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BCC Minutes 07/25/1995 R REGULAR MEETING OF JULY 25, 1995, OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS LET IT BE REHEHBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:10 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the CHAIRPERSON: following members present: ALSO PRESENT: Bettye J. Hatthews Timothy J. Constantine John C. Norris Timothy L. Hancock Pamela S. Hac'Kie W. Neil Dotrill, County Hanager Kenneth B. Cuyler, County Attorney Item #2 & 2A AGENDA AND CONSENT AGENDA - APPROVED WITH CHANGES CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Call to order the meeting of the Board of County Commissioners, Collier County, Florida, for July 25, 1995. Mr. Dotrill, would you lead us in an invocation and pledge. MR. DORRILL: Heavenly Father, this morning, as always, we give thanks for the glory and the grace. We give thanks for the protection and the wonder that you provide to this world. We always pray and give thanks for the wonderful quality of life that we enjoy in Collier County. We give thanks for its people, its elected leadership. It is our prayer this morning that you guide their important business deliberations that affect the quality of the lives of all Collier Countians here today and that you would bless our time here together today and that these things that are done today that would be beneficial and pleasing in thy sight. And we pray these things in thy son's holy name. Amen. (The pledge of allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Do we have adjustments to our agenda? MR. DORRILL: Yes, ma'am. Good morning. I have just a few things here on the agenda today. The first is an add-on item that would be under the board's proclamations and presentations. It's item 4-A. It is a proclamation designating Keep Collier County Beautiful. The next three items are all requests for continuances. The first one is item 8-A-1 under community development. It's requested to be continued for one week to the regular meeting of August the 1st. It is a stipulated settlement agreement between the Department of Community Affairs and the Board of County Commissioners. The next request for a continuance also for no date to be rescheduled is item 8-C-1 under public services. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Dorrill, may I ask the reason for that continuation? MR. DORRILL: I don't know. We can determine -- Mr. Cuyler, item 8-C-1, was that at the staff's request? MR. CUYLER: I believe that there have been a couple items of negotiation that have come up that are still being discussed, and the purchase agreement hasn't been signed. Beyond that I'm not sure. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I just don't want to risk offending Mr. Sugden. MR. DORRILL: No. We have communicated with him that this request for continuance is in no way indicative of problems with his very generous gift. It has to do with the purchase contract agreement. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay, thank you. MR. DORRILL: And then the final item for continuance also for one week until August the 1st is item 8-H-2 under the executive office report which was a consideration of modifications to the board's investment policy. And that was at the request of the chairman. And then I have one item that is scheduled to be withdrawn today. That is item 8-A-2 under community development, which was an appeal of a notice of violation to abate a public nuisance, which was case number 5052446. And, Madam Chairman, that's all that I have this morning. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That leaves us not much of an agenda. Commissioner Norris, do you have additional changes? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Just might take this opportunity to inquire the reason for continuing 8-H-2. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes, sir. I had a phone call from Mr. Brock, and subsequently I've received a letter from his attorney, Mr. Pires, that the investment policy presented or to be presented on the agenda for today had not been reviewed by him or his investment policy committee, which has been a standing committee for some time. And he asked -- and he's on vacation and asked that we continue it until he comes back. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, that's a reasonable request. I might point out that this is just the first step in the process of -- of trying to develop a little amended policy that will be presented to the finance committee and will be developed with their input. It's not -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: This is not the finance committee, Commissioner Norris. This is the investment committee that has been formed by our clerk of courts, our tax collector. A county commissioner sits on that and two private citizens who are retired in the industry. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Uh-huh. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: They have not seen this. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chairman, this reads consideration of modifications, so it's not an attempt to make -- to adopt a policy or a change in the policy, but to put it on the floor for discussion; is that -- is that correct? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm -- I'm not sure it does. The memo that I read -- anyway, hold on, Commissioner Constantine. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just a comment. Commissioner Norris, I know you've been working to put this thing together and trying move it forward, but as a rule we have fairly consistently honored a commissioner's request to continue something. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I said at my first segment it's a reasonable request. I have no objection to continuing it. I just wanted to know what the reason is. If the reason is that you feel we're trying to cut out the investment committee, that's just not correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No, I don't feel we're trying to cut out the investment committee at all. The investment committee has already developed amendments to the investment policy that they have already gotten input from various parts of Collier County investment circles. And I think it would be more prudent and certainly less time and effort spent on the part of the county manager's agency if we were to take the proposed investment policy that Mr. Dotrill included in his June 8th memo and compare it to the investment policy that the clerk's office was going to propose first week in September. And that's -- that's the only purpose, and we're looking for a week -- a week to do that. Any other comments? Commissioner Hac'Kie, do you have any adjustments? I'm sorry. I missed you. I'm sorry. Commissioner Hancock, do you have any changes? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: No ma'am, none. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: No. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No. I may have one item under communications, but -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Communications. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there a motion for the agenda and the consent agenda? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve the agenda and consent agenda as amended. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have one -- I have one question. I had asked for an item to be moved. Did -- did you put that in, Miss -- Miss Filson? MS. FILSON: No, because you were going to look it and then let me know. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm sorry. MS. FILSON: You were going to review it and let me know, and I didn't hear if you actually wanted it pulled. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: beach parking meters? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: with the FP&L. MS. FILSON: A-E-1. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: now? Does this have to do with the It's A-E something. It has to do A-E-l, and it's been deleted HS. FILSON: No, it's still on the agenda. HS. MAC'KIE: The rebate? MS. FILSON: Yes. And the other one was 16-E. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MS. FILSON: 16-E-2. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: 16-E-2. The -- yeah, it just seems strange to me, and I thought that we might want to discuss that at the same time, the fact that we were getting a rebate, and at the same time we were being asked to approve additional funds. And I had asked -- thought -- I'm sorry -- I would like the commission to consider moving item 16-E-2 to the regular agenda. I know we have a motion on the floor, and it's up to the motion maker to make a motion. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll the motion accordingly. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. MS. FILSON: And that would be 8-E-2. It will become 8-E-2. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It will become 8-E-27 We have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda and consent agenda as amended. All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes. Item #4A1 PROCLAMATION RECOGNIZING THE BENEFITS DERIVED FROM KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL, INC. AND IMPLEMENTING ACTIVITIES TO KEEP COLLIER BEAUTIFUL - ADOPTED Next item on the agenda are -- we have a proclamation. Commissioner Mac'Kie. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes, I'm happy to read a proclamation to Keep Collier Beautiful, but I don't know if there's anybody in the audience that's going come forward and receive the proclamation. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I believe there was. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Some Collier County beauty is coming right up. Come up if you would here and just face the cameras while I read the proclamation. Good morning. Whereas, as our community grows, so do the serious impacts on local transportation networks, services, and our environment; and, Whereas, we are increasingly required to become more aware of the vital importance of taking care of our environment individually and together by keeping our community clean and healthy; and Whereas, dealing with waste and litter is the responsibility of all facets of our community; and Whereas, the Board of County Commissioners strongly supports an organization or program designed to make the public aware of the need to dispose of waste properly, and an organization such as Keep America Beautiful, Inc., can promote cooperation between the diverse components of our community and direct us in working together to keep Collier County clean and beautiful through a public/private partnership called Keep Collier Beautiful. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the Board of County Commissioners recognize the benefits to be derived from an organization such as Keep America Beautiful, Inc., to coordinate, plan, and implement activities to keep Collier County clean and beautiful as our part in keeping America beautiful. Be it further proclaimed that Collier County government pledges an active role and participation with the private sector in the birth of Keep Collier Beautiful. Done and ordered this 25th day of July 1995 by the Board of County Commissioners, Bettye J. Matthews, chairman. Madam Chairman, I'd like to move we accept this proclamation. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to accept the proclamation. All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5 to 0. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. (Applause) MR. DAVIS: Madam Chairman, if I could say a few words. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You sure can. MR. DAVIS: On behalf of our group -- just a very few are assembled here today; Jeremy Cook from the environmental services staff, Steve Bigelow, Michael Kennedy, Terry McQuillan, and myself. We've been meeting for many months now, and I've been pleased as a representative of the Collier building industry to see others around the table representing the Conservancy of Naples, many of the private sector companies here in Collier County, along with many of the environmental groups. We've long -- we've all long known with surveys we've seen that litter in Collier County is a primary concern of many residents, and I think Keep Collier Beautiful will go a long way in remedying that situation. We -- I think later in the consent agenda there's an item of acceptance of a grant from the State of Florida, a matching grant, that is. And this is one of those good times for you, because the grant will be matched to our organization with the use of hundreds of volunteer hours and donations from -- from the private sector. So it's not one where we're going to be standing here later asking you all for money, and I thank you all again for your support. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you very much. I like that. They're not going to come back and want money. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The court reporter, did you get his name? Mike Davis. Item #4B EMPLOYEE SERVICE AWARDS - PRESENTED Next item on the agenda are service awards. Commissioner Hancock. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Good morning. It's my pleasure this morning to present two service awards. The first is a service award for 15 years to Mr. Jeronimo Salas. He is with road and bridge. (Applause) Fifteen years and he's still smiling. That means something. Also this morning I have a service award for Mr. Jose McGee for 10 years of service, also from road and bridge. Mr. McGee, are you here? We're going to recognize you anyway. I'd like to thank the two of you, and congratulations. Oh, Mr. McGee. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Got to be quick. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We're working him so hard -- (Applause) CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Those 10-hour days. Item #BE1 SATISFACTION OF OUTSTANDING OBLIGATION TO FP&L FOR PAST ELECTRICAL CONSUMPTION - STAFF RECOMHENDATION APPROVED Next item on the agenda would normally be budget amendments, but I don't see any. We will move to the manager's report. The first item under that report -- MR. DORRILL: Madam Chairman, just so that you'll know, the board had recently approved an item that budget amendments will be on the consent agenda, but in the event you have questions, we will pull those as part of the changes to the agenda. They are there. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Next item on the agenda is item -- did you have something? Excuse me. Did you have something? COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: No. I just thought that probably tore Mike Smykowski's heart out not being able to do budget amendments. MR. CUYLER: I believe Mike was a big promoter of that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Next item on the agenda is 8-E-l, administrative services, a recommendation to satisfy an outstanding obligation with FP&L and the past electrical campaign. Why don't we take 8-E-1 and 2 at the same time. I think that was my thought was that, gees, we're going to pay them a lot of extra money, but at the same time we're getting a rebate. I'd like to hear about both. MR. CAMP: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record my name is Skip Camp, the facilities management director. Seven years ago the county built a central electrical and water plant. This is the plant where an FP&L vault was constructed. This vault brings power from two different areas of the county into the room, meters it and sends it through a wall into the county's vault. Within the FP&L vault the multiplier was assigned by FP&L staff. The multiplier was incorrectly assigned, and for the last seven years the county has been undercharged for power. Florida law provides that power -- that the power customer is only responsible for the last 12 months of charges, but is responsible. This has been researched by the county attorneyws office, and they concur. The good news is that the county has received over one point -- 1.5 million dollars worth of power without cost. The bad news is that we are responsible for $220,984 worth. Staff in concert with the county attorneyws office has negotiated this amount down to $183,468. This negotiation is based upon a lump-sum payment to FP&L. The recommendation is to satisfy this outstanding obligation. On the other issue, because FP&L has separate sections and separate accounting, we have, as you know, the past four of five years received multiple rebates, and again because theywre in separate sections of FP&L, both sections are handled separately. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Are there questions? There being none, is there a motion? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Motion to approve staff recommendation. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Cuyler, do we need to take two separate motions, or should we include both items in the same motion? MR. CUYLER: Why don't you take two separate motions, because they are dissimilar items, even though they are both FP&L. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. We have a motion to approve agenda item 8-A-l; is that correct? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: 8-E-l, yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: 8-E-1. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve item 8-E-1. All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5 to 0. Item #8E2 ENERGY MANAGEMENT REBATE FROM FP&L ACCEPTED AND INSTALLATION OF A DEHUHIDIFICATION SYSTEM IN THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING - APPROVED Could I have a motion on 8-E-27 COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Motion to approve. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: A motion to approve item 8-E-2 which is the rebate. All those in favor, please say aye. Motion passes 5 to 0. Thank you. Item #SH1 RESOLUTION 95-434 REGARDING PROPOSED MILLAGE RATES FOR THE FY 1996 COLLIER COUNTY BUDGET - ADOPTED Next item on the agenda is 8-H-1 to adopt the proposed millage rates for FY '96, Collier County budget. You did make it, Mr. Smykowski. MR. SMYKOWSKI: I did make it. Good morning. For the record Michael Smykowski, acting budget director. What we have today is adopting proposed millage rates as the maximum property tax rates to be levied from FY 1996, Collier County budget, which begins on October 1st. These tax rates hereby adopted are provided to the property appraiser by August 4th for his use in preparing the notice of proposed taxes. Each property owner will receive this notice which must be mailed by August 24th. During the September public hearing, of course, the board has the option to lower or maintain millage rates in each unit at the level of the proposed millages. Subsequent to the adoption today, the millage rates cannot be increased without meeting additional public notice and advertising requirements. The proposed millage rates -- at this point countywide proposed millage rate of 3.935 represents a tax decrease of 1.2 percent below the rollback millage rate. The unincorporated area general fund is at .6101 mills, 1.6 percent below the rollback millage rate, and then an aggregate, which is a blending or averaging of all taxing districts, the millage rate is 4.2486 and is .08 percent below the rollback millage rate. In addition, the board had previously established public hearing dates for adoption of the budget on Wednesday, September 6th, and Wednesday, September 20th, would be the final public hearing date. These -- in addition to the millage rates, we officially communicate the dates of the public hearings to the property appraiser. The notice of proposed taxes, which is mailed by the prop -- property appraiser to each homeowner becomes the official notice of the -- or advertisement notifying property owners of the initial public hearing. In between the two public hearings and obviously prior to -- prior to the final, there's a -- a large newspaper advertisement which advertises notice of budget hearing and provides a synopsis of the proposed FY '96 budget. Do you have any questions? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Are there questions? MR. CUYLER: MAdam Chairman, could I ask one thing? Mike, did the board get the second page of the resolution that is not -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: It appears to have not made it into the agenda package. It's principally of -- Sue has the original here. It was signed off by David in the attorney's office, David Weigel. MR. CUYLER: Okay. Could we get the clerk a full copy of the resolution? I assume Exhibit A is the first page after the executive summary. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I assume there's nothing on the second page -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: No. It's pretty much the signature page and identifying when -- the dates of the public hearings and where they are held. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Now, the establishment -- I've got one or two questions, nothing major. But the establishment of this is the authority for the tax collector to -- or appraiser to send out the TRIM notices? MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And once we establish this millage rate, we have that millage rate, and only the -- the only budget adjustments we can make subsequent to that are either to reduce the budget or take monies out of reserve; is that correct? MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct, unless there is a -- an extraordinary process by which, you know, if you -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: If you have a disaster. MR. SMYKOWSKI: A certified -- a certified note to each property owner. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Oh. MR. SMYKOWSKI: There is a process by which you can increase it, but the statute -- it is difficult to do once you set the proposed millage rates. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I just want to let the public know that this is the amounts that the TRIM notices will be based upon. MR. SHYKOWSKI: That is -- that is absolutely correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And unless something extraordinary happens, this is the maximum. MR. SHYKOWSKI: That is correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Do we have a motion? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Motion to approve staff recommendation. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second the motion. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve the proposed millage rates for FY '96. All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5 to 0. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. SHYKOWSKI: I will get a copy of that second page to the clerk. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Please -- please do. Item #8H3 TOURIST DEVELOPHENT FUNDS TO APPROPRIATE $27,832 FOR FINAL DESIGN WORK FOR POST DISASTER COHMUNICATION PROGRAM, AMEND CONTRACT WITH THE COLLIER COUNTY TOURISH COHMITTEE AND PROVIDE FOR DISBURSEMENT OF FUNDS FOR ADVERTISING FROM CATEGORY C, SPECIAL EVENTS, IF AN ECONOMIC DISASTER SHOULD OCCUR - APPROVED WITH STIPULATIONS Next item on the agenda is 8-H-3 to appropriate $27,832 for the TDC, final design work for the post-disaster communication program. MR. AYRES: My associate hurt his leg, so now I'm going to hurt my back. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Please don't. MR. AYRES: Good morning, Madam Chairman, Commissioners. My name is John Ayres. I'm the chairman of the Economic Development Council and the Naples Area Chamber of Commerce New Coalition for Disaster Recovery. And we've been here before you on two or three occasions starting a year and a half ago to -- to discuss what we would do in the event of a major disaster most importantly or in our case more appropriately, probably a hurricane. And I'm used to having my friend, Jean, who just walked in, be my lead-in, but we have a few issues to bring up with you today. And we thought it would only be appropriate that inasmuch as you have been kind enough to fund this through the tourism tax, that we at least give you a sense of where your money has been spent, and you'll enjoy what we have done. We've had a presentation in the ballroom at the Ritz I'm going to say about a month ago, and unfortunately you had a budget session that morning and couldn't attend, so we thought we'd bring this little dog and pony show directly to you this morning and let you see what we've done. This is -- this is a campaign we hope we never have to present, obviously because we hope we don't have a hurricane that will require it. But we thought it better to be safe than sorry, and so if we can figure out how to dim the lights -- my associate Wayne Sandlin with Sandlin and Associates will be helping me with this presentation. And if we can just figure out how to get those lights down. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You had a question? MR. AYRES: And we'll try to make this as brief as we can knowing how valuable everyone's time is. First slide, Mr. Sandlin. Collier County Tourism Committee, post-hurricane advertising program. We'll let him get that focused, and then we'll take you very quickly through some objectives. This is sort of the game plan that we established up front to make sure that when we got through, we had what we wanted. If you can flip to the next one for me, Wayne, I'd appreciate it. The overall objectives of our campaign, primarily to help prevent loss of tourism revenue. It was interesting as a sidelight we had an -- an Economic Development Council meeting last night at the Ritz, and a gentleman who runs the economic development program for Collier -- for Palm Beach County was in attendance, and he was drawing some similes to different industries in our community and Palm Beach community and what their relevance was to -- to the business levels and the volume of tax dollars and et cetera, et cetera. And tourism was important in Palm Beach County but was ranked about -- and I'm probably going to have the wrong percentages here -- but let's say was ranked about fifth. And in Collier County he had it ranked in the second position, so we have a lot more at loss here, a lot more opportunity to suffer financial damages on the county's perspective in business community in the event we lose tourism revenue. The second objective was to create increased awareness of Naples and Marco Island as a destination, and our -- our feeling was there that if we're going to spend a half a million dollars to a million dollars on going out and trying to rebuild whatever damage may have been done in the media after following a hurricane, that wouldn't it be smart to spend that money to not just dispel the fact that we had a hurricane or not just to talk about the fact that we're now back in business, but better yet, to talk about what a wonderful place this is to come so that, in fact, instead of just being a disaster recovery program, it's a very positive marketing program for the whys and wherefors of wanting to come and spend your vacation holiday here and, therefore, help sell room nights. We felt that was a really integral part of our campaign from the beginning was that this wouldn't just patch the problem. This would help us positively sell room nights, which is part of what the TDC is obviously supposed to do. Our overall strategies were to reach key target markets, places that we know the business comes from, to instill conviction that Collier County had no damage or is now ready for tourists again. So we wanted to say, hey, we're ready. Or in the event that we're maligned by someone in the media that says all of south Florida was wiped out by a hurricane, we want to be ready to -- to say come on back. And let's see, Mr. Sandlin, is this your part? We'll do this five or six more times. We'll have this really down, but let me turn this over to Wayne Sandlin for a minute. MR. SANDLIN: Okay, the tactical aspects, of course, are basically the -- the ones that give us the flexibility that we need to spend as little or as much money as required, and -- and basically this is how this works. First of all, we believed in having Evergreen Creative, not just doing ads and television spots that we can use this year, which would be very easy to do, but have -- as you will see, ads and television that would be just as good next year or three years from now or four years from now. So if you take the production dollars that hopefully you will approve shortly, and you'll stretch those out over a three-, four-, five-, maybe even a six-year period, I think you'll agree that this creative will work just as good years from now as it will right now. And we think that's very important in terms of stretching dollars so we're not coming to you years from now needing more dollars for creative as expensive as it is. Creative design for maximum flexibility, specific coverage of three major scenarios: Number one, no damage, but possible perception of damage; B, light damage, circulated damage reports, a Dan Rather or someone standing up there saying that south Florida has been destroyed, heaven forbid; heavy damage, widely circulated damage reports and a strong perception of serious damage. That's where you have the most amount of work to do to repair the image that's so vital to our community. The target markets -- and this is based on Collier County third quarter tourist source data and -- and also weighted by Marco Island data and everything else, to be honest with you, that we could get our hands on to make this as accurate as we could possibly target. The primary target markets on the domestic side, on the consumer and geographic breakdown, we know that intrastate business is certainly the most important to Collier County, and we're looking there at Miami and Palm Beach and those DMAs just terms relative to the television markets over there. Interstate, you can see those markets. I won't bore you with reading them all. But those are, of course, key markets during that time frame for Collier County. Travel trade, very important here. Of course, the UK, Germany, South America, and Canada, and we've broken those down in order to -- to hit those specifically with individual publications. The media objective is to maximize a reach and frequency for the greatest impact. That just means stretching your dollars, and we've done all kind of things there with negotiating with the media and to put these packages together, package A, B, and C that we'll show you just shortly. Allow the greatest possible adaptability to budget and task. Again, that's a -- that's a budget-stretching factor, a tremendous flexibility media to weight-task ratio, what you'd really like to do out there and to spend as little money to accomplish it. Ad units, we're doing smaller. I think when this committee originally came up with the concept of doing this they would run page ads. We're running little 5-column by 7-inch ads, because they're what we call page-stealer size. Research says that people will notice and read that size ad almost as much as a full-page ad, so that stretches your dollar again, and that's what we recommended. By medium, we can use just print; we can use just television. And in case of a very bad scenario, then we can combine those media, just as I said. And print advertising is the first thing we'll show you, and this is one of the -- one of the ads. I'm sorry for the lighting in here, but we'll do the best we can and, you know, the headlines is very simply has the -- have your vacation plans suffered a big blow? No. Then it goes on to explain our beaches are just as beautiful, our restaurants and our people and our hotels are just as friendly, and it goes on right from there. And then most importantly perhaps is an 800 number so that just in case they don't believe everything we're telling them, they can pick up the phones themselves and call and talk to a warm body and say, gee, I'm planning on coming down to Collier County. Is it really okay for me to come down? So we're saying, hey, we're open enough to do this and supply these people with face-to-face data, if you will, that they require sometimes to make a decision. One of your beautiful beaches there. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Can I interrupt you? MR. SANDLIN: Please. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm having difficulty seeing the small print but -- MR. SANDLIN: Yes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine just remarked that he liked the phone number. MR. SANDLIN: Yes, indeed, it says 1-800-9-VISIT-US. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I love it. MR. AYRES: You should know that Wayne Sandlin and his assistant went through 70 phone numbers. MR. SANDLIN: 135. And -- MR. AYRES: Trying to find one that wasn't taken. MR. SANDLIN: We're still waiting on final approval on that one, but it looks like we will get it. If not, we will come up with something equally as nice for you. We hope to maintain that. It looks that way. Here is another one that we feel is going to work very nicely with the travel agents. They love this kind of thing. Of course, the hurricane recovery kit for visitors to Naples and Marco Island. Instead of a bottle of water and maybe a fire extinguisher and that kind of thing, here's a tennis racket, a fly rod, a bikini, a mask, fins and snorkel and that kind of thing and golf clubs, most importantly -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Good ads. MR. SANDLIN: -- what to bring in the aftermath of a hurricane. And, again, that is the smaller-space ad, the half-page ad for the travel trade publications. This one's kind of nice. I think we all feel this way occasionally. Everybody has a bad day. Here's a light-damage scenario here. And you see the wind blowing, nothing really being destroyed up there, but the wind blowing. The other day we simply say -- they say a day later, and here's this couple out on the beach and Sunfish in the background, one of your magnificent sunsets. And again the subhead simply says a day later. What a difference a day makes. This ties in, as you'll see, in the television spots. This is a direct tie-in and will run at the same time that we're running the television using the -- the great old Dina Washington song that you might remember, you know, What a Difference a Day Makes that she sings so beautifully. We had a wonderful vocalist that did that piece of music for us, and you'll see that in just a couple moments. Now, here again, here's where we've had some severe damage, again, minimizing that in terms of how we handle the creative. And it just says -- I can barely read that myself up there, but it says a while ago, and then it says today. And it says we've made quite a comeback. Now it's time for you to come back. We try to keep this very friendly and very conversational in our tone, in our copy. And I think we've done that. Here again for the travel trade, many of whom will be actually seeing the same ads maybe in the Chicago Tribune, and they'll see this in say Travel Age publication. It says we've made quite a comeback. Now it's time for your clients to come back. Now, on to the television. MR. AYRES: We -- we had a bid from an AV company that helped us out when we were at the Ritz, but that was $565 for them to bring a projector over here and turn it on. So we thought we would just do this ourselves. MR. SANDLIN: Bear with us, and we'll save a little money here. MR. AYRES: Sorry out there that we're facing this way. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: $550 for 10 seconds. That's quite an hourly rate. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Better than most lawyers. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You're right. MR. AYRES: Don't blink. These are 30-second spots. That sounds like a lot longer than it appears. And when you see what these things cost on network television, it's mind-boggling. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Are you telling us then that we shouldn't ask what it costs? MR. AYRES: Oh, no. We're going to tell you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MR. AYRES: We now realize why Lee County has almost three million dollars stashed away to pay for an advertising program like this, because it's really -- it's incredible what they -- what they get for a 30-second spot prime time network television. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Looks like the hurricane's still going. MR. AYRES: Yeah, that's the beginning of the hurricane right there. This is where Ken Pineau comes in. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock just mentioned the advertising rate during the Super Bowl. We don't normally have hurricanes in January, do we? MR. AYRES: That would be -- Wayne, could we get one 30-second spot? MR. SANDLIN: No, not even one. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: If anyone would like to donate television monitors so the audience can see, we'll be accepting them in Commissioner Constantine's office. (The video presentation was made). COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And we're hoping we can take someone down to get all the trees removed? MR. SANDLIN: Yes. MR. AYRES: Those are our -- those are our spots, and we think that in conjunction with the -- with the print media, they -- we -- we hope that you feel as -- as we do and those we shared it with that in addition to helping us recover from -- from a hurricane, it also helps set a very nice tone for -- for this area without apologizing. It says we're back, we're ready to go and, by the way, it's a wonderful place to come to, and so come on in. So we -- we worked at some length to get all of this done and to -- to have ourselves ready to go for hurricane season this year. And knock on Formica, we haven't -- we haven't had -- had to use it, and we hope we -- we never have to use it. There are some things which Wayne has allowed in both print and in the television that allow for some specifics in terms of timing, in terms of the date. Maybe it's a week later. Maybe it's two weeks later. Maybe it's a specific date even. And we have another ad agency, an affiliate of Wayne's, that's located in Orlando. So in the event that his offices in Coral Gables are damaged, and we have nothing that we can get done around here, they will have a very succinct message, and they will know what we need to do. MR. SANDLIN: They literally have duplicates. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You have to be on the microphone. MR. AYRES: They have a duplicate set of all this, and they will also be in a position to fire this off to -- to all of the appropriate media, and we have our public relations program set up in the same way as well as our Internet. So we've got a pretty good program put together. To share with you -- Wayne, do you have all of those -- are these the ones? Here comes the bad news part. This -- this is what it's going to -- this is what it's going to cost us. I'll -- I'll make this brief. You can go to -- my partner always likes to look at one line on our 42-page financial statement. So I'll just take you to one line. This is media plan A which incorporates television and newspaper and travel trade so that we've got the market covered. This is in the event that -- that -- that we're in a situation like Andrew put Key Biscayne into. We've got -- we've got major-league damage in the event we have a, you know, a real mess. So we -- Wayne, what number did this -- and I'll report it for the court -- where did you start out on this number? MR. SANDLIN: Well, there are three -- three plans; plan A, B, and C, where plan A, of course, is high-level negative PR where we're really taking a beating. MR. AYRES: How much did I start at, and you whittled it down? MR. SANDLIN: A half a million dollars started at 1.6 million, and it was task oriented. It wasn't like, oh, let's spend 1.6 million. It's like if we were going to do a good job in television, a good job in print in the markets that we all know we need to hit, how much would it cost. The light plan was 1.6. Our heavy plan is now 900,000. I think that puts that in perspective and probably why Lee County has three million for their heavy plan. It makes a lot of sense, but we're going to get by on 900,000 and good, solid media buying. MR. AYRES: In fact, this is an approximate number. It's been a long time now since our first meeting almost two years ago with the Lee County disaster recovery people. But I'm going to say that they spent $700,000 counteracting the damage that was done by a certain national news reporter. So our plan instead of 700,000 would be plan C, which is 500,000. You'll notice on plan C the third sheet that -- that that includes no television, because we just -- we just can't even get into the tel -- you know, you don't want to waste your money on television on shows that people don't watch or time frames that people don't -- you know, don't look at. So -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: John, do you have any specifics on when we say summary of TV and newspaper, for example, what we're looking at? MR. AYRES: Wayne, do you want to -- yeah, I've got a detailed -- detailed sheet here. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You don't need to go through the whole thing. MR. AYRES: We'd be happy to give it to you. Wayne, if you would give them just a sense of what we're doing. Let's take plan A. MR. SANDLIN: Okay. Plan A, was there a specific segment you'd like me to address or -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The television and newspaper. MR. SANDLIN: Television and newspaper. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You do not need to go through every single detail but -- MR. SANDLIN: Very quickly, we're -- we're planning on 30 television spots a week and -- which is in terms of GRP levels is not anywhere near where we would like to be. Typically a HcDonald's or Burger King will run -- I don't want to get too complicated, but they'll run 400 to 600 GRPs. We're probably going to be around a hundred GRPs. That kind of puts it into perspective when you see most of the campaigns that come out from Burger King or HcDonald's. We're about less than 25 percent of that for sure. Newspapers, a 5-columns by 7-inch ad, which I have all of them here mounted which we can show you, market by market we're running television -- three weeks of television in the Florida markets, our two key Florida markets, two weeks of television in Illinois and the two key markets there, two weeks in Michigan, two weeks in Georgia, two weeks in -- in Massachusetts, two weeks in New York, and in Pennsylvania two weeks, Ohio as well. And that total for television dollars is $461,000. Newspaper total running a 7-inch by -- by -- I'm sorry, 5-column by 7-inch ad running in the newspaper is almost the same as 461,000, and that is a total of eight insertions in the south Florida market from -- from actually Palm Beach, and it goes all the way almost to Melbourne, eight insertions in Florida, six insertions in Illinois, four in Michigan, four in Georgia, four in Massachusetts, three in New York. We'd like to have more there; we just can't afford it. Pennsylvania, three insertions; Ohio, three insertions. And the reason we did this, we weighted each of the markets based on their capability to produce for you and, therefore, we tried to put the dollars and the media weight against the markets that will do the best job for us. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Other questions? Mr. Ayres, do you have other -- I'm sorry. Commissioner Norris. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I'm a bit curious as to why we finally decided on category C here. That just doesn't seem to be the appropriate funding source. I know that this has all been through the TDC, but are we classifying a hurricane as a special event? Is that what we're doing? MR. AYRES: Oh, I thought you were looking at media plan C. Jean's getting up. MS. GANSEL: Maybe I should address that. Jean Gansel from the budget office. What we are recommending in this agenda item -- the thought was we've spent a hundred thousand dollars for the design work. Our original idea was to transfer approximately a hundred thousand each year from categories C and B, which had been recommended by the TDC and approved by the board. If we had a hurricane or some other event in the near future, we will have spent the hundred thousand dollars for the design work with no money to place the ads. Since there was -- there is over a million dollars in category C that's unappropriated at this time, what we were recommending is that we would go to the disaster recovery plan fund first for any funds that would be available in there for advertising and then to go to category C, special events, on a loan basis. We would continue to collect the 5 percent from category C and B and replace that funding should we need it in the near future. So that would allow us to be able to capitalize on the design work that Mr. Sandlin has done if something came up. That was the purpose of the recommendation. MR. AYRES: The problem, of course, is that -- that we've taken this thing all the way along, and we now have the campaign. We still need some payment for this which was the item that you have in front you for the 27,000. But the bigger challenge is twofold. One, if we have -- if we do have a -- you know, if we have a hurricane two weeks from now, although that category -- that 5 percent is being allocated, it -- there's virtually nothing left out of that 5 percent, so we've got a campaign that we have no financing for. So we don't presume to tell you where to -- where to get it. We're just suggesting. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I understand that. MR. AYRES: And really what we would intend to do would be to borrow against it. Hopefully by the time we've got a hurricane, you know, we've got more than enough money. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: I understand that. My only concern is that the categories A, B, and C are clearly defined as to usage. It seems to me that this -- this money is -- is more appropriately taken from category B totally. If we have a hurricane two weeks from now, like you say, we -- we certainly have the ability on an emergency basis to loan funds from category C for the purposes of the -- this item. However, if we don't have one for 10 years -- we haven't had one for 35. If we don't have one for another 10 years, we certainly have ample time to build up a little slush fund, which I think is the more appropriate course of action. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let's not call that a slush fund. MS. GANSEL: Reserves. MR. AYRES: And it could be called an event, but I agree -- I agree with you. We met with -- with our county manager yesterday, with Mr. Dotrill, to -- to sort of bounce these things around, and he gave us some guidance on -- on what might be an amendment, Mr. Dotrill, to the -- to the ordinance that might -- because, see, we have a twofold problem here. We have a financing problem, and then we have a trigger problem which is when -- how -- how and who pulls the trigger to make this thing happen. And then we have -- you know, we have to count to ten, and these media selection people want to get paid. So we have to be able to not only decide how it gets -- how the trigger gets pulled, but where is that money for sure, because I know Mr. Sandlin isn't going to commit himself to $900,000 unless he knows where he's going to get it. MR. DORRILL: We -- we spoke briefly yesterday, and this county is fortunate in that we're one of the -- we're, to my knowledge, the first county in the state to have a disaster ordinance. And the disaster ordinance was drawn up, I'll say, in probably 1982, shortly after that, that provides fairly wide-ranging powers to the Board of County Commissioners as part of either a declared state of an emergency or an actual declaration of disaster. And while that ordinance has been amended from time to time, we have never had a provision in it for this type of presentation today. What I had offered to these gentlemen as part of the hotel tourism industry was that we would ask the board here today if the board is desirous of seeing that ordinance amended and specifically that portion of the ordinance that deals with our most recovery planning sequence of events so that this would be part of our -- our plan of action in the event of a declared state of disaster. And while they have representation on our emergency operations team, it would be their role as part of the team to carry out the advertising campaign. Specifically the plan would need -- would have to provide that the board either annually budget a special contingency reserve or that the board would have a separate accounting of the reserve for contingency at all times. Because when you had a disaster of some magnitude, the board is going to be overwhelmed with needs and requests, especially if it's significant. I recall we spent over three million dollars just trying to clean up the community as a result of post Andrew, and we need to be able to account for the funds necessary for this type of event. And my suggestion would be that we amend the ordinance upon the direction here today if you should choose to do so. MR. AYRES: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I share the opinion of my colleague that category C is becoming the target area. We're going to see more events and nonevents on the horizon going after that funding, so I'm very careful as to how we -- I want to be careful as to how we appropriate funds out of that. The 27,832 asked to be appropriated today, is that strictly out of category C funds, Ms. Gansel? MS. GANSEL: Okay. Actually the figure that's in the contract is 544,000, so we -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We have a little spread there, don't we? MS. GANSEL: 300,000, here or there. We will have at the end of the year maybe 60,000 that's in fund 196, the economic disaster recovery fund. The other remaining funds would be from category C. At this particular time we have a million six or so that's unappropriated. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm amenable -- individually I'm amenable to looking at the ordinance to make that an appropriation should a disaster occur, but what I'm asking today -- we have an agenda item that lists $27,832 for final design work. MS. GANSEL: Yes. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Where are those funds coming from? MS. GANSEL: Okay. That would be from fund 196, the economic disaster recovery funds. We have been transferring some funds in there. After -- if you approve the appropriation of these funds for paying for the design work, there would be about 65 or so. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That comes out of the fund that we designed solely for that purpose? MS. GANSEL: Yes. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So the second question as a part of this is down the road how do we want to see this happen if the funds have not accumulated in order to have the base to do this type of campaign? MR. AYRES: And I would apologize to you as well that normally the TDC would -- there would be a recommendation from the TDC on how to handle this. In the spirit of the fact that the TDC is not going to meet now until August, and last week when we had the -- whatever that hurricane was that was -- Chantel -- moving in our direction, we thought it would be smart to maybe move this thing around a little bit and get the -- get your positive feeling behind it. MS. GANSEL: As a side note to that, I would bring this to the TDC at their August 7th meeting. Should they disagree with whatever actions the board takes, obviously we would bring it back to, you know, advise you as to their thoughts on it. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think with $27,000 already accumulated in fund 196, that's pretty much a given. I share some of the concerns about the expenditure of category C. However, if it is only being done in the event of an emergency for funds that haven't accumulated, I think obviously if we have a disaster, either a Dan Rather-type disaster or one that actually hits us, we need to respond to that and better to be prepared ahead of time. So I don't really have a problem with that. And I will make a motion after I ask Mr. Cuyler a question. Are we okay doing this before the TDC sees it knowing that's been an issue once or twice before? MR. CUYLER: The answer is yes, you can do it. The one function that the TDC does have under the statute -- now, you've allowed them to give you recommendations on the use of the money. The one function they do have is to see that the money is spent appropriately. In other words, they have that ability to raise an issue if they don't feel it's spent appropriately, so I would like them to see this as soon as practicable. The only other thing I'd note is the only other figure I'd seen before today was 500,000. And I notice that one of these plans has 922,000. I assume there's that much in category C? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's 963. MR. CUYLER: Pardon me? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: 963, the bottom line on page -- MR. CUYLER: Right, 963. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Obviously in the event of a disaster it will be the board that determines what is light or what is heavy or what response we need to take. MR. AYRES: We would come to you, our representative, which probably would be me. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So you've laid out the scenarios. It would be up to the board at that time to decide whether it is 500 or 700. MR. AYRES: Right. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: With that in mind I'll make a motion to approve the item although I would say pending a review by the TDC, and if they have some sort of concern with it, obviously we should bring it back to the board for further discussion. MR. AYRES: We're on the agenda. MS. GANSEL: Yes, I haven't cleared this with the chairman, but I don't think there would be a problem with that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: As far as I know, it's on the agenda. Mr. Cuyler, is that an appropriate motion for this board to approve this pending review by the TDC, and should they object that we bring it back? MR. CUYLER: That's okay. The only question is what happens if there's a hurricane between now and when the TDC sees it? do these people have a right to draw on that money or not? And I assume what you're saying is you want the TDC to look at it quickly, but you are authorizing this in the event of an emergency. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd suggest in the event of an emergency, perhaps we could gather up the TDC that day and make some sort of decision. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? Commissioner Norris. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes, I'm going to vote against the motion. I still feel that these funds are -- are more appropriately drawn from category B. One other potential problem I see down the line is we're -- we seem to be relying on the ability to take emergency on a -- on an emergency basis funds out of category C, but we're ignoring the possibility that there may not be any there at some point in the future when we're relying on them to draw down for emergency purposes. My preference would be -- and I hope that it gets passed on to the TDC for their meeting -- my preference would be that we start to build a -- an emergency reserve fund out of category B for this purpose rather than rely on category C funds which may or may not be there in the future and which are probably not appropriate for this purpose in the first place. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let me ask a question. Commissioner -- Mr. Cuyler, is -- is a disaster recovery program like this an appropriate use for category C funds? MR. CUYLER: I have -- either my office or I -- and if it was my office, I agree with it -- has opined that the emergency fund that you have been slowly accumulating has come equally from B and from C, because they are both under the 40 percent designation of advertisement nationally and internationally, even though there's the special events category and the advertising category. I haven't had a problem with the -- the B and C. I would have a problem if the C in this one -- I'd be telling you this if the C was not going to get paid back. And I understand you're not making any commitment. You may say the next fiscal year all of the money is to be paid back from B to C, or half of it is to be paid from B to C as -- as you determine. But if the question is can it come from C and stay there forever -- you know, be expended, never get repaid, I'm not comfortable with that, but I don't understand that to be true. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just to respond to Commissioner Norris's concern, my understanding, there is a reserve being built for that purpose right now and that the only time at which funds would be drawn from category C is if that reserve had not yet -- did not yet have enough monies and category C did have enough monies to make up the difference and, furthermore after the fact category C would be repaid for that -- MS. GANSEL: Exactly. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- because I share the concern. Category C has been raided or attempted to be raided for a number of categories. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock. MS. GANSEL: The one other element that I wanted to mention is that if in the future we have grant applications that would deplete that category C where funds would not be available within the two funds, I obviously would advise the TDC when they're recommending those grants and bring them forward to the board so that other considerations at that point could be made. I certainly don't want to preclude the appropriate use of category C because of this fund, so if those grants become known to us and -- and it's the recommendation to fund these, we would readdress the -- the issue. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine, does your motion include required repayment of category C funds expended from category B? What I hear from Mr. Cuyler is that to move ahead and -- and say it's okay to loan it from category C is -- is within the framework of what he's comfortable with. But to say it's an absolute payment out of C without any repayment to category C, that that is not as comfortable a position; is that a correct summary? MR. CUYLER: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So I need to know that the motion includes a repayment proviso to that category C. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Oh, it does. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It does? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. MR. CUYLER: I think Jean's position is she will come back to you, and you will have to talk about how quickly it gets repaid, but you're not making any guarantees to the people who rely on that category B that's it's only going to be 5 percent a year. I mean you may say next year it all gets paid back into C, whatever, but that would be a future decision. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: This is even conceivable -- I mean, just -- just setting up a mechanism by which we can handle this, it -- if, for instance, even category C, five, six, seven years from now doesn't have enough money to fund this -- I mean this is $900,000 at today's market. Who knows what it will be five, six, seven years from now. And -- and so I mean there's even a possibility that -- that those loaned monies unfortunately may have to come from the general fund and be repaid at -- as the TDC money continues to come in. I mean these are things that the board at that time, whoever is sitting, is -- is going to have to make a judgment as to how they want to handle it. MR. CUYLER: And the one advantage you have is the more time that goes by, the more this fund that is accumulating gets bigger and bigger, and I think you will be able to handle it, and that's coming equally from B and C. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Further questions before I call the question? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yes, just a quick statement. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm willing to support the motion only in the sense that we are going to see this come back to us and be able to work out the details. I'm still a little uncomfortable with it, but I'd like us to go ahead and see if there's a workable solution. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me. But I think the motion is that it only comes back if the TDC disagrees; is that correct? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Assuming the TDC is in agreement with this, I don't know that we need to revisit it. MS. GANSEL: If anything would change among the funds that we've talked about here between the funds, at that point I would certainly bring it back to, you know, get further direction. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Because we haven't talked about how it's repaid, to what extent, the pace, those type -- those to me are details that are important to the decision. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The motion maker has asked to restate the motion. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I was just going to restate the motion and my one comment. I think those are good points. I think it will depend on the situation, and I think Commissioner Matthews said the board at that time will have to decide at what pace, and so on depending on whether we go with the light approach, the heavy approach, whether we're spending 500 or 900, we won't know the pace. And it will also depend on what our collections are at that time. And I think we have to put a little bit of faith in whomever the board will be at that time. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: You mean it won't be us? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: God willing, it won't ever happen. The motion again was just to approve the staff item as presented, that in the event -- first of all, to approve the twenty-seven thousand -- $27,832 that currently exist in fund 196 to go toward the extra work that was necessary -- kind of like Waterworld running over budget there -- and secondly, that in the event of a disaster and in the event the reserve fund does not have adequate funds to handle what the board at that time deems necessary to recoup the travel industry and tourism industry, that we borrow that from category C -- key word being borrow -- with repayment being at a pace to be set by the board. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Does the second accept that explanation? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any further discussion? MR. DORRILL: One clarification. As -- as part of that motion would you like to see the disaster ordinance amended and brought back to you to provide for the -- the preapproval or preauthority to spend those funds for that purpose in some separate accounting of that money as part of your reserve funds? Like we'd have a separate line item, a separate contingency either within TDC or the general fund for that specific purpose. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My question is how does that interfere with the timing in the event of an emergency. I mean how would the preapproval work? MR. DORRILL: The preapproval only shows the intent of the board to spend funds in a post disaster recovery mode and designating the chairman or the vice-chairman or the county manager in the absence of any or all of those people to spend those funds for that purpose. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I was asking the motion maker if he wants to amend his motion to include that we revisit our disaster ordinance. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm willing to revisit the ordinance. I won't accept that exact specific -- but we can certainly revisit it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm not willing to say that I want to make those changes, but I think that we may need to look at it to see what is there. MR. DORRILL: We can develop that separately with a separate executive summary and bring it to you in several weeks and at least show you how we will propose to do that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Ms. Gansel, you have one other thing? MS. GANSEL: Can I also ask for an inclusion in the amendment to approve an amendment to the contract that we have with the Collier County tourism committee only to deal -- I should read this to the attorney's office. The amount of money to be paid for the design work, if we could -- if you could authorize the chairman to -- to sign that amendment, we wouldn't need to bring it back again, and then we would be able to pay Mr. Sandlin for the work that he's done. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So you're talking about only for the twenty-seven thousand -- to bring it up to whatever level that we've already approved? MS. GANSEL: The hundred thousand, yes, yes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Will the motion maker accept that? I'm not sure I understand it. MS. GANSEL: Okay. In the contract that we have with the Collier County tourism committee, the original contract had an amount for design work less than what the final payment needs to be. And what we're asking for is that the contract could be amended to reflect the actual amount as opposed to the estimated amount in the initial contract. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Wouldn't that happen, Mr. Cuyler, as a result of the motion? I mean isn't that what you would do is amend the contract in accordance with the motion or the vote? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's not part of the motion. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, sure, okay. MR. CUYLER: I -- under -- that is the item for today. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's what we're talking about. MS. GANSEL: Right, right. It was to authorize the amount and to amend the contract. I just want to make sure that I don't run into a problem with attempting to pay that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The motion maker is -- the motion is to -- and correct me if I'm wrong, to appropriate the $27,832 and to amend the contract and to give staff direction to bring our disaster ordinance back at some future date so that we can examine whatever might need to be done. Is that -- is that the motion? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And the authorization. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Oh, and the TDC. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Category C borrowing and the TDC, correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The second accept that? COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Are we ready? I'll call the question. All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? Motion passes 4 to 1, Commissioner Norris being in the opposition. Let's take a break until about 20 minutes of. (A short break was held.) Item #10A INTENT TO TERMINATE COUNTY HANAGER'S CONTRACT - FAILED. MOTION FOR VOTE OF CONFIDENCE - APPROVED. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Reconvene the board of county commission meeting for July 25, 1995. Next item on the agenda is item 10-A, which is a resolution of intent to terminate the county manager's contract. I'm going to open my remarks by making a motion that we adopt a resolution of intent to terminate the county manager's contract. The following that I'm going to be talking about is a presentation of the incident items and regretful circumstances that have collectively caused me to lose confidence in the manager's ability to continue administering the affairs of Collier County. I'm recommending a vote of loss of confidence in the county manager's ability to continue by supporting or asking my colleagues to support my motion to adopt a resolution of intent to terminate. I have a few written remarks I'd like to add before we get into the discussion of -- of my particulars. I must say I've been amazed by the public comment that's been generated over a simple statement that I've lost confidence in the manager's ability to continue. I have tried hard, very hard not to discuss the specific reasons for my loss of confidence prior to this meeting. That reason was and still remains the media frenzy that is perpetuated every time we open this for discussion. If we were not in public office, I would have been able to visit each of my colleagues in their offices and quietly sit and discuss the issue. Assuming that I would have their support or would gain their support, I would have then met with Mr. Dotrill, explain to him what was going on, that I had the support of my colleagues, and ask him to resign. We are in a public office. And in the State of Florida you cannot participate in private discussions with your colleagues on issues coming before the county commission or any other board that is recognized by the county commission. According to the Naples Daily News, which I read last Thursday, there was at least one attempt to broker a resignation. Either that meeting did not take place, or it was unsuccessful. I have no idea, only that the manager has indicated that he will not resign. In a meeting yesterday with Mr. Dotrill I suggested that he might be getting tired of all the second-guessing and the micromanaging. He remarked that, yes, that was possible and that his friends were advising him to move on, that he deserved better treatment. I remarked that perhaps his friends were talking to me as well, because they were telling me I was doing him a favor. I have no idea what the outcome of this meeting will be or what the outcome of this agenda item will be, but I do ask that our commissioners commit with me in a vote of lack of support, if for no other reason that we can continue to investigate the items that I will be discussing shortly and move forward to a second vote in the next two weeks keeping in mind this is not a final vote today. It is a vote of no confidence as we continue to examine what the issues are. With that I would like to move to in your books tab -- tabulation number one. This item I'm calling failure to follow board directives -- MR. DORRILL: Ms. Matthews, if I could ask you -- I do not intend to interrupt you -- just procedurally how it is that you intend for me to participate in the discussion. I know that your office provided to me about three minutes before nine the blue book that you're referring to. I have obviously not had an opportunity -- I do not know if the other board members had theirs in advance or not. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No. No one has had this book prior to a few minutes before nine. MR. DORRILL: I understand then you have a motion on the floor. You have not asked for a second then -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I will ask for a second when I complete the presentation. MR. DORRILL: Okay. And then while I obviously haven't had an opportunity to know in advance what the charges were going to be today, I presume you're going to give me an opportunity for reply? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I would presume that you would want to take that opportunity, Mr. Dotrill, but I do not want to remind you that these are not specific charges. These are reasons that I have lost confidence, and that's what they are. They're reasons that I have lost confidence in your ability to continue. Now, I would presume should this motion be successful today, that we have -- we will have at least a two-week period to sort this matter out. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A couple of quick questions. I assume we have a number of public speakers on this item? MR. DORRILL: About 15. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: 15. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just procedurally, again, I would ask, as with most items we consider, we wait until we've heard from, in most cases, petitioner. I would say in this case Mr. Dotrill and also from the public before we actually have a motion. So we may want to do some discussion on that and then hold the opportunity for any motion until we've heard from everyone. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, the -- the motion is on the floor at this point. It lacks a second. A second has not been called for. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So if -- okay. Commissioner Hancock. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chairman, I'm a little concerned by the process that we're entering into today. We're going to sit here and go through a notebook of information you have compiled over, I assume, a period of weeks. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No, sir, less than a week. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. I begin reading the paper. You said you made the decision before we'd gone on vacation, so I assume there was some background to it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The decision was made before I went on vacation, yes. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Regardless, you had time to compile a list of items of -- as I have gone through it in the 10 minutes or so that I had the opportunity this morning. There are, indeed, accusations of wrongdoing, accusations of improper conduct on the part of the county manager in here. The county manager has not had the ability to review these and respond as they're being presented. And I personally have difficulty with that procedure in that if we are going to go through item by item, and yet Mr. Dotrill has not had at least the amount of time to respond to this that you had in assembling it, it appears to me to be a little bit of an unfair procedure. With that, you are the chair. You will conduct the meeting as you see fit, but I wanted to state that as an exception to this procedure that I feel personally is inappropriate. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I thank you for the comment. No one is denying Mr. Dotrill the opportunity to comment on the information that I've compiled. And, again, as I've stated, the reasons I have lost confidence, I am -- I am not making any specific charges that I'm aware of. I'm trying to present to this board the reasons that I have lost confidence, and you know -- I'm sorry, but some of them are notations directly from minutes of this board's meetings. And -- and then letters from third parties giving us information that is different from what we directed. And with -- with all due respect, I would like to continue. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And again, I won't stand in your way. I just thought it important to note my displeasure with the procedure. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'll -- I regret -- I regret having to use the procedure. However, it is the only venue available to us under the Sunshine Act. I'm not allowed to discuss these matters previous to this public meeting with any of my colleagues. I am -- I chose not to release this document to the media prior to this morning for the very reason that I previously stated. We would then wind up in a media frenzy as I think three of us on this board can at least attest to has happened in the past. And I would -- I chose to try to avoid that, though I was not entirely successful. With that I'll move on. Under tab 1 I have an item that I'm calling failure to follow board directives in patens that could be considered insubordination, the hampering of the ability of Collier County taxpayers to reclaim funds justly due them. There was explicit direction given by the board on May 2, 1995, to cooperate with the clerk's investigation of the derivatives of our investment portfolio. We expressly directed the manager to cooperate in at least the recovery of any excessive fees that we may have paid. Exhibit A in your tab is a synopsis of the minutes themselves. Mr. Grady gives us a description of what he would like to accomplish. He asks for the board's direction. Commissioner Constantine asks him how long that will take. He says four to five weeks. Estimated minimum losses that he thinks we can recover are 678,000 roughly. He thinks there are also other reasons that we may be able to pursue additional funds. Motion is made by Commissioner Constantine after this description from Mr. Grady, and the motion is simply so moved. There is further discussion to include a third item in the motion, and that motion is the liable issue to determine if anyone has any liability other than the county for the purchase of these derivatives. Commissioner Mac'Kie seconds the motion. Commissioner Norris then suggests that we have our investment policy committee revise our investment policy. That motion -- that item was not included in the motion. Dwight Brock, our clerk of courts, goes on to describe that, yes, we have an investment committee, who the members are; himself, the tax collector, Commissioner Matthews as a member of the commission, and two members of the community. And he indicates that he has been developing or that the committee has been developing an investment policy and are awaiting final action from Tallahassee before he introduces that policy. The motion was called and passed 5 to 0. You will find the pertinent pages of the minutes of the May 2nd meeting highlighted for the -- the use. I have with me -- for those who wish to see the entire minutes from the discussion, I have those with me also. Due to their length, some 50 pages or more, I did not copy all of them. There is mention within the minutes, if you wish to take you to a page -- on page 78 comment by Commissioner Hancock that there are valid concerns that he's heard today, and he wants answers to those questions. He goes on to discuss the Escambia County involvement in derivatives of this nature. It came to my attention just last week that Escambia County has come into a need of -- of cash funds, and they have sold derivatives, and they have experienced a real fif -- 13 and a half million dollar loss on the sale of those. It was a decision obviously they made. Hopefully we will not have to make that decision. If you move on to Exhibit B, which is still under tab 1, is a letter from Mr. Tom Grady, the attorney that addressed us on May the 2nd, dated May the 23rd addressed to Kenneth B. Cuyler, Esquire. Paragraph 3 halfway through the paragraph he says, and I quote, you will also be -- you also advised me on Friday, May 19th, that Mr. Yonkosky had discussed the issue with Mr. Dotrill who advised that although the board had directed cooperation of county employees, he had not directed that that cooperation be at my convenience or without restriction. We are trying to collect taxpayers' money. If you move on to Exhibit C, this is a letter that is dated July the 18th, again, from Tom Grady, Grady and Associates, marked privileged and confidential, attorney-client communication, addressed to Dwight Brock, clerk of courts. He has given me authority to release this letter. Opening paragraph near the end of the first line; our investigation has been unnecessarily impeded by the lack of cooperation of the key witness -- of a key witness -- of the key witness, if not the key witness, John Yonkosky. I direct this commission to look at page 2, paragraph 2, where he gives information pertaining to his interview with Mr. Yonkosky, and I quote, during the interview Mr. Yonkosky admitted rather proudly that he was in regular touch with Meridian Securities at that time, patens, that is since he left the office to work for the county manager, close paten. He also admitted that he was at least partially responsible for the letter received by Mr. Cuyler from Mr. Lorenzo (phonetic) which was sharply critical of our presentation to the board in early May, paten, he had urged Meridian to issue some kind of statement, close paten. That letter was promptly delivered to Mr. Yonkosky -- by Mr. Yonkosky to the Naples Daily News along with other members of the media. That letter was drafted as though Mr. Lorenzo was representing the county but was -- or was perhaps neutral in this dispute when, in fact, Mr. Lorenzo was merely zealously representing the interests of his client, Meridian Securities. Unfortunately for us, Meridian Securities has the full cooperation of John Yonkosky while we have nothing of the sort. Page 3 of the same document, paragraph 8, bottom of the page, finally, as you know, Mr. Yonkosky has spoken with members of the press on a regular basis to provide disinformation regarding the county's portfolio and to support the position of Meridian. Commissioners, once again, we have directed cooperation in order to collect money that has been spent in behalf of the taxpayers of Collier County. The attorney's office trying to accomplish that is not getting the success that he had looked for. The only conclusion available to me is there appears to be no interest upon the part of the manager or his staff to aid in this investigation and attempt to recover several hundreds of thousands of dollars, the final amount to be recovered given unfettered cooperation could be several million. Under tab 1, page 2, circumventing established committees. This we've already alluded to this morning, and this is the investment policy that was on the agenda for July 25, 1995. Commissioner Norris's motion -- and I've already spoken of it -- suggests that -- or his request suggests that our invest -- that our investment policy be amended by our investment policy committee. Mr. Brock subsequent to that advises who the members of the committees are, that a policy is nearly completed, and he is awaiting a bill being signed in Tallahassee before he presents that new policy. It was decided at our investment policy meeting on Wednesday afternoon just past that we would present that policy on September the 5th. None of us were aware at that time that the July 25th agenda would include a policy. Next item in the same tab, C, exposing the taxpayers of Collier County to higher millage rates than absolutely necessary. This has to do with the performance-based budgeting that I -- and we may call this an idea of mine, but I have been expounding on performance-based budgeting for some time. Earlier this year the board embraced the idea that we wanted to see performance-based budgeting. We were promised performance-based budgeting a priority -- prior to the priority budget workshops. It was delayed until the line-item workshops in June. We got a very small taste of performance-based budgeting during the priority program process involving our parks and recreation. Again, we have been promised a select volunteer group when we got to the line-item workshops. Performance-based budgetings -- budgeting has not yet materialized. We have finished the line-item workshops. Tentative millage was established just shortly ago. I no longer believe the manager intends to produce performance-based budget for even prototype departments. Next item, D, exposing the taxpayers of Collier County to possible litigation. This is an item that came to my attention in February, and it deals with a person who in February was in the employ of Collier County development services and had obtained certification through an organization called the Builders -- let me get the correct name -- the Building Officials Association of Florida, Incorporated. MR. DORRILL: Excuse me for just one second again. My tab D and shown as Exhibit D has to do with -- the opening line says Commissioner Norris requests that our investment policy be revised and that it go to the investment policy. COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: My pages were out of order. Is that -- I rearranged mine. MR. DORRILL: I think I lost you two tabs ago. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm sorry. This is item D. It asks you to refer to tabs E and F. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It -- can I tell you how I started following it, because I was having the same problem? It may just be that you're so familiar. Is that -- we're still under tab 17 CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, we're still under tab 1. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And we're on the third page, and ignore the exhibits at this point. We're on the third page under tab 1. I think -- oh, I'm sorry, but my pages were out of order. It's the fourth page. You have to move it to the third page. Do you see how they have A, B, and C at the top? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: A, B, C, and D. I am on D. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Does that help? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It refers to Exhibit E and F. This -- this has not been easy to put this in order. That's why I'm trying to go through it slowly. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: If you'll examine the first four pages under tab 1, you'll find one has -- has hampering the ability of Collier County taxpayers to reclaim funds justly due to them at the top of one page. Circumventing established committees is at the top of another page. In my book the next thing is exposing the taxpayers of Collier County to possible litigation -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That should be the fourth page. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. That should have been the fourth page, so I've rearranged it so that -- does that help, Mr. Dorrill? MR. DORRILL: Are we then on the one that has circumventing established committees? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: We finished that one. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We are on exposing the taxpayers of Collier County to possible litigation. MR. DORRILL: Okay. What you -- when you say D, you're no longer referring to the exhibits that are separately marked here? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Right. The exhibits are separately marked. MR. DORRILL: Okay. I think mine were out of order too, but I understand. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That could be. It was getting late at night when I was finishing this. MR. DORRILL: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Do -- I had -- I as chairman of the county commission became aware of a former -- or not former at that time, but a county employee who allegedly had acquired certification under the Building -- or from the Building Officials Association of Florida. And I had questions about how this person had obtained that certification, and also being aware that certification from that group easily led to a state license from the Department of Professional Regulation. Under tab E, Exhibit E, you have a description from Section 102 of the Southern Building Codes of the powers and duties of a building official. He can render interpretations. And this board learned just last Tuesday how important they can be. He has the right of entry given the proper documents and warrants. He can issue stop work orders. He can revoke permits. And under a very broad category, 102.6 under requirements not covered by the code, it says, and I quote, any requirements necessary for the strength, stability, or proper operation, et cetera, not specifically covered by this or the other technical codes shall be determined by the building official. And then the building official can also authorize alternate materials and methods so long as they are equivalent. In April of this year, I directed Mr. Dotrill to investigate this allegation, because I was very concerned about the possibility that an employee was unqualified to have this designation, had moved onto another employment outside of this county and could possibly still be carrying that license. It is my understanding that the DPR license issued by the State Department of Professional Regulation is transfertable from county to county. As of July the 17th of 1995, a phone call to Mr. Becket, executive secretary of that group, indicated that there had been no request to initiate any investigation or to seek information made by a person of authority in Collier County, i.e., a commissioner or a manager. I did not follow through with this investigation, because I had directed the county manager to. I would presume that subsequent to this I will now follow through on my own. If we can now move to tab 2. Tab 2 is called manipulation of the budget. I go through a discussion of the gloom and doom prediction that was given to us early in 1994, that we were going to be looking at, I believe, a 4 percent tax increase for 1995-'96, an 18 percent tax increase for '96-'97, and another 4 to 5 percent tax increase from '97-'98. Politically it gave us the opportunity to say that we will find ways to keep the increases from occurring, but from a practical standpoint it scared the hell out of our constituents and taxpayers. To avoid a 4 percent increase in '95-'96, we obviously would have had to have a combination of revenue increases or expense decreases. It's my estimation that the 3 and -- that the 4-percent budget increase would have to produce income somewhere in the three and a half million dollar range. When I looked at the tentative budget, which I received earlier this week, I took a closer look at it, and it probably would be closer to the range of three million dollars. But any -- regardless of that, there would need -- there would need to be an increase in revenues or a decrease in expenditures either way in order to avoid such a tax increase. The board did cut unfilled vacancies, but there weren't a great many. We did make some changes in the parks and rec. budget to reduce maintenance and save a few hundred thousand dollars. The largest single implementation in our budget was the beach parking fees. This will provide about a half a million dollars in the first year and nearly a million in the years thereafter. The problem here is that several of our board members expressed a desire to dedicate those beach parking fees to the purchase of additional beach access or parking. That decision has not been made. Our millage rate has now been adopted. There was concern expressed about the beach parking fees getting buried within the general fund morass and would never be used to improve our beach parking, rangers, cleaning, et cetera. In other words, there was some desire on this board and discussion of it, nothing final, that these beach parking fees become a user fee that we would dedicate the use of. If we can move on to the next page, again, manipulation of the budget. $600,000 reserve, the taxpayers, and I presume this board, because I didn't know anything about it, that existed in the health insurance area. We discussed that somewhat vehemently Wednesday morning, June the 21st, when Mr. Dotrill was very, very expansive in his applauding our employees for saving $700,000 in health insurance benefit costs. And I think we all agree that, yes, that's great. We -- we are finally getting our costs under control, and the employees are helping us. Yet when I turned to the budget sheet which is -- you'll find -- I don't have an exhibit number on this. You'll find it three pages back, the bottom of the page. It's J-27. This is taken from our tentative budget. You will see that adopted budget FY '94-'95 under health claims is $5,500,000. You will see that FY '94-'95 forecast under health claims is four thousand eight hundred -- $4,805,000. Yes, a reduction of $7,000. But you will see in '95-'96 current service a budget item of $5,400,000, a reduction in claims of only $100,000. I questioned this at the time. I'm not sure what the answer -- answers I was getting was except that they knew where the money was, and that was fine. I -- I have no problem that all of the monies collected are within the county bank accounts, investment portfolio, wherever it is they're supposed to be. You will note on the same page -- we move down to group health billings, adopted budget '94-'95, $5,700,000. Forecast expense '94-'95 -- now, this is revenues collected from the various departments and employees and the taxpayers' share of the health insurance. Forecast expenses, $5,600,000. There's a difference there of six -- $800,000 roughly between the claims paid out -- or expected claims paid out and the billings to be received. And then under current service '95-'96, revenues to be received from our health insurance premiums to our employees and taxpayers, $5,700,000. If we can move on to the next page, again, manipulation of the budget, disappearing savings on creation of the tax of the Department of Revenue. We had much discussion on this board, and I'm not going to belabor it, because I think we all know where this is. This program was introduced to the county commission some time ago as having a savings of $300,000 to the taxpayer. To my knowledge and recollection at our budget workshops, line-item workshops that occurred just before vacation, that savings is now at $30,000. I consider that a pittance and probably hardly worth the effort of the reorganization. In addition to that the new department head to -- the person to head that new department was responsible for the derivative problems that our clerk of courts is now encountering and whose attorney is telling our clerk -- clerk of courts that he is not getting cooperation. Furthermore, Mr. Dotrill had been given information in a conversation regarding this prior to his appointment of Mr. Yonkosky to this department, but Mr. Dotrill has chosen to ignore the advice of the clerk of courts about our investment problems and appoint him even though a cloud persists. My preference would be to see the cloud dissipated. Next item, still under manipulation of the budget, costly utility savings. Some months ago this board entertained at the suggestion of the privatization plus tax force, which I will say I am -- I am the chairman of, a motion to release proposals or a request for proposals to privatize our wastewater and water utility systems. Initially the board approved that item. Two weeks later that recommendation was reversed. When the -- but what we did direct the manager to do was for the utilities department to bring us a budget that was 10 percent or more lower than previous budgets, since the privatization plus task force did say that in nearly every instance the cities and counties that were contacted regarding this, depending upon the efficiency of the operation -- and I presume ours is very efficient -- could save between 10 and 20 percent. Mr. Dotrill was given direction to -- to have his utility department produce a budget saving at least 10 percent. We all read the headlines. Shortly before the line-item budget utilities was down 11 percent. I'm very thankful to the quick observations of Commissioner Hancock to question the maintenance included in that budget, and we had the item set aside and reworked it at our wrap-up. What we found was that maintenance was not necessarily being performed in accordance with manufacturer's recommendations. We were in a pay me now or pay me later situation. I draw the attention to the page after J-27, which is marked -- I don't know whether it's I-1 or 1-1. I've highlighted total appropriations for the fund summary for utilities. It is a negative .6 percent after this board added maintenance back into their budget. If we could move on now to tab number 3, misleading the Board of County Commissions -- Commissioners' human resource update. Mr. Dotrill -- and you have minutes attached under tab G -- Mr. Dotrill made a statement in his update, and I quote -- these are from the minutes that I'm quoting -- we are now reinstating exit interviews for all employees from a mandatory perspective, and the effective date of that was May 12th, a little over a month ago. A citizen from District 3 in curiosity called the human resources department on July 17th, just over a week ago, and asked about exit interviews. The human resource technician she spoke with, Mr. Mike Zalucky, said that exit interviews were not mandatory at all. He did offer what was mandatory was that they offer them. We cannot compel the employee to complete the form; therefore, they're not required to participate, and they are free to refuse. Reasonable, but there is no follow-up once the employee leaves county employment. I bring you now to the important note below the box that says Exhibit G, and this involves an employee who gave notice of his resignation subsequent to Hay 12, 1995, who had requested an exit interview and was denied. He persisted. It's even reported he became a nuisance. He finally received an appointment for an exit interview for July 18th of 1995, just last week. When he arrived for his exit interview, no one was there to receive it. Therefore, a requested exit interview has not been granted. This gives the management the obvious opportunity to get exit interviews when they will be favorable and avoid them when they will be critical. There are allegations from previously terminated employees and employees who have resigned that their exit interviews have been removed from their file. If we can move on -- MR. DORRILL: I'm sorry again. Are you on one of the -- are you under Exhibit G of part 37 CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes, sir. MR. DORRILL: Okay. If you can just point me to that again, I'd appreciate it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm sorry? MR. DORRILL: Can you point me to the most recent -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: On the page saying misleading the Board of County Commissioners' human resources update? MR. DORRILL: Uh-huh. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: If you look below the box that says Exhibit G, important note, there is an employee there who has made an attempt to have an exit interview subsequent to the date -- MR. DORRILL: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- that they were enacted. MR. DORRILL: Okay. But you don't have an exhibit for that? That's just -- you're just reading the note that's attributable to Philip Scheff? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's attributable to Philip Scheff. I have made several attempts over the weekend. His last day of work was last Tuesday. I'm making a presumption that he is on vacation, but I -- it has been given to me on good assurance that when this board meets to discuss this issue again in at least two weeks, that I will have an affidavit to that effect. MR. DORRILL: But you don't have it as part of this? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No, sir. MR. DORRILL: But you're attributing those comments to Mr. Scheff? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm attributing those comments '- I'm sorry. What comments? MR. DORRILL: You indicate here that under important note that Philip Scheff is resigning and wanted to have an exit interview. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: He has resigned. He's gone. MR. DORRILL: On or about the close of business of July the 18th; correct? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: work. MR. DORRILL: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: 18th, his last day of work. July the 18th was his last day of His appointment was for July the MR. DORRILL: Okay. And -- and the contention being that when he arrived there was no one in human resources to take his exit interview? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Even though they had scheduled an appointment for him. MR. DORRILL: Okay. The other contention then -- there is not an exhibit also -- that there's -- there's a contention, I presume, from someone, and that someone is not noted, that exit interviews have been removed from human resource files? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes, sir. MR. DORRILL: Okay. As I -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I will have more on that if you wish to have it. MR. DORRILL: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Item 4 is probably the one that Mr. Dotrill and I will disagree on. I don't know how he's going to react to this, but I will relate it. This spring, I believe, after my appearance on The News Journal, Carl Loveday's show, in April, I had talked on that show that the manager's contract would be requiring discussion for renewal prior to June 15, 1995, or it would automatically extend for an additional year. Carl, as he always does, asked if I was supportive of a one-year extension to that contract. I believe I said that I was not, but that I would listen to what my colleagues had to say. He asked why. I simply said that I thought he had been here too long. My News Journal visits are usually the second Friday of each month. This show would have been either March 10th or April 15th. I've not checked my calendar to verify which one. Within a few days after that show, I believe on a Wednesday, I was in my office standing at my desk. Mr. Dotrill came in, handed me a piece of lined notebook paper similar to the notebook paper that he takes notes on here in county commission meetings. I read it, and I guess I looked at him pretty quizzically. He explained, as stated across the top of that paper, and I'm now referring to Exhibit H, the photocopy of six items. He explained, as stated across the top of that paper, these were projects he had worked on for the benefit of District 5 and had been instrumental in seeing that they were completed. He said that if he did not have my support, he would have to consider his efforts, and I quote, misdirected, unquote. I remarked that I was not going to respond to his comment, but that I would instead reflect on what he had said. His immediate response was that is not a threat. It is strange that no one knew of this incident except myself, Mr. Dotrill, and my husband. I had consulted with no one at that time, but within two days I had a phone call from Mr. Loveday asking about the county manager threatening me. I chose not to return that call. It was apparent to me that the county manager was threatening to reconsider District 5 projects if I did not support him. The misuse of public funds and power is intolerable, and it possibly explains how Mr. Dotrill has avoided being fired in the past. In the page headed up Exhibit H are some possible interpretations that I have put upon this list. First is intimidation. My how we have heard that word a lot in the last six to eight months. Without Mr. Dorrill's help no capital projects would be completed in District 5 until I had left office. Attempted manipulation of commissioners; to get parks, libraries, road construction completed in the district, you have to make the manager look good and support his efforts no matter how poor they might be. In addition, Districts 1, 2, 3, and 4 would pay unnecessarily for any project that I might want completed in District 5. Neil would have to keep me happy by funneling money from other districts to District 5 should I support him. Major problem with the entire concept. This list, as it was presented to me in April, was the major prompting that I had to vote against the extension of his contract. To me this matter is so serious and so deleterious to county operations, I am compelled to publicly disclose it. Food for thought. This may be how Mr. Dotrill has maintained his needed votes in the past. If we can move on to item 5, tab 5, this is -- this item is really a general cumulative addressing of what I call failure to follow well established management principles, exposing the taxpayers of Collier County to substantially increased costs. The management problems and budgetary problems have had a cumulative effect on my decision. There has been no single instance under this category -- catch my thoughts -- that merits this action with the manager. The action is a result of cumulative effect of all of the management problems observed since my taking office combined with the fact that some basic concerns expressed by various members of the board of county commission are not going addressed as promised. I'm not going to go into detailed discussion, but we do have a utility lease agreement on perc ponds that somehow was not extended. The final cost to the taxpayers of Collier County may exceed -- may exceed one million dollars. The utility division's continual problems with computer software and hardware, which include multiple replacements for a number of years, the cost to the taxpayers is several hundreds of thousands of dollars. Development services of the building department, whichever you choose to call it, it's not an old department, but there have been at least three reorganizations and at least one reshuffle. Each one has entailed the discharge of employees for various reasons. And when any major business, especially one with a 300 million dollar budget discharges employees, you are losing their intellectual capital. That intellectual capital is the investment that the taxpayers of Collier County have put into their training and the knowledge that they have accumulated over the time they have worked here. I'm not saying -- I'm not even pretending to say that some should not have been discharged, but I would have preferred to see proactive management interjection at a sooner stage before the problem, whatever it was, became so unbearable and so much in the public eye that it was necessary to discharge employees. Under employee morale the manager uses privatization as a reason for low morale. He knows that a good employee will be hired by whatever company wins an outsourcing bid. He really should stop scaring our employees. Only poor workers will suffer a loss of job if he does not perform his job well. We don't have any poor workers that I'm aware of, nor do we have unneeded workers. In other words, it is his job to make sure that we have an efficient and effective operation. Outsourcing should not bother our employees. I believe he is responsible for the low morale because of intimidation, threats, and special treatment for a chosen few. There has been discussion in the past of a June 6, 1994, memorandum about sexual harassment. This is but a small part of what's going on. We have had further complaints of sexual harassment in the court administration. Itws my understanding, and Mr. Dotrill is aware of this, that that department is a hotbed of problems. Our managerws response is to move -- is to move forward in transferring the department to the state court administration without solving the problems. There is a report of an unsafe work environment involving an employee and the carrying of a gun in the workplace. The situation was allowed to persist. The employee was eventually convinced to leave the gun home and recommended counseling. The manager -- the manner in which operational problems are finally resolved has a demoralizing effect on employee morale. Our employees work very hard and in general are well qualified for the jobs they performed. The department directors get their marching orders from the manager. Our employees do as directed, but quite often the thanks they receive is to be fired or a forced resignation. Some take demotions when the manager needs another example of, quote, look at the problem I have solved, unquote. My preference is for a manager who prefers good management technique over crisis management. Iwve come to believe that our manager knows only crisis management. He intimidates, he threatens, and otherwise coerces our employees to do what he wants under pain of being fired, their spouses being fired, or the companies for which their spouses work could lose county contracts if their behavior persists. I have a list of forced resignations. I have a list of forced hirings, of forced retirements. Iwd like to bring this boardws attention to a sheet of paper that I believe was stuck in the -- in between these two sheets. Itws our county human resource policies and procedures manual that this paper is taken from. This was just inserted yesterday, so I didnwt get to make it nice and pretty. Under procedure all recruitment will be based solely on the candidatews job-related qualifications and abilities. Itws my intention to investigate forced hirings further to make sure that all of them have met procedure A in the adopted policy of our human resources policy and procedures manual. I would hope to have that completed within the two-week period. If we continue on the next page you have a list of forced resignations, some old ones, some more recent ones. All resigned in good standing and qualified for complete severance packages as outlined in our personal -- personnel handbook. A search of the records for resigned, not in good standing will reveal many more. That too I intend to look into. Forced retirements, we have one coming October the 1st, 1995, in the person of Norris Ijams. Forced hirings, I have withheld that list because many of those people are still employed, and I wish to be certain that they are well qualified before that list is published. Next page under poor judgment, first one is allowing Mr. Yonkosky to encourage a letter writing campaign on taxpayersw time in the clerk of the courtws offices. You have two pages -- three pages later a memorandum dated July 21, 1995, from Kathy Hankins, director of finance, second paragraph near the bottom, and I quote, I asked him if he had written such a letter, and he said, oh, no. That wouldnwt be appropriate since Iwm a member of the managerws management team. Wewre just asking line staff to do that. Next item, allowing John Yonkosky to lead the clerkls finance office to the belief that the board had approved a 14 million dollar beach financing package through the Florida Local Government Finance Commission, otherwise known as, I think, FLGFC, which John Yonkosky serves as chairman. John apparently was seeking to sole source the loan since he said we needed to proceed immediately and that the board had approved it when we had not. Second memorandum in the package -- there may or may not be highlighting on it -- another memorandum dated July 21, 1995, from Kathy Hankins addressed to Commissioner Hancock, second paragraph, he indicated that the board had taken action to simply use FLGFC for which he serves as chairman. I have since been contacted by First Union who also wants an opportunity to bid. She goes on to say, I have researched the minutes and cannot find where the board directed me to borrow money from FLGFC. I also cannot find a recommendation from the finance committee on short-term borrowing alternatives to the board. And she goes on to say she doesn't want to unnecessarily spend time and effort until the board approves it. This 14 million dollars, I believe, is -- would be in connection with the beach renourishment project. I'm having difficulty with Mr. Dorrill's appointment of Mr. Yonkosky to the department of revenue. While well qualified for the position, he seems to be unable to follow directions. We have letters addressed to Dwight Brock, the clerk of the court, and we have letters addressed to our own county attorney to that effect. Mr. Yonkosky was employed by the clerk's office when the derivatives were purchased. At least two of our investment brokers advised against such risky derivatives as reported in Mr. Grady's report to us. Mr. Yonkosky purchased them anyway and is now uncooperative in the investigation to recover the taxpayers' money. I'm also having difficulty with the appointment of Captain Day as new assistant to the manager and who will spend 25 percent plus of his time handling employee matters in the areas of intimidation, discrimination, and harassment. Captain Day is reported to have made statements about sexual harassment and intimidation that would lead one to believe there is a better choice. You have inserted just behind that page -- I was given authorization last night to release these statements. The first one is -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm sorry. Where are you? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm on remarks reported to have been made by Captain Ed Day. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm near the end, thank heavens. The first one, quote, in my day sexual harassment was considered a perk. On review of a job application for human resources, the person applying for the job wrote on the application that personality conflict with supervisor -- and I think we've all had that occasionally -- was the reason for leaving a previous employer. Mr. Day had put a big note on this person's application. I quote, if there's a conflict between supervisor and subordinate, it's the subordinate's responsibility to solve it, not qualified. Captain Ed Day once told a story of a serviceman whose wife did not like Captain Day's wife. The man was advised -- the serviceman was advised to tell his wife to fake it. She didn't, and the serviceman did something else that Captain Day did not like. In response Captain Day had his secretary prepare a list of his birthday, his wife's birthday, his children's birthday, their anniversary, and Captain Day made sure that on those days and all national holidays this man was off somewhere on survival training. Mr. Dotrill was made aware of these comments some time ago. With that I conclude. I ask for a second and open it for discussion. Mr. Dotrill, I'm sure you may have discussion. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think again just from a format standpoint it may probably be appropriate to hear first and foremost from Mr. Dotrill and also from the public before we get into any motion. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Dorrill. MR. DORRILL: That being the case, I would like to ask the board for just about a 3-minute recess, again, if for no other reason than I'm in a little bit of a disadvantage not having the ability to recall events and times and places. And I've made at least phone calls and asked for people who would have direct or personal knowledge of those things, case in point being Philip Scheff. Philip Scheff was a fine employee, was a friend of mine, but this is one of the things being used against me and, you know, Philip Scheff was not entertained an opportunity for an exit interview last Friday or whenever his last day was. So I'm trying to get some information from the human resource department to find out was that a miscommunication, did we intentionally for some reason not provide him an exit interview opportunity. And if we could have a brief recess, then I would be more than happy to provide you with a response. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Would it be fairer to you if we heard from these -- you said 15 or 16 people there. That would provide, I'm going to guess, an hour or more's time for you to put together some thoughts. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I suggest that we take lunch and come back and hear the public, and Mr. Dotrill would have time to get a response together. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: What time is it? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Five minutes to twelve. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Five minutes till twelve. I like that idea. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I like that idea. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I like the idea of taking a lunch break. Yes, I'd like the hour myself. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There is a motion on the floor. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Motion to table. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion to table. I would prefer to have a motion to -- to continue until after the noon hour. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm assuming the motion -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: that, I believe. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COHMISSIONER NORRIS: COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: lunch? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The motion to table accomplishes Okay. Hr. -- That's my intent, in any case. Is it to table it until after Is it to table it until after lunch, or is it to continue until after lunch? Hr. Cuyler, do you have the problem -- MR. CUYLER: As long as you're clear when you're going to do it, that's all that's necessary. MR. DORRILL: I only need about five minutes to be able to get the answers to the questions that I'm -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, we're at the noon hour. MR. DORRILL: I understand, Hark. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Let's go to lunch. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I know we have a lot of people here who are interested in talking. We have -- we have a motion to table and a second, and I'm -- I'm going to presume this is to begin this discussion again subsequent to lunch and -- so I'll call the question. All those in favor? Opposed? There being none, motion passes 5 to 0. Let's adjourn until one o'clock or quarter after? One o'clock. (A lunch break was held from 11:55 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.) CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let's reconvene the board of county commission meeting for July 25, 1995. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Hiss Chairman, I make a motion to remove the item from the table. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You make a motion to remove the item from the table. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there a second? We have a second. All those in favor please say aye. We will reopen discussion on item 10-A. I had concluded my remarks. And we were going to move on to public discussion, public comment on it. Mr. Dotrill, how many speakers do we have? MR. DORRILL: I -- I thought that you wanted to -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't want to interrupt you. You were going to have some conversation and then public speakers. I'm sorry. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just out of curiosity, how many do we have? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: A lot. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Seventy-four, seventy-five. MR. DORRILL: Nineteen. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Nineteen? Okay. I -- I think for the sake of brevity -- and I don't want to tell anyone that they cannot speak, so certainly if you do want to speak, feel free to. However, if you have heard someone else say what you had intended to say, I would ask you to -- please when your name is called to say you support whatever such and so person said. At -- 19 of them at 5 minutes per, we'll be here a couple of hours which I certainly have no objection to, but we may want -- we may have to take a dinner break if we continue with this. I do want to say that during the lunch break I did have a phone call from the eastern part of the state from a former employee by the name of Fred Bloetscher who is an engineer originally with utilities and then moved on to OCPH. He is offering an affidavit which will say that essentially his -- his supervisor was not required to come to work or report to the office from sometime in the mid to late part of 1993 until he resigned in June of 1994; that other employees met with him at his home on a biweekly basis or were in contact with him on a near daily basis by telephone; and that similar to an allegation that was made in our recent development services problem that all communication by staff with the media and commissioners was cut off in 1993 and needed to be cleared through the county manager's office. I'm told there will be an affidavit coming to -- to that effect. With that, Mr. Dotrill. MR. DORRILL: You're interested in -- in my response now, or you're interested in public comment? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The pleasure of the board. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Whatever's his preference. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think whatever Neil prefers. MR. DORRILL: I -- I think with that I've -- I've had an opportunity during lunch to prepare responses, and I'd just as soon go ahead and give those. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: The summary of -- of these responses will pattern what I will call the -- the five major areas, and I'll identify them by -- I'm going to use the nomenclature Roman numeral and then the general topic area. That's the easiest way that I found during the course of lunch to -- in order to respond to these. And I would be happy to either elaborate on these or -- or -- or answer your questions either as we go through or at the end come back at your discretion and -- and provide additional information. The first one is what I'm calling Roman numeral number 1 which is a failure to follow board directives. And the first area that was involved concerned investments. And I -- I want only to digress here briefly -- and it will be the only time that I do as part of my responses -- just to remind you all that the county manager is not nor has he ever been responsible for the investment portfolio of this county. And while a great deal has been said about the clerk's former finance director and the role that that individual played, the ultimate responsibility under the current policy for the board's investments rests with the clerk. And I don't want either this board or the community to think for one minute that the problems, if there are any associated with derivatives or actions on the part of a former employee of the clerk's agency that may have occurred two years ago, is something that I'm being held accountable for or responsible for today. In any event -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me, Mr. Dorrill. I'm going to interrupt on that because that former employee of the clerk's office is now in your employ, and you had express direction from this board to cooperate. It is anticipated that your employees, which included this person, would cooperate. Thank you. MR. DORRILL: I don't -- I don't think that I've said anything -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah. MR. DORRILL: -- contrary to that fact. I said a great deal has been said about my role in investments or my perceived role in investments. And your board-approved policy has absolutely no role at all for the county manager to play as it pertains to investments. That was my only point. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MR. DORRILL: As a result of your hearing Mr. Grady's preliminary assessment, though, you did request that I make Mr. Yonkosky, who's the clerk's former finance director, available to cooperate and answer questions. And, in fact, shortly after that -- in fact, it was the following day -- I met with Mr. Yonkosky and directed him to schedule a meeting in conjunction with his request in order to answer questions or provide documents that he needed as part of his inquiry into this matter. I also spoke to the county attorney's office and indicated -- and I think Mr. Cuyler can collaborate this -- that I told Mr. Yonkosky that he needed to be in the accompany of someone from the county attorney's office, your county attorney's office, because you will recall that you have not engaged Mr. Grady. And the only instruction outside of the one that you gave me as it pertains to Mr. Yonkosky was that he was to accompany or be in the accompany of someone from the county attorney's office when he met with Mr. Grady. I thought that was a prudent thing to do on your behalf because of and, in fact, it's my understanding that Mr. Cuyler accompanied Mr. Yonkosky to that meeting. There have been no subsequent requests for a follow-up meeting, and there have been no subsequent requests for any documentation at all. So the contention that we have been uncooperative is just frankly not true. And, in fact, that was all coordinated through the attorney's office. I did not attend the meeting, but I required that he be in the accompany of someone from the attorney's office. The issue with respect to performance budgeting is one, frankly, that we have worked very hard in order to make this board happy. I want you to know that as part of your original fiscal policy and budget preparation policy that you adopted in the winter of last year we had not initially discussed gain sharing or performance budgeting. The first time we ever discussed gain sharing or performance budgeting was as a result of your policy already being approved. We had a strategic planning workshop at the central library at the beginning to the middle part of the spring. That was the first time that the board ever discussed any type of gain sharing proposal. As a result of that, I told this board that I would research and be prepared to make some recommendations but because the budgets were already in progress that I did not feel that this year we could adopt a gain sharing proposal county-wide and that I would endeavor to prepare some selected examples and that I would look for what I felt to be our very best departments who had good incremental unit cost data because gain sharing based on our research cannot be effectively done unless you know what your unit costs to perform a service are. In some subsequent conversations with Ms. Matthews, I asked her was she aware, because she initiated the discussion, of any counties that were actively involved in any type of gain sharing or did she have any information concerning the format that could be used. She had none, but she suggested that we contact Palm Beach County which we did immediately. I'm pleased to announce that the budgeting that we already do, zero based program budgeting, exceeds the program based budgeting that Palm Beach is utilizing. We have a more sophisticated zero based budget than does Palm Beach County from our perspective. We did obtain copies of their performance measurement criteria system. And, in fact, we had prepared and I have memorandum from June the 29th from the office of management and budget director, Mr. Smykowski, the completed gain sharing budgets that I had indicated to the board that I would present to you at your wrap-up session. Your wrap-up session was originally scheduled just prior to your recess. And I might add the wrap-up session was rescheduled on two different occasions in order to accommodate the board's personal travel and/or other business schedules prior to the summer recess. The point being, though, that, Ms. Matthews, you made the contention that I -- it appeared that I had no intention of providing the board with gain sharing budgets. I did report as part of your workshop reviews that we would endeavor to present them the day of the wrap-up session. The wrap-up session was originally scheduled from 9 a.m. and was to conclude on or around noon within advance of the lunch recess. I made a decision when we got to five o'clock that afternoon that the board was in no frame of mind to try and get into the three proposals that we have developed. And we do have completed gain sharing proposals for the facility management department, the library department, and the utilities water department that were completed on June the 29th. Had it not been for the fact that your final workshop schedule was five hours beyond its scheduled completion time, we would have presented it prior to your leaving for recess. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me. MR. DORRILL: We still intend to present it. And, in fact, Mr. Smykowski is ready to present this as early as next Tuesday. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: What were the three companies -- the three departments? MR. DORRILL: Library -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Library. MR. DORRILL: -- facilities management and the utilities water department. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Those were completed on June the 29th of 1995. The issue concerning the certification of an individual -- and the name of that individual is Bill Smith -- who formerly served as the county's chief building official and an allegation that he had in some way falsified his application to be the chief building official, I do have a vague recollection that I discussed that with Ms. MAtthews. I cannot tell you and I researched -- and for those of you that I have regular one-on-one meetings with, you know that I always come with an agenda and I always take notes on my agenda. There is no record that I discussed that with Ms. MAtthews at any time during April, although I do have a vague recollection that we discussed it after Mr. Smith was gone. There is a separate notation that I then discussed with Jennifer Edwards at a later date my concern that we have someone who was either certified previously as a chief building official or that we could quickly obtain the certification for someone so that we be in compliance with the Southern Standard Building Code. That was, in fact, done. And, in fact, Joe MAgri already had the same certification necessary, and he was the one who was appointed to fill the position in the -- on the resignation of Bill Smith. There's no record based on my notes or the agendas of the meetings that I've had with Ms. MAtthews or other commissioners that I was provided any written information concerning a falsified application. To the extent that we pursued it or investigated it, it was to ensure we were in compliance with the southern code, and that was the rationale for the appointment of Mr. MAgri. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You're absolutely right. There was no written information. It's one of the few times in my life it was verbal. MR. DORRILL: And I'm indicating that -- that while I have a vague recollection that in talking to you at least -- and I take what I feel to be good notes and always come prepared at meetings with agendas -- there was nothing written, but I do recall that you and I had in some context an indication concerning Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith had left employ of the county at that time. And my immediate concern, my subsequent discussion with Ms. Edwards, was to make sure that we had a properly certified legal building official for this county. In terms of what was called the doom and gloom budget forecast, I don't intend to make apologies for that this afternoon. In fact, I thought that was a fairly novel and innovative thing for us to do. In the history of this county, the Board of County Commissioners has never been assisted by having a multi-year revenue and expense forecast. And I thought that we had made it fairly clear to the board that our forecast was based on historical data and prior years' spending practices. And you may recall my original thrust was that if our revenue situation remained constant but we continued to spend money at the rate that we were spending money that we would, in fact, have problems beginning this year but they would be especially difficult beginning next year, and for next year rationale being because of the reliance on sales tax to fund your road construction schedule. I will not make apologies for us having done what I feel to be a very sophisticated projection that was completed, provided to the board under separate cover that was done by the office of management and budget a three-year forecast that is a very sophisticated piece of work. And in particular, the things that made the difference this year was that the growth in the tax base as part of the projection was two and a half percent. And that was based on historical data provided by Mr. Colding's office -- excuse me, Mr. Skinner's office. That was the rate of increase for each of the last two years. This year's increase in new construction was 4 percent. That in and of itself is worth almost two million dollars in additional revenue that would have not been anticipated based on prior year expenses. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Mr. Dorrill, I need to get that part. The -- the difference between the two and a half anticipated rate and the actual 4 percent rate -- MR. DORRILL: Was a full one and a half percent of value, and this year's value is almost 20 billion dollars. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So that that unanticipated point and a half resulted in how much increased revenue? MR. DORRILL: My -- just right off the top of my -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just balipark. MR. DORRILL: -- head standing here it's going to be an easy two million dollars of additional general fund type revenue. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And the -- and the projected doom for -- for this year, was it in the balipark of two million dollars? Is that -- MR. DORRILL: No. You'll recall it was in the balipark of about four million dollars. And when we set out the very first day of your budget workshops, I told you we were looking for about four million dollars -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right. MR. DORRILL: -- above and as part of the tentative budget that I had provided to you. In addition, I thought that I made it fairly clear that the manager's recommended tentative budget included beach parking fees. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yes, you did. MR. DORRILL: And that if we didn't have that $900,000 in beach parking fees that that was going to be part of this 4 percent, 4 million dollar shortfall. I also told you and you went one step beyond that if we did not budget an additional percent for attrition that that was going to compound our need to obtain that four million dollars. You'll recall you did instruct me to budget 3 percent for attrition. We also had -- and just as a parenthetical note, in order to present to you the budget that we did came at considerable sacrifice. I cut 21 million dollars out of that budget before you ever saw it. So I'm not going to stand here this afternoon either and make excuses for the budget that we gave you that was better than the projection that we had given you for the reasons that I alluded to. As it concerns the department of revenue and whether we cooked or misled the board in terms of the original approval as part of the projection in -- in terms of the savings, the original savings on an apples-to-apples comparison if we continued to do nothing more than consolidate was $88,508. And, in fact, this board approximately six weeks ago approved budget amendments totaling that amount of savings to put into your reserve funds, to take the money out of the operating budgets and place it in the proper fund reserves that totaled $88,000. In addition, I gave this board what I called and referred to at a county commission meeting in March a Chinese menu of additional options available to you that included us doing solid waste billing, us doing special assessment billing, us undertaking a lock box concept. All of those were what I called additional enhancements above the $88,000 through consolidation. Those totaled $298,000. The board ultimately instructed that we process the $88,000 in savings that was approved five to nothing, that we not proceed with clerk special assessments nor solid waste billings nor immediately the lock box concept. But we did go back, and we offered to take bids on those as a conciliatory action on my behalf to work with the constitutional officers. And I think I said at a public meeting that if they could beat our bids by one dollar that I would stand here and recommend to you that we stay with the constitutional officers. We did do that in the case of solid waste billing because you made a policy decision to change that type of billing to go to a county-wide special assessment on the tax bill for solid waste. That is the only change that has been processed since the original DOR. But the budget amendment that was approved was 88,000, Ms. Matthews, not the 30,000 that you alluded to, and there's a copy of that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me. Excuse me. I'm going to interrupt there because we had a lot of discussion at the budget workshop of two of the departments coming in and needing additional people to replace people who were being moved to DOR to do finance functions that the person being moved to the DOR was going to be able to do -- COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In utilities. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- or would have done. And -- and -- and that subsequently reduced the amount from 88,000 to about 30. MR. DORRILL: Well, the -- the amount for this year was 88,000 that was approved by the board at a regular board meeting, and that money has been put into reserves. We indicated as part of the submittal of next year's budget that we were proposing some enhancements to the department of revenue and, in fact -- and/or enhancements to the utilities administration section. And those were the subject of a fair amount of discussion at the utilities budget workshop. And both that item and the other item concerning extraordinary preventative maintenance were ultimately approved by the board. As part of the workshop process, we didn't take a vote, but it seemed to me that the consensus was five to nothing in support of enhancements for the utilities budget, and I'll allude to that in just a minute. As it concerns the projected utilities budget that was submitted, we did, in fact, submit a budget to the county commission. You had instructed that you wanted to see a budget of at least 10 percent in terms of reduction over their current year budget. And we, in fact, provided you with a budget that was 11.3 percent less than their current year budget. We did not cut or eliminate preventative maintenance, existing preventative maintenance, as a result of that. I have and I will provide to you but I want to elaborate -- there are two technical issues here today, and I want you to allow me to elaborate on this for just a second. The current year budget for utilities water operations was eighteen and a half percent below that of the prior year -- we're on the water side only -- the majority of which is in the operating expense category attributable to less expenditures in the area of electricity and chemical usage at the north county regional water treatment plant. This is a brand new plant, has nothing to do with us cutting preventative maintenance or eliminating crucial maintenance to the system. We relied on certified engineering estimates from our engineer to pervect -- to project electrical and chemical usage at the new plant. And the majority of the expenses on the savings on the water side have come through a more efficient first year of actual operations at the new north county water treatment plant. There was no reduction in necessary preventative maintenance on the water side as part of that. On the waste water side, the budget changed from the adopted current year budget reflects a 13.9 percent decrease. This particular decrease is attributable to reduced operating costs at Pelican Bay and the south county waste water treatment facility as well as reduced operating costs for our collection operations. We in addition eliminated five vacant positions in the utility waste water department in order to achieve the board-directed budget cuts necessary. Again, there were no cuts in required or crucial preventative maintenance. There were cuts in operating costs for chemicals as they pertained to the collection operations which would have been en -- enjoined lift stations and pump stations and, in addition, the elimination of five full-time equivalent positions in the waste water department. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Let me ask just on that point my -- my concern there -- bless you. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: -- is that -- is what you're saying that we didn't cut maintenance out of this year's budget just so we could save the 11 percent, but we've never had adequate budgeting for maintenance? MR. DORRILL: And I'm going to come to that in just a second. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm sorry. I thought you were done. MR. DORRILL: Point "A" is that we did not and I would not cut preventative maintenance in order to give you a -- a lowball or low bid sort of budget in order to meet your 10 percent. In fact, I don't think if we eliminated all preventative maintenance that it would equal 11 percent of the entire utility division. Beyond that, we then proposed -- we had some new expanded services or enhancements this year. And in particular, we then showed the board that you had voted to change the treatment process at the south county waste water treatment plant, and we were going from a chlorine gas to a liquid chlorine bleach disinfection. We showed that as a new item because it had never appeared in the utility budget before. That was shown as $112,000 as an expanded service request that was approved that was new money. But my contention there is that that was something that did not exist in last year's budget. And, in fact, that facility is -- is only about to come on line. Also there is a new sludge processing and sludge drying facility at the north county waste water treatment plant that is also -- will not come on line until next year. But under your budget instructions, we have to differentiate between what we have and what we are asking you that is new. Those were the two expanded service budgets that were approved for next year. Then we got into -- if I can finish, I'll come back to you, Ms. Matthews. Then we got into -- because we had shown additional higher levels of preventative maintenance, we gave the board, I believe, two or three higher levels of preventative maintenance that we had never had approved before. While there had been requests to expand on preventative maintenance programs, that was the subject of almost an hour's worth of discussion at the utility budget workshop. And, frankly, to my surprise and to the surprise of the budget staff, the board readily bought into expanding on preventative maintenance above the levels that were already included in the budget that was submitted to you. Those were approved, and the final analysis was that we went from 11.3 percent in savings. And if you factor in all of the enhancements or all of the expanded services for the two new plants or the two new treatments that I alluded to, that budget is still 6.3 percent less than the budget that was approved last year. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock had a comment. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: The -- the $400,000 in maintenance that came about -- and I -- I appreciate, Commissioner Matthews, the credit for initiating that -- during my site visits to different county departments, what was brought to my attention from a couple of our utilities people is that much to their credit past boards when looking at the maintenance had tried to trim the maintenance to maintain low costs and keep everyone's, you know -- the cost of providing utilities down. But the fear became that the accumulation of those efforts on an individual year after year after year were going to be that we were going to have significant replacement costs that could be cut off by maintenance. So the reason I -- I bring all that up is that I didn't see this 400,000 being in place of a reduction. But these are things that our utility department was not doing that the board in the past had not approved them to do. So the two, in fact, are very separate. And if I'm incorrect, I'm sure Mr. Dotrill and Mr. HcNees will correct me. But that was -- the two to me were -- were extremely separate. They weren't even related. I just saw an eventual pitfall and tried to head it off hopefully so that we down the road won't have to deal with 12 or 14 million dollars worth of replacement costs. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'd like to comment on that because if I remember the conversation correctly when this board changed its mind about issuing an RFP on privatization of the utilities, the direction from this board was for the utilities to produce a budget with a measurable level of service that was 10 percent less so that if we did not care to operate at whatever level of service that was, at least we had a benchmark with which to prepare an RFP. And if -- if needed, we'll -- I'll in the next two weeks if -- if my motion succeeds, I'll go back and pull those minutes. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I -- I -- I also recall that. But the way I recall this discussion was -- and, frankly, I think that I may even have made the motion to postpone the privatization vote. I know that I -- I supported it. I remember Commissioner Norris saying, well, we don't have to -- we don't need to know what the utilities department could do it for because we already have their budget and obviously that's their bid. And Mr. Dotrill said, you know, competition's a wonderful thing. I think I could match what you've been told. What you've been told is that a private company could do it for something like 10 percent less. Let me go and make my best shot at trying to match that. And -- and that's what I voted for. Let's see what you can do at a 10 percent cut before we go and -- and do an RFP to privatize. So -- so I have the same recollection about the 10 percent. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And -- and -- and if I can carry that further, Commissioner Hancock brought up the question of the maintenance, and we -- we put off final decision on the utilities budget. And the utilities, both water and waste water, came back to us with a detailed -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- list of the maintenance. And I was appalled that we were not doing maintenance in accordance with recommended manufacturer's recommendations. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: May I say something? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes, sure. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: During your presentation earlier, all of us sat here pretty quietly without interruption and let you go on pretty much from start to finish on your presentation. We gave you the courtesy of doing that. And even though I could have probably taken issue with almost every point you brought up, I sat here and didn't do it. I'm just asking, you know, let's -- let's let the manager have his say -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: -- and not argue every point that he brings up. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- I -- I don't wish to argue every point. Commissioner Hancock wanted to interject on that, and -- and we got into a discussion regarding that point. I'm sorry, Mr. Dotrill. Will you continue? MR. DORRILL: I'll just conclude that by saying it was -- it was our direction to show you a 10 percent decrease as it prepared -- as it compared to the approved current year's budget. We did provide you with an 11.3 percent decrease that did not cut existing levels of preventative maintenance. I have been obligated to show you and remind you that -- that we're projecting two new plants and processes next year. We budgeted for those separately. Those were approved as were your enhancements to the preventative maintenance program that we have had historically. The issue with respect -- I'm moving on now in Roman numeral number 3 as it pertains to what I'm calling the human resource department update. Specifically what my statements to you were on March the 12th as they concerned exit interviews, I think that the first thing that you should know is that exit interviews as part of the -- the prior existing policy -- this was something discussed not only at the staff level but at a board level -- our employees have always since I became the manager under the most recent human resource policies had the opportunity for an exit interview. It was at their option. Beginning on Hay the 12th I indicated to the board that we began to initiate as part of a resignation or termination or retirement a request that the employees schedule an exit interview. That was effective on Hay the 12th. I need to tell you, though, that stopped short of you cannot withhold an employee's final check, nor can you withhold their final personnel action report their last day here for failure to attend an exit interview, my point being you cannot force employees to attend an exit interview. But we now as a matter of policy initiate the request to schedule an exit interview. And that was done effective on Hay the 12th. But prior to that employees could always have at their option an exit interview. And we have never tried to prevent anyone from providing an exit interview if they so chose. The situation concerning our colleague and, frankly, a good and supportive employee from my perspective in Mr. Scheff was a scheduling problem. Mr. Zalucky who was scheduled to do the exit interview at the same time had been scheduled to represent the human resource department in a disciplinary hearing. And that's a matter of record. And he was off campus at the time that Mr. Scheff arrived for his exit interview. A subsequent phone call to Mr. Scheff to reschedule that exit interview if he so chose has not been returned. But Mr. Zalucky initiated the phone call to try and reschedule that. But we in no way prevented nor would we prevent Mr. Scheff from providing us with an exit interview if he so chose. The employee who was responsible for that was off site at another scheduled meeting. The -- the next item and perhaps the one that is the most important from -- from both a professional standpoint and also that of -- of just my personal integrity and character has to do with Ms. Matthews' assertion that I had intentionally misled her or threatened or coerced her concerning what was initially her comments of a lack of support to review and consider extending my comment -- my contract on -- on Hr. Loveday's radio journal show. I should say first that in my 16 years here I have prided myself in my personal and my professional character. In those 16 years I have never threatened nor would I intend to threaten any county commissioner with some act of retribution or retaliation as a result of any action on the part of any commissioner. And I will tell you over those 16 years I have had some fairly contentious, often heated exchanges with county commissioners both here in the chambers as well as in the privacy of your office. And I am very proud to say that at no time have I ever nor would I ever threaten a county commissioner with some type of political retribution for not supporting me. Ms. Matthews, in fact, the -- the issue as you have reported it is partially correct. And I did, in fact, provide you with a handwritten list of what I felt -- in spite of your lack of support and your stated public comments concerning your lack of support to renew my contract, I provided you with a list of approximately a half a dozen items where I felt I went above and beyond the normal requirements of the county commissioner to save or reach compromises on projects, the majority of which were in your district and the majority of which had problems or were not moving forward. And I did, in fact, say that I became personally involved to try and reach a compromised proposal for the board to consider on the Everglades City museum facility, capital improvement project. I was instrumental in providing a compromised proposal and asked the board to reconsider supporting in Ms. Matthews' district the Immokalee swimming pool and aquatic complex and gymnasium facility. I also was instrumental in assisting originally in the extension of West Clox Road which was not on that list. And the point being, Ms. Matthews, that frankly I was trying to show you that in the absence of your stated support of me that I was trying to go the extra mile to gain your support and your confidence for things that I was not otherwise required to do. And the point that I want to make there is just that, and you should not have misinterpreted my desire, especially in your case, to work extra hard for you in order to gain the support that apparently you didn't have with respect to -- to the contract. The fifth area is -- is one that entails a list of flawed or what you consider to be failed management practices. And I -- I will say just briefly that management style or management practice is -- is probably as different as are there fingerprints throughout the world. I think this board has hired me in order to be effective and in order to be fair and in order to be knowledgeable and competent on modern public administration practices as we try and move this 300 million dollar organization forward. And in some of these there may just be a difference of opinion in terms of how I elected to handle a matter, some of which are two years old, I might add, but continue to seem to want to crop up for which I have to stand here or to continually respond to repeatedly. The first issue en -- entailed the lease agreement with the Hubschman -- Hubschman family that was not renewed in a timely fashion for what were rented percolation ponds. I have admitted publicly on two occasions that there was a mistake, an oversight, that was made two years ago in the utility division that did not renew that lease agreement. Human beings are going to make mistakes. And I have never said that I was not ultimately responsible but nor can I control the actions of people when they occur because they will occur in 1,100 different times and different ways. And I think we have admitted that for the last two years. I will say, though, having said that, we still need an effluent disposal mechanism. And the fact that somehow we have wasted a million dollars worth of taxpayers' money is not a correct statement because you're either going to have to drill that deep well or you're going to have to buy or continue to rent long-term land to dispose of the effluent because we don't have the tank storage capacity nor do we have golf course effluent disposal capacity in the south county area. That's just a fact of life and the circumstances and the cards that we've been dealt. The issues concerning the utility software situation have also been reported to the board almost continuously over the course of the last year. I will tell you that we have not experienced numerous or repeated failures in utilities software billing systems. We did have one. We had one that we admitted that was as a result of the bankruptcy of the firm that we purchased it from. The board on three different occasions took a wait-and-see attitude with respect to either moving forward with that -- with that software or going out for proposals to replace and find new software. We retained a consultant who is knowledgable about the bankruptcy of the firm that we had. They reported to the board and you approved their recommendation but delayed the implementation of the recommendation. On the second occasion where we asked you for your willingness to move forward, your response was let's wait until we hire our own information technology director. And in the final instance where we asked you to move forward, it was as part of your request to delay a final decision on the department of revenue because the department of revenue was going to be responsible for utility billing. We have received and have settled the dispute of over a year and a half ago with our software vendor. We are in receipt of that software system, and it is complete. And, in fact, I have been advised that we have now received the first upgrades to that software system as a result of the settlement that we have with them. Concerning the development service reorganizations, I -- I will tell you that when I see a business opportunity to save this board money through making changes in terms of organizational charts or assignments or span of control, I will make those. And I don't frankly think that the characterization that -- that we have shuffled the deck or that we have proposed two reorganizations and one deck shuffling over the course of eight and a half years is not something that I consider to be a management flaw. I consider it to be flexible enough and willing to make changes enough when they make business sense. And whether it was this year's reorganization that eliminated $400,000 from the budget from consolidating division administrators or whether it was three year ago's mid level manager reduction in force that saved a million dollars, I'm going to make changes in the organizational structure where I see and think that to make business sense. And, frankly, that's management prerogative. That is not your prerogative to make the final decisions with respect to staffing loads or manpower planning. The issue concerning the morale of employees and specifically the fact that I have striked fear into the hearts of utility employees is interesting if for no other reason than a recent internal audit that I had initial concerns about that surveyed all employees in the utilities division given their concerns or lack of concerns for privatization which was mentioned resulted in on average 75 percent of the employees in that division saying that they were not only satisfied with their job and their circumstances but their work environment. And that was done outside of my ability to control or influence. But I will tell you that as it pertains to morale issues in general, I -- I think the county manager has an outstanding reputation over the last 16 years, and I'm very proud of the fact that the average employee here probably refers to me as Neil as opposed to Mr. Dotrill or as opposed to the county manager. If we take 1,100 people, I will tell you there is going to be a certain percentage of them who do not like me or who do not care for me at all as a result of some decision that I have made that affected them directly or indirectly. I think in short that the morale here's very good. And I'm going to allude to some specifics here in -- in just an instant. But the issue that I have to contend with daily trying to lead over a thousand employees is to make sure that Neil Dotrill in his capacity as county manager is respected, not that he is endeared or he is loved or he is popular but respected because in order to be an effective manager and in order at times unnecessarily to hand out some discipline, you're not going to be loved or endeared. But you need to be able to maintain some semblance of control and some semblance of respect on the part of rank and file people that are out there working very hard for us every day. Specifically in -- in the year in which we're in, I have taken the following actions to enhance employee morale. We have enhanced and improved the visibility and role of the employees' independently elected advisory council. We do not have labor unions here, and I'm very proud of the fact that we do not have labor unions in the sense that they are in a contentious, adversarial relationship with the county commission. What we do have is an independently elected employee advisory council who meet privately every month with the county manager. Five weeks ago this board approved the appointment of a independent assistant to the county manager for human resource affairs. We have identified a need and an admitted problem in training for first-line supervisors, people at the foreman level or the section or supervisor level. And we have already taken steps and we have already scheduled training for first level supervisors for August and September before the end of this fiscal year to improve on their supervisory skills. With regard to grievances -- and I don't want to diminish grievances or I don't want to diminish or create a trap for myself that the fact that we don't have grievances is because employees feel intimidated -- we get grievances all the time. We don't happen to get very many of them. I would like to think that's as a result of fairly good employee morale. At the moment we have three grievances in the entire organization that are in progress. In each of the last two years, we only get about one grievance per month. And, in fact, throughout the entire year with over a thousand employees, we only get two grievances per year on average that make it all the way to the county manager's office. We have three equal opportunity complaints that are pending at the moment. One of those -- and I should -- I should say that any EEOC complaint is a matter and is indicative of a more serious problem. There are three. One of those is the situation involving Ms. Bernstein and her contention that there was collusion on the part of this board with respect to the selection of a community development administrator in Mr. Clark. The history on that is -- is very old and involves any number of current or former commissioners, and I don't really intend to elaborate on that. The other two issues are for employees who work in the courthouse. And I told this board the middle of last year that we were the only urban county in the 20th Judicial Circuit who did not have an effective organizational chain of command for the employees in the courthouse. Those employees are not under my immediate direction nor ability to control. Those employees are under the immediate direction of the chief judge of the 20th Judicial Circuit. The arrangement that we have is peculiar and odd and the exception within the 20th Judicial Circuit because technically they are on your payroll, and they are technically under your rules and regulations. That creates a burden and a hardship in order to effectively supervise those people. And I do believe that there are problems within the probation department for no other reason than our other two EEOC complaints are both within the E -- within the probation department. One of them is a year-old alleged sexual harassment situation within probation. That one is fairly well documented. There is a case pending before the EEOC in Hiami. It has been independently reviewed by both your county attorney as well as independently reviewed by two female managers within our community prior to this latest incident becoming public knowledge. Those two individuals were Jennifer Edwards who is now our human resource director and also the current and new human resource director for the city of Naples, Sue Weising. Neither of those individuals had their current positions at the time that I asked them to independently review the investigation of the situation that was not under our immediate control. The other one was one that started as a religious discrimination and an age discrimination case. It involved another employee in the probation department, again, another employee not under my immediate control. You will recall their name is Shariff, and both her and her husband who I believe is a physician appeared here as part of a -- a public comment one day at a county commission meeting. So we have three EEOC complaints. My response on those is that two of the three are beyond my immediate ability to control. And while we have proposed a management agreement with the 20th Judicial Circuit, you're currently scheduled to see that I believe the first or second week in August, and it is proposed to be effective the 1st of October at the start of the new fiscal year only in the event that you choose to do so. The isolated instance involving a female employee who brandished or who pointed a handgun at other employees is something that I had prior knowledge of. It is something even in advance of it being brought to my attention by Ms. Litsinger we had knowledge of, had investigated, and had already concluded the investigation. One of the things I -- I learned very early in becoming your county manager was -- was twofold. The first thing is that there are always two sides to every story. And while someone who gets some information secondhand that becomes, gee, some employee was waving a pistol in the work place, when you go and you investigate that matter, you will find that it was a female employee who was taking shooting lessons after hours at an indoor pistol range and who had in her possession a handgun that was holstered and in a gym bag and when asked to show it to her fellow coworkers, she did. But it is her contention and that of other colleagues in the office that she never unholstered the weapon, nor did she point that weapon at anybody, my point being we had knowledge of it, we investigated it. There's no collaborating information that would -- would indicate that this employee had threatened in any way any other employee with a brandished weapon. Unfortunately, that's just, again, the nature of trying to manage 1,100 people. And some days when you come to work here, things work real good. Other days when you come to work here -- I can tell you I think the going rate according to my -- my teenager for babysitting is about five bucks an hour. And there are a lot of days I come to work here and we have to babysit them a little bit, too, to be honest with you. The -- the issue concerning Mr. Yonkosky misrepresenting to the county commission our intent to use the board's approved commercial paper program for the beach renourishment financing -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me. He misrepresented that to the clerk's office. MR. DORRILL: And in turn our intent then to present it to the county commission. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't know. MR. DORRILL: Okay. I'm -- I'm about to dispel that -- is again not true. I have in my hand the executive summary that was presented to the county commission. And in the very first paragraph under considerations, it says financing is based on using the county's tax-exempt commercial paper program. This was the executive summary that was presented to the board as -- as part of that. We have used your Florida Association of Counties commercial paper program for any number of interim and short-term financing instruments. We never intended to deceive either you nor the clerk's office as to our intent to use this. Are there other short-term financing instruments available? The answer is absolutely yes. This and our own letter of credit with Sun Bank happen to be the -- the two that we use 100 percent of the time. Could we have solicited bids in this case from the First Union Bank? Absolutely. Have we ever done that prior to now? Absolutely not. We have consistently used and you are a charter member of the Florida Association of Counties' commercial paper program. And you have your own independent line of credit with Sun Bank. And, in fact, that's what we told you we intended to do in the first paragraph of the executive summary. The other contention that, again -- and it wraps around my unwillingness to cooperate because I have some allegiance to Mr. Yonkosky -- I can tell you that in honesty and prior to this board coming, Mr. Yonkosky was probably the single largest political foe that I had in county government. He worked for a former clerk who is no longer the clerk of this county. And every Monday morning they produced what we lovingly referred to as the hit list where we felt the clerk and his finance director were intentionally trying to make us look bad every Tuesday morning as part of the regular meeting. I can hear the -- the TAG people snickering behind me because they also received a copy of what was called the hit list every Monday morning, and the author of that was John Yonkosky. It -- it tickles me, frankly, that all of a sudden that I'm -- I'm perceived and, in fact, I probably hired Mr. Yonkosky for his interim appointment beyond my normal knee jerk reaction because of the reason that I said, was that for many years here I considered him to be an adversary. I now consider him to be a wrath of talent and knowledge within the finance area. Ms. Matthews, you said -- I counted it -- at least three times that I have confirmed him as the director of the department of revenue. That's not correct. At this point he is not. He is assigned that responsibility, and we have withheld his appointment to that position pending the final review from Mr. Grady. And I only felt that that was a -- a prudent thing to do. It is intended in no way to disparage or prejudge what, if any, role that he had as it concerns those investments. But your -- your assertion was that somehow I had an allegiance or I owed him favors, and I think that speaks for itself. The issue concerning the revised investment policy is one where I felt honestly that I was following your lead. As it concerns the issue with respect to derivatives, we never had a county investment committee until after that story broke. And, in fact, the Board of County Commissioners has never approved an investments committee. The clerk has named an ad hoc committee that consists of three constitutional officers, one county commissioner, and several additional members to be appointed by the clerk. I frankly -- I don't think that's a flawed system, but it always perplexed me that we are dealing with the investment of your money, but you only have one vote on the committee that determines the investment strategy of your own money. And, Ms. Matthews, you did indicate that -- that we were -- while you did not vote, I at least perceived as a result of Mr. Norris's comments at a past board meeting that you wanted to see at some point an investment policy revision that would be reviewed by the county commission. In fact, we had initially drafted one and sent one last December. But from last December until the derivative story broke until this very day, we have never gone back to revise that investment policy. The one that was tentatively scheduled for your review and direction to me today is the one that had been drafted by the staff last December because I felt that it was good staff work. And it was not until Commissioner Norris a month ago asked to see it that I felt compelled to put it on the agenda. I have sat and held it for the last six months because we did not have any direction from this board to amend your investments policy. I do think at some point you need to consider doing that. I honestly and professionally think that -- that you need to -- to take those matters very seriously and take them into your own hand because you are ultimately going to be held responsible for the decisions that were used to invest that money because of what I said. It s the Board of County Commissioners' money. But I in no way attempted nor did I intend to deceive the board. I thought our direction was clear, and that is not a new revision. That is the same one that I sent to commissioners who asked for it last December of 1994. The -- the final area -- and I want to thank you in advance for -- for giving me the opportunity to -- to having had a chance during lunch to attempt to provide as complete a response as -- as I could. The last one deals with alleged statements on the part of Captain Ed Day. And I don't -- I don't fully understand the -- the complete motivation for those. But during the course of -- of lunch, I did ask him to provide me information because of the nature or the inflammatory way that they were used at the conclusion of the chairman's remarks. What -- what Mr. Day said in the context of a group of employees at community development -- and -- and to be honest with you, I don't know how old Ed Day is, but I can tell you he's considerably older than I am. He said that in his lifetime, sexual harassment has gone from an executive perk to a crime and thus its seriousness. I will tell you that I used an almost similar statement to that as part of some recent remarks that I made at a luncheon attended by over 150 people at the East Naples Civic Association last month. But in complete context, his response was concerning the seriousness of it, that it has gone from an executive perk to a crime or a felonous type act in his lifetime in terms of the working world. He readily indicates that yes, that as part of his former responsibilities in the human resource department he was asked to review and put his assessment of applications for consideration to fill vacancies. And in several instances where he thought that he saw a pattern or a history of problems between a prospective employee and an employer that resulted in that person resigning or being terminated that he feels that it's his job to bring that to the attention of the department head who may be about to make that same mistake in hiring someone who has a history of contentious problems between a supervisor or an employer and an employee. Last and -- and -- and not to diminish the -- the context of the decisions concerning what Captain Day may or may not have said concerning somebody's wife not liking his wife at a Naval base before I was ever born, I don't honestly understand the -- the importance of that. And while that may be an issue in the minds of someone, something that may have been said between two wives at a -- a Naval base 40 years ago is just something that I'm either not responsible for nor do I -- I intend to comment on here today. But I -- I appreciate your courtesy and your opportunity to afford you a response to what I felt were all of Ms. Matthews' decisions. And I thank you. And I've got a -- a couple of other issues concerning what I consider to be where we ought to be going this year and a lot of positive things. And I can tell you that it will only take three minutes, and I'd like to at least run through those, and then I will sit down and let you entertain public comment. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Dorrill, three minutes because we -- we'd like to get onto the public while we -- while we have -- MR. DORRILL: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- the monumental decision before us of where to go. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But I'd really like to hear this too. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah. MR. DORRILL: This -- this is only intended to be where I -- where I -- where I wish that we as a group were in my capacity as -- as your chief appointed executive officer. While many of the -- the issues -- and I feel that I have -- given only an hour to respond have provided you with an effective response. The issues that I think are most important in terms of my effectiveness are -- are the following: I've got three points here. Do we have measurable goals, objectives and specific performance indicators and deadlines for which to hold me responsible? And I will tell you given my -- my recent concern about whether or not the board as a group had goals, last January we did propose a year's worth of goals and objectives and specific monthly target performance dates so that someone at some point could determine both my success or lack of success and the performance of your staff. And I will tell you that -- that we did that and that you approved with very glowing remarks the fact that I had taken the initiative to tell you what we were going to do this year. And, in fact, twice this year I have given you quarterly updates on our performance, and I will tell you that we are 95 percent on target with all the goals and all the objectives and all the performance indicators that I told you we would do. And it's a very ambitious plan. It was recently recommended to me that the board had an increasing interest in operations, information, you want to know more. A month ago at the beginning of your recess, I began giving you a written condensed weekly operations report and provide copies to the media on what we accomplished and what we intend to accomplish in the coming week. And it comes out every Friday and is available Friday afternoon or the first thing every Monday morning depending on your -- your work schedule. By the time we get to the end of the year, the end of the fiscal year, I feel that you will have a reasonable objective basis to determine my performance on the business issues and the strategic planning goals and objectives for this county. My evaluation is due the last week of the fiscal year coincidentally. And I feel that if you will stop and look at the goals that I submitted in January, the quarterly reports, the 95 percent attainment level, the weekly operating report, it's there. I am endeavoring to lead you and provide goals collectively where none existed prior to our effort to do that this year. We have endeavored increasingly -- point number two, when problems develop in this county, I think where you should hold me responsible is -- is, frankly, how did the manager respond. Does he show a willingness to make changes? Does he show a willingness to let people go when they need to be let go or to hold people accountable for the policies of the county commission? And I think if anything over the last six months is -- I have either been scrutinized or persecuted or you check your -- and you determine your own word. I think our willingness to make changes and admit fault going back over two years has been pretty steady. I don't think that I have the reputation of stonewalling or finger pointing. I have stood here time after time after time under unbelievable scrutiny at times and admitted where we needed to admit our mistakes and admitted how we intended for them not to happen again. And that brings me to the -- to the third point. I think over eight and a half years as your county manager, you have to ask yourself, did the problems that -- that come up here, are they repeated problems? Do we see a -- a trend of the same type of problem happening over and over and over again? Or are these, sometimes while they are very big and they capture the attention of the entire community, as was the case in the community development situation, did -- did the manager routinely have those types of problems whether they involved personalities, whether they involved failure to adhere to policies? Or are these fairly isolated events, again, over an eight and a half year period? And I -- I think that as -- as part of that, then I'll just conclude in terms of rather than talking about failures, in the last 30 seconds I just wanted to talk to you about what I think your staff success has been in the last 12 months. Please don't take the first one the wrong way. But a number of years ago I told our top staff people that within five years I wanted us to be considered by our peers and by our citizens and taxpayers to be the best managed medium sized county in the state of Florida. And I will tell you when I travel the state and I meet with my colleagues from around the state, Collier County, its Board of County Commissioners, and its government has one of the finest, most sophisticated reputations in the entire state of Florida. We do, in fact, have the lowest millage rate of any county in the state of Florida. When I became county manager in 1987, the county commission's millage was 4.6 mills. In the tentative millage that you approved today for the county general fund, it's down to 3.5 mills. I would defy anyone in this community to find any other county or city government in the state of Florida that has reduced its millage by a full mill in the last eight years. I will tell you I've already checked it. You can't find one. We've gone from 4.6 mills to three and a half mills. We are the envy of urban coastal counties throughout the state of Florida in terms of being cost effective from a ad valorem tax based barometer. We have had tax neutral or decreased millage budgets for seven years in a row. We, based on the Department of Commerce, are considered to be a Florida blue chip community, something that appears on my letterhead from the executive office of the county manager. And that means that we are considered to be by the Department of Commerce one of the best communities in the state in which to start or expand a business. We have an outstanding bond rating. Our bond rating was increased last year to A plus by Hoody's and A-1 by Standard and Poors. I may have -- have inversed those. The fact is that our revenue bonds have increasingly received higher ratings, I think an indication of your fiscal conservatism and a lot of hard work in particular on the part of your utilities staff. We have almost zero general obligation bond debt. To my knowledge the only outstanding bond debt we still have is the 1982 community park bond debt. I think the only other general obligation bond debt that we have goes back to 1968. We have one of the lowest rates of -- of borrowing for general government of any county or city in the state. And in each of the last five years, our willingness to work either through the productivity committee, the privatization task force, the Greater Naples Civic Association budget task force, the clerk's internal auditor or independent performance auditors hired and paid by the Board of County Commissioners, we have endeavored to decrease our unit costs to lower the number of staff per thousand, and we have done that in each of the last five years. And -- and, frankly, if this is to be my last day after 16 years, that is how I would like to be remembered. And I appreciate your -- your support. And with that I'd be prepared to answer any questions, or I'll let you hear from the public. Thank you very much. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. I would at a later time like to address some of his comments, but I'd like to get on -- on to listening to the public. They've been very, very patient. And while we've gone through some what? -- three and a half hours now including lunch? So, Mr. Dotrill, if you would begin the public comment for us and -- MR. DORRILL: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And I'll ask -- MR. DORRILL: First one is Mr. Colding. Following Mr. Colding is Mr. Gibbons if I could have you stand by. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Normally if -- for those of you who may not be familiar with public comment on a particular item before the board of county commission, we limit the comments to five minutes. And we ask you to keep your comments to the issue at hand. And in view of the fact that we have what? -- 19 or 20? I think I saw you just get a new one -- people, if you have -- if what you wish to say has already been expressed, if you wish to come forward and just say that you agree with so and so or certainly you're free to use the five minutes, whichever way you prefer. But we would like to -- to try to conclude this sometime today. Mr. Colding. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Colding and then Mr. Gibbons if you would please stand by. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Colding. MR. COLDING: Thank you, Ms. MAtthews. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not here to try to tell you how to run your business, but I've sat back and listened all morning. I feel that what has happened today should have taken place at some workshop and all of this been aired. We have aired all of our dirty laundry, hung it on the line out here now. I see nothing in this that would cause any great danger to the county, to the taxpayers -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Colding, I have to interrupt you because what we have before us is a resolution, and that requires board action. In a workshop we cannot take action. MR. COLDING: Okay. Fine. That didn't -- that I didn't realize. I apologize. Anyhow, to make this thing short, I think that the county commissioners and the manager can work. I think if the commissioners would give the manager the direction they want to go in and insist that that's the way that it should go, and I would ask Miss MAtthews to withdraw her motion and sit down and do these things and get -- get the county to working good. And in -- in closing, I would just like to say this very briefly, that I'm going to quote the most precious person that ever walked the face of the earth. Let those that are without sin cast the first stone. Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Gibbons, and then Ms. -- I believe it's Sachko. MS. SACHKO: Sachko. MR. DORRILL: Sachko. MR. GIBBONS: My name is Richard Gibbons, a resident of Collier County for 25 years. And at the first of the year I will be a former resident of 25 -- of Collier County. I'm here in full support of the county manager. I represent myself, and some of the things that were said, I don't -- I don't agree with. And a lot of times I don't agree with Neil when he does things. But he's a good manager, and I think if you try to get rid of him you're going to lose a good man. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Ms. Sachko and then Mr. Veit or Veit. MR. VEIT: Veit. MS. SACHKO: Good afternoon. My name's Terry Anne Sachko, and I thank you for letting me speak to you today. I'm a taxpayer and a former management analyst but have no business dealings with the county. So the only thing I want from the board is the fair and wise use of the money entrusted to you. The only way you can do that is to establish policies, to provide county services, and to make sure that your one employee performs his job well. What is his job? Your performance evaluation lists 27 criteria, but they really all boil down to one thing: Supervision. He is ultimately responsible for supervising the people who provide services to the county residents. So his job is really twofold. He must concentrate on programs and people. If the residents are happy with the service, only half his job is complete. The internal human relations issues must also be positive. Continuing personnel problems are counterproductive and will eventually adversely impact service delivery which is the main reason we pay for this large and expensive organization. Job performance, sexual harassment, and employee intimidation are just some of the issues that have surfaced recently. The mere fact that you have to take the time to deal with these matters should be a red flag that the manager is not doing his job properly. You don't have the luxury in time or money to spend precious time debating the manager's performance at regular intervals. Resolution of the problems facing the county should be the primary focus. Continuing to scrutinize these internal, almost housekeeping-type functions is akin in my view to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The important work of government should not be sidetracked. You may feel that the manager should not be held accountable for problems within his organization. You ask how can he know what's happening everywhere with over a thousand employees? Well, that's the whole point of my message. It is his job to know. That is why he was hired. And if he doesn't know what's going on, then he's not doing his job. Seen another way, a man is hired to steer a ship that runs aground. He says it's -- it is everyone's fault but his. If we believe him, then why do we need him to steer the ship? Right now your house is in disarray. But as long as the elements of conflict remain in place, the conflict will remain. Apparently there are a number of residents doing business with the county who think the manager's doing a great job and should be retained in his position. But I ask you to consider this: Even though some contractors, for instance, may get their permits approved quickly, does the end justify the means? They may not care that the organization has internal personnel problems, so they say that the manager's doing a great job. But service delivery is only half the job. The manager's responsible for good human relations within the organization and good service delivery. Either one without the other is a failure. The basic tenet of good management is to recognize and identify those situations that could develop into problems and established programs, procedures, checks and balances to prevent the problems from arising. If the manager were doing a good job, then why were these situations allowed to become problems? When finally directed by the board to rectify and prevent future similar problems, the manager just provided Band Aids. You must not confuse activity with accomplishment. For example, establishing the ombudsman position reporting directly to the county manager begs the question of human resources' inability to handle employee complaints which is a function of their current mission. Ignoring that issue only compounds the dilemma. It's like hiring a guard for the police station because they won't do their own job. This is poor position management. Another concern is the manager's choice to temporarily head the new department of revenue. This man has publicly defended his decision to invest county funds in extremely high risk derivatives instead of maintaining a conservative approach as dictated by his legal fiduciary responsibility to the county. His selection directly reflects on the manager's judgment capabilities. I hope you will vote objectively on this issue regardless of the -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You're going to have to wrap it up. MS. SACHKO: -- political consequences to you. Thank you for your attention. And just as a quick postscript, I take full responsibility for the content of my conversation July 17 with Hike Zalucky about the current county policy on exit interviews. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So you -- you are the district -- you're the district 3 constituent that made that phone call. MS. SACHKO: Yeah, right. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you, Hiss Sachko. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Veit and then Ms. Haas-Zichella. MR. VEIT: Madam Chairman, Honorable Commissioners, and guests, my name is John Veit, and I've been an employee of the county for seven years as a maintenance crew leader, parks and recreation out of Marco. For the record, I did take a vacation day, although I can figure probably a hundred other ways I'd rather spend it. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English language, third edition, 1992, it defines arrogance as making or disposed to make claims to unwarrant importance of consideration out of overbearing pride; marked by or arising from arrogance; an arrogant contempt for the weak; see proud. So I looked up proud, and it was defined as feeling pleasure, pleasurable satisfaction over an act, a possession, a quality, or a relationship by which one measures one's statutes or self-worth; feeling of showing justifiable self-respect. I believe that Neil is more proud than arrogant. When this trait was questioned, Neil sought out and found an assistant county manager, Mr. Haggert (sic), thus giving balance with the pride of the young and the wisdom of the not so young. Prior to my employment with the county, I dealt with Neil as a representative of a local developer, a member of the citizens advisory committee for the growth management plan, a precinct chairman with the Republican Executive Committee, and chairman of the Collier County Veterans Council. Although I didn't feel I always agreed with his decisions, I respected him for protecting the interests of the county and the employees above all else. That's when my wife walked in, and she said, what are you doing, John? And I said, well, I'm trying to prepare a speech here. And she says, well, you do it so much better when you just say what you feel, so that's what I'm going to do now. With government and the citizens' active role and with telecommunications the way it is, the role of government is changing from a representative government to a free market of ideas government. Neil's been trying to bring this county government to that point, and that's where we're going from the 20th century. It's kind of like telling my dad, look, Dad -- 25 years ago -- you're going to go into a fast food restaurant or you're going to pay for TV, and he would have told me I'm crazy. But that's where we're going. It's economics. Neil's accomplished quite a bit with the county since I've been here. He's been mandated by former commissioners to lean the county government. He has leaned it. He's brought it down. He's brought up the one-stop permitting. He's brought in a quality qus -- excuse me, quality plus program which has empowered employees, the ones that know what's going on, to make the job easier, faster, cheaper, and better. His deprivatation (sic) -- he deprivatized the fleet maintenance several years ago when it was with ARA and such. Our down time was -- is -- was considerable. Now it's -- it's a day. Sometimes it's just five minutes. He's brought the bureauc -- bureaucracies of this government in the years past to an interworking web where everybody is working together to do what we are assigned to do, and that's to serve the public. He came up through the ranks. It's part of his job, just as it is your job, to depend upon his senior staff. And when his senior staff screws up, he does accept the responsibility for the screw-up and also to correct that action. We've seen some shake-ups, and I can assure you down in the lower levels of the trenches, where I come from, those shake-ups are working, and people are becoming more mobilized. You can only judge the strength of an organization by its weakest link. Therefore, if -- and that's -- that's in itself an explanatory term. The stronger the government, the stronger the organization is measured by whoever is the weakest in that organization. Employees' concerns, some of them -- and like I said, I come from the trenches -- the trenches or -- or some of us are curious why we're one step above prisoners in -- in -- in the performance of our duty and what we do and we can be replaced by prisoners. Employees continually sacrifice. They've sacrificed with their performance pays, with benefits, and how we are perceived by the public. They are also threatened by privatization, but I can assure you it's not by Neil, but it comes from this board. Employees are giving more and more every day and are expecting less and less, and they're doing more with less staff. Morale is very high. It is very high with Neil. I would offer a challenge to the board to allow Neil to continue on. You don't change a captain in mid -- in midstream. To employees I would offer the challenge to continue making your job better and doing it better and remembering that we are of a service. To the media I would challenge that there is controversy in good things as well as bad. And to the public I would challenge off -- I would challenge that they offer constructive criticism and work with us as better government. I would recommend that we all set aside our personal differences and provide government as we should. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Veit. MR. DORRILL: Miss Maas-Zichella and then Mr. Fox, Jim Fox. MS. MAAS-ZICHELLA: First of all, I'd like to apologize to Mr. Dotrill that he has had to go through this public humiliation on behalf of so many of the public that feel this way. And also I would imagine that there are some of the commissioners that are also humiliated by this, and I hope that there's something you can do to prevent this from happening again in the future. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me, Miss Maas-Zichella. The only way we can prevent this from happening in the future is to change the law. MS. MAAS-ZICHELLA: Well, I disagree. The time for you to act upon your intuitions was two months ago. You did. You lost. You should not now be bringing forward unresolved allegations and humiliating Mr. Dotrill, his family, this county, the other commissioners that do not agree with you. You -- there is no rushing, you know, terrible -- terribly important thing. This could not have waited to find out if, in fact, your allegations would stand up which I don't think they will. Our county employees always have a cheerful attitude. I don't care what department you go to from the bottom to the top. That is reflective of management's attitude despite whatever else gets blown up in the media. And I think -- I think it's an important thing to pay attention to. Over the years there have been many people that have had to leave this county and probably not all of them on favorable terms. I think it is a -- really speaks to the integrity and the character of the county manager to never have dragged these people through the mud, ruined their reputations in town, and -- and I very much appreciate that. And unfortunately he has not been given that same consideration. And I do also think that -- people talk about sexual harassment. Well, I think there's gender harassment, and I doubt very much that he would be going through this if he was a female. And -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I object to that. MS. MAAS-ZICHELLA: Well, I knew you would. And I'm -- I'm -- I'm asking the commission to please rise to the level of professionalism that we deserve, that he has shown, and allow this to be put behind you. And if you don't like him in two years when his contract comes up again, then do what you have to do then. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Fox and then Mr. Turner, Thomas Turner. MR. FOX: Good afternoon. My name's Jim Fox. I've been a resident of Collier County for 19 years. I could repetitious -- repetitionsly expound upon Mr. Dorrill's character and accomplishments, but my background is deepest in entrepreneurial ventures. Therefore, I would like to state from an entre -- entrepreneurial mentality. A person or persons responsible for undermining a dismissal attempt under the aforemention -- aforementioned circumstances come under close scrutiny from the stockholders or, in this case, the taxpayers and voters. During the past week, I have spoken to many residents in Collier County that feel Mr. Dotrill is doing a very favorable job of managing our government. These same residents and voters are very dissatisfied with talk of his dismissal. I strongly urge the Collier County commissioners to retain Mr. Dotrill as county manager and in doing so keep the stockholders' best interests at heart. I also feel strongly that when Mr. Dotrill weathers this storm, Bettye Matthews should resign as chairperson of the commission immediately. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Turner and then Dr. Biles. MR. TURNER: For the record, I am Tommy Turner. I've been here all my life, got to see this county grow almost 40 years' worth. All of you all are new faces. Virtually I'm here to support Neil. I've -- I'm watching Neil grow up through the county government. Some of the decisions he has to make, not popular ones. I can tell today it isn't. But as an employer, I employ several employees. I'm not so popular with them sometimes in some of the decisions that have to be made. Nine hundred plus employees for the county, Neil can't control every one of their actions the same way he can't control yours. I'd also like to say that I don't know how many of you all had the opportunity to have any employees. Bettye, I don't know that you've had any employees. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I have. MR. TURNER: How many? What's the most you ever -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Five. MR. TURNER: All right. They're not very -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I found it very difficult. MR. TURNER: Okay. You need to take his position with the employees because that's his main job. It's very hard. Not only does he take on the responsibility for the direct people that are underneath him, he takes on the responsibility of their families because whatever direction Neil takes with them is a repercussion for their family. And I believe Neil has their greatest concerns at heart. As far as building department, I think we have a great building department. I've had the opportunity to go in several counties and go in to see different departments. So as far as our building department, it's probably had some troubles, but I think it's on the upbeat, has some of the finest inspectors there is. Trying to make all five of you happy, I don't think that's a possibility sometimes. I'm just going to be truthful with you. I don't know how a man can have five bosses, but he's doing it. So I have to commend him for that. I don't know that I would want his job, but that's the schooling he has, and he's took on that great privilege of being it. I'd just ask today that you commissioners would make this the last day of this, we don't continue it, that it's -- that it's finished, that you continue on keeping Neil in the position that he is, support him. And I'd just ask that -- that Neil would continue on taking the position. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Dr. Biles and then Max Hasse. MS. BILES: Fay Biles, president of the Marco Island Taxpayers' Association, although I'm speaking I think I have to say personally today because many of our members are out of town, and I didn't feel that I had a quorum, so I'll say this personally. I feel that the timing of this whole episode has been poor. Here we are in the middle of a budget process, moving toward the end of it. We're all waiting breathlessly to see what the tax results are going to be at the end of it. And here comes this interruption that has bought -- brought tremendous public interest that I think deters away from finishing the budget process and waiting to see the results. I feel that perhaps the best time would have been back in April when the contract was discussed so that once the budget process starts we can go straight through it without having all this interruption. HITA watches closely the budget process, as you know. I sat through all the budget hearings, the workshops. And my perception now -- maybe it was badly perceived. My perception was that it was very professionally and thoroughly done. I thought it was a team effort between the county manager. The staff I thought did a very professional job and that the board was very thorough in looking at all the departmental budgets. I'm a little dismayed that now it comes up that I must have missed some things along the way, and I take my fall for that. I believe that stability must come from the county manager's office. Commissioners come and go every two years, every three or four years, or whatever. But stability in this county must come from that county manager's seat. And I think history is in favor of Neil Dotrill. Please, we don't want to be perceived as another Lee County who changes managers often to their detriment. I -- I think it's too bad, too, that we have a one-newspaper town that has played a large part in trying to influence public opinion against the manager. It almost appears like a personal vendetta. Are they trying to run county government through their efforts? And I think I'd like to ask them to step back and stop that process. So HITA is in favor of retaining Neil Dotrill and continuing what I had perceived, we had perceived, as a team effort. Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Hasse and then Mr. Rigley, Larry Rigley. MR. HASSE: It's a little strange to be called Mr. Hasse when I sit at a commission meeting I must admit. I was a commissioner here for eight years. I think our commission does a pretty good job basically speaking. I think Mr. Dotrill, who, incidently, I helped hire six odd years ago as county manager, does an excellent job. I might reflect a little bit further back when I was on a council in Teaneck, New Jersey, a community of some 45,000 residents. Being a county -- I was a councilman there for 16 years. I had the opportunity to hire two managers there. And fortunately enough, they turned out to be excellent managers. And I feel that Neil has been a fine choice of mine as well as the other commissioners six years ago to manage this county. And, frankly, without Neil's management, this commission and the commission before would not have done the job they did do with the fine growth of Collier County. I might say that I'm a little upset with the men -- mentioning of Neil's character. Neil's character, as far as I'm concerned -- and I, too, like Neil am an Eagle Scout. I'm a family man. I had three children. Neil has only got two, but he's got time. In any case, I'm going to say this: That he has been an excellent parent, citizen, and churchgoer. And that's a real criteria to go on. And I have never seen any deviation from Neil's sincerity and honesty. I have a little question, though, and it's -- I've been approached several times today and a few times before. What causes the intense movement against Neil now? I -- I can't understand it. It seems like there's an outside influence being put on a couple of the commissioners here. And the last thing I got was a note, and I do hope there's no validity to it, but I'm going to ask you, Mrs. Matthews, whether it is or not. There's been some rumor that Butt Saunders worked with you to draft the resolution to terminate the man -- manager's contract and has been very instrumental in the whole effort. For the -- and for the record, could you verify this or not? Now, this is not me alone speaking, but I -- there are a lot of people that are concerned about that. And I think that we should get some kind of an answer. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I -- I have no problem answering that whatsoever. MR. HASSE: Go ahead. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Dotrill and I talked about it yesterday. He asked the same question. MR. HASSE: Oh? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And as I explained to him and I have said to -- to others that my decision was made to take this action prior to our summer break, prior to what was it? July 22nd, what have you. Anyway, my -- my decision, once I had made it -- I'm not an attorney. I don't know what to do. I'm just a CPA who's also a county commissioner and the chairman of this board. What I did was -- MR. HASSE: You do have a county chairman -- or attorney. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: A county -- who was also going to be on vacation that same -- that same period of time while -- while we were gone. What I did was confer with a former county commissioner who had been chairman for a number of years -- MR. HASSE: Oh, Lord. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- asked -- asked him to help me through the ordinance and Mr. Dorrill's contract so that things went in an orderly manner. My first inclination was to have this on as a discussion item of an intent to terminate. I asked him to read the contract and tell me if that's the correct way to do it. Within a day he called me back, and he said, no, you need a -- a resolution of intent. And I said, okay. That's where we'll go. That's -- to my knowledge that's all I asked of him. MR. HASSE: I want to say that the chairman took 30 seconds of my time. But I'm not sure whether anybody else on the commission -- I don't feel that a couple of them or three of them did have any con -- convet -- conversation with -- what is his title now? Former -- or Butt Saunders. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm -- I'm sorry, Mr. Hasse. What -- MR. HASSE: I asked whether anybody else had it, but I'm not going to pursue that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Oh. No, I -- MR. HASSE: You have answered that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm just telling you I asked him to give me an interpretation of the contract and the ordinance. That's all. MR. HASSE: That's beautiful. I'm merely saying that because Butt Saunders and Neil Dorrill have had some words in the past. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I've been witness to it sometimes. Yes. Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Rigley and then Mr. Carpenter, Dave Carpenter. MR. RIGLEY: Commissioners, I came to this proceeding this morning with no intent to speak at all. I come without ever having hold -- held political office. I do not own a business. I do not work for the county nor have I ever. I come here as an individual who's a working stiff. And I'm personally appalled by it, to tell you the truth. I -- I read the papers, and I see the way the newspaper has taken our county manager and has raked him over the coals. And I see it happening in the county commission itself also. And it just appalls me. The county manager should be allowed to do his job without constant threats of termination. He cannot be effective. I work for a large company. I'm on vacation this week. This is -- this is how I spend my vacation. This is the second time I've ever been to a county commission meeting; okay? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Lousy vacation. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Who do you work for? MR. RIGLEY: Bad choice on my part maybe. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Who do you work for? MR. RIGLEY: But I feel very strongly about it because I am a citizen of Collier County. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Sir, who do you work for? MR. RIGLEY: I work for United Parcel Service. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. I -- I just -- you know, two weeks vacation, and you're spending it this way. MR. RIGLEY: Well, I didn't get off this week. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Let me get that straight. You're supporting Mr. Dotrill, and you're not with the big bad development industry. MR. RIGLEY: That's it right there, yes. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. MR. RIGLEY: Okay? I work for a large company, and I do not always agree with the way my management treats its employees or the way things are run. But sometimes decisions have to made -- be made that are in the best interest of the company. Employees have to be considered, but so does the company. And this is a large -- we might as well consider this a large -- large corporation. This is a county with a large budget. Chairman Bettye Matthews, you've said that you have a lack of confidence in Neil Dotrill. As a voter and citizen of Collier County and of district 3 for almost 20 years, I'm now losing confidence in this commission. We ought not to be raking this situation over the coals every month or two or whatever. This needs to end. I believe our county manager's done a fine job. I -- I'm a working stiff. I have nothing to gain from this at all. I'm telling you that as a citizen of Collier County I'd like it to stop. I think it's pretty petty. We need to get around to the real business of running this county. We can't be wasting the time of this commission or of the -- the citizenry of Collier County. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Wasting your vacation. MR. RIGLEY: My vacation with things that are petty. And I -- to tell you the truth, I'm -- I'm -- I'm astounded that -- that Mr. Dotrill was able to come up with -- with the figures he did on such short notice. I would hate to be brought up before a hearing with no time to hear what the actual charges were. I would hate that. I belong to a union. I belong to the Teamsters Union, and that would never be allowed. That's all I have to say. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Carpenter. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And who follows him? MR. DORRILL: Ms. Rodriguez, you still here? MR. CARPENTER: She's gone. MR. DORRILL: And if not, Ms. Dyer, are you still here? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Carpenter, go ahead. MR. CARPENTER: Hi. I'm Dave Carpenter, and I'm here representing the board of directors of the East Naples Civic Association. Couple things about Neil Dorrill and our experiences with him. Neil is, first of all, a gentleman. And he is a gentleman of great integrity. You can look around the state. You could look around the country, and you can see the morass of problems that various counties have gotten into. All you have to do is look across the border and see Lee County dominated by one scandal after a another, the scandal of the month club up there. We've been very, very fortunate to have Neil to steer the county as county manager during the last eight years. And Neil's attitude is infectious with the county department heads and county personnel. I don't know of anyplace where you can work or live where county staff is more helpful and has a better attitude than Collier. Walk in to any county office, and you're greeted with an attitude of what can we do to help. Now, this doesn't start at the bottom. This starts at the top. This starts with the manager, with Neil. Now, for -- I realize that he's probably got the roughest job in Collier not because he has five bosses but he has five bosses that all have to stand for election. And so periodically his job performance gets meshed in with election plans, and that's a rough part of it. But Neil -- he's a big boy, and he gets paid for that. But despite that, what we've been able to see under Neil Dorrill are measurable results for this county and always with his attitude of protecting and preserving the lifestyle that we want to see in Collier that we have today and that we want to see in the future. And it's with those thoughts in mind that the board of directors of the East Naples Civic Association urge you to retain Neil as a county manager. On a little bit of a personal note, I think like many of us in the audience today, we were surprised that the bill of attainder against Neil was neither distributed to Neil or to the other county commissioners before nine o'clock this morning. I think it's really kind of out of order to ask to a man to respond -- and if it wasn't for lunch, Neil would have had no time to put together a legitimate response. And I think that's really a bad attitude on the commission's part. You know, it reminds me of Geraldo Rivera rather than a county commission meeting. The other factor is -- that concerned me was personally that there seemed to be events being mentioned -- and I listen to a lot of county commission meetings -- that I've never heard brought before this commission before. Now, I could be wrong, but I seem to be hearing things that were never referred to or cited in the minutes. And I have a problem if a county commissioner has a problem with something major that they think's going on, bring it before the public. You certainly have ample opportunity at each county commission meeting. Don't sit on them and build a little stack for when you decide to get Butt Saunders involved and go get Neil. Hang on to him. MR. DORRILL: Ms. Rodriguez or Ms. Dyer. And, if not, Ms. Turner; then following her, Mr. Walker. MR. TURNER: I'm Terry Turner. My better half is Tommy Turner. Been in Florida for a long time in Naples, and I was very upset with what I came here to see today. I think the character of this man stands for itself. I've known him. I've known his family. I think this county should be proud to have a manager as Neil Dotrill. I think the board should work with this man, support him, work with him. He is a workable man. I've dealt with him in different committees, and I know he's workable. And I think you all need to give him the chance and be behind this man. You're not going to get a finer man for a county manager. And I'm in support with what everyone else has said that has supported this man. And I think you all need to -- to look at that, and you are not going to get a finer man for this county to run it. And that's all I have to say. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Walker, Mr. HcNees. MR. WALKER: Good afternoon. I'm Cullen Walker. I have a landscape management business here in Collier County. I don't do any county contracts or affiliated in any way with that, but I've been following Mr. Dorrill's career here since -- since he started with the county and became county manager. And wisdom tells us that when you look at something, you don't look at just part of it, but you should view the whole because if you focus on only a small part, things can easily be taken out of context. I believe you're looking through a microscope at our county manager when we should be using a wide angle camera. You're leaving out the key parts of our county manager, namely, the courage, honesty, integrity, and faith, that allows this man the strength to run this county every day and to face storms in life and storms like this. A great friend of mine once said if you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice. If you squeeze grapes, you get grape juice. And I believe like you've squeezed Neil today you will get 100 percent a man who is true to his character, a top shelf -- shelf individual. So I encourage you to take time to look at the whole picture. I believe this county has been blessed through the eight years that Neil has been the county manager, and I -- I look forward to him being county manager for many years to come. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. McNees, then Ms. Litsinger. MR. MCNEES: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name's Mike McNees. I stand here as a 7 -- 15-year resident of Collier County and an ll-year county employee. I'm here on my own time. Lest I misrepresent my motives, though, I will freely admit that I am one of the Dorrill clones. For the people that aren't familiar with that expression, it's one that was coined by Watt Passiss for a political commentary in this town to represent those of us who -- who allegedly walk in lock step behind Neil. And I'm not sure whether that's supposed to be out of ignorance or fear that we do that. But I'm here because I have an interest in an organization that I've spent 11 years of my professional life representing, and I know some of what's being talked about here today from my own experience. And I -- and I would just like to represent what I know to be some facts. I'm not here to rep -- to defend Mr. Dorrill. I don't think he needs my defense. And as a clone, it's clear that my defense would only be self-serving. But I do know some things to be true, and I'd like to get them on the record because they affect what we're talking about today. Having done a term as your budget director, I can tell you that the budget document and process are probably the most examined process and at once the least understood process in county government. I think Mr. Smykowski would have probably echoed that thought. Every year, at least up until two years ago, the budget staff gets together and says, how can we explain all this this year so that people understand? I know that four years ago I was accused in this very room of slight of hand, of obfuscation, of -- of lying to the public at the conclusion of what had been our hardest effort to really explain to people what the budget's about. And I say that to say to you that it's very easy to misinterpret, misunderstand the budget. I can tell you that under Mr. Dorrill's direction, there has never been any intent from staff except to do exactly what the board wants and to explain to the board the impacts and the numbers and -- and what's in the budget. To tie that to this year's utilities budgets which has been talked about quite a bit today, I can tell you that each and every member of the utilities staff worked very, very hard to bring to the board just exactly what we believed you wanted from us. We got more maintenance from you and hallelujah. We had expressed to Commissioner Hancock some concerns that we'd had about historical underfunding and were ecstatic that you chose to -- to allow us to bring back to you -- to remind you, we have not yet brought you those final numbers -- but to bring back to you in August for your approval some -- some budget changes. So I want to make it clear that -- that both the utilities staff and I -- and I believe the budget staff have operated every day under Mr. Dorrill's direction with the intent to do what it is that we understand you want from us. And I want to make that very clear. The other issue I'll talk about is this one of intimidation, and this one's tough because it dogs us and it's dogged us out in utilities ever since I got there. Our commentator is trying to keep it alive today by inferring that this support for Mr. Dotrill is somehow as a result -- or from the employees is as a result of some force or intimidation. I'll tell you I'm here on my vacation time of my own free will today, and the intimidation thing is difficult. I can tell you that when the utilities privatization issue came up, Mr. Hargett and I -- that's the not so young but ever youthful Mr. Hargett -- went individually to each and every utility facility, spoke to every employee that we could get together and told them privatization is not a threat to you. If it is a threat to anyone, it may be as a threat to management but that you as good employees of the county government would be retained if there were a privatization vendor but that it was our intention with their help to bring a budget to the board that would stave off this privatization issue. And so -- my point is authorities and privatization discussions and performance audits and internal audits don't scare employees. What scares employees is uncertainty. And the uncertainties that those employees have faced have not come from the county manager's office. And -- and I think finally we're getting to the end of that, and hallelujah for that as well. But -- and I just -- I just can't put that at Mr. Dorrill's feet. The only other thing I'd like to say is I've worked now for nearly 11 years either one step or two steps below Mr. Dotrill. And I'd be lying if I said to you that I go home every night after every workday and praise Neil as a fine human being because I don't think anybody loves their boss every day for 11 years. But I'll tell you that in that time I have never questioned his motives. I have never been threatened, coerced. I have never been told to whom to speak or what to say on any subject at any time, and I have never seen that happen to anyone else. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Ms. Litsinger and then Hiss Vaughn. MR. LITSINGER: Good afternoon, Commissioners. First of all, I'd like to say that I am here just to provide some information to you. Since I am an employee of Collier County government and I am fearful that there might be some retaliation for things I might say, I -- I do want to make you aware that I seek protection under the Whistle Blowers' Act. I'll try to be as brief as I can. I have worked -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me, Mrs. Litsinger. Let me get something from Mr. Cuyler. What -- is there anything we need to do to give her protection under that act? MR. CUYLER: No, there's not. That -- that's a law that's in effect. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. So she just needs to say that she seeks it. MR. CUYLER: She doesn't even need to say that. There's nothing particular that needs to be done. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Fine. I just want to make sure we're okay. Go ahead. MS. LITSINGER: All right. Do I get extra time for the clarification? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, you can have that extra 15 seconds or so. MS. LITSINGER: I have worked for Collier County human resources department for nearly eight years, and I will say that that's been a very challenging tenure. In December -- rather November of 1993 with the departure of Susan Weising, I became sort of the second lieutenant or the first lieutenant, second in command, and in Mr. Whitecotton's absence would perform his duties. Since that time, December of '93, I would say that the struggles that I faced in human resources were increased. I became a lot more aware and involved with things that were going on that I did not necessarily agree with. It got to the point that last year on October 13, 1994, I went to my division administrator, Mr. Ochs, and then later on December 7, 1994, I went to Mr. Dorrill with Jennifer Edwards present about a number of issues that I felt compelled to bring an awareness to protect the -- protect the county manager from liability. I spoke to both gentlemen about a number of issues. Let me just say, first of all, that Mr. Ochs asked me to put our discussion in writing which I did, and I have a copy of that here. I did offer a copy of what I put in writing to Mr. Dorrill. He refused a copy and made the comment that he did not take notes at such meetings or retain any documents. One of the things that I discussed was that Mr. Whitecotton had -- and I -- and I don't really want to belabor issues with Mr. Whitecotton. He's no longer employed by the county. But I think it's important that you know the nature of the types of concerns that I brought. And one was that an ex-employee of aquatic plant control had sent us a letter to which he had attached a warning from a bag of pesticide, and he stated in his letter that his health had already been negatively impacted but that he was concerned for those that remained at aquatic plant control and hoped that safety precautions would be implemented to protect them. Upon presentation by myself of this letter and attachment to Mr. Whitecotton, he removed the warning and threw it in the trash. Another incident that's already been discussed here today does involve the -- an employee in possession of a gun. I don't think it's been addressed here that just prior to the incident with the gun the employee had received disciplinary -- had received discipline for some things that had occurred in her department where some supervisors were solicited to give feedback on an employee. And that information was then used, given to the employee who distributed it but never really used with the discipline document. There was some issues that it wasn't really probably handled the best way it poss -- poss -- possibly could have been. But within two weeks this employee -- of the disciplinary measure, this employee brought the gun into work. And contrary to what's been said that it was not removed from the holster, it was indeed removed from the holster. And I happen to know that a person that saw the gun out of the holster is watching those proceedings today and when that was discussed earlier made the statement in front of three employees that that is not true. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Would you go ahead -- MS. LITSINGER: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- if you can finish up but go ahead. MS. LITSINGER: All right. Real quickly, another issue that I think is a very serious concern involved non-compliance with the Florida retirement system with regard to temporary employees. And I made both gentlemen aware that there appeared to be non-compliance and I thought we should check into it. However, I was directed not to do that, that Mr. Whitecotton did not want to know if we were in non-compliance. I brought this up several times because I was concerned about it. Finally, the division of retirement identified that there was a potential issue, and they contacted us about it. Mr. Whitecotton then at that time was willing to only make partial compliance, and that is make back payments for current temporary employees but not for previous temporary employees. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Marsha, Commissioner Hancock wants to interrupt you. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Marsha, I -- I have two questions. MS. LITSINGER: Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The first is one of concern. Are you giving information today such as disciplinary action that may be part of a personal record of an individual? You mentioned personal discipline of an employee of the county. MS. LITSINGER: Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I thought that's a personal record item, and I'm a little concerned that you may be giving information that's contained in someone's personal record. MS. LITSINGER: Well, it has already been discussed. Mr. Dotrill brought it out, and also I have not mentioned any names with regard to that. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The second question is other employees that have been here today have stated their employment status, and I think both of them are on vacation today or something to that effect. What is your employment status? And, you know, are you on vacation? Would you just again to maintain continuity -- MS. LITSINGER: Sure. I was told the same day that Mr. Whitecotton was asked to resign that I would be allowed to transfer to another department some -- to a position that I would find challenging and rewarding and that I would at least maintain my current salary and that efforts would be made to work with me towards basically a new career. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So today are you -- are you on leave? Are you -- MS. LITSINGER: Today I'm on leave, yes. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And the purpose of that leave? MS. LITSINGER: I'm on medical leave. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So you have a doctor's note saying you shouldn't be working right now. MS. LITSINGER: Yes. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: But you chose to be here? MS. LITSINGER: Yes. And if you want to discuss that further, it is a confidential issue, but I would be hap -- happy outside of public forum to discuss that with you. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I just -- I just wanted to know. I think -- MS. LITSINGER: Uh-huh. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: -- it's important we know every employee's status -- MS. LITSINGER: That's fine. COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: -- why they're here, what their employment status is, and so forth. MS. LITSINGER: That's fine. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's why I ask. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Marsha, can you wrap it up fairly -- fairly soon? MS. LITSINGER: Yeah. There are a couple of other issues, but I just feel -- I'm concerned. I -- I was concerned enough that I thought something needed to be done then. Nothing was done at that point in time as far as corrective actions toward Mr. Whitecotton. You know, you, Commissioner Matthews, mentioned earlier that you did not want to give names about some forced hirings, some forced resignations. I have information about those, and I do think that we should be hiring people based solely on their qualifications, and that has not always been the case. And I also have information on at least one employee that was forced to support an issue to the board by Mr. Dotrill who then kind of left the employee out there hanging defending something that the employee didn't believe in to begin with. Anyway, you know, I don't have much time, but there are -- there are issues that I think most people here are not aware of, and I think they're very serious, and I think they need to be addressed. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I would like to reserve the right, if this motion moves forward today, to have additional discussions with Miss -- Mrs. Litsinger to further develop some of the concepts that she's introduced. MS. LITSINGER: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I wonder -- if I may, I'd like to hear from Mr. Dotrill a couple of things that I heard there if you -- when you can respond to these, that -- that you refused a copy of the memo in this meeting you didn't -- like you didn't want to know and that you didn't want to know that we were in non-compliance on the retirement system if you have responses to either of those two. MR. DORRILL: I have responses. And given Ms. Litsinger's current situation and disagreement between management and -- and herself, I had anticipated her being here. And I already have a response prepared. I did, in fact, meet with Mrs. Litsinger on December the 7th, 1994. For particular circumstances that are important to me and given the fact that she wanted to meet with me late in the afternoon or after work, I chose not to meet with her alone. And as a result of that, I had a witness present who was Jennifer Edwards, and we did meet on December the 7th, 1994. As part of the issue concerning the human resource department in particular, this is one of those issues I said earlier that I -- I just feel was management's prerogative. I made a decision to start with a clean slate in the human resource department. In one case that cost the former director his position. In Ms. Litsinger's case, though, we have supported her repeatedly to tell her that we have not implied nor have we accused her of any action other than my willingness to send a strong message to the employees that we were going to have a new and different approach and attitude in the human resource department. The need, I thought, for a clean slate and a change in direction and a new focus and new leadership was evident and was certainly to me and I felt that there were strong indications from the board that you wanted me to move and move quickly with respect to that. Otherwise, my concern was that the restoration of the employees' confidence would have dragged out and -- and taken years. My intent to use her capabilities are quite clear and -- as evidenced by my willingness to tell you today that she is not under nor has ever been under any duress nor threat that would have cost her her position or a job opportunity with county government. As a result of -- of my decision to make management changes in human resource, she has informed me that she is -- is under duress and doctor's care and has been on sick leave for over five weeks. I related the above to the chairman in a memo that I sent to her on June the 26th. And at that time and subsequent to that time the chairman didn't indicate to me that she had any concerns with respect to my decision or my establishing my position in writing to her. In addition, Ms. Litsinger mentioned several issues and -- at my meeting with her and Ms. Edwards on December the 7th. She did not allude to all of those today. But it is both my recollection as well as -- as Ms. Edwards' that I asked her what remedy that she was seeking in providing me the information that she did on December the 7th. She indicated that she was seeking no immediate remedy and she felt as I as county manager need to know that certain things had occurred within her department and by and large I had already knowledge of or were conducting independent investigations, but I thanked her for the time that we spent. In addition -- and while she didn't elaborate, she has had historically some very strong, very negative feelings concerning Mr. Whitecotton and her relationship with him and her desire to have a broader career path within human resources. We discussed in particular some activities she felt were inappropriate for Mr. Whitecotton. I had prior knowledge of, was aware, and had discussed with Mr. Ochs the situation concerning the fact that we might not be paying the sufficient rates for retirement for temporary employees. It was my understanding that Miss Litsinger was, in fact, working on that case or that assignment and that we ultimately requested an interpretation or we received an interpretation at her initiative, I might add, that has now resulted in us taking a -- what I'll call a very conservative approach to their -- their interpretation that we need to pay retirement on people who are even temporary employees. It doesn't make sense, but that's the interpretation that we received, and I had knowledge of that in advance of her bringing it to my attention. She also mentioned to me a concern that we had been threatened or were going to be involved in a lawsuit concerning a malpractice issue as a result of an EMS call. I told her yes, I had knowledge of that. It was my understanding that the complainant in that -- or the -- the plaintiff in that case was being represented by the Florida Rural League department in Immokalee and that I had received and had knowledge of that complaint, had referred same to the county attorney's office. And, in addition, she brought to my attention the concern involving this -- the alleged pistol waving incident. And in order -- I wanted to let you know what was part of the record. This case allegedly took place in September of 1993. It was investigated when it was brought to the attention of the division administrator. They confronted the employee involved in the situation who provided the information that I previously related to you, was that she carried the handgun as part of ongoing target practice lessons at a local indoor target range. She indicated that initially that she kept the weapon in her car during the course of the day, thought better of that. The division administrator told her and then confirmed in writing and then sent to the human resource department that possession of a firearm violated county policy. Under no circumstances should she have a gun on county property. She understood as a result of the counseling session and agreed to keep it at home. The division had informed the human resource director of the conversation with the employee, substantiated in writing. No further action was pursued with respect to that. There were no further information nor no further incidents where the employee was told. The division head went on at a following staff meeting for all -- excuse me, all department directors to indicate to them the situation that had occurred and the direction to inform all staff people in this particular division that even if one had a permit to carry a concealed weapon that that was still against county policy to have it on county property and/or including to be contained in the employee's car during the course of the day. This was sent to the human resource department on June the 23rd of last year. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Dotrill, how many more speakers from the public do you have? I'm sorry, Commissioner Mac'Kie. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: There should be three. MR. DORRILL: I think I've got three. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I -- I'm sorry. But -- but my question was it gives me a -- a bad impression if, in fact, when an employee came to you and said, here is my written list of serious problems, that you would say, no, thank you. I don't want to -- like I don't want to have that in my possession, and that's the inference I've drawn from what Miss Litsinger said at that meeting. MR. DORRILL: That was certainly not intended. What I indicated to her was that I had prior knowledge of the individual situations that she had brought to my attention, and that's specifically why I was asking her for what -- you know, what remedy was she seeking. And the primary concern that I felt that she had was that as -- as a subordinate position in human resources she wanted me to be aware of information that she had. I told her that I had the information, and I explained in those circumstances that I just outlined the prior knowledge or what we were, in fact, doing concerning a number of things that she wanted to bring to my attention. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm going to ask one -- one question. Miss Litsinger, can you come back up? I -- I just want to ask one quick question, yes or no. This memorandum that you're -- that you're talking about that Mr. Dotrill said that he did not want that you had written to Mr. Ochs -- is that correct? MS. LITSINGER: Yes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is that what I heard you say? MR. LITSINGER: Yes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is the only issue in that memorandum this employee with the gun? MR. LITSINGER: No, certainly not. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you. MR. DORRILL: No, ma'am. That's why I indicated that there were a number of things, and the one involving the EMS malpractice issue was one that she did not allude to but I do recall her bringing to my attention at that same meeting. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Why don't we move on with Miss Vaughn. MR. DORRILL: Miss Vaughn and following her, Mr. Bayes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think when we have -- we have what? Two -- two more speakers after Miss Vaughn? We're going to -- MR. DORRILL: Mr. Bayes and then I have -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- take about a 15-minute break. I think the court reporter needs a break as well as the rest of us. Miss Vaughn. MS. VAUGHN: Good afternoon, Madam Chairman, Honorable Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to address you this afternoon. As a public relations and media consultant to many who hold office, I applaud you for your courage and your willingness to bring to public forum your concerns and those of your constituents about the management of Collier County today. The county manager should have a purpose as great as this county with standards high enough to ensure that there is no breach of professional or fiduciary responsibility to the -- any citizen of Collier County. There has been a mass exodus of talent, Collier County's best and brightest, both male and female, from employment here citing lack of fair and equitable working environment, intimidation, gag orders regarding contact with the press, and citizens such as myself. These people have called me. Today we've heard a great deal about the manager's intimidation of employees, a county commissioner, the media. And I'd like to relate to you my story of intimidation from the county manager. A couple of years ago -- well, actually five years ago I served as chief of staff in the lieutenant governor's office. And at that time several community leaders came to me talking about the East and South Naples sewer construction project. They were concerned that many people in this county would not be able to pay to hook up to the sewer, and they worried that these people would lose their houses. And for many of these people, that's all they have. After it came to my attention at that time -- this was in late 1993 -- 428 people at that time had had tax certificates sold on their houses because of inability to hook up to the sewer, I presented a public-private partnership to the board which the board adopted in -- in -- involving a way for these people to hook up to the -- to the sewer. I was summoned by Mr. Dorrill's secretary sometime after that to his office to discuss this with him. He told me that he was not happy with my comments because some of those comments were not particularly complimentary to -- to the utilities director, Hike Arnold. I'm not sure whether the problem was that -- that we exposed an incompetence there or a failure to address things, but it certainly exposed a volubility in the press for the manager. And I was aware of the potential conflict there. At that time the county manager ordered me to stay away from utilities issues saying that it was not any of my business, I caused trouble. I responded to him that I had a problem with that because I did not work for him. And he -- his next statement to me was, no, but Fred does. And he is referring to my fiance, Fred Bloetscher, who was serving at that time as the assistant county utilities administrator. I realized that -- that then there was a dilemma presented by the manager for the board, for the citizens, and for myself. And at that time I came to you, and I told you about that meeting. And I said that it appears that we have a choice. We can pursue this program which -- which continues to cast another bad light on Collier County, its management, and the county manager; or we can just abandon that. The board let me know that they were interested in pursuing the program. Fred Bloetscher was transferred to -- to capital projects. And shortly after that delivered to my door anonymously was a copy of Fred's personnel evaluation placed in his permanent personnel file. To date this document -- well, the date on that document was July 30, 1993. To date that document, the original, has never been presented to Mr. Bloetscher for his signature, and I wish to quote for you from that document. The author of these comments is Hike Arnold, and it says, I also need to comment on some of Fred's personal and professional relationships outside of this division. I have discussed with him one particular personal relationship of considerable concern to me, and that reference is -- is to me, Commissioners. And he has acknowledged that concern but noted that he had limited control over that situation. I also want to caution Fred about the degree of interaction -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Would you finish up? MS. VAUGHN: Thank you -- he personally has with some commissioners and/or other elected officials. I note these can be beneficial to the organization, but I would also suggest that Fred be aware of the need for myself and others to be kept informed of the nature of those. I presented this evaluation to Mr. Dotrill at that time, and he acknowledged to me that that was indeed a technical violation that he would address. He also stated to me that Fred was a big boy and he should be the one to come to him about that. And I assured him that he would. Mr. Bloetscher did before he left Collier County. Nothing was done about this. There is a yellow sticky note in the file with Mr. Hargett's initials. It's a -- it's a directive or a question to Tom Whitecotton which says somehow this, the original, got filed without a signature from the county manager's office. Do you have a check-off system? Obviously if -- if this had been presented to Mr. Bloetscher, he would have signed it. He would have addressed it. I spoke two weeks ago to Mrs. Edwards, and she said that the county's looking into it. But this is another instance of this. I'd also like to let you know that my travels have taken me to Charlotte County -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Vicki, I need you to wrap it up now. MS. VAUGHN: Okay. Well, a former Charlotte County commissioner has indicated to me that when Mike Arnold applied for employment there that there was also a recommendation from Mr. Dotrill for that, and it was at a later time that the commission found out about what really happened in Collier County utilities, and Mr. Arnold was not offered the position. So I'd like to let you know that. Thank you very much. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Just one quick response. I just -- I deny that I've ever attempted to undermine any of Miss Vaughn's public relations or marketing programs either as part of her private practice or any activities that she may have had either here or with the clerk's office where she was briefly employed at one time. I did have a meeting with Ms. Vaughn at one point, and I did indicate to her -- the one thing that I do agree with her is I thought in her capacity as the girlfriend of a county employee that if that employee had a particular concern with his boss that I prefer to deal with him through the chain of command as opposed to this young lady who may be a fine person but is the girlfriend of -- of a management person in county government. And I told her that I just didn't think it was appropriate for her to be appealing to me as an action against the supervisor of the person that she was engaged to. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Hay I ask a question of Mr. Dotrill, Madam Chairman, on this one? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What -- what Miss Vaughn described, though, was not that you had attempted to interfere with her public relations business. She said that when -- MR. DORRILL: She -- she did as it concerns the -- what I recall the charity hook-ups. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I want to know this. I want to know did you say, yeah, but Fred does? I mean, did you say, yes, but Fred works for me? She said that -- okay. Let me try to get this straight. She said that you told her to stop doing something with regard to utilities. And she said, I don't work for you. And you said, yes, but Fred does. MR. DORRILL: That's -- that is untrue. And the first program she brought without at that time the knowledge of Mr. Arnold who was the division administrator through her marketing efforts a desire to have the Collier County Plumbers and Contractors' Association hook up sewers for poor people in East Naples. And she did that without the knowledge of the division administrator. Her boyfriend was the assistant division administrator. And I indicated to her because she was making appeal on -- on her boyfriend's behalf to me that her boyfriend -- or excuse me, her fiance was not being treated appropriately in -- in these types of things concerning this marketing program to use local plumbers to hook up these sewers. And I indicated to her both then and in the subsequent situation involving his annual performance evaluation that he disagrees with that Fred was the one that worked for me. Fred was the one that should be bringing these things to my attention as opposed to her. She may be a fine young lady. She's a private citizen, and I'm not responsible for her. That is the context that I said that in. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And -- and I -- I want to -- because this one is important to me because this is -- this is the intimidation discussion. I'm going to ask my questions, guys. I have to. It's my job. This is not the only person who I've heard -- this is the only person who's come here today, so it's the only one I'm going to discuss. But I want you to know that I've had other people say to me that Neil Dotrill will threaten -- if you don't, you know, do this like I want you to, then your husband who's an engineer is not going to get any work from the county anymore. And -- and I'm not going to listen to anybody unless they're going to come in here or they're going to put it in writing or, you know, there's a lot of talk. But here's one real specific that -- that has, you know, faced you and said that that happened. And -- and -- and there was another one this morning. Oh, I know, the business about Mr. Yonkosky and whether or not he's been made available for -- for Mr. Grady and his investigation on behalf of the clerk. In both of those it's come down to a your word against their word. You say that -- that Mr. Grady wrote these letters even though he never asked to meet with Mr. Yonkosky again. He asked to meet once. He met once. And for some reason Mr. Grady then would then write a lot of letters saying they won't -- they won't participate. They won't communicate with us. And now you're saying that -- Ms. Vaughn is here, and she says -- what I understood her to say was not that -- that she was coming as a utilities -- a representative of utilities staff but that she was coming as a private citizen because at the time she worked in Tallahassee. She was aware of this program that might help fund sewers for poor people and that you told her to go away. And I don't understand what would motivate Mr. Grady to say he's asked for meetings and Yonkosky wouldn't participate. And what would motivate Hiss Vaughn to say she was trying to propose a sewer program to help the poor and you told her to go away? MR. DORRILL: Please -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm struggling to get to the truth here -- MR. DORRILL: Please -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: -- as sincerely as I can. MR. DORRILL: In the case of the latter one, I never told her to go away. I told her that she should not expect me to -- to referee a dispute between her fiance and his superior. My relationship is with Mr. Bloetscher, not her. That was all that I inferred. In fact, I think the board gave favorable consideration to the proposal. There was no effort to thwart the proposal to use the plumbers. You know, I have a fair amount of respect for Ms. Vaughn. My -- my only contention there was to tell her it is your fiance who has a relationship with this organization, not you. In effect, you know, let -- you don't have to fight his battles between him and his -- his boss. And if he has a concern, he is the one that works here, not you. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So her program or as you understood it at the time -- MR. DORRILL: I'm going to ask Mr. HcNees to help me because I don't know whether the program ever went anywhere or -- or not. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It didn't. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And my question -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's a CBDG -- COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This is what I want to be clear about is -- is not whether -- MR. DORRILL: Different issue. That was at Copeland. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, that one was part of it too, though. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My question was, at the time in utilities was the head of utilities and the first lieutenant or whatever in utilities arguing about how something should be brought to the board and Ms. Vaughn came to the county manager to attempt to -- to get support for her fiance's position? If that's what happened, I understand that a little bit. But if that's not what happened and this was a private citizen making a proposal, this seems to me to be right on the point about intimidation. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I want to ask two questions. What you said, are you willing to put in an affidavit -- MS. VAUGHN: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- forward? MS. VAUGHN: Yes, ma'am. As a matter of fact, it went farther than that because I was extremely surprised by Mr. Dorrill's remark, and I asked him very specifically after that -- I said, Mr. Dotrill, are you stating to -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let me -- let me say one more thing. I -- I -- I had a conversation at lunchtime with Mr. Bloetscher who is the fiance of Mr. (sic) Vaughn, and I started our meeting after lunch with the fact that we had this conversation, and he is also willing to put forward an affidavit. Mr. Dotrill has said that Mr. Bloetscher's relationship was with his supervisor, Mr. Arnold. Part of my comments when we came back from lunch was that Mr. Arnold from summer or late 1993 until June of 1994 was not required to come to work. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This seems to be -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So what relationship is there? You know, I -- I'd like to move on. But if you've got -- got more questions -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I -- I -- MS. VAUGHN: I'd just like to say, Madam Chairman, that I did specifically ask Mr. Dotrill, are you saying to me exactly that Mr. -- that -- that Fred's job is on the line or he is about to be fired because of my activities as a community leader? And his response to me was, well, Vicki, that really depends on you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: His response was that depends on you? MS. VAUGHN: That depends on me. And so I took that to mean only one thing. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Next speaker. MR. DORRILL: No, wait a minute. I'm -- I'm going to categorically deny what she said. What she said was that she was using her private marketing and public relation business on behalf of representing herself as a utilities consultant or a utilities program. The board had authorized the program. Mr. Arnold didn't have any knowledge of the program. He was upset about that with Mr. Bloetscher. This young lady came to me and complained, and I indicated to her that I considered that dispute between the supervisor and the employee to be an internal matter and that while she's personally involved in it that my relationship was with the employee or the supervisor and not her because she's not an employee of this county. Now, as it relates to the -- to the Grady situation because I want this to -- to be perfectly clear, my efforts with that were to make the employee available to answer questions at the request of an attorney that had been retained by the clerk. I only asked that our attorney accompany this employee to the meeting. And, in fact, that occurred. And, in fact, I believe it was Mr. Cuyler. Mr. Cuyler was at the meeting. I was not. If -- if Mr. Grady was not happy with the answers to the questions that he got or an unwillingness that resulted in him telling Mr. Brock that we were not cooperative, but it's Mr. Cuyler -- and you can ask him -- we have not been asked to attend any subsequent meetings nor were we asked to produce any documents at the meeting where I made Mr. Yonkosky available. I don't know what else it is you want me to do. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: So -- so -- and then I'm going to stop on this point. I just want to get it clear. What -- I wish that Mr. Grady were here and if there's somebody from the clerk's office who knows, maybe in Mr. Grady's letter he's complaining about the lack of participation of Mr. Yonkosky by his responses, his lack of responsiveness to questions at the meeting. MR. DORRILL: I'm told they were there for two or three hours, and I will let Mr. Cuyler elaborate on that because, again, I was not at the meeting. I don't know what the line of questions were. I don't know whether they were accusatory. I don't -- I'm telling you I made him available. I said I would make him subsequently available. We have not received a request. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. CUYLER: I -- I was at the meeting. I did attend that. Mr. Grady would rather have had the meeting at his offices for his convenience. He said he had some records there that was more convenient for him -- for him to get to there, but he brought the records with him to the best of my knowledge and had an associate there with him. Mr. Yonkosky was there. I was there. I believe we had a court reporter there, although he wasn't -- Mr. Yonkosky wasn't sworn at that time, and I thought Mr. Yonkosky was very forthcoming in his answers. Mr. Grady -- I've gotten copies of correspondence since then between Grady and Meridian, some of which I've copied the board on, some of which I need to get to the board. But he has made no further requests of my office or brought to my attention that he needed anything else from him, and I have told him I would be more than happy to coordinate with him on anything he needs from me. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Two quick comments. One, if we find ourselves getting into the affidavit phase, I assume, Mr. Dotrill, you'd be willing to provide whatever's legally sufficient to bolster your -- MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Second comment, I keep seeing people jockeying to be the last one, and I'd just suggest to the chairman that perhaps we'd ask now if there are anyone else with speaker slips that are holding out, maybe we can get those turned in, get a final count because before too much longer not only does our court reporter need a break, I'm going to need a little nature break pretty soon. MR. DORRILL: I now have four more, and the ones that I am holding, I've got Mr. Bayes. Mr. Mackenzie. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COHMISSIONER NORRIS: COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I've got Mr. Marlin, Mr. Laymon, and Are there any additional? Mr. Thomas. Speak now or forever -- Hold your slip. Let's take a break then. We've got five, six more now. Hr. Dotrill -- in fact, Hr. Cuyler, tell me if this would be an appropriate thing to do and the board to concur with. We will close the acceptance of any further public slips for comment. Is that -- MR. CUYLER: You can do that if you wish to. If anybody wants to register, they need to do it right now. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. We're going to take about a ten-minute break for nature and -- and for the changing of the paper. If anybody has any slips where they want to speak, now is the time. I will accept none, no others when we get back. (A short break was held.) CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Going to reconvene the board of county commission meeting for July 25, 1995. We are in the midst of discussion 10-A -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Everybody's got their slips in. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- and public comment. And I am presuming everyone has their speaker slips in. I don't see anybody else running, jumping. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Skipping. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Going once. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Going once, twice, no more speaker slips. Mr. Dotrill. MR. DORRILL: With that we have seven. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Seven more? MR. DORRILL: At one point we were to two. We now have seven. We are back to Mr. Bayes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: How do you spell that? MR. DORRILL: Ha'am? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: How do you spell that? MR. BAYES: B-a-y-e-s, first name William. Good afternoon. It's been a long day, and we've been through a lot here. I am here on behalf or I guess in support of Neil Dotrill. I consider his character and his ability to lead has been proven time and time again, but the one thing I think you need to be know -- I'm going to make this very brief. As everyone has to make decisions and sometimes you have time to put a lot of thought into them and sometimes you just need to react, I think Neil has proven -- has proven his ability of who he is represented today. He was presented a notebook of notes that he knew nothing about on how to react. He was given one hour to prepare and come back. And flawlessly he's bullet proof in the sense of being able to face it. He could have said you brought something to me that I wasn't ready for, I'm not ready to address this. And I just feel very strongly that this clearly is an example of the character of a man that you're talking about. You're not going -- all issues are not going to be resolved 100 percent. But he's not a man who's ready to walk away or to say, I donwt want to address this right now. He went right at it. And as far as this issue of the intimidation, youwre dealing with a man who is representing a large county, a growing county. Hews a gentleman first. And I think there are examples of that on a daily basis. But he does have to make decisions, and there are going to be people that question whether or not, you know, if theywre affected negatively by his decisions. But I know that he is a man of character. I know that he will do what he says he will do. Hels come back to you with the responses on this notebook that he had not seen. And I just would like to see you all put this behind you and move onto the positive. Collier County is a very positive county. But as everyone makes comments about Lee County, if you continue to let this thing go, itls going to turn real negative real quick. So donlt lose a leader. Donlt lose someone that -- that could really lead this county into the next -- next century for us. So my support is for Neil Dotrill. Thank you very much. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Marlin and then Mr. Laymon. MR. MARLIN: My name is Earl Marlin. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me, Mr. Marlin. Malam, we have closed the time for accepting slips. I -- I hate to do that but -- COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: Can I -- may I just say on the break I did get a message that she was on her way? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: And I -- I assumed that that meant a slip was already in. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Iim sorry. COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: I have a written message in the office. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Iim sorry. MR. DORRILL: Well, I was -- someone just called our office and asked if they were on the way would you take another one. And I indicated that the chair had said no, and then she said no at the beginning and asked me how many did I have. So we told one person one thing and another person the other thing. COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: Chairls discretion. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Iim going to have to say no, we closed it. Iim -- Iim -- I regret that now that thatls going to affect what you want to say. Mr. Marlin. MR. MARLIN: In a long business career, Iive had several bosses, and Iive had a lot of employees including some managerial employees. I donlt recall any of them ever being perfect. Certainly I wasnlt. I donlt think they were. I doubt that Neil is. I would seriously doubt that any of the commissioners are. So you have to -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Guilty as charged. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Guilty. MR. MARLIN: But at least itls possible they might not be. However, I have found in a long career in business that you have to weigh what a person does against the things that they do that you might not care for. And if he comes out ahead on that, itls best to keep him. Frankly, when you let somebody go, it takes a year to break in somebody else anyhow, so youlre -- youlye got the weight a little bit on that side. Now, further than that, it appears there's a vendetta here against Neil. I don't know what brings it on. The newspaper's involved. Butt Saunders apparently is involved. I don't know what brings it on, but it should be stopped. My recommendation is to this commission don't second the motion and drop this and get on with something else. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Laymon and then Mr. -- and then Audrey Allan. MR. LAYHON: For the record, Richard Laymon. I live in Naples. I came today to -- to simply observe. I had no intention of speaking. Therefore, I don't have any notes in front of me or anything like that. But I'd like to open by saying that Neil's a friend of mine and has been for the full 12 years I've lived in this community. That having been said, though, I've got to point out that the proceedings today ought not to be the popularity contest that has been mobilized within the last week. There's some very serious business decisions to be made here, and it shouldn't be on the basis of how many guffaws or hoo-ha's you got from the audience from any particular speaker's point of view. I'm very concerned about this derivatives thing, and I mentioned that to one of the commissioners. I mention it to all of you now that I have the -- the opportunity to speak to all of you. Depending on whose numbers you go by, we're -- we're faced with losing somewhere between 600,000 and perhaps as much as 8,000,000 bucks on this derivatives thing. And if, in fact, stonewalling is taking place, I -- I think that it most definitely must be nipped at the bud. We need to get to the bottom of this. We need to do like other counties have done and get our money back. St. Lucie County has gotten their money back. I understand that Escambia County took a shellacking. There was a grand jury investigation there. Perhaps that's got something to do with the unofficial responses taking place here. I have no idea. But I -- I think that -- that there is sufficient meat to the allegations that would be incredibly unwise to take the position of Neil, my boy, right or wrong today. I -- I really think that the commissioners should follow through with this first phase, give yourself the two weeks to read and absorb the information that's contained in the packet that you were presented today, get more feedback from the community at large, and -- and not simply from -- from this noisy group that's been trying to sway public opinion and the media. And that having been said, I would also like to add my own two cents' worth on the intimidation issue. The last time I spoke to the commission, it was the prior commission, their last session I believe. And I spoke as a private citizen with no vested interest whatsoever. The point of view that I presented was -- was carried by the commission. It went against the administration here. And I was personally attacked, and my reputation was attacked as a result of that. I immediately brought this to Mr. Dorrill's attention. He did not nip the situation in the bud. I've presented witnesses to the alleged attack, and I believe that those witnesses have been spoken to. But I don't think that's any way to treat a private citizen who comes to share expertise with this commission. And yes, there is intimidation that goes on. Did Mr. Dotrill attack me personally? No. One of his lieutenants did. But Mr. Dotrill covered up for him and subsequently said I must be lying. I got a problem with that. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Laymon. MR. DORRILL: Mr. or Ms. Allan. Ms. Allan, excuse me, and then Mr. Mackenzie. MS. ALLAN: My name is Audrey Allen. I'm a citizen. I have no beef. I have no favors to ask. I am not beholding to anybody. But I read the newspapers. I occasionally come to meetings, and I have never spoken before. What I would like to say is that I have been shocked by the behavior of some of the people that have spoken today. Their lack of courtesy has stunned me. And I'm here more to stand up for what I think a speaker before a commission, a board of commissioners, how they should behave. I think you have an important job to do. I think that -- I'll go back to an old one. Where there's smoke, there's fire. I think there's investigation needed. And like the previous gentleman, I think you need to think. Don't rush into anything. Find out what's going on, and then I have to put my faith in you. We elected you. And I hope that you're going to do what you think is best for the -- for the taxpayers. I'd like to say that I'm not doing this and I'm not in any way impugning Mr. Dotrill. I've been here long enough to know that he's done a very fine job in the past. The only thing I would wonder about is whether or not with the growth of Collier County the job has outgrown him. That is my one question which I don't know how I would ever get an answer to. But I wish you luck, and I think you need to do what needs to be done. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Mackenzie and then Mr. Hiers. MR. MACKENZIE: Good afternoon. My name's Brian Mackenzie. I'm here representing myself. And right off the bat, I worked for Mr. Dotrill, and I'm speaking in -- in support of him, but several years ago I was his administrative assistant for a couple of years and can only testify to the fact that given the difficulty of dealing with me personally which is something that has followed me everywhere I've ever been, I've never -- never seen him treat myself badly, particularly when it was called for, in either -- in a business situation, when I was coming, or when I was going. And the second point is I think that I came today expecting to talk about sexual harassment and -- and morale and -- and those types of things. But we seem to have focused on -- on a few issues with a few people that -- some of which are more than a few years old. And this seems to be the -- the -- the power that will come forth to talk about him. Two or three people over two or three years is the only ones that he's made angry. I do that in an afternoon. And I think if you look at eight years and the thousands of people that Mr. Dotrill has had contact with, I think that's a testament to his general good nature in addition to dealing with me for so long. So I've been gone for, I guess, six years now from the county, and I don't think I left under -- under good terms, but I think there was a breath of relief when I finally did leave. So I don't -- I don't count myself as a close friend, but I was never treated badly here, not once, not ever. The second thing I think that I would suggest that you might be seeing here is not so much intimidation per se -- and this is another thing that I have lived with my life -- is -- but -- but fear. There are a certain number of people in the world who are going to be scared of anything. And I think that's a very small percentage, and what you're seeing is a very small percentage today. And what they would see as intimidation is -- may well -- may very well be fear. So I would just like to support Mr. Dotrill and say that he's doing a very good job. And please be very careful in your consideration because if -- if a message can be sent that -- that could possibly be interpreted to mean that the reins of power are being turned away from elected officials and tremendous impact can be had by anonymous letter writers who may be disgruntled, who may be unhappy, and I think that's a very scary thing to me when I look at these types of proceedings. So thank you very much for your time. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Hiers and then Mr. Street. MR. HIERS: Afternoon. 1992 I lived in Veto Beach, Florida, and I worked for a company that sold lots that started from $750,000 and went to 3.2 million. Needless to say, the people I worked for were demanding. And it started taking a toll on my life and my family. And literally as we walked around the block that day in 1992, I asked God to find us a new town, but I said, I just hope it's not Naples, Florida. Ten days later I got a call from Naples. I thought I'd humor God. I thought I'd humor my employer. Because I'd been in Naples in 1981, I didn't want to come here. It was far away from my family. I equated Naples with Hiami. After making every effort I could to keep from coming to Naples, I'm here. And I will tell you that having lived here now for a little over two years, if I had anyplace in the world to pick to live, even though it's not perfect, for my family -- 15-month-old, a 4-year-old, and a 10-year-old -- I would live in Naples, Florida. If you know George Steinbrenner, he managed the Yankees, and I want -- I want to try to make a point and not be critical here. I just want to make an observation. He owned the Yankees which gave him all sort of rights. But if you followed him closely, you saw that he overmanaged the Yankees. He did what he had a right to do, but it wasn't right. He took his position with people who were more experienced with what they did, and that was a manager and being accountable. In my opinion, whether you're a manager or anybody, I would want somebody to tell me what I want to hear -- or what I needed to hear versus what I want to hear. I think you gotta be strong enough to do that. That has to be tethered with diplomacy and tact, granted. By the way, just a footnote, in your school systems today across the country you've got 350,000 weapons going daily into your school systems. I find it ironic we've got one in the system here, and that shouldn't be tolerated. I've heard a lot of talk today about what might happen versus what's happened. I'm impressed with what I see in this county, not that it can't be better. I'm going to press in that direction because I work for a company that demands precision and accountability. That's what I see. I don't see behind the door. What I've heard today is a lot of innuendos, and I've heard a lot of facts from Neil. I don't know Neil. I met him once. Madam Chairman, I'd just direct one thing to you. When I first came in here, I thought in my opinion based on talking to the community that you should probably resign, but I've changed my mind because I admire your tenacity. I don't agree with what you're doing. I think you're wrong, but I think county needs people who will stand up for what they believe in even if it's wrong. What I want to encourage the commission to do is look at the facts, take the personalities out, take your egos out, and look at this as a business. And so that's all I've got to say. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. And I believe that my conversation with -- with Mr. Dotrill yesterday was exactly in that direction, that there's no animosity here. It's a business decision. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Street and then Mr. Thomas if he's still here. MR. STREET: Hello. I'm Jeff Street, and I'm just speaking as a private citizen. And I know we don't always agree. I'm sure there's issues that any one of the commissioners or Mr. Dotrill has supported that I disagreed with. And a lot of times you may hear on the radio or see in the newspaper letters to the editor, people disagreeing with various people, commissioners or Mr. Dotrill or other people. And that disagreement doesn't always mean that they don't want that person. You know, I -- the people I vote for I don't always agree with everything that they do. But that doesn't mean that the community's not in support of that person. I don't see from what's gone on here any kind of a consistent pattern of abuse of power or -- or, you know, problems or -- you know, I just -- I see a very skilled man of a great deal of integrity. And I don't think -- and the other thing I think about when I see people, past employees, upset or disgruntled, I -- I can relate that to personal experiences I've had where I've been in a situation where I was very busy like Mr. Dotrill probably is in 99.9 percent of the time, and you have to tell somebody something, and they take it the wrong way, and it's not your fault. But they just do. And when I see that, one of my favorite things to do is go up to that person and say, look, I didn't mean it personally. If I didn't like you, I'd come up to you and I'd tell you that your breath stinks and your mother dresses you funny and leave it at that, and I'd be very clear about it. But unfortunately, people do take things the wrong way. And if they are subordinates, they may not be willing to express that at the time, and that may fester. And then that may come out after the person is no longer employed. But if it had been dealt with maybe at the time, maybe we would have been able to find that it was just a personality conflict or a misunderstanding. And that's all. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: And Mr. Thomas was your final registered speaker. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You successfully got to be the last speaker. Fred, good job. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: He held back long enough. MR. THOMAS: Thank you very much. It took a lot of thought because I come here with two hats on. There's a lot of communication within our community and as president of Immokalee Chamber of Commerce. My name is Fred Thomas for the record -- I'm sorry -- the president of Immokalee Chamber of Commerce. But I'm also the executive director of the Collier County Housing Authority, the housing authority that has to come to you commissioners to ask for things and different things. So I'm not here -- you know -- you know, when you talk about intimidation, you got to look at it, you know, all ways. But I've been a public administrator for 28 years, 21 years as executive director or deputy director. This is a very hard job. It takes only fools like me and Neil to do this kind of job in the light of all the public scrutiny with all of the shackles that are placed on us in trying to do our job. But the worst thing can happen to us is what happens around this town. If I can quarterback the team on Monday morning, I can have a winning season every year. Hindsight is always 20/20. On any given day -- and I run a housing authority that's a model for the country. On any given day you can come out and find violations. It's not that these things occur because you're dealing with human beings. It's how you respond to them. As the point was made earlier, you haven't had repetitive complaints on the same thing with Neil. One of Neil's weaknesses as far as I'm concerned, he hasn't got a hatchet man anywhere close to him on his staff. Do you understand that? Somebody complained that Fred Thomas intimidated, yes, I walk with intimidating manner. I talk in an aggressive, intimidating way. I can get very colorful in my conversation. You'd never see that out of Neil. He's the ultimate gentleman, okay, and I'd question anybody's motives that would say anything else to the different about him because he's not and does not have around him the kind of people that I think he needs to take care of some of the problems he shouldn't have to deal with every day. That's a public administrator talking to you because we got a tough job as it is to run the shop. Always down the line people can misinterpret, not understand, not understand the overall picture as in any big organization. But the head of the organization has to make some very tough decisions. And Neil does an exceptional job because our commissioners constantly change the direction that they want him to go. And he very gracious -- gracefully tries to make sure he stays out in front and anticipates, but I see it as very difficult. I could not do his job. Loyalty, in order for you to have loyalty you have to earn it. And we on the top have to earn it from our employees, and you commissioners got to earn it from him. But that's a two-way street. You got to be loyal to them, loyal to him. We need professional direction. The reason why you have a county manager form of government in the first place is to remove partisan politics so you can have a predictable, professional direction in your government. If not, you go back to a mayoral form of government where you -- you elect your local -- your chief executive officer. But now you got a professionally run government, been professionally run for eight years. Think about it. You're all getting ready to run for your third term. You're all getting ready to run. Just imagine because some of you got hopes to do that. You're getting ready to run for your third term, and somebody's talking to you about something you did in the first month of your first term. There's got to be an end to it at some point. You've got to accept the people that have grown at some point and be about the business and let this government go on and run like it's supposed to be. We got a good set of commissioners, but somehow there's some monkeys in the background that keep stirring up stuff. Now, you'll note that I never respond to comments made about me in the newspaper because I look at the media as a smooth, clear lake with that much silt in the bottom. Somebody's going to dig that silt up, and I'm not going to provide grits for the media mill and go on and try to explain it because I just stir up more of it, and pretty soon you can't even see. And that's what's happening now. You can't see through it. You just got to let it die, go away, and go on about your business because we, one -- think of it. He has spoiled you by letting you lower your millage rate every year for the last seven years. Do you understand? He's spoiled you in letting you do that. Host governments wouldn't do that. But he's done an outstanding job. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Fred, property values had a little something to do with that. MR. THOMAS: That -- that -- but, see, the point I'm saying is that many CEOs would recommend to you to leave it alone and use that as your surplus. But he's come back and tried to follow your direction and be lean, mean, push staff much faster than they've ever run before, get more accomplished. And with that -- what is it? TQH that you do throughout your organization? T -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Q plus. MR. THOMAS: Q plus or whatever, get the employees' involvement all the way through the process. We got to put an end to this. We gotta move ahead. If you don't want to renew his contract next year because you want a new direction, you need to do it then. But we gotta get government going. We got too many things that we have to do in this government. I appreciate you hearing from me. The people of Immokalee demanded I come here to share these points with you. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. That concludes our -- our public comment on the -- on the agenda. Is there comment from the commission? Commissioner Constantine. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. First off, despite the difficulties in the sunshine act -- and this is not aimed toward any one commissioner. This is all of us as a whole. Despite the difficulties of the sunshine act, I think this has probably been handled poorly. May 16 we heard the issue. I expressed some very serious concerns. I was not in favor of the extra year extension. But it isn't good, it isn't fair to the individual person, Neil, to drag this out over two or three months. It's certainly not good for the county and county government to drag any issue of this magnitude out for two or three months. That said, however, today we are discussing only one thing, and that is the Board of County Commissioners' confidence in the county manager. In my opinion, this is probably the most important decision that this board of these five people have made thus far. And I know for me it has been the most difficult decision. I have gone back and forth over the past seven days and weighted out. Last night I literally sat down and started writing the strengths and weaknesses down on paper going back and forth trying to make a decision. A lot of comments today about Neil and his integrity. He is a good family man. His whole family is here today. The little one has disappeared but was here earlier. An intelligent -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nap time. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: An intelligent guy. At the same time there are times when he comes across as arrogant. There are times when he seems almost detached. But all in all, he is a likable guy. I like Neil. I consider him a friend. But that isn't, again, the purpose of why we're here. The only question is what is in the best interest of the future of Collier County. I've criticized Neil when I deemed that appropriate. I have praised him when I deemed it appropriate for that. And as I reviewed in my mind what has gone on over the past two and a half years that I've been on the board, as I said, I -- I went from side to side. There are certain -- certainly many things that have been beneficial to the county that have occurred in that time frame. But there are other things as well. There is still -- I know prior to being on the commission there was the appearance -- and from this side of the dais as well, there seems to be confusion in Mr. Dorrill's mind from time to time who works for whom. He does not take criticism well, and I'd say that's most recently evidenced by our debate on his contract May 16 and his reaction to some of the thoughts I offered that day. And, frankly, I think at times, Neil, you seem to focus less on some of the challenges, seem less able to focus on some of the challenges we face than you have in the past. Again, that's -- those are all kind of fringe elements, and those are -- there's nothing solid there. So I go back to my original question, and that is what's in the best interest of Collier County's future. And I'm going to share with the board some of my specific concerns and then ask for your consideration and input of those before I offer a final decision. Prior to -- just prior to when all of us were elected, this happened in -- both in 1992 and then again prior to the elections of 1994, there were both perceived and I think very real problems in community development. Very little action took place from the manager's office until forced -- until the issue was forced from the Board of County Commissioners. We have gone through over the past several years four reorganizations in community development. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Four? I only thought there were three. I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think there was three, and one -- one had another title but four major changes within community development. And I think we're finally getting somewhere now. I think Vince Guiterro's a good guy. I think he's going to put together a good program down there. But the question is why so long, why so many? When we're talking about management and management skills, why have we continued to fumble along as -- as we did? Big problems in utilities. Mr. McNees stood up and -- and pointed out some of the good things going on. He also acknowledged some of the problems. We had a number of problems that had been well documented prior to and some following what I call the Norris audit when Commissioner Norris suggested we have Coopers and Lybrand come in and do an audit of the department. Again, little action until the board of commissioners forced the issue. I think Mr. McNees mentioned that -- some of the computer difficulties -- maybe that was Neil mentioned some of the computer difficulties down there and others. Most recently there was the restructuring of the county government itself this spring, and there was, if you recall, a -- in the newspapers, in the media, from the comments of the board, and elsewhere there was a perception that county government was adrift. We had a number of administrative positions that not only were vacant but had been vacant for several months and I think in at least one case for over a year. And again, no action forthcoming until the Board of County Commissioners forced the issue. Two weeks later we had a major restructuring unveiled. And by the scope of it, I would assume that some work had been done prior to that two weeks. But there was no communication along the way. As a matter of fact, I didn't know till 5 p.m. the night before when I asked Neil what -- what the contents of that were going to be. But up until the time we forced the issue, there was no communication that any restructuring was going on. So not only was there public perception but among some members of the board anyway there was a perception that county government was adrift. And I'm sorry. I called the last one most recently, but most recently were the problems in human resources. And Commissioner Mac'Kie uncovered some of those through her research in community development. And I remember when she presented that commenting that it mirrored many of the comments I had heard from our utilities employees. And those are two large -- two of the largest, I believe, divisions that we have. And if it's going on in both those departments through human resources, it was likely going on elsewhere. We have since discovered that there were some very serious problems going on in human resources, and Mr. Dotrill has taken some action. But again, no action on that until the ssue was pressed by the board of commissioners. And I mention all of those because we get accused sometimes of micromanaging. And obviously our role as commissioners is to set policy and let the management team implement that policy. But in each of those instances following good management practice, keeping those under control, making sure the appropriate things happened didn't happen until the issue was pressed by the board. And the board shouldn't have to get involved in whether or not human resources is working properly. The board shouldn't have to get involved in whether or not community development is working properly. And the board shouldn't have to get involved in any of those areas. That is the manager's duty. And in each of those, it wasn't until the board got involved that the manager took action. So we talk about whether or not he has good skills. He does in some areas. But in some there are very obvious deficiencies. Probably the biggest concern to me are when you get down to the human stories, real people. We can talk about broad ideas. But when you talk about real people -- and today we've talked about Mr. Dotrill being a family man and being a good person, going to church, working hard. And that's not unlike the vast majority of our 1,000 county employees under him. When we did the community development reorganization, there were 16 positions cut, and I applaud that effort. I applaud the effort trying to save money, trying to streamline, trying to do that. The problem I have is that I want everyone to imagine that you get up tomorrow and you pick up the newspaper and you read in the newspaper that you don't have a job anymore. No one has told you that. No one has pulled you aside and explained that there's going to be a reorganization, that some positions are being cut. You read it in the daily newspaper. And with some of those 16 positions, that's exactly what happened. They had no idea until they saw their Naples Daily News. And those people, too, were good family people, church-going people, and so on. And that's not fair to them. I think most recently that -- when that happened, again, we did the reorganization, as I mentioned, of county government as a whole. And again, I applaud the effort of trying to combine departments, trying to trim our budget. I don't have any problem with that. But the treatment of some of the individuals, again, missed the mark. There was a question in my mind when we reorganized and Mr. Dotrill mentioned there would be a phase-out of some of those positions. And I asked what would happen to those employees. And he said why we wanted to phase it in over six months is by what would then be October 1, hopefully for each of those people, there would be a vacancy for some other existing position, and at least we could keep them employed. We would eliminate overall number of positions in the county, but we could try to take care of our own. On at least one of the employees who -- who were affected by that whose job was cut, to this very day he has never heard from a supervisor, either his direct supervisor or all the way up the line to Mr. Dotrill, not only that his job was cut but anything in ref -- I'm sorry, not only in reference to a new job but that his job was cut. The first he heard -- he didn't read it in the newspaper. But a reporter called him and said, I understand your job's being cut. This is your area of expertise. What are you going to do? What are your plans? He had never heard from a supervisor or from anyone his job was being cut. And that's -- that's just a terrible thing. You come to work one day and have no idea and your own boss or anyone up the line doesn't share that with you. The newspaper shares that with you. And -- and that's the kind of oversight I think that grabs me in here the toughest. There are the conceptual things dealing with departments and failure and certain managerial skills. But when we fail with individuals, that's the ultimate responsibility of -- of the manager in my mind. Yes, we have to run the business. But I think it was -- Hiss Sachko said there's two sides to that. You have to run the business and make sure the county runs efficiently and delivers the services to our customers, being the taxpayers. But at the same time we have to take care of those who are delivering the service. And that's our employees. And I'm sure neither one of those instances were done on purpose. But they are examples of where we have failed in our management effort to take care of our own employees. And -- and so I just -- I kind of throw all that out, and I offer that to the other commissioners looking for some input back. But those are the areas -- some of those I had mentioned in May. But those are the areas that really give me cause for concern and reason to step back here and give this serious consideration. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, it's my motion, so I don't think I need to comment except I didn't feel a need to go as far back in time as you have. But you've certainly laid it out quite well and much better than I could have. Commissioner Hancock. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I guess the first thing -- and I've been scribbling in the margins all throughout today, and I probably can't read half of what I wrote. But to -- to just kind of address some of the things and give you the benefit of some of my feelings on the items you brought up, I'll just kind of go down the list. I was not involved in -- even though I was here in the county, I think I was away in some foreign land in '92. I'm not trying to remember. But in '94 for the problems that occurred in community development, I at that time was chairing a subcommittee on community development. And we were getting to a point -- of course, the board directed the productivity committee to look at it. We were -- we were reviewing community development division. And I sat there one evening as I gathered the reports from the -- the people within the committee that prepared individual elements, and the result was there were about three people in that division that needed to go. And as I'm sitting there trying to figure out how do I write a report to present to the board as a citizen of this community that -- that some people should be fired, before I could get that report out of a word processor, those people were gone. Whether that timing was accidental, that information was not given to the county manager's office by our committee. But before we could even write the report, action was taken that addressed it and addressed it in the exact same manner that our committee was trying and wrestling with a way to recommend. So there's an instance in which an independent board of individuals reviewing a department of county government, the county manager took action before that report that was exactly what the report would have dictated in a similar form. So I can't answer for '92. I really wasn't involved. But in '94 I'm not so sure that that appears to me as a weakness. Regarding utilities problems, that department has continually and to -- much to Mike McNees's credit until recently had leadership difficulties. I'll give you my understanding of it. Mr. Arnold, Mike Arnold, in my opinion was a heck of a nice guy. He had some medical problems that occurred during his tenure here. And, in my opinion, Mr. Dotrill out of compassion probably hung on to Mike Arnold a little too long, probably tried to stay with him a little too long. And it affected the operation of the utilities department in a negative manner. I believe at that time, Neil, you took some heat for that. The utilities department was in essence in your hands, and we heard some things today about how Mike Arnold was operating out of the house. Whether completely true or not, the criticism that can be made of Neil in that particular instance is that he tried with compassion to not ruin a man and his family and in doing so sacrificed some level of operation of the utilities department. If we can fault him for that, so be it. If we're asking how has he revised his management style, I haven't seen him hanging on to too many people that have troubles lately. I think from that instance Mr. Dotrill may have learned that compassion is not the sole rule of leadership. Sometimes you cannot sacrifice even the smallest level of operation because of your personal feelings about a person or their family. Again, I don't find necessarily a weakness there. I find a procedural error that I hope Mr. Dotrill has learned from. And his current actions or past actions show me that he has. When we talk about community development and the government being adrift as -- as the whole Dick Clark and Maria Cruz situation unfolded, those of you that have received anonymous letters may have seen some writing on the wall. Those of us that were blindsided after a Tuesday meeting with what was going on probably have a little more understanding of what it's like to not know inside of county government, a government I am supposed to be one of the leaders of, and I didn't know what was going on. None of us I think knew to the extent of what had occurred. And the resulting perception that government was adrift I think is -- is again one of those media situations that you deal with in any type of a major shake-up from a significant department head. So do we again put that in Mr. Dorrill's court as a management problem? If I go back in the procedure in which he followed addressing that, if I go back and find a couple of elements I would have done differently, so be it. Do I think he should have made termination steps before he did? In my opinion, no. But then again, we were in a reactionary position at that time due to what was displayed on the front page of the paper, and I don't think anyone can avoid that. Human resources, things are not fixed until the board acted. I don't -- I -- maybe my recollection is different. I don't know that that's -- that that's completely the case, that we forced Mr. Dorrill to fire Tom -- or -- or ask Mr. Whitecotton to resign. I don't remember this board making a statement position to him to that effect. I think that action is in his court, right or wrong. You mentioned, Commissioner Constantine, about employees finding out about reorganizations in the newspaper. I went through in the private sector two what we call black Mondays when I worked locally. And you came in to work that morning, and somebody gets called to their supervisor's office, and a hush falls over the department, and everyone sits waiting for the next person to be called. Would that shock have been any less to those individuals had they read it in the paper? Probably not. Would I prefer to do it in the media or individually? I'd rather do it individually. I don't know in each of these situations whether Mr. Dotrill, in trying to seek approval of the board to see if the board supported his actions, was forced through the media to find out about these firings. We are in a public forum. We do act in a public forum. If he had done some of these things unilaterally without letting anyone know, could it have been done without media attention? Possibly. I don't really have an answer for that, but I do know that I don't know of many lay-offs that have ever occurred in the balance of the businesses in this world that were smooth and the effective (sic) parties weren't shocked or surprised. So again, if we're getting to -- to elements -- and -- and -- and I don't mean to slight them by calling them nuances but style points, then those are things that we need to -- to discuss. I have chosen a manner to deal with the county manager that is strictly my own. And shortly after taking office, as anyone who followed the campaigns knows, I think I gave Mr. Dotrill a C coming into this office because I wasn't sure about his performance. I had some questions about his management style. It didn't take very long for me to sit down with Neil and express those concerns, those desires, and to talk to him about that. I'm new kid on the block, you know. What do I know? I'm telling a guy who's been here eight years how to do his job, but I felt the need to express to him individually my concerns, my positions, and ask him to address them. To date he has continued to update me on those things. He has continued to address the individual style points that I talk to him about. There was some he didn't agree with. He flat out told me. I wasn't threatened by that. It didn't bother me. I appreciated his honesty. And to -- through today and through whatever time Mr. Dotrill is here, I expect to have a very open, honest, and candid relationship with the county manager. If he doesn't always do what I want him to do, so be it. There's five of us. He's trying to please a lot of people. So nearly everyone we've heard today with the exception of I think one person I noted that has had a difficulty with the county manager's office, that difficulty can be traced back to a single action, event, or series of events in which things did not go their way, shall we say. There are going to be disgruntled people in dealing with an organization of this size and of the outreach we have. Do we allow that to drive the machine of county government? And this report is full of secondhand information of this person said that. I'm not saying that in a demeaning manner, Commissioner Matthews. You brought it forward for our discussion. So be it. But if those items and these -- these things brought forward mainly by people that have had past problems with the county manager's office -- then they have individual gripes, are the driving force. Then the force is not sufficient for me to support the motion. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I just -- I want to do something real quick. Neil, Commissioner Hancock touched on my comments on community development, but I wanted to give you an opportunity to hit on some of the other points I made. I'm looking for some help from you here, and I think all of us would acknowledge you have some particular skills. What I need you to do is acknowledge yes, you have some weaknesses and how are you going to address those if you're going to continue here because, you know, some of those things I mentioned, as I said, are things seem to drag on. But the ones that get me the most are the individual employee stories. I need some help from you there. MR. DORRILL: Well, the -- first specifically let me -- let me relate to the incident that occurred around Christmas two years ago where we were going to have a mid-manager reduction in -- in force. It affected me personally in the holidays, and it was very upsetting to me if that's the context that we're -- we're recollecting that we -- we had a proposed list of positions. You may recall that I had even -- I struggled with that. I was under pressure from the board to reduce cost in that division because two years ago real estate construction was down. And the contention was we were depleting our reserves. We didn't have the income to support that level of staff. The board directed me to prepare a reduction in force for mid-level managers only. And we really struggled with that, and it was Christmas, and the final call was my call. But I had impaneled a quality plus committee, a unilateral committee, to develop a proposal for me because I did not want to rely just solely on the managers. My recollection is that the newspaper requested a copy of the list before it could be discussed privately with those who were potentially at risk. We were obligated and we endeavored and made a plea for that not to appear in the newspaper. For whatever reason it did. And it was beyond our control, and I regret it to this day that in the context of the Christmas holiday that people did get up and read the -- the newspaper and find out that they were on this proposed list of cuts. Secondly, if -- if you ask me am I the same person that I -- I was two years ago, I think the answer is no. I think that in all honesty that given what people do tell me, how do you stand to do what you do, how do you stand to sit there and listen to the type of attack and from people who have a vested interest or an ax to grind, I don't really know. But I will tell you that I think that I am a -- I think I am a more humble individual than perhaps when the -- the three of you commissioners who have been here three years arrived. I will tell you that this is a very difficult board to work for, and I will tell you I have certainly worked for boards that in the past were -- were much easier to work for. I had a reporter relate to me a -- a story that -- that did say that -- that he thought the reason that I was still here was an ability and a willingness on my part to rely on my honesty and my personal integrity but a willingness increasingly to admit when I have been wrong or admit when I have made a mistake. And I without -- and please don't take this arrogantly or the wrong way. But I -- I just honestly don't know of any individual in this community who has had to publicly admit when they have made an error or an error in judgment but then had to quickly and show our intent to correct that any more than -- than have I. And so the -- the honest realization -- and that's why I told you in the confidence of your office yesterday that aside from how you and I had started here that I had enjoyed working for you in particular, had worked for you very hard to try and earn your respect. I said the same thing earlier to Ms. Matthews today, and it's not that I have -- have tried to get you or to use the influence that this position has. I think I have tried, at least over the last six or seven months, to show you how hard I was willing to work for you to try and earn and then keep your respect. And I -- so -- so the long answer is that I -- I think I am a little different. I think I have certainly matured over the last eight and a half years and as evidenced by the -- the type of pressure that not only me but my family have -- have been under the last six or seven months. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Let me just ask one final question. Then I'll let the other commissioners say their piece. The one area I need you to address for me and try to provide me some level of comfort is I went back through my reviews of your performance over the last couple of years. And there was one question -- it's worded a little differently, but it's roughly the same. Number 8 on last year's was demonstrates leadership and vision in planning needs of divisions and implements or alters necessary programs and activities to increase efficiency and effectiveness. On a scale of 1 to 5, I gave you a 2 then. The year before I think I also gave you a 2 on a similar question. And -- and my comment starts out last year -- I won't read the whole thing, but the first sentence is -- and this is from I think September of a year ago -- needs heavy push from board of commissioners before he takes action. And I realize you're in a position where you're trying to make sure five different bosses are happy. But at the same time in the areas I outlined, my -- my biggest concern -- and why I mention these reports is because it has consistently been my biggest concern over the two years -- is in some of those divisions your ability to go ahead and take bold action and have some sort of vision. And I -- and I still have that question in my mind, and I need some level of comfort there from you. MR. DORRILL: I think the fire is -- is still down there. When I said this is a difficult board to work with, you all have different individual personality traits that run the gamut. And I had a commissioner tell me the other day that I want you to become the leader of the county in terms of -- of the -- the board bringing you along, and let's take some really bold initiatives to do things that nobody has ever tried to do before. And that commissioner then said, though, having said that, I will tell you that other commissioners who have strong individual personalities and -- and have, you know, very high levels of self-confidence are going to immediately perceive that to be your arrogance or your trying to usurp the board's policy making authority. So every day when -- when I come to work, I'm walking a fine, fine line. And I can fall into the abyss on either side. And it is difficult. But in spite of that, we have tried to do things this year like the RECAP program where I thought that was an example of something that had not been done, was untried. I thought, frankly, at the very beginning of the year trying to go out and propose our own goals and objectives could have been perceived as the manager not being will -- willing to follow the board. I was trying to take what I thought was a calculated risk to step out and -- and continue to do things. And if I understand, the nature of your question is, you know, does the manager still have the desire when he gets up to come to work everyday along taking some bold steps? And I think the answer is yes, but -- but you got to be real careful, and you gotta be particularly careful with this board for the reason that I mentioned. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And that was my specific concern I mentioned Hay 16 was I wondered if there was still the energy and the vision. And one woman said she thought perhaps the position had outgrown you, and I think my question then and what I'm looking for an answer now is have you outgrown the position? MR. DORRILL: Well, I thought the same thing when -- when I heard her say that. I think at least our capabilities are there. And in terms of my immediate plans -- and, again, as we mentioned yesterday, my immediate plans are continue to work to be your county manager. I fully realize that you have got me on a one-year contract with an automatic extension unless you prevent that from happening, and that's what I intend to do is to try and move forward and continue to be your manager, albeit under increasingly difficult terms. There are not too many managers that last anywhere for ten years. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm -- I'm going to have to counter Commissioner Hancock's comment that these allegations of not using well-established management principles and so forth are allegations from unsigned, without names, and so forth. And I do -- COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm sorry. That's not what I said. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well -- COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Go ahead. That's not what I said. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. I do have letters. They're signed. There are people's names and people's lives. I want to go back, and we're going back, but Mr. Constantine has already gone into the past. This is a letter that was faxed to me yesterday from one Jane Fitzpatrick from Michigan, I believe. She worked for the county growth management director up until six years ago. She had a -- she -- her -- what can I say? Her exit interview was removed from her file. She has a copy of her personnel file. The exit interview is gone. She has allegations of sexual harassment six and a half years ago. She also talks about compensatory time and unequal treatment of staff. She talks about a reorganization that occurred while she was an employee. In her weekly one-on-one meeting with Mr. Dotrill she writes -- and I quote -- and I -- and I'll be -- let me distribute these now before we go any further. I'm -- I'm just -- MR. DORRILL: Can I ask you again one just procedural question? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes, sir. MR. DORRILL: Have you got anything else that you're going to want to discuss this afternoon? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: As to the afternoon agenda? MR. DORRILL: No, ma'am, as it pertains to -- to this matter. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No, these -- these -- the only reason why I introduced these, these are signed letters that are in support of the information that I talked about earlier today. Each and every one of these people are willing to reduce these letters to affidavits. Now, all I have asked the commission to do is to support me in a vote of loss of confidence and that we move forward with the next step which is a minimum of two weeks away -- it can be longer than that -- while we continue to look at these ideas. I mean, I have a letter from a person who is six and a half years ago employee, a letter from a woman by the name of Nina Neal, four years ago, whom -- she has a signed statement here that Mr. Dotrill -- she filed a grievance, and he did indeed encourage her to withdraw that grievance on -- on effect of problems with her husband's job who does not work for the county but has county contracts. MR. DORRILL: My only point being that if we're going to discuss these and if you'd like to, I would like to have a copy of them -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes. MR. DORRILL: -- so that I can know the basis of what it is, and I -- I would like to know if there are any other ones because it's sort of the circumstances we've been in all day. I just -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- you know, I would not have brought these except -- except that there was a comment here a short while ago that these are allegations that have no names assigned to them and what have you. And I want to remind this -- this board that all I've asked for is -- is -- is the support of a vote of lack of confidence, that we move forward to the next step in this. If we are unable to substantiate this information in a two-week period or three-week period, whenever the board deems to bring it back, that so be it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I -- can I just make a short comment about this -- this Nina Neal letter is the other one that I was referring to, Mr. Dotrill, when Ms. Vaughn was up and -- and had said the business about that you told her her fiance's job was in jeopardy. I spoke -- I spoke with Mr. Neal, and he confirmed for me that Mrs. Neal was told that if she didn't do what you wanted her to, her husband who was a consultant, an engineering consultant, would never get any more work from the county. And that was the one that I wasn't willing to discuss in this forum because -- MR. DORRILL: Okay. Well, let me -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- I didn't know that -- MR. DORRILL: Okay. Let me respond to that briefly. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I need you to. MR. DORRILL: Then I'll finish these. It -- it is at least interesting that in that context that while Nina Neal may have been aggrieved in that particular -- and she may allege that I said that her husband's engineering company would never get any other work if I didn't get my way. I find it absolutely unbelievable that what ultimately occurred was that her husband came to work for this county. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I know that. MR. DORRILL: And, in fact, he came to work for this county in a very high managerial position. So it's -- it's ludicrous for me to sit here and say that a former county employee who applied for a position and didn't get the position and then alleged that I was going to get her husband subsequently became a position of a high managerial significance in this county in -- in our office of capital project management. In the case of Jane Fitzpatrick, Jane Fitzpatrick under a former administration when growth management was in its infancy was created and reported directly to the county manager's office under the former county manager. When I became the county manager, I felt that growth planning and growth management did not belong in the county manager's office. It belonged along with the other planning departments in the community development division. And I reorganized that particular department, put it under the community development division. I felt in her particular personal case that there was a situation that was resulting in enormous amounts of compensatory time that were being accumulated and then would be used at some point. And she makes a contention that in her particular case as the director of the department I did not give her the same amount of compensatory time that I gave a male member of that department. But in that particular case as a managerial position in Collier County, she wasn't entitled to any compensatory time. She was entitled to whatever we decided was appropriate. And so -- so there again, I -- I will parrot some of the things that Mr. Hancock said. Over eight years or eight and a half years, there are going to be individuals who left here mad with me over some particular personal dispute or disagreement with me. I'm more than willing and have been to answer these types of things. But it's -- it's frustrating, especially in light of the Nina Neal type example or the Jane Fitzpatrick example where the contention is somehow that, you know, Mr. Dotrill has treated women differently or it is alleged that he would get their husbands or their boyfriends or whatever. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That -- you've -- you've listed two. One was Nina Neal, and one was Jane Fitzpatrick. Another one is Marsha Litsinger who we heard from today. And I haven't read this obviously yet, but I wonder if it's going to contain something besides what she said today. And then help me -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The -- the third -- the third letter -- the third letter was sitting on my desk this morning. The back of it is the envelope that it was on my desk in. It's a copy of it. And it is a four-page handwritten letter. Unfortunately, it is not signed. Hope -- excuse me. We have county employees who feel intimidated. Hopefully if we move forward in this today, we -- we will be able to have the employees who feel this way step forward and put their names on it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I -- did you want Mr. Dotrill to respond to those now, or could I just make a general comment? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, you -- he can either respond to them if he chooses, or you can make a general -- MR. DORRILL: Let -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- comment. MR. DORRILL: Let me offer one response to this third letter. The -- the hearsay contentions about people that I have forced to resign -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry. Is this anonymous, or is this Ms. Litsinger? MR. DORRILL: No, apparently this is the one that Ms. -- Ms. Litsinger provided to Miss Matthews that are -- are referenced in her blue book here. As it pertains to people that I have allegedly forced to resign, again, because that hearsay information is not completely accurate, my quick look at those during lunch with some of my immediate staff, we -- we came to the quick conclusion about half of those are absolutely incorrect. And, in fact, they have referenced employees like Doug Greenfield, the county's former EMS director I'll say of six or seven years ago. He's under the column of individuals that I -- I forced to resign. It's interesting because not only is that not true, I helped him get the job that he had. And, in fact, when he relocated to California over the ensuing five years, he lost the position that he had when his company was acquired by another company. And he flew back to Naples to see if there was a position or opportunity to come back to work for me in Collier County government. So for him to be on a list of alleged people that I forced to resign I just find unbelievable. Are there some people on that list that I did force to resign, people like Kevin O'Donnell? The answer is yes. And again, that just gets to trying to run an organization of this size. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'd like to -- to sort of summarize where I am so -- so far. And that is, first of all, like I've said this right off the top, and that is anybody who's criticizing Commissioner Matthews for what she's doing here today is just plain wrong. This is an incredibly hard job. Nothing could be harder than to have to come forward in a public forum like this knowing she's going to be subjected to all kinds of criticism, knowing that -- that there's going to be a great deal of support for Mr. Dotrill. It takes a great deal of courage to do that, and I respect her for it. And I -- I will tell you from my experience with her so far on this board, she doesn't have an agenda except for what's best with this county. If she's coming out front in this, it's because she believes it. She's doing the best she can. She believes that she's doing what's right for the county. She doesn't -- she doesn't operate from any other motives that I've ever seen. And it's easy to be critical, and it's difficult to do what she's doing. Despite that -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I respect -- I respect your courage. I genuinely respect it. I -- I disagree with the timing. I understand that you came to this conclusion and then felt you had to act on it. I -- I -- I think that we should have had this discussion at the time of the renewal of his contract. And -- and you and Mr. Constantine tried to have more of a discussion at that point than I was willing to hear. Nevertheless, we're here now. I -- I wouldn't have chosen this time to be here, but here we are. I had -- I had said to Mr. Dotrill I have had significant problems that I would call -- I would classify as human resources problems, personnel problems. And about two months ago I, you know, made some -- a big and quite genuine threat that if he didn't do something about them, I was going to make a motion to fire him because I think that they were extremely serious. Nevertheless, I come -- I came in here today with the mind-set that if the problems that -- that resulted in this discussion today were human resources related that I had said to Mr. Dotrill, you have three months to solve these problems for my vote. And in the two months I think he's done a hell of a lot down the road of beginning to correct those problems. The proof is in the pudding as I continue to say. And we'll see if he implements those policies, and we'll see if there's a change in attitudes in this county. And I like every one of you am going to be watching like a hawk because when there's been a failure as significant as that one was, it merits close scrutiny, and I intend to be a close scrutinizer. Nevertheless, I -- I don't know this lady who spoke this morning who said you're a management consultant, but I think you -- you articulated it exactly right, and I appreciate it because I don't have your expertise but that there are two basic categories of responsibility for Mr. Dotrill. One is running the store, the service delivery area. I think the reaction over this past week to the discussion, the possibility of firing Mr. Dotrill, makes it crystal clear this community is happy with the way the store is run. I think that the calls to the radio shows and the letters to the editor and the general public support indicate that the service is being provided at a level that the community is quite satisfied with. My response then is I may have information that they don't have because I know more about the other half of your responsibilities, Mr. Dotrill, the -- the personnel related. And as I said, I think we have extremely serious problems. And I didn't bring the list although it's probably, as a matter of fact, Miss Matthews, in your book about what your responses, Mr. Dotrill, have been to the human resources issues. But I, frankly -- I couldn't think of anything else I wanted you to do that you haven't either done or adopted a policy. And I think you're on the right track. I intend to watch it because I'm not yet convinced that those problems are solved. A part of me believes that this intimidation, this attitude of intimidation does begin at the top and that it does permeate the staff and that it is a problem that -- that requires continued attitude adjustment among senior staff, among people who supervise line employees in this county. But I told you I would -- I wanted to see significant action from you in that area, and so far you've responded. Frankly, cleaning out the human resources department and -- and saying we're having a whole new start in human resources and adopting a whole lot of new policies is all I can think of that would be an appropriate response. But I want to be as clear as I can that I know that that is the start and not the finish. That is the writing of the policies and not the implementing of them. As we -- I -- I've -- I've, like everybody, made lists and notes and notes all during this whole long day. And -- and as we went through the lists -- and we have had some very serious charges and some that I think can be written off to disgruntled, you can't make everybody happy. I -- I will tell you the one that I remain the most troubled with is -- and I apologize, but what I wrote it down and called it was the bribery list, you know, the this is what I've done in your district. Have my efforts been misdirected? And your response to that, Mr. Dotrill, is that -- that you were showing Commissioner Matthews where you've done more than you were required to do for her district or for projects in her -- that she cared about or something. And I don't understand that because I don't know where that line is of what you're required to do and when you're -- when you're crossing that, when you're doing more than you're required to do. And I don't understand that, and I need some help on that. And I have -- I have some -- there are things about the budget that I don't understand. I don't understand the $600,000 phantom surplus or whatever it is that came up as a result of the insurance claims being reduced. I, frankly, had on my negative list as a strong one your -- your employment of Mr. Yonkosky as the director of revenue for the county if -- I mean, of all the many, many many, many qualified people in this county, you have one who's been targeted as -- as having done something that's probably, you know, if it's true very, very bad. Frankly, I had the same impression that Commissioner Matthews had, that he's the director of this department. You've said today that he's not the director, that it's pending his -- his final decision will be pending the outcome of the derivatives issue. I -- I recognize that it is extremely difficult to work for five different bosses. But I don't have a great deal of sympathy for that even though we are extremely difficult because that is what a CEO does. I mean, you're not the only CEO with more than one person on their board of directors. And I'm the person who said to Mr. Dotrill that I want stronger leadership from him. I want visioning from him. I want him to lead this board, not that he gets to make the decisions but that he leads us to evaluate our options. He's the professional. He's the one who knows about county government. I'm a lawyer. I'm up here trying to do what I hope is the best thing, but I'm counting on him to lead us in analyzing our choices in what policies should be. I'm going to stop by saying that as we've gone through all of this today, I am left with the belief that the significant allegations relate to what I still lump under human resources issues. And to this point I -- I think what -- what Mr. Norris said about that you have taken strong action, you have responded strongly, I think that's true, and I'm not ready to fire you for human resources issues. But I -- but I am very much concerned about them, and I'm going to be carefully scrutinizing those in the future. MR. DORRILL: I understand that. If I could offer just a real quick response to the issue concerning capital improvement projects in Ms. Matthews' district, and I related that I -- you know, I had a similar conversation with Mr. Constantine. I see that nothing more than what I said, was because of people who have stated publicly that they have a problem with me, I have made an extraordinary effort to work harder for those individuals to gain their respect. I just -- that's my basic human nature. If somebody says, Neil, you know, got a problem with you, I have made an extra effort and went the extra mile. I do not have the ability to dole out favors. Capital improvement projects by and large in this county are being driven by a previously approved growth management plan that is funded almost entirely in part with impact fees. So I don't have the ability, administratively or otherwise, to connive or scheme or move money out of your district because you're the downtown commissioner and on to Marco Island because Mr. Norris has been a supporter. I don't have that type of authority. I have delegated authority. And in the context I offered it, I had the ability to put together compromised proposals to come back to the county commission to say, would you consider this project if it is now this way or it's reduced by this amount? And in the -- in my context of saying I wanted to make the extra effort to go the extra mile, that's all that I inferred. I don't have the ability to do favors when it comes to capital projects. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Be -- before Mr. Constantine comments, Commissioner Hac'Kie, I ask that you look at Exhibit C, page 3, number 6, Mr. Yonkosky has told several officials recently that he would soon be handling the county's investment portfolio once again. I have no idea why such statement would be made by him, but it certainly troubles Tom Grady. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And -- and, Commissioner Matthews, this is exactly -- this is one of the problems that I have with today's procedure is I missed that one when we went through here before. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Uh-huh. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm frightened that there are things in here that I'm missing. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Which is -- which is why this whole process is a two-step process. We -- there is no final decision today. The final decision is a minimum of two weeks from now. It could be longer than that if this board directs it to come back for a -- at -- MR. DORRILL: Miss -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- a more distant time. MR. DORRILL: Miss Matthews, with all due respects, I -- I would beg to differ with you. How you can trivialize a resolution of intent to terminate me two weeks from now, three weeks from now, it is pretty much a final matter. I understand that you can always back out or that you can change your mind, but -- but this is a very serious matter. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- I will be the first to say it's very serious, yes. I -- I mean, I did not come to this conclusion easily, not at all. MR. DORRILL: My point being for -- for any manager to -- to fail to have a vote of confidence is -- is more serious than what you just indicated. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Am I ever going to get a chance to get in? COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: No, you're not. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Let me -- can I just throw one thing in? I know you've been waiting patiently. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: He's been very patient, yeah. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I've been real patient. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Go ahead. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Go ahead. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Go ahead. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I was just going to say, Neil -- and I appreciate that, Commissioner Norris. I know you have been waiting extremely patiently -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Very patiently. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- and quietly down there. Mr. Dotrill, May 16 I did not vote, as you know, to extend your contract the extra year. I outlined then and I did again today a number of the serious what I consider to be problems within the county, and I think it was very important that I do so. Simple questions, and -- and hopefully you can answer with a yes, no. If you feel a need to do more, great but hopefully with a yes, no. Have you got the message? Do you understand that you have some weaknesses? And are you willing to address those weaknesses if you continue on? MR. DORRILL: I think the answer to that, as I said, was yes. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If that's the case, Commissioner Norris, do your thing, but let's take a vote. Let's make clear what we expect, and let's get on with the business of county government. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Technical question, can I -- tiny -- I swear this is a three -- three second because it has to do with my -- and I need to know the answer to this before you talk. I need to know the answer to this. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Before who talks? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Before Commissioner Norris talks. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Before anybody else talks. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I need to understand what the nature of this hearing is today. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: We're going to fire the manager or we're not going to fire the manager. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No, it's an intent to terminate. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's why I want to ask Mr. Cuyler that. Is -- if I -- for example, if I voted today -- if I voted yes to Ms. Matthews' motion, in two weeks or two months can I vote no to fire the manager? MR. CUYLER: There is a two-step process. The motion, as you will note from your agenda package, is labeled a motion of intent to terminate the manager. If you reach that conclusion, then you go to step one. If you pass the resolution, then his contract provides not less than 14 days thereafter, so it can be 14 or more days thereafter you consider a motion to pass a resolution terminating the employment of the county manager. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But I need a yes or no. If I vote yes on the intent --MR. CUYLER: Oh. No, you're not required -- if you vote for a motion of intent to terminate, nobody on the board is required to vote on a resolution to terminate. The answer to that's no, you're not required. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So there's some logic to -- what Ms. Matthews is saying is that today is sort of a show cause hearing. If there's some probable cause now to fire the manager, let's investigate that. Is that what today's about? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's exactly what this is about. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Now may I speak because -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes, Commissioner Norris. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: -- part of what I'm going to say has to deal with that issue itself, Miss Hac'Kie. When -- when we were told about this hearing today last week, we were told that there would be a lot of new information brought up that we hadn't heard before two months ago. I thought this was all settled two months ago. That's what we had that hearing for two months ago was to settle this issue. So when I heard that there was going to be some new information, I said, well, fine. Let's hear the new information. And the new information if it's strong enough, if it's something that I haven't heard before that I think's serious enough, then I will join in voting to -- to fire the manager. I haven't seen that today. I haven't seen anything of the kind today. What I see is -- is really a rehash of some of the stuff that we've had, history, stuff that we've been through over and over before, stuff that we've asked the manager, directed the manager, to correct. And I think to my satisfaction he has -- Miss Hac'Kie has said for personal -- for human resources as an example that he has taken the action, has started the process to correct some of the things that we want to do. So, you know, I -- I don't see the necessity today to go forward with this. I -- I -- we've spent most of today discussing and going through this booklet. I have to take issue with a lot of the things in there. I -- I think there's -- a lot of it's probably just misunderstandings. I think maybe there's some misconceptions there. Maybe some -- for sure there's a lot of secondhand information, and -- and there's some misinformation. I'm sure it's not intended, but here it is. The best infor -- the best example of misinformation I can give to you because I was there and heard him say it was this comment attributed to Ed Day. It says, in my -- in my day sexual harassment was considered a perk. Well, that indicates that he's all in favor of sexual harassment. That's the connotation that you get from there. As a matter of fact, that's not anything near what he said. What he said was, in my lifetime, sexual harassment has gone from being a perk to being a criminal offense. And the connotation there is that he understands that very well and that he is certainly not in favor of sexual harassment at all. So I mean, it completely reverses the meaning of that statement. And that's -- you know, to try to base our decision on information like this is just not -- not what we should be doing here. One of the things that's been talked about a lot today is the derivatives deal. First of all, that's none of our business directly. The clerk's responsible for that. That's the clerk's operation. Now, we had a lady up here a while ago that said -- she purported to be an expert in management. Well, perhaps, but she's certainly not an expert in investments because she characterized our investment portfolio, our derivatives portion, as being extremely risky. That's just not the case. There's very little problem over there. As a matter of fact, before -- before this can ever get to any kind of court action, there may not be anything to -- to complain about because as the -- as interest rates continue to come down, the value of that portfolio's going back up, and the loss is dwindling away. There's never a loss anyway. We've been through all this over and over. It really shouldn't be a part of this discussion. I don't know why we're doing this, making this a big part of the discussion to fire the manager. I mean, let's face reality here. The clerk of courts has hired a bottom feeder to -- to go out and try to make a buck, and that's -- that's exactly what he's trying to do. And -- and I will point out that the county commission's paid investment advisor totally disagrees with the -- the assessment of Mr. Grady. So, you know, that's not part of this discussion, and we've been over and over that all day long. You know, I could go through here piece by piece and rebut a lot of this, but -- but I think the important thing, it's all been said. I think what we have to do is look at the results. Here we are in the fastest growing county -- one of the fastest growing counties in the -- in the country. Look at how we are -- compare us with -- with Lee County even, our closest neighbor, any of the other counties. How are we? Which one -- which one would you prefer to live in? Where are conditions better? Look at the big picture. Of course, there's -- there's always going to be some things you don't like that the manager's doing. There's always something you don't agree with. Well, let's try to correct that, you know. We've come a long ways in these last few years, and there's a -- there's a long way we're going to continue growing for some more years. We've got that under control as best as probably humanly possible in this county. Let's try to correct what we want corrected and -- and not throw the baby out with the bath water on this deal. Everything else has already been said. I really don't -- don't want to sit here and repeat a bunch of things that's already been said. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Are you sure? COMHISSIONER NORRIS: I think we ought to go ahead and go on with the vote now. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm going to try to -- try to wrap this up, and -- and I think Commissioner Constantine and now Commissioner MAc'Kie have one more thing. As to the remark of our professional investment advisor saying that there's nothing wrong with our -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: not risky. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COHMISSIONER NORRIS: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I didn't say nothing. Well, that the derivatives are Didn't say that either. Well, or not extremely risky. I said that. Okay. Extremely risky. I want to point out to this board that the new investment advisor that we have is now Raymond James because Mr. Samut went to work and signed a contract with Raymond James. Is that correct, Mr. Dotrill? Mr. Samut who is our personal representative is now working for Raymond James? MR. DORRILL: Yes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Raymond James sold the derivatives to Escambia County that they just last week took a thirteen and a half million dollar hit on. I would expect Raymond James to say there's nothing wrong. I mean, I -- I -- I'm sorry, but I don't feel they're being objective. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Once again, Ms. MAtthews, the point is that that has nothing to do with the manager. He is not -- it's not the responsibility of either the county commissioner or the county manager to operate the investment portfolio. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It -- it -- no, it's not the job of the county manager to operate the investment portfolio. However, the county manager has in his employee (sic) the person who purchased these things who the attorney for the clerk is saying is not cooperating. And we're -- we're not necessarily talking about the losses that may evolve from the derivatives should we be forced to sell them. And hopefully we won't. But one of the major component parts of Mr. Grady's argument was that $700,000 in excess fees that were paid to Meridian Securities for the purchase of those securities. That's what Mr. Grady wants to get information about is the mark-ups and the mark-downs. That was an incredibly important part of what Mr. Grady had to talk about. Now, I'll -- I'll turn it over to you in just a minute. The -- Mr. Dotrill said that the investment policy -- that there is not an existing committee. In that same MAy 2 discussion we discussed an investment committee. No, it's not board constituted, but that committee does exist, and that committee has never seen the investment policy that was going to be discussed on today's agenda. The 14 million dollar FLCFC question for the beach renourishment, Mr. Dotrill, yes, shows us an executive summary that says FLGFC was going to be the method by which we were going to finance it. But the finance manager, Kathy Hankins, says the board never authorized a 14 million dollar FLGFC loan when Mr. Yonkosky went over and instructed her employees whom he has no control over to make arrangements for a 14 million dollar loan. The goals, the objectives, and the plan that the county manager has put together, I think it's grand that he has such a plan. I liked seeing that plan when I saw it. But the end does not always justify the means, and if there are indeed threats and intimidation that are getting us to that end, then I think we need to make sure that that is not true. The question of -- of commissioner intimidation, when I made the opening statement on that portion of this report, I said this will probably be the one issue that Mr. Dotrill and I disagree on the most. And I will say -- and I'm sure every person out there who has ever felt intimidated by another person -- it's a matter of perception. And I'm going to tell you right now, I perceived it. Whether he intended it or not, I perceived it. And in the world that we live in, perception is the reality. MR. DORRILL: Ms. Matthews, are -- are you suggesting by that then that we can never have a disgruntled employee -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No. MR. DORRILL: -- or that we can never have a situation where if it comes down between an employee and a manager that the manager's going to be wrong because what you're saying is that it -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Definitely not. MR. DORRILL: Well, no, ma'am. What you said was that if there's even the perception of intimidation, then you're going to believe it. Now, I can't win that battle. If -- if -- in any instance where an employee feels that they are disgruntled or intimidated in any way, if your contention s then it must be true, then -- then I can't win here -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- I -- MR. DORRILL: -- because human nature s such and just basic employee-employer relations are such, there -- there are going to need to be discipline, and there's going to need to be people who are very much affected and very aggrieved by that. And that's why I have committed here this afternoon to make those changes in our human resource department to try and divorce the opportunity for intimidation so that employees have multiple avenues of appeal if they even think there's the perception. And so those are the things that we're doing to try and respond to that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Dorrill -- MR. DORRILL: And I don't -- I don't want to debate you, but if you say things -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No, I don't want to. MR. DORRILL: -- if you say things that are not true on the record, then I'm going to come back and correct you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- and I would expect you to because if I say something that's not true, I want to be corrected. MR. DORRILL: Okay. I only want -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: But I -- I feel the right to say that when you handed me this list of six items and the manner in which you handed it to me, folded up, I had to open it, I read it, I looked at you in a quizzical manner, and then you made a statement about your efforts being misdirected, I have to say -- I don't know about the employees. I'm talking about myself, and I -- and I have to say that I felt that that was an intimidating remark. And I'm entitled to my perception of what that remark was. You're entitled -- MR. DORRILL: And I'm not going to try and change it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- to your perception of it. MR. DORRILL: Let me -- let me correct the one thing that you said that was just a misstatement perhaps. As it pertains to the 14 million dollar financing for beach renourishment, I don't work for the clerk's finance director. She's a very capable woman. She does a fine job. She has an excellent reputation from West Palm Beach. I don't work for her. I work for you. And so when I hold up my request to provide the financing for the beach renourishment project and I specifically say that the financing proposal is based on using the tax-exempt commercial paper program and then the recommendation is that the board approved both the renourishment project and the proposed financing plan, that's the authority that I need to move forward. If for some reason the clerk's finance director is aggrieved by that or she would have preferred that we go out to bids and receive other interim financing proposals, she's entitled to her opinion. But I work for you, and I have to get my approvals from you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I understand that. What she's saying is that the -- the FLGFC portion of that executive summary was apparently not a part of the motion and not approved. Yet your -- your employee, Mr. Yonkosky, went over to her office and directed her employees to -- to do something. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I -- may I -- MR. DORRILL: But, see, that's -- that's where we have inferred things. We -- on any given Tuesday we -- we have an agenda that normally may be about 300 pages long. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Uh-huh. MR. DORRILL: And in any course of one year, we have to come here and ask the board for thousands of approvals. In some instances if we write down here specifically what we're requesting but the motion doesn't always verbatim match the executive summary, that appears every Tuesday. We're forever listening to tapes and watching the video to try and make sure that your motion accomplished everything that was -- you know, was requested. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I understand. Commissioner Hac'Kie. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have one short question for the attorney, for Mr. Cuyler, and -- and I'll try to make it short. Is there anything that this board needs to do to divorce itself from any potential liability for Mr. Norris's comment about the attorney being a bottom feeder? I want him to be -- if there's liability for that, that it's his personally and not this board's? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Commissioner Norris, that was just a general comment about attorneys, wasn't it? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that's fine. That's fine. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: It was just -- it was just a slang comment. It was uncalled for, and I'll apologize for it -- COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: COHMISSIONER NORRIS: about -- COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: COHMISSIONER NORRIS: COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. -- so that you don't have to worry Thank you. -- your attorney bailing you out. Thank you. HR. CUYLER: And I know particularly it was not directed at the county attorney. I'll point that out. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just the attorneys on the board. MR. CUYLER: And on the board as well. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I -- I want some advice from you, Mr. Dotrill. I want to -- I want to wrap this up and go forward. -- and this is one of the things -- one of the things that I would And like to see from you for some leadership and visioning is as a professional manager, I need your advice on how does this board wrap this now, decide that we all have some problems, we all have some issues that we're going to be watching, but maybe we're not at the point today -- I'm not at the point where I'm ready to fire the manager. But obviously there's some significant lack of confidence, and obviously, most obviously, there's some serious communication problems. Provide me some leadership. Give me some advice on how this board can go forward in a positive way to -- to work with you to solve the problems. MR. DORRILL: Well, I think the most immediate way for us are some of the things that I have endeavored to do over the past seven weeks. This board seems to want and like operational information. So to the extent practical, I am sharing in very explicit detail what is going on out in the operation. That has forced me to become more involved in operational review and things like management by moving around. Now on my calendar we make it a deliberate effort at least twice a week for me to just show up unannounced just so that I can get my own observations and see for my own self what the departments look like, who's doing what, who's not here, who's late getting to work, things like that. So increasingly I'm more involved in management by moving around. Increasingly I am trying to not involve you but inform you in terms of what we are doing operationally every week. You all seem to want to be involved in that. We've never had a board that wanted to -- to know to that detail. You all seem to like it. That's something very new that we're doing. I continue to think that you all ought to at least focus on the goals that I'm telling you I'm striving to attain because if you think individually or collectively that that should not be a priority and that I'm wasting my time, you need to tell me that because otherwise -- I've told this board this before -- I'm not clairvoyant. And the third thing and I think the thing that is important, at some point you need to give me a little bit of free rein here to make the place run. I will tell you over the course of the last six months, I seem to be spending almost half my time trying to keep my job. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's my observation too. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's mine, too, which is why this is here. MR. DORRILL: And I can't take two steps forward without somebody who is upset from the past trying to trip me up. And -- and when the board members allow themselves to become involved in something that happened six months ago or six years ago, then every time I try and take a step forward, I'm having to back up, back up, back up. And that -- you need to give me a little free rein here to see what we can do unfettered and then reach the conclusions that you think. But those are the three things. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I -- I think that we need a workshop, a goal setting workshop, where maybe what we do is spend a whole lot -- I know you hate workshops. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No, no, it's just we spent a year and a half doing that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But we didn't do anything. There was no professional facilitation of it. This community needs some real visioning, some real leadership. You have a willing -- I think you have a more willing board than you had at the time to do some serious visioning. And I'm going to look to Mr. Dotrill to bring that back up again even though right now Commissioner Constantine is telling you -- MR. DORRILL: He hates it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- he's going to giggle about it. MR. DORRILL: He hates it. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm going to scoff at it, not giggle. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Scoff, sorry. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Back to the matter at hand. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes, let's get back to the matter at hand. I -- I have a motion on the floor. I feel and I -- and I know the majority of the -- of the people here -- I hear what I hear. But I am not going to withdraw the motion because I believe that it is equally important to make it absolutely clear at this point that we either support the manager and allow him to go about his duty or we do not support the manager and let's move on. I will not withdraw the motion. I'm asking for a second. If it dies for a lack of second, then I have to assume that we have a vote of four to one and -- in support of the county manager. And then I will find a way to restore my confidence in the manager. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I'll make a substitute motion if that one is dead because I agree with you that I think it's important that we make a statement on one side of the issue or the other. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's absolutely important, and -- and I -- I know that I -- the point that I've been trying to make for the last week -- and I have been taking one devil of a beating in the press, one devil of a beating. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yes, you have. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They both have. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The issue never needed to get into the press or into the radio system or anything like that. I have kept very quiet for a week on what this was going to be. But -- but the point I was trying to make on the news journal Thursday was that I feel that no matter which way we go today we will put the micromanaging behind us. We will either cease micromanaging our current manager, or we will get a new manager that we don't have to micromanage. That -- that's the gist of what I was after. And if that's where we are, then that's where we are. And now if the motion is not seconded, I presume that it dies for lack of a second. Is there a substitute motion, Mr. Norris? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I will make a motion in the interest of clarifying the issue that we at this time show our support for the county manager. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second that we show our support for the -- for the county manager. Mr. Norris, I'd like you to if you would include in that motion that if we are going to be having micromanagement problems with the manager that we discuss them personally with him on our one-on-ones each week and let's get about the business of county government. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, Miss Chairman, I think that's an excellent suggestion. I'm not sure it should be part of that motion. I think that's what we should be doing as a matter of course anyway instead of the process that we went through today. I'd prefer not to put it in the motion if it's okay. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I will not amend if it's placed in the motion. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Commissioner Norris, is this going to be a resolution and then two weeks from now we'll talk about how much we support him and how -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No, no. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just a little humor for those of you with a frown on your face. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you. Thank you for that levity. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion on the -- we have a motion on the floor and a second. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I need to discuss it just a little bit. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes, Commissioner Hac'Kie. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Why am I not shocked? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- I just -- I just want to caution you, okay, and -- and -- and let me -- let me tell you what -- what I -- no, I can't tell you what I've been through for the last week and a half. But I can assure you that if you are unhappy a month from now or six weeks from now and you want to make this move, you're going to have a lot of very unhappy people. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I recognize that. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And -- and what -- I want to vote in favor of this motion, and I want it to be my indication of my having identified some serious things that I am unhappy with and nevertheless willing to rely on what I do believe is the very high personal integrity of Mr. Dotrill and his very competent abilities, that I am willing to try to work with him to resolve the county's problems and to trust him to go forward. I want to be clear, you know, we're doing his evaluation in a month. If I vote yes for this, it doesn't mean I'm giving him all fives or whatever the top is on the evaluation. This is me saying I -- I believe it's time to work together. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Does that mean, Commissioner Hac'Kie, let us all treat the county manager as we would like to be treated? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's what I tell my kids, the golden rule. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there further comment? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That goes for all employees. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You ought to publish that, Tim. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That was an original, by the way. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is there further comment? There being none, I'll call the motion. All those in favor please say aye. Opposed? Motion passes five to zero. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Be any interest in continuing the remainder of the agenda for one week? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Spagna has been here all day. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: All right. All right. Never mind. Rich and Nino are still here. Can we take a brief break? Five minutes? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, let's -- five minutes is fine. I think we can move through the rest of it probably in about 15 minutes. (A short break was held.) Item #10B COLLIER COUNTY AIRPORT AUTHORITY REPAYHENT OF COUNTY ADVANCES AGREEHENT - APPROVED CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Reconvene the meeting of the Board of County Commissioners for Collier County, July 25, 1995. Next item on the agenda I think is a pretty simple one. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Drury, are you even -- you don't usually give us presentations. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I love your presentations. Sorry. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: This is a -- COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We're getting money; right? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: This is the agreement to repay the advances that the county has made over -- over time. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve the -- the agreement with Collier County Airport Authority. All those in favor please say aye. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thanks, John. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Opposed? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Appreciate you staying all day. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thanks, John. I wish they were all that easy. PUBLIC COHMENT - NO SPEAKERS We are at the public comment portion of our agenda. Is there anyone requesting public comment? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A1 Perkins. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Doesn't seem to be. Good. We'll move on. Item #12C1 RESOLUTION 95-431 RE PETITION CCSL-95-1, HARRY HUBER OF COLLIER COUNTY OFFICE OF CAPITAL PROJECTS MANAGEMENT REPRESENTING THE COLLIER COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS, REQUESTING A COASTAL CONSTRUCTION SETBACK LINE VARIANCE TO RENOURISH AND REVEGETATE THE BEACH AT VANDERBILT BEACH IN SECTIONS 29 AND 30, T485, R25E - ADOPTED Next item on the agenda is item 12-C-1, petition CCSL-95-1, Harry Huber, Collier County office of capital projects. You're not Harry Huber. MR. LINDBERGER: That's correct. My name is Steven Lindberger from current planning. I'm here to request a variance in the coastal construction setback line for beach re -- renourishment on Vanderbilt Beach on the north end of Pelican Bay. With me today is Harry Huber who's going to give you an overview of the project and also Dr. Steven from Coastal Engineering to answer any questions. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Is -- is this the beach -- beach renourishment project that's starting this fall? MR. LINDBERGER: That's correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MR. HUBER: For the record, my name's Harry Huber from the office of capital projects management. I'm certain you're all fairly familiar with the project. But just to give you a few of the basic information, the length of the project -- and this particular request of a variance is only applicable to the Vanderbilt Beach seg -- segment of the project. The Naples and Park Shore segments have already received a variance from the city council. This particular segment is approximately 8,700 feet in length starting at the southern property line of Delnor Wiggin's Pass State Park and running down terminating approximately 800 feet south of the Ritz-Carlton. The average design berm width is approximately 50 feet resulting in an estimated quantity up to 300,000 cubic yards of beach fill and will also involve three -- about -- approximately three acres of dune vegetation. There are -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Huber, excuse me just a second. Is -- is this -- is there anything unusual in here? Isn't this just another step in our process of renourishing the beach? MR. HUBER: That is correct. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Is there anything unusual here that -- that you may need to talk to us about? MR. HUBER: There's only one -- one thing that I wanted to get your consideration on and -- and approval. In the resolution and also in the objective in the executive summary it talks about 200,000 cubic yards. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Uh-huh. MR. HUBER: But that -- that quantity has been based primarily on starting from the preliminary design but then based on very current profile surveys which were closely -- more closely spaced, and there has been some erosion that -- that occurred subsequent to the preliminary design. And to maximize -- or optimize the beach fill template that's contained in the permit drawings, it's estimated now that it could result in three hundred cubic -- thousand cubic yards of beach fill. Now, in the resolution it also talks about 200,000 cubic yards of beach fill. I would like to have approval to change that 200,000 to 300,000 in the resolution so that we don't get caught in a trap later on down the road. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: What kind of trap? MR. HUBER: Well, I mean, if for whatever reason when we come to award the contract, if it's for 300,000 and they say, no, you can't do that. It says 200,000 in the resolution. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Oh, okay. Makes sense. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Question. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Question, Commissioner Constantine. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Dr. Steven, you're not charging us by the hour to be here today, are you? MR. STEVEN: No. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's all I need. Thanks. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Move approval. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Just a minute. I think this is a public hearing; is that correct, Mr. Cuyler? MR. CUYLER: Correct. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I need to close the public hearing. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll move approval. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I'll second. MR. DORRILL: There's no one registered. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That would be good because we closed it. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's good because we already closed the public hearing. MR. HUBER: And that -- that includes the approval to change the two hundred to three hundred thousand in the resolution? CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I presume it does. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Sure. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My second does. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve petition CCSL-95-1, increasing the 200,000 cubic yards to 300,000 cubic yards, motion and second. All those in favor please say aye. Opposed? Motion passes five to zero. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you very much. MR. HUBER: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Item #13A1 RESOLUTION 95-432 RE PETITION CU-95-11, RICHARD GIBBONS, REPRESENTING THE EAST NAPLES CIVIC ASSOCIATION, REQUESTING CONDITIONAL USE "9" OF THE "RSF-4" ZONING DISTRICT FOR A NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYGROUND AND RECREATIONAL FACILITY FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT THE INTERSECTION OF TUCKER STREET AND SHOLTZ STREET IN SECTION 29, T50S, R26E - ADOPTED Next item on the agenda is petition CU-95-11, Richard Gibbons. Mr. Bellows. MR. BELLOWS: For the record, Ray Bellows of current planning staff presenting petition CU-95-11, Richard Gibbons of the East Naples Civic Association requesting conditional use 9 in the RSF-4 zoning district for a neighborhood playground and park. The site is located on the corner -- southeast corner of Schultz Street and Tucker Avenue within the Naples Manor neighborhood. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Excuse me, Mr. Bellows. You're going to hate my interrupting you I bet. MR. BELLOWS: Oh, sure. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: But we've approved this site before. What you're asking for now is -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Public hearing. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Huh? I understand. I'm just trying to summarize so that Mr. Bellows can go home and see his family and me too, by the way -- is simply that we approve the conditional use for something we've already looked at. MR. BELLOWS: Basically, yes. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, that sounds pretty simple to me. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Woops. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me. Hold on a moment. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I know. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Public hearing. I need to close the public hearing. But before I do that, Mr. Dotrill, are there speakers? MR. DORRILL: The only speaker I have is Ms. Johnson on the issue involving the church. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. I'll close the public hearing. Is there a motion? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Just as a note, Mr. Gibbons was showing me earlier the playground equipment and all that they're going to put in there, and it's fully funded by the firefighters or most -- almost all funded by the firefighters? Quickly. MR. GIBBONS: Richard Gibbons. With the exception of a few other people that I will mention when we have the dedication that made a lot of different donations that saved a lot of money like fill and sand and signs. And I can go on forever, but I'll -- I'll recognize all the people when we have the dedication. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you. COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: Being tremendously grateful for your efforts, Mr. Gibbons, motion to approve planning commission recommendation. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Motion and a second to approve petition CU-95-11. All those in favor please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes five to zero. Item #13B1 RESOLUTION 95-433 RE PETITION CU-94-5, NINO J. SPAGNA OF FLORIDA URBAN INSTITUTE, INC., REPRESENTING BETHEL A.H.E. CHURCH OF NAPLES, FLORIDA, INC., REQUESTING AN EXTENSION OF A CONDITIONAL USE "1" IN THE "E" ESTATES ZONING DISTRICT TO ALLOW THE EXPANSION OF AN EXISTING CHURCH FACILITY THAT HAS PREVIOUSLY RECEIVED CONDITIONAL USE APPROVAL FOR PROPERTY ON THE NORTH SIDE OF GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY BEING THE EAST 150 FEET OF TRACT 97, UNIT 29 - ADOPTED Next item, Hr. Bellows, you're staying with us for that too. MR. BELLOWS: Yes. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: CU-95, dash -- 94-5. MR. BELLOWS: Yes. Again, Ray Bellows, current planning staff. This petition was presented last week and was continued due to a typo in the agenda. It's basically an extension of an existing church conditional use that was granted last year. If you'd like, I could go into more detail, or do you want -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I do have -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- one quick question for Mr. Bellows. Mr. Bellows, in your professional opinion as a planner, do you believe that this land use is detrimental to adjacent properties? MR. BELLOWS: The board approved this last year with the finding that it was not detrimental. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Do you agree with that? MR. BELLOWS: Yes, I do. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's okay to say no, but I was just asking. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Wouldn't want to intimidate. MR. BELLOWS: I was feeling a little pressure there. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Quick -- quick question. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Has anything of substance changed since the conditional use was approved last year? MR. BELLOWS: Nothing of substance has changed. It's the same conditional use petition. We're just extending it for another year. The petitioner is about ready to pull his site development plans and just got to this point where he felt it was safer to also apply for the extension. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I ask for -- I ask that because if the conditional use -- I understand there's opposition. But if the conditional use was approved only a year ago and nothing of substance has changed in that year, I'm hard pressed not to grant an extension. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My -- one question just -- CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Whatever the -- the errors or -- or the problem with the addressing and that, those are corrected? Is that -- was that the only problem? MR. BELLOWS: As far as I know, that was the only problem. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Spagna, do you have anything you need to add? MR. SPAGNA: Yes, I do have a statement to make. At our meeting last Tuesday, I made a uncomplimentary remark about Mrs. Johnson. It had no place in my presentation and served no purpose whatsoever. It was an intemperate remark on my part, and I regret having made it. I would like to apologize -- I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Mrs. Johnson and to the board for having said it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I respect that. MR. SPAGNA: And if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: In the spirit of cooperation, I believe this board probably will accept that apology. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I've already done that myself today, Dr. Spagna. MR. SPAGNA: True. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me ask you if you're keeping a running total of how many churches you've represented now in front of this board, how many church-related items. MR. SPAGNA: Well, the only ones I'm worried about are the ones that I hope to get in the future, and the past is history. Twenty-five maybe. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Dotrill, we have a public speaker on this. MR. DORRILL: Miss Johnson is here. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Miss Johnson, did you want to comment? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Did you enjoy the entertainment earlier today, Miss Johnson? MS. JOHNSON: I can hardly walk, and my name is Dorothy Johnson. I hope I still live on the corner of 66th Street and the Golden Gate Parkway, and I accepted his apology sooner. And you're going to stay my full five minutes, so just relax. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. MS. JOHNSON: Okay. The thing is I've lived there for over 20 years, and I have a right as a neighbor to keep my neighborhood residential. We're talking about an extension. I don't know when they got it last year. It was -- just sort of went in with provisional use when the other church got the extra. They never really petitioned for one that I know anything about for that because they were always on provisional use. If you gave them a conventional use, it was because it didn't come up here. You just sort of grandfathered that over there because they were provisional. Now, the thing is, this is on 2.16 acres of land that they already have a church on. There's 50-foot easement on the front, a 30-foot easement on the back. And you know yourself you want to six-lane that parkway. And if you take it off evenly both sides, you're going to be right at their front door and also the mini mall. How can you possibly expand on a lot two point one -- one-six acres when you demand that a resident have two and a quarter acres to build one house with one septic tank? I can't imagine how they could expand. To where? We already have two churches, the Jaycees, the mini mall, the skating rink, the Wyndemere water treatment plant, and a model home that has a commercial sign out front in that block alone. Now, that's not talking about what happened to the unit 30 below the -- what I always call the mountain. Had the residents not fought this issue, we would have had four more churches -- we've been fighting it for 20 years -- four more churches, the Shriners' clubhouse, the National Boat Club, and all of the David Lawrence complex that they said would never be more than one small house. And then we finally got the dock building moved. I don't know whether it belonged to the state or the federal. When they built 1-75, then they used it for an office and a toxic dump as far as we were concerned. And we finally got that moved off of 64th Street. Now you're saying you're going to let them expand on a lot smaller than a house is required. I don't see how you can do that after all we've already had to live with that you gave us to live with. So I thank you for hearing me, and I'm going home. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mrs. Johnson. Are there further public speakers, Mr. Dotrill? MR. DORRILL: No, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'll close the public hearing. Is there a motion? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve the extension. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have a motion and a second to approve the extension. Is there further comment? There being none, all those in favor please say aye. Opposed? There being none, motion passes five to zero. Thank you. BELLOWS: Thank you. Item #14 BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' COMMUNICATIONS CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We -- that concludes the regular agenda for the county commission today. We're at Board of County Commissioner communications. And I believe Commissioner Constantine said he had something. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have one thing I just wanted to share with you. It was kind of fun this past week. I've given each of you a copy. Last week we passed a resolution urging prohibition of offshore drilling. During the week I had a chance to talk with a number of the staff people for Bob Dole who, of course, is running for president and who is Senate majority leader. And they threw together some stuff for his perusal on his arrival this week. I had a chance to talk with him when he arrived this week. And if you look at the third page, there's an article that -- first page says Dole had a last-minute plum for southwest Florida and that it was simply that he opposes offshore drilling as well. So we -- we did a little lobbying this week and had a successful time. And Tim was with me at a news conference that Senator Dole had. And I gotta tell you this was a wild ego trip for about 30 seconds for me. He does his -- he gives his little spiel on all the different things including this, the offshore drilling, and his opposition to it. They conclude the news conference, and he turns around, looks me straight in the eye and says, does that cover everything you need? Does that take care of it? So when the next president of the United States looks you in the eye and asks you if -- if that's good enough, it was kind of neat anyway. But the good news is our resolution is in the hands of the Senate majority leader. And he not only has it but has taken action on it, so we may get the band through. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And if you need Dole -- Dole bumper stickers, let us know. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. He may -- we may very well get the band through up there in Washington. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Doesn't sound bad. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That was a paid political announcement brought to you by -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mine was just an update on the drilling. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I see. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: It was kind of neat to watch a presidential hopeful. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: I'm glad you mentioned Dole because I was just eating a pineapple out of my yard last night. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: any communications? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris, do you have Nothing further. Commissioner Hancock? Not a chance. Commissioner Hac'Kie? No, ma'am. Nothing further, Commissioner Constantine? COHHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: All right. Just two items. No, I don't have anything. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I was going to cut your throat in a minute. I don't have anything either. Mr. Dotrill, do you have anything? MR. DORRILL: No, ma'am. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Cuyler? MR. CUYLER: No, ma'am. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Miss Filson? MS. FILSON: I want to go home. It's my anniversary. CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We're adjourned. ***** Commissioner Constantine moved, seconded by Commissioner Hancock, and carried unanimously, that the following items under the Consent Agenda be approved and/or adopted as follows: ***** Item #16A1 ACCEPTANCE OF WATER FACILITIES FOR PELICAN ISLE YACHT CLUB, PHASE I - SUBJECT TO STIPULATIONS AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND ACCEPTANCE OF PERFORMANCE BOND See Pages Item #16A2 RESOLUTION 95-400 ACCEPTING THE ROADWAY, DRAINAGE, WATER, AND SEWER IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE FINAL PLAT OF "PEBBLE SHORES" Item #16A3 See Pages SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR RESOLUTION 92-648, RE JUAN SOL AND HEIDI ROCA, MARCO BEACH UNIT 11, BLOCK 366, LOT 12 Item #16A4a See Pages RESOLUTION 95-401, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSHENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, COMPLIANCE SERVICES CASE NO. 50321-086, OWNER OF RECORD JOSE O.H. HERNANDEZ Item #16A4b See Pages RESOLUTION 95-402, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSHENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, COMPLIANCE SERVICES CASE NO. 50317-020, OWNER OF RECORD CHARLES DOBOZY AND FRANK BROCKINGTON Item #16A4c See Pages RESOLUTION 95-403, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, COMPLIANCE SERVICES CASE NO 50214-051, OWNER OF RECORD LOUISE C. EASTERBROOKS Item #16A4d See Pages RESOLUTION 95-404, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSHENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, COMPLIANCE SERVICES CASE NO 50207-036, OWNER OF RECORD LOUISE C. EASTERBROOKS Item #16A4e See Pages RESOLUTION 95-405, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSHENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, COMPLIANCE SERVICES CASE NO 50126-022, OWNER OF RECORD MIRANDA HELENDEZ Item #16A4f See Pages RESOLUTION 95-406, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSHENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, COMPLIANCE SERVICES CASE NO 50124-009, OWNER OF RECORD NANCY E. MILLS See Pages Item #16A4g RESOLUTION 95-407, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, COMPLIANCE SERVICES CASE NO 41227-022, OWNER OF RECORD GILBERT BARTLETT Item #16A4h See Pages RESOLUTION 95-408, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSHENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, COMPLIANCE SERVICES CASE NO 41107-008, OWNER OF RECORD ERNESTO LARRARTE Item #16A4i See Pages RESOLUTION 95-409, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSHENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, COMPLIANCE SERVICES CASE NO 41101-006, OWNER OF RECORD PAUL F. SMITH & SHIRLEY H. SMITH See Pages Item #16A4j RESOLUTION 95-410, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSMENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE ABATEHENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, COMPLIANCE SERVICES CASE NO. 41024-039, OWNER OF RECORD NEW YORK TIMES CO. THE Item #16A4k See Pages RESOLUTION 95-411, PROVIDING FOR ASSESSHENT OF LIEN FOR THE COST OF THE ABATEMENT OF PUBLIC NUISANCE, COMPLIANCE SERVICES CASE NO. 40926-070, OWNER OF RECORD RAFAEL C. HARTINEZ & CLARA HARTINEZ Item #16A5 See Pages RESOLUTIONS 95-412 THROUGH 95-428, AUTHORIZING THE WAIVER OF VARIOUS IMPACT FEES FOR 17 HOUSES TO BE BUILT BY IHMOKALEE HABITAT FOR HUMANITY IN NAPLES MANOR EXTENSION, AND TO FUND SAID WAIVERS FROM AFFORDABLE HOUSING TRUST FUND 191 Item #16A6 See Pages FINAL PLAT OF "VILLAGES OF WYNDEHERE" - SUBJECT TO STIPULATIONS AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Item #16A7 See Pages INSTALLATION OF A SECURITY SYSTEH BY JOHNSON CONTROLS AND BUDGET AMENDMENT TRANSFERRING $47,150 FROM FUND 113 RESERVES (919010) TO THE DEVELOPMENT SERVICES BUILDING ADMINISTRATION BUDGET (113-138900) TO FUND SAID IMPROVEMENTS TO THE DEVELOPMENT SERVICES BUILDING AT 2800 NORTH HORSESHOE DRIVE Item #16A8 RECORDING OF THE FINAL PLAT OF "SHERWOOD PARK" AND ACCEPTANCE OF SECURITY TO GUARANTEE COMPLETION OF THE SUBDIVISION REQUIREMENTS - SUBJECT TO STIPULATIONS AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Item #16A9 See Pages AUTHORIZATION TO APPROPRIATE CARRY FORWARD AND DISBURSEHENTS OF POLLUTION CONTROL FUND (114) Item #16A10 FINAL PLAT OF "LONGSHORE LAKE, UNIT 582" AND ACCEPTANCE OF CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT - SUBJECT TO STIPULATIONS AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY See Pages Item #16All AUTHORIZATION FOR RECORDING THE FINAL PLAT OF "LONGSHORE LAKE, UNIT 5Bl" AND ACCEPTANCE OF CERTAIN OFF-SITE DRAINAGE AND UTILITY EASEMENTS WHICH ARE NECESSARY TO SUPPORT THE INFRASTRUCTURE WITHIN THIS SUBDIVISION - SUBJECT TO STIPULATIONS AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Item #16B1 See Pages RECOHMENDATION FOR TRAFFIC SIGNAL INSTALLATIONS AND INTERSECTION IMPROVEMENTS AND FUNDING VIA NECESSARY BUDGET AMENDMENTS; TRANSPORTATION SERVICES DIVISION TO IMPLEMENT THE SIGNAL AND INTERSECTION WORK AS OUTLINED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Item #1682 RECOHMENDATION TO AMEND THE DESIGN CONTRACT FOR PINE RIDGE ROAD AT 1-75 TO INCORPORATE AN INTERSTATE INTERCHANGE MODIFICATION STUDY EAST OF 1-75 Item #1683 ADDITIONAL SERVICES BY MICHAEL A. MCGEE, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, P.A. FOR WORK IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE GOLDEN GATE, LELY, MARCO ISLAND, AND IHMOKALEE BEAUTIFICATION DISTRICTS Item #16C1 REQUEST FOR FUNDING RELATED TO THE PROPOSED COUNTY-WIDE BEACH FEE PARKING PROGRAM Item #16C2 REQUEST FOR FUNDING RELATIVE TO THE BLUEBILL PROPERTY EXOTIC REMOVAL PROJECT Item #16C3 ALLOCATION OF $30,000 FOR THE COST OF DEVELOPING GRANT APPLICATIONS FOR LAKE AVALON AND SOUTH NAPLES COHMUNITY PARK Item #16C4 LEASE AGREEMENT OF THE SUBMERGED LAND LEASE FOR THE CAXA_MBAS BOAT RAMP IN THE A_MOUNT OF $225.00 YEARLY See Pages Item #16D1 BUDGET AMENDMENT FOR $40,000 TO PROVIDE FUNDING AND TRACK PROJECT COSTS FOR RESIDENTAL CONNECTIONS TO THE LEE CYPRESS UTILITY CO-OP Item #16D2 RECOHMENDATION TO EXECUTE THE SATISFACTIONS OF NOTICE OF PROMISE TO PAY AND AGREEMENT TO EXTEND PAYMENT OF SEWER IMPACT FEES FOR ELAINE H. GARD, JOSE AND GERTRUDIS GUITARD, AND HAYNARD AND FRANCES ROWE See Pages Item #16D3 RECOHMENDATION TO EXECUTE THE NOTICE OF PROMISE TO PAY AND AGREEMENT TO EXTEND PAYMENT OF SEWER IMPACT FEES FOR STANLEY R. FOGG, JR. See Pages Item #16D4 NOTICES OF CLAIM OF LIEN FOR THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE NOTICE TO CONNECT TO COLLIER COUNTY SEWER FACILITIES AND NOTICE OF IMPACT FEE STATEMENT FOR THE EAST AND SOUTH NAPLES SANITARY SEWER PROJECT See Pages Item #16D5 NOTICES OF CLAIM OF LIEN FOR THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE NOTICE TO CONNECT TO COLLIER COUNTY WATERAND/OR SEWER FACILITIES AND NOTICE OF IMPACT FEE STAEHENT FOR THE PINE RIDGE INDUSTRIAL PARK HSTU PROJECT See Pages Item #16D6 NOTICES OF CLAIM OF LIEN FOR THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE NOTICE TO CONNECT TO COLLIER COUNTY SEWER FACILITIES AND NOTICE OF IMPACT FEE STATEMENT FOR THE NAPLES PRODUCTION PARK HSTU PROJECT See Pages Item #16El - Deleted Item #16E2 - Moved to Item #8E2 Item #16E3 BUDGET AMENDMENT FOR THE PURCHASE OF A HAIL PROCESSING MACHINE FOR THE HAIL OPERATION CENTER Item #16F1 AUTHORIZATION TO UTILIZE FUNDS FROM THE $12.50 SURCHARGE FUND FOR CONSTRUCTION OF A COHMUNICATIONS TOWER AT THE NAPLES COUNTY BARN COMPLEX Item #16G1 ACCEPTANCE OF KEEP FLORIDA BEAUTIFUL COHMUNITY BASED GRANT AGREEMENT See Pages Item #16H1 RESOLUTION 95-429 ADDING UNITS TO THE 1995 COLLIER COUNTY MANDATORY SOLID WASTE COLLECTION SPECIAL ASSESSMENT ROLL See Pages Item #16H2 RESOLUTION 95-430 ADDING UNITS TO THE 1994 COLLIER COUNTY MANDATORY SOLID WASTE COLLECTION SPECIAL ASSESSMENT ROLL See Pages Item #16H3 WORK ORDER #VB-5 WITH VANDERBILT BAY CONSTRUCTION, INC. FOR THE EAST NAPLES COMMUNITY PARK ROLLER HOCKEY RINK See Pages Item #16H4 BUDGET AMENDMENT TO MOVE FUNDS FROM RESERVES TO COVER COSTS FOR CHANGE ORDER #1 TO MARCO MARINE CONSTRUCTION FOR REPLACEMENT OF THE GOODLAND BRIDGE FENDER SYSTEM AND TO COVER THE COSTS FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND INSPECTION - TOTAL COSTS IN THE AMOUNT OF $31,000.00 Item #16H5 BID #95-2364 FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE THIRD PARKING LOT AT BAREFOOT BEACH PRESERVE PARK - AWARDED TO BETTER ROADS, INC., IN THE AMOUNT OF $149,678.55 Item #16H6 BUDGET AMENDMENTS 95-397 AND 95-400 Item #16H7 RENEWAL OF FIVE ANNUAL SURVEYING SERVICES AGREEMENTS PER CONTRACT 93-2040 - AS INDICATED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY See Pages Item #16H8 RECOMMENDATION THAT THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS RECOGNIZE REVENUE RECEIVED FOR THE NORTH NAPLES EHS HEDIC #10 ADDITION PROJECT WHICH INCLUDES ALTERNATE NO. 1 (APPARATUS BAY) AND THE NECESSARY BUDGET AMENDMENT TO TRANSFER THE FUNDS FROM A REVENUE ACCOUNT TO AN EXPENSE ACCOUNT Item #16H9 WORK ORDER JEI-95-3 TO JOHNSON ENGINEERING, INC. FOR SITE DEVELOPHENT BUILDING DESIGN FOR A DOCKMASTER BUILDING AT CAXA_MBAS PARK - IN THE A_MOUNT OF $39,000 See Pages Item #16J HISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE - FILED AND/OR REFERRED The following miscellaneous correspondence as presented by the Board of County Commissioners has been referred to the various departments as indicated: Item #16J1 CERTIFICATES OF CORRECTION TO THE TAX ROLLS AS PRESENTED BY THE PROPERTY APPRAISER'S OFFICE 1993 TAX ROLL NO. DATE 122 7/12/95 1994 TAX ROLL 173 7/12/95 Item #16J2 SATISFACTIONS OF LIEN FOR SERVICES OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER See Pages Item #16K1 GRANT APPLICATION TO THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND REHABILITATIVE SERVICES, OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES FOR EMERGENCY MEDICAL DISPATCH TRAINING See Pages Item #16K2 GRANT APPLILCATION TO THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND REHABILITATIVE SERVICES, OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES FOR A QUALITY ASSURANCE SOFTWARE SYSTEM TO BE USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES See Pages Item #16K3 BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE A_MOUNT OF $83,600 APPROPRIATING FUNDS FROM THE ROAD IMPROVEMENT REFUNDING REVENUE BONDS, SERIES 1995 There being no further business for the Good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by Order of the Chair at 6:20 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL BETTYE J. MATTHEWS, CHAIRPERSON ATTEST: DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK These minutes approved by the Board on as presented or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING BY: Barbara Donovan and Shelly Semmler