aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries.
MR. FEDER: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioners, you want to work
through lunch or you want to go ahead --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Nope, see you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Want to take a lunch?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I smell food already.
Page 10 1
January 29, 2008
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Smell food. Return about 1:10; is
that good?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: 1:15.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: 1:15?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Hey, I just gave you six extra
minutes.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We're in recess.
(A luncheon recess was had.)
MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd please take your
seats.
Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you have a hot mike.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. The board's back in
session from the lunch recess. The next item is 8A.
Item #8A
PETITION A VPLAT-2006-AR-10970, LOT 400, INDIGO
PRESERVE, VACATING THE COUNTY'S AND THE PUBLICS
INTEREST IN A PORTION OF A PLATTED DRAINAGE
EASEMENT RUNNING THROUGH THE WESTERLY (REAR)
PORTION OF LOT 400, INDIGO PRESERVE, A SUBDIVISION
LOCATED IN SECTION 27, TOWNSHIP 48 SOUTH, RANGE 26
EAST, AS RECORDED IN PLAT BOOK 40, PAGES 54-57 OF
THE PUBLIC RECORDS OF COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA,
AND BEING MORE P ARTICULARL Y DESCRIBED IN EXHIBIT
A - MOTION TO BRING BACK ON THE FEBRUARY 26, 2008
BCC MEETING - APPROVED
MR. MUDD: This item requires that ex parte disclosure be
provided by commission members. Should a hearing be held on this
item, all participants are required to be sworn in. It's a
recommendation to deny approval of petition
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January 29, 2008
A VPLAT-2006-AR-10970, lot 400, Indigo Preserve, to vacate the
county's and the public's interest in a portion of platted drainage
easement running through the westerly rear portion of lot 400, Indigo
Preserve, a subdivision located in Section 27, Township 48 south,
Range 26 east, as recorded in Plat Book 40, pages 54 through 57 of
the public records of Collier County, Florida, and being more
particularly described in Exhibit A.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: If -- Commissioners, if you don't
mind, our executive summary stated it had a letter of no objection
from the HOA. I asked for that letter, and to me it -- really the letter
doesn't state it has any objections to the vacation of the easement. It
says it doesn't have any objection coming to the Board of
Commissioners for the petition.
I would like to continue this item with a request, if it's okay with
the applicant, until there is a clear no objection from the HOA, and I
need to ask the rest of the colleagues and the petitioner if that would
be okay to do so.
MR. MOREY: Well, on behalf of the petitioner--
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Your name, please?
MR. MOREY: My name is James Morey. Good afternoon,
Chairman. We have nO objection to continuing if that's what you
want. I will say that it took some time to get that particular letter of
objection (sic), the wording, you can imagine, but we can certainly
work on that -- we can certainly work on that if you'd prefer that.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioners?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Fine with me.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Do we need a motion to that
effect?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, we'll need a motion to continue
it indefinitely.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Motion to continue it
indefinitely.
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January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second the motion.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a motion to continue it
indefinitely and a second by Commissioner Fiala.
Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. And I'd like to know how
this would affect someone else that would buy this property if this is
approved.
MR. MOREY: Do you want that now or just--
COMMISSIONER HALAS: No, when it comes back.
MR. MOREY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I have some COncerns.
MR. MOREY: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay.
MS. FILSON: Mr. Chairman, I do have three speakers on this
Issue.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. On this item do we go ahead
and hear the speakers since we're continuing it anyways?
MR. WEIGEL: Mr. Chairman, if you have a motion to continue
On the floor and a vote, no, you would not hear the speakers.
I will note, though, in regard to the continuance, that if you
continue it indefinitely, as the motion would indicate, the matter will
need to be readvertised at some expense. If you were to continue it to
a period within five weeks, based on your policy in place, to a date
certain, it would not have to be readvertised but would just come back
at the date certain in case that's any further information for you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. That's very helpful.
MR. MOREY: Respectfully, that would be preferred so we
wouldn't have to incur that additional --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I amend my motion to have it
come back within the five-week period.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I'll second that amendment.
MR. WEIGEL: You would need to indicate a date. Mr. Mudd
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January 29, 2008
can help you with the dates of the meetings.
MR. MUDD: February 26th, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. There's an amendment to the
motion to have it come back February 22nd.
MR. MUDD: 26th.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: 26th.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: 26th. And that's included in the
second.
Any further discussions?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Question.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Do we have to get ex parte
disclosure On this before we --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, we're not actually hearing this
item because we're just under --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I understand.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- discussion about continuing.
All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
MR. MOREY: Thank you very much.
Item #8B
ORDINANCE 2008-07: PUDZ-2003-AR-3601, TIM HANCOCK,
OF DAVIDSON ENGINEERING, INC., A REZONE FROM
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January 29, 2008
RURAL AGRICULTURAL (A) WITH A PROVISIONAL USE
FOR A CHURCH AUTHORIZED BY RESOLUTION #91-3 AND
THE NEAPOLITAN PARK PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT
(PUD) APPROVED AS ORDINANCE #90-6, TO A NEW
COMMUNITY FACILITY PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT
(CFPUD) DISTRICT KNOWN AS THE NEW HOPE MINISTRIES
CFPUD. THIS PROJECT CONSISTS OF 37.95 ACRES AND
CONSISTS OF EXPANDING THE EXISTING CHURCH
FACILITY. THE PROPERTY IS LOCATED ON THE NORTH
SIDE OF DAVIS BOULEVARD AND EAST OF SANTA
BARBARA BOULEVARD AT 7675 DAVIS BOULEVARD, IN
SECTION 4, TOWNSHIP 50 SOUTH, RANGE 26 EAST,
COLLIER COUNTY FLORIDA - ADOPTED W /STIPULA TIONS
AND ACCEPTING CCPC RECOMMENDATIONS
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, next item is 8B. This item requires
that all participants be sworn in and ex parte disclosure be provided by
commission members.
It's PUDZ-2003-AR-3601. Tim Hancock of Davidson
Engineering, Inc., requesting a rezone from rural agricultural A with a
provisional use for a church authorized by resolution 91-3, and the
Neapolitan Park planned unit development, PUD, approved as
ordinance number 90-6 to a new community facility planned unit
development, CFPUD, district, to be known as the New Hope
Ministries CFPUD.
This project consists of 37.95 acres and will consist of expanding
the existing church facility. The property is located on the north side
of Davis Boulevard and east of Santa Barbara Boulevard at 96 --
excuse me -- at 7675 Davis Boulevard in Section 4, Township 50
south, Range 26 east, Collier County, Florida.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All wishing to participate in this
discussion in this item, would you please rise and be sworn in by the
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January 29,2008
court reporter.
(The speakers were duly sworn and responded in the affirmative.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Sue, do we have any public speakers
on this?
MS. FILSON: We have one.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: One. And I assume that they stood?
MS. FILSON: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Now we have to go to ex parte
communication on this item, and we'll start with Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Mr. Chairman, I have met with the
petitioner and the petitioner's agent concerning this item.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I have no ex parte On this particular
issue. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I met with Randy Johns. I also went
on site and talked to the petitioner, petitioner's agent, on site.
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I met with the -- with Tim
Hancock and with the minister and with a couple other people -- I'm
sorry. I don't remember their names right now -- all in my office at
the same time. I've had correspondence, emails, and calls.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. I have had meetings with
the petitioner and the agents and representatives of the church.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Great. Mr. Hancock?
MR. HANCOCK: Mr. Chairman, first of all, congratulations on
being appointed chairman of the commission. My first opportunity to
appear before you in that capacity.
For the record, Tim Hancock, Director of Planning, Davidson
Engineering. It is a pleasure for me to appear before you today on
behalf of the property owner, New Hope Ministries, who's requesting
a rezone of just less than 40 acres located on Davis Boulevard just east
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January 29, 2008
of Santa Barbara Boulevard.
On the visualizer you'll see two shaded parcels. The one on your
right, the lighter yellow color, is the existing New Hope church
approximately 21 acres. The one on the left is the existing Neapolitan
Park PUD On approximately 19 acres.
That particular project is currently zoned for 150,000 square feet
of commercial office space, 38,000 square feet of miscellaneous retail,
and 81 multifamily units.
The proposal before you today is to take that project and rezone
it along with the parent parcel to create one campus for New Hope
Ministries. The primary reason for this rezone was, the church wished
to expand and construct a multipurpose building, including Sunday
school classrooms, gym space, and so forth. In order to do so and
basically replace the play areas that that building would occupy, they
were required to submit to the reZOne process.
In the interest of making sure we don't have to go through the
time and expense of a rezone anytime in the near future again, we
produced a maximum buildout plan which all the transportation
generation information was based on, but at the time, as I mentioned,
currently, the church has a proposal in the next phase to construct a
single multipurpose building.
As you can imagine, converting a commercial PUD to
church-related uses presents little or no land use compatibility issues.
The off-peak nature of the operation of a church will help avoid
transportation impacts to Davis Boulevard during its peak periods.
In short, from a land use perspective, this one's almost a
no-brainer. There are two issues, however, contained in your
executive summary where the petitioner and staff differ. I'd like to
briefly address each of them.
First, the rezone is requesting a deviation from the requirement of
a wall along the north and east property lines. This is typically
required of a commercial development when located adjacent to a
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January 29, 2008
residential property.
As you can see from the aerial, the New Hope facility as it
currently exists is the constructed building right there that Mr. Mudd's
pointing to. And thank you, sir. It is heavily vegetated even currently
along its eastern border between it and a residential community.
To the north is the Enclave community. The Enclave community
we have actually met with individually outside of the neighborhood
information meetings, and we've had very good meetings with them,
and they, in fact, are in support of the petition before you today.
The proposed plan of development, as evidenced by the CFPUD
master plan, will maintain a fairly broad swath of preserve along the
eastern and northern property lines as well as a two-acre lake. This, in
effect, provides more than adequate buffering between the church uses
and the residential uses to the north and east.
For the small section of property that is not going to have a
preserve area between the church and the residential, we've proposed a
type B buffer, which is 15 feet in width and includes, among other
things, a vegetative hedge achieving six feet in height and 80 percent
opacity within One year.
In reality, the existing pines will be retained along that property
line to the greatest extent practical, and additional plantings will be
augmented to meet the type B buffer requirement.
In the two neighborhood information meetings we've had to date
as well as individual conversations with residents in the area, we've
had nO objections stated to the proposed buffering plan and no request
for a wall in lieu of vegetative screening.
Staffs position is that this -- the applicant could come in and
request an administrative variance through the SDP process. It is our
position that in this very public of forums to request the deviation in
open body and to discuss it through several neighborhood information
meetings is the most appropriate course of action, and we'd like to
avoid having to have an administrative process tacked onto the SDP at
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January 29, 2008
a later date.
The second issue surrounds the use, however temporary, of the
preserve area for water management. This project has undergone
extensive modeling for analysis of the water management system at
the request of staff in an effort to show compliance with the Growth
Management Plan requirement that states in fact that stormwater in
preserves will not adversely impact the preserve.
This allows for a case-by-case analysis of each project; however,
the lack of a specific standard for measurement in the Land
Development Code makes it difficult, if not impossible, to ensure that
the project can meet what I've termed a phantom standard.
In addition to the data and analysis provided staff throughout this
process, this particular site has the unique characteristic in that the
existing church currently routes its water management directly into an
on-site preserve and has done so for the past 10-plus years.
This picture is an exhibit of the preserve that is located between
the existing New Hope facility and the Davis Boulevard right-of-way.
AS you can see from this picture, the existing preserve is not showing
signs of degradation, is not showing changes in development of the
vegetation which would indicate a change in the hydroperiod.
The water management for the newly developed areas will
actually go well beyond what is occurring in this preserve. In fact, it's
designed to pretreat all of the water before it ever has the possibility of
entering the preserve. The existing preserve does not have that
benefit. So all water will be routed into a combination of dry
detention and a lake before it ever has the opportunity to overflow into
the preserve area.
And the only times at which this overflow would occur would be
during peak storm periods. And as the water would slowly backflow
into the preserve, it would just as easily flow right back to the lake and
exit the system through its existing outfall. This is all being designed
according to South Florida Water Management District standards and
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January 29,2008
will have to be approved by the district.
In short, the new preserve areas which are very similar in
vegetative makeup will receive less stormwater, all of which has been
pretreated when compared to the existing preserve. This is what gives
us a high degree of confidence that this design will not adversely
impact the preserves.
You will also hear today that the applicant is agreeing, as
required by our management plan, to continue to monitor the
preserves, and in doing so, any degradation of the preserves will have
to be addressed by the applicant in the future.
We have agreed to the CCPC stipulations contained in their
unanimous recommendation for approval. This project also received a
recommendation of approval via a 5-1 vote from the Environmental
Advisory Council. All CCPC stipulations are contained in the
document before you today.
In closing, this rezone will allow for the growth and expanding of
New Hope Ministries into the future. Churches that are actively
engaged in the betterment of their communities are a critical
component of the social infrastructure that meets the needs of the most
needy among us.
New Hope participates in our local schools by providing school
supplies, underwear, socks to needy children, as well as appreciation
gifts to teachers and instructional staff.
They're a host site for groups such as Children and Family
Services, foster parent training, and the foundation for the
developmentally disabled. They participate in community outreach
such as distribution of food from the Harry Chapin Food Bank and
have assisted with clean-up and repairs in Immokalee and surrounding
areas during Hurricanes Charley and Wilma.
The proposed general use building or purpose building will be
available to assist your emergency preparedness staff for staging and
sheltering as needed, as well as for planning and training, as they have
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January 29, 2008
in the past.
These, plus a very long list of other community, national, and
international outreach programs are part and parcel of New Hope
Ministries. The request before you today will only serve to permit
them to expand their services in these and so many other areas.
And on behalf of their pastor, their staff, and their membership, I
humbly ask for your support here today.
I'll be pleased to address any questions you may have. I also
have with me our director of environmental services, Mr. Jeremy
Sterk and Mr. Gaven Gillette, who can anSwer any civil engineering
questions you may have with regard to water management system.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions by the board members?
Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: You touched on a subject that's -- I
was very concerned about, and that was the stormwater management
in the preserve, and I believe you made reference to the fact that if
there is any degradation to that preserve that it was going to be under
the responsibility of Hope Ministries as they expanded this property;
is that -- is that my understanding?
MR. HANCOCK: Yes, sir. Typically in any project, whether
there's water management in the preserves or not, if any degradation is
noted in the preserve, the property owner must address that through
their annual monitoring.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Because I have some COncerns
about using a preserve for that manner, okay. So I'm glad that you
mentioned that.
The other concern I have is a sound wall. I understand where
you're coming from on this, but I know that we -- before us was
another church that we basically told the developer that they had to
put a wall all the way around. It was a church, I believe, out in the --
in the Estates area.
And I think maybe as you expand your facilities and encompass
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January 29, 2008
more building, then it might add to not only the residents in that area,
but also add to the children that may be running -- that will be using
that area or running around that area to whereby that maybe a wall
would be conducive to that.
That's all I have. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioners? Nothing?
Commissioner Halas -- Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes. Mr. Hancock, would you put
the previous slide on, please? I'd just like to clarify something. Make
sure that we all understand -- that one is good, yeah.
When you're talking about potential damage to preserve, you're
not talking about any of those areas that are labeled as future
development On this map; is that true?
MR. HANCOCK: That's correct, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, all of those areas right now
are wooded.
MR. HANCOCK: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. So water coming out of the
proposed lake and flowing across any of that wooded area, even if it
causes damage to that wooded area, you are not accepting
responsibility for that; is that essentially the case?
Maybe the best thing is the aerial photograph.
Now, all of the treed area in the center, northern part, and in the
lower left-hand part, are not considered preserve.
MR. HANCOCK: That's correct, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. So water can flow through
that area and it could cause damage to those trees, and you're not
going to assume any responsibility for that. That -- we need to be
clear on what you're assuming responsibility for.
MR. HANCOCK: The reason that that won't happen, sir, is that
before this system can become operational, a detention area where
those trees are now would have to be constructed requiring their
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January 29, 2008
removal, and the preserve area will actually be on the other side of an
elevated site. So it's a line in the sand that water's not going to be able
to travel in that way. Once the lake is constructed, the preserves, in
essence, will be at a slightly higher elevation so that the water can
only, at peak periods, flow into the preserve, not elsewhere on the site.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. But what I'm trying to do is
make sure we get a clear understanding of what the preserve is that
we're really talking about. The preserve is not all of this wooded area.
MR. HANCOCK: No, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: The preserve is only a portion of
the wooded area in the upper left-hand corner and a portion of the
wooded area in the northern portion. Just those two areas right there
are the only things we're talking about as preserves.
MR. HANCOCK: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: You're going to clear all that other
property?
MR. HANCOCK: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, the -- when you clear
it, you're going to create a number of additional uses for that property.
Some of those uses are recreational in nature, volleyball courts,
swimming pools, and things of that nature.
Is there any need, in your opinion, to construct a better barrier
from this facility to separate it from the residential facility as it --
because of those recreational activities?
MR. HANCOCK: No, sir, and the reason, I believe that that will,
in part, not be necessary is, the exhibit before you points to the
location. This is a copy of the current Site Development Plan which is
in review with Collier County at this time. That is the location and
placement of the general purpose building.
Between the existing sanctuary and the general purpose building,
they more or less will seal off between the activity area and the
residential to the east and to the north.
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January 29, 2008
So, for example, if we have an extremely boisterous softball
game going on, I think a two-story building is going to work a lot
better than a six-foot wall. And the plan before you will, in essence,
make sure that the future growth and the impacts of that growth occur
predominantly to the west, away from the residential areas and,
therefore, not encroaching further on those areas. So for those reasons,
sir, I think the plan, as you see here, will hopefully address those
concerns.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: It does partially. I was thinking
also in terms of the safety of the children who are playing there, that
there's really no barrier from Davis Boulevard, and I was just
wondering if you felt it might be appropriate to consider something for
that purpose.
MR. HANCOCK: I can assure you that the safety of those
children is paramount to the church. Where existing vegetation along
Davis Boulevard can be retained, it will. There are two barriers
existing there today. One is a fairly significant swale constructed by
Collier County as a part of the Davis Boulevard road widening.
The second you'll see is a dry detention area which is shallow
and depressional in nature and approximately 30 feet across. Those
two areas are going to be physical barriers by themselves.
If there is one sense of concern for those children, I can assure
you a proper containment will be constructed. At this point we
believe those are sufficient, but your COncern is noted, and the pastor's
here present, and as are members of the congregation.
If I could ask you to raise your hand if you're here On behalf of
New Hope. I think they hear you loud and clear, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, Mr. Chairman, the
other question I have has to be asked of staff. I'd like to talk with
someone who can provide me some answers about why the staff
objects to the stormwater plan.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. Ifwe can get through the
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petitioner's questions first.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And then go to our staff. They have
to do a presentation anyways.
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. Could you show me -- now,
it says that you're going to be building a sanctuary, a 4,200-seat
sanctuary. Can you show me where that's going to be on here?
MR. HANCOCK: No, ma'am, I can't, and the reason I cannot is,
this is as far as the church has physical plans to go as we stand here
today, but because in going through the zoning process we were asked
by staff to produce a maximum buildout scenario in order to evaluate
the transportation issues, they looked well out into the future and tried
to pick a number that would far exceed what we thought we would
need, and that's exactly what we did.
Any future development of a new sanctuary to replace the
existing one would occur, obviously, to the west, but we don't have a
hard and fast plan for where that's going to be or its size at this point.
That was the reason for putting that number in there was to really
address transportation concerns at buildout.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Of course, my COncern is always
transportation as well. But also, with a 4,200-seat sanctuary and the
parking for 4,200 -- well, maybe 3,000 cars, that's -- that leaves a lot
of impervious area there -- leaves very little for drainage. And so I
think that the drainage must be accommodated right in the beginning
to make sure that we don't drown out any of the -- any of the preserve
areas.
And I know that you paint a wonderful picture. They all do, by
the way. And everybody feels that theirs is going to be the very best
thing, and then afterwards, many times they have to say, oh, well, it
wasn't supposed to work that way, but it did. And I'm concerned about
that knowing that the land is going to be used in this fashion.
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And the second thing is about the fence waiver, you know, as I
see it now there's nO reason to have a fence, but -- or a wall or
anything, but when you have 4,200 people coming and going, that
might be different. So I would love to just have the applicant request
an administrative fence variance at some point in time when we know
how it's going to function, and when we see all of these things that
have stayed there and nothing has had to be removed and there's a
thick, dense barrier.
I just want to protect all the neighbors there, and I'm sure that
everybody -- this church has nothing but good things going for it, and
it's always been a credit. They're in East Naples, and I tell you,
they've always been a credit to East Naples. I have no problems with
that. I'm just making sure that we have all of our ducks in a row so
that afterwards we don't have to go back and say, well, we didn't do
this right.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Let me -- Mr. Hancock, I have
some questions. Do you have a picture of where the preserves are
going to be located in the future or the -- what the preserves look like
today, the vegetation, the underground and storage and that?
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I'm not Mr. --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: You're not going to see the
understorage on that.
MR. MUDD: No.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: The--
MR. HANCOCK: This is a picture of the area that is in the
center or core area of what will be the native preserve. And as you
can see, there's a predominance of pine and palmetto understory very
similar to that which exists by Davis Boulevard in the earlier picture
that I showed you. As a matter of fact, if we put them side by side --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, let's put them side by side.
Let's see the other one that is accepting stormwater today.
MR. HANCOCK: With the exception of an increase of density
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because of more depth in the photo on the left as opposed to the
narrower width of the one On the right, the properties, from a
vegetative standpoint, are very, very similar.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And they are, and I just wanted to
point that out to the board. When I went out there, that was one of the
issues, or that is One of the issues. If you take it, you know, side by
side and -- or actually go out there, you'll see that even untreated
stormwater doesn't make a difference on the vegetation. And in fact,
in my opinion, at the ground level, it actually enhanced it.
So hopefully we can use this as a model what we want to do as
far as storage of stormwater in a wooded area, because it -- to me it
actually is an enhancement, what some would consider as upland
vegetation.
Tell me about the neighborhood meetings. And what was the
concerns of the neighbors and what did you share with them of what
you're going to do and how you're going to separate the two uses?
MR. HANCOCK: The first neighborhood information meeting,
we had none of the adjacent property owners or residents attend. We
had some of our folks from New Hope there, and we didn't have
anybody show up. But we went ahead and went through the
presentation anyway.
Because we have been in this process for an extended period of
time, we were requested to have a second neighborhood information
meeting, which we did. At that particular meeting, I remember
speaking directly to about four residents, and there were
approximately 10 or 12 residents in total that showed up.
One of the primary concerns was -- and two of the ladies that
were there lived in the building which is actually closest to the current
sanctuary, and they wanted to know, what is my view going to be.
They wanted to see trees. And when I explained to them one of the
issues was whether or not a wall would go there or whether we'd have
a vegetative landscape, those two individuals, in particular, stated they
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prefer the vegetative landscape.
We've had nO comments to the contrary either in writing -- I don't
think staff has received any correspondence indicating that a wall is
preferable. And in fact, we had a subsequent meeting with residents of
the Enclave to the north who were looking for a different set of issues.
They have access concerns and would have liked to make a
connection to our site to get out to Santa Barbara, and that's one of the
things I didn't mention in my presentation in an attempt -- unusual as it
is for me to be brief. But this project does have two access points.
Currently New Hope Ministries's access is solely on Davis
Boulevard. By virtue of this rezone, we have a second access point
which will line up with Dolphin Plaza to the west and create an exit
point out to Santa Barbara, and approximately 50 percent of our trips
will be using that out to Santa Barbara as opposed to Davis Boulevard.
So instead of one point of ingress and egress, we nOw have two,
and we'll have greater dispersal On those Sunday mornings or special
event times.
But we met with the folks of the Enclave, and their COncern was
access. Beyond that, I received an email from the president of their
association just this morning indicating, as I recall, today, January
29th is your big day. Good luck. I hope your meeting goes well.
Thank you for taking the time to meet with Don Flanigan and myself a
couple weeks ago to share your plans and thoughts. That, in essence,
is the soup-to-nuts version of the input we've had from adjacent
property owners. It has been either non-existent or positive, and that's
very rare.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. Thank you, Commissioner
Henning.
I just wanted to point out one thing. I know there's concerns over
the -- using the storm -- taking the stormwater and putting it in the
preserve area. But I want to remind you that we have an advisory
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group, that EAC, who approved it 5-1, and I'm sure that they vetted
this in a total manner that would satisfy anyone. And I don't have a
problem with that.
However, with that said, Commissioner Fiala did bring up a good
point. Now, we know that the northeast end of your property, there is
really no One living there at this point in time. We don't know what
the future's going to bring for the property on the other side. Maybe if
it's -- it's definitely not set into preserve. Someday it could be
developed, and at that point in time, is your vegetative buffer going to
be enough to satisfy residents that will be living within a minimum
distance from that line?
MR. HANCOCK: Commissioner, as the aerial here indicates, if
you go to the east, the property to the east is, in fact, built out with --
actually the residential doesn't start till you get to the back One third of
our property which is predominantly where the preserve wraps around
that corner.
To the north is the Enclave, which are the multifamily buildings
you see, and that somewhat cleared area is now a school. So we're
built out On the north.
To the west is the Dolphin Plaza project, which is currently under
construction and will be commercial. So we are, in effect, bounded on
three sides by fully developed projects. And so the conditions today
are what they are, and our development pattern will actually be a
western encroachment further away from the residential as opposed to
closer to it.
And so for those reasons, the fact that we're growing towards a
commercial project instead of residential, in my mind, further lessens
the concern over the impact of a maximum buildout scenario in the
future.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Halas? Go
ahead.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm sorry. If! may. I feel
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comfortable with the whole thing. I'd like to just be able to move it to
the next level and make a motion for approval with the
recommendations of the Planning Commission.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, before we do that.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Or is that too premature?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I'd like to have Commissioner Coyle's
questions answered by staff, if you don't mind.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, that's quite all right.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. This is the property as it is
today, correct?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. So we don't have that much
impervious ground as far as addressing the stormwater issue. Now, go
back to the other picture that -- of your proposed buildout. And you're
saying that you're going to build a sanctuary there that will hold 4,200
people. Obviously you're going to have a large parking area that's
going to be contributing to asphalt and everything else, and that's
going to be impervious to the water as it is today; am I correct?
MR. HANCOCK: To some degree yes, sir, and--
COMMISSIONER HALAS: And so that water then is going to
travel into the preserve.
MR. HANCOCK: No, sir, and here's why. First of all, the 4,200
number is -- and I don't underestimate Pastor Thigpen's ability at all,
but it's a pie-in-the-sky number that may never be achieved. We hope
it will. But it was a number that we had to pick as a maximum
buildout because that's what drove the transportation issues.
Currently there are no hard concrete plans to expand the
sanctuary. So that's where we sit today. But let's take it to that
buildout because we want to deal with worst-case scenario. What you
see here is designed to address the buildout plans that we have right
now, which is the previous plan that I showed you with the additional
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building on it.
At the next phase of development, when the area there is being
used for overflow parking or just as green space and play area, as that
is ultimately converted to some type of building use, additional water
management areas will be placed On the property, whether it be a
second lake or additional dry detention area, to handle and pretreat all
future stormwater under the exact same criteria that we are touting
today as far as when water and how water's released into the
preserves.
In other words, we have to build more water management areas
every time we build more impervious. So the water management that
we're talking about is designed for the amount of impervious we will
have.
As it grows, so will the water management treatment areas so that
all water management will be pretreated before it ever enters the
preserve, and it will only enter the preserve under peak conditions.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: And whoever the motion maker is,
then we'll put that stipulation on if there is any detrimental damage to
the preserve down the road, 10 years from nOw or whatever, that
there'll be -- you'll be liable for that to bring it -- restore it.
MR. HANCOCK: Yes, sir. We've agreed to that condition with
staff.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. So let me see if I understand
what you just said. Will you have to come back to us for approval to
build -- to build a larger site or will this -- will this petition then have
everything done administratively?
MR. HANCOCK: From this point forward, as much as I dearly
love these times we get to spend together, the -- because we're going
through this zoning process in such a way as to address the maximum
buildout, any additional buildings will require an amendment of our
Site Development Plan, and that will be a comprehensive review at the
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staff level as well as, all water management must be reviewed by the
South Florida Water Management District.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So in other words, if a fence is
needed, we won't hear about that. Staff will. Same with if there's
water going into the preserves that maybe we hadn't expected, we
don't hear about that anymore. Today when we sign off on this, we
sign off forever, right?
MR. HANCOCK: Only to the extent -- there's an annual
monitoring program for all PUDs, there's also a preserve management
plan that is a requirement of any SDP. That preserve management
plan requires that on an annual basis we provide the type of
information staff is seeking to ensure that the standards you're putting
in place today are adhered to in the future, and it is our responsibility
to monitor and maintain that, as it is for all preserves in every proj ect
you approve.
So, you know, are we going to have to come back before this
body? Yes, if we have, indeed, executed a zoning violation, we will
be before you. But no, the administrative process -- and I believe that
the PUD monitoring reports which this board has stiffened extensively
over the past few years, combined with the preserve management
plans that are required and monitored by county staff, are the
assurance that you need that someone is, in fact, watching the store.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Can we go to staffs
presentation and address Commissioner Coyle's question?
MR. LORENZ: Yes. For the record, Bill Lorenz, Engineering
Environmental Services Director. And I'm here to address
Commissioner Coyle's question.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Bill, there are two of them, one
pertains to traffic. I am concerned about the traffic burden that's
created by the new sanctuary, the location of which has not been
determined, and I'd like to understand how you've accommodated that
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in your estimates.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. For the record, Nick
Casalanguida, Transportation.
What we presented testimony at the Planning Commission was,
no facility can handle typical peak Sunday traffic for, say, a church.
All the churches, even the one I attend on St. Agnes, for that one-half
peak period or that half-hour period, puts a tremendous burden on the
roadway network.
But off-peak hours where we do our analysis, and even a.m. peak
and p.m. peak, this development does not pose any impact to the
roadway network, but you are going to get significant impacts on, you
know, Saturday afternoon church or Sunday church. For that one-hour
period you will see the network around it and the intersections be
overburdened, and that dispersal takes anywhere from a half hour to
an hour.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is there any requirement that the
church provide some traffic direction capability?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Typically what they do is, if we notice
that it becomes extensive, sheriffs deputies get called in, and churches
require that because the congregation usually demands it. So that's
typically what happens.
We also put a stipulation in when we widened Davis Boulevard,
any improvements to the turn lanes and right-of-way in front of their
project would be built for them and then back charged to them when
we do that, because we plan to expand Davis in the future.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, who would pay for the
additional deputy support for traffic control?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: They would pay for that.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: They would pay for that. Is it
specified in the PUD or in the code in any way?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's not part of the transportation
requirement, but if they want to put that on the record that that's what
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they will do, I'm sure that they will.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, the only way it will get on
the record is if we put it on the record here.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Right? Now, let's talk about
parking. It seems to me that I read somewhere that there was a
requirement that a certain percentage of the parking here be on
pervious surfaces, is that in this PUD or am I confusing another PUD?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: I don't review parking internally, but I
can tell you that parking spaces they proposed -- I believe if they want
to address that, that's outside the right-of-way.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Tim?
MR. HANCOCK: Tim Hancock. Yes, sir. The Planning
Commission requested that a requirement of 30 percent of all parking
be pervious surface, to which we have agreed.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay, good.
And the final question has to do with stormwater. Bill, if --
explain to us why the procedures explained or outlined in the PUD are
not acceptable to you. Tell us what's wrong.
MR. LORENZ: I'll pick up a little bit on what Mr. Hancock
indicated earlier in his presentation where he said this is the project
that has, I believe he said, phantom standards. And the problem
comes, is the Growth Management Plan does allow for stormwater to
go into preserve as long as we can demonstrate no adverse impacts,
and those adverse impacts would be to vegetation and to listed species
as defined by criteria within the Land Development Code. And of
course, there's the rub. We don't have the criteria identified in the
Land Development Code as of yet.
You may be aware that the past year and a half we had gone
through a process with stakeholder groups, and eventually we did get
to the Environmental Advisory Council who made a recommendation
regarding stormwater and preserve that would provide that criteria for
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the Land Development Code. That recommendation went to the
Planning Commission but because there wasn't a consensus amongst
all the stakeholders groups. The Planning Commission did not want to
forward it on and staff stopped that process; however, in August,
September of last year, the EAC did make the recommendations that
would prohibit stormwater to go into preserves that had predominantly
non-hydric or upland soils.
In this particular situation, this particular preserve has, I believe,
90 percent upland soils, roughly that amount; therefore, utilizing the
EAC's recommendation -- albeit not a formal set of regulations, of
course, adopted by the Board of County Commissioners, but to use
that as a benchmark --staff started at that particular point.
Now, the applicant was very, very good in providing additional
supplemental information and worked with us to do some hydrologic
modeling and develop some data that we could then evaluate further
on.
In the EAC's recommendation, they also -- they also recognized
that there could be deviations to that, or at least to go through an
appeals process to the EAC, and then eventually the Board of County
Commissioners, to modify that recommendation of prohibition into
upland soils.
The petitioner did provide that information. I believe that
information is contained in the report. In addition -- and that
information would indicate that there were -- there were -- the amount
of time that the stormwater would go into the preserve was roughly
around four storm events per year, and that information was available
to staff as well.
In addition the storm -- the petitioner provided information
concerning the combination or comparison of the existing preserve to
the future preserves.
Staffs only concerns with that was that the existing preserve is
more -- more hydric soils than the preserve -- proposed preserve. So
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we get back to that hydric soils analysis again.
Staff felt that because we don't have the standards, we did not
want to recommend approval because we don't have that criteria to
make the evaluation; however, the petitioner has provided that
information up through the advisory committees, in which you heard
that EAC approved it, and One of their approvals was based upon the
fact that we don't have black and white criteria and, of course, you
heard the Planning Commission's recommendation as well.
So even though staff made the recommendation that it did not
conform with the policies because we don't have the criteria, but --
we're moving it through the advisory committees and ultimately to
you.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. I think I understand. One of
the problems we're going to have here is that about 75 percent or more
of the flora and fauna on this property is going to be destroyed right
off the bat; I mean, as sOOn as they start clearing. That's going to
leave a relatively small amount of native preserve left anyway.
If you did nothing beyond that point, if you diverted no
stormwater into those native preserves at all, you will have impacted
those preserves merely by removing 75 to 80 percent of what
previously was there. The same number and/or types of plants and
animals are not going to be living there anymore. See, that's the
problem of trying to assess it after you've cleared 80 percent of the
site. So I don't know how we solve that problem.
And I think what you're telling me is you're issuing a soft denial
on essentially a technical issue here. So I'll just boil it down to One
thing. If you do discharge the water from the lake four times a year
and the water in that lake is treated as it is supposed to be, is it going
to harm the plants and trees in the small remaining native preserves
that are left?
MR. LORENZ: Well, that's the -- that's the question that we
don't have the criteria to give you a black and white answer. And
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we're hoping that as we develop the Land Development Code
amendments, that that criteria will emerge at least to stay that this
would be acceptable. I--
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And I'm sorry. Maybe this will
make it easier. If you include something in the PUD approval that
says that these portions of the native preserve will remain essentially
undisturbed, remain in their current condition, if they are then
destroyed in any way then the petitioner will have responsibility for
restoring it, it would seem to me. Is there a way to deal with it that
way?
MR. LORENZ: I think so. I think that's -- the earlier discussion
was that in -- as a stipulation required in the preserve management
plan, that in the event that vegetation is harmed or destroyed as a
result of the stormwater entering the preserves, the applicant would
then be required to replant the preserves with appropriate native
vegetation.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And you believe there's sufficient
safeguard then within the existing documents and Land Development
Code to accomplish that?
MR. LORENZ: We can work on a stipulation very specifically
for that, and add that to it. I'm not sure that -- I can't recall the actual
preserve management plan language at the moment, but I think that
we -- that's something that we definitely would want to have in the
preserve management plan.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay, good. Thank you very
much.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Before I take a motion to
approve, I'd have to close the public hearing, and we have a speaker.
Can we hold off on the motion to --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Of course, Commissioner
Henning.
MS. FILSON: Mr. Chairman, I have One speaker, Doug House.
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MR. HOUSE: It's an honor to be able to stand in front of you
fellows and ladies today. I really enjoy this.
Mr. Hancock stole my thunder. He answered every question. He
did it so well I can't even add to it. I only have one request. I request
that this be a unanimous yes vote. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you, Mr. House.
Okay. At this time I'm going to -- ifthere's no further questions,
I'm going to close the public hearing and entertain a motion at this
time.
Do you have to get something on the record? I'm sorry.
MS. ZONE: Yes, Chairman, thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And you were sworn in, right?
MS. ZONE. No. I'm going to ask to be sworn in.
(The speaker was duly sworn.)
MS. ZONE: I do. Thank you.
Good afternoon. Melissa Zone, Principal Planner with the
Department of Zoning and Land Development.
I'd like to read into the record that this request is a reZOne to a
community facility planned unit development to be known as New
Hope Ministry and want to talk briefly about your deviation request
about the waiver for the wall.
It is undetermined right now at the impacts that this development
will have against the residential portion ofthe adjacent land. And in
the LDC section 4.06, the buffer requirements specifically say to
separate commercial, community use, industrial, and public use
developments from residential developments.
And staffs recommendation is going on the LDC requirement,
and the reason why staff does not support the deviation request is
because the project is surrounded by existing residential.
The LDC has a procedure in place that provides the applicant the
ability to request what equates to an administrative deviation for the
wall requirement during the site development plan review phase of the
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development, which the applicant has to come in and have reviewed to
-- with staff.
At that time, site development review, staff will have a detailed
layout of the proposed development and its relationship to the
surrounding residential land uses and can then appropriately evaluate
the request for those impacts; therefore, it's staffs opinion that this
request is premature and approval of this request would effectively
circumvent the procedure for review that the LDC --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, let's correct that. The approval
of the deviation or the approval of the --
MS. ZONE: Of the deviation would then circumvent.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Deviation.
MS. ZONE: Correct.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
MS. ZONE: Correct, Commissioner.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All right.
MS. ZONE: And so what we're asking is that this is a bit
premature. We would like to have this -- since they have to come in
anyways during the site development review, we would like -- and it's
On page 63 of your report -- that deviation be removed from the PUD
document because they can still come back during the review process,
and then request the deviation for the fence if it's warrant.
Also I just would like to note that if you are going with the
approval for the stormwater, which the Planning Commission
recommended, that we should put into the PUD document under the
PUD developer's commitments, under environmental -- and this is if
you do approve Planning Commissions' (sic) for the stormwater, that
the applicant will monitor the preserves, and if their plan adversely --
the development adversely impacts the designated preserves, that the
applicant shall be responsible for restoring the preserves, and that we
could put as a -- under the developer's commitments, the PUD
monitoring then can look at that and we could follow up and if we
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have to, bring it back before you. So those are two things.
And then if -- also what we would like -- and transportation is
also requesting then -- if -- at buildout, if there is heavy traffic -- and
maybe we put that under the traffic portion of the PUD document, that
the developer will pay for a sheriff to be there to monitor and control
the traffic coming in and out of the church during services.
And if you have any questions for staff, I'm here to address them.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Coletta.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: You have to put a sign up.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm sorry. Commissioner Fiala
had her hand up.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's okay. I was going to make a
motion.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I was going to make a motion.
Oh, you make a motion. It sounds so much more elegant coming from
you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, it doesn't.
I'd like to make a motion to approve this petition with all of the
Planning Commission's recommendations and stipulations, and
include the stipulations that Melissa Zone has just presented from
staff.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'll second that. That's with the
stormwater and the traffic and --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, and the fence.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: And the wall.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Fence, wall.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'll second that.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If I may ask a question.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sure.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: One more time, what was the
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stipulations on the wall?
MS. ZONE: Well, what staff is -- staffs stipulation is that we
would like to remove the deviation for the fence so that they could
come back during the Site Development Plan review, and then we can
be able to determine if the impacts of this development will be
harming the residential property. It's not saying they can never have
the waiver. It's just saying we will now be able to determine the
impacts at that time.
The other part is, if you are going to approve the stormwater -- I
mean, we're still saying the stormwater should not be in the preserves.
But if you are going with the Planning Commission's recommendation
for the treatment of the stormwater before they enter the preserve, then
what staff would like is, in the PUD document that the applicant will
have to monitor the preserves. If they have been impacted, they will
then have to come back, and basically they will have to be responsible
for restoring those preserves.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. And I heard
Commissioner Fiala do that. But if I may finish my question.
MS. ZONE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Going back to the wall.
MS. ZONE: Correct.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: What we're doing is we're
turning our authority over to staff to make that determination at some
future date, and that scares me a little bit because I see this wall as
nothing more than like the bridge in Alaska that goes to nowhere,
where the sidewalks that we've built in the past that begin and end in
front of a particular piece of property and serve no real purpose.
So I question whether we really need to be able to -- can you
show me on a map exactly what the threat is that we have to be able to
deal with the wall? To protect the commercial area or is it to protect
the church?
MS. ZONE: Well, this property is adjacent to a school, this
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property's adjacent to residential uses, and the LDC says, to protect
that, those walls are required.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Do we have the ability to
override the LDC here just by the way we put together this PUD?
MS. ZONE: You do, yes, you do. Staff cannot, and that's why
we're sticking with our recommendation.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I agree with the motion,
everything except for the issue of the wall. I think that's One we could
resolve right now. Possibly we could put the wall issue back up on a
map so we'd know exactly what we're talking about and what the
threat is to humanity out there with this wall not being there.
MS. ZONE: That's a hard one. But I would also recommend
that, to be very clear about the stormwater, which recommendation
you're going with that so it's very clear on the record for us.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, I was.
MS. ZONE: And then the other part again with the sheriff being
present, that that be a new commitment under developer's
commitments.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. I'll say one more time then
about the stormwater, we're going with the Planning Commission's
recommendations, and add to that if for some reason that that preserve
dies off or whatever, that the petitioner will be responsible for
replacing it.
MS. ZONE: Okay, very good.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. And with the wall, my only
concern, we don't really need that nOw because there's plenty of
preserve there to protect everybody. I only am concerned with some
time in the future if you've got 4,200 cars riding around and then the --
and, you know, the lights are going through trees or whatever, that the
neighbors will be upset. And I just -- somehow I want to reserve the
right to protect that area if we need it. We might not ever need it. I
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just don't know how to get there.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: One question, if! may, Chair.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. I want to -- I want to ask about
what's being stated on the -- in the Land Development Code because
I'm seeing different. In section 5.08 -- 5.03.02.88, it says, when
determined a beneficial health, safety, and welfare to the public. So
are you saying that you would use that criteria to see if the wall or
fence would be a health, safety, or welfare benefit?
MS. ZONE: Staff will be able to determine the impacts because
currently right nOW under the master plan we see more than 75 percent
of that property is going to be developed on, and the 4,200-seat
sanctuary, even if it's 3,000 seats, is quite large, and those impacts
could very much spill over into the other development.
And again, there's a church -- or there's a school just north of this
property. The residential is north and east of this property. And staff,
in light of everything, you have those concerns. And Commissioner
Halas brought up a good point about -- that if there is an event going
On --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I just want my question answered,
that's all.
MS. ZONE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's all I want.
MS. ZONE: Sorry, Commissioner.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: You don't have to try to convince me
to make a decision. I just want -- I just want information to make a
good decision.
MS. ZONE: Correct.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And I just don't understand the
process that you're going through, and I just feel a lot of pressure to
sell me on it. So, you know, I'm going to let it go.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Could I offer an alternative?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes.
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COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I really don't have a
problem if the wall's needed at some point in time. My problem is the
point that we're leaving it up to a staff that we don't know who it's
going to be at that point in time.
Is there any way that we could have it where if staff ever
determines that they think a wall is needed, that it has to come back to
the commission?
I just -- I just -- I'd rather have some future commission sit in
judgment of this rather than staff members that we don't know who
they'll be at that point in time. This could be way, way in the future.
MS. ISTENES: For the record, Susan Istenes, zoning director.
Let me just clarify One thing. You have that process in effect
now, so if you're uncomfortable with staff making administrative
determinations about whether a wall should and shouldn't required,
then I think we need to talk about doing a future LDC amendment
because that process exists nOw.
The wall is required between residential and this property. And I
guess -- and I'm not trying to convince you of anything. You all make
any decision you want. That's fine with us. We'll write it up that way.
All we were trying to impress upon you -- and I hate bringing up
Stevie Tomato's, but here it is again. My from-the-heart
recommendation is, don't put yourself in a position where further on
down the road, 4,200 seats, ball fields, whatever, different people
living in the residences that were there when they went to the NIM, of
not at least having the ability to require the wall.
And if you put it in the PUD that they don't have to put in the
wall, then you have totally erased any ability for the wall. So that's
the danger, Commissioner. You can certainly, if you feel very
comfortable with the public forum here and everything you've heard
and you decide the wall isn't warranted, we'll write that up.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Let's go back to what I was just
suggesting. Do we have it in such a way that it would come back to
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the commission? The present staff that we have, nO one excluded, I
think that would make a great decision in this particular direction, but
let's face it, we do retire, people do move on. I want to try to protect
the integrity of this way into the future and not to have some staff
decision made on the moment to try to get something off the books.
MS. ISTENES: So I think what I hear you saying is, let's -- you
should not approve the deviation now, however, the wall -- if staff
determines the wall is required when the applicant applies for
administrative variance to remove the wall --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No.
MS. ISTENES: Okay.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Never build the wall to begin
with until it's absolutely needed and the commission would decide it.
MS. ISTENES: Okay.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. I would never ask them
to build a wall and tear it down.
MS. ISTENES: No, no, no, sir. I wasn't suggesting that either. I
guess I was just talking about --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Can I bring a -- bring a parable here?
When this board rezoned for the North Naples Livingston, North--
Livingston Park, there's nO wall. There is a preserve next to Wilshire
Lakes and North Naples Regional Park. And that's been there for how
many years?
MR. MUDD: About four years.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right. And you have ball fields, you
have soccer fields. You have a high-class water park there. So, you
know, I don't want to try to confuse this thing.
The church is asking -- wanted just a small piece of use on their
property. The county required them to give a master plan. I'm not
saying that's wrong or anything, but it just seems like, because of the
requests by us, under the code and other things, it just seems to be
more of an issue than it really needs to be, and there's nO objections
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from the residents that live there now.
Commissioner Coyle -- Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Coyle's first.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Could I ask you to put up the plan
view again that shows the future development and the road network
and the property? There you go. Slide it down just a little bit so I can
see more of the northern part of the property. That's good.
Now, here's why it makes some sense to have some flexibility on
this issue. You see that road running right up the middle of that
property and then it exits on the north side right on the property line.
There is no buffer between that road and the property to the north.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Where the school is?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, where the school is. And if
you've got 4,200 cars going out, or even half that many, going out that
area, you might want to have a wall or a more substantial buffer at that
point.
And I'm not suggesting you have it all the way around the
property. But you know, there's a place where you might want to have
the flexibility to put in a wall, and that's how the staff can make those
kinds of decisions.
Now, if the staff says, okay, we want you to put a six-foot wall
all the way around this property, don't -- doesn't the petitioner have the
right to ask for an appeal of that decision?
MS. ISTENES: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: So if they're unreasonable -- if the
staff is unreasonable in this respect, they can come to us and appeal
that decision, and we will try to be reasonable. All we're trying to do
is to make sure -- I can see a need for a wall there, quite frankly, that
particular spot, but I can't see the need for a wall around the whole
property or even two sides of it.
So I would suggest that we compromise on this and let -- the
administrative procedure exists in our regulations now. Let the
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January 29, 2008
process work, and then if the staff is overzealous in our opinion, we
can reverse it, and that should make the petitioner happy, and we've
met all the requirements. We don't have to plan the -- to change the
Land Development Code. We're doing things the way we normally do
them.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Good by me. That explains it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Hang on just a minute.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I just want to make sure that we
don't get ourselves into another Stevie Tomato episode here, because I
believe that was supposed to be a preserve, and there was no wall put
there, and now we've got a huge problem after everything was built
out. So I really believe that we need to keep that option open and that
that should be done administratively --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: -- as it is in the past.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Are we done? I think we've --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I think that's what my motion
said; is that correct?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right, yeah.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Let me just clarify something with
Stevie Tomato's, since we brought it up. There is a recommendation
for a wall and the board approved it. The board never approved Stevie
Tomato's, all right? And I want to make that clear. This board never
approved Stevie Tomato's Sports Bar at its location.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We approved a use for a restaurant.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's it.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, I just want to make us sure--
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yep.
MS. ZONE: Chairman, sorry. Mr. Lorenz and the applicant's
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agent came up with some language to put in the PUD under the
environmental for the PUD monitoring report development, and I'd
like to read it into the record because they both agreed.
And it says that the preserve management plan shall include
provisions for annual monitoring to determine the potential impacts of
stormwater on the preserve's vegetation. The property owner will be
required to replace vegetation adversely impacted by the stormwater
with vegetation that will be suitable to the future conditions, and that's
what we put into -- have put into the PUD, and then legal department
for review.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is that part of your motion?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. That's what -- now, who came
to this agreement? Was Bill Lorenz on that?
MS. ZONE: Bill Lorenz and Tim Hancock.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. And the petitioner feels that
that's good?
MR. HANCOCK: Mr. Lorenz drafted it. I agree with the
language.
Two quick items, if! may, to clarify. With regard to police, a
police officer after services; the church currently has a contract with
the Florida Highway Patrol to perform those services and will
continue to do so in the future. And I need this phrase to be very
clear, subject to availability.
There are times when you request a deputy to be there or an FHP
officer to be there and none may be available. But they will continue
under contract with the appropriate agencies to provide traffic control
after the services. So we have no problem agreeing to that.
To maybe address the wall issue with some finality. I hear the
concern about down the road. We have no problem placing language
in the PUD that at some point should a Site Development Plan be
presented in excess of a 3,000-seat sanctuary, that we will be required
to request a deviation at that time.
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I think everybody agrees, for the level of development we're
talking about right now, a wall seems somewhat unnecessary. But the
concern is, what about down the road? So whether that number's
2,500-seat sanctuary or 3,000, we would be pleased to request a
deviation at that time allowing for the staff analysis staff is seeking
when we get closer to something that may warrant it.
And we would agree with that kind of a stipulation. Our concern
right now is that we actually -- if staff were to require us to put a wall
up and we disagreed, we have to go through a subsequent appeal
process, and it just seems unnecessary for what we're proposing in the
short term.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is those stips. part of your motion,
those first two?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I first want to get a nod from Susan
Istenes to see if that wording fits in. As far as I'm concerned, you're
absolutely right, Mr. Hancock. Right now there is no need for a wall.
What we're trying to do is ensure -- because we're not going to ever
see this again, we want to ensure the neighborhood is all protected in
the future.
Susan?
MS. ISTENES: I honestly didn't understand what he was
proposing, so maybe he could repeat it.
MR. HANCOCK: Attempt to craft this as best I can on the fly.
At such time that the property owner submits a Site Development Plan
in excess of 3,000 seats for the sanctuary, that we'll be required to
request a deviation from the staff from the requirements for a wall on
the perimeter on the north and east side of the project.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't know if I want to put the
3,000 in, because if they build 2,999, all ofa sudden that goes away.
You know, I'm hoping that they grow big and wonderful because it's a
great church, and --
MR. HANCOCK: How about a new sanctuary.
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January 29,2008
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- great things, but -- yeah, a larger
sanctuary. How about that?
MR. HANCOCK: I'm willing to deal here. How about just a
new sanctuary, and we would be more than happy to do that and
would appreciate the consideration.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Will that accomplish what my
motion has said, Susan?
MS. ISTENES: You're talking about expanding what you have
now in any shape or form, Tim?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That was just a sanctuary. That's --
MS. ISTENES: Tim?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's where they have service.
MS. ISTENES: You said you were expanding your sanctuary in
any form; is that what you -- to any amount?
MR. HANCOCK: I'm talking about building a new sanctuary. I
mean, to add 200 seats to the sanctuary and have to go through a wall
deviation doesn't make sense.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, if they --
MR. HANCOCK: The only appreciable increase and use of this
property will come with a new sanctuary, which is appreciably larger,
and I -- that was the concern I thought I was hearing. And so, with the
construction of a new sanctuary, we would go through the
administrative deviation process in conjunction with the SDP to
address the need for a wall. That's what I'm requesting you to
consider this as a way of addressing this at a buildout condition
instead of here today.
MS. STUDENT-STIRLING: Excuse me. For the record,
Marjorie Student-Stirling.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: You know, we're going to take a
break. I'm sorry, Marjorie. It's just getting too convoluted here, and if
we take 10 minutes, maybe we can get it all finalized and get it done
with. Is that okay?
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COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay with me.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Ten minutes. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: My light's on when you come back.
(A brief recess was had.)
MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd please take your
seats.
Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you have a hot mike.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. We come to an
agreement?
MS. ZONE: Yes, we did, Commissioner.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
MS. ZONE: Currently the New Hope Ministries church has 800
seats, and the reverend and their agents have agreed that if they
enlarge the sanctuary by an additional 1,000 seats more -- so the
trigger point will be 1,800 seats or more -- that if at that time they still
wish to have the fence waived, then they would come in through the
Site Development Plan process.
So currently, as it is, if they enlarge the sanctuary to 1,500, the
wall is not required. It would be 1,800 or more, and at that time then
they would have to come in to get the fence waivered (sic), and both
sides have agreed to that number. And that is a number that can be
tracked and determined and easy to follow.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. As long as my -- they've all
reached compromise, my motion stands.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: My second's still there.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. And that's two stipulations, the
one was preserves and the trigger point for the fencing.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Three actually, because then there's
actually the FHP or whomever is going to direct traffic.
MS. ZONE: Right.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: The sheriff.
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CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right.
MS. ZONE: And Chairman, what we will do is modify the
deviation request and put it so that it is -- it shows that it is up to
1,800, and then from that point, and we will have the legal department
review that for accuracy.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I would just like to make
one observation. It is not just the expansion of the sanctuary that can
or will result in increased activity. There are going to be swimming
pools, tennis courts, volleyball courts, athletic fields, tot lots, picnic
area and recreational building for special events.
I do not believe that our original proposal to solve this is
unreasonable. And just so that the petitioner understands, I will not
support this motion, and you need four votes in order to approve it. So
you do so, I guess, at your peril. Perhaps -- ifthere's anybody else who
disagrees with this here.
It is not an imposition for you to ask for an administrative
determination and it is not an imposition for you to ask for a review by
this board if you feel that the staff is overzealous in demanding a
fence. It -- there are good reasons for having a fence on one small
portion of this property at the northwest corner, and I find it
unacceptable that the church would not recognize that in view of all
the other activities that are being considered for this spot.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Commissioner Coyle, you bring up
some good points. And maybe if the motion maker could maybe ask
the petitioner if he would agree with what was brought up by Mr.
Coyle, Commissioner Coyle, maybe we can get some resolution on
this, because he brought up some very good points, and I have some
reservations now in regards to where I stand with my second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Mr. Hancock, so the question
is, is the -- is your -- is this petition (sic) willing to put a fence on the
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northwest corner abutting the school?
MR. HANCOCK: For the portion of the roadway that is adjacent
to the school; is that the area --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'm not even asking that you
commit to doing that. All I'm saying to you is that we're not going to
waive our right to ask you to do that sometime in the future if it
appears necessary.
I'm not asking that you do it now. I'm not asking you make a
commitment now. I'm merely saying, let's abide by the current rules.
We're not going to hurt you here. And we should retain our right to
ask you to do that in the northwest corner or any other portion where
we think it's necessary, but we're not -- I don't think any of us are
going to be onerous with respect to demanding a fence.
MR. HANCOCK: What the petitioner, if the motion maker will
accept, is willing to do is, in addition to the stipulation of the trigger
point being 1,000 additional seats, that we have to do a wall or request
the administrative waiver through the process, we will, in this next
phase of development, construct that portion of the wall adjacent to
the roadway that is next to the school, period.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I really didn't understand that, but
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let me -- excuse me. As the motion
maker, Commissioner Coyle, what would it take, what wording would
you want to have in this? Because I see some nods here. And what
would it take to get your vote regarding this wall?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Your motion on everything else
except the waiver on the fence, and that would be --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What words -- what words would
you use, would you suggest I use?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I would suggest that we not say
anything about the fence and not approve the waiver of the fence, and
that merely preserves our right to work with the developer in the
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future to get whatever portion of the fence we think is appropriate
there.
Your motion would essentially waive our right to insist on a
fence unless they built a new sanctuary or expanded the sanctuary
beyond a certain size. The sanctuary might not be expanded for years,
but people can be using the ball parks and the swimming pools and
things, and a lot of traffic going here and there, okay, and lights and
things like that.
So it's hard for us to anticipate what's going to be required when
we don't have a completed plan before us, and it's unfair to demand for
them a completed plan at this point in time.
So I'm merely saying, let's keep our options open. I think you
understand that there are no members of this board who are going to
try to give you trouble about this development. All we're saying is,
we want to have the right to talk with you about a wall somewhere
maybe some day if it's needed.
MR. HANCOCK: Do I understand correctly, sir, if it's the
consensus of the board, that you'd like the deviation language
removed but you also are of the opinion, based on the site plan you've
seen, that a wall may not be necessary at this time? Is that a fair
assessment of this board's position?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think that's a fair assessment of
my position. But if you go into future development -- you don't build
the sanctuary. You go into future development, you build a lot more
activities, you've got more traffic, then maybe we might think a small
portion of a wall is appropriate in the northwestern corner.
MR. HANCOCK: I'm -- as the petitioner, we are comfortable
with that particular set of guidance. We get the point.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. So I need to work that into
my motion.
MS. ZONE: You would need to remove the one stipulation and
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then add that one in. And I want to thank you, Commissioner Fiala,
for asking for staffs opinion on this. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thanks. You are so vital to this.
Okay, fine. So I remove the stipulation that I had regarding the
fence or wall and ask that we do not have any deviation from our Land
Development Code words at this time.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: For the fence or wall.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: For the fence or wall, thank you.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And I will support that motion.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: That's in my -- that's in the second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's part of the second.
County Attorney okay with that?
MR. KLATZKOW: And the sheriff -- requirement for sheriff is
still there?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's still there, right.
MR. KLATZKOW: And preserve requirements are still there?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Everything remains except that one
MR. KLATZKOW: Planning Commission recommendations are
still there. Okay. So the only thing we're doing or changing is that the
request for the deviation is denied?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's correct. Thank you.
MR. WEIGEL: And one last thing in regard to the sheriff, the
petitioner had mentioned subject to -- and it was highway department
or sheriff deputy, subject to availability, which, I think their
understanding, and they can concur on the record, is that they
recognize the responsibility to get them if at all possible.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right, right. They want them there
anyway.
MR. WEIGEL: Right.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Very good.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. And I'm going to vote for it
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naturally, but we need to be consistent. I hope that we are when
government comes forward. The example is North Naples Park and
the citizens wanted a wall. We need to be consistent. So if
government comes forward with a different use against or adjacent to
residential, I'm going to remind the board of this section. Okay?
All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries unanimously.
Item #10B
RECOMMENDATION THAT THE BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS APPROVE THE APPLICATION BY INOVO,
INCORPORATED FOR THE JOB CREATION INVESTMENT
PROGRAM AND THE ADVANCED BROADBAND
INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT PROGRAM AND PROVIDE
DIRECTION ON THE REQUEST BY THE ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL OF COLLIER COUNTY RELATED
TO THE PAYMENT OF AN ADDITIONAL $1,000 PER JOB FOR
49 EXISTING JOBS TO BE RETAINED IN COLLIER COUNTY
AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF A JOB RETENTION PROGRAM
ORDINANCE FOR FUTURE CONSIDERATION BY THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS. - APPROVED
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us to our time certain
item at 2:30. This item to be heard at 2:30. It's a recommendation that
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January 29,2008
the Board of County Commissioners approve the application by
Inovo, Incorporated, the Job Creation Investment Program in the
Advanced Broadband Infrastructure Investment Program and provide
direction on the request by the Economic Development Council of
Collier County related to the payment of an additional $1,000 per job
for 49 existing jobs to be retained in Collier County, and the
development of a Job Retention Program ordinance for future
consideration by the Board of County Commissioners.
Amy Patterson, Impact Fee/EDC Manager, Business
Management and Budget Department, Community Development's
Environmental Services, will present. And I would have never got that
job title squared away.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And at this time I'll entertain a
motion.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion by Commissioner Coyle,
second by Commissioner Coletta.
Any discussion? Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I have some concerns -- this is --
lOB, are we on?
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. I have some concerns that
we should make some kind of stipulation that these jobs are going to
stay within Collier County for at least another six years, five to six
years if we're going to give them $49,000 for the employees that are
presently employed there.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And that's a -- something that we're
going to have to require from all. We have to make policy.
Commissioner Coletta, you have something?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I was going to say, right now it's
only required -- it's a three-year period, correct?;
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January 29, 2008
MS. PATTERSON: That's for the -- I'm sorry. Amy Patterson,
for the record. The current program for job creation is the three years.
We payout over three years after the creation of the jobs. But for the
Job Retention Program that we're discussing here, the processed
ordinance that we'll be bringing forward, there's no criteria set. That
would be up to the board to decide how they want the -- how long
they want those jobs to remain in place, what's an acceptable time
frame.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If! may, I believe that the state,
who also contributes towards this particular program that we're
working with now, their time frame is four years. Possibly we could
come up with a compromise and it wouldn't do any undue harm to the
applicant who's trying to amortize this over a period of time that's
reasonable. I mean, we've got -- he's got millions of dollars invested,
and this is only a small payback to try to give them the incentive to be
here. That might -- that might be an option to go with to be
considered. I think six years is unrealistic for the amount of money
that's involved.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Do you mind if we ask the --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: How about five years?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- TDC or EDC Director, Executive
Director, for their input?
MS. NEMECEK: Yes, that is -- this is Tammie Nemecek,
Economic Development Council of Collier County.
It is four years for the state QTI program. And in discussing this
program, we can bring it back to the company and see if that is
something that they would accept. At this point in time, these are
incentives that are put out there to the company to help them make the
decision to stay here in Collier County if -- we do run the risk, though,
of four years, five years is unacceptable that they may not choose to
use the incentive program. But we can take that into consideration as
we craft the ordinance.
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January 29, 2008
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
MS. NEMECEK: The current program is three years for the
local incentive --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I understand. I withdraw my
suggestion.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And it's up to the motion maker to
accept the --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. You know, this is a
thousand dollars for -- how many employees?
MR. MUDD: Forty-nine.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Forty-nine. You know, if we -- if
we paid that out over three years like we do with the new job creation,
it would make it consistent. Forty-nine thousand dollars is not a lot of
money to attract a company like Inovo, and I would be willing, just to
make it consistent with our new job creation, to do it over three years.
MS. NEMECEK: That was the recommendation that we want to
bring forward to you is to make the programs consistent. I know that
we -- from a management standpoint, that makes sense. From the
company standpoint, that makes sense, so --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. And that's part of your
second? Did you second it?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah, I did. And -- I did, right?
Yeah. That's part of my second. The three years is what was
originally in there. We're not changing anything --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- from what I see.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any further discussion?
Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. The only reason I brought
this forth is because this is something, a new area that we're exploring,
okay? And it's nothing against Ivo (sic) or anything of this nature. It's
the idea that there's going to be a lot of other companies that may
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come to us and say, hey, we're going to leave so we want some
additional money.
So what I'm trying to get -- make sure is that we protect our
investment and that we make sure that they make a commitment that
they are going to stay here in Collier County. That's the whole idea of
this program.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Good point. Any further discussions?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All in favor ofthe motion, signify by
saying -- pardon me.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: When are we going to -- excuse
me. On the motion, is this on three years or five years? We were
talking --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Three years.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All in favor of the motion, signify by
saymg aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries unanimously.
Commissioners, if we can deviate just a little bit.
MS. NEMECEK: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We have one that I think
Commissioner Coyle had some questions on off the consent.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Oh, if I may. One of the people
that wanted to participate in that asked me when it was going to be
coming up, and I advised her that it would probably be a little while,
so she went down to get some lunch. That was Karen Accord, sits on
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the --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. So you want to go --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- advisory group.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- stay on our agenda. We have
Conservation Collier in four minutes, so --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, we can do that in four
minutes, huh.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah, we'll do that in four minutes
and then we'll be done.
MS. FILSON: We have nine speakers for that item.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It's your call, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Let's go to Conservation Collier. If
somebody signed up to speak who's not here, we need to -
Item #10F
THE APPROVAL OF THE FIFTH CONSERVATION COLLIER
ACTIVE ACQUISITION LIST AND DIRECTION FOR THE
COUNTY MANAGER OR HIS DESIGNEE TO ACTIVEL Y
PURSUE PROJECTS RECOMMENDED WITHIN THE A-
CATEGORY - MOTION TO MOVE PEPPER PROPERTY TO A-
LIST - APPROVED; MOTION TO ACCEPT COMMITTEE'S
RECOMMENDATIONS W/CHANGES: DEVISSE MOVED TO C
LIST, I-75 PROPERTY MOVED TO B LIST, DYCHES
PROPERTY MOVED TO C LIST AND CAMP KEAIS MOVED
TO A LIST - APPROVED
MR. MUDD: That's 10F, and that item's to be heard at three p.m.
It's a recommendation for the approval of the fifth Conservation
Collier Active Acquisition List and direction for the county manager
or his designee to actively pursue projects recommended within the A
category .
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Ms. Alex Sulecki, Senior Environmental Specialist for Collier
County, will present.
MS. SULECKI: Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman,
Commissioners. Alex Sulecki, your Conservation Collier
Coordinator. I'd like to introduce another Conservation Collier staff
member, Annisa Karim, who will be helping me today at the podium.
And today I'm pleased to be here to bring you the acquisition
recommendations of the Conservation Collier Land Acquisition
Advisory Committee for the fifth acquisition cycle.
Chairman and members of the advisory committee are here, at
least the vice chairman is. Is the chairman? Okay. We have the
vice-chairman and other members of the advisory committee. They
may want to address you. And also present are several property
owners.
To date Conservation Collier has purchased 1,123 acres, 95
parcels, in 15 different locations in Collier County. The list before
you today considers another almost 3,000 acres.
The photos up here that you see are of some of our A list
properties. Up on the top left we have Pepper Ranch, North Golden
Gate Estates unit 53 on the right, I-75 properties in the center, the
Hamilton property found on the right, on the bottom is Winchester
Head.
We've also provided you with a map that shows you the location
of the properties that we're looking at and these are in red. It also
shows you the properties that we own and some of the recommended
ones that were on the --
MR. MUDD: They're in green, Alex, green. Pepper Ranch is up
at the top by Lake Trafford, and then the green ones are the ones that
we're recommending.
MS. SULECKI: You're right. The red ones are the
recommendations from last cycle, is that it? Green is A list. Orange is
B list.
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January 29,2008
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I'm getting color-blind.
MS. SULECKI: C is red list. Okay. Well, this gives you just a
spatial representation of where all these properties are. Sorry, I can't
see very well up here.
So our goal today is to obtain an approved list so that we can
move forward in our process, get appraisals, any environmental
surveys needed for the A category proposals, and so -- do our due
diligence so that when we finally bring you an actual acquisition
package, that we have all the financial and other details clearly spelled
out.
And briefly before I respond to your questions, I'd like to offer
just a few updates and corrections on several of the properties. And
the first one is the Pepper Ranch. And I neglected to put on the
summary sheet for you that we do have an acquisition partner, and
that's the CREW Trust, and they have voted to contribute $350,000 to
our acquisition should we go ahead with it. And we have the manager
of the CREW Trust here, Brenda. She's with us today.
And the other thing I'd like to just point out to you is that the
Florida Forever group, Florida Forever Program in Tallahassee, just
trying to prioritize the remaining parcels in their A list to see where to
spend the remaining limited dollars, and they picked 21 projects, and
one of them is this CREW project here that goes through Collier
County .
And so we have two properties in that boundary. We have the
Pepper Ranch, and also the Camp Keais Strand parcels are within
there. And so there's a little bit of potential for DEP partnership
through the Florida Forever Program.
And so the next one, unit 53, the update here has to do with the
values. We had some more recent value estimates, and we looked at
these as very similar to the Winchester Head. They had been
estimated a little higher back earlier last year, but we brought them in
line, those estimates in line, with Winchester Head, so that's the
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change there, and we're saying that they should be valued between 19-
and 23,000 an acre, which is what we're currently paying in
Winchester Head.
And also, just to make sure you're aware, that our
recommendation is to re-open the project, the whole project, not just
for the parcels that are on your list today.
The next one is the Devisse property. And this is a correction to
the summary sheet, and it has to do with management dollars. It was
pointed out to me that the cost of the boardwalk couldn't be $29,000.
And so I revised that. And I guess I had done that on some very low
estimates per foot. But revised that upwards, and it's actually going to
be roughly $240,000, which is quite a bit more for a 400-foot
boardwalk. I wanted you to know that.
Hamilton property. This property was on our A list last year and
we made an offer and the owner turned us down and then decided to
come back and offer it again, and so we're -- we want to keep it on the
A list so we can move forward with our new appraisals.
And the new information is that -- I had noted in here that the Big
Cypress Basin was willing to contribute some funding, and I had had
some recent conversations with Clarence Tears, and he tells me that
while there is still interest and there is a partnership opportunity here,
it depends on the taxing situation and also it's subject to approval by
the Big Cypress Basin board.
And then also I wanted to just make you aware there is a code
enforcement case on the Hamilton property. This is from 2004 and it
has to do with a sign, and there is a lien on the property at -- currently,
and as of yesterday, the value was $53,933. And looked -- talked to
the County Attorney's Office, and there is a process to abate this
violation and then avoid the out-of-pocket expenses by Collier
County, and that would be detailed in any agreement should we go
forward so that we wouldn't be out that money.
Okay. The next one is the Fleischmann parcel, and this has been
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on our list since the very beginning. It was the Freedom Park and it's
the eastern 12.5 acres. Took us a while to coordinate because they had
projects and permits going and we didn't want to interfere with them
so we waited until we were able to step in and get a survey. We found
it was 12 and a half acres.
And we had originally estimated that it was going to be 225,000,
but our appraisal shows a value of 56,300. So I wanted to let you
know that. And we are moving forward to that internal transfer.
The next one is the I - 7 5 properties. And on your list, these on the
A category, and they start with ALM, Argay, Ayra's, and there's a
number of them. There's 13 proposals, 83 acres. And these are at the
south end of Golden Gate Estates between Golden -- or Everglades
and DeSoto Boulevard.
And new information came to us late in the game here regarding
transportation's interchange and their project design, engineering
study, which includes Everglades, DeSoto, and farther east.
And I had some discussion with Nick Casalanguida, your
Long-range Planning Director, and also the Conservation Collier
Advisory Committee was given this info only at its January meeting,
and it had already been selected.
So Nick may want to address that, and also, perhaps, our
vice-chairman, if the chairman isn't here, may want to address that as
well. Oh, Chairman's here, okay. Very good.
And that's all the updates or corrections that I had for you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
MS. SULECKI: Open for your questions.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: So we have nine speakers. Would you
like to go to the speakers?
MS. FILSON: We have 10 now, and I'm thinking more.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. You know, when we start an
item, you need to sign in. Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Could I ask you a question? Could
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we find out how many people are speaking for or against the
acquisition of Pepper Ranch?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: How many -- how many here want to
speak particularly on the Pepper Ranch site? Okay.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to
make a motion to approve the purchase of the Pepper Ranch --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'll second that.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- if the speakers would like to save
us all a lot of time and waive. But there is someone who wants to
speak in opposition, okay. So we've got one who wants to speak in
opposition.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Are you making a motion? You want
to hold off and wait to hear the speakers?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I don't want to hear all the
speakers. I want to hear Nancy Payton because I'm in favor of it, and
so if she can talk me out of it, then the other people can speak.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Here's the process, that we want
guidance from the public, and I don't want to discourage anybody
from speaking. But I don't want to discourage the Board of County
Commissioners to make a motion on any particular item in advance or
after hearing from the public to get public guidance. So whatever you
want to do is fine with me, and then Commissioner Fiala wants to say
something.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just a quick -- I, too, want to buy it,
but I think we're only asking them to go out and get an appraisal on it
right now. We don't even know how much it costs. So maybe the
motion maker wants to suggest that.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, yeah. I wasn't -- I'm only
going to -- I'm -- right now I'm intending to vote for the staffs
recommendation, okay. And once they have gotten everything in
order, then we'll be happy to come back for a final approval. But if
there's someone opposed to that position, I'd be happy to hear from
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them, but why waste all the time of the other people who are in favor
of it --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- ifthere's a majority support for it
here.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Let's just deal with the Pepper
Ranch issue.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We know that is -- a lot of interest on
that. So, you know, I know it doesn't say it on the speaker slips, and
after the public speaks on the Pepper Ranch, we're going to -- I'm
going to take a motion and a second and we're going to vote on it, and
we'll go through the other properties. Okay.
MS. FILSON: Ready?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes.
MS. FILSON: Mr. Chairman, I have 1O speakers, James Dyches.
He will be followed by Ed Carlson. James Dyches? He registered
yesterday, so he --
MR. DYCHES: Not on Pepper Ranch.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Not on Pepper Ranch, okay.
The next speaker is Ed Carlson?
MS. FILSON: Ed Carlson.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And then followed by?
MS. FILSON: He'll be followed by Mimi Wolok.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Ms. Wolok, so you want to speak on
Pepper Ranch?
MS. WOLOK: Very briefly.
MR. CARLSON: Yeah, I'll be very -- can I start?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Please. Good to see you again.
MR. CARLSON: I'm Ed Carlson. I work for Audubon of
Florida. I'm director of Cork Screw Swamp Sanctuary. I'm
completely, totally, 100,000 percent in favor of this.
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I was calling Frank Pepper 20 years ago to try to make this
happen through the CREW project. And it was hard to put together.
There's multiple owners. It's hard to get everybody willing sellers.
You've got all willing sellers. Everybody with the property is a
willing seller. You've got a willing seller land acquisition program.
Very rare to get this together on a piece of property like this. I've been
working on this for a long, long time. Put it on the A list. Thank you.
MS. FILSON: Mimi Wolok. She'll be followed by Nancy
Payton.
MS. WOLOK: I'll just repeat Ed's comments, ditto. And I would
support, as a member of the Conservation Collier Committee, this
acquisition, I believe that it's exactly what the voters voted for. Thank
you.
MS. FILSON: Nancy Payton. She'll be followed by Brad
Cornell.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Mr. Cornell, you want to speak on
Pepper Ranch?
MR. CORNELL: Please.
MS. PAYTON: Nancy Payton, Florida Wildlife Federation.
There's a fine point here. I'm supportive of putting it on the A list, but
at this point Florida Wildlife is not supported -- supporting acquisition
because we have four major questions, and I think everybody ought to
be asking these questions before we say, let's spend umpteen million
dollars to buy it, and those four questions are:
Why would the county or another entity buy the 985 sending area
acres of Pepper Ranch in fee simple and assume management
responsibility when the landowners currently have that responsibility
under their Stewardship Sending Area easement, and they are down to
ago two, which is the least extensive -- intensive use. The next one
down is conservation.
And they did that designation voluntarily, so why should we
spend for something that's being done by the private sector?
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Two, what are the county and the potential partners' intentions --
and I include with the county, solid waste, transportation, whatever --
for the receiving areas? Is that for mitigation? Is it for restoration? Is
it for mining? Is it for active recreation like ball parks or A TV parks
or something similar? Is it for camping, RV camping, primitive
camping? What are the intentions for the receiving areas? Is it going
to be housing or some combination thereof?
I think we have to know the fate of those receiving areas when
we're thinking about buying the entire ranch.
Number three, what does the acquisition mean to Conservation
Collier's budget and existing obligation as well as future acquisitions
and management? We're already being told we don't have the
management money necessary to maintain what we'd like to acquire or
what we have now.
What are the partners bringing to the table in terms of acquisition
money and long-term management money? I'd like to know more
about that.
And lastly, what does the acquisition do to the integrity of our
rural land stewardship program, which is a voluntary program to get
these lands that have been identified as needing special protection?
What does that do to the integrity of the program? And what are the
fate of those stewardship credits that have been removed from there?
Is it our obligation now to buy them because the landowner can't sell
them at this time?
I do resent the implication that if we don't buy it, it's going to be
developed. If it could be developed, it would be done now because
they have enough credits to do some towns. He also has -- the owners
have access to the half circle L credits, so I don't think that's a valid --
and I find it an offensive rationale to put forward for us to buy it is
because they're going to mine it or they're going to develop it.
Well, they can do that on the receiving area, and that was part of
the rural land stewardship program is to direct that type of activity.
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So those are my thoughts. Again, I support it on the A list, but I
say, let's slow down and get answers to these and a lot of other
questions before we put the money down to buy it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: May I ask you a question, please?
MS. PAYTON: Certainly.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: You started talking about receiving,
your second question, receiving. Can you expound upon that? I'm not
sure what you're -- is this on the land?
MS. PAYTON: Yes. The ranch has two different basic
designations in it. It has sending lands under the rural lands
stewardship. It also has receiving lands. There are about 200 acres, I
understand, that are in the Immokalee urban area. The 985 acres of the
2,500 are currently protected, I feel, and I think that's true, under our --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right.
MS. PAYTON: -- rural land stewardship program. So the
question is, why would we be spending Conservation dollars to buy
those lands?
I do have concerns about the receiving area and are we buying
those for conservation purposes or some other purposes? And I
haven't gotten an answer to that yet, and I don't think the public has,
and I imagine you haven't either.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Great.
MS. PAYTON: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Brad Cornell. He'll be
followed by Jennifer Heckeri (sic).
MS. HECKER: Hecker.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. I know she wants to speak on
this item.
MR. CORNELL: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Brad
Cornell. I'm here on behalf of the Collier County Audubon Society
and Audubon of Florida.
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We very strongly support the acquisition of this ranch and putting
it on the A list, and in that support, Audubon would like to point out
two important details, which is why I wanted to come up and speak.
The first is that the entire ranch is a package deal which includes the
985 acres of lands with stewardship easements over them, but no
public access.
We want to point out that any appraisal, of course, should reflect
the fact that the development rights have been removed from those
985 acres, so that's something to watch when that -- those appraisals
come back.
The second point is that public conservation land acquisition is
clearly sanctioned in the Collier County Comprehensive Plan in the
rural land stewardship policies as an important complementary tool for
preserving and restoring rural, natural and agricultural resources in the
RLSA landscape. In other words, buying the Pepper Ranch is
completely complementary to also having protected the 985 acres to
the stewardship process. The two can work together, and that goes
back to the point that it's a package deal and we do support it. Thank
you very much.
MS. FILSON: Jennifer Hecker. She'll be followed by Tom
Bogan.
MS. HECKER: Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to
comment. This is Jennifer Hecker. I'm with the Conservancy of
Southwest Florida.
And I just want to express our wholehearted support for the
acquisition of Pepper Ranch. I know that some questions have been
raised. These are all questions that we've carefully considered, but we
believe that this is a historic opportunity, that all those issues can be
addressed further down the line in the process. There'll be other
decision-making points to do that, and all of them are worth working
through because this is such an exceptional piece of property with
such high, outstanding national resource value. I know many of you
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have been out on the site.
I wanted to express that we've been working very closely with
other entities to bring partnership deals for management to the table.
We've been working with Division of State Lands. And as Alex
mentioned, they are really seriously interested in partnering with you
and bringing some real dollars to contribute towards the acquisition
because they, like you, realize how important this piece of property is
for public conservation.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also has some grants
available for management that they are interested in pursuing with
you, and the Water Management District, we have had ongoing
conversations with them. They have a land team actually who has to
traverse this property in order to manage the CREW properties, that is
interested in partnering with you as well. So there are many
opportunities here.
I think it just speaks to the outstanding nature ofthis property. It
does offer all sorts of wilderness recreational opportunities for an area
that's rapidly urbanizing, and to speak to the rural land stewardship
program, as Brad said, it is correct that in policy 1.18, it actually
speaks directly to federal, state, or local programs working with that
program to publicly preserve these types of lands that have been
identified, so it is absolutely complementary for Conservation Collier
to pursue this acquisition.
I just want to take a moment, in the interest of time, which I all --
to ask everyone who's here in support of Pepper Ranch to rise and
stand so that you can see what an overwhelming support there is for
the community for this. Thank you.
MS. FILSON: Next speaker is Tom Bogan.
MR. BOGAN: I'm talking in reference to the next property.
MS. FILSON: Okay. He'll be followed by Bill Perdichizzi.
MR. PERDICHIZZI: Next property.
MS. FILSON: Betsy Perdichizzi?
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MS. PERDICHIZZI: Not Pepper Ranch.
MS. FILSON: Ellin Goetz? She'll be followed by William
Poteet.
MS. GOETZ: Hello. Thank you very much. I'm Ellin Goetz.
I'm here speaking as a private citizen, but as you know, I was involved
with the Conservation Collier, campaigns one and two, and I sat on
the committee for about three years.
So I just want to say that I deeply respect the opinions of Nancy
Payton, Brad Cornell, and Jennifer Hecker, and I just feel like this is
an historic opportunity for Conservation Collier. And in the years that
I did sit on the committee, I always dreamed that a parcel like this
would get nominated for the process, and it never did.
But today we have the opportunity to at least take this parcel
through the process of Conservation Collier, which is a very fair
process. I think that's been certainly proven.
So I just encourage you all to consider that. I think it has
enormous public access to recreational opportunities as well, which is
probably more than most parcels that have been acquired by this
program.
So thank you very much.
MS. FILSON: Your final speaker is William Poteet.
MR. POTEET: Good afternoon. My name is William H. Poteet,
Jr., for the record, and I'm here on behalf of Conservation Collier as
their chairman, and I'm here basically just to answer any questions you
may have of the committee itself and why we made the decision to
recommend any of the properties there.
We're all in favor -- we were all in favor, but one, for Pepper
Ranch, and the one individual that did not vote in favor, it was Mr.
Pires, and he stated he's actually for the property but there was a
number of questions that Ms. Payton brought up that we had the same
questions. But we felt we really couldn't resolve these questions
unless we moved it to the next level, and then during your process of
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deliberation and research over the next few months, we'll be able to
get those questions answered, and that's the reason we did what we
did.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. You'll stand by in case we do
have questions on other ones; thank you.
MS. FILSON: I had some of these speakers --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Late file? Okay.
MS. FILSON: -- mixed up with J, so I have another stack here.
Brenda Brooks? She'll be followed by Michael Seef.
MS. BROOKS: Hi, for the record, I'm Brenda Brooks, Executive
Director of CREW Land and Water Trust. CREW is the Corkscrew
Regional Ecosystem Watershed spanning both Lee and Collier
Counties. CREW Trust is a non-profit organization formed in 1989
with the mission of preserving and protecting this 60,000 acre
watershed.
On behalf of the CREW board of trustees, I am thrilled to tell you
that we express our unconditional support for the acquisition of the
Pepper Ranch. This 2,500-acre parcel is contiguous to CREW and lies
within the CREW project boundaries as defined by the South Florida
Water Management District.
There's a whole bunch of other stuff in here. I'm going to jump
right to the bottom. The CREW Trust has recently partnered with
Conservation Collier in the acquisition of the Starnes property,
another important component to the CREW project, by contributing
$300,000.
The CREW Trust has unanimously elected to use the remaining
funds within the trust -- we think that this is so important -- that we
will contribute $350,000 towards, what we feel, this is a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Thank you.
MS. FILSON: Michael Seef. He'll be followed by Mary Schell.
MS. SCHELL: Pass.
MS. FILSON: Pass?
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CHAIRMAN HENNING: Pass.
MS. FILSON: Is she going to speak on the other issue?
MS. SCHELL: No.
MS. FILSON: Okay. Then she'll be followed by Susan Calkins.
MR. SEEF: Good afternoon. Michael Seef. I live in North
Naples for the last 10 years and have watched the extreme
development and sometimes overdevelopment going on in this county.
And I think that an opportunity like Pepper Ranch will be some form
of mitigation of all of that.
And I think currently the Collier -- Conservation Collier is about
.5 percent of the land of private lands of Collier County. With a
ranch, you bring it up to 1 percent, which makes it a significant
amount. So I think it could be a keystone.
I favor it for wildlife as well as human use and access, and I hope
you vote in favor of it.
I want to say just one thing regarding the landowners, that they in
some ways have not been treated so well as they could be on this, and
there is a certain worry that they might walk away from it. I know
Nancy and others mentioned some alternate uses possibly, but we
don't want to lose this, I guess, is my point.
And so in the approval, or following the approval, if we can get
them with and without the 900 acres of sending lands and so on, that
would be very -- that would be very helpful, again, in the interest of
property rights.
But as a private citizen I -- and my friends and I who came to
Collier to have this kind of a thing to go to and take advantage of,
would be just the most wonderful thing. Thank you.
MS. FILSON: Susan Calkins. She'll be followed by Will Kriz.
MS. CALKINS: I'll just be very brief. I wrote each of you, and
not exactly the same thing, either.
So this is a piece of property that I encountered seven years ago.
Just fell in love with it not necessarily knowing at that time its
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tremendous environmental significance.
I've been through master naturalist programs. I'm someone who's
gone to a number of conferences on this issue. I see how important it
IS.
And I did speak before the acquisition committee, and I did
observe the vote and I observed them all saying it's an A-I-plus
acquisition. So I'm here to request that.
And also maybe in this process of appraisals for the property, that
we appraise it both with and without the credits that are there to give
us the most flexibility in purchase time, assuming we do. Thank you.
MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Will Kriz. He'll be followed
by Tom Taylor.
MR. KRIZ: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Will Kriz. I'm
the Vice-chair of the Conservation Collier Land Acquisition Advisory
Committee.
I just wanted to mention, you know, there are numerous
questions that the committee had, and one of those is, is the effect of
the easement in favor of the county where the development rights have
been stripped off, and it's -- one of the things that we're going to look
at is how those interests would merge once the county acquires the
subsurface rights.
So just -- that's our belief, at least some of us, that those interests
will merge. And that's just one of the questions that we've had, but
those will all be addressed during the process.
Other than that, I would just like to point out Alex Sulecki has
done a wonderful job putting all this together. So I support the
acquisition. Thank you.
MS. FILSON: Your final speaker this time is Tom Taylor.
MR. T A YLO R: I'll just answer questions if you have any.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. A question, if I may,
regarding the appraisal that we're authorizing.
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MS. SULECKI: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We have a standard procedure
as far as the appraisal goes. How does this work now? When we
make that offer, it's based upon the actual appraisal? Is it two
appraisals?
MS. SULECKI: It would be two appraisals, and we would -- the
offer would be the average of the two. If they were more than 20
percent divergent, we would get a third, and it would be the average of
the two highest.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. And we have never
deviated from this particular process?
MS. SULECKI: No, I don't think so.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I think this is important to
mention because we have a lot of very excited people whose
enthusiasm could possibly give reason to the seller to try to drive up
the price. I will not support anything that deviates from that policy, no
matter how excited we get. We could give away the company store on
this one if we're not careful. Very, very supportive of Pepper Ranch
within that framework of what we just discussed.
Question. On CREW Trust coming in as a partner, is that going
to in any way influence the -- our ability to be able to use that land for
certain recreational uses?
MS. SULECKI: Well, that's something that would have to be
worked out in agreement. I know that on the Starnes parcel, we chose
to do it with them as an undifferentiated owner. And they agreed that
we could use it for mitigation purposes. So we had some agreements
beforehand, and that's what we would have to do here, is make
agreement.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. The 350,000's only
going to be a very, very small portion of the --
MS. SULECKI: That's true.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- amount of the purchase price;
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is that correct?
MS. SULECKI: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I hope at no point in time do we
give up anything as far as the public use of that to be able to satisfy
some other entity out there. One of the biggest reasons why I'm
supporting this is because of the public's ability to access this land, to
be able to use it in a responsible manner. Just a real concern I've got
on that. Thank you very much.
MS. SULECKI: We would bring that back to you for you to
reVIew.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay.
MS. SULECKI: And approve. And I just wanted to mention --
and I appreciate Mr. Kriz saying that I did a wonderful job, but it was
my whole team here. We all did --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Why don't we all say it all at once.
We'll all just say it right now . You're doing a great job.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Great job.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: One of the things about CREW,
they like to have public access. They don't like to keep the public off
of their lands. We have -- we bring trips out with kids, with adults, we
have butterfly sightings, we have wild flower sightings. We bring
people on all the time. So that shouldn't be a concern.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, it still is a concern
because they don't exactly like to have the kind of access that I would
like to see as far as people being able to -- maybe Boy Scouts setting
up a camp there, limited amount of hunting and fishing to be able to
take place.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's okay.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. And this is the reason
why I've got concern. If CREW's going to step into this and it's going
to limit it to what it does for the other lands, then I really don't know if
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I'm aboard.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Did you want to go ahead and make a
motion, Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I already did, but I'll make it again,
now that I've been told 14 times -- 14 times that there's no objection to
it.
I make a motion that the Pepper Ranch be added to the A list.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: And I second it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Got a motion and a second.
Alec (sic), Commissioner Coyle's (sic) question really wasn't
answered on CREW lands. The Starnes property, if there is a
partnership, will there be any hunting on that?
MS. SULECKI: Starnes, yes. In fact, we met just last week with
CREW and with South Florida and with Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission to include that in the wildlife management
area for hunting purposes.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. So I think that the
commissioners need to know all of these concerns and, you know, to
answer Nancy Payton's concern on one, there won't be any money left
in Conservation Collier if it's extended. That was my concern about
the rural stewardship area and Conservation Collier getting in this
program was just this issue, is, do you compromise that program, that
award-winning program, by purchasing lands that are already in
sending?
I'm going to support the -- putting it on the A list, but the
stewardship credits that the board, this board already approve to take
off, cannot be put back on in this forum. The person who requested
those that take it off needs to come back to the board to put it back on.
You know, that -- that ship already sailed. We can't reconsider
that now. That was almost two years ago, or last year or something
like that.
So they're going to have to come back and put that on there, and I
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think the evaluation should be for lands that those credits are already
removed.
And I did hear some concerns about development on this
property. That's a bunch of hooey. Nobody is buying property in
Collier County except for government, and they're going to hold on to
this property for a long, long time unless government buys it to get
them out of that obligation from maintenance of this property. That's
just a fact of life. That's where we are with the economics in Collier
County .
So with that, all in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries unanimously.
MS. SULECKI: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: The only concerns that I have on the
balance of it, I can't support the I -7 5 multi acquisition. I do believe
that we ought to try to finish out section 53 in the Winchester Head
and Devisse property. Did I pronounce --
MS. SULECKI: Devisse.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Devisse. That's an issue, that I don't
want to put a passive park in there only to have neighbors in the
neighboring community have concern about access, and then the
board has to change its mind again.
MS. SULECKI: I just spoke to Mr. Jim Culker, who is the
president of the homeowners association for Delasol, and they weren't
going to be here today because they didn't have any concerns about
Conservation Collier going forward, and they said they would work
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with us during the land management process to get something that was
agreeable to them.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, I received an email, they didn't
want any access over there.
MS. SULECKI: I see.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Ifwe purchase it, that would prohibit
it from being developed in the future.
MS. SULECKI: True.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Who would like to live -- everybody
would like to live next to a private conservation area with nobody
accesses it but you. I think we have a lot of that in Golden Gate
Estates, but we individually pay for it.
Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. And when I met with the
representatives from the community, they indicated they were very
much opposed to any kind of meaningful access to that property.
They were very specific about that.
So when the time does come when those kind of discussions take
place, I agree with Commissioner Henning, if there isn't a public use
to it, just to have a green piece of property sitting out in the middle of
someplace that no one in the public, other than a very limited select
group of people have access to, that's not appealing at all.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah. That piece of property could
probably be used to be developed, right?
MS. SULECKI: It could. There could being 15 units there on
the upland portion that's right adjacent to Delasol.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. Because I feel the same
way, if we can't have parking on that and use it as passive recreation.
Because it's going to offend the homeowners that live around that
area, then I feel that we shouldn't buy it, that we should maybe just let
it go and it will be developed.
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CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Anything else? Would it be
appropriate to have a motion now?
MS. FILSON: Do you want to hear the other speakers on this?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. There's some other speakers
on other parcels, but I have some concerns about some other parcels,
but I'd rather hear from the speakers first.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay, thank you. Can we go to
speakers, please.
MS. FILSON: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have four additional
speakers. James Dyches. He'll be followed by Tom Bogan.
MR. DYCHES: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name's
Jim Dyches. My wife and I own the Dyches property on the
acquisition list. I don't have any comments at this time, but I'd be
happy to answer any questions that may develop.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any questions?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I see the property. I'm trying to
see how the access would be to it.
MR. DYCHES: Well, it's adjacent to the Otter property, which
you also own, and the Karen property, which is to the port side or the
wet side. And there is an easement that comes up between the
properties.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So I mean, this would be a
walk-to park for people in the neighborhood?
MR. DYCHES: That's my understanding. There are -- there
have been a couple of different proposals. One, there could be a
visitors center back there, but I think that has been pretty much
rej ected.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It does -- the way you're talking
about it, if it doesn't have a place for people to park and people to
access it from throughout the county, then I'm not supportive of it.
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MR. DYCHES: There is -- well, that would be up to your group.
There is parking back there now. I live back there. There's a house
back there.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Oh, no, that's fine then. But I'm
just -- I want to make sure, like Commissioner Henning and a couple
other commissioners mentioned, if this is very limited neighborhood
access type of park, then it should be the neighborhood purchasing it
rather than the whole county with the tax assessment to be able to --
it's got to be something that's got an amenity that other people could
use, even though it's a limited fashion, they could still use it. And
they can't be expected to walk from halfway across the county to get
there.
MR. DYCHES: Understand. As I say, it is adjacent to the Otter
Mound property, which the county also owns and has some limited
parking there.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. That's good. That's a
positive.
MS. FILSON: Okay. I'm getting speakers from the first batch
saying they want to speak again.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Oh, that's a no-no.
MS. FILSON: On these separate subjects. So it's up -- you tell
me what you want.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No. Let's hear it.
MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Tim (sic) Bogan. He'll be
followed by Bill Perdichizzi.
MR. BOGAN: It's actually Tom Bogan. I live at 1016 Inlet
Drive on Marco. I'm -- my property backs up to Dyches' property and
also the Otter Mound. I've got probably 175 foot in the back,
probably 100 of it is on the Otter Mound and the 75 remaining is on
Dyches' property.
My back pool deck right now currently overlooks the Otter
Mound, which is -- which was, when we moved there 22 years ago, a
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pretty pristine residential area, very private. Now it's completely wide
open, and I have park benches and signage in my back yard.
We are not in -- against the county buying Dyches' property, but
what we are against, if -- any more public access in my back yard.
Really, Commissioner Fiala was kind enough to -- came down
and took a look at what we are, you know, kind of dealing with. We
are working with Conservation Collier, but as far as trying to create --
recreate a buffer zone. But we really are not interested in any more
public access, you know, real close behind our house.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. And what he's really referring
to, there were a couple problems. I went onto this site. One of them
was we had -- now, this is, as you can see, located in a residential area,
but we had prisoners going out tending to the land, and that -- I didn't
know that until they pointed this out to me, and when I pointed it out
to our people, they said, we'll stop that. We'll have different
maintenance crews, because it is a neighborhood. And so that was --
that was the one thing. That's what you said, right, Melissa?
Okay. And then secondly, there was a proposal to use the house
as a visitors center, and the people in the neighborhood said you
know, we're a neighborhood here. We don't want to have a visitors
center here. They Dyches people have said, they'll tear the house
down. Our people have said, that's fine. All we're trying to do is just
add land to those.
Right now this is a beautiful piece of property because it's got
some of the old shell mounds, and this particular piece of property was
owned by Tommy Barfield. That's where she lived when she first
settled in and really was the mother of our school system, I believe.
And so there's historical value to this.
So what he's just saying is, they don't want to see a bunch more
people coming. People that are coming there is fine, but they don't
want to have prisoners taking care of the land nor do they want to
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have a visitors center.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: So did you want to take it off the A
list?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Oh, okay. All right. I misunderstood.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, I'm sorry.
MR. BOGAN: Well, our concern is like the walking paths that
they have. And another problem, what we had this summer, they
accidentally had sprayed a herbicide, Colarsonal (phonetic), on the
ground, which is pretty deadly to the landscaping and it pretty much
knocked off about 65 percent of the vegetation and trees, you know,
that are, you know, all gumbo-limbo, wild avocados and mango trees
back there.
So now it's wide open because there's no type of foliage. But if
we increase walking paths through the Dyches property, now I will
have the entire -- every window in my house completely wide open to
the public. And they -- and the park gets visited probably about 25 to
30 visitors a day, and it's open from dawn till dusk and there's no --
there's no, you know, gate or fence or -- City of Marco doesn't patrol
it, so it's wide open, you know, right to the back of my house. That's
really our big concern. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Bill Perdichizzi.
MS. SULECKI: May I point out that -- in case you didn't see it
-- that the advisory committee made an additional recommendation at
their January meeting to discount the value of the price by the cost to
demolish it, or discount the value of the property by the cost to
demolish the house.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Next speaker?
MS. FILSON: Bill Perdichizzi, and he'll be followed by Betsy
Perdichizzi.
MR. PERDICHIZZI: Good afternoon. My name's Bill
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Perdichizzi. I'm the Administrative Vice-president from the Marco
Island Historical Society.
I kind of hate to be the bearer of bad news to Mr. Bogan, but
currently the plans for the Otter Mound property now -- I'm not
talking about the Dyches property. I'm talking about the Otter Mound
preserve -- is that we plan to implement a program of educational
outreach to both the students of Collier County and to the public who
are -- who is interested in history, archaeology, et cetera.
So whether or not you buy this property -- and I really want to
discount this misinformation that's been going out -- is not going to
affect our plans whatsoever, because our interest, of course, is to
develop the educational opportunities and recreational opportunities at
Otter Mound.
So we're going to see an increase in public traffic whether or not
you buy the Dyches property. That's going to happen. Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And I think that's up to the Board of
County Commissioners to determine. Thank you.
MR. PERDICHIZZI: I'm--
CHAIRMAN HENNING: As far as activities on the properties,
there is a management plan that the board needs to approve. I'm not
sure if we approved that.
MR. PERDICHIZZI: I'm not sure that basically there's a conflict
there at all. We can certainly check with Alex, but I don't believe
there is a conflict.
The other thing that's been going around which we want to dispel
is that we're going to make a parking lot, and obviously this is totally
against our principles.
The one thing that did happen is when this property was offered
for sale -- and it did have the house in here. We thought this might be
a unique opportunity to really contain the travel in and through the
property by having a visitors center. This way people would have a
place for recreation, amenities, for, you know, rest, relaxation, seeing
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different videos, et cetera. But if this is not in the best interest of the
county, we don't object at all to the house totally being demolished
and removed.
We do think that this is being a little shortsighted because I
suspect that in five to 10 years you may have to change your mind and
rebuild. But this is a decision by the county, and we have absolutely
no objection to the facility being removed from that.
What we are very much concerned with is basically that this
structure, this land, be preserved. When you talk about environmental
sensitivity, there's a different criteria that go together to determine the
environmental sensitivity of a piece of property.
You know, there's air quality, water quality, recreation, you have
the ecological situation, the flora and the fauna involved, those values.
You have historical value, archaeologic value, educational value,
artistic value, and just plain rest and relaxation.
This piece of property, perhaps, provides the most
environmentally sensitive value, it fulfills most of these requirements
more than any other property that I have ever seen. It is in a highly
urbanized area, it provides green space, and basically it can serve the
most needs for the most people for the cheapest cost.
We think this property is definitely --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Can you wrap your comments up,
please.
MR. PERDICHIZZI: Okay. We think this property is basically
a best buy and we would like to see the county keep it on the A list.
MS. FILSON: Next speaker is Betsy Perdichizzi. Actually, I
should have called her up first. She drew a nice little picture on how
to pronounce her name.
Is she waiving? Did she waive?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I don't know. I'm not sure what's
going on. Do we have another speaker?
MS. FILSON: Yes. We have one additional speaker. She'll be
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followed by --
MS. PERDICHIZZI: My name is Betsy Perdichizzi, and I would
just like to know if I could give my time to my husband to finish his
remarks.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No, ma'am.
MS. PERDICHIZZI: I cannot?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Usually you negotiate that
beforehand.
MS. PERDICHIZZI: Well, we did. We know that -- and that
was one of the reasons that I signed up to speak because I think that
has happened before, that you have allowed that courtesy to other
people, but that's fine.
I just would like to say that we have led, in the past six months,
12 months, several different tours to the property, school children, as
well as adults, 30 to 40, and we have not received one complaint from
anyone living around in that area. And some of the neighbors did --
when we did write letters for approval to the purchase ofthis property.
So there are two sides, I suppose, to every issue.
But it's a wonderful property, the Otter Mound property, and we
would love to see you add to it to keep it, and we think the green space
will remain there, and Mr. Bogan will be satisfied when the herbicide
has gone away and things have grown up again and his yard is private,
and we certainly can appreciate that. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you.
MS. FILSON: Your final speaker, Mr. Chairman, is Rachelle
Dover.
MS. DOVER: It's Rachelle actually. So for the record, Rachelle
Dover for the Devisse property owners, representing them.
I just wanted to point out that the Delasol homeowners
association was absolutely against the park that was already a part of
their PUD but they weren't necessarily against the purchase of this
property. They just actually asked for two stipulations for the -- when
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they appeared before the CLAC.
So they were asking that pedestrian-only access be allowed. And
we weren't against that. I don't think the CLAC was against that at all.
And that they were also -- when they purchased in Delasol, it was
disclosed to them about the park but also about the potential for
development of the Devisse property.
So their attorney had actually indicated to me if the -- if it could
be worked out where the pedestrian-only access would be a part of the
stipulations, that they would actually be in favor of this purchase.
So I wish they were here today to help me differentiate this, but
they're not. So I would ask that, perhaps, that you keep it on the A list
and that these issues could be worked out when -- during the process.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas may have a
question for you.
MS. DOVER: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: The problem is, there's no parking,
and so all this is a piece of property that will only be serviced by the
community there. And so that's why we have a problem with this,
because it's -- this property should be open to everyone in Collier
County .
And so -- since the people there at Delasol don't want any
parking on this particular property or Euclid extended, then we have a
problem. So that's why I suggest that maybe we just ought to let --
take this off the list totally and let it be developed.
MS. DOVER: Okay. Well, if! could just rebut that comment
just a minute. There is some potential for parking at the -- where
Euclid ends, and there's actually paved area.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: There's only room for two places,
and that's not enough.
MS. DOVER: Okay. And I certainly understand that, so I don't
think the Conservation Collier board had a problem with that, but
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thank you.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Commissioner Henning?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes. Commissioner--
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, I'm sorry. Before you go--
MS. FILSON: That's your final speaker.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Before you go. May I make a
suggestion? I'm totally in agreement with Commissioner Halas on
this. This would be a wonderful project for the community to get
together and put together an MSTU to be able to purchase this
property and remain in perpetuity in conservation to serve the local
residents there. I think it would be a wonderful thing for your
community to do.
MS. DOVER: Well, I don't live in Delasol, so I--
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Oh, no. But I mean, you
represent them though, right?
MS. DOVER: No. I actually represent the Devisse property.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Oh, forgive me. But you might
want to talk to them and see if they'd be interested in doing that.
MS. DOVER: Okay. That might be something that we go back
and try and negotiate with Delasol.
All right. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you.
MS. SULECKI: Can I just add one thing about the parking
situation?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Let's hear our last speaker.
MS. SULECKI: Okay.
MS. FILSON: That was your final speaker.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That is our final speaker.
MS. SULECKI: I just wanted to mention that --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No. Let's move on with this. Thank
you.
MS. HECKER: We had signed up to speak on all of the parcels.
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CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. How many are here to speak
up on all -- speak on all the parcels? Just the young lady here?
MS. FILSON: And Brad Cornell.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Oh, and Brad, yes. Just kidding.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, you weren't.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I like Brad. Please, let's be brief.
MS. FILSON: Okay. It's Jennifer Hecker followed by Brad
Cornell.
MS. HECKER: Yes. We did have some comments regarding
the other properties that were on the list. We had two things that we
wanted to comment on. One was the Dyches property and -- on
Marco Island. And I -- we certainly admire that there are members of
the community that believe that that should be preserved for its
historical significance, but we believe that the intent of Conservation
Collier is to preserve those areas with the highest environmental and
natural resource value.
And with the price of over a million dollars, we feel that this is
not only inconsistent with the intent of the program, but that that
money would be better spent on some of the other parcels that were
nominated that had higher natural resource value.
And I would -- one such parcel is Camp Keais. Camp Keais has
been identified by every single agency and natural resource mapping
effort that has ever been conducted in Collier County as being one of
the most strategically valuable parts of our county. It's not only a
flowway, but a corridor that branches other publicly-owned lands.
And there's some in-holdings where willing sellers have brought
those to you this cycle that want to make sure that those missing
pieces of this conservation corridor are publicly preserved. And we
would really emphatically request that each of you consider
supporting that those Camp Keais properties come off the C list and
go on the A list because they absolutely are missing pieces of a
conservation corridor that we believe is of some of the highest
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significance in the entire county with regard to its natural resource
value.
So we would ask that those two amendments be made to the list,
that the Dyches property be downlisted to C based on its natural
resource value and its high price, and that Camp Keais properties be
uplisted to the A list. Thank you.
MS. FILSON: Brad Cornell.
MR. CORNELL: Thank you, Commissioners. I'm sorry to -- for
the confusion. I thought we were just speaking about Pepper Ranch,
so -- I did want to address -- I'm not going to address all the properties.
I just had three properties I wanted to additionally make a mention
about.
One was, I agree with the Conservancy on the Dyches property.
It's expensive and small and we can spend our money on, obviously,
some great other properties that are on the list.
I also believe the North Golden Gate Estates I-75 properties have
great potential, and especially with the willingness of Dr. Gore to sell
his large acreage in that same area contiguous to this, that that is a
great opportunity to protect an important habitat corridor between the
panther refuge and North Belle Meade.
And finally, I want to point out an important property that's
recommended by the committee as a B property, and that's the Su
property, S-U. I -- Collier County Audubon believes that it should be
an A property. It's the headwaters for the east branch of Henderson
Creek. It's a known manatee warm water refuge during winter
months, and an integral part of the watershed for Rookery Bay.
Audubon strongly recommends that this parcel be put on the A
list with a high priority for purchase, and that does contrast with the
committee's recommendation. I think, even though it's expensive, it's
a very critical part, and it's also a part of Everglades restoration
through the Henderson Creek Belle Meade watershed project that's
right in that area to protect the watershed for Rookery Bay,
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essentially. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Okay.
Did you want to say something, Alec (sic)?
MS. SULECKI: The only thing I wanted to mention about the
Devisse parcel and the parking lot was that we looked at that initially,
and we determined that putting a parking lot inside that slough would
be very, very difficult and expensive to permit and would probably be
contrary to Conservation Collier goals, so that we weren't really
considering a parking lot at this point, but that's something we could
work out later.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. All right. Entertain a motion.
Commissioner Coyle? I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I would just like to say that
I am not in favor of purchasing the Devisse property or the Dyches
property, and I have a lot of questions about the I-75 properties. And I
think -- I think we've got to get some more information concerning
those before we can vote on that.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I'd like to see the Camp Keais
property come off the C and onto the A because I do think that that's a
very important part of -- important piece of property that should be
preserved.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Are you going to make a motion?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: It is on the A, isn't it?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, is that a motion?
MS. SULECKI: It's on the C list --
MR. MUDD: It's on the C list.
MS. SULECKI: -- Camp Keais.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: It's on the C list.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Entertain a motion at this time.
Anybody have a motion? You want me to formulate a motion?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh. I was waiting for an
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explanation on the I-75 properties, and then I'll formulate a motion, if
it will be okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Sure.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: For the record, Nick Casalanguida,
your Transportation Planning Director. I'm also the Project Manager
for the I-75 IGR.
We'd like to ask you to defer recommending that to the A list
until such time that the IGR and the PD&E is complete, because I
think we can partner with Conservation Collier in the future when that
location has been determined and we know what the impacts to that
interchange will be.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now one final question.
The Hamilton property. Are we really -- is now the right time to start
proceeding with anything on the Hamilton property?
MS. SULECKI: Well, it's for sale now. Are you considering the
foreclosure action or --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes.
MS. SULECKI: Well, if it goes to foreclosure, it will be very
difficult for us to buy it because our program is not set up to buy from
the courthouse steps.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. All right.
Then, Mr. Chairman, I would make a motion that we approve the
committee's recommendations for the A list with the following
changes: That the Devisse property be eliminated from the A list, that
the I-75 properties be delayed and not placed on the A list, and that the
Dyches property not be placed on the A list, that the Camp Keais
property be moved to the A list. And those are the only changes I
would make to the committee's recommendations.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'll second that.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Do you have something else, Alex?
MS. SULECKI: Can I just ask you to, instead of saying off the
list, move them to the B or C, and then we'll know exactly where to
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January 29,2008
put them.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: That will be fine, sure.
MS. SULECKI: Okay.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Anything I said to take off the A
list, we put them on the B or C list, right?
MS. SULECKI: B or C, yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
MS. SULECKI: So Devisse would be?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Devisse would be C.
MS. SULECKI: C.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And Dyches would be C, and the
I-75, I don't know where you put that until we --
MS. SULECKI: B would be a place so we could reconsider it
next year.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Let's go with B then, all
right.
MS. SULECKI: All right.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a motion by Commissioner
Coyle to accept the advisory board's recommendations with
amendments, and we have a second by Commissioner Halas.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: One clarification. Did you say the
Camp Keais goes onto A?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there any further discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Call the motion. It's a lot of
money.
All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
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January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries unanimously.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And Mr. Chairman, could I just
add one thing? The chairman just mentioned money. That's going to
be uppermost in my mind the next time you come back to us. We
need to know how much money we've got left, how much we're likely
-- and you've got some of this in the executive summary -- how much
we expect to bring in over the next few years with the effect of various
state government actions, and we need to use our money in the wisest
possible way because we are going to run short.
MS. SULECKI: Yes, sir, agreed. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Can we do one more item?
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Can I just ask a question? If -- some
of these things that have been moved to C, we can always move
around again as others, like the Su property also, that was the B
property. Those can get moved around here and there, right?
MS. SULECKI: Let's see. Su was a B list. That will be
automatically considered next year unless the owners don't care to.
And C list can come back and apply again.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Next item?
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us to 10E, and that's to
provide the Board of County Commissioners --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Can we go to that one that
Commissioner Coyle had a concern about?
Item #lOJ
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January 29, 2008
AN AGREEMENT PROVIDING A MAXIMUM EXPENDITURE
OF FIFTY-FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS ($54,000) FROM THE
GAC LAND TRUST TO THE GOLDEN GATE FIRE CONTROL
AND RESCUE DISTRICT TO PURCHASE SIX WEATHER
STATIONS - APPROVED
MR. MUDD: Okay. That's 16E6, and that's lOJ, and that's a
recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners approve an
agreement to provide a maximum expenditure of $54,000 from the
GAC Land Trust to the Golden Gate Fire Control and Rescue District
to purchase six weather stations. That item was moved at
Commissioner Coyle's request.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just to shortcut this. My only
concern was that it was not clear how this expenditure of $54,000 was
going to serve the interests of the public. And what kinds of whether
stations are you thinking about putting in fire stations and what is the
importance of doing that only in this particular fire district?
MS. MOTT: For the record, Toni Mott, Real Estate Services.
We have asked representatives from the Golden Gate Fire District to
attend the meeting today to give specifics as to how the weather
stations will operate. And if Chief Peterson would like to come up
and address that issue.
CHIEF PETERSON: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Don
Peterson, Fire Chief, Golden Gate Fire Control and Rescue District.
The weather stations actually cover two fire districts, Big
Corkscrew and the Golden Gate Fire District; however, because it's --
I'm sorry. The type of weather stations is through WeatherBug.
WeatherBug is used nationally. It's been adopted by the -- several of
the federal government agencies. The -- more and more. Broward
County has currently just about covered the entire county with these
stations.
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January 29,2008
The weather stations take readings in specific areas; however,
because it's weather, it impacts a large area.
What our growing concern is and has been, because of the
growing large population, the shortage or understaffing of emergency
responders, the more tools we can provide out there that lets us know
what the dangers are out there, or when we have chemical releases,
have hazardous material activities going, it's important for us to be
able to know what the exact temperatures are in an area, what the
weather is actually in that area in dew point, it affects burns, it affects
the plumes that are created from different types of -- whether it's
gasoline or whether it's a chlorine leak, these different types of things.
And it's really intended to be the start of -- ideally it would be
countywide, but we've got to start someplace. That's what was
intended that -- be able to reach out and -- because we've got a large
populous out there.
The 951 corridor is increasing, it's expanding. Vanderbilt
extension is expanding. Immokalee Road's expanding. And it would
help I -75 activity. We've got a large population in there.
Normally when we get the alerts from the weather service, at
least in the Golden Gate Estates area, the storm, most of the time, has
already gone through that area. When the radio goes off, give us an
alert, and it's kind of like, no kidding.
There's software included with this that allows us to analyze it,
set it up as parameters for warnings, and it's intended to go on the web
pages. It's certainly intended to have access really for anybody. The
general public accesses it as they need it, should they need it.
But the big focus to it though is the emergency responders,
whether that's law enforcement or fire or EMS. We have the questions
come up during the hurricane. We ask people, a lot of the EOC,
what's your weather out there? Depending on the individual, they
mayor may not give you an accurate picture of that. And depending
on the driver of the vehicle when we ask him, how bad is the wind out
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January 29, 2008
there, most of the time the drivers are not going to want to pull off the
road when they've got an emergency call to go to. This will help
provide us a better footprint, what is the wind actually doing out there
in the direction.
We historically have seen south 41 -- we've declared countywide,
pulled vehicles off the road, but we'd get reports, south 41, they
couldn't drive on it but Golden Gate you could. You could almost see
the sun shine. And it's typical Florida weather. You go two blocks
and the weather has changed on you.
So the focus was trying to provide an additional safety layer in
there for us, take a lot of the guessing out of it.
They are approved by the National Weather Service. They do
accept the data. They're installed and certified to their standards. And
as I say, the -- any governmental entity that needs to use it, it would be
acceptable data in their format.
It also -- they've made some changes in the last year, six months,
that data can now be laid as an overlay on the GIS software, which the
county currently uses, as well as we use, that we can -- what -- the
importance of that is, we can use the -- as care (sic) of the county
mapping that we have, we can lay that on top of that and actually
determine how many homes more accurately are impacted by this and
-- so there's a great interface activity there.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Let's go to Commissioner
Halas, and then Commissioner Coletta. We could always come back.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Are you -- when you say weather
stations -- and a lot of people out there would simulate that this would
be like you're going to measure the temperature and the humidity and
stuff. I think it's more than that.
Tell me if I'm wrong. Is there where you're going to get data
from a Doppler radar and have it on your computer that you could
broadcast this out to show you what the possibilities of rainfall are
going to be in a particular area?
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January 29,2008
CHIEF PETERSON: No Doppler radar involved.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: It is or isn't?
CHIEF PETERSON: Is not. It's temperature, humidity, wind
direction. With the software, there is predictability in forecasting in
there because you're taking readings. Relative humidity, dew points
determined from that, and it's -- currently we've got one station that
provides all the data currently, but it doesn't have the capability of
being certified and doesn't provide the accuracy that these do.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: And then how do you get this
information transmitted out to the public?
CHIEF PETERSON: Through the web pages, web sites.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Suppose that we don't have power,
then how do you get it out?
CHIEF PETERSON: We generally --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: You've got generators, but the
people may not have power.
CHIEF PETERSON: Well, that's -- there again, the primary
focus is for the emergency services personnel. We can still
communicate with these stations.
Yes, there's -- we've got amateur radio group, that if we've got
shelters, those different things, we can share the information through
that. I would expect through the emergency management normal
chain, we would be able to pass that data along.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I was -- I had basically -- I had the
same questions that Commissioner Coyle had, and so I was looking at
this as maybe this was a possibility that it was a tool for you to tie in
with local Doppler radar or there was some way that you could predict
what the direction of a storm was so that you could get it out there
prior to the storm hitting, if it was on a web page or whatever else, but
if it's while it's occurring, then I have some concerns.
I guess I just don't fully understand the whole implications that
you're trying to bring forth today. I don't understand what it is that
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this weather station for this kind of price is going to enhance the
residents in Collier County.
CHIEF PETERSON: Currently if we have an incident on 951,
hazardous material spill --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay.
CHIEF PETERSON: -- the closest weather station we would
have is the building across the parking lot. That weather is inaccurate
and unusable for us out in the field.
And historically a lot of times that's what they've told us, or on
the roof of this building, they give us wind direction. But when you
get into the Estates area, your wind is completely different. Because
the way the roads are laid out in the Estates, it provides a different
channel at times that the wind is completely opposite than what you
could do down here.
Now, it is not the intent of emergency services to go into the
forecasting business, and that's where the other entities come into that.
The software we have has the capability of predicting, but the main
focus and interest for us is in these particular areas, at the time the
incident happens, what is your due point, what is your wind direction
and how fast is it actually going. When you take hand readings with
instruments out there, again, it relies on the individual to make sure
that they're doing that correctly. In the case of fire season, dew point,
with these red flag days, it's extremely important.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta has a question.
CHIEF PETERSON: Yeah, I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Chief, forgive me. I'm trying to
get my arms around this. I know at a time when the dollar is going to
be extremely tight and -- you know, and I know we need more of
those horizontal wells out in the Estates at different locations. We
don't have the money for it. And I'm looking at this and I'm trying to
see what the real benefit is.
When you now go to the scene, you're looking at the leaves on
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the trees and the flags that fly on the poles and all the other indicators
that are there. I mean, as you say, this thing changes street by street.
I've seen it before. I'll be driving down the same street and with the
short distance, the flags will be going in two different directions.
How can your weather station ever predict this particular
anomaly that occurs on a regular basis out there? I'm really curious to
how this thing is going to benefit us, and I really don't have that much
confidence in what I'm hearing.
I mean, if you were telling me you were going to put, you know,
this amount of money into more horizontal wells, man, I'd be up there
embracing you right now, you know. It's a tremendous thing to bring
down the cost for the residents that are out there for their insurance
and to offer a little bit more of a protection that's there.
I'm trying to see where this is going to be a positive thing.
Maybe it's something that we need to have more information on,
possibly somebody or someplace where they already got it, they can
show us how it benefited them.
Emergency management's not here, or they can comment on it.
But you've got to understand, I wish to God I was a little more -- they
are. Excuse me. Oh, I didn't see you back there, Dan. You were
hiding behind somebody.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do we have a question? Do we have
a question?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. I would like to hear from
Dan. I mean, this is a pretty complicated issue, and I'm sure, even
Commissioner Coyle because of his experience flying, has more
experience with these kinds of instruments than I ever would.
MR. SUMMERS: For the record, Dan Summers, Director ofthe
Bureau of Emergency Services and Emergency Management.
The best way for me to couch these devises are a network of
automated weather reporting stations, wind speed direction, relative
humidity, and rainfall accumulation. They are very helpful in terms of
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January 29, 2008
amateur-based, emergency-management based, fire-service based
knowledge of weather patterns within a particular area of the district.
These are not tied to formal warning notifications that are issued
by the National Whether Service; however, the National Whether
Service will go to private sites like this and look at their Doppler
radar, which, again, is a long way away in Miami, and evaluate the
radar, the imagery they're seeing with the ground reporting station that
these WeatherBug systems provide.
Are they a useful tool to the EOC and emergency management,
and the answer is, absolutely, yes. Are they mission-critical for us to
get public warnings out? They're nice to have, but all of our public
warning systems are generated and are relied upon by the National
Weather Service.
So when you see the six o'clock news and they show some
spotter locations of wind speed and direction and some of the
WeatherBug have cameras on them, then those are just spotter,
neighborhood-type weather. But it is beneficial for us to have weather
data and weather activity, particularly wind speed and relative
humidity out in the eastern lands as a tactical issue that the chief has
addressed with wildfire, hazardous materials incidents.
So they are a valuable tool and a resource for us, but they are not
part of anything that we own in terms of a liability for public warning.
They provide tactical support information to the fire departments.
And that would be the way I'd sum that up, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, Mr. Chairman. I'm not
going to try to micromanage the emergency operations or the fire
departments. If they say they need them, I guess they need them. But
let me say that, you know, the time is now when we have to start
pinching pennies, and we have to have a cost benefit analysis when we
start making decisions about this.
So I'm saying that if Chief Peterson feels they're good for his fire
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January 29,2008
district, then they must be good for the other fire districts. Let's have
the fire districts provide us a comprehensive cost benefit study of
providing these fire station -- or these weather stations in all of the
districts so we can cover all of Collier County and then evaluate the
potential benefits of doing it, rather than just piecemealing it. If it's
critical, we ought to put it everywhere.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Here's the problem with that. The
funding source that this is coming from --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's right.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- is the GAC. It can only be spent in
Golden Gate Estates. And that's -- there are only things that it can be
spent in Golden Gate Estates. It's not just whatever we want. So it's
very limited. You know, with Mr. Summers' recommendation, I think
that weighs heavy, so I'm going to make a motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Second.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I've got one question.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. There's a -- you have another
question? Please.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you.
Chief, do you see this as more benefit, spending the money on
these weather stations, than on something like horizontal wells out
along the Boulevard or something where they could be a benefit to the
residents?
CHIEF PETERSON: Yes. Because the horizontal wells are not
acceptable by all insurance companies. It's a case-by-case basis.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But they are still a water source
that you can use, regardless if the insurance company comes forward
or not. But so -- so, I mean, just taking everything into consideration,
simply said, this weather station is more important than horizontal
wells?
CHIEF PETERSON: Weather stations deal with a safety issue.
The horizontal wells are important as well. But because of the staff
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January 29, 2008
shortages, I think the weather station comes first versus the horizontal
wells because they're labor intensive. You're required every six
months or so to test them. They do plug the trucks up. They're an
expense to -- whereas the weather stations are installed. There's a huge
population that has access to that data.
I would also -- I -- XM Weather, you're familiar with what
happened with -- that's the same type of tool that, during the
hurricanes, were able to track the water levels even before the South
Florida River Management districts identified we had surge coming
down to us. So I just share that it's a local tool that we're able to share
with everybody.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We have some other speakers.
Would you call the speakers.
MS. FILSON: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have two additional
speakers. Karen Acquard. She'll be followed by Rita Greenberg.
MS. ACQUARD: Rita had to leave. She asked to be excused.
MS. FILSON: Okay.
MS. ACQUARD: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the
record, I'm Karen Acquard. I chair the Land Trust Committee. And I
want to tell you that in discuss -- we had a very thorough presentation.
We take our duties very seriously.
Many requests come before us. We listen closely to all the
information that's presented. We look for extra information. We ask a
lot of questions, and then we have a lot of discussion before we make
a decision.
And the weather stations were something that all of us felt so
strongly about that we asked Jason to please fast track it so that we
could have them in place before this fire season. And by the way -- or
before the worst of this fire season.
There are ones for each of the fire stations, but also a portable,
that will go right to the fire scene or the emergency scene, whether it's
hazardous waste or whatever. It's going to be -- and if it saves one
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home, one life, it's going to pay for itself. It's going to be worth every
cent that -- and the money is there. It doesn't come out of taxpayers'
dollars.
This is money that's sitting in a trust that we have been -- that
we're -- we are responsible for. And we have very specific guidelines
of how this money can be spent, where it can be spent. And even
then, you can't just come in and say, well, I need a new piece of
equipment for the fire department. You have to explain it. You have
to answer all the questions, and then you have to wait while we sit and
figure it out and discuss it right into the ground before we decide
whether it's worth the money or not. And this one we really feel is
worth the money.
I don't think you have ever refused one of the recommendations
that the land trust has sent up to you, and I certainly hope that you
don't refuse this one because the entire committee feels that it is worth
the money and it is going to, in the long run, save hundreds of
thousands of dollars in property.
And as we said, with the population increasing, the chances of
losing lives in some of these wildfires increases each time. So we
think it's worth the money. You're talking seven weather stations, six
fixed, one portable, to cover a little over 200 square miles, and I think
that's pretty good. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Any other questions?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Just one comment. After that
explanation, I'm in total favor of it. No, seriously. I mean, the portable
weather station. Nobody explained that before. The fact it's going to
be at six places. When you divide across the cost of the whole thing,
it's pretty reasonable.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there any other questions?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All in favor of the motion, signify by
saymg aye.
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January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And Commissioner Coyle is opposed.
It passes, 4-1.
Are you keeping track? Do we need a break now?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: She says yes. You know that I
have to leave at 5:45 for the Canvassing Board, so anything you need
me for a vote on, you need to get done before that time.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Why don't we just continue it till
tomorrow, the meeting, and we'll just --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: No, it will take until Friday to get
the votes counted.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah, okay. Let's take a
10-minute-break. Can we be back at 4:30? Everybody synchronize
their watch, please.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Simonize my watch.
(A brief recess was had.)
MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats.
Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you have a hot mike.
Item #10E
AN UPDATE ON PETITION CPSP-2007-6, AN AMENDMENT
TO THE POTABLE WATER SUB-ELEMENT OF THE PUBLIC
FACILITIES ELEMENT OF THE GROWTH MANAGEMENT
PLAN, ADDING REFERENCE IN POLICY 1.7 TO THE
PROPOSED COLLIER COUNTY 10- YEAR WATER SUPPL Y
FACILITIES WORK PLAN, IN ORDER TO BE CONSISTENT
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~ ._m__.__'''' --~----.-.-
January 29, 2008
WITH THE REMEDIAL AMENDMENTS TO THE CAPITAL
IMPROVEMENT ELEMENT, ORDINANCE 89-05, AS
AMENDED; AUTHORIZING THE CHAIRMAN TO EXECUTE
AND FORWARD A LETTER TO THE DEPARTMENT OF
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS (DCA) IN REFERENCE TO THE
ADOPTION TIMELINE OF THE AFOREMENTIONED GMP
AMENDMENT - APPROVED
Next item is 10E. To provide the Board of County
Commissioners with an update on petition CPSP-2007-6, and
amendment to the potable water subelement of the public facilities
element of the Growth Management Plan, to add reference in policy
1.7 to the proposed Collier County 10-year water supply facilities
work plan in order to be consistent with the remedial amendments to
the capital improvement element ordinance 89-05, as amended, and to
have the BCC authorize the chairman to execute and forward a letter
to the Department of Community Affairs, DCA, in reference to the
adoption timeline of the aforementioned GMP amendment.
Mr. Randy Cohen, Comprehensive Planning Director, will
present.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a motion to approve the staffs
recommendation by Commissioner Coyle, second by Commissioner
Fiala.
Mr. Cohen, do you need to go any further, ask any questions or
anything?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good person.
MR. COHEN: Hey, I'm good to go, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, that's good to hear.
All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
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January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries unanimously.
MS. FILSON: Mr. Chairman, who made the second? I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I did.
MS. FILSON: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala.
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, we're finished with lOF. We're
finished with lOG.
Item #10H
RESOLUTION 2008-34: A VOLUNTARY SEPARATION
INCENTIVE PROGRAM, EMPOWER THE COUNTY MANAGER
TO IMPLEMENT THE PROGRAM AND AUTHORIZING THE
CHAIRMAN TO SIGN THE ENABLING RESOLUTION -
ADOPTED (TO INCLUDE COUNTY MANAGER'S AGENCY
AND THE COUNTY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE)
Brings us to 10H, and that's a recommendation that the Board of
County Commissioners establish a Voluntary Separation Incentives
Program, empower the county manager to implement the program,
and authorize the chairman to sign the enabling resolution.
Mrs. Len Price, your Administrative Services Administrator, will
present.
MS. PRICE: Good afternoon, Commissioners. If you'll just bear
with me a little bit. I'm fighting a cold. I was sure I wasn't going to
get it. I took antibiotics this weekend, and I was feeling great, then all
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January 29, 2008
of a sudden yesterday, wham.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Echinacea. Take Echinacea.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Vodka works better.
MS. PRICE: A whole host of vitamins and every other thing just
to try and get me through.
There we go. If I run out of voice, just give me a half a second.
We're here today to present to you a Voluntary Separation
Incentives Program, and I'd like to go over just a little bit of what we
have in mind.
The eligibility for this program would be for folks who are
already in the DROP program and for those folks who are eligible to
retire under FRS pension without penalty. That doesn't necessarily
mean they have to retire nor does it necessarily mean that they would
be in the pension program, but that's the set of eligibility so we could
keep it straight across the board.
I've put up on the board what that -- what that means. There's
two classes. The regular elected senior management class. It's
essentially 62 years of age with at least six years of service, or 30
years of service at any age, or under the special risk class, which
would be EMS and fire, would be 55 years of age with six years and
so on. I'm not going to read it to you. I know that you can read. But
basically we want to use that set of criteria for eligibility.
The basic benefit that we're proposing is a three-year health
coverage for those folks who take this. If they don't need health
insurance or they choose to waive it, we would give a payment to
them of half the premium, and we would give that up front.
We're also going to allow them a combination. Perhaps they want
one year of coverage and two years of cash. Once the coverage
expires, we would -- we would pay them the cash at that time, two
years, or even if they wanted to keep the coverage until they turned
65, which could happen at any point in the middle of the year, then we
would pay them however many twelfths were left of that year through
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January 29,2008
to the end of the three-year period in lieu of -- excuse me -- of health
and dental coverage.
Commissioner, did you have a question?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. Is there a possibility that if
they decide to take cash in lieu of, that it could be rolled over into an
IRA so they don't have to pay the taxes up front?
MS. PRICE: They could certainly roll it into an IRA, but I'm not
aware of any program that would necessarily not tax it up front.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, it would be taxed at a later
date. It wouldn't be taxed all at one time.
MS. PRICE: When we make the payment -- and, of course, I'll
check with the IRS, because that's an excellent question. I'll check
with the IRS, but I believe that when we make the payment, we've got
to take the taxes out at that time then -- because it's compensation to
them.
Once they put it into an IRA, it would be protected to the extent
of the IRS limits on IRA contributions. But we will certainly make an
inquiry to see ifthere's any way that we could make a direct
contribution that might not be taxed. I'm just not aware of one as we
speak. Our purpose in doing this is not to cause people extra taxes, so
if there's something that we can do --
COMMISSIONER HALAS: That's right.
MS. PRICE: -- we would gladly investigate how we could do
that.
The implementation plan would be to start enrollment in a couple
of days on the 31 st and leave it open for two months. We recognize
that that's a very aggressive plan and that there's a lot of up-front work
that HR and risk management are working on in the background right
now; however, in order to get to our goals, we feel that the sooner we
implement the program the better, you know, the sooner that the
county will reap the benefits that we're trying to get to, and I'll go over
those in just a minute.
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January 29, 2008
The -- folks will eligible if they meet the criteria we spoke of
earlier up to 90 days after the close, so that would be through June the
30th. All eligible employees will receive written notification. They
could come to us, make an election, and they would have seven days
after making that election to make any changes to that. So if they
selected three years of coverage and then got some better advice, they
could make a change. They could change their mind altogether and
say, you know what, I thought I wanted to do this, but I've changed
my mind. It would give them a seven-day period so that they could
make sure it was final.
At that point, once it did become final, that would begin the
person's two weeks' notice unless their eligibility came a little bit
further down the line, you know, throughout that 90-day period, and
then the date they became eligible would start their two-week notice
for departing their employment with the county.
To go over our financial situation right now and the reason that
we're putting this forward to you right now, when we came to you
with our budget policy, we assumed a 4 percent attrition, as we do, I
believe, just about every year. In the general fund, that comes to
approximately, 1.3, $1.4 million.
When the tax reform bill was passed, we were also hit with an
additional $35 million in cuts. We did that in a number of different
places, including cutting expanded positions, eliminating job bank
positions, freezing positions as of that point in time, and also freezes
on future vacancies, which we expected to yield us about $2.5 million
over this fiscal year.
As it turns out, because of the changes in the economies, the
slow-downs, the job market isn't quite as strong as it had been, we're
looking at only about $3 million of the 3.8 that we expected in order to
hit the tax reform implications and the budget cuts that we expected to
make, and so we're anticipating a shortfall in the area of about
$855,000.
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January 29,2008
And our hope is that we can incentivize employees who might be
on the fence, thinking about maybe retiring or maybe staying around,
we're thinking that that this program might be able to cause those folks
to move out a little more quickly and help us get at this number before
we have to go to the point where we're actually reducing our forces.
Just to give you an idea -- and we really have no good way of
estimating how many people might take this, we know that we have
approximately 140 people who are eligible for it.
And so just to give you some round numbers, if seven people
took it, you know, these are the numbers that we could yield. And it
would be somewhere in between because we're going to, obviously,
have a mix of folks who take the full coverage, the full cash payment,
and a mix in between. But we feel that we may just be able to come
up with, at that $855,000 mark, or at least make a significant dent in
that as we move forward.
How would we get started? If you approve this today, employees
would be notified starting the 31 st, and our HR department will do the
administration. Ken Mayo and Dianne Janson in our HR department
__ and their numbers are up there -- would be handling the questions.
We have also put together a question and answer sheet that we
will send out, distribute in email.makesureitgetsposted.We.re
going to translate it into Spanish, and also put it on our Internet so that
all of our employees have access to it so that they can get at least the
questions we think they might have answered. Obviously they can
contact us at any time and we'll answer any additional questions that
they might have.
That concludes my presentation. What questions do you have?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. I'd like to make a motion for
approval.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a motion by Commissioner
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January 29,2008
Halas for approval and second by Commissioner Coletta.
I have some questions.
MS. PRICE: Sure.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: On page 1, it talks about eligible--
yeah, that word.
MS. PRICE: Eligibility.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Eligibility.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: It says, elected officers classes. Is
that -- is this offering to elected officials? Elected officers class. In
regular classes slash --
MS. PRICE: I'm not sure that anyone ofthe elected officers
would be taking this; however, when we copied the information in
from FRS, those were the three classes that fell into those particular
programs.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is that a part of your
recommendations, then, what we're voting on is to -- to make that
eligible to elected officials, elected officers?
MR. MUDD: No, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No. Okay.
MR. MUDD: No, sir. It's only my agency, okay, unless one of
the commissioners wants to take it. It doesn't apply --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No, no.
MR. MUDD: -- to constitutional--
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Need to be crystal-- crystal clear.
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: So it is not?
MR. MUDD: It is not, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: It is not eligible, okay.
The second question is, you had a provision in here to allow to
return in three years. Is that correct?
MS. PRICE: If--
CHAIRMAN HENNING: If the economy goes better and
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January 29,2008
blah-blah-blah.
MS. PRICE: If the economy goes better or if a position that is
not frozen were to open up, any of these employees could reapply.
They would reapply as a new applicant coming in.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right.
MS. PRICE: If they did that, depending on what their election
was would depend on how we would handle that. If they had elected
the full medical and dental coverage for the three-year period, they
would retain that for the three-year period. If they had taken the cash
instead, then when they sign up for the health insurance, if they did,
they would pay 50 percent of the premium because we had already
covered that.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. And you have a mechanism in
place to track all this?
MS. PRICE: We do.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I mean, I think it's a great program,
but I think it's difficult to --
MS. PRICE: It is going to require some work to keep track of it.
But yes, through SAP, and between our risk management folks and
our HR folks, we will make sure that each employee is tracked. We're
also working with OMB to make sure that the folks who have left, that
the cost of their insurance remains with the budgeting unit that they
came from.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And I think I just have one more
question. And I'm assuming, because of the way the executive
summary is written, this is only for positions that are general-fund
dependent?
MS. PRICE: We're going to open this up to the entire Board of
County Commissioners agency. If a person vacates a position that's
not in the general fund, the county manager has asked that all
positions that do get filled be -- we look internally first. And so unless
we could not possibly fill it from within, the idea is that we would
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January 29, 2008
move -- then somebody else would fill it, and ultimately the vacancy
would wind up in the county manager's agency.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. So if this is a broader
perspective than the general fund, it's really not due to mandates from
Tallahassee, correct?
MS. PRICE: Commissioner, each of the funds that are not
general funded have been impacted by the economy in one way or the
other as well, and so this helps them as well.
In public utilities, we've asked everybody to cut back on
watering. Obviously that has a side effect of cutting down on the
revenue that they bring in.
CDES, we know that the permitting fees are way down. Impact
fees have come down with the change in the economy.
And so while the main focus of this is -- you know, the thrust of
this is to get at the general fund issues, this will also have a side effect
of impacting, positively impacting, some of the other areas as well.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Well, the board was asked in
the last budgeting process to increase positions within Jim DeLony's
agency, correct?
MR. MUDD: And I believe Mr. DeLony didn't increase them.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: He didn't; he didn't increase them.
MR. MUDD: Did not increase them, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do we need to -- it wouldn't be a
budget amendment. It would be amendment to the budget to take
those out? I mean, if we're going to offer it to Jim DeLony's
employees, then we have vacant positions that the board approved;
shouldn't we remove all those first -- or not first, but in concert with
all this?
MR. DeLONY: For the record, Jim DeLony. Sir, I really don't
have a question to answer, but maybe I have an explanation to your
approach and deployment in this particular instance.
Sitting here today, there's 31 positions that are frozen in public
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~--"'- .-.-...,"-,,--.'
January 29, 2008
utilities, and the reason they're frozen is because we've been very
careful looking at our revenue stream starting with the fourth quarter
of last year --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right.
MR. DeLONY: -- coming to this budget year. We must continue
to be revenue centric in public utilities because we have to balance our
costs against our revenues.
And so throughout the year we've been drawing down, I believe
appropriately, with regard to both salaries associated with labor, but
other operating expenses with the utility, trying to achieve the
economies commensurate in our cost to our revenues.
So in that sense, staff has already taken those proactive measures.
And Manager Mudd is very aware of what we've done to date. We
have some more that we'll continue to monitor and do as we come in
on the guide path for not only this fiscal year, but several fiscal years,
till we see an up-tick or a change in our revenue picture.
I hope I've given you some explanation to our --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, you sure have, and maybe we
need some guidance from the county attorney at a later time. It's a
simple question.
MR. DeLONY: Yes, sir. I was just wondering about -- yes.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We gave direction or approval for
positions, and now we're understanding they're frozen. I'm not sure if
the board sitting as the district governing board needs to take action on
that. It has nothing to do with this.
But also we were told that because of the water shortages, Ms.
Price, the water shortages, and the less need for water is another
reason; is that true?
MR. DeLONY: Sir, it's not -- the bottom line is revenues.
Revenues would come from sales of water services as well as
wastewater services commensurate to the demand that's put on the
system.
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January 29, 2008
We're seeing an overall reduction in demand for two reasons.
First reason, obviously, is the growth has not been achieved in terms
of new customers coming on-line to our plant. We had planned for
about 4,000 equivalent residential units coming on-line in this fiscal
year per the AUIR, and we're seeing something much more
significant, smaller than that.
The second reason, of course, is that we have the short-term
downturn in revenue associated with the water restrictions. And I will
tell you that the county water/sewer district customers, in terms of
posturing ourselves for the, you know, 1 February date for Phase 3
restrictions, have been excellence. I mean, our water demand has
fallen off significantly.
So those two actions, those two effects on our revenues has
caused staff to take proactive measures to ensure we're consistent with
our revenue picture and our cost picture. Labor is just one of the
many aspects of cost in the utility. There are others, and we've taken
those measures as well.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, the -- in the process, that
ratcheting down because of water restrictions, you also asked the
board to -- and it's in the ordinance -- to where you get to charge more
because people are conserving.
MR. DeLONY: Regrettably--
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And we were told the reason we need
to do that is you need to have that staff there to still operate.
MR. DeLONY: And what -- that surcharge has -- is having two
effects. First of all, it does provide us some recovery of fixed costs
irregardless of consumption. You know, staffing of plants, 24/7,365,
is irrespective of consumption.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: You're right, I remember.
MR. DeLONY: And the second aspect of that surcharge, and it
certainly is the minor part, but having that up-tick in actual market
price of water helps in making people aware of the conservation effect
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January 29,2008
that we need with regard to these restrictions.
I would like to say that there's a linear effect between reduction
in revenue for water and fixed costs and variable costs, but it's not. So
we still have some fixed costs that we are going to be deficient -- we
have a rate study that the --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I remember now.
MR. DeLONY: Yes, sir. The rate study we're going to bring
before the board this spring, or late spring, will hopefully address all
of these revenue concerns that you have. But it's been staffs attempt,
starting, again, in last -- fourth quarter of last fiscal year, to begin to
look carefully at these revenue centric operations and in the utility.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Appreciate your patience,
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Just one question for Len. I
thought I heard you say that you're still working out the mechanics for
this; is that what I heard?
MS. PRICE: Just for the monitoring piece of it, which we'll have
in place as these things go on-line. Keeping in mind that the program
starts on January 31 st. There's a seven-day waiting period between
the time that the first person might enroll and it becoming final, and
then two weeks notice that they give after that gives us those three
weeks to make sure that we've got the SAP codes in place and tested
and we've designed whatever spreadsheets or databases we need to
make sure that we keep track of everybody.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So in other words, everything is
worked out other than just that little piece?
MS. PRICE: Yes, ma'am. Excuse me. Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is that -- does that work out with
code -- with the Clerk of Courts?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Who cares?
MS. KINZEL: Thank you, Commissioner Fiala. Crystal Kinzel,
for the record.
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January 29,2008
I've been working with Len and with Amy and HR. Weare a
little concerned about the technical mechanics, and they haven't been
worked through in SAP. I'm fairly confident the SAP system can
handle this.
My primary concern has been not having that all tested and
worked through and the program starting tomorrow.
Sometimes when you work through the mechanics, you find
administrative efficiencies or maybe some program tweaks that would
help us in monitoring and be able to more easily monitor that at
payroll, tax issues, and reporting of all these deductions or payouts,
because there are individual tax implications that are all run through
payroll. So I've expressed those concerns.
We haven't worked through them technically. My preference
would have been -- and I've indicated this to staff. My preference
would be that we get some board indication on the items, that you
agree philosophically with all of the presentation and the policies, let
us work out the mechanics, but make a different effective date to make
sure that we can do the mechanics, and get it approved at that point
where we're certain of that. But that's our preference from a
production standpoint.
MS. PRICE: And Crystal and I have spoken about that, and
obviously, Commissioners, that choice is going to be up to you. Let
me just say that the reason that we are trying to push this through as
quickly as possible is that we are already nearly halfway through this
fiscal year, and we're hoping to be able to gain the efficiencies that
we're looking for.
If we can't find these savings in this manner, we're going to have
to find them in other operational areas because at the end of the fiscal
year, we don't have a pool to draw from if we haven't hit our spending
targets. So it was really just a matter of trying to get it in as quickly as
possible so that we can gain the benefits to the agency that we're
looking for.
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January 29,2008
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, if we don't offer a buy-out program
before I start a riff, you get yourself in some serious issues, especially
in a courtroom. What did you do in order to try to buyout in a
particular issue?
We're to a point in time after the first quarter with the revenues
that aren't coming in, Mr. Schmitt's looking at around 40 that he's --
that he needs to cut. There's some issues in the general fund that we
need to get done, and the problem is, we can ill afford to get through
the end of the year. You know, I could take that $855,000 shortage
right now that's supposed to be reoccurring, and I could take it out of
operational funds that are one time, but when I start the next FY, I'm
$855,000 short, okay.
And that -- that's the -- and that's the nut we're trying to get at.
We're trying to get at reoccurring costs, and that's where the shortage
issue is. If we can get -- I was hoping for 20 percent. If I can get 20
percent on this particular issue, we pretty much get us where we need
to be. We're going to be short a little bit and we're going to have to let
some people go. But one of those things we're going to try to get at.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So what I was just going to ask after
what you said and what Crystal said is, you will be working together
to work those things out?
MS. PRICE: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, fine. That's just -- it's really
important because we want to make sure that everything flows
smoothly as --
MS. PRICE: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- we start this program.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Anything else?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All in favor?
David?
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January 29,2008
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you, Commissioner. It appears the board
has a motion on the floor to approve the plan pertaining to the
manager's agency, all his departments. And to the extent that there's
eligibility within the County Attorney Office, if you would wish to
amend the motion to include the County Attorney Office, we will
extend the, call it, promotion or information to those who are eligible
in our office as well.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think that's a good idea.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. And I think it's already in
there because it said general fund, or you're just thinking general fund
MR. MUDD: I was thinking county manager.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: County manager.
MR. MUDD: David just needs to put --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Who made the motion?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I made the motion. I'll change my
motion to reflect that.
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Who made the second?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Commissioner Coletta, down the
other end.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, I did, and I agree.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay, as amended; all in favor?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries unanimously.
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January 29, 2008
MS. PRICE: Thank you, Commissioners.
Item #101
CHANGE ORDER #4 IN THE AMOUNT OF $97,186 ON
CONTRACT 05-3772 WITH MILES MEDIA GROUP FOR
ENHANCEMENTS TO THE TOURISM DEPARTMENT
WEB SITE - APPROVED
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us to 101, which is to
recommend approval of change order number four in the amount of
$97,186 on contract 05-3772 with Miles Media Group for
enhancements to the tourist development website. Now, I will tell you
that I read that same item on the change sheet and it's a lot more
detailed in the change sheet that I read this morning, but it's pretty
much on track.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Entertain a motion.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I have questions.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. There's a motion by--
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- Commissioner Fiala to approve,
second by Commissioner Coletta.
Commissioner Coyle has questions.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Here's my concern. This is a
change order which is 68 percent of the total contract value, and what
I need to find out is, did you -- did you obtain the services that you
contracted for under the original $143,340?
MR. WERT: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: You received those services for
that?
MR. WERT: That's correct.
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January 29,2008
COMMISSIONER COYLE: So they have satisfied their
contractual obligation. Any additional costs can't be considered a
change order, in my opinion, and this should be a new competitive
bid. And that's the only thing I'm concerned about.
When we have huge change orders like this in relation to the
basic contract, there's always the concern that what we're trying to do
is bypass the competitive bid process and award change orders to
people to continue them as the primary contractor, and being that's --
that is counter to our desire to encourage competitive procurement.
So that's my concern. And if somebody can assure me legally
that there is nothing wrong with that, then I'll just vote against it and
go on my way.
MR. WERT: If! -- if! could, Mr. Chair, if! could answer his
question.
Commissioner Coyle, this was a one-year contract with three
one-year renewals, and it is true that we initially did the design of the
website actually in the first year. So we didn't impact our budget in
one year for the total amount of that design. We paid for that over the
first three years of this agreement.
In the second and third year we had change orders that were
approved by the board for additional enhancements to that site. So in
addition to the first design, to be competitive, you have to continually
change and upgrade your site, so we've continued to do that.
Now in the fourth year we've paid for the initial design, we've
paid for the enhancements for the first two years through change
orders. Now we're in the fourth year and we really don't have any
dollars allocated to pay for enhancements we need to make this year.
We have agreed to the third one-year renewal, the last year of the
agreement. That takes effect in March and goes through March of
2009. What we're asking for is -- and we've put together a number of
services that we want to do this year, the last year of the agreement.
And we, like we did the first three years of the initial agreement, we'd
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January 29,2008
like to pay for those enhancements -- because they are quite a bit of
money, this 97,000 -- over three years. That's why we're asking for an
extension.
So we didn't -- we have been extremely pleased with this vendor.
We have acknowledged that by renewing it each of the renewal
periods, which we have just done again. So we didn't feel that it was
necessary to bid this out since this has been how we have improved
our web site all along for the last three years. When we saw things, we
requested change orders. Those were approved.
What we will do is we will bring back if you -- the board is in
agreement -- if you'll approve the change order, we'll then bring back
a subsequent change to the contract adding those two additional years
so we can pay for these things, and we will then bid at the end of this
extended period. We will go out for bid for our website and make it a
competitive bid.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is Steve Carnell involved in this
procurement?
MR. WERT: Yes, sir. He has been involved -- his department
has been involved all along, and they were the ones that recommended
the change order process.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: What does the county attorney
have to say about this; anything?
MR. WEIGEL: Yeah. I'd like to make a few comments here,
thank you.
The agreement, with its current fiscal amount, total of
approximately 143,000, that 143,000 actually is based upon the fact
that there is an original agreement of under a hundred -- I think under
a hundred thousand or thereabouts. And as Mr. Wert indicated, there
have been three change orders approved by the board to date. This is
change order number 4.
In coming to our office at this point, my review is that it's had
what we call creeping scope, creeping scope of work here. Mr. Wert
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January 29,2008
may wish to further explain to the board any linkage with the
enhancements that are discussed in the current request to the board
with the work that's done with the creation of the system on the
web site and the enhancements that have been done to date.
To the extent that there is a discussion to be had that this
particular service provider has a, let's say, a clear and
efficiencies-of-scale type of opportunity to produce the further
enhancements and desired changes to the system that the county has
right now, that's an argument for the board to consider in favor of the
change order.
Mr. Coyle's comment as well about the comparison of the
significant price at this point in time for the enhancements is one that
Mr. Wert can respond to relative, could someone else provide this,
would we, in fact, be -- as a county, be served by getting either at least
quotes as opposed to bidding, and those are fair questions.
Ultimately, Mr. Coyle is asking if this is legal. And the fact is
that, yes, it is legal. It comes down to some policy decisions at this
point based upon, I think, the information that Mr. Wert provides you
relating to the connection of the enhancements at this point with a
system that's already in place.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, my fundamental
problem is the creeping scope of the contract. You define the scope of
a contract, you negotiate the contract, the person performs the
contract, you pay them for the contract. You don't just keep extending
the contract by adding new requirements each time and calling them
change orders. So I will vote against this, but the commissioners will
have to make up their own minds.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. The Tourist Development
Council put a condition on their recommendation that this does go --
this definitely goes out to bid at its termination.
The concern from the tourism industry is with the economic
downturn of the market, historically, you know, we have the
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January 29,2008
three-legged stool. We know that one has been pulled out. Their
concern is the tourism, because of economics, is going to fall, and they
want to do whatever is possible to make sure that tourism is held up
there because of the economic downturn. In fact, I think they're going
to be making some recommendations. We're going to have a
workshop here shortly.
So Commissioner, I do agree with it. And you know, I'm glad to
hear that you have a concern about creeping contracts. They're on the
agenda all the time, so I'm willing to pull them off the consent agenda
if you want to discuss them.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh, I'd be happy to do that
whenever you have variances of 68 percent. So that's not a problem
for me. I look for those kinds of percentages every time I go through
the contract changes. I haven't seen many that approach that level.
But nevertheless, you have to vote your conscience.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Any further discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All in favor of the motion, signify by
saymg aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: The vote is 4-1, Commissioner Coyle
in the dissenting side of it.
MR. WERT: Thank you.
Item #lOK
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January 29, 2008
A $99,000 BUDGET AMENDMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008 TO
MAKE UP FOR A SHORTFALL OF FUNDS DUE TO THE
COLLIER COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONER'S
DECISION NOT TO IMPLEMENT A PROPOSED FEE
COLLECTION STRUCTURE FOR EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT SERVICES - MOTION TO APPROVE -
DENIED
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us to 10K, and this is--
used to be item 16F3. It's a recommendation to approve a $99,000
budget amendment for fiscal year 2008 to make up for a shortfall of
funds due to the Collier County Board of County Commissioners
decision not to implement a proposed fee collection structure for
Emergency Management Services.
The item was asked to be moved at Commissioner Coyle's
request. Mr. Dan Summers --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Let me get to this very quickly for
you. This is apparently a request for a budget amendment, $99,000, to
make up for shortfalls of funds because we didn't approve a proposed
fee collection structure.
My question to Mr. Summers is, when we didn't approve the fee
-- the increased fee collection structure, why didn't you take action to
reduce costs to operate within your budget rather than continuing to
incur the costs that we now have to give you anyway?
MR. SUMMERS: For the record, Dan Summers, Director of the
Bureau of Emergency Services.
Sir, it's my impression that with -- the budget was approved in
September with -- with that dollar amount contingent upon a fee
structure coming to you, which we brought in October. We did that.
I had the -- sir, I had the impression that in the absence of a fee
structure, that it was the intention to fund that back with the general
revenue fund.
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January 29,2008
So we simply took it upon that that the fee structure was
desirable in September when we brought that discussion to you. You
felt uncomfortable with the fee activity at that point. And with the
budget already being approved, it was my impression that the general
fund would make that short -- would make the difference.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Did we specify that we'd make it
up?
MR. SUMMERS: Sir, I can't specifically recall that you would
make it up, but I had no other direction at either point as to which --
what was to be done other than to proceed on with the approved --
with the prior approved budget.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Even though you didn't have the
approved revenues to support the budget?
MR. SUMMERS: That's a fair statement, yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: May I say, you're still going to
perform these services no matter what, as you have in the past; is that
correct?
MR. SUMMERS: Well, sir, all of these things are going to have
impact. Ifthe 99,000 is not there, there's a very -- and I have a
presentation if you'd like, but the operations budget within Emergency
Management is very small and we leverage a great deal of grant
money and partnerships and other resources.
So what we do for our readiness posture, which is what basically
that 99,000 would support, the bulk of our operational posture for
wildfire, hurricanes, tornadoes, and every other fast-breaking event, it
would have impacts across the board in terms of our readiness posture
and my ability to respond quickly throughout the year. It may also
jeopardize our grant -- our future grant funding.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Besides the 99,000, was there other
reductions in your budget?
MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir, there have been. Actually the budget
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January 29, 2008
this year was just a few percentage points -- it was well within budget
guidance and was less than last year. Also we maintained that freeze
on a vacancy -- one vacancy position, one vacant position, within the
Department of Emergency Management.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: What was the -- what was the
percentage of reduction minus this 99,000?
MR. SUMMERS: Sir, I've not computed that, but I will tell you
that from -- it was only about a 1 percent reduction from the previous
year overall.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
MR. MUDD: He's got the -- he's got the budget. He laid it out.
I told him to lay it out on this presentation for you. So if you'd give
him just a couple seconds, he can at least show you what the impact is.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. For me it doesn't make any
difference. It would just be helpful if, in the future, if we tell you that
you don't have the revenue sources to support your budget, if you'd
just tell us, well, that doesn't make any difference, I'm going to spend
it anyway.
So I mean, if you'd tell us that, we'd understand it up front, and
that's really what you did. We said, we're not going to approve the
additional revenue sources for you, and rather than telling us that
you're going to spend the money anyway, we wind up here four, five
months later having to approve a budget amendment.
So, you know, my feeling is, when we don't approve a revenue
source for you, you don't make assumptions that we're going to fill in
the holes with something else. I don't know of any other department
that does that. So I just object to it on a philosophical standpoint.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Correct me if I'm wrong. When we
were discussing the budget, there was $99,000 taken out of the budget
with the idea that fees would pay for the difference; am I correct?
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January 29,2008
MR. MUDD: Sir, when we were -- when we -- when he did his
workshop, you saw his budget, okay, in June, and he didn't have a
revenue stream in there. When we got told we had to go cut $35
million, okay, we came in with revenues for the library to the tune of
about $40,000. You approved $99,000 in Dan's fee structure.
And then in October, in order to do the fees, you have to have an
ordinance to implement them. So when Dan tried to execute what you
approved in September, in October the board said they didn't want to
do that.
Okay. The real question is, I took that $100,000 out of his
budget so that we could -- we could get at reoccurring costs, okay, for
that $35 million cut, and that's kind of where you're sitting.
And, you know, I looked at Dan. I said, yeah, they just cut you,
Dan. Now, how you going to make your budget? How you going to
get to what you need to do?
His operational funds in his organization is about $225,000,
okay. And you talk about the rents that he does to the warehousing
and things like that, about half of that is pretty much -- is locked in. It
doesn't give him a whole lot to go for the rest of the year, and that--
and that's the overview in the budget lockout that you see in front of
you on the slide.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Any further questions?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Entertain a motion?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Motion to approve.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a motion by Commissioner
Halas to approve. Is there a second?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Second by Commissioner --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Coletta.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- Coletta. And I would have thought
we would have addressed it at the budget, like Commissioner Coyle --
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January 29, 2008
Commissioner Coyle, that --
MR. MUDD: You did, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: What's that?
MR. MUDD: You did. You approved the $99,000 in revenue
for Dan's budget.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
MR. MUDD: You did that in September, and what happened in
October when he came forward with the implementing ordinance, the
board said, we don't want to do that.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All right, all right. I understand now.
Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, yeah. And when somebody
tells you, we're not going to give you the $99,000 -- we approved the
budget a month or so, now we're not going to give you the $99,000,
what are you going to do? You're just going to ignore the guidance
and say, I'm going to spend it anyway?
No. What you do is you start cutting costs at that point in time.
We're halfway through the fiscal year. How do you know you can't
save at least part of that $99,000 for the remainder of this year? How
do you know that you can't make decisions to reduce costs from now
until the end of this fiscal year?
What you're asking for is, just give us the money anyway. We
told you no. Now you want the money anyway because you went
ahead and spent it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I think the thing that's
upsetting a lot of people is that we have developers who come in and
they ask us for permission to do something. When we don't give it,
they go ahead and do it afterwards and then ask forgiveness
afterwards. And it's something that we don't like to see happen, and it
kind of feels this way. I think that's what they're getting to.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I -- Mr. Summers, you're doing a
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January 29, 2008
great job. I don't want you to think anything different.
So let's call the motion. All in favor of the motion, signify by
saymg aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries -- motion fails, 3-2,
Commissioner Fiala, Commissioner Henning, and Commissioner
Coyle opposed to the motion.
MR. SUMMERS: Commissioner, if! may. Just let me make
sure I understand, that -- please understand that there was no ill intent
or malice in this effort whatsoever. I thought that the direction was
clear. I thought the budget was intact, and we had no intention to not
follow your guidance in this particular process whatsoever. We just
don't do business that way. So if I misread your intentions, I owe you
that apology. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you, Mr. Summers.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Dan, if it's any comfort, it's easy to
misread our intentions sometimes because we're not all that clear
about them.
But I think the easy way is, if you lose a revenue source, you ask
us, well, how you going to make it up for me? You know, if you'd
asked that question, we might focus a little more specifically on the
issue and get it resolved for you at that point.
MR. SUMMERS: Well, sir, you've put some very serious
challenges for me for the operational readiness for the county in the
upcoming hurricane season.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We're on 13?
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January 29,2008
Item #13A
DISBURSEMENTS FOR THE PERIOD OF DECEMBER 29, 2007
THROUGH JANUARY 04, 2008 AND FOR SUBMISSION INTO
THE OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE BOARD - JIM MUDD
RECOMMENDED TO APPROVE DISBURSEMENTS EXCEPT
FOR THE 3.4 MILLION DOLLAR DISBURSEMENT TO THE
CLERK - APPROVED
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, 13A, and it's to attain the board's approval
for disbursements for the period of December 29,2007, through
January 04, 2008, and for submission into the official records of the
board.
Commissioner, I pulled this off the consent agenda and put it on
the regular agenda. We had a similar executive summary in
November. The only piece on this disbursement report of some 17
pages or whatnot is the one disbursement on the first page of the
handout, and the disbursement is right at the bottom, and it's 3,409,7 --
excuse me -- $3,409,709.08, and it's basically to Dwight E. Brock.
That's basically your December interest on your funds going to the
clerk.
You have a resolution that you passed in September that basically
said that he could collect the interest as long as it was returned to the
Board of County Commissioners.
I will bring your attention to a 210 report that was punched by
my office management and budget staff on 1/2412008, and this 210
report and the item that's highlighted has to do with investment
interest. And it basically has $9,181,948.19, and that's -- and that's a
revenue in this particular account. And, again, if you remember,
$9,186,000. When you get at the bottom of that account, the piece
that's left in that account is $8,283,943.65.
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January 29, 2008
So you can see from the interest that's been earned on your
particular accounts, if you go all the way through, the total at the
bottom of that page should be more than $9,186,000 ifhe was -- if the
clerk wasn't encumbering and spending your particular interest. In
this particular case he spent some $903,000.
And so my recommendation to the Board of County
Commissioners is that you approve this particular item minus the
disbursement to the Clerk of Courts for $3.4 million.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I have a question.
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And of course, this is being litigated
in a court. What happens -- what should the clerk do if the board loses
this fight in the court? Does he have to still come back and ask for
that interest? Well, no. The judge would already determine that,
right?
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. He will determine -- he will determine if
he can -- if he can spend that interest or not, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. And then it doesn't have to
come to the board anymore. Okay. I understand.
MR. MUDD: You still have a Florida Statute 136.6 requirement
that you have to approve that disbursement. So there's another issue
here. There's the issue of, can I spend the interest once it's in my
account, and number two, if you don't disburse it to him by this
particular mechanism, does he have the money to spend. So there's
two particular issues here.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: All right. So this is an ongoing issue,
Days of our Lives type thing.
MR. MUDD: No. The other issue that I need to bring to your
attention is this disbursement sheet. I want to make sure that the one
item that you saw in November had to do with the 2. -- had to do with
the $2.2 million. And my pen is on it right now. And that was the
October interest. And we're talking right now about $3.4 million
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January 29, 2008
which has to do with the December interest. You have not seen
disbursements for this 3.3, which is November interest, nor this
$464,000. So you haven't approved those transfers.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Then I have -- Crystal, can you
answer a question? Is this interest money or is this -- is this a charge
for services?
MS. KINZEL: Commissioner, this is a transfer, and that seems
to be what we want to get on the record. You're absolutely correct.
This is under litigation, but we're transferring this money. It is not an
expenditure at this point. It is a transfer of what we see as statutory
income to the Clerk of Courts, and that is the reason for the entry and
the transfer of funds.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Is it a transfer of interest?
MS. KINZEL: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay, all right. Well, I didn't support
the motion to go to the Court on this one, but the majority of the
commissioners did, and I'll support the majority of the commissioners
on this potential motion.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Motion to approve the county
manager's recommendations to exclude this particular item from the
approval of disbursement.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a motion by Commissioner
Coyle, second by Commissioner Halas.
Did you want to say something?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I was going to ask, is this going
back to court this coming Friday?
MR. MUDD: Yes, ma'am. We'll be in court on Friday. Some
commissioners have been subpoenaed.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: This will then be completed?
MR. MUDD: No, ma'am. We'll have another -- we'll have
another bite at this apple on the 17th of March.
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January 29, 2008
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What time Friday?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Nine o'clock.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. All in favor of the motion,
signify by saying aye.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion carries unanimously.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You didn't get invited?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
MR. MUDD: Sue, do we have anybody for public comments?
I'm sorry.
MS. FILSON: No, sir, we didn't. Thank you.
Item #15
STAFF AND COMMISSION GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS
CHAIRMAN HENNING: May I recognize that Representative
Matt Hudson is here, and at this time if you have any things to say or
words of wisdom, please do so, or we'll just go to the county manager.
REPRESENTATIVE HUDSON: I would certainly yield my
time to the county manager. I just want to hang out and listen a little
bit. You're better live than on TV.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: County Manager, do you have
anything?
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, we do. I have a couple of items.
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January 29, 2008
First of all you received an email from Mr. Thomas Cannon, and
he basically provided you a 30-some-odd page fire consolidation
report and he asked you in an email if you want to hear the
PowerPoint presentation. If that's the board's desire, then I can
schedule that presentation for a future board meeting.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'd love it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Me too.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, we have a workshop coming
up, and that's with the -- it's not the fire consolidation but the fire plan
review. Would it be appropriate to do it at that time?
MS. FILSON: On March 18th at nine o'clock.
MR. MUDD: Some of us could be in court, sir, on March 18th,
okay? And I believe you'll be -- you'll be with us.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
MR. MUDD: So I don't know if that's a good idea. I'mjust
asking -- remember I said March 17th we go back again. I can tell
you I've been subpoenaed for this one in February, and no doubt I'll be
subpoenaed again. And I know there has been some commissioners
that have been subpoenaed for this one, and it's kind of a continuation.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
MR. MUDD: Is it the board's desire to come back with a
presentation? I'll try to schedule that with Mr. Cannon.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah, it is for me. Commissioner
Coyle said yes. Do you want to have a presentation?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: PowerPoint, okay.
MR. MUDD: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's a majority.
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Sir, I need to talk a little bit -- and Mr.
Klatzkow and I have talked about this one a little bit through emails.
It basically talks about public petitions when you've got pending
litigation. It's kind of -- it's kind of awkward for the board, and you
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January 29, 2008
kind of got wind of that this morning a little bit.
Sometimes we also have code enforcement board cases that are
active. We've had one that was withdrawn today of the public
petitions, and that -- and it seems to be a public petition that's being
used to negotiate leverage about a settlement out of court in that
particular case.
And what I'm asking the board's direction is, if we know we have
pending litigation on a particular case or if we've got an active Code
Enforcement Board case that's ongoing, does the board want to
preclude those people from going to the public petition process?
If you do, I can tell them that it's under litigation and/or to the
Code Enforcement Board and they've basically sought a higher
authority to answer their question. And what happens, a lot of times
they come in front of the board and they do a lot of posturing so that
they put you in a precarious situation and use your testimony against
you or your comments against you in a court of law.
So I'm just looking for some direction.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I have some are ideas, but let's go
down the line.
Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I think you have to be
careful about that. I didn't mind the way we handled the one today.
We let the people speak and then we just didn't say anything. The
problem occurs when we start debating something or a commissioner
volunteers some information or somehow wants to support the public
petitioner. That's when we begin to get into trouble, I think. But if we
could all agree that if we have something like this we'll let somebody
speak; we're just not going to respond to it.
MR. MUDD: Sir, in that particular regard, what I can do is --
you know how you have the public petition sheet that they fill out?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah.
MR. MUDD: I could have a category in there that basically says,
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January 29,2008
is this an active court case or is this an active Code Enforcement
Board case. It at least would give you the thumbs-up --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah.
MR. MUDD: -- and let you know the situation prior to hearing
the petitioner.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah. I think maybe when we
have something of that nature, I just want to make sure that we don't
put ourselves in a precarious position -- and I think if we're alerted
ahead of time.
I didn't know that this was an active case until I asked the county
attorney yesterday on one and -- in regards to the case that took place
today, and that's why I felt very uncomfortable and I felt that -- I didn't
think that we should go forward on it. But whatever the wishes of the
board are -- is.
I also think that the code enforcement case, they're trying to
circumvent the code enforcement, and I feel that we need to have due
process, and if it's turned down by code enforcement on a particular
item, then they need to go through the court system. And I don't feel
that they should be coming before us in regards to some of these court
-- code enforcement issues. That's just my feeling.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. And I think that the public--
we're just going to go right down here.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I think the public should have every
opportunity to petition their elected officials, and I think they need to
-- they need to understand, and as long -- we need to understand, like
you said, that there is an active case and here's the remedies and, you
know, blah-blah-blah.
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. Of course, it doesn't serve
any purpose at all for them to come in because we're not going to say
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anything anyway. But I guess, you know, sometimes people want to
be able to air whatever they have to say in front of a microphone. And
so as long as they're, up front, clear that they -- that we're not going to
-- so they know up front and clear that we're not going to be answering
them or we're not going to give them any decision or we're not going
to bring it back to hear it, I guess we can spend the 10 minutes to
listen to them.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I have just a little bit different
view. I agree that people have a right to petition their elected
officials; however, with that said, too, our public petition part of the
first part of the process, I think it's a wonderful tool to be able to get
items in front of us.
We also have at the end of the meeting a time when people can
bring items like this forward without having to tie up the agenda and a
tremendous amount of staff time because we don't know how we're
going to respond to it. They're going to have everybody out there to
be able to get up there and start asking them questions if we start
talking.
As much as we say we're not going to comment on it, somebody's
going to say something or they're going to ask a question. That staff
person's going to be held up by that whole process.
I think the best time for their comments is at the end of the
meeting, right now --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, yeah.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- to be able to deal with it. You
know, it's one of those things that early on, when this process was
going on they had a chance to be able to interact with us before it ever
got to the point of litigation and attorneys being involved. That's the
time the public should be coming forward and seeing the
commissioners through the public petition process. Once they take it
to the attorneys, our hands are more or less tied. There's very little we
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January 29, 2008
can do.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: A comment about your suggestion.
Through the public petition process, at least the county manager and
the county agency knows what the issue is all about and they can
inform the commissioners of what's going on.
And, you know, a particular commissioner -- or Jim Mudd and I
had a long conversation about this one, and I wanted to make sure
that, you know, people were treated fairly.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And that's always a concern of
mine, too, Commissioner Henning, but also, too, we want to try to
encourage people to work within the system, not just immediately run
out to a lawyer and try to make a court case out of it. When they do
that, they take away our ability to be able to negotiate at this level to
be able to resolve it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I guess I misunderstood your
suggestion then. Are you saying before somebody goes to the Code
Enforcement Board or eminent domain, they come to us first?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, basically yeah. We've
done it many times. What's the problem with that? Before they ever
make an appointment or they get to the point they involve attorneys,
they come here and they lay it out to be able to put their heart on their
sleeve and we could listen to them and we become conscious of the
problem that's out there. We have resolved some situations.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And they already have that ability to
do that. They have the ability to come to us, whether it be --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's different than what we're
talking about.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: But they do come to us before a case.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: But what do you want to do once it
gets into a litigation issue?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Then it becomes an issue for the
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January 29, 2008
courts. They've taken -- tied our hands. They say they're going to
deal with it at the court level.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And that's what we were talking
about. So do you want to prohibit those people from coming --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, not prohibit.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Prohibit them from coming
through the public petition process where they're at the front of it and
we have to have staff and everyone here to start dealing with
something that's already been predetermined they're going to go to
court with. They made that decision, not us.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. I'm lost. Maybe you can help
me.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. It won't make any
difference whether they come in at the front end, that is the front end
of a meeting at public petitions, or whether they come in at the back
end under public comments; it puts us in the same position.
I think -- I think -- but I think what your point is, when you say
front end, you're talking about coming in to talk with us before it turns
into a legal -- legal.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Correct.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think that's what you really mean.
And I think we all believe that.
But let me ask you this. To encourage clearer communication
with the people who take advantage of the public petition process
under these issues, do you think it would be appropriate -- and I'd like
the guidance of the county attorney on this.
Do you think it would be appropriate to annotate on the agenda
that this item is currently being contested in court and the
commissioners will make no comments or decisions based upon this
public petition? Put it in writing right on the agenda under that item
so that the person who has asked to speak understands they're not
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going to get anything from us and we understand that we shouldn't be
saying anything.
What would you think of that, David?
MR. WEIGEL: Yeah, I think that -- I think that's just fine. And
again, the board and the commissioners sitting on the board, you
know, ultimately will-- you have the opportunity and the ability to
make your decisions as you wish.
Your rule is your rule and we don't make the rule for you, but if,
under the public petition, item 6, where someone comes in and there is
litigation, whether it's before the Code Enforcement Board or eminent
domain or they -- a separate suit that's been filed in the county as a
defendant by the person or entity, that easily could be annotated on
there, notated on there so that are you aware and that there is a policy
of no comment from the board, something to that effect.
And the one thing I will say about if the -- if these types of
matters came through on public comment, those are just sign-up sheets
that Ms. Filson gets and no one knows ahead of time who they are and
what they're talking about until they're at the podium. And so from
that standpoint, there's less of an ability to service you, as the client,
from both the manager's standpoint and the county attorney's
standpoint, ahead of time.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I think we have direction.
Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I like this. Just one thing I want
to clarify. This commission's never made policy in this direction. It
might be a good idea to do so.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: What do you mean policy?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, he -- David Weigel just
said that the policy is, is that we will not interact with the public at
that point in time that they have taken this to the point of courts. At
that point in time, you know, our ability to be able to function has
been extremely limited and compromised.
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January 29, 2008
So -- but it's not a policy. It's an understanding at the moment.
Do you want to make it a policy?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No. You'd have to do an ordinance
change. Personally I think we're all adults here.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I mean, I understand --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We're here for the taxpayers.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, I know that.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: No, no.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I wanted to clarify something.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: And I know that you are, too. We're
all here for the taxpayers, for the benefit of the taxpayers, and I think
we all understand that.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, is there agreement?
MR. MUDD: Let me make sure I got it right.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Agree that we should put
something on the agenda that says, we will not respond?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's an agreement not to limit
them to petition us.
MR. MUDD: That's right.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Also--
MR. MUDD: I'm going to add a box to the form that basically
says -- and they can check it under litigation or the code enforcement,
and I'll work the wording. And once we get the thing and we know it's
in litigation or Code Enforcement Board, we'll basically say -- in the
agenda title on the agenda, it will say, under litigation, discussion
should be limited. And then I didn't say you can't talk. I said, should
be limited. Okay?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala, Commissioner
Halas?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. When you say -- you know,
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January 29, 2008
you always send a letter back to them telling them the whys and
wherefores, yes, you can speak on so and so date. Will you say,
because --
MR. MUDD: I'll add something to them that says, hey, look it,
this is under litigation and the advisement to the Board of County
Commissioners is, their discussion on this matter will be limited.
They'll listen, but they're not going to -- they're not going to give you
COMMISSIONER HALAS: My question was answered by the
question that Ms. Fiala, Commissioner Fiala, asked the county
manager, that the person that is requesting to speak knows ahead of
time.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do you have anything else?
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, I do.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: A whole bunch? If you don't mind,
I'd like to go to Commissioner Coyle since he's leaving in another few
minutes, and if you have something to add to this?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just a request to put something on a
future board agenda. There has been a lot of concern about
investment of government, local governments' funds, particularly in
Tallahassee. I would like to get an assessment of our investment
policy and performance on a year-to-year basis, and I -- as a matter of
fact, even on a month-to-month comparison would be good, at least
for the last 12 months.
We have a responsibility to assure that our investment policy is
being -- being adhered to. And if our investment policy is exposing us
to any risk, we need to be advised that we should modify our
investment policy.
And I would just like to get a better feel for what our actual
performance has been and what our risk assessment is moving forward
so that if we need to modify the investment policy, we can do that.
MR. MUDD: If that's what the board -- if that's what the board
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January 29,2008
wants to have happen, I would -- I would recommend that you
basically have the chairman sign a letter over to the clerk and ask him
for that presentation because I've done that already and the clerk
turned me down.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So board members?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah, I think that's the direction we
need to go. And obviously our investments are dwindling since we
looked -- since we approached thirteen-eight today.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. We have to get that
information from the Clerk of Court.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. Now this is not a gotcha
time, okay. I mean, that's not what I'm proposing. I am -- I am
looking for serious guidance and assessment concerning the
effectiveness of our investment policy and -- from the standpoint of
determining if there are any weaknesses anywhere, if we need to
tweak it or modify it. We just want to protect the taxpayers' money,
and we need to do a better job of maintaining a high level of
understanding of what is going on with it.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
MS. KINZEL: Commissioner, if! could comment. For the
record, Crystal Kinzel. Just so you are aware, the investments are put
out on the clerk's website monthly, and it shows you a rate of return
and it also details the portfolio, so that would be a reference point.
But I'll certainly take the information back from this meeting to the
clerk. But just to advise the board that we do publish that on the
website also.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, it is a starting point. The
problem that I need -- I cannot evaluate the risk/reward factors of
particular items in the portfolio.
Now, if everything was in the -- in treasury bills or bonds, I could
probably understand that those are relatively risk free, but I suspect it's
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January 29, 2008
not. I suspect there's other government securities involved in the
portfolio. And I just don't have any way to assess the future risk
factors of having significant amounts of our money in some of those
other -- other securities.
MS. KINZEL: Okay. And Commissioner, we'll be glad to -- you
know, I'll take that back to the clerk. But just to assure you, we're
very conservative and there are statutory guidelines as well as your
own investment policy, and we adhere to those. We're very
conservative in our investments in Collier County.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good, good.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay.
MR. MUDD: Commissioner--
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there anything else?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: No, no. That's it for me. Thank
you.
MR. MUDD: I was informed this last week that Mr. Smykowski,
your Director of Office and Management and Budget basically gave
me his letter of resignation. His last day on the job is Wednesday,
February 20, 2008. He basically says in his letter that it's been a
challenge and he appreciate the opportunity to serve the taxpayers of
Collier County. But I --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Traitor. Tell them where he's
gomg.
MR. MUDD: He's going with the South Florida Water
Management District.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Tom Olliff is reaping --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's right.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- the benefits.
MR. MUDD: And last, but this is not my item; it's
Commissioner Coletta's item. It's one that I just want to remind him.
He received an email from William Arthur to talk about the Golden
Gate Community Center board makeup, and he wanted to know if
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January 29, 2008
there could be more board members on that particular forum, and he
asked that of you, Commissioner. And your last day as chair you
didn't bring it up, and I'm just reminding you if you want to take it to
-- talk about it a little bit, that's fine.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I'm jumping a little bit out
of turn here, but that's no problem.
Commissioner Henning, you're much more familiar with the
subject than I am. What do you think?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: To expand the --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's the suggestion.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Expand the terms or expand the
members, the membership?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Terms, isn't it?
MR. MUDD: The board is made up of five members, with two
elected one time for two years and then three elected the next time for
two years. This make a majority of the board changing every other
term. We would like to have the terms change to three-year terms
with two members elected one year and two members elected the next
year and one elected the next term after that. So he's basically trying
to spread the terms out a little bit longer --
CHAIRMAN HENNING: I see.
MR. MUDD: -- and make it so it's more stable.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: You know, maybe it would be better
to ask, is that -- the advisory board's asking instead of one member?
And then also, that was voted on by the public, and I don't know if
that was a part of the referendum question. That was an MSTU for the
community center that was voted by the public, so there's -- there
might be some obstacles there. But I would like to get something
from the advisory board and not one member.
MR. MUDD: He signed it as the chairman of the board. So what
I'll do is I'll give this email to Ms. Filson and I'll let her work on this
one a little bit, okay? But I just want to let you know he wrote that to
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January 29,2008
Commissioner Coletta around the 6th of January, so -- and it's been
sitting there. It didn't come up last week, but it's still an item that __
MS. FILSON: Okay. And I didn't see that, but I'll be happy to
work on it.
MR. MUDD: Sure.
MS. FILSON: I would be happy to extend the terms on all the
committees that are two years. That would be that much less I'd have
to advertise. And some of those committees are hard to get members.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Could we do the same thing for the
county commissioners?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Sure.
MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, that's all I have.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's something that maybe we
should put on a future agenda. If you want to get together -- not for
us. For other advisory boards that are two years, can we get together
and kind of look at that, maybe I'll --
MS. FILSON: Sure.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- put something on the agenda.
Okay.
MR. MUDD: That's all I have, sir.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you, sir.
David?
MR. WEIGEL: We're good. Nothing further, thank you.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas?
COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'm good. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Oh, thank you. What I'd like to
address is the pending rural fringe sending lands early entry TDR
bonus expiration date and the feasibility of extending the date.
The LDC language reads as follows: Early entry bonus credits.
Early entry bonus credits shall be generated by a rate of one additional
credit for each TDR credit which is served -- or severed from the rural
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January 29,2008
fringe sending lands to the period of March 5, 2005, until three years
after the adoption of this regulation.
Early entry bonus credits shall cease to be generated after the
termination of this early entry bonus period; however, early entry
bonus credits may continue to be used to increase density in the rural
fringe and nonrural fringe receiving lands after the termination of the
early bonus period.
Based upon the above language, the date of termination is
September 27th, '08, three years from the date of the adoption.
I believe that extending that date is appropriate given the
economic downturn. Looking at Collier County's website, the TDR
activity tracking log prior to the slowdown, there was a considerable
amount of sales activity in the sending lands, which is clearly
attributed to folks wishing to buy these lands and at least secure the
early entry bonus.
Over the past two years, however, in particular, last year, sales of
the rural fringe sending designated lands dropped significantly. In
2005, there was 322 transactions; 2006, there was 66; and 2007, only
five.
I see no disadvantage to extending the early entry bonus period.
Extending it would help to ensure that the sending landowners are
appropriately compensated for the loss of their land values due to the
land use restrictions, that just lowered density, placed on their land as
part of the rural fringe program and also to further the objective of
getting these environmentally sensitive lands restored where needed
and protected. The amendment could be accomplished as early as the
2006 compo plan amendment cycle.
Planning Commission transmittal hearings are scheduled for
March, followed by the April BCC hearing. This would not require
any significant work on the park -- part of staff. The amendment
would simply be something such as follows, and this is a suggestion.
Early entry bonus credits shall be generated at a rate of one additional
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January 29,2008
credit for each TDR credit that is severed from the rural fringe sending
land prior to December 31,2013. Early entry bonus credits shall cease
to be generated after the termination of this early entry bonus period;
however, early entry bonus credits may continue to be used to increase
density in the rural fringe and nOllfUral fringe receiving land after the
termination of the early entry bonus period.
You're still here, Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes, I'm waiting.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The above proposed changes
assumes five years extension. Obviously whether to extend the early
entry program would be up to the -- would be up to the BCC to
consider it.
I'd like to have this considered, because what's happened, this
economic downturn is really throwing a monkey wrench in everything
out there, and if we can allow this to go forward, I can't see any harm
that would come to what we intended for the purposes to be.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do you want to bring this back?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, I would.
MR. MUDD: It's going to have to be -- it's going to have to be
an ordinance change, so it will have to come back.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Publicly advertised meeting.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Maybe it would be appropriate to
have an ordinance reading before we have an advertisement? Would
that be okay?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: He just read it, didn't he?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, you know--
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. That was over. What's
the next step?
CHAIRMAN HENNING: You know, this is at the end of the
meeting, and this is a complicated issue. I'd hate to advertise an
ordinance change only.
MR. MUDD: Let us -- let us come back with an executive
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January 29,2008
summary with a -- and I'll have staff get with Commissioner Coletta,
come back with an executive summary asking the board if they would
want us to change the ordinance to basically -- to allow the early
bonus program to continue on past September of 2008 for a period of
years.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. I'm okay with that.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's all I have. Thank you
very much.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, you ran out of time, so it's a
good thing that's the only thing you had.
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have nothing.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Nothing either. I'll entertain a motion
to adjourn.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Motion--
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to adjourn.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: So moved.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Motion by Commissioner Halas,
second by Commissioner Fiala.
All in favor, say --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HENNING: We're adjourned.
****Commissioner Coletta moved, seconded by Commissioner
Halas and carried unanimously that the following items under the
Consent and Summary Agendas be approved and/or adopted ****
Item #16A1
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^ ._~~-- ---_..,--
January 29, 2008
RESOLUTION 2008-19: A RESOLUTION PURSUANT TO
SECTION 288.106, FLORIDA STATUTES, RECOMMENDING
THAT THE GOVERNORS OFFICE OF TOURISM, TRADE AND
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT APPROVE INOVO,
INCORPORATED AS A QUALIFIED TARGET INDUSTRY
BUSINESS, CONFIRMING THAT THE COMMITMENTS OF
LOCAL FINANCING NECESSARY TO SUPPORT THIS
TARGET INDUSTRY ARE IN PLACE, AND APPROPRIATING A
TOTAL OF $25,600 AS LOCAL PARTICIPATION IN THE
QUALIFIED TARGET INDUSTRY TAX REFUND PROGRAM
(OTI) FOR FISCAL YEARS 2009-2012
Item #16A2
RESOLUTION 2008-20: FINAL APPROVAL OF THE
ROADWAY (PRIVATE) AND DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS
FOR THE FINAL PLAT OF HERITAGE GREENS. THE
ROADWAY AND DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS WILL BE
PRIV A TEL Y MAINTAINED BY THE HERITAGE GREENS
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT
Item # 16A3
RESOLUTION 2008-21: FINAL APPROVAL OF THE
ROADWAY (PRIVATE) AND DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS
FOR THE FINAL PLAT OF GREY OAKS UNIT NINETEEN. THE
ROADWAY AND DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS WILL BE
PRIV A TEL Y MAINTAINED
Item #16A4 - Continued to February 12,2008 BCC Meeting
Page 245
January 29,2008
(THIS ITEM CONTINUED FROM THE JANUARY 15,2008 BCC
MEETING). FINAL APPROVAL OF THE ROADWAY
(PRIVATE) AND DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE
FINAL PLAT OF MAJORS PHASE ONE, (LEL Y RESORT PUD).
ROADWAY AND DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS WILL BE
PRIV A TEL Y MAINTAINED
Item #16A5 - Continued to February 12,2008 BCC Meeting
(THIS ITEM CONTINUED FROM THE JANUARY 15,2008 BCC
MEETING). FINAL APPROVAL OF THE ROADWAY
(PRIV ATE) AND DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE
FINAL PLAT OF MAJORS PHASE TWO, (LEL Y RESORT PUD).
ROADWAY AND DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS WILL BE
PRIV A TEL Y MAINTAINED
Item #16A6 - Continued to February 12,2008 BCC Meeting
FINAL APPROVAL OF THE ROADWAY (PRIVATE) AND
DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE FINAL PLAT OF
MAJORS PHASE THREE, (LEL Y RESORT PUD). ROADWAY
AND DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS WILL BE PRIV A TEL Y
MAINTAINED
Item #16Bl
A CONSTRUCTION, OPERATION, AND MAINTENANCE
EASEMENT TO FLORIDA POWER AND LIGHT
CORPORATION (FPL) FOR REPLACING POWER POLES TO
FACILITATE CONSTRUCTION OF THE GATEWAY
TRIANGLE STORMW ATER IMPROVEMENTS PHASE 1,
COLLIER COUNTY CAPITAL PROJECT #51803. ($31,660.84)-
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January 29,2008
TO CORRECT THE DRAINAGE PROBLEMS WITHIN THIS
AREA OF EAST NAPLES
Item #16B2
AWARD OF BID NO. 08-5025 TO STAHLMAN ENGLAND
IRRIGATION, INC. FOR THE PALM RIVER ESTATES UNIT 5,
IMPERIAL GOLF ESTATES UNIT 4, STORMW A TER
IMPROVEMENTS, PROJECT NUMBER 510143 WITH THE
BASE AMOUNT BEING $312,097.89, PLUS THE
ALTERNATIVE OF $5,583.90, FORA TOTAL AMOUNT OF
$317,681.79 - FOR THE RELOCATION OF EXISTING DITCHES,
THE INSTALLATION OF CULVERTS, CATCH BASINS AND
REPLACING FAILED DRAINAGE STRUCTURES
Item #16B3
RESOLUTION 2008-22: A FIVE-YEAR JOINT PARTICIPATION
AGREEMENT (JP A), CONTRACT NUMBER AOW89, WITH
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, IN THE
AMOUNT OF $408,790, INCLUDING A LOCAL MATCH OF
$204,395 FOR FY 2007/2008. TO PROVIDE FEDERAL PASS-
THROUGH SECTION 5311 OPERATIONAL, ADMINISTRATIVE
AND MANAGERIAL FUNDING FOR THE PROVISION OF
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SERVICES IN COLLIER
COUNTY'S NON-URBANIZED AREAS AS IDENTIFIED IN
COLLIER COUNTY'S ANNUAL GRANT APPLICATION ON
FILE WITH THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION - EXPIRING ON DECEMBER 31, 2012
Item # 16B4
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January 29, 2008
RESOLUTION 2008-23: A FIVE-YEAR JOINT PARTICIPATION
AGREEMENT (JP A) WITH FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION IN THE AMOUNT OF $804,464, UNDER
STATE TRANSIT BLOCK GRANT PROGRAM CONTRACT
NUMBER AOW93. PROVIDING FOR STATE FUNDING FOR
ELIGIBLE COLLIER COUNTY PUBLIC FIXED-ROUTE
TRANSIT OPERATIONAL AND CAPITAL EXPENSES IN THE
AMOUNT OF $402,232, AS WELL AS A FY2007-2008 LOCAL
MATCH IN THE AMOUNT OF $402,232 - EXPIRING ON
SEPTEMBER 30,2012
Item #16B5
AN AGREEMENT FOR THE DONATION OF SCHOOL
PROPERTY REQUIRED TO CONSTRUCT IMPROVEMENTS TO
OIL WELL ROAD. PROJECT #60044. (ESTIMATED FISCAL
IMPACT $208.50) - TO IMPROVE TRAFFIC MOVEMENTS FOR
CORKSCREW ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOLS AND
FOR PALMETTO RIDGE HIGH SCHOOL
Item #16B6
AWARD OF BID #07-4195, TRAFFIC OPERATIONS SIGNAL
COMPONENTS TO MULTIPLE VENDORS. (ITEM-BY-ITEM
BASIS) - AWARDED TO TEMPLE, INC., ENGINEERED
CASTINGS, TRAFFIC PRODUCTS, INC., MAYER ELECTRIC
SUPPL Y, COHU, INC., WORLD ELECTRIC SUPPLY AND
TRANSPORTATION CONTROL SYSTEMS
Item #16B7
AWARD OF CONTRACT(S) #07-4168, FIXED TERM
Page 248
January 29,2008
PROFESSIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTING SERVICES
TO THE FOLLOWING FIRMS: JOHNSON ENGINEERING, INC.,
PASSARELLA AND ASSOCIATES, INC. AND SCHEDA
ECOLOGICAL ASSOCIATES, INC. ESTIMATED ANNUAL
CONTRACT AMOUNT IS $500,000 - TO PROVIDE SERVICES
FOR MULTIPLE PROJECTS WITHOUT ISSUING INDIVIDUAL
REOUESTSFORPROPOSALS
Item #16B8
THE SELECTION OF PBS&J, INC., A QUALIFIED FIRM AND
A WARD A CONTRACT UNDER RFP #07-4174, FPL TRAIL
FEASIBILITY STUDY IN COLLIER AND LEE COUNTIES, FOR
PROJECT NUMBER 601203, IN THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF
$307,610.00 (AVAILABLE IN THE TRANSPORTATION
SUPPORTED GAS TAX FUND 313, FPL TRAIL FEASIBILITY
STUDY, PROJECT #601203) - THIS STUDY WILL FOCUS ON
AN AREA FROM ORANGETREE TO THE CREW TRUST
LANDS NEAR CORKSCREW ROAD
Item #16B9
ACCEPTANCE OF REVENUE FOR COLLIER AREA TRANSIT
IN THE AMOUNT OF $7,000 FROM EXCEPTIONAL
INNOVATION, LLC AND APPROVAL OF THE NEEDED
BUDGET AMENDMENTS - TO SUPPORT COLLIER AREA
TRANSIT IN ORDER TO ENCOURAGE THE USE OF PUBLIC
TRANSPORTATION
Item #16B10
RESOLUTION 2008-24: A RESOLUTION CERTIFYING THE
Page 249
January 29, 2008
DEDICATION AND ACCEPTANCE OF A PORTION OF
WESTCLOX STREET, WEST OF CARSON ROAD, IN
IMMOKALEE, TO COLLIER COUNTY PURSUANT TO
SECTION 95.361, FLORIDA STATUTES, BY VIRTUE OF THE
COUNTY'S CONTINUOUS AND UNINTERRUPTED
MAINTENANCE OF THE ROADWAY, AND AUTHORIZE THE
FILING OF THE APPROPRIATE MAP(S) WITH THE CLERK OF
THE CIRCUIT COURT
Item #16Bll
AWARD OF BID #08-5033 FOR IMMOKALEE ROAD
STREETS CAPE BEAUTIFICATION PROJECT TO VILA & SON
IN THE AMOUNT OF $827,769.56 WITH 10% CONTINGENCY
OF $82,776.96 FOR A TOTAL OF $910,546.52. (PROJECT
#660424) - WORK SCHEDULED TO BEGIN APRIL 15,2008
Item #16Cl
THE ACQUISITION OF A 3,000 SQUARE FOOT UTILITY
EASEMENT NEAR THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF 3891
WHITE BOULEVARD FOR A PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY WELL
SITE EASEMENT, AT A TOTAL COST NOT TO EXCEED
$14,900, PROJECT NUMBER 701582 - TO MAINTAIN THE
SUSTAINABILITY OF THE EXISTING GOLDEN GATE
WELL FIELD
Item # 16C2
THE ACQUISITION OF ADDITIONAL EASEMENT AREA FOR
AN ACCESS EASEMENT TO LIFT STATION 302.09 AT A
TOTAL COST NOT TO EXCEED $4,520, PROJECT NUMBER
Page 250
January 29, 2008
730841- SUBJECT PROPERTY OCCUPIED BY ST. PETER THE
APOSTLE CHURCH ON RATTLESNAKE HAMMOCK ROAD
Item # 16C3
A SATISFACTION OF A NOTICE OF CLAIM OF LIEN FOR
SANITARY SEWER SYSTEM IMPACT FEE. FISCAL IMPACT
IS $18.50 TO RECORD THE SATISFACTION OF LIEN - FOR
FOLIO NUMBER 00253600008
Item # 16C4
RESOLUTION 2008-25: THE SATISFACTIONS OF LIEN FOR
SOLID WASTE RESIDENTIAL ACCOUNTS WHEREIN THE
COUNTY HAS RECEIVED PAYMENT AND SAID LIENS ARE
SATISFIED IN FULL FOR THE 1992, 1994, 1995, AND 1996
SOLID WASTE COLLECTION AND DISPOSAL SERVICES
SPECIAL ASSESSMENT. FISCAL IMPACT IS $98.50 TO
RECORD THE SATISFACTIONS OF LIEN -AS DETAILED IN
THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Item #16C5
A BUDGET AMENDMENT FOR $11,446,766.41 TO TRANSFER
FUNDS FOR SOUTH COUNTY REGIONAL WATER
TREATMENT PLANT (SCRWTP) WELLFIELD EXPANSION
PROJECT #708921 , WATER IMPACT FEE CAPITAL PROJECTS
FUND TO A 2006 REVENUE BOND PROCEEDS FUND - AS
DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Item #16D1
Page 251
January 29, 2008
RESOLUTION 2008-26: A RESOLUTION WHICH SUPERSEDES
RESOLUTION 2007-33 TO INCREASE THE ANNUAL, NON-
RESIDENT BEACH PARKING PERMIT TO $50 - TO ENSURE
PROPER MAINTENANCE OF BEACH PARKING FACILITIES
WITHIN COLLIER COUNTY
Item # 16D2
BUDGET AMENDMENT MOVING $2,161.50 FROM BEACH
ACCESS LANDSCAPE PROJECT #902942 AND $112,000.00
FROM V ANDERBIL T BEACH WALKWAY PROJECT #900921,
WITHIN BEACH PARK FACILITIES CAPITAL FUND 183, FOR
A TOTAL OF $114,161.50 TO BE PLACED IN TO THE
VANDERBILT PEDESTRIAN ACCESS NO.3 WALKWAY
PROJECT #900451 - TO FUND THE COST OF CONSTRUCTION
FOR THE AREA ON NORTH GULF SHORE DRIVE
Item #16D3
A $374,407.54 BUDGET AMENDMENT TO FUND THE
CONSTRUCTION OF A BOAT RAMP AT THE GOLDEN GATE
COMMUNITY PARK, PROJECT #800317 - THE COST OF
CONSTRUCTION IS IN EXCESS OF WHAT WAS PREVIOUSLY
BUDGETED WITHIN THE INITIAL APPROVED BUDGET
Item # 16D4
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH ERIKA TRINIDAD (OWNER) FOR
DEFERRAL OF 100% OF COLLIER COUNTY IMPACT FEES
FOR AN OWNER-OCCUPIED AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNIT
LOCATED AT LOT 20, LIBERTY LANDING, IMMOKALEE _
DEFERRING $12,442.52 IN IMPACT FEES
Page 252
January 29,2008
Item #16D5
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH VERDIEU PETIT HOMME AND
MARIE L. PETIT HOMME (OWNERS) FOR DEFERRAL OF
100% OF COLLIER COUNTY IMPACT FEES FORAN OWNER-
OCCUPIED AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNIT LOCATED AT LOT
11, LIBERTY LANDING, IMMOKALEE - DEFERRING
$12,442.52 IN IMPACT FEES
Item # 16D6
CHANGE ORDER #10 IN THE AMOUNT OF $35,945.00 FOR
ADDITIONAL CONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATION, SFWMD
WELL PERMIT AND MODELING STUDY, SITE VISITS BY
ELECTRICAL ENGINEER, REDUCED WATER METER SIZE,
POOL LIGHTING & NIGHT USE CERTIFICATION AND ONE
YEAR WARRANTY INSPECTION, TO CONTRACT #99-2947,
IMPLEMENTATION OF A MASTER PLAN FOR THE NORTH
NAPLES REGIONAL PARK
Item # 16D7
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH MARIE MONGENE (OWNER)
FOR DEFERRAL OF 100% OF COLLIER COUNTY IMPACT
FEES FOR AN OWNER-OCCUPIED AFFORDABLE HOUSING
UNIT LOCATED AT LOT 26, TRAIL RIDGE, EAST NAPLES _
DEFERRING $19.372.52 IN IMPACT FEES
Item #16D8
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH BEGERL CHERY AND MIRNA
Page 253
January 29, 2008
CHERY (OWNERS) FOR DEFERRAL OF 100% OF COLLIER
COUNTY IMP ACT FEES FOR AN OWNER-OCCUPIED
AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNIT LOCATED AT LOT 28, TRAIL
RIDGE, EAST NAPLES - DEFERRING $19,372.52 IN IMPACT
FEES
Item # 16D9
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH GUERLINE F ANF AN (OWNER)
FOR DEFERRAL OF 100% OF COLLIER COUNTY IMPACT
FEES FOR AN OWNER-OCCUPIED AFFORDABLE HOUSING
UNIT LOCATED AT LOT 21, TRAIL RIDGE, EAST NAPLES -
DEFERRING $19,372.52 IN IMPACT FEES
Item #16DIO
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH JULIETTE ST HILAIRE (OWNER)
FOR DEFERRAL OF 100% OF COLLIER COUNTY IMPACT
FEES FOR AN OWNER-OCCUPIED AFFORDABLE HOUSING
UNIT LOCATED AT LOT 31, TRAIL RIDGE, EAST NAPLES -
DEFERRING $19.372.46 IN IMPACT FEES
Item #16D11
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH GASNER ANDRE AND
MATHILDE ANDRE (OWNERS) FOR DEFERRAL OF 100% OF
COLLIER COUNTY IMP ACT FEES FOR AN OWNER-
OCCUPIED AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNIT LOCATED AT LOT
158, TRAIL RIDGE, EAST NAPLES - DEFERRING $19,372.46 IN
IMPACT FEES
Item #16D12
Page 254
January 29,2008
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH RICARDO BLANCO AND ANITA
BLANCO (OWNERS) FOR DEFERRAL OF 100% OF COLLIER
COUNTY IMP ACT FEES FOR AN OWNER-OCCUPIED
AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNIT LOCATED AT LOT 13, BLOCK
6, NAPLES MANOR LAKES, EAST NAPLES AND
AUTHORIZES A REIMBURSEMENT OF THE FEES PAID BY
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF COLLIER COUNTY INC ON
BUILDING PERMIT 2007041984 IN THE AMOUNT OF
$26,204.83 - DEFERRING $26,204.83 IN IMPACT FEES
Item #16D13
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH ADIEL SOLER AND MIRNA
NAVARRO (OWNERS) FOR DEFERRAL OF 100% OF COLLIER
COUNTY IMP ACT FEES FOR AN OWNER-OCCUPIED
AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNIT LOCATED AT LOT 159, TRAIL
RIDGE, EAST NAPLES - DEFERRING $19,372.46 IN IMPACT
FEES
Item #16D14
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH DUGUE 1. GRAND JEAN AND
YOLENE GRAND JEAN (OWNERS) FOR DEFERRAL OF 100%
OF COLLIER COUNTY IMPACT FEES FOR AN OWNER-
OCCUPIED AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNIT LOCATED AT LOT
157, TRAIL RIDGE, EAST NAPLES - DEFERRING $19,372.46 IN
IMPACT FEES
Item #16D15
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH ESTEBAN RACERO JIMENEZ
Page 255
January 29,2008
AND MARIA GAMEZ (OWNERS) FOR DEFERRAL OF 100% OF
COLLIER COUNTY IMPACT FEES FOR AN OWNER-
OCCUPIED AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNIT LOCATED AT LOT
23, TRAIL RIDGE, EAST NAPLES - DEFERRING $19,372.52 IN
IMPACT FEES
Item #16D16
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH JEAN EL TINOR (OWNER) FOR
DEFERRAL OF 100% OF COLLIER COUNTY IMPACT FEES
FOR AN OWNER-OCCUPIED AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNIT
LOCATED AT LOT 15, LIBERTY LANDING, IMMOKALEE -
DEFERRING $12,442.52 IN IMPACT FEES
Item #16D17
A LIEN AGREEMENT WITH DOLLIE GALLEGOS (OWNER)
FOR DEFERRAL OF 100% OF COLLIER COUNTY IMPACT
FEES FOR AN OWNER-OCCUPIED AFFORDABLE HOUSING
UNIT LOCATED AT LOT 14, LIBERTY LANDING,
IMMOKALEE - DEFERRING $12,442.52 IN IMPACT FEES
Item #16D18
A SUMMARY OF THE IMP ACT FEE DEFERRAL
AGREEMENTS RECOMMENDED FOR APPROVAL IN FY08,
INCLUDING THE TOTAL NUMBER OF AGREEMENTS
APPROVED, THE TOTAL DOLLAR AMOUNT DEFERRED
AND THE BALANCE REMAINING FOR ADDITIONAL
DEFERRALS IN FY08
Item #16D19
Page 256
January 29, 2008
RECOGNIZING THERE IS NO FUNDING REQUIREMENT FOR
THE INTER-LOCAL AGREEMENT FOR MUL TI- COUNTY
AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION AGENTS AND THE $30,000
ALLOCATION TO FUND THIS AGREEMENT WILL BE
UTILIZED TO ASSIST IN MEETING BUDGET REDUCTIONS
FOR THE COLLIER COUNTY UNIVERSITY EXTENSION
DEPARTMENT
Item #16D20
AN AGREEMENT FOR SALE AND PURCHASE TO ACQUIRE A
RESIDENTIAL LOT FOR EXPANSION OF PARKING
FACILITIES FOR THE COUNTY'S BAYVIEW PARK AT A
COST NOT TO EXCEED $264,700, PROJECT #800603 - FOR AN
UNIMPROVED LOT THAT CONSISTS OF .16 ACRES ON
DANFORD STREET
Item #16D21
AN INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT WITH THE DISTRICT
SCHOOL BOARD OF COLLIER COUNTY FOR LEASING
APPROXIMATEL Y THREE (3) ACRES OF LAND ADJACENT
TO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL K AND A BUDGET
AMENDMENT FOR $400,000 FROM PARKS AND
RECREATION FEE FUND (346) FOR PROJECT #800911 -
LOCATED ON WESTCLOX STREET IN IMMOKALEE
Item # 16D22
AN INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT WITH THE DISTRICT
SCHOOL BOARD OF COLLIER COUNTY FOR LEASING
Page 257
January 29, 2008
APPROXIMATELY THREE ACRES (3) OF LAND ADJACENT
TO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL J AND NECESSARY BUDGET
AMENDMENT OF $400,000 FROM PARKS AND RECREATION
IMPACT FEE FUND (346) FOR PROJECT #800901- LOCATED
ON EVERGLADES BOULEVARD IN GOLDEN GATE ESTATES
Item #16E1
RFP #07-4148, SECURITY SERVICES & EQUIPMENT
AGREEMENT BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND JOHNSON
CONTROLS, INC. ON AN AS-NEEDED BASIS. (NOT TO
EXCEED $150,000 PER YEAR) - FOR AN INITIAL TWO YEARS
WITH TWO ADDITIONAL ONE YEAR RENEWAL PERIODS
Item # 16E2
RATIFY ADDITIONS TO AND A DELETION FROM THE 2008
FISCAL YEAR PAY AND CLASSIFICATION PLAN MADE
FROM OCTOBER 2, 2007 THROUGH DECEMBER 31, 2007 -
PERTAINING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN
RESOURCES
Item # 16E3
REPORT AND RATIFY PROPERTY, CASUALTY, WORKERS
COMPENSATION AND SUBROGATION CLAIMS SETTLED
AND/OR CLOSED BY THE RISK MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR
PURSUANT TO RESOLUTION #2004-15 FOR THE FIRST
QUARTER OF FY 08 - AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Item # 16E4
Page 258
January 29, 2008
AN AGREEMENT FOR SALE AND PURCHASE WITH
RAYMOND BENNETT AND TERRY BENNETT FOR 1.14
ACRES UNDER THE CONSERVATION COLLIER LAND
ACQUISITION PROGRAM, AT A COST NOT TO EXCEED
$27,820 - LOCATED IN GOLDEN GATE ESTATES, UNIT 65
FOR THE WINCHESTER HEAD MULTI-PARCEL PROJECT
Item #16E5
A LEASE AGREEMENT WITH COLLIER MOSQUITO
CONTROL DISTRICT FOR ANTENNA SPACE UPON A
COUNTY-OWNED COMMUNICATIONS TOWER - LOCATED
AT 312 STOCKADE ROAD IN IMMOKALEE
Item # 16E6 - Moved to Item # 1 OJ
Item #16F1
RESOLUTION 2008-27: A RESOLUTION PROVIDING FOR
USER FEES FOR COLLIER COUNTY AMBULANCE
SERVICES, BILLING AND COLLECTION PROCEDURE,
HOSPITAL TRANSPORT BILLING AND UP-DATED FEES TO
GENERATE REVENUES OF APPROXIMATELY $103,750
WHICH WILL HELP OFFSET AN ANTICIPATED SHORTFALL
FOR THE FY 08 BUDGET, ADJUSTMENTS OF EMS USER
FEES PURSUANT TO COLLIER COUNTY ORDINANCE NO. 96-
36, WAIVER OF EMS USER FEES FOR SPECIAL EVENTS, AND
A PROCEDURE FOR APPROVING HARDSHIP CASES AND
PAYMENT PLANS; SUPERSEDING RESOLUTION NO. 07-192;
AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE
Page 259
January 29,2008
Item # 16F2
RESOLUTION 2008-28: A RESOLUTION ACCEPTING A
DONATION IN THE AMOUNT OF $9,014.31, AND ANY
SUBSEQUENT DISTRIBUTIONS, FROM THE EST A TE AND/OR
TRUST OF DELLA E. REYNOLDS ON BEHALF OF THE
OCHOPEE FIRE CONTROL DISTRICT
Item #16F3 - Moved to Item #10K
Item #16F4
A CERTIFICATE OF PUBLIC CONVENIENCE AND
NECESSITY FOR NCH HEAL THCARE SYSTEM FOR NON-
EMERGENCY AMBULANCE SERVICE AND BUDGET
AMENDMENT RECOGNIZING AND APPROPRIATING THE
$250 ANNUAL RENEWAL FEE
Item #16F5
BUDGET AMENDMENTS - TO PROCESS THE FINAL GRANT
PAYMENT REQUEST TO THE NAPLES BOTANICAL GARDEN
- BUDGET AMENDMENT #08-113
Item #16Gl
A MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE
CRA AND BAYSHORE CULTURAL ARTS (BCA) FORA NON-
EXCLUSIVE USE OF BA YSHORE GATEWAY TRIANGLE CRA
OFFICE SPACE FOR BCA OPERATIONS; AUTHORIZING THE
CRA CHAIRMAN TO SIGN; AND TO ACCEPT A BCA
ADDITIONAL INSURED CERTIFICATE OF INSURANCE FOR
Page 260
January 29,2008
THE CRA-LOCATED AT 2740 BAYSHORE DRIVE, UNITS 17
AN 10
Item #16H1
COMMISSIONER COLETTA'S REIMBURSEMENT SERVING A
VALID PUBLIC PURPOSE. ATTENDING THE IMMOKALEE
ROTARY SPAGHETTI DINNER, FEBRUARY 8, 2008. $100.00
TO BE PAID FROM COMMISSIONER COLETTA'S TRAVEL
BUDGET - TO SUPPORT IMMOKALEE YOUTH SPORTS
Item # 16H2
COMMISSIONER COLETTA'S REIMBURSEMENT SERVING A
VALID PUBLIC PURPOSE. ATTENDING THE ULI 11 TH
ANNUAL WINTER INSTITUTE ON THE GULF & PATHFINDER
AWARDS CEREMONY, FEBRUARY 21,2008. $65.00 TO BE
PAID FROM COMMISSIONER COLETTA'S TRAVEL BUDGET
- HELD AT NAPLES HILTON AND TOWERS, 5111 T AMIAMI
TRAIL
Item # 16H3
COMMISSIONER COLETTA'S REIMBURSEMENT SERVING A
VALID PUBLIC PURPOSE. ATTENDING CUB SCOUT WOLF
PACK #210 AWARDS DINNER, FEBRUARY 21,2008. $20.00 TO
BE PAID FROM COMMISSIONER COLETTA'S TRAVEL
BUDGET - HELD AT CORKSCREW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Item #16H4
COMMISSIONER FIALA'S REIMBURSEMENT FOR
Page 261
January 29,2008
ATTENDING A FUNCTION SERVING A VALID PUBLIC
PURPOSE. ATTENDING THE LEADERSHIP COLLIER ALUMNI
CHALLENGE CELEBRATION ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5,
2008, AT THE HOME OF TODD AND ANGELA GATES; $150.00
TO BE PAID FROM COMMISSIONER FIALA'S TRAVEL
BUDGET
Item # 16H5
COMMISSIONER FIALA'S REIMBURSEMENT FOR
ATTENDING A FUNCTION SERVING A VALID PUBLIC
PURPOSE. ATTENDED THE NAPLES PRESS CLUB FIRST
"INSIDER BREAKFAST OF 2008" ON THURSDAY, JANUARY
24,2008, AT THE BELLASERA HOTEL; $12.00 TO BE PAID
FROM COMMISSIONER FIALA'S TRAVEL BUDGET - 221 9TH
STREET SOUTH
Item #16H6
COMMISSIONER FIALA'S REIMBURSEMENT FOR
ATTENDING A FUNCTION SERVING A VALID PUBLIC
PURPOSE. ATTENDED THE 58TH ANNUAL ENCA BANQUET
ON MONDAY, JANUARY 21,2008, AT NAPLES LAKES
COUNTRY CLUB; $35.00 TO BE PAID FROM COMMISSIONER
FIALA'S TRAVEL BUDGET
Item # 16H7
COMMISSIONER FIALA'S REIMBURSEMENT FOR
ATTENDING A FUNCTION SERVING A VALID PUBLIC
PURPOSE. ATTENDING THE MARCO ISLAND YMCA STAN
GOBER'S ROAST ON THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2008, AT THE
Page 262
January 29, 2008
MARCO MARRIOTT RESORT; $150.00 TO BE PAID FROM
COMMISSIONER FIALA'S TRAVEL BUDGET
Item #16H8
COMMISSIONER FIALA'S REIMBURSEMENT FOR
ATTENDING A FUNCTION SERVING A VALID PUBLIC
PURPOSE. ATTENDING THE MARCO ISLAND LEAGUE
BUCCANEERS BASH ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 29,2008, AT
THE MARCO ISLAND YACHT CLUB; $50.00 TO BE PAID
FROM COMMISSIONER FIALA'S TRAVEL BUDGET
Item #16H9
TO FILL A VACANT POSITION IN THE BOARD'S OFFICE AS
AN EXCEPTION TO THE CURRENT POLICY TO NOT FILL
OPEN OR VACATED GENERAL FUND POSITIONS - TO FILL
THE ADMINISTRATIVE AIDE TO THE BCC
Item #16I1
MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE - FILED AND/OR
REFERRED:
The following miscellaneous correspondence, as presented by the
Board of County Commissioners, has been directed to the various
departments as indicated:
Page 263
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
MISCELLANEOUS CORESPOPNDENCE
January 29, 2008
1. MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS TO FILE FOR RECORD WITH ACTION AS DIRECTED:
A. Districts:
1) Collier Mosquito Control District:
District map, meeting schedule for 2008 and Final Annual Certified
Budget for 2008.
B. Minutes:
1) Collier Countv Planning Commission - Form 1:
Agenda of January 3, 2007; January 11,2007.
Minutes of October 26,2007; October 26, 2007-LCD; November 1,
2007; November 26, 2007-GMP Special Meeting.
2) Contractors Licensing Board:
Agenda of January 16,2008.
3) East of 951 Infrastructure and Services Horizon Studv Public
Participation Master Plan Committee:
Minutes of February 12, 2007; March 19,2007; April 16, 2007; May
14,2007; July 9,2007; September 10, 2007.
4) Environmental Advisorv Council:
Minutes of November 7,2007.
5) Isle of Capri Fire Control District Advisorv Committee:
Minutes of January 4,2007; December 6,2007.
6) Land Acquisition Advisorv Committee:
Agenda of January 14,2008.
7) Pelican Bav Services Division Board:
Agenda of January 9, 2007.
8) Public Vehicle Advisorv Committee:
Agenda of January 7, 2008.
9) Utilitv Authoritv - Form 1:
Minutes of March 26, 2007.
2. OTHER
I) Minutes of The Hearing of The Collier Count v Special Magistrate:
Minutes of December 7,2007.
2) Clam Bav Committee:
Minutes of November 21, 2007.
January 29, 2008
Item # 1611
DISBURSEMENTS FOR THE PERIOD OF JANUARY 05, 2008
THROUGH JANUARY 11,2008 AND FOR SUBMISSION INTO
THE OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE BOARD
Item #16K1
AN AGREED ORDER FOR PAYMENT OF EXPERT FEES IN
CONNECTION WITH PARCEL 134 IN THE LAWSUIT STYLED
COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA V. FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF
NAPLES, INC., ET AL., CASE NO. 04-3587-CA (IMMOKALEE
ROAD PROJECT NO. 66042). (FISCAL IMPACT: $51,000.00)-
FOR SUBJECT PROPERTY ACQUIRED BY AN ORDER OF
TAKING ON DECEMBER 17,2004
Item # 16K2
A SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT IN THE LAWSUIT ENTITLED
VIRGINIA DEVISSE V. BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS, ET AL.; FILED IN THE TWENTIETH
JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR COLLIER COUNTY,
FLORIDA, CASE NO. 05-807-CA - PERTAINING TO THE 20'
EASEMENT THAT RUNS THROUGH TRACK "U" IN THE
DELASOL DEVELOPMENT
Item #17A
ORDINANCE 2008-03: PETITION RZ-2006-AR-10422 MYERS
ENTERPRISES OF NAPLES, LLC, REPRESENTED BY TIM
HANCOCK OF DAVIDSON ENGINEERING., REQUESTED A
REZONE FROM THE INDUSTRIAL (I) ZONING DISTRICT TO
Page 264
January 29,2008
THE COMMERCIAL DISTRICT (C-4) FOR A 1.83 ACRE
PROJECT KNOWN AS NAPLES MAZDA. THE PROPERTY IS
LOCATED ON SOUTHWEST CORNER OF AIRPORT ROAD
AND J & C BOULEVARD IN SECTION 11, TOWNSHIP 49
SOUTH, RANGE 25 EAST, COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA
Item #17B
ORDINANCE 2008-04: REMEDIAL AMENDMENTS TO THE
CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT ELEMENT OF THE GROWTH
MANAGEMENT PLAN, ORDINANCE 89-05, AS AMENDED, AS
SET FORTH IN THE COMPLIANCE AGREEMENT BETWEEN
THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY AFFAIRS AND
COLLIER COUNTY, INCLUDING PETITIONERS-IN-
INTERVENTION, AND TRANSMITTING THESE
AMENDMENTS TO THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
Item #17C
ORDINANCE 2008-05: PETITION PUDZ-2007-AR-11121,
CHESTNUT RIDGE, LLC, REPRESENTED BY WILLIAM
HOOVER, OF HOOVER PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT,
INC., A REZONE OF A 6.01-ACRE SITE FROM THE ESTATES
(E) ZONING DISTRICT TO THE MIXED-USE PLANNED UNIT
DEVELOPMENT (MPUD) ZONING DISTRICT FOR A PROJECT
KNOWN AS CHESTNUT PLACE MPUD, TO ALLOW 24,000
SQUARE FEET OF COMMERCIAL AND/OR OFFICE SPACE
AND 6,000 SQUARE FEET OF INSTITUTIONAL SPACE FOR
PROPERTY LOCATED AT THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF
IMMOKALEE ROAD (CR-846) AND EVERGLADES
BOULEVARD ON TRACTS 113 AND 114, IN SECTION 29,
Page 265
January 29, 2008
TOWNSHIP 47 SOUTH, RANGE 28 EAST, OF COLLIER
COUNTY, FLORIDA
Item #17D
RESOLUTION 2008-29: PETITION V A-2007-AR-12232, JOHN
HAMILTON, REPRESENTED BY MICHAEL T. TRAFICANTE,
ESQ., AN AFTER-THE-FACT VARIANCE OF
APPROXIMATELY 1.4 FEET. THE O.13-ACRE SITE CONTAINS
A SINGLE-FAMILY DWELLING WITH A 3.6-FOOT SIDE
YARD SETBACK INSTEAD OF THE 5-FOOT SETBACK
REQUIRED WHEN THE HOUSE WAS CONSTRUCTED IN 1973.
THE SUBJECT SITE IS LOCATED AT 85 SHORES AVENUE, IN
SECTION 22, TOWNSHIP 48 SOUTH, RANGE 25 EAST,
COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA
Item #17E
ORDINANCE 2008-06: PUDZ-05-AR-8416 PEZZETINO DI
CIELO RPUD, DISTINCTIVE RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT
AT LIVINGSTON, LLC, REPRESENTED BY D. WAYNE
ARNOLD, AICP, OF Q. GRADY MINOR AND ASSOCIATES,
P.A. AND RICHARD YOV ANOVICH, ESQUIRE, OF
GOODLETTE, COLEMAN AND JOHNSON, P.A., A REZONE
FROM THE AGRICULTURAL (A) ZONING DISTRICT TO THE
RESIDENTIAL PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (RPUD)
ZONING DISTRICT FOR PROJECT KNOWN AS PEZZETINO DI
CIELO RPUD. THE SUBJECT PROPERTY, CONSISTING OF
17.52 ACRES, IS LOCATED ON THE EAST SIDE OF
LIVINGSTON ROAD, APPROXIMATELY 4.5 MILES NORTH
OF IMMOKALEE ROAD AND 5 MILES SOUTH OF THE LEE
COUNTY LINE, SECTION 12, TOWNSHIP 48 SOUTH, RANGE
Page 266
January 29, 2008
25 EAST, COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA
*****
There being no further business for the good ofthe County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 5:45 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPE~ST CTS ~ER ITS CONTROL
TOM HENNING, Chai an
A TTE&t1n ...
DWl.. 'GH.'"T.:Jt1.}ROCK,_CLERK
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These minutes apP7Y the Board on <:9--1 cl &t!c&. , as
presented l or as corrected I .
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY
COURT REPORTING SERVICES, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS.
Page 267