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BCC Minutes 01/16/2009 W (w/CRA & CRA Advisory Boards) January 16, 2009 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY Naples, Florida, January 16, 2009 LET IT BE REMEMBERD, that the Community Redevelopment Agency, in and for the County of Collier, 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: Donna Fiala Fred Coyle Frank Halas Tom Henning Jim Coletta ALSO PRESENT: Jim Mudd, County Manager Sue Filson, BCC Executive Manager Jeffrey Klatzkow, County Attorney Page 1 January 16,2009 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. I'd like to call this Community Redevelopment Agency meeting to order today, Friday, January 16th. And welcome everyone. This is an exciting time for all of us because in this down economy, it seems that the CRA areas are the only things that are really moving up and improving all the time and that's a breath of fresh air, in my opinion, so welcome all. And where do we begin? Penny, are you our first speaker? Oh, Jim Mudd. MR. MUDD: No. The Pledge of Allegiance. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I'm so sorry. The Pledge of Allegiance. (Whereupon, the Pledge of Allegiance was recited.) MR. MUDD: Mr. Jackson is going to start it off for the group and you're going to hear both CRA issues today. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. MR. JACKSON: Good morning, Chairman, and good morning CRA commissioners and advisory board members and audience for attending today. I'm David Jackson, executive director for the Bayshore Gateway Triangle CRA. I'm just going to give a few introductory remarks. The first presentation will be by Immokalee and then followed by the Bayshore Gateway Triangle CRA portion of it. Immediately after my remarks, I think it would be appropriate for a round of self-introductions by the advisory board members that are at the table with you. But first, I want to give a launch of what Commissioner Fiala said about the economic times that we have today. There was a couple who lived out in the Estates. They had two identical twin daughters. Debbie and Donna were their names. And they were exactly the same in all ways except personality. The way they saw things. Debbie was never satisfied. You know, kind ofa demure-type of a personality and Donna was always smiling and very happy-go-lucky. Well, this last Christmas the parents didn't know exactly what to do, so they asked the children what they wanted. And Page 2 January 16, 2009 they made sure that Debbie, who was kind of always never happy, that they bought everything that she wanted; and then with Donna, all Donna wanted was a pony. So for Christmas down comes Debbie downstairs, she opens every present and wasn't happy with any of them. It was all what she wanted, but she was never happy. And they kept waiting for Donna to come downstairs and Donna never came downstairs. Well you see, the night before when she was asleep they filled her room with two feet of horse manure. And no wonder why she didn't come down. They went upstairs and opened the door and there was Donna. She was just digging and digging and the parents said, what are you doing? She said, I know there's a pony in here somewhere. And that's the thing about the eternal optimist and where we are in our economy today. Your advisory board members that are sitting at the table with you today, they are the eternal optimists of Collier County because they see things could be better. They see that the opportunities as they come by and they seize them and they make the best of those opportunities. And that's what this is all about today is to talk about the opportunities that they see and where they plan to take their communities in the future. So I think appropriate, Madam Chair, would be a round of self introductions and following that would be Mr. Fred Thomas who has a couple comments to launch the Immokalee presentation. MS. WILLIAMS: Carrie Williams and I'm on the Immokalee master planning community. CRA. MR. NULL: Estil Null. I'm on the Immokalee CRA and Immokalee master plan. MR. FRED THOMAS: Fred Thomas, Immokalee CRA. MR. GUNTHER: Chuck Gunther, Bayshore Gateway Triangle CRA. MR. LINDSAY THOMAS: Lindsay Thomas, Bayshore Gateway Triangle. Page 3 January 16,2009 MR. PREBLE: Bruce Preble, Bayshore Gateway Triangle. MR. COYLE: Fred Coyle, Collier County Commissioner, District 4. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm Frank Halas, Collier County Commissioner in District 2. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Donna Fiala, District 1. COMMISSIONER HENNING: District 3, Tom Henning. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Jim Coletta, Collier County Commissioner, District 5. MR. FRED THOMAS: Good morning. Thank you all very much for this opportunity for us to give you an update on everything. As chairman of the Immokalee CRA, I'm going to say one thing and one thing alone right now. The most successful thing we did this last year -- the most important thing we did was one of our wisest decisions was to hire Penny Phillippi and hired some ofthe best staff you can find to do this outstanding work that we have. And she just celebrated her first year anniversary and I think she's adjusted to our community, became a part of us in such a way that she can lead us forward and with that I'll turn it over to her to give our annual report. MS. PHILLIPPI: Good morning. Thank you for all those nice things you said about me. I appreciate all that. The introduction -- what am I doing? Now that we've got the technical difficulties ironed out. I want to say thank you for those nice words that you said about me and thank you for hearing us today and our brief annual report of what happened last year in Immokalee. And probably I have to agree, this is one of the most exciting times in community redevelopment and revitalization that happened in Immokalee for a long time. You can see we had a powerful CRA advisory board, and we had a powerful master plan envisioning committee. And a group of the most dedicated people you probably will ever find. If you want someone who is going to stick to it for the long haul, this is the group Page 4 January 16,2009 to bring on board. This year we feel like we've laid our foundation for the redevelopment and the revitalization of Immokalee because they carefully thought out a master plan over many years. As you know, it's taken a long time to articulate and talk about and decide exactly what -- what should Immokalee look like, what's best for Immokalee and how can we take Immokalee into the future. It's a well-thought out plan that we've brought forward. The first thing that the advisory board wanted to do for a very long time is to have a CRA presence in Immokalee. In other words, have an office, have staff, permanent staff, and create a presence in that community. And of course now we have -- we took over Commissioner Coletta's office at 310 Alachua Street in Immokalee. Thank you. MR. FRED THOMAS: Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Did I really have a choice? MS. PHILLIPPI: And we hired a permanent staff, myself of course, as executive director, and a person you haven't met before, Bradley Michael. If you'll stand up just real quick. This is our project manager in Immokalee. And Christy Bentencourt, who is our administrative assistant in Immokalee. Thank you. And they've really dedicated themselves to the work that we're doing. And believe me, there's plenty of work for us to get done. The first thing we had to do is create our policies and procedures as any other business would have to do. Simply set up the day-to-day operational policies and procedures. Secondly, we worked with Bayshore Gateway on the new personnel policy that gives our staffthe ability to appeal decisions made by -- personnel decisions. So our policies and procedures are in place, our office is in place, our staff is in place. We felt like that was a very big accomplishment in Immokalee. The third thing that we did was create a Web page. And this was Page 5 January 16,2009 in partnership also with Bayshore Gateway. Sue Trone led the charge for this combined CRA -- Collier County CRA web page. It's free-standing, it's first time ever. And when you click on it you'll see you can click either Immokalee or Bayshore Gateway. And both of them are beautiful Web sites. You see the header of ours at the top of this one. And we tried very hard to capture the spirit of Immokalee on this Web page and have a place to tell about all the incentives that exist, to talk about ecotourism and to have a place to start bragging about the things that we've accomplished and market ourselves to the world at large. So we felt like that was a very big accomplishment, as well as marketing our presence. And then the big, big deal for us of course is the accomplishment of the Immokalee master plan. We had early in 2008 put out a request for proposals, and I have to thank the legal department and the purchasing department, because within two months we had a consultant under contract, and I'm told that's a worldwide record in Collier County to do an RSP and have someone under contract within two months. And we -- as you know, we were able to retain RW A Company to come and help us put together the pieces of our master plan in a way that would be acceptable as a comprehensive plan amendment and pull all the different pieces together; the transportation plan, you know, the land development codes, the capital improvement plan. All the pieces that go into that master plan. And we ended up -- we have ended up with a very beautiful document that was submitted to the Collier County Development Services Department on December 3rd. It was a huge victory for our community that is out there and ready to be reviewed so that we can start to implement that. What we talked about in the master plan are the same things that you've heard historically that we've talked about. First and foremost our primary goal has been economic development in Immokalee. And that's our very first set of objectives. Our business is priority. We want Page 6 January 16, 2009 to diversify the local economy and attract as many new entrepreneurs and businesses as we possibly can to create new jobs. The second goal or objective for the master plan is housing. It's a really strange combination of housing in Immokalee because mobile homes have historically been affordable housing there. We've had a lot of problems, so when we developed the new future land development map, we talked about creating areas where there would be mobile home parks and starting to address some of the problems with inferior deteriorating housing that folks are trying to live in. We talked about looking for market rate houses because we have an overabundance of affordable housing in Immokalee, and we're looking for work force housing where normal working folks can just come in and buy a home and start building our community. We also want to address the conditions that some farm workers still live in. So we're still thinking about developing good farm worker housing. Good, healthy, safe farm worker housing. The third set of objectives talks about infrastructure and our public services. Of course, the big transportation issues are covered on the Collier County transportation plan. The transportation plan for Immokalee addresses our particular issues with the streets, our need for a pedestrian environment because we have so many bicyclists and so many people walking from place to place. So it's a unique kind of transportation plan that we're hoping to develop through this master plan. The other important issue, of course, was storm water management and solid waste management. The fourth objective is natural resource protection. Obviously Immokalee is very excited about the Pepper Ranch and the possibilities of ecotourism and tourism in general that that's going to bring forward. So we particularly have a plan that's going to let us address and work toward creating a tourism opportunity in Immokalee. Page 7 January 16,2009 And then the sixth objective talks about urban forum. And it's long been said, and probably you've heard it a thousand times, but it's long been said that lmmokalee has a personality of its own. It has a theme and what we hope to do is articulate that theme and develop Immokalee into what it possibly could be at its fullest potential. And lastly, of course, we talked about inter-governmental coordination. And so, as you can see by this slide, we've had meetings upon meetings upon meetings this past year. And we have hashed out every issue that you can possibly think of from transportation to housing to storm water to streets to economic development, and we feel really good about the new master plan that we brought forward. In 2008 we again, as always, were concerned about economic development, so the first thing we had to do was think about what incentives already exist, how can we beef them up and how can we market those things. And the first one we did was, of course, the Immokalee enterprise zone. We call it the E zone. There's a huge amount of incentives available that we have marketed on our Web page. We've created a careful standard operating procedure on how to get these incentives out to people who could possibly use them. In fact, Brad has to go every day to visit two different businesses ever single day and then go back and visit them and make follow-up calls. So we're really, really marketing the enterprise zone, but, you know, with the Web page, with the brochure, with door to door, telephone -- I mean, the radio ads, newspaper ads and trying to get that out there, we're actually beginning to have some successes now. We also created, with your help, the commercial facade improvement grant where we're offering $20,000 to improve the facade of businesses to try to create the downtown that we're looking for. And this can do with store fronts, canopies, parking lots. It can help with roofs. It can do a whole range of different kinds of things to dress up the downtown front in Immokalee. And again, we're starting Page 8 January 16, 2009 to see some successes. I think right now we have just over 12 applications for faced grants that we're working on. We worked also with the Bayshore CR -- the Bayshore Gateway CRA with the ground field coalition. We really didn't know how to handle ground fields in Immokalee, although we have quite a few. And an opportunity came to apply for a million dollar grant to do assessments of ground fields, and as I said, with Bayshore leading the way, a coalition was formed of enough entities such as the Airport Authority and South Florida Water Management District and several others, and created a coalition applied for this ground field grant which we're still waiting to hear about that. Then another thing that's in the works that has happened is the huge land available list. We have a list -- we realize that commercially we couldn't find a list of lands that could be used for commercial or industrial for sale or for lease and so it became a really careful research project to put that list together and market that thing, not only on the Web page, but of course the Chamber of Commerce, but through every avenue that we could to distribute these to people who were hoping to come and build a business in Immokalee. We also drafted an impact reimbursement program -- impact fee reimbursement program, which we hope will come to fruition in 2009. And under this program, we would reimburse a business 50 percent of their impact fees after they got the business up and running and we started to receive TIF revenue from that business, and we would reimburse 50 percent over a period of five to ten years, depending on the size of the business. So that one is one that will be coming to you very shortly. That's drafted and being reviewed. Then, as you know, we had a couple of problems in Immokalee. So the advisory board created what we call the red flag program. The red flag program is basically a vehicle for citizens to come to the CRA advisory board with whatever problems they perceive the CRA advisory board can help them with or the CRA or Board of County Page 9 January 16,2009 Commissioners could help them with. So the first thing they have to do is come to staff, here's our problem, here's the background that goes with this problem, and then we will take that to the advisory board, they'll listen to the issues and then they mayor may not bring it forward to the Board of County Commissioners or the CRA board. One of the issues, as you know that we talked about, was the State Farmer's Market. The State Farmer's Market was in a situation where they weren't able to pull down FEMA funds. Had kind of stalled. So the CRA advisory board put together strong letters to legislators and were able to start that money coming down. And our development services department was able to work to reenact the -- there was a particular program right after Wilma that was a moratorium on lots of things like land development codes that would slow down replacement of damaged buildings. So, as I said, Schmitt and his staff were able to get that reenacted for the State Farmer's Market. So we felt like that was a huge success story and accomplishment. Another one that you're aware of is the Collier County Housing Authority who also, during their phase one, were trying to deal with land development codes that they felt couldn't be addressed with federal money and they needed assistance with that. So the advisory board did send a letter to the Board of County Commissioners to support that effort. Other red flags that have come -- we've had many, many red flag issues that have come to us. But one of the other m~or ones that have come to us recently are signage, that there have been a large number of citations for signs in Immokalee. And we're trying to work with those folks to work through those things as well. I threw in this slide because there's a few new businesses in Immokalee. We have Lucy's Hair Salon. We have a wonderful new Haitian bakery. Sabion Bakery. We have a little bus that will take you Page I 0 January 16,2009 over to the bakery. We have a new Cuban restaurant and, of course, the Dollar Store. So we are having some success with new businesses -- small businesses in Immokalee. The other thing as we talked about was tourism. And we're very hopeful about tourism. Staff put together a very comprehensive list of all tourism possibilities that are available in and around Immokalee. And, of course, as we said, we're very excited about Pepper Ranch. Very excited about partnerships with Conservation Collier to augment whatever they're trying -- whatever they decide to do, so we're working with them on their management plan as well. We've been attending those meetings. Another really curious new program that's only available to areas of -- rural areas of chronic economic distress are the TODS -- they call them TODS, Tourist Oriented Directional Signs. We're currently working with Collier County Transportation Department because it will require an ordinance by the Board of Collier County Commissioners to implement. And these signs can be put as far as 25 miles from the site out on state roads, and this will direct people in a more organized way to the different things that are available. The last thing that we're working on for lots of different reasons -- but certainly tourism is one of the major reasons -- is the public realm and town design. We really are looking for a design, a plan, an architectural -- that's architectural, that does the streets, the public places, that can deliver the message of the personality ofImmokalee. And I think we'll probably see this come out in about six months. And this will be in concert with our land development codes. We won't have to redo them. As far as housing, we did address a lot of housing issues this past year. One of the wonderful programs that were offered through the Collier County Housing Department was the CDBG Disaster Recovery. They called it DRI Program. For those persons who were impacted by Hurricane Wilma, you could have your house rehabbed, Page 11 ...>....._~._-,,--,,_..._,--"_.__.~..-.....,,-..>.,.-. January 16,2009 or possibly torn down and a brand new one built. And the Immokalee CRA took, I think well over 100 -- passed out over 100 applications and we did one-on-one assistance with 89 applicants. And I think 59 of them were actually completed and approved, so we're just now starting to see those houses come out of the ground now through the Housing Department. As you can see, Christy went on the radio station. We put out flyers in Spanish and Creole and English and we were all over the place in that town. The second big endeavor that we tackled was Esperanzo Place with two Non-Profit affordable housing providers. The empowerment -- Southwest Florida Empowerment Alliance and Florida Non-Profit Services. And if you can see on the little tilted site plan there on the right, they're doing about 170 some multi-family houses for farm workers, and on the left you can see they're doing about 60 single family home ownership units. And I live in the right-hand corner there, so this is in my backyard. The other thing that we did, we're really, really pleased about was we were able to coax the Florida Solar Energy Center to coming into Immokalee and holding one of their green housing certification courses. And over 40 people from all over the State of Florida came to Immokalee for this certification and is provided by the Florida Green Building Coalition. I actually am now certified to inspect and certify houses as green, acceptably green units. So, we're hoping to use this tool to market exactly that because, as you know, we want Immokalee to become green energy efficient. We want scaping. They're looking for a Florida-friendly landscaping so this fits right into our whole plan for the future of Immokalee. The other thing we looked at was infrastructure. Believe me, we are struggling with this one. In September we had a storm come -- was it Fay? I'm trying to remember the storm. Fay was the name of the storm that came through in September of'08. And we had a great deal Page 12 January 16,2009 of flooding throughout. Carrie Williams actually drove through as I took photographs, but, I mean, water was on almost every street and they were impassable. I mean, the mailman was turning around and going back the other way and water coming into folks' houses. We have a real storm water and drainage issue. The way we tried to attack it so far is we submitted a proposal to the Immokalee MSTU. The MSTU currently only deals with beautification. We asked them to expand not only their jurisdiction to cover all of the Immokalee urban area, we asked them also to include storm water drainage, streets, lights and -- what else was it? Well, beautification includes beautification as well. Currently they're -- it's in the attorney's office -- the county attorney's office and the Transportation Department. They're trying to figure out what are the ramifications, what are the benefits; what are the pros and cons of doing that so we've submitted that proposal. We have found that there's quite a few grants available through Atlanta, the EDC that we could apply for infrastructure grants. We've been talking to our local CDBG director, Marcie Crumbine, about CDBG. And we're really trying to work through how to methodically, progressively work through Immokalee and deal with this very, very . . senous Issue. And I put this up because here's the major problem. Well, not the major problem, but one of the major problems, and that is that we have so many private streets in Immokalee. These are not county-maintained roads, so you can see our challenge is to bring all of these streets up to current county standards so that we can move forward with the next step of maintaining them. So that's one of our large issues that we're continuing to work on. As far as education and training, we're really excited. We have our beautiful high-tech center in Immokalee, and for the first time ever, you can get a degree in Immokalee. You don't have to go anywhere. You can get a degree in business administration. It's Page 13 January 16, 2009 provided by Hodges University. And lots of wonderful dialogue has gone on among all of those listed. All of those school entities to talk about. Let's have surveys with employers, find out what they need. Let's talk with high school students. Find out what do they want to be when they grow up and let's gear our training at the tech center to exactly address those kinds of things. So that's a very, very exciting thing that's going on. As far as our goals for 2009, they mirror our Immokalee area master plan as they did last year. Again, we're going to talk about economic development; how to incentivise that and make it grow. How to address our housing issues to have a healthy growth of housing, smart growth -- whatever you want to call it -- and start developing, getting rid of bad housing. Again, we're going to discuss -- we're going to work on infrastructure, natural resources, land use and intergovernmental coordination. As you know, last year in December we had a consultant come in to facilitate a workshop with our CRA advisory board and master plan envisioning committee. And we're planning that again for the end of this month. And out of that we expect to get a good solid operational plan for Immokalee for the upcomIng year. So in summary, I think that we touched on every one of the goals that we had and attacked it as aggressively as we could by setting up our office, by completing our master plan and getting that into the county of development services. We emphasized economic development as we have and as we will continue to do. And we're working on an interim plan development code process -- deviation process to try to alleviate the stress that we're seeing and these red flag issues and continue to seek ways to develop tourism in our community. And again, to continue trying to work on the streets and infrastructure kind of thing. The only thing that's left here are the financials, and as you can see, our tax increment revenue went up. That's maybe the last time Page 14 January 16, 2009 you will see it go up. It'll probably go down the next time. But it was solidly there during 2008. So total revenue is just over two million dollars. And our expenses -- the first time we have expenses for staff. We never had -- I guess there were no expenses prior to this, now we have some real expenses. Some operating expenses and staff expenses. That's the total of my presentation. I just want to tell you, I really have enjoyed this past year in Immokalee and I feel like it's probably one of the most challenging jobs I've ever had, and I look forward to 2009. Are there any questions that I could answer? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let me start with Commissioner Coletta. Did you have any comments or questions? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Matter of fact, I do. First I further request of this commission, I did an evaluation on Penny. I can tell you that evaluation -- probably no surprise was she scores very high. And you'll be receiving copies of it shortly. She's been a true credit to Immokalee. She became a Immokaleon almost overnight. She's helped to give real direction to the community and we appreciate her services greatly. Other than that, I think we're heading in the right direction. Immokalee seems to be like -- as Commissioner Fiala mentioned earlier, the time of economic distress out there, the only thing that really seems to be working is the CRA. So you're the lifeblood of the community as this point. Everybody is looking to you for that future growth to be able to set the stage for what's going to be coming in the near future. Doing a great job. We've got to keep it going forward. Thank you again, Penny. MS. PHILLIPPI: Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Any questions from commissioners? Okay. I have a couple. You were talking before about how you're trying to change the facades of Main Street. Do you have an architectural theme that you're encouraging people to follow? Page 15 January 16,2009 MS. PHILLIPPI: As you know, we retained we've done a change order with RW A to get land Design Innovations to create just that for us to look at. Some of the vacant spaces on the Main Street and around, and other areas of the town around First Street as well, to see where we could have a plaza. Where can we get the cultural nuances that already exist, and that is, as we think, one of our assets. So, we do have a theme in mind and it's purely cultural, multi-cultural. COMMISSIONER FIALA: No architectural them though? MS. PHILLIPPI: No. MR. FRED THOMAS: There would be an architectural theme consistent with a Central American theme for our whole Main Street that runs the full length of Main Street and 846. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, that's great. MR. FRED THOMAS: A person that's visiting our community can make it holiday to Central America walking down the streets of Immokalee, getting a Haitian hot dog, a Puerto Rican hot dog, a Guatemalan hot dog, a Mexican sombrero. MS. PHILLIPPI: You asked the question. He's very enthusiastic about this. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's great. I know they did something along that line down on Fifth A venue, that's why I was asking. And just a final comment I wanted to say. I'm just so pleased to see how beautifully the two CRAs are working together, and I'm sure with you Penny, it's helped to give you a little bit of a jump-start to work with the CRA's being that they've been in business -- the Bayshore CRA has been in business for a while and so you were able to learn off of them. That cooperative effort is what we all try to encourage. MS. PHILLIPPI: It has been a great help and they're great folks to work with over there. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. MS. PHILLIPPI: Ifwe could now-- Page 16 January 16, 2009 COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have one more question. MS. PHILLIPPI: Oh, I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER HALAS: You touched briefly on the flooding issue out there in Immokalee and that a majority of the roads are privately owned. How are you working with the people that have these privately owned roads to bring them together so that the roads can be brought up to the standards of the county so that we can alleviate that flooding issue and be able to direct storm water where it needs to go? MS. PHILLIPPI: Well, this effort is really just starting to bloom. But it is because of those folks who live on those streets coming to us, asking us what can we do, what can we do. Just now massive amounts offederal funds have become available. And just we recently brought -- as you know, we have Guardian Community Services under contract. And Guardian, Corbit Alday, is an engineer and he has started meeting with us to again, as I said, figure out where do we want to start, how are we methodically going to work through this, and how are we going to fund each segment of each phase of this. It is at that time when we get to that place that we're actually going to have some money so we don't build up any false hopes, that we start talking to the folks that live on those streets and bring them on board to work with us. COMMISSIONER HALAS: To me that would be the primary thing that you need to do is to get the streets to the point where they're passable, and I think that is going to add a lot to the community itself. MR. FRED THOMAS: I want to follow up. She mentioned it earlier; I think it needs to be reemphasized that we're working with the Immokalee MSTU. That originally was a lighting and beautification. They got away from the lighting, but we're talking about expanding, trying to get that group to expand themselves for the whole urban area and take on the additional responsibility because it becomes a taxing base, not only for beautification, but for the roads, the draining and what have you. So we're negotiating with that and the county Page 1 7 January 16, 2009 attorneys are working along that line so we can do that. Once we do that, we have a much better tax base to cover all those roads to provide service to everybody. We're going to need your support at some point to help us make that happen. Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And thank you very much for your report. MS. PHILLIPPI: The last thing that we were hoping would happen was that our advisory board members could actually have open dialogue with the CRA board and talk about some of the things they wanted to discuss with you. MR. FRED THOMAS: I thought we were going to do that after MS. PHILLIPPI: Well, I thought we would discuss ours and then they could discuss theirs; is that right, Dave? MR. JACKSON: It's up to the chairman. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's fine. We might as well discuss Immokalee first and then move on to Bayshore. So board members, do you want to? MS. WILLIAMS: Yeah, we can start. Want to start here? I know there's several other board members in the audience as well. We just ran out of seats up here. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I'm not going to be a speaker. We've come a long way in the last few years. MS. WILLIAMS: I just wanted to take off on Jim's comment about there's a momentum in Immokalee. The CRA is out there. It's very visible and people are -- you know, things are getting done. He's making sure things are getting done so the community is hopefully optimistic and there's a momentum that, okay, we finally got the master plan done, and let's move forward. And one of the -- in fact, to do with the roads. I had a young man who came into my office because CRA is out there; he knew I was on the CRA committee, he was in desperate shape. It was during Fay. I Page 18 January 16, 2009 called Penny and I'm like, let's go look and see what the problem is, and that's where you see the pictures of the flooding. So he's in an area called Wheats Terrace. And he's not the only person on that street. When they say privately owned roads, a lot of times there's four or five people living on that street. And he's in a financial condition where he -- there's nothing he can do, but he can't get to his trailer because it's so badly flooded. So, I spoke to Penny, we went out and took pictures, and she's come up with the idea of expanding the MSTU so we can work on the drainage and the road issues. So, people are optimistic and happy because things are being done. They see things being done and they know where to go to get it done. So we're hoping that momentum stays forward with the master plan review and to just keep going so people will come in and give us their input and keep Immokalee in the right direction. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I have a question for the county manager. I'm not trying to put you on the spot here. Would any of these projects that Immokalee has, would that fall under the auspices of the shovel-ready items? I guess we could get federal funding down here? MR. MUDD: I don't think your designs are ready. You don't have your permission, they're not shovel ready. Got the designs on the thing, they got the permits in hand and then we're shovel ready and ready to go. MR. FRED THOMAS: We're trying to get to that point, sir. We really want to get to that point. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We're trying to bridge the gap of where this commission was and where the CRA is. CRA is going to be filling that gap. If you remember sometime ago, we had an emergency situation in Immokalee where we dedicated some small amount of funds like $15,000 to make some roads passable for emergency vehicles. That was back about four years now. Our policy -- standard policy throughout the county has been we do not put money into Page ] 9 January ]6,2009 private roads. But in this case, here the CRA is going to look into the possibility of coming up with a funding mechanism to be able to move it forward. Maybe accompany with grants or possibly even down the road when we get our feet back underneath us, something Transportation Department can eventually bring these roads up to county standards. You know, we all agree and I think we all are held by the principles that the people who want help should be helping themselves. There's the perfect example of it. MS. WILLIAMS: Thank you. MR. WHITE: Well, I'm new to this board. I still got a lot to go to get my feet wet on it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What is your name again, sir? MR. NULL: Estil Null. Immokalee to me, that's where the growth and potential for Collier County is at; the east side of the county. That's where it's going to happen at, that's where it needs to happen at. And it's the best potential for this county. It's going to bring this county up if we can get it going in the right direction. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. Floyd, did you say you wanted to say something? UNKNOWN SPEAKER: No, I'm fine. All the rest of them are speaking pretty well. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Are there any other board members out there before -- MS. PHILLIPPI: I believe Reverend Paul, I believe, wants to speak. COMMISSIONER FIALA: You have to come to a microphone if you would, please. MR. FRED THOMAS: He's on our board. REVEREND PAUL: First I'd like to say, everybody, I'm feeling pretty good and very grateful to be in this meeting this morning. I have been in my duty from 1987 and I drove all around Immokalee Page 20 January] 6, 2009 and I know most of the parts ofImmokalee. When I came to this board they're asking could I speak, and I was so happy to be around this community and working with the people in Immokalee. So if anybody in Immokalee wants to see what Reverend Paul is trying to do in Immokalee for the people in Immokalee, you'll be amazed to hear this. But we meet so much sometimes there's so much trouble that we can get through here. So we are waiting. I'm working with the CRA people in Immokalee which is so good to have that thing in Immokalee. And we are hoping that that Immokalee you see there, or you knew before, we hope very soon we will have a new Immokalee. So much good things coming around that Immokalee through the CRA and we are working with. And I personally am looking forward to work with them in any way, whatever that cost, whatever it is going to cost me, to do working with them to have coming through for our community, to have better community. For the people in our community not to leave that community, because we see people come in and go out, come in and out, because the community not in a standard where people can live there. So through these people, we are hoping that we are going to have a place there, better place and people come and stay there and our businesses could come up and willing to see what will happen. I'm the pastor of the Immokalee Church of the Nazarene and as I know everybody work that on the paper so what's coming up, so we're just waiting to receive from everybody, from CRA, from the county commissioner, from everybody that will help us to have that project coming up. We.are waiting for this. Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you very much, sir. And Fred, you can wind up the group. MR. FRED THOMAS: Estil mentioned as a new board member our whole county is in economic downturn and we in Collier County understand that we can't continue to survive on tourism and new development. We have got to develop an economic engine. We are the Page 2] January] 6, 2009 location for the economic engine. But we are going to be competing with other regions around the world that's why our CRA became a partner to project innovations so that we can develop a regional approach and make this the industrial hub which helps the whole county, revive the whole county, bring taxes to the whole county, to help things go along so we're working hard to do that and we're trying to get ourselves in a position where we can compete with other locations, with other places in the country so that we can attract businesses here. That means we've got to change our land development code and make it more conducive to industrial development. We've got to get our road network expanded out beyond the 15 to 30-mile range to reach all major highways. We've got to get an expedited development processing for our community so when we're competing with somebody else to bring a new industry here, we don't have all the front end, the front end, the front end, the major lag. The time it takes, we'll go someplace else like we lost the Scott truck kind of thing. So we need to avoid that kind of thing in this economic downturn. That's why we're working so hard to make things happen. The other thing that's a bright note, the Seminole tribe is moving ahead and they're going to help us come to our destination point. And they called me yesterday and said, we need something. Can you help us get it? I'm telling you we need something that we've got to help them get. Those little blue lights that go down our main street, they want to put it inside the big arcade around their various little food stores and especially around their New York deli so that when you come into the lobby you look in and see Immokalee and look out and see Immokalee. You understand what I just said? So I'm trying to find a couple of those lights. If I happen to go to the yard and see them sitting out there, we'll just throw them in the truck and take it to them. I want you to know, that just might happen. But they want to keep that theme within there which helps the overall Immokalee feel and helps Page 22 January ]6,2009 us do what we want to do with our downtown that runs from the casino over to the Roberts Ranch where we're going to tell the county we need to have cattle branding, cattle roping so that the tourist can see the kind of thing we came from years ago. So we're just looking for your help to help us make things move a little faster and we're going to work as hard as we can. Thank you very much for your attention and patience. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you so much, and thank you, Penny. Very good report. So now we're on to David Jackson. MR. JACKSON: Good morning again. All I can say is after hearing that presentation is wow, what a year difference you make. And Commissioner Coyle, Mr. Mudd, you well know the old adage, when you put boots on the ground things happen. That's what happened, they put some boots on the ground and things are happening and that really shows a lot of progress. I'm really impressed. That's really good. For the update I'll be brief. Most of this will be review. You've heard or seen most of it at one time or the other. We'll cover a few things such as beautification, some residential. One of the major things we've had a lot of press on was we had a large reduction in crime over the last three years, which is one of those things that we had to overcome. People have a perception about the area so we've been working hard on that to let people know about it. Private investment is still in the holding part of it and expansion of several programs. Quick review for the numbers here. You know that we get our money from the tax differential. This year we saw a downturn in property values. We all know about that. We've all lived through that part of it there, and as the property values go down, so does our revenues. But we're still pulling a healthy revenue stream and we are calculating again with Mr. Mudd's help the predictions that we'll probably see another small reduction; but we'll still have plenty of money to move forward. Page 23 January] 6,2009 Just for last year, this is our revenues. This is how it was broken out. A very large carry-forward for programs and the expenses, expenditures, we've been keeping it modest in there for personnel and for operating funds. We have a large amount set aside right now for capital improvements. One of the things that was a show stopper for us not only once but twice was the Strand case. We've been moving forward rather quickly. We had a lot of progress going on and in September of2007, the Strand case strangled us and, sure enough, we got it reversed and then all of a sudden there was an appeal in 2008 and it stopped us again for another 60 days. But we're back on track now. Just this is an aerial view. This is if you're pretty much over Fifth Avenue in a helicopter looking back towards the area. You're looking towards the Gateway to Collier County proper, and you can see the little triangle area that I've got drawn out there and the long line that goes down Bayshore past the Cultural Center into the Botanical Gardens. We are the center of the Collier County urban sector right now. It used to be it was East Naples, it was the other side of the bridge; now it's in the middle. And so it's one of those things, as development jumped over the Bayshore Gateway Triangle area, they're back and we're prime for infill because we have the time and capability to make with that. We also had some flooding issues, but Collier County Transportation and Storm Water Department came on board and has been a godsend for the most commercial area by building the pond; but we still have some issues in the residential area and we are addressing that now and we're teaming up with the Collier County Transportation, Storm Water Department to try to solve those issues. One of the things that we did look at is the public amenity as one of the options, and quite often a lot of the DOT storm water ponds end up looking like this gated. They're trash collectors and nobody can use them. One of the things we looked at was try to make it a public Page 24 January 16,2009 amenity for the neighborhood and tried to work out a walking path and providing an opportunity for the community to come in. And they've thrown some ideas around looking at the pond, being able to put it together with some funding from us and end up with some kind of a creature comfort for the neighborhood. Not a park but a pathway for people to enjoy. So that's kind of where we're at on that part, so working on it. We're also looking at South Bayshore design. As you know, the beautification MSTU, they helped install all the beautification that started from US 41 down to Thomason Drive, but when you get down to Delves and the Botanical Gardens, you kind of look at the rest of the rural road and say, what happened? Why did it stop? So we're looking at the rest of that roadway and trying to bring either together the MST money and/or the CRA funds and try to improve that because the Botanical Garden, as I understand it, it's going to pull about 150,000 people per year to the gardens. That's a lot of people coming down the road. So we need to do the infrastructure improvement now. That's a big number. Big number. Lights on Davis Boulevard. This was a transportation project from Collier County and the Transportation Department where they got a grant to install the lights. It was surely needed. Nobody understands why the lights were never put on when it was put on the other side of the road. It seems like it was the land where lights were forgotten. Well, they're now installed and so that's one of the success stories. And the CRA did help by contributing $200,000 to the project, and it's completed and it's a very nice project. One of the things we also looked at was residential infill. This is going to be the first of a series of slides and sometimes success comes out -- or unintended consequences come out of some successful projects. These are some of the properties that we've purchased and they were basically slum blighted. They're not very nice and we took some pictures of some of the mobile homes and trailers that we Page 25 January 16,2009 purchased and they were really, really bad. And by knocking them out and tearing them down and making room for new development, it's a clean slate. The unintended consequence was the crime rate went down. It ended up a lot of these places were harboring undesirable activity. When you took the places from them that they lived, working with the Sheriffs Office, working with code enforcement, working with the community and the CRA, put it together in the last three years, our crime service calls to the Sheriffs Office has been cut in half. It went from 18,000 calls in 2005 to 7,000 this year. And we're trying to cut that in half again this next year. And it's one of those things we got to get the word out, let the people know that we are a good neighborhood. It's a good place to invest, a good place to live. We also put some lights on the South Bayshore Drive area. It was very dark. There wasn't any lights for transportation, kids going to school. Like now we're in the Daylight Saving Time standing out in the dark being picked up by school buses and you don't know what evil lurks in the dark of night. Now we have lights at the intersections where people get picked up -- children get picked up and go to school. Three different things that we have also looked at for office accomplishments. We have a new stand-alone office. People recognize us. We have people walking in the door every day, all day. And they're talking about things, giving us their ideas and volunteering to help. We've got a newsletter out and we worked with the Web site and it's been really good working with Penny and their team to put together a good Web site to let the people know what's gOIng on. There has been some development within the CRA. Not enough to overcome the decrease in property values, but there has been some building. We should see some leveling out of that over the years. And I'm going to go through some other things that we've got going on. We have some site improvement grants that are still Page 26 January 16, 2009 ongoing. Activities dropped off a little bit because people are holding onto their money. They're not spending as much on their property right now, but there are a few people that are. And I think when the economy recovers, the sweat equity grant and site improvement grants you're going to see more activity on that. And we have been working with the Haldeman Creek MSTU trying to get them to partner up with failing seawalls that are actually -- like this one here where the guy's whole yard has bled into the canal. And so we're trying to provide a grant for them to shore up the shoreline so you don't have to dredge again in the future, if we can help it. We have another grant that we've worked on is a commercial building grant. We're trying to get some of the commercial businesses to invest in their properties so we've jacked up the amount of money that's offered to them. We haven't had any takers yet, but I think it's the economy again. Businesses are holding steady. And when it turns around, I expect a lot of activity on this grant. Penny mentioned the Brown Fields redevelopment initiatives that we've got working with EP A and Florida Department of Environmental Protection. And we've got the coalition going on now. We have as many sites as she has sites, and if we get this grant, we're going to actively see if we can determine, are they dirty or are they clean? If they're clean, that makes them marketable. If they're dirty, you establish a program to clean them up. We've also brought to you earlier this year the culture needs assessment about creating a cultural district in the Bayshore area to wrap around the Botanical Gardens. In there we have the 17-acre opportunity. This is the site we've acquired some adjacent property. Right now we have a request for proposals out for developer, a master developer for the site. We expect to have one, two, maybe three development teams make a proposal to develop the site. And after we review them, they'll be coming back to you as a CRA board for review Page 27 January 16, 2009 and approval. Looking at the 14-acre opportunity site, we briefed this to you back in December. If you look at its location at the Gordon River Bridge right at the boundary line at the city of Naples and where Collier County unincorporated begins, it's a great activity site. And we talked about it and we've mentioned about project innovation that this could be a good startup site. It has potential, and I'm sure staff will look at it and we'll make the recommendations accordingly. Update Arboretum Village. This was a fast track going to be a large mixed use project, but actually it's going under redesign now. They've had a restructure of the ownership and it looks like there's going to be some other activity going in there and hopefully the new owner, or the consolidated owner is going to move forward with that project in the near future. So some good things to be listening for. Fisherman's Village, which was a project that was going to annex into the Windstar PUD has now been in the STD process site development -- site development project process, and it's going to be 72 units and that's going through it right now. I don't know if the developer is going to build or wait for the economy to turn around. Treviso Bay still has -- our program is to build their facility at the Gulf Shores Marina. Hamilton Harbor has been completed. I'm sure most people have been there and that's down at the foot of Bay Street, very close to Bayview Park. Another project in Naples, Naples Botanical Garden; if you haven't been down there, they are slinging dirt everywhere. And all of a sudden just the other day we noticed that there's walls going up. Concrete is being laid and pipes and plumbing is going in the ground. They're moving along very nicely. We are looking at our redevelopment plan. Things to update. In it we've got the arts district. We've got land that's worth more than the buildings on top of them. We're looking at our neighborhood trying to improve drainage and we're looking at activity centers and bringing in notes and we're going to work on that. Page 28 January 16, 2009 Commissioner Henning, you asked us back in October, when they had my review, to set up a set of goals and bring them to you. In the back of your book, there is a set of goals and I'll be bringing those back to you in a formal session, formal agenda to review and approve. As you review those goals that have been addressed by the advisory board, if you have anything you want to add, delete, embellish or work on, just please let me know and we'll add that in there for your approval for the set of goals for the next year. One of the goals that's not listed in there is this project innovation. A personal goal of mine and a personal goal of the advisory board is to try to get the Gateway, the triangle area, some form of it designated as one of the economic development zones. Just one of them. And make it shovel ready or make it zoned ready. Whatever may happen in that way to make it go and be part of that process. We're right for that because of the location of where it is and what is there and what it could be. So we'd like to work very hard with the Economic Development council and with Jim Mudd's staff and develop that and see if the possibilities exist and see if we can create the incentive for that to be one of the many in Collier County and see where we can go from there. So basically I'm summarizing this -- basically, we want to become self-sustaining. We've got to identify additional funding sources. Weare and have been encouraging economic revitalization and project innovation will be a good one, and we're looking for public/private partnerships out there with some of the private sector. And we're pushing hard and as fast as the economic situation will let us go, but we'll keep our sight on our goals. So essentially that summarizes it. I know that my three board -- advisory board members are here and they would like to exchange some ideas and thoughts with you in discussion mode. And unless there's a question for me, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Lindsay Page 29 January 16, 2009 Thomas who just got reelected for his third term as chairman of the advisory board. Madam Chairman, if there's not any questions for me, I turn it over to Mr. Thomas. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is Dwight on this CRA board too? MR. JACKSON: No, ma'am. Dwight has recently been appointed to the MST -- beautification MSTU and he is on that board. He's a very active participant in it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. Okay. MR. LINDSAY THOMAS: I think our whole advisory board would like to thank you for your guidance over the last few years. We have one step forward, two steps back with the economy changes and the Strand case, but we've stayed pretty much on point what we're trying to have accomplished there. We feel there's two basic lines of growth that we're considering; one is in that triangle area and that industrial area to have that be increased in line with a more diverse economy. And the Bayshore area is something more we think of quality oflife and things that will be able to be an adjunct to the Bayshore Botanical Gardens being built. I guess what our community -- one of our concerns is, are we on track in your mind? Is there somewhere we should be focused that maybe we're not spending the energy or time that we should, or the way we're spending the funds on the projects that we're currently doing? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let me call Commissioner Coyle. That's his district. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, we sort of share it between Commissioner Fiala and I, but Lindsay, I'm extremely happy with what the redevelopment agency has been doing. I'm particularly happy with David Jackson's contribution. I mean, he's innovative, he's got wonderful, he's a hard worker and I really do appreciate what's been happening. I appreciate the work of the advisory board also. Without your contributions, we couldn't do the job that is being done now. Page 30 January 16,2009 I think that the setbacks we had last year comes with a Supreme Court decision. We're probably good in retrospect. We're now having an opportunity to acquire property at perhaps less cost than we could have at that point in time. Everything is coming together very, very well. I would only suggest one minor change in terminology. You don't want to be part -- well, you can be part of project innovation, but project innovation is a public relations exercise which is designed to make the community understand why it's necessary that we diversify our economy in Collier County. What you want to do is become one of the catalyst sites. So the catalyst project is the concept that we have developed which will permit a self-sustaining economic development zone. And that's what you really want to be part of. And we're going to be working closely with you I'm sure as we go through the process of designing the structure of these economic development zones to make them self-sustaining. It's going to be a challenge. We don't have all the answers yet. We don't really know how we're going to put it together, but we've got the idea. And I think David's suggestion of turning the mini triangle property into the first of, or perhaps among the first catalyst projects to be approved in Collier County -- there's no doubt that there will be one approved in Immokalee. And I think that one located in the mini triangle would be a perfect balance for the entire community. We're going to need more than one economic development zone in order to appeal to the wide variety of companies that we're likely to -- well, we're going to target and hopefully will attract them. But I think we're perfectly positioned to do that. I think the economy is a significant -- the current condition of the economy is a significant help toward achieving that right now. Because I believe that the land values will be lower. I believe that people will be looking for places to locate for their high technology, medical and clean manufacturing sites, all designed to produce high paying jobs. Page 3 ] January 16,2009 So I believe that everything is coming together for both Immokalee and the Bayshore mini triangle area, and it is wonderful that the plans have become more finalized so that we have a plan in mind and we can really move on it. And I'm excited about moving on this property on the mini triangle so we can create the first catalyst project in Collier County. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you, Commissioner Coyle. Any other commissioner? Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: A question more than a comment. The triangle, what was the effects from Tropical Storm Fay and what was the recovery of Tropical Storm Fay? How many days, if any, did it take to recede -- the water recede. MR. THOMAS: David, I don't know if you have that figure. MR. JACKSON: I would say, Mr. Gunther, you and I were out there and we had three roads that were impassable for about 24 hours after the storm. A lot of it had to do with sheet flow. The pond filled up. There wasn't phase two. The pumps weren't in yet, so the pond did what it was supposed to do. It attracted the water, but it kept attracting the water and then when it overflowed it went into streets, and it was three streets that were impassable so people couldn't even get out. But when the water receded, when the tide went down it was another one of those tidal flows. When the tide went down they had water pressure decreased, the flow went out, and the streets became passable. We had one tree fall. That was also a thing for the FP&L to take care of. That was it. The Bayshore area south of 41 was in pretty good shape. It was mostly contained within the triangle area in the residential area. Mr. Gunther was there and took a lot of pictures. I had a couple of commercial business owners that were also in the area and took pictures so we kind of understand what happened there. We've got a half solution to a problem, and we just need to execute that second part of it so that it functions correctly. Page 32 January 16,2009 COMMISSIONER HENNING: When you said it was three streets, was that in the residential sector or was it in the commercial sector? MR. JACKSON: Residential, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Residential. So the ponding that was done in the commercial area solved that problem? MR. JACKSON: For the most part, the flooding that was -- the first picture I showed with the water in the streets on Kirkwood, they didn't have that localized flooding that they've had traditionally because that water sheet flowed to the south and then it went into the pond area; but then the problem we did have was in the residential streets. The other commercial people, I never heard any of them talk about water inside their business or was not passable. It was those three residential areas where people were impacted. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And my comment is, you know, the economic zone in the triangle. If you really take a look at it, it's going to fit a lot of needs of a company. You have high-end residential for a CEO. And then you have the work force right around there also. So that when you mentioned that the other day, I was very excited and with the knowledge of yeah, that's a no-brainer. So I'm looking forward to making those decisions in the future. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I would like to add to what David has said. The flood water problems in that area substantially improved over where they were six years ago. I was actually on Bayshore -- I guess 20 or 30 minutes after the eye of the hurricane passed through here. Windstar was completely blocked off. The entrance was completely blocked off by fallen trees and the residents were out there with chain saws cutting it up and getting it cleaned out. Police officers were coming by and stopping. They had chain saws in the trunks of their cars and they were getting out and helping to do Page 33 January 16, 2009 that. It's absolutely amazing that the community pulled together. But back to storm water. There was a time when a heavy storm would flood a lot of the homes in this area. And the county has been working on the storm water problem for at least six years. Kelly Lake was cleaned out. The drainages to Kelly Lake and from Kelly Lake into Haldeman Creek had been cleaned out. There were some drainage improvements made in coordination with Windstar. All of these had a substantial impact on the drainage south of 41. And, of course, we dredged Haldeman Creek to improve the water flow out of Haldeman Creek. It's got more depth to it now and so the water theoretically flows out more quickly. So it recovered very fast. We still have problems in the mini triangle in the residential area and David's plan for this economic development zone will resolve most of those problems because it will provide a place for that storm water to flow into that lake that he's talking about. And then it will flow into Haldeman Creek and then into the bay. So a lot of improvements have been made there. We haven't solved all the problems yet, but I'm sure they will come with this final phase of the economic development zone. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. Chuck. MR. GUNTHER: Yeah. With the holding pond the water did come in. We had less water during Fay than we did during former storms. We had no named storm at 15 inches back 20 years ago, there was a lot more water. We had more water come to the pond areas. There was only three to four streets that were affected by the water. There was maybe ten homes with water in them. The water receded within that 24 hours. As soon as the tide went out, it went out. From what I saw, the water was coming in from the gulf not just from area. The commercial area drained very well. The pond was -- the whole commercial area dried out. The area -- the mini triangle basically was dry through that whole thing, which is unbelievable. The residential area bore the brunt of the whole problem. It overflowed. Page 34 January 16, 2009 Even though it was less water than we've had before. But the problem is -- there was two problems. One was we have these flaps and they have to be maintained otherwise they're not going to close. That's what happened. The other thing was, we have to have pumps and that's the second phase of the pond thing. Once that's done, I think that area will stay dry and the residential area will start seeing a lot of drying. We'll be coming back to you saying, please let us get this done as quickly as possible. I mean quick because people don't like their homes wet. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. Any other questions from commissioners? I have a couple. The properties that you had asked about purchasing in the mini triangle and also on Bayshore, are you moving along on that acquisition? MR. JACKSON: Yes, ma'am. We're still in dialogue with the two major property owners that we were targeting. We released a request for proposals for banks to give us a quote for bank loans. Our timing wasn't exactly pristine. It was over the holiday period. And in discovery it was -- the amount of time that we gave them was not enough and they've got this thing called -- it's aT ARP. Money that came to the banks, and there's certain things they can use it for and a lot of it hasn't trickled down. In response, the RFP -- all the banks said one, we didn't have enough time, and two, because of this T ARP thing they have another advisory board to go to. Not only do they go to the board that does the loans, but there's another review process and it says we need more time to review. So in our conversations on that part, did they say yes, we're interested in providing money in loans, you need to re-advertise it. So we're working with the purchasing department right now to re-advertise that for the money. When that money is in place, then we'll execute the contracts. I don't want to reverse flow and get the contract in place if they don't Page 35 January 16,2009 have the funding. So, yes ma'am, we are pursuing with that. The owners of the land are very patient and they're waiting and they understand the process. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good. Another question is, you said there's an RFP out for the property down on Bayshore, the acreage that you own. Is the RFP designed to suggest to the developers who might want to respond that you're planning on building a performing cultural arts center or what is it? MR. JACKSON: That's the first criteria of the RFP. All the others are followed behind that, which is a residential component, a modest retail component, open green space, connection to Sugden Park. Those are the other things that follow, but the first one is some type of a multi-use cultural facility. We didn't specify a specific type. We left that open because I'm sure they're going to go out and partner with some of the creative agencies that are out there and bring them on board. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, that's good news to my ears I'll tell you. The last thing is this partnering with the project innovation -- is that what they call it, project innovation? I've always had the vision of the triangle being the gateway, the entryway, the beautiful entrance into East Naples and the beautiful departure from the City of Naples. We're not going to put industrial in there, are we? I mean, we're talking about something that enhances the area and sets the tone for what follows. MR. JACKSON: I guess it would be the eye of the beholder when you call -- what is industrial? How do you define it? How does the LDC define what things are in there? What its manufacturing and what its not. I think the things that we'd be looking at is something like Crystal City across the street from the Pentagon in Alexandria. We'd be looking for something like Simi Valley where you have the silicone valley type of thing in California, where you have very nice designed Page 36 January 16,2009 buildings and it's where the intellectual industry is created and harbored. Not the dirty industrial things where you're sawing and making things. It's the creative industry of where is the next Steve Jobs' Apple factory. What's the next defense contractor that's bringing in medical services and doing things. So those kinds of things can be housed in and around a good gateway project of interest into the county. If that is -- if you can attract those kind of businesses through the type of setting there. And I understand you're thinking of one-story metal buildings, a lot of noise and dirt. I think where the ADC is going -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Rentals and nice collision repair shops and so forth. That's what I'm saying. MR. THOMAS: We already have those. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let me tell you what my vision is. MR. JACKSON: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I mean, and I'm spreading this around. Who knows, maybe EDC will be listening. Maybe some developer will be listening. But all I can picture is driving over the bridge into the triangle and seeing a gorgeous water feature with beautiful palm trees and lighting and maybe a five-story hotel. We don't have a hotel in East Naples. Five-story, six-story hotel. Maybe on the fourth floor or fifth floor having an outdoor seating arrangement attached to a wonderful high-end restaurant where people could sit out and watch the sunset. While they're sitting over there on the deck, watch the sunset, look into the City of Naples and into the beauty of the City of Naples. At the same time, this hotel would have on the first layer along Davis Boulevard and US 41 have retail shops along there so it would be a pedestrian-friendly area where people could shop and enjoy and walk and then you would come into this area for the parking through the back through commercial. And to me, that seems like the thriving thing right now and a wonderful gateway into the area. So I'm Page 37 January 16,2009 spreading my idea around in case anybody is interested. Being that I have no dollars, I can only spread ideas. Thank you. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Great dream. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, it is. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Let me spread my idea for a minute. Remember that purpose of the catalyst project? And the intent of project innovation is to attract high paying jobs. It's not to create more retail operations. It's there to create high paying jobs. That doesn't mean that those things won't be attracted to that area, but the 14 acres that David is talking about, in order to make it work as an economic development zone, it has to meet the criteria for high paying jobs. Because if you don't do that, the people who work there are not going to be able to live here. They're going to have to go somewhere else to find housing and then they're going to have to commute to do that. You can't take part of the 14 acres and turn it into work force housing because what you want to do is attract high paying jobs. So there is a bit of a conflict in that vision. And the EDC has already gone through the process of defining what those target industries are. They are financial, medical, high tech and clean manufacturing. Maybe you manufacture computer chips there. I don't know. Maybe you manufacture medical instruments there. But the key focus in my mind is to create higher paying jobs. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, let me just assert right here that we don't have much retail in East Naples. I mean, if we want to shop, we only have one place and that's Bealls. And so something like that would be good and it is right there where the work force lives in case they want to be in that area. But, you know, I'm grateful to see redevelopment whatever it is. What I'm focusing on is appearance really. As you drive over, what would set a tone for the rest of east Naples. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think we'll get a chance to Page 38 January 16, 2009 influence that if it goes forward. None of this is going to happen without it coming to the redevelopment board or to the Board of County Commissioners. We'll have a chance to guide that and comment on it when the time comes to get there. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Chuck and then Commissioner Henning. MR. GUNTHER: I think I can speak for everybody on the board. I'm the oldest one on the board now as far as longevity. Right now in Bayshore we're pushing the arts. Art I think is a big thing. I don't think we're looking for beauty on the triangle. I think we're looking for a piece of art. We want something where you come to see you're astounded. You're knocked out of your socks. You want something that's dynamite. Retail is not going to cut it unless you're selling something that's out of the world. We want something -- I'd like to see a think tank. It's clean. You can have people come into offices every day, work in a beautiful office, a beautiful environment, a walking place. It will be a beautiful place to come to. That's what you want. That's going to attract other businesses. It's going to attract the retail. It's going to attract higher housing. That's what we want and that's going to bring everything together. That's what a catalyst is for. That I believe will work. I think beauty is an understated word. We want art. We want something that stands out, and I think that's what we have to get. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Fiala, I understand your desire and I know that you'll keep an open mind, with the highway jobs 50 to $70,000, it's going to change that area. And so many places like East Naples, Golden Gate, and Immokalee are working people that work in hotels, Marco Island or whatever, and I think this is -- this could change the complexity of east Naples and its residents. And it may solve another problem that you're concerned about. So as we move forward, I'm sure that you'lI think about what Page 39 January 16,2009 the opportunities are. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sure. I want the best for East Naples really, and the best for Golden Gate and the best for our community. And now -- do we have any public speakers? MS. FILSON: No, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. No registered public speakers. And I thank you all for being here. This was a great meeting. It's inspiring especially in these down economic times to see things moving forward with our CRAs. I spell CRA H-O-P-E. I think that's what we all see right here. Thank you very much. MR. MUDD: Before you leave, just give the CRA members the same opportunity you gave the Immokalee CRA members. If anyone of those members want to have a discussion real quick for items that are not on their agenda, we'll give them that opportunity. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you, Mr. Mudd. MR. GUNTHER: All I can really see is I would push very strongly for the art. I think that's going to bring the area together. I think that would be the impetus to keep this whole county going. And I have seen rags -- I call them rags. Newspaper, advertising papers up in Fort Myers. There's one that it's all arts. Something with the arts. This is important. People are making money on these things. People are spending money. It doesn't stop. When people are broke they draw, they paint, they dance. They do things to keep things going. That will keep us going. I think that's important, keep that theme going. The other thing is we've got to get, like I said, the storm water that's got to be stopped. We've got to fix it. We'll be back to you after all this so we want to work with you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. Lindsay? MR. THOMAS: I'm fine. MR. PREBLE: I would like to make a comment about the concept that you suggested a few minutes ago. I'm a paid commercial real estate broker. That's what I do for a living, principally up in Fort Page 40 January 16,2009 Myers. And if you bring those high paying jobs to our area, retail will follow. You'll get whatever you want. Without those high paying jobs, everybody is going to drive up 41. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And that's true. One thing I have been expressing strongly is that right now with our economy is only retirees or low income and so we can't attract any retail. But you're right, once we have high paying jobs with people in gap housing, that's going to change the complexion. And I think that's what Commissioner Henning was alluding to. Thank you. Any other comment? Okay. David, any windup remarks? MR. JACKSON: We always appreciate the opportunity to bring your high-paid volunteer advisory board to come and share ideas with you. We do appreciate it. I know they appreciate it and we're going to work real hard for you and we'll keep the lines of communication open. And we'll work real hard with Mr. Mudd and his staff because without them, a lot of the things that we really want to do and are energetic about can't happen. So it is a handshake, hand and glove with Mr. Mudd and his staff where we're going. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you very much. With that, the meeting is adjourned. ***** Page 41 January 16,2009 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 10:30 a.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ~ I, ~'W~ DONN FIALA, ChaIrman ATTEST: ." DWIGHT-E. BROCK, CLERK /~..~ ~~~i'j. . .t..... OIl'. ",. ,. These minutes approved by the Board on ~vr)~ as presented ....----- or as corrected l D I 2.t;eJ '1 I TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICES, INC., BY DANIELLE AHREN. Page 42 ___...._."..._____.,.__.'___"_~_ '_"'_'" .__,~.__._~_,~_w.._',._.,_.,_'__~__..~...____.-._