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BCC Minutes 02/27/1996 RREGULAR HEETING OF FEBRUARY 27, 1996, 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 9:00 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRPERSON: John C. Norris VICE-CHAIRMAN: Timothy L. Hancock Bettye J. Matthews Pamela S. Hac'Kie Timothy J. Constantine ALSO PRESENT: W. Neil Dorrill, County Manager David Weigel, County Attorney Item #3 & #3A AGENDA AND CONSENT AGENDA - APPROVED WITH CHANGES CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I'm going to call the Board of County Commission meeting to order on February 27, 1996. Mr. Dotrill, would you lead us in an invocation and pledge to the flag? MR. DORRILL: Heavenly Father, we give thanks and praise this morning for the wonder and glory that you are the grace that you exhibit on all of us. We give special thanks for the wonderful quality of life that we enjoy in Naples and Collier County. We ask that you bless this County Commission today, that you bless, guide, and direct the important business decisions that they make for our community. We thank you especially today to recognize and lift up to you dedicated employees from our EHS system and the skills and knowledge that they have that have resulted in lifesaving measures being benefitted to this community. We would also like to thank the staff and many citizens who do chose to participate in the government process in our community, and we ask that you bless our time together here today, and we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. (The pledge of allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Dorrill, we have a few changes to our agenda today? MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir, we do. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. I have three add-on items. The first one will be Item 8(E)(3) under the executive office report which the board is to receive information and to declare a valid public emergency and authorize certain engineering services to provide for the short-term design associated with the Clam Bay natural resource protection area as it pertains to the mangrove die-off situation there. That is item 8(E)(3). I have one additional item that I need to add under category (E). It will be (E)(4). We are researching this morning a potential deadline for a FDOT grant that would provide half of the funding to landscape the median on Davis Boulevard. My understanding, though, is that the grant deadline is tomorrow. I have not seen the grant application, but I would like to add that item on as 8(E)(4) to get your authorization in the event that it is necessary for us to apply for being considered for that important grant for the Davis Boulevard project. The final add-on item that I have is ll(A) which is under other constitutional officers and pertains to a lease agreement between the sheriff and the board and the Naples Airport Authority for certain hangar space at the request of the sheriff. I have one item that I would like to continue today. It's Item 12(C)(4). It is moving and will be continued for one week until the first week in March on the 5th pertaining to the public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance expanding the public nuisance abatement ordinance in Collier County. I have one item that needs to move from its current designated space on public hearings. It's Item 13(A)(4) which is the ordinance amending Ordinance 86-67. It is moving and should properly be considered under Item 12(C)(6). So 13(A)(4) will move and be considered under 12(C)(6). I have two agenda notes this morning. The first one is that Item 8(E)(2) be heard not prior to 10:30 this morning in order to accommodate the travel schedule of your bond counsel and financial advisors. Also a note for our recording secretary this morning that Item 13(B)(1) has an incorrect legal description. We do need to open the public hearing on that item in order to get conceptual approval, but it did continue the hearing in order to correct the legal description because that conditional use will otherwise expire. But it's through no fault of the petitioner. Mr. Chairman, those are the only changes I have this morning. I appreciate your consideration. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mrs. Matthews. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I have one question and that is Items 9(B) and (C). Can we hear them at the time same time as 12(C)(5) which is the utilities resolution, regulations, and the ordinance? CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Those are three that are related items. Mr. Dotrill, would it be appropriate to hear them all at the same time under the public hearing section? MR. DORRILL: You can, and they have been advertised that way through 12(C)(5) COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: The only other thing that I had, and I would like to move from the consent agenda -- MR. DORRILL: 16(B)(ll) will become 8(B)(4). COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Chairman, although I have no additions, I have a quick question for Mr. Dotrill. On the continuance of Item 12(B)(4), the nuisance abatement ordinance, is there anything there that appears to be insurmountable or difficult at this time? MR. DORRILL: Which one? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The continuance of the nuisance abatement order. Is there anything there that seems insurmountable or that would need some direction from the board? MR. DORRILL: I don't believe so. I would be sure of the courtesy of a call based on a section in the ordinance being rewritten that will not allow for the participation of the sheriff's department to the extent that we thought that it would, and I would like to speak to the sheriff about that prior to continuing. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Nothing further. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Ms. Mac'Kie. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just another question on that issue. Is the ordinance the way that it appeared in our packet the way the sheriff's counsel wants it or the way -- I mean, is this the version that -- help me understand. This is one without enough participation by the sheriff or not? MR. DORRILL: That's -- Ms. Sullivan may be directly here in just a second. The impression is that the version in your packet is the way that it is preferred by the sheriff in the section, particularly section 5 that puts the burden to prepare and present these particular cases involving street crime and prosecuting landowners on the code enforcement staff. And it was at least my understanding that that was going to be kind of a joint prosecution effort and that the sheriff would be participating in that, and I just, frankly, had not had an opportunity to speak to the sheriff. MS. SULLIVAN: The last version was that the sheriff's office would take the -- receive the criminal complaints, investigate the criminal complaints, and in turn, turn anything over to code enforcement for presentation to the board. The requested change by the sheriff's office is that code enforcement will receive the complaint, turn them over to the sheriff, and the sheriff's office would turn them back over to code enforcement for serving the notice, and then code enforcement would present them to the board. And we just really, you know -- CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Ms. Sullivan, we're going to continue the item, and we would be glad to hear all this next week when we bring it back. Ms. Hac'Kie, do you have anything else? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, thank you. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Constantine. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Item 12(C)(2) I would like to continue for one week. A couple of questions. We're working on an alley-way project in Golden Gate. I don't think this is going to interfere, but I would rather be safe than sorry and just continue it for the seven days. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That would be a two-week continuance. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm sorry. You're right, for public hearings. Thank you. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Constantine, when I read that item, I had an impression that that was linked to 12(B)(1), is it not? COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It is. Although I think that PUD can go ahead without this. They just need to match this up with the other. This will ultimately be linked, but I think you don't have to do two at the same time. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Okay. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Will that be continued then, Mr. Dorrill, for two weeks? MR. DORRILL: Yes. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I'll also have one item under communications at the close of the day, one brief item. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I have nothing, so we need a motion. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Motion to approve the agenda and the consent agenda as amended. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Second. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? Item #4 MINUTES OF JANUARY 30, 1996, WORKSHOP AND FEBRUARY 6, 1996, REGULAR MEETING - APPROVED AS PRESENTED Minutes. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to approve -- make a motion that we approve the minutes of the January 30, 1996, workshop and the February 6, 1996, regular meeting. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion and a second for approval of the minutes. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? Item #5A1 PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING FEBRUARY 27, 1996 AS SPAY DAY, U.S.A, 1996 - ADOPTED Proclamations, Mr. Constantine. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We have with us today the director of Animal Control, Jodi Morelock, and I don't have my notes written down here, but I think we have someone also with us from the Collier County Vet Association. DR. BALL: Dr. Ball from the Collier County Veterinarian Society, president. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you very much. We have a proclamation for Spay Day, U.S.A. 1996 which reads as follows: Whereas, dogs and cats give companionship to and share -- by the way I didn't bring the animals today because we couldn't get the photographer from the National Enquirer here. Whereas, dogs and cats give companionship to and share the homes of over 50 million individuals in the United States; and Whereas, two unaltered cats and their kittens can produce 420,000 more kittens in seven years -- and a lot of noise upstairs -- and two unaltered dogs and their puppies can produce 67,000 more dogs in six years; and Whereas, humane societies and shelters euthanize more than 12 million dogs and cats each year, although many of them are healthy and adoptable, simply because there are not enough good homes; and Whereas, the problem of pet overpopulation costs the taxpayers of this county millions of dollars annually through animal control programs trying to cope with the millions of unwanted pets; and Whereas, spaying and neutering dogs and cats has been shown to drastically reduce cat and dog overpopulation; and Whereas, veterinarians, humane societies, national and local animal protection organizations worked together to ensure the spaying or neutering of more than 28,000 companion animals through Spay Day U.S.A. In 1995; and Whereas, the Collier County Veterinarian Association in cooperation with volunteer services for animals and Collier County Animal Control have jonied together to promote the spaying or neutering of 100 animals in Collier County for Spay Day U.S.A. 1996. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that Tuesday, February 27, 1996, be designated as Spay Day U.S.A. 1996. Done and ordered this 27th day of February, 1996, Board of County Commissioners, John C. Norris, Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a motion that we approve this proclamation. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Second. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion and a second to approve this proclamation. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Dr. Ball or Jodi, I don't know if either one of you have anything you want to say this morning or add to this? MS. MORELOCK: I think Dr. Ball is really the one that should speak on this and accept the proclamation. DR. BALL: First of all, I would like to thank the commissioners on behalf of the Collier County Veterinarian Society and actually the citizens of Collier County for the proclamation. And I would like to take this opportunity to also thank you for your commitment and your unending resolve in the recent spaying/neutering contract revisions. It was a marriage like many marriages, not made in heaven but worked out here on earth. For that we thank you. Just to give everybody perspective, last year 25,000 animals across the country were spayed and neutered which Florida's share works out to about 500. Today Collier County veterinarians will spay 125 animals in this county alone. So we're looking for much higher numbers than last year. I thank you. Item #5C1 PHOENIX AWARDS RECOGNIZING EMS PARAMEDICS, WHO THROUGH THEIR SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE, HAVE SUCCESSFULLY BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE, AN INDIVIDUAL WHO DIED - PRESENTED CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Our favorite thing of the year is next on our Phoenix Awards. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: One of the main reasons you wanted to become chairman. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I'd rather sit and listen to someone do it. The symbol of the Phoenix, a mythological bird, who died and rose renewed from the ashes has been adopted by the Emergency Medical Services Department of Collier County to recognize EHS paramedics who through their skills and knowledge have successfully brought back to life an individual who had died. On October 16, 1995, Mr. Savin was at the YHCA when suddenly he fell victim to sudden death. His heart and the breathing stopped. Quickly, Gary Stagg, a YHCA employee recognized the medical emergency and utilizing their previous training immediately began CPR. Within minutes EHS department paramedics arrived. Working quickly and diligently with the skills and expertise they have achieved, the EHS paramedics had Mr. Savin's heart beating again. He was released from Naples Community Hospital nine days later. We would like to recognize Mr. Gary Stagg for his lifesaving actions of initiating CPR. Mr. Stagg, would you come forward? (Applause) Mr. Savin, would you please come forward? I would like to present to you today -- turn around and face the camera there, Mr. Savin. I would like to present to you today the three EHS paramedics who responded to the 911 call for help and brought you back to life: Battalion Commander Steve Rockey, Paramedic Captain Bill Peplinski, and Paramedic Hichele Williamson. (Applause) Mr. Savin, I understand you have something you would like to say. If you step over to that microphone, please. MR. SAVIN: Thank you, Mr. Commissioner. If you see I'm all smiles here this morning, and the old story that I feel great to be alive, it's only because of these four people standing up here that I am. I am sure that if you read the background of my particular case, I was very, very fortunate. Gary happened to be right there when he was needed. We have top-notch people in your department to come to my aid, resuscitate me and bring me back. Just, you know, to carry on I was released from the Naples Hospital nine days later, but I did have another by-pass. That's my second by-pass, that I had the following day at Health Campus of Lee Hospital. I only can -- I wish my wife would be better prepared to talk to the group because she knew more about what was going on because it was nine days I was completely out of everything. But, again, how can I thank them enough. And I thank you, Commissioners, for having the foresight to know that we need a department such as this in Collier County to respond to these emergencies. So thank you again. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a few more Phoenix awards today as well: Paul Wilson, Tim HcGeary, Jim Bialkoski, Debbie Lichliter, Steve Donovan, Scott Wernert, Laurie Klingerman, Douglas Roberts, and Brian Swindale gets two. (Applause) Each one of these certificates represents a life saved in our county, so let's give them all a hand. (Applause) MR. DORRILL: Mr. Chairman, there's one other individual that is here today, and if you don't mind -- Doug Cameron, not so fast, buddy. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: If you know Doug you'll always find him heading for a door if possible. MR. DORRILL: Fifteen years ago at 12:01 in the morning the Collier County EHS service was founded and under some real troubling circumstances. But for the past 15 years Doug has been one of the finest individuals that ever worked for you, and he is retiring. And I just wanted to thank him publicly and also acknowledge that he doesn't have a gray hair in his head while I have quite a few now. But I saw him sneaking out the side door, and I know that this is his last week. It chokes me up a little bit, but I wanted to tell him thank you. (Applause) COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: He doesn't look old enough to retire. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll be asking Doug his secrets later. Item #882 BEACH RENOURISHHENT PROJECT UPDATE - PRESENTED CHAIRMAN NORRIS: This moves us onto 8(B)(2), a beach renourishment project update. MR. CONRECODE: Good morning, board members. For the record, Tom Conrecode for public works, and that's a hard act to follow. I didn't save any lives this year but hopefully we will accomplish what the community will think is a tremendous beach project. This item before you today is to -- let me give you an update. We were before you about six or seven weeks ago and talked to you about a couple of problems we had with some of the sand material on the beach, and we wanted to come back and provide you with an update on that. In addition, we wanted to provide you with some better news in terms of our progress, where we're going from here, and what the balance of roughly the 60-day period that we have left in the permit window provides for us and what we expect to accomplish within that. What I would like to do is ask Dr. Stephens to kind of participate with me in a joint presentation to the board to cover four items. The first item is a discussion of the volume of material placed on the beach to date. What that equates to in terms of lineal feet or miles or beach that have been renourished, we're going to address briefly the rock issue. And when I say briefly because it's really a minor problem at this point. And we're going to show you on the photographs where that problem is isolated at, what we've actually done to date to clean that material up with the ongoing process is related to the rock issue. The third item we'll address is where the work is going from here on, in other words, for you to monitor it and as work continues and then finally what we need to do as a community in order to maintain the beautiful beach that we have. So if Dr. Stephens could come up and present you with the data to date in terms of the total volume in beach fill placed today. DR. STEPHENS: Good morning. For the record my name is Mike Stephens. I'm the vice president of Coastal Engineering Consultants. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Dr. Stephens, before you start, let me make a suggestion here. If we could have the photos -- when Dr. Stephens refers to them, if he could have someone hold them up and also show them out to the audience, if you would do that, please. DR. STEPHENS: Thank you. First of all, to address the project status, I think that as Tom Conrecode just stated the project is moving ahead very, very deliberately and is basically on schedule with a high quality -- let me just point to the beach if I can -- with a high quality beach material, a good sand beach. It has a couple of shells down at the water line that you can see. Our greatest critic is busily at work taking advantage of the beach program. And that is really what we have going on today. We have several miles of beach that are in place, and we literally have thousands of people visiting the broad beach that is being created. Mr. Huber started to show the overview of the project on the plan. The total project length is 30,648 feet. As of today 15,438 feet have been completed, a total of 50 percent of the project. That includes the Vanderbilt area, all of the Vanderbilt beach, the Naples beach from 5th Avenue South down all the way to below the pier at 18th Avenue South. And currently today they have started pumping north of the Beach Club and are immediately south of Lowdermilk Park. The production rate by the contractor -- and we'll put the Vanderbilt photos up -- we have just a quick before photograph of Vanderbilt Beach. If you recall, the project was to fill the crescent-shaped area, the indentation of Vanderbilt Beach. If you would show that to the audience, we're talking about the area primarily in front of the seawalls, but it was a crescent shaped tapered at both ends. The next photograph shows the project at about the halfway point and gives you an idea from the seawall alignment here of the width of sand placement on Vanderbilt. Wiggins Pass is up at the top of this photo. The next photo shows the completed Vanderbilt project in its entirety running some two miles in length, approximately 9,000 linear feet from the south end of Wiggins Pass park down to below the Ritz. It is in this area immediately in front of the Ritz where on the last day of pumping we encountered the rock problem. However, the photograph, the next photograph shows what is a typical condition on Vanderbilt Beach, a very, very wide broad, fine sand beach that is being successfully used by large segments of the public today. All of this beach area still has to be tilled and loosened by the contractor. It is relatively hard immediately beneath the surface. So you will have to drag a large dozer with big till prongs 3 feet deep behind the dozer to loosen all of that. We also will be starting to plant sea oats there within the next week or two. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And that will take care of what people are complaining about a hard-packed surface, that's what is planned to alleviate that? DR. STEPHENS: Yes. Also we -- as you will hear in a few minute, all of these beaches we have in effect created a huge multi-acre park system where people not only have trash washing up onto the beach and dead fish occasionally, but now we also have things that people leave behind, bottles, refuge of all types, diapers, what have you. So we need to talk about grooming and manicuring. The contractor's current production rate -- we can put the Naples photo up -- this is the photograph of the Naples project which was taken about two weeks ago. In fact, it was February llth, and it shows the onshore pass at 5th Avenue South and the sand fill. And you can get an idea of the width of the beach fill immediately south of the pier. That work has been completed, and as I stated they're moving now up at the Lowdermilk Park. The area, right in this area (indicating) and in this area, there are two spots on this section of beach where rock cropped up and where the contractors had to address some rocky material. The contractor's production rate is about 11,000 cubic yards per day. He's had some days as high as thirteen or fourteen thousand. But using that conservative number, there is 515,000 cubic yards of material remaining to be placed on the beaches. That equates to 47 work days remaining. If we use a 25 percent weather allowance, that equates to 15 days or a total of 62 days. As of today, February 27, there are 64 days remaining to March 30. That is probably a reasonable weather allowance. But if that is what we experience, we will be able to complete the project within the time frame allotted. If we could have the drawing photograph, please. Other work that has been complete includes a series of rock groins. Twenty-five flowing nonfunctional groins were removed in the area shown in this photograph south of Doctors Pass and down to the Beach Club which is at the bottom of the photo. The six existing groins, which were fairly substantial, were protecting existing pipelines or were necessary to transition the alignment of the fill from Doctors Pass down to the southern beach were renovated and raised up to an elevation of plus five so that they would be visible after the sand fill was placed. The rocks that were removed from all these boulders have been stockpiled from 4th Avenue South to 5th Avenue South. So if you were to go to that location today there are big boulders and gravel on the beach there stockpiled as part of the work to renovate the jetty and extend the jetty at Doctors Pass. The central sheet piles have been placed in the jetty, and they are beginning to place the foundation material at this time. There are the several outfalls that have been extended and are in various partial states of completion. The woodpile cjuster groin at 3rd Avenue South is about 40 percent complete. There were five deteriorated wood groins completely removed. Three have been partially removed. Rock removal at the Ritz -- we met with the Ritz-Carlton and the contractor yesterday and have worked out a schedule there. They'll be starting that work today or tomorrow and will work continuously through the next 10 or 12 days hopefully to complete that to the satisfaction of the Ritz. In the event that it is needed, we have been working with the Eppeland (phonetic) Sand Suppliers in the area. That use has been permitted by the DEP. If necessary as a top dressing at the Ritz, that will be available and permittable. The contractor has tested area 2(C). There was not rock encountered anywhere in the borrow area in the design section or the allowance template. The contractor has 91 days into the contract. He has already experienced 33 weather days. As we all know it has been a rough winter. So I think that we are on an active track to success. I think that it is feasible that we would complete the project within the time frames allotted. We have a very good property going onto the beach at that time under the methods that have been worked out between Capital Projects, yourselves, and the contractor. We appreciate your attention to this project. I am sorry -- we appreciate also that two of you were able to make the trip out to the dredge. It is quite an experience. I brought some photographs from that trip in for yourselves and for the general public to see the magnitude of the operation. It is extreme in all aspects. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I challenge you to get an adjective to describe it. It was incredible. DR. STEPHENS: So we would hope that maybe there will be another trip in the future. We will hope that you will be able to join us at the time. Certainly you will be invited and we encourage you to do so. I'll be glad to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Hancock. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: When do you anticipate the raking and grooming to begin? Obviously, I think Vanderbilt Beach could be the first area because it was completed first. But when do you anticipate that to begin? DR. STEPHENS: Well, they are supposed to start the actual work in front of the Ritz, and they want to complete that first. So that's going to start today unless they at the last minute they were talking to the Ritz, and they may have wanted them to delay it one day until tomorrow. But as far as I know right now they've started today. That is to take 10 to 12 days. As soon as that is done and is satisfactory to the Ritz and to us, they will then begin to move on with the tilling at Vanderbilt. The sea oats planting should start there as part of that in the immediate future as well. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Any cost of the inland sand source will be borne by the contractors; is that correct? DR. STEPHENS: Well -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: We didn't pay for the fill that was placed in that area, so I want to make sure that we aren't paying for this mistake. DR. STEPHENS: Well, that has yet to be determined. In other words, the contractor -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Any suggestion as to what we think ought to happen? DR. STEPHENS: Well, let me show you a piece of equipment. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: If it has not worked out yet, let's not drag it on. But my point being, you know, I don't want to have to be doing a change order amendment for that area. If the contractor didn't supply the sand they were required to supply, then one way or another they need to do that. That is really the statement I'm making on that. MR. CONRECODE: If I could address the rock issue which is kind of the next item on the agenda. We have identified in a series of photographs just presented two areas on the beach where we actually have rock. If you were to read the Daily News and a couple of the stories that have been in there, they would tell you that the rock is filled with gravel or the beach is completely filled with gravel, and that is really isolated to two areas. That's in front of the Ritz. They're addressing that now. The piece of equipment that you see in front is a piece of the equipment that was actually created by the contractor to address the rock problem. It actually exceeds our spec. It will remove material down to the size of one and half inches. The spec requirement was for two inches, so this screen will actually go through and clean and shake out the sand and leave it. The contractor has an obligation at his expense to remove the rock. That's not our cost, so I hope that addresses your concern there. If, however, the removal of that rock results in a beach that doesn't have enough fill material on it, he has a range that he can fill to. If he's below that range, he'll have to bring it up to the new fill. His option is to mobilize supplies and equipment and whatever to try to pump it in, probably not a cost effective way for him to do that. Instead he has an option now that we permitted the Eppeland sources to buy up the sand to fill that. So, yes, in fact, he can go ahead and have that done. I've also asked Dr. Stephens to go ahead with DEP to do the permitting for Eppeland sources in the event we continue to get bad weather days in excess of what our flow is in our permit window so that we don't end up with a half completed project or 90 percent completed project. I want that option and will pull it out of my hip pocket from the last two weeks of the project to make sure we can complete it. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That does answer my question. The last thing I have is I get a lot of telephone calls from folks in Pelican Bay saying, what about our beaches? And, Dr. Stephens, you and I have had lengthy discussions about that and the condition of that beach at the time we looked at this project. Can you give a synopsis for the folks at Pelican Bay on what this project will mean to them and why sand is not being added to that beach? I know the answer, but I think some other people that are here may need to hear that. DR. STEPHENS: In a very, very brief answer to that question, the Pelican Bay Beaches have always been a part of the overall project in Collier County. They have been from the beginning part. They were included in all of the surveys that were utilized to define the areas with the more severely eroded beaches. Those areas where the beaches were recently wide, functional and stable had low erosion rate, were not areas where we placed construction fill. It was recognized that the great irregularity at the Vanderbilt Beach section, this crescent-shaped area was aggravating erosion further and further to the south and to the north every year. Thus, we had to lengthen the project from the time that we did surveys in 1993 to when we did surveys in 1995. We actually had to add more material and go further south. Now that the shoreline is straightened out, this erosion rate should subside as the beach stabilizes over the next two years. And there will be sand moving in the system north and south to provide material to the Pelican Bay Beaches. So while they are not directly in the active construction area, they are within the project area and will perceive sand in these beaches should be stabilized now that the rest of the beaches north of them have been corrected. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Constantine. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is the Ritz-Carlton a party to the contract for this? DR. STEPHENS: No. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Because I heard you mention a couple of times -- and I realize and am fully aware that the Ritz-Carlton is the single largest contributor to the tourist tax which is paying for this project, but I heard you say a couple of times that we want to do this to the satisfaction of the Ritz-Carlton. And I hope what we're doing is obviously we want to make them happy, but I hope we're doing it to the satisfaction of the county and the specs you laid out when we initially went forward with the project. DR. STEPHENS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A couple of things you mentioned, and I just want to reiterate or clarify. You mentioned the packed sand. What's anticipated and is planned for on how to loosen that up and ultimately have a nicer product than may be there now? DR. STEPHENS: Correct. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And also the possibility that rocks might appear at various locations was anticipated in the planning as being implemented to correct that problem? DR. STEPHENS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Matthews. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I just wanted to comment on the memo I sent to the board a week or so ago probably spurred this update, but I want to let you know -- I'm not sure you got copies of it -- but Mr. Conrecode sent a memo to me addressing this issue to a very good degree, a very fine memo. And if you have not yet received it, I will be happy to share it with you. It answered my concerns quite well. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Anything else, Mr. Conrecode? MR. CONRECODE: Yes. If I could close with really the issue that we need to be thinking about next as we're halfway through the project and looking forward to the completion in the next 60 days is the issue of ongoing beach maintenance. As many of you are aware we've been doing beach raking and maintenance on Marco Island now since the completion of that project. We propose to do the exact same thing on the Naples Beach whether it's for the removal of diapers and bottles and cans from the beach or whether it's for removal of storm debris. And what we would like to do is come back to the board with an executive summary to purchase a piece of equipment that is, in essence, a beach rake. To date we've contracted on Marco Island to do that with what is, in essence, a modified box blade on the back of a tractor. Because of the magnitude of the beach that we have now to clean, about 13 or 14 miles of beach overall, we would propose that the county purchase their own beach rake. It is called a beach tech rake. It is kind of unique in the industry. There are only two beach raking pieces of equipment, and that we would come back and operate this and pretty much maintain our beaches as a parks and rec function, raking them throughout the community, paid for out of the same TDC funding source. And we would like to bring that back to the board's attention probably in the next two weeks as a fairly unique purchase, because there are only two pieces of equipment that are manufactured to do beach raking. We think it would be kind of unique. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Conrecode, this piece of equipment will manicure the beach? MR. CONRECODE: Yes. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Fluff up the sand to a degree and will also pick up stuff as small as cigarette butts; is that correct? MR. CONRECODE: As small as cigarette butts and as large as a log about this size in terms of storm debris or pretty decent sized rocks. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We certainly don't encourage leaving cigarette butts. MR. CONRECODE: The particular piece of equipment that we're looking at will also eliminate and reduce scarfs that you're familiar with from the beach on Marco Island that have been a recurring problem after storms down there. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Right. What is the delivery time on this piece of equipment? MR. CONRECODE: This particular piece of equipment, there is one available in the State of Florida right now. It's been down here making the circuit within Florida to all the communities. And there's a demo model that's available. If we don't get the demo model, we can order one. It comes from Kassel, Germany and probably about a one-year lead time on it. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I'm sure we will get a demonstrator price. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: In other words buying a floor model. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Matthews. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Conrecode, on the spreadsheets that we were seeing several months ago when we opted to do this project now in a single mobilization as opposed to pay as you go, was this beach equipment included in that spreadsheet to your knowledge? MR. CONRECODE: Let me check real quick. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: While you're checking on that one, Mr Conrecode, this machine can go at various depths as well; is that correct? MR. CONRECODE: That's correct. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We can still rake the beach during turtle nesting season? MR. CONRECODE: Right. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Is that correct? MR. CONRECODE: Well, there will still be exclusions. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Am I mistaken or did you say that that's going to be coming to us in two weeks? That's not actually on today's agenda is it? MR. CONRECODE: No, it's not. We're not asking you to take any action on that today unless you want to. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I just had a quick question so that when it does come I've got a little bit of background on it. Was the item included in the spreadsheet that we have and was the maintenance and the labor cost to run the equipment included in those? MR. HUBER: Yes. There are maintenance costs included in the spreadsheet, both for Marco Island and for Vanderbilt and Naples beach areas, all throughout the spreadsheet, yes. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: My question is not beach maintenance which is putting more sand on the beach as it erodes away, but manicuring. MR. HUBER: That's what I have been calling maintenance. And another question that you had as far as this being a demo cost, that's correct. They're reducing the cost of the machinery by about $10,000 for us. And the reason we need to come back in two weeks at the maximum, he has another demonstration tour that he could take this piece of equipment on unless we agreed to buy it. And he does have perspective buyers elsewhere, so we need to act fairly promptly. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you. MR. CONRECODE: That concludes my presentation subject to any additional questions. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you very much. Item #883 RESOLUTION 96-97 APPROVING A JOINT PROJECT AGREEHENT WITH THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (FDOT) FOR U.S. 41 PD&E STUDY - ADOPTED Item 8(B)(3) is a recommendation to approve resolution and joint project with FDOT. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Chairman, reading through this, this is simply advancing something on the schedule for reimbursement by FDOT at a later date. I'm more than happy to make a motion to approve. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second your motion. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Any speakers, Mr. Dorrill? MR. DORRILL: No, sir. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have motion and second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? Item #8B4 DEVELOPER CONTRIBUTION AGREEMENT BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND FAITH BIBLE CHURCH OF NAPLES, INC. FOR ROAD IMPACT FEES IN RETURN FOR DONATION OF LAND - APPROVED Being none, our next item is 8(B)(4), the former 16(B)(ll). COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I moved this item from the consent agenda because it involves ordinance 92-92 and I'm just having difficulty for items on that ordinance. I guess Mr. Archibald will give a presentation on it? MR. ARCHIBALD: Good morning, Board Members. For the record, George Archibald, transportation director. This Item 8(B)(4) which was 16(B)(ll) is a standard two-party impact fee credit agreement that pertains to a piece of property that the county is acquiring from a church that has just been built along Immokalee Road. The location is to the east of 1-75 and just to the west of Oaks Boulevard. The reason that this particular parcel is important is that it will provide the right-of-way in this particular case to a depth of 50 feet, a length of about 524 feet. It will provide the right-of-way for the expansion of Immokalee Road from two lanes to four lanes and be consistent with the design that has been completed by the county. The actual dollars represent the value of the land plus a margin that reflects not only the improvements that accrue to the county in the four-laning but also some recognition that there will be impacts to setbacks beyond the right-of-way line itself. The staff is recommending approval of it recognizing that in the contribution agreement this credit is tied to development of this particular piece of property. So if, in fact, the church continues to develop then they can take advantage of it. If they don't then this is a credit out there that may not be used totally. But it's tied to this piece of property and as a result staff feels not only comfortable with the agreement and the dollar amount but there may be some gain from the county's perspective under not only the four-laning but utilizing the improvements that have been constructed by the church and incorporate those into the future four-laning. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: One question, Mr. Archibald. Then what you're saying -- and I did not read it in the summary -- is that this land that is being contributed is part of the four-laning and not just a deceleration lane? MR. ARCHIBALD: That's correct. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: When I read this I thought it was strictly a decel lane which was promised as a contribution on -- almost on condition of the conditional use is part of what let us into the conditional use. MR. ARCHIBALD: Yes. We should have made that possibly clearer but the right-of-way, again, for the sketch is 50 feet which, again, is for the future expansion only. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Thank you. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Motion to approve. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion and a second to approve. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? COHHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Nay. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: It passes four to one. Item #8C1 OPTIONS FOR EXPANSION OF BEACH AND BOAT LAUNCH SITES AND APPROPRIATE STAFF DIRECTION ON SELLING THE BLUEBILL PROPERTY SO THE PROCEEDS FROM THAT SALE CAN BE USED TO CREATE A FUND FOR ACQUIRING AND DEVELOPING NEW BEACH OR BOAT RAMP SITES AND EXPAND EXISTING SITES - TABLED. STAFF DIRECTED TO REEVALUATE PROPERTY AND REVIEW ACCESS REQUIREMENTS AND REPORT BACK TO THE BCC Next item is 8(C)(1) which is options for expansion of beach and boat launch sites. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: This may be kind of a moot point. I'm sorry. I'm just curious, Commissioner Matthews, is why you oppose that item. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Why I opposed that item? COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yes. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: I just have great difficulty paying a developer/builder, anyone for land in which the very thing that they're doing is going to cause us to four lane the road, period. The same thing happened at the Livingston Road a couple of weeks ago of the $93,000. I opposed that also. It is just -- that is all. MR. BRINKMAN: Good morning. Steve Brinkman, your parks and recreation director. And currently the county has four acres in the northern part of the county that we call the Bluebill property. The value of that property is now worth about approximately $3 million, and we would like to look at the potential sale of that site and leverage the purchase of some additional land in critical areas around the county. Some of that critical area is seven acres down in the Tigertail Court area. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I feel the need to mention something here that is going to be -- I would assume is important to this board. The assumed value of $3 million for this property I feel is grossly out of line. I have laid out, as I have given to the board, what type of single-family, multi-family development pocket can occur on that property. If you're going to be multi-family, the per unit cost of the land is $100,000 for a condo. If you're going to do single family it is upwards of $130,000 for a home. And that's at 2.2 million. If we look start looking at 3 million, that's even higher. So, you know, as I read through the report that was done -- and the report was done very well. It was based on $3 million land value that I think the market doesn't even come close to holding. So I think there's a fallacy in using that as a basis for discussion. Beyond that, from what I've read in the paper, from members of this board, there is something that also is not discussed in the report, and that is the idea that Collier County will be pursuing or is pursuing a beach access between the, I believe, Vanderbilt and at the Delmar/Wiggins State Park. At one time there was an access that existed there, and some work is being done to determine if that access is still there or can be reattained. If so we have a beach access, we have property near it for beach parking, yet we're looking at one of the options here of spending a million dollars to create 152 spaces on another site. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But I thought that was the point that we couldn't get that access. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, we don't know that. And I think before we get into -- and first I have to mention it was my impression that this was brought forward by Commissioner Matthews. And I owe you an apology because that's not the case at all. This is a staff item, and I apologize for advancing what was told to me was inaccurate. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Beyond that I have a real problem with us going into a lengthy discussion of what to do with the proceeds from the sale of a piece of property that I think is premature to discuss because we don't know if, in fact, this is a proper area for beach parking. Until we find that out I would like to avoid the next 60 minutes of discussion on this by just mentioning that we can get about 300 spaces of beach parking on this. So if there's a beach access -- and I laid out the parking on 10 of the 23 and came up with 159 parking spaces with 20 percent for water management. So I think 300 spaces are pretty reasonable. So if we can get beach access over there and just turn around and spend a million dollars for 152 spaces doesn't make sense. So I would suggest unless, Mr. Dotrill, you have strong feelings otherwise and are able to sway the members of this board, I think this is premature until we have that access question defined and cleared up and at which point we know what we're dealing with. I also think we need a teevaluation of the value of the property. Based on what I put together, I think it's out of line. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So your suggestion is then until we have that answered table the issue? COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Continue this indefinitely or just table the item until we know whether that access exists or not. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Dotrill, do we have a time frame in which we'll know that or do we already know that? MR. DORRILL: We can establish one. In order to be clear, I put this on the agenda and talked once briefly during the holiday with Mr. Hancock. This was on our action agenda this year. The original direction on this issue has been a little clouded. We were originally directed to sell the property to reimburse the board for the cost that was borrowed to acquire the alternate site. This was originally intended to be a boat ramp, and the board said that they would borrow money pending the sale of this property to and subsequently develop the Cocohatchee River Park and boat ramp. I was considering the -- our direction had become a little clouded because of our inability several years ago to sell the property. It was on our action agenda for this year. While we are endeavoring to get additional beach access easements, that is an issue that's almost 10 years old. And the state's contention at the state Delmar recreation area is whether you walk in, ride a bike in, or drive your car in, they are entitled to their money. And they charge people regardless of how they access the park. And the only way to access or have beach access within a mile of there is through the state park because otherwise our nearest public beach access is south on Gulfshore Boulevard. But we don't have any preconceived ideas about what it's worth other than some old direction, and this has just been out floating around out there. We do not have any funds to develop this if it is reserved for beach parking. That would be needed to be borrowed or put off until another day after you have recovered from Lake Avalon and the South Naples Community Park that is adjacent to the land. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think Commissioner Hancock makes a good point. So I have a number of questions as well, but I think some of them while they could be answered today, I suspect some of them can't. And it sounds like we're not sure on a couple of those items. Traditionally the board has honored -- if one member wanted to table an item, particularly in their own district, we've honored that. So I would have no objection to that. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I would like to make as part of that that we direct staff to pursue with haste the final answer to our ability to obtain anything over 10 feet as far as an access easement to the beach along that property line there between, I guess, it is the end of Delmar/Wiggins. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: We can put a boardwalk in there. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah. We put boardwalks in 10-foot easements before they're ADA capable. And right now people are parking on the west side of the Bluebill Bridge on heavy holidays running coolers over the bridge, and they're walking into Delmar/Wiggins. So I'd -- and I appreciate your comments, and with that I would like to ask that we table this item until we can -- I'll make a motion to table this item until staff gets a definitive answer on the access. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that. And could I amend that just to reflect -- perhaps to have staff give us an update as to where they are even if they don't have complete answers in a month? COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I think that's acceptable. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Could I ask -- CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Before I call the question let me just ask Mr. Brinkman how did we arrive at that $3 million figure? Was that an appraisal? MR. BRINKMAN: That was a figure we asked Rural Property to give us an estimate on what the property was worth. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: It wasn't a full appraisal but at least our real property people took a look at it. Commissioner MAtthews, you have something else? COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yeah. Mr. Brinkman, across the street from this property is another piece of property that has had a sign up on it now for at least two and half years requesting a like kind exchange, and I won't go into the details, but could somebody make a phone call to the owner of that property and find out what it is he wants to exchange for? MR. BRINKMAN: Sure. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We have a motion to table this item for an indefinite period of time and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? We'll hear that -- MR. DORRILL: You had a member of the public who was registered but does not wish to speak but has a question. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Erlichman, I assume that's you. Could you address your question to the appropriate staff member and let us continue with our meeting? Would that be acceptable? Well, okay. Please feel free. MR. ERLICHHAN: My name is Gilbert Erlichman. I reside in East Naples, and I'm asking the question for myself. How actively is the Board of Commissioners proceeding to get the state to give the county an easement where as now they're charging -- the state is charging $3? Are you actively proceeding to get that easement? CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Let me suggest that you ask that of our staff, because I don't think the board members have that answer definitively for you. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: All I can tell you is a summary of what staff has given me. The best source is going to be the -- actually Real Property that's doing the investigation on that. And I believe the Vanderbilt Beach Homeowner's Association is actually assisting them in whatever way they can. So I would say Real Property would be the place to get the best answer and most up-to-date answer. MR. ERLICHMAN: Thank you for your insight, Mr. Hancock. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just as we move on, you noted in a month that we're going to get a report. MR. DORRILL: Yes. I believe that Mr. Constantine asked for us to do that in 30 days. Item #8D1 1996 FISCAL YEAR PAY AND CLASSIFICATION PLAN - CONTINUED TO 3/5/95 CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Our next item then is 8(D)(1). This would be the reclassification of pay scale plan. MR. OCHS: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Leo Ochs, your support services administrator. Staff is here this morning to present the proposed fiscal year 1996 pay and classification plan for the board's consideration. This plan was developed by personnel management consultant Ralph Andersen and Associates in Dallas, Texas. This was the same firm who had developed the board's original pay and classification and performance management system back in 1988. We have with us this morning to assist in the staff presentation Mr. David Eisenlohr. He's the vice president with the firm and the project manager for this particular engagement. We also have our human resources director, Ms. Jennifer Edwards, and Jay Hanalich, your senior human resource analyst, here to present some information. Let me just give a quick background overview and present some of the primary objectives for the plan. The rationale for the plan update centers around three basic points, the first of those being that we wanted a plan that maintains the board's ability to contract and retain the highest quality employees for available position vacancies. We wanted a plan that was fair, objective, equitable, and continued to be market driven in this pay system. And finally we needed a system that was able to be maintained on a day-to-day basis by your professional human resource staff. We think that the plan presented today meets all those three objectives. In terms of rationale for coming to the board at this time and the reasons for the comprehensive nature of the update that is being presented this morning, again, the board as we looked at our agency's turnover statistics over the few years we've noticed an increasing trend in our turnover although we acknowledge that there's many factors that contribute to turnover, certainly competitive pay scales is one of the major contributing factors. Wherein the early '90s our turnover rate as an agency was averaging in the 10 to 11 percent range, we are in the past few years seeing annual turnover statistics in the 15 to 17 percent range, and that's a trend that is somewhat concerning to the staff. Another reason for the plan update at this time is that we wanted to try to catch up, frankly, with some of the major organizational changes that had occurred in our agency over the past several years, certainly since the last comprehensive update back in 1988. The board obviously knows that there was a major consolidation at the division level beginning with this fiscal year and part of that several large reorganizations and departments not the least of which was the reorganization, functional reorganization out in the community development area a couple of years back. So we wanted to try to get our classification system caught up with some of those organizational changes. And, finally, just from a technical standpoint, a good pay practice in your HR department dictate that we do an annual maintenance but a more comprehensive update typically in the five to seven year range from the initial plan. So those were the reasons for coming to the board at this time with the update. The plan itself is developed utilizing both state and local salary survey market data combined with a rather sophisticated point factor job classification system that's designed to provide some internal pay equity among all of the various job titles in your plan. And Mr. Eisenlohr is here this morning to take you through a few of the mechanics of that plan. I would yield the floor to him at this point and ask him to make his remarks. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Ms. Matthews has a question. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Ochs, I just got a couple of quick questions. Number one, I note that the larger pay plan adjustment in salary upwards is in the lower end of our payroll which is the same scenario the sheriff was showing a couple of months ago. But I also see we've got some negatives. What are we going to do about those? I mean, are we going to freeze these people's salaries or what? MR. OCHS: Yes, Commissioner. The plan is to freeze people's salaries. Those that are at the maximum of their ranges they would maintain their current salary and would be frozen until such time the subsequent updates -- perhaps the range would adjust upward in the future years. But they would be frozen at this point. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: And you're speaking also to the people who may be making more than the maximum under the new plan? MR. OCHS: No, Commissioner. And Ms. Edwards will get into this detail in a few minutes, but what we are suggesting, recommending to the board is that we freeze those people at their current annual salary. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: So they would still be subject to the 10 percent bonus each year that fluctuates back and forth? MR. OCHS: I'm going to look to Jennifer for that. MS. EDWARDS: Yes, Ma'am. It would be subject to that as a bonus only depending on what you approve relative to across-the-board increase. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Thank you. MR. EISENLOHR: My name is David Eisenlohr with Ralph Anderson and Associates, and we were engaged by the county to assist in this update. Mr. Ochs has stolen a bit of my thunder, and so in the interest of expediting the presentation, I will move quickly through the background piece of my presentation and try to get into the meat of the analysis. As you've already heard, we were engaged by the county back in 1987, '88 to do the original design of the plan you've been largely working with since then. Since that time there has been annual maintenance in terms of market adjustments across the board along with an as-needed approach to position reclassifications. Again, as you heard, during that period of time you've had some growth, some change, some -- the word I use was maturing of some of the management philosophies and concepts, delayering, flattening the organization, trying to push accountability further down. And you've also been operating, of course, in a very dynamic, competitive market. And for those reasons it made some sense to take a little bit more comprehensive look than your typical annual maintenance process. In terms of approach, we started off, as you've already heard, with sort of the dual objectives that every classification compensation system has, and that is to provide for internal equity; that is fairness within the system that employees and jobs involving the substantially same levels of responsibility making equivalent contributions to the organization be paid the same and that we maintain external or market competitiveness. So those are -- that's what we set out to do. The approach combined our role as technical advisors with a pretty substantial effort on the part of county human resources as well as operating staff. We first asked that the line managers identify to us in a series of management conference interviews their concerns, their problem areas with respect to classification and pay. The market survey itself was conducted by -- completed by county human resources staff. We did do a series of -- well, I've already mentioned those -- of interviews. And then we took our point factor job evaluation system, which I am going to elaborate on in a moment, adapted it to fit the current circumstances in Collier County and ran a very detailed analysis on each job included in the plan to produce the salary plan that is before you today. The county -- of course, we went through a number of iterations of that analysis and looked at a variety of alternatives. You're going to hear in a moment about some of the implementation options that we looked at. And, of course, the material in front of you has been reviewed and commented on and in some cases critiqued by the county staff. We tried to make those adjustments that we felt warranted it. Let me talk for a moment about what the market survey showed. And this exhibit you do not have, and it's a little difficult to read, but the county staff conducted, as they do every year, a compensation survey relying both on locally collected data as well as published data by the leading municipalities for a subset of your plan, a group of jobs that term benchmark jobs, to get a fix as to where the organization stands, both exempt and nonexempt. And there are two pages of them. And what this exhibit shows -- again, kind of fine print, and these are arranged in alphabetical order. But as you scan down that list of job titles, the comparison is made of monthly, excuse me -- annual maximum salaries at both the median or that is the exact middle of the market and median plus 5 percent. And what you will see is a fairly consistent pattern, and the percentages change. But on whole I think it's fair to characterize that the county in the seven or eight years since the initial plan went in has lost ground with respect to its market. And in some cases there were findings of jobs very significantly behind the middle of the market and in other cases right on to slightly above. But on the whole you're running behind. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Sorry to interrupt. We're comparing to like markets? MR. EISENLOHR: Yes, sir. These are municipal comparisons as well as a local Naples survey. And I'll have to refer to the county staff to give you the details of the participants there, but the principal data source was the Florida Municipal League's annual survey data, so other local public sector types of jobs. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Because one of my questions when the sheriff brought his pay plan was who were those counties, and many of them didn't seem like the counties, but I would hope ours is. MS. EDWARDS: I have a list of the counties and the cities that were included by the league if you would like those. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That would be great. If you have a printed copy of that, I would like to see that. MS. EDWARDS: Why don't I make a copy and give you each a copy while we're discussing this. MR. EISENLOHR: As I mentioned we have two objectives, One is market competitiveness and the other is internal equity. The market survey data gave us the external side of that equation. In order to get to internal equity, we use a technique of evaluation called point factor job evaluation. And what this does it provides a common basis of evaluation for all types of jobs, and it provides a mechanism to get away from some of the, frankly, more emotional appeals that you often have to deal with in dealing with internal equity questions: Well, my job is more important than their job because it is; because I know it is; because I know what they do. And it rather breaks the jobs down into analyzable portions. We used five separate compensable factors, and each of those have several subfactors. But in simple terms we rated each job -- now that's not each position -- but each job class based on the amount of expertise it takes to do the work, the kinds of decision making assigned, the kinds of supervisory responsibilities assumed, the nature of the context both inside and outside the organization that incumbants have, and the physical environment and physical demands, the working conditions of each job. And through that analysis we get a literal point score assigned to each job and then through the statistical technique of simple linear regression we can equate points to dollars, that is internal value given to us by points and external value given to us by the salary survey to devise a plan. We looked at a couple of options, several options actually. In the early stages of the plan development we looked at four different variants on the pay plan. First, we looked at two different positions in the market, median and median plus 5 percent. We looked at options of -- it is called banding. How did we group jobs into a pay structure? How closely alike in terms of job evaluation points do the jobs need to be in order to be banded into the same grade? We looked at a broad -- a very broad strategy and a very -- not very but a more standard sort of narrow strategy. So you can see by looking at broad versus narrow groupings, median versus median plus five, that gave us four different combinations. And those combinations were presented and reviewed and discussed and so forth. We then had to make a recommendation. And we have proposed that we have a number of features in this plan and in many respects very similar to the plan that you've been operating under. First, there are separate schedules for exempt and nonexempt jobs. And this is a fairly standard act, the exempt and nonexempt, salary versus hourly or overtime eligible, non-overtime eligible. We set the plan to median plus 5 percent which has followed your historical practice should give you a slight edge in competing but still pretty conservative placement right in the middle of the market to just slightly ahead. We use the nattower banding option, that is to put it in mathematical terms, we used a 10 percent point spread to group jobs together so that jobs fall in basically within plus or minus 5 percent of the midpoint were grouped together for pay purposes. We had proposed that the range itself be 50 percent in the width from minimum to maximum and that each pay grade or range progress 5 percent up from the next lower one. That's the structure that you have in front of you. You can tell by looking at the exhibits, the pay plan itself, a number of things. We were showing what the FLSA status is, that's exempt or nonexempt year end. It shows what the current annual top rate of pay for each of those jobs are, and then it shows the proposal for new minimum and maximum annual rates of pay and then a dollar and percentage change. I think it is important to note -- and Ms. Edwards is going to talk to you about this next -- is that when you see those percentage change columns on your pay plan, that does not constitute a recommendation by the consultant or the staff that that be the impact on the individual incumbent salaries. In other words, where you see a range going up 10 percent, we are not saying that every member of that job class would get 10 percent nor are we saying, as we were asked a moment ago, that when a range goes down that the employee suffer a loss in pay. And the particulars of how this plan affects individual incumbent pay is a function of the method you choose to implement it. And with that Ms. Edwards is going to talk about the various implementation options that we've explored. MS. EDWARDS: I'm going to give you a few details first about our plan. For the record my name is Jennifer Edwards, human resource director. Our implementation approach that we recommended to you in our executive summary is called the half range median approach. What this means is that all regular employees, and that excludes our temporary and our recap employees, will be eligible to receive relative adjustments equal to one-half of the recommended percentage increase in their respective salary ranges. Our proposed plan has 261 classifications. For comparison our current plan has 268 classifications. This recommended plan will result in 221 position classifications being moved into a higher salary range, 30 classifications being moved into a lower salary range and 10 are new or are inactive classifications. Approximately 742 hourly, non-supervisory employees and 220 professional supervisory and management employees will receive a salary adjustment under our recommended plan. Approximately 83 employees will receive no salary adjustments at all. I want to touch on the implementation costs for this year and for next year, and then I'm going to give you a spreadsheet which shows those costs. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What's the typical position of those 83? Is there some trend to what those 83 receives nothing? MS. EDWARDS: No, not really. They would be -- COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's all over the board? MR. EISENLOHR: Sir, if you look at the exhibit, where you see in the far right-hand column a negative, that's where the range goes down. The bulk of those employees are going to be in those job classes. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. HS. EDWARDS: The cost to implementing the plan on Hatch 30 of this year is approximately $1.2 million to cross all funds. The annualized cost for all funds is approximately $2.4 million. Now, what I will do is give you a spreadsheet that's going to show you the implementation for each fiscal year by fund and the variance or what funds we will need for those individual funds. We will also talk about the funding sources that we have. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: While Leo is getting something, something occurred to me as I was looking through this. We unintentionally kind of put ourselves in these adjustment positions by way of salary increases each year. We have cost of living, and then we have a bonus or a merit bonus program. In private industry if you do a good job you get a percent over cost of living or a percent and a half over cost of living, so you kind of creep up the scale a little differently. And, Leo, I think you're going to talk about this. By doing the bonus program it kind of puts us in a position that we may be required to do actual salary adjustments of a larger scale than if we did percentage salary. And I'm not proposing doing anything different, but I'm just saying I think the way we do it puts us in a position that we might have to cause larger adjustments every three to five years that if we did it similar to the private sector. Is that a fair statement? MR. OCHS: Yeah, I understand exactly what you're saying. Many plans when they have an annual cost of living adjustment, for example, will increase all of their pay ranges by that same amount of the cost of living adjustment. The difficulty from our perspective with that is that you have perpetual compounding effect each time you do that. The plan that the board adopted back in 1988 and subsequently has basically been more market driven in terms of that we do not adjust every range by the cost of living every year. As you will see today in today's recommendation, there are 30 job titles that we're not recommending any adjustment in the ranges for. If we had done what you were saying, and many companies do, all of those ranges would have gone up as well including the entry rate at the maximum. So this board is out to be perhaps more market driven and a little bit more innovative than in their approach to the annual pay plan and maintenance. The spreadsheet that Ms. Edwards has presented basically gives a fiscal year '96 implementation cost of 1.2 million, and then the following three columns demonstrates the recommended funding approach to fund that pay plan implementation cost. There is $1.8 million of available attrition for fiscal year '96 along with a $370,000 availability of funds in the board's health insurance fund because of favorable experience over the last two claim years. What we are suggesting is that where funding is not available in your attrition dollars that we can make up for any shortfalls by applying excess savings in your health insurance plan simply by not billing for one month out of the current fiscal year. That money is already allocated in all of the departments of the operating budgets to pay their monthly health insurance premiums. We would simply recommend to the board that we don't dole out, because we don't need the money in the health fund until September of this year, thereby making those dollars available in the operating budget to fund any pay plan adjustments in fiscal year '96. Again in '97 if you look at the fourth column over which is column D, we have available through those two funding mechanisms roughly $2.23 million dollars, and we need about $1.2 million dollars to fund the plan implementation for this year. For next year for an annualized funding we would need $2.3 million. So roughly what we're looking for in fiscal year '97 in order not to impact the budget would be $1.4 million. Again, we would suggest to the board that that would be available through attrition even if we look at this year's attrition as $1.8 million. If you look at column B and we assume only half of that level next year, let's say $900,000, would be available through attrition, and we would also anticipate another $500,000 available through savings in your health plan. You would, in essence, be able to cover the cost of implementation both for this year and next fiscal year without going to any reserve funds at all. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Question. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Go ahead. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Attrition, didn't we already budget 3 percent attrition? MR. OCHS: Yes, we do. And that's been factored in. This is attrition available -- COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Above and beyond -- MR. OCHS: -- above and beyond the 3 percent, Commissioner. Yes. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Then are you asking us then to in our budget policy in the coming year to increase the attrition budget in order to fund this? MR. OCHS: No. I think Mr. Smykowski would probably recommend to you next week that you continue to budget that 3 percent attrition level. But what we're saying is based on turnover statistics over the last three years and the historical attrition rate, and that's where this number was generated from, he ran the last three years of attrition. There is 1.8 again available this year above and beyond the 3 percent that the board had already budgeted that is in this year's budget to fund the implementation. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: But it sounds like you want to double count this money, and we can't do that. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: What was occurring over and above the 3 percent wasn't just being put in a savings account somewhere as being rolled back into the general fund on an annual basis, so even that I see Mr. Smykowski kind of shaking his head. So basically what we -- the one-point-so-odd million we used to roll, we now can no longer roll which means we're going to have to create it somewhere else. So even though the funds may be there, we're still going to have to find them because we used to roll it back into the general fund. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's not new money. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's not -- yeah. MR. OCHS: I understand. And the net impact to the general fund if you look in your executive summary under fiscal impact for this year is approximately $400,000. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And the impact to the general fund next year would be, if we approve this, a total net impact of 2.3 million. MR. OCHS: No, $850,000. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Eight hundred and fifty thousand. This is new math. MR. DORRILL: The majority of the money is in road and bridge, EHS, and utility funds. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Which are non ad valorem funds. Mr. Ochs, there's one other little flaw I think I see in here, though. I understand your line of thought about having more than budgeted attrition and, therefore, we could use that money. But the whole point of this pay plan is to reduce attrition. And so, therefore, that money is very likely to disappear, the excess attrition. MR. OCHS: I agree, sir. And that's why in fiscal year '97 our assumption was that only half of that 1.8 would actually be available to fund implementation costs in fiscal year '97. You're absolutely right. That's a primary objective. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I want to ask a couple of things. First, obviously, we are after eight years we're in need of doing some adjustments and have a great number of employees who need the help. I'm curious. I just want to make sure our decision is based on accurate numbers and accurate facts. And as I look at the attrition numbers or the turnover rate for the past three years that is included in our report 14.75 and up to the 17.25, I've got to assume that shows up heavier in certain segments or certain classifications than in our recent -- and I'm wondering as I look through here, some of the biggest adjustments percentage-wise and dollar-wise. But percentage-wise are for some of the upper level positions and 10 and 12 and 15 and 18 percent. And I'm wondering -- I'm assuming we haven't had attrition in upper level management to any great extent. We've been able to hang onto most of those people. And I'm suggesting we shouldn't still bring them up to scale, but I'm wondering in this formula is that somehow taking into account that if you have a huge number of $18,000-a-year employees leave -- I hope you're not using that percentage for everything across the board. MR. EISENLOHR: Let me comment sort of generally and then turn it back to Mr. Ochs for more specific comments. We did not compute into the job evaluation system as a compensable factor, that is as part of the computation to drive where the pay level went, the turnover rates. That is not part of the analysis. It is market driven and internal equity driven. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. I appreciate that, but in the real world -- MR. OCHS: But -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Wait a second. I'm going to interrupt here for a second because I think this is important. Mr. Ochs and I had this discussion. It's the same thing you're talking about, Commissioner Constantine, that is that, you know, if you have $7-an-hour employees and no one wants to leave the employ and everything is moving along, and we're making a profit in the private industry, you know, the idea that they can make $9 in another county or $8 in another county when I'm not experiencing production problems is not incentive for me to increase those salaries. So I happen to take the same stance, and that is that I understand that across the board we may be with lower -- we may need to come up across the board. But if we're going to appropriate a certain amount of dollars, maybe a greater number needs to go to where the attrition is the highest to increase the retention and where the attrition is not the highest a lesser amount. So although you may not have waited based on departmental attrition, that has been a concern of mine from day one that we address it in that manner. I hear it from Commissioner Constantine, and I think that that may be a part of the formula, but it needs to be part of a local decision we make. MR. EISENLOHR: Sure. And I agree with that in the sense that a lot of what you're talking about is philosophical. It's a policy question. I would say that you might choose as an employer to be more or less aggressive as a payor, as a policy matter, and that is certainly within the purview of the board. I'm not sure that I can wholly agree with the characterization though that sort of started this discussion. I think if you look at where the dollars go in this plan, both in terms of magnitude of adjustment and in terms of actual payouts if you will to employees, it's heavily weighted at the lower end, not the upper end. And particularly if you look at where the smaller and the negative adjustments tend to be, they're at the highest levels. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I don't disagree with that. I mean, the fact that it's suggested that we give parking lot attendants 40 percent increases shows that we're looking at the lower end. I'm not sure I agree with that specific one. But the fact is if we're looking at 10 and 12 and 18 percent for the upper level, and we haven't really experienced a loss, that raises a question for me, and it's part of the rationale for this whole thing is because we have a 14 to 17 percent turnover rate and the vast majority of that is on the bottom end, and that's where we need to focus. MS. EDWARDS: We realize that you have some concerns about attrition, and especially Commissioner Hancock had asked us to look into that. And we did do the reviews. It's three years which we presented in the executive summary. In doing that review we counted the number of separations. And definition of separations is resignations, retirements, dismissals, and layoffs. And over the three-year period we had 358 separations and 299 or 84 percent of those were the nonexempt positions. The majority of those are at the lower end of the pay scale and libraries, parks and rec, water and wastewater and road and bridge. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: There is a problem with that percentage, Ms. Edwards. What is the ratio -- what percent of the total employee population are nonexempt people? MS. EDWARDS: About -- I want to say 82 percent. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Well, then it fairly well tracks the attrition. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: The attrition percentage of nonexempt versus attrition percentage of exempt is probably fairly similar then. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One other question more of a specific nature is there are some positions in here that have been created since 1988 and haven't been on the books for the eight years; a couple of them in particular that have only been here for a year or two years. Airport manager, as good as a job as John is doing and as much as I want to take care of him, we just created that position a year and half to two years ago and had a lively debate over what the appropriate amounts of pay was for that and so on. If I could look at the rest of this anyway, comparatively speaking it's a minimal suggested increase in the range of 6 percent, but it's something we've just created. So I'm wondering where the impetus for that is. And then the one that hasn't even been in effect for a year, informational technology professional. We just created that maybe six months ago, and it's suggested for a 36-percent increase. And I'm wondering if we just came up with that position last fall, how is it that suddenly we have this huge adjustment? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I need to add to that, recap coordinator, 20 percent increase for recap coordinator when this position was created to save money. MR. EISENLOHR: I can speak particularly to the information technology series and more generally. Let me do the more general first. There are two things going on in this plan, one of which is to response to market conditions and the other is internal equity. So wewre trying to balance both. And wewve applied a new methodology, not really new, more modified methodology to evaluate the internal hierarchy of jobs that says two jobs that are of essentially the same value to us as an organization based on the expertise, the decision making, the supervision, the contacts and the working conditions, if theywre the same then we ought to pay them about the same within the exempt and nonexempt groups. Thatws number one. So part of what youwre seeing may be an internal equity effect. The other with respect to the information technology series, based on my interviews and the documentation Iwve read, when those jobs were placed in the pay plan, they were placed based on the then directors sort of expert judgment as to where in the plan they ought to fit with the knowledge that this study was on its way and further documentation provided to us that indicated from their own application experience after having advertised the jobs at the rates that they estimated they belonged at showing that the applicant pool was already making at or above what we were offering. So that was when we pretty well expected from the start would jump up. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Are you suggesting that the people that did accept those jobs are inferior in someways? MR. EISENLOHR: I know nothing about who is in those jobs or whether theywve even been filled yet. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One of the things that bothers me most about government is that we were sold the idea of an information technology department, and it would have a specific cost. We were sold that last summer and fall. It would have a particular cost, and those employees would get a particular pay. And here we are six months, eight months later and suddenly in order to make that equitable either within the county system or compared to everyone else in the universe, they need to be 36 percent higher. It just doesnwt make any sense to me. And, again, Commissioner Hancock referred to what he would do if this was a private business and me the same way. If I was going to create a new job or a new department in my business, I would determine what the salary range I thought was appropriate within my business and was competitive enough to bring other employees in, and I wouldnlt go back and change that six months later if I had been able to garner employees that I thought were good, and they were happy with their job. I wouldnlt go back six months later and boost that up 36 percent. It just doesnlt make any sense to me. MR. EISENLOHR: Again, sir, I think -- let me reiterate a point I made earlier. Those percentage changes that you are referring to do not constitute recommendations to give the incumbent employees raises of that magnitude. You are looking at proposed changes to the structure versus changes to the pay of the actual incumbent. So I donlt believe that anybody under any of scenarios that we have proposals for your option will get a 36-percent increase. COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: And one factor, too. Although what you guys are saying is absolutely valid, and I couldnlt agree with you more, just the factor put into that consideration is theylre perfectly happy today but if tomorrow they come to work and someone who has less responsibility than they have is making more money than they are, they might not be as happy tomorrow. So that's that internal adjustment that he's talking about. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Where do we fit into this? I have one question, and, Neil, I'm going to ask it of you. There are obviously -- I think Commissioner Constantine brings up a good point of position development in the last year or two probably is not subject to eight years worth of the review which is what this amounts to. But I'm going to kind of put you on the hook, Mr. Dotrill, because this pay plan as presented by the consultant shows -- and I don't believe and correct me if I'm wrong -- shows no modification from your department. This is the raw plan prepared by the consultant. And although you've been a part of it, this is really their baby at this point; is that correct? MR. DORRILL: Well, we have participated, but we elected not to try and monkey with or question their rationale or the computer model. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Right. And that's what they're paid to do, so I understand that. I just wanted to make sure because what I think -- MR. DORRILL: We did find what we considered to be several errors either in interpretation or what we knew to be the case for funding scenario. The one that comes immediately to mind were extension agents at the agriculture department. So we have critiqued the plan, and where we thought an error or an omission had been made by the consultant, we asked them to reevaluate that. And it's my understanding that as a result of that they have made several changes in the proposal this morning. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: As the county manager and the administrator of some 900 employees, I think it's important that this board understand and attacks with the question of fairness in this pay plan. We have registered individual complaints here today. And it's never popular for a government body to give raises or to adjust pay upwards. It's never a popular thing to do, but it is necessary at times. We've got an investment in many of the employees in this county, and we want to keep the good ones as long as we're sure that the ones that are not performing are weeded out. So I have to put some of this on your shoulders and ask if there are areas of this pay plan that you have heard today or you personally are not comfortable with. It's not popular for you to be adverse to a section or an area in a pay plan either. I mean, these are, in essence, your employees. I'm asking for, in essence, your input. Where do you feel that tweaking is necessary in this pay plan and if any of the comments you've heard here are valid how do you weigh those? I would just like your input on the overall pay plan. MR. DORRILL: Very quickly. As your chief executive officer I am alarmed over a 17 and a half percent annualized turnover rate. I will tell you that at the bottom of the organization where the people come to work and work the hardest every day, maintenance workers in utilities and public works at road and bridge, parks and recreation, and our turnover rate is probably twice that. And it is increasingly obvious to me that we are no longer a competitive employer in this community especially at the lower rates. So I am alarmed over a 17 and half percent turnover rate when I think we were here two months ago and the sheriff was 5. And even for sworn deputies if you look at it closely, more deputies retired here than quit to take a position somewhere else. So that is the most glaring deficiency in the work that has been done and one that is just a fact. Secondarily, I would tell you that without relating names to you in the -- I think, the example of the information technology or the data processing department is a good one. Your previous director quit us to move Las Vegas, Nevada, which is fairly typical. And we lost her and with that lost months of coordination in terms of what it would otherwise have taken when she left to go Las Vegas. We tried for several months based on the rates that were proposed. And this is no disservice to the individuals who have been selected because what we've ended up with is kind of a mixed group of employees, the majority of whom have been promoted from other positions into this new department. Now, on the one hand that's good because we have created opportunities for low paid employees to recognize a career path whereas this time last year one did not exist. But it was an indication that we were not attracting for certain of those positions the best talent that we can afford to come from other entities or to come from within this community or come from other communities to accept a position here. And as a consequence of that we're months behind where we intended to be because we have not been able to staff up and because we lost our management, one of our senior management people when she left to take and explore better opportunities. And so I think specifically for the example that was cited over a brand new department, that's the real world problem we've had. And, finally -- and this -- don't take this the wrong way, but over the last four years -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: There's no chance of that happening up here. MR. DORRILL: -- over the last four years the legislature has given pay increases to county commissioners based on population growth that in this community averaged 6 percent or more. And in that same four-year period of time you have given your employees half of that or less depending on the actual year. And that's not something that you control directly because you don't get to pick or choose your salary, but I think that's a function of what has happened in Southwest Florida with the growth and the areas that we're having to compete in. So I have chosen to try and nitpick the work of a national firm. I've know Mr. Eisenlore for 15 years. He has a background in city management. I think the work here is fine and for the three quick reasons that I explained to you I support it fully. And we're seeking your recommendation here today. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Ochs, Ms. Edwards, could you give me a hand with these attrition numbers a little bit? I know earlier you were saying that 82 percent of our work force is nonexempt and that the turnover was tracking that fairly closely. But do you have any handle on the percent of our employees who are say ranked number 12 and below which begins with senior craftsmen, senior equipment operators and so forth; roughly a $30,000 range currently. And then if you have -- if you can put your finger on that number, how many of those people in rank 12 and below, what the percentage of turnover in that segment might be. MS. EDWARDS: I do not have that detail. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Because now we're talking about the lower range -- MS. EDWARDS: Right. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: -- and just nonexempt in general. MS. EDWARDS: I don't have that specific data for the $30,000 salary, what the turnover would be for that. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: As the human resources manager for that department or director do you feel our turnover in the salary ranges is proportionately or disproportionately higher than in the other nonexempt ranges? MS. EDWARDS: I think the turnover is higher in the nonexempt lower range positions. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: That's what I'm asking, disproportionately higher? MS. EDWARDS: Yes. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Is it double or half, again, or what? I mean just -- I'm looking for a balipark on it. MS. EDWARDS: I would say double. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Twice as much. So In the lower ranges you'd say it's 30 percent roughly turnover? MS. EDWARDS: I'm uncomfortable with giving you a kind of balipark figure. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I know. I understand. MS. EDWARDS: I can just tell that in the analysis we did that the significant amount of turnover is in those lower positions in the nonexempt positions. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you. MR. DORRILL: We do have two speakers, Mr. Chairman. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Dorrill, you said, you prefaced your comment by saying, boy, I hope the board doesn't take this wrong. But your suggestion that in reference to our salary that is controlled by the state and the 6 percent annual and so on, just to try to put that in perspective, what we make annually is less than for example the recycling coordinator of the county's maximum range in this proposal who has general employees working for him and whom I would suggest, while he has a very important job, might have less responsibility than the individual members of this board. So, yes, it has been 6 percent, but we're certainly not taking home big bucks. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I bet he works a lot less hours. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't mind if we continue this a little bit. I just want to say a couple of things. I support wholeheartedly our employees and the efforts they're putting forward and the obvious need to make some adjustments. If we're losing a number of people that doesn't benefit us, it doesn't benefit the public. I'm not 100 percent comfortable today with some of the details here in the plan. I have some questions that were brought up early on about the use of attrition dollars and how those are plugged into this formula and whether or not -- what effect that has on the big picture. I have a lot of questions on the methodology. I have some questions on the implementation on this. For me I'd be much more comfortable spending about two hours, sitting down with the two of you in detail, and I think the vast majority of what you put together is going to make sense, but there are a number of things I'm just not sure on and not clear right now. And I can't vote in favor of something that I'm not clear on. It's not that I don't support trying to make an appropriate adjustment for our employees, but I've just got a number of questions. And the more we talk, the more questions seem to come up. And I'd like to be able to sit down one on one or one on two and get a lot of those questions answered. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Let's hear from out public speakers. MR. DORRILL: Ms. Havenet. Following Ms. Havenet, Mr. Erlichman. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: While we're going through this I had asked Mr. Dotrill to find out from Mr. Smykowski what $309,000 in attrition in the general fund represented in reference to our gross salaries. And it does represent about 2.3, almost 2.4 percent. So some of this funding we may be able to achieve through squeezing of our attrition budget. But we're not going to be able to squeeze it a whole lot obviously. Two percent is not a lot. MS. HAVENER: My name is Mary Jane Havenet, and I'm a chemist in the water department laboratory. Throughout my nine years of service with Collier County I have witnessed the difficulty that my department has had filling certain job positions and keeping them filled because of low salaries. Some of the proposed salary changes offered here today are desperately needed and will give those employees a long overdue and well-deserved raise. However, I am concerned that the proposed salary changes while solving some problems will create others. I was informed of the salary proposal results on February 15th by my department director. At first I was satisfied with the changes in my section despite the proposed decrease in my own salary and little changes in the salaries of everyone else in the lab. But upon further investigation I discovered a disturbing disparity which has brought me before you today. As you may be aware the county has three laboratories: One in the water department, one in the waste water department and one in pollution control. We all perform similar job duties collecting and analyzing various environmental samples and interpreting the impact of the results. The water department is staffed by a laboratory supervisor, a chemist and three lab technicians while the waste water lab is staffed by three laboratory technicians and supervised by the chief operator. The pollution control lab is staffed by a chemist, three pollution control specialists and supervised by the chief environmental specialist. I ask you to look at the chart showing the current respective salaries of the laboratory technicians, pollution control specialists, chemists, environmental specialists, laboratory supervisor and senior and environmental specialists. The greatest similarity in both job duties and qualifications are between the pollution control specialist and the laboratory technicians. Prior to the proposed salary change these two positions were in the exact same pay range receiving the exact same salary as it should be. The chemist salary was reasonably grouped with the environmental specialist I and II. Comparable levels of job responsibility and job qualifications place the chemist's salary mid way between the environmental specialist I and II. The laboratory supervisor has responsibilities that are most like the senior environmental specialist and the chief environmental specialist. But if you look at the proposed chart provided, this will all change with the proposed salary plan. Over the years my co-workers and I have worked with the personnel in both the waste water lab and the pollution control lab often giving them advice on test method techniques, quality control procedures, linear regression analysis, precision accuracy and completeness. We have even gone as far as having their personnel come to our labs so that we can demonstrate our exact procedures. In fact, the members of pollution control laboratory have so appreciated our help that over Christmas they sent us this message that says, "To our lifesavers, thanks for everything. The Pollution Control Laboratory." This type of cooperation is the way it should be. However, comparable jobs should receive comparable pay. And despite our extraordinary similarities the results of this proposed salary plan shown by the charts is significant increases for all of the positions in pollution control while comparable positions in water and waste water decrease relative to them, significantly in the case of laboratory technicians. This pay plan says to everyone that works in the water and waste water lab that we are working on a lower level of responsibility than the pollution control people, and that is just not true. I don't understand how job duties and qualifications almost exactly the same can result in such inequitable salaries. I can only assume that this report was so recently released that the sections supervisors, department directors, division administrators and the human resources department have not had a sufficient enough time to address disparities like this one. I only mention this one case because it is the only one in which I am thoroughly familiar. But I do wonder how many others are there especially since I have seen a 16.75 percent proposed increase in salary for a utilities division position that was eliminated several years ago. This proposal will cost Collier County a considerable sum of money, and I think it is in everyone's best interest to take the time to make sure that such disparities are addressed prior to accepting the proposal. We owe it to the employees and most of all to the tax paying public not to make a mistake. I urge all of you to take what I've said into consideration. If you accept this proposal, accept it conditionally so that these problems can be addressed prior to implementation. It may be that some of the proposed increases are unnecessary while others are still overlooked. I think we need time to find out. Like I said in the beginning, these salary adjustments, a lot of them are desperately needed. I've seen a lot of people come and go over the last nine years. But I have seen some trouble in the pay plan, and I think it needs consideration. Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Erlichman. MR. ERLICHMAN: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Gilbert Erlichman residing in East Naples, and I'm speaking for myself. While it looks as if Collier County is bearing the fruits of what started back in the early '90s, '90, '91, '92, right now I believe we have a consultant form of government. We elect commissioners. We elect a sheriff. We elect an appraiser. We elect a collector of taxes. But when any question arises for some decision to be made, talking about a decision such as this with salary increases and so forth, we have to call in a consultant. We have consultants on renourishing the beach, any topic you can think of we call in a consultant. Now, who pays for the consultant? The taxpayers. The taxpayer elects officials to govern them not to call in consultants. Now, we don't have -- and the commissioners then go ahead and operate through the county manager who employs people for various departments. Now, we cannot have a government where people through experience have the ability to make decisions in each department for themselves. Why do we have people that are elected then? We might as well have hired consultants to sit up in your chairs. I cannot -- we are either in a capitalist government or capitalist society or a social society. This thing smacks of socialism, the idea of the salaries and the comparative, a comparison of various jobs to get equal pay. I move -- relocated three times in my life because the job that I had wouldn't pay me enough. And it would be ridiculous for me to go to my employer and say I need a raise. I need more money because I want to do this. You get paid for what your employer thinks you are worth, and you get paid according to the area in which you live. Okay. So maybe the pay is better out in Las Vegas. these people move to Las Vegas. That's a fact of life. You cannot keep increasing and increasing salaries to compete with metropolitan areas, to compete with other nice areas of the country in which people want to move to. You cannot satisfy everyone's wants. And everyone that has an ability, a certain ability to work and a certain level that's what they will get paid wherever they're located. And the idea of getting 16 percent or any percentage increase to bring it up to a certain level, I don't know what the consultant is using as a guideline for increases but remember if somebody is making $40,000 a year, and they get a 6 percent increase, they're getting a lot more money than the person that is making $20,000 as an increase. So this percentage increase makes no sense to me. And I think that the categories of employment, for instance, the lady that preceded me talking about the water pollution, water treatment and sewage treatment, those are different fields. I would like to know how many of those positions are filled with degreed chemists. They call themselves chemists or technicians. I would like to know how many chemists, B.S. Chemists are in those various departments. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Erlichman. MR. ERLICHHAN: Yes. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Just to make sure I understand, I believe you're saying that you don't want us to use consultants and not to rely on consultant's advice? MR. ERLICHHAN: Well, don't we have a human resources department, sir? And that person that's in that human resource's department should have enough experience and enough knowledge to know about various salary categories in the various departments and various salary categories that are paid throughout the country. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay. So you don't want us to use consultants? MR. ERLICHHAN: No, sir. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay. I guess that's where I'm a little bit confused because last summer you there taking us to task for not listening to consultants concerning the Gordon River Bridge. Now, today you're telling us not to take consultant's advice, so I'm confused on exactly -- MR. ERLICHHAN: Okay. All right. You're absolutely correct in that. The reason I said, the reason I supported the consultants on the Gordon River Bridge was because they were spending the money that you people had, you people were paying them. And, therefore, five years that I've been coming up here speaking I've been speaking against the use of consultants. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you. MR. ERLICHHAN: So at that particular time we might as well listen to the consultants in that case and use them. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you. MR. ERLICHHAN: But remember I was against the Gordon River, second Gordon River Bridge at any location. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Was that applause against the bridge or -- MR. DORRILL: There are no other speakers. I didn't know whether we had a response to the first speaker in terms of the dissimilarities between them. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Let me ask while we're developing that response, Mr. Dotrill, it's obvious we have a couple of board members that would like to look in detail maybe at some of these and do some fine tuning. What are we going to do as a process to fine tune it? I mean, we can sit here, each of us five could sit up here, and we could spend hours going over it category by category. I mean, how are we going to get through this? What is going to be the procedure to fine tune this? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, for me the procedure will be to actually have the answers to my questions. I'm not comfortable voting on something if I'm not clear on all the impacts. I think this has a huge impact, obviously, on everyone of our employees, has a huge impact on the taxpayer, every single taxpayer in the county because the dollar amount that adds up through a year is a lot and has a big impact on our budget picture for the coming year as well. If I'm not 100 percent clear on that, then I don't think it's out of line to ask to be able to sit down with our staff and spend an hour and go through this. And I'm not going to suggest -- it's not only appropriate for us to say, gosh, I think the county supervisor should have a different thing because I don't have expertise in that. But if I'm not sure how their proposed attrition dollar formula is going to work, and they haven't been able to answer that to my satisfaction now, then I ought to have an opportunity to sit down with our staff and get that cleared up. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: I think most of us have questions that may be similar to yours, Commissioner Constantine, and I would not be opposed to a workshop where we can all take the same input and ask whatever questions are on our minds and in a less formal environment acquire the answers to those questions. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm not really in favor of workshopping it because you may remember all the discussion we had about the sheriff's budget, and we ended up right back to where we started more or less. I think that if you have some outstanding questions that will take seven days to fix or seven days to find an answer to, I think we as a board should at least, you know, let you get those answers. But I think what we're going to have seven days from now, we're going to have no appreciable change to what's in front of us. And I don't want to rush you into a decision that you're not comfortable with, but for my two cents we could talk around the thing for about six hours and come up with little or no change I believe is going to be the result. So I'm comfortable going either way, but I understand your concerns. I am looking for a middle ground. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Let me ask Mr. Dotrill a question. If we authorize this as a package, do you as the county manager still have the latitude to go in and fine turn some of these things after the fact? MR. DORRILL: We have the ability to fine tune actual salaries. Under your current ordinance I do not have the delegated authority to move entire pay ranges, minimum and maximum. But obviously you don't have any authority to pick the actual salary and make individual salary adjustments. And I have sole authority to do that within 10 percent on an annual basis. Now, there are some good questions that are there in terms of what are we overall going to pay for that? I think we can address those over the next week. And you're supposed to set your fiscal budget policy next week. I am concerned with the workshop because of the further delay, and I think the wrong signal that that sends to the employees. As Mr. Hancock said the fact is going to remain that currently -- and I just picked the very first position on the list -- secretary I, the Board of County Commissioners pay as a starting salary for secretary I $15,017. The pay increase that you authorized two months ago to the sheriff the same secretary I entry level salary is $18,923. The sheriff is paying $4,000 more for the identical position as you are. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Let's clarify that we allowed the sheriff to raise his salaries. MR. DORRILL: Correct, but not without the appropriate COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: How are we going to keep that person here though? MR. DORRILL: And my concern is that just a workshop or to put this off for another day is not going to solve the issue. If we need to better explain the funding mechanisms and do so in advance or if you're trying to set next year's budget policy, I don't mind delaying this for a week. But otherwise it is the competitive nature of this and losing people in the time frame that I'm concerned about. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Let me go ahead and make a motion. I wholeheartedly support our employees in trying to make sure we take care of them and hang onto them. It's actually more expensive for us to have a big turnover and try to bring new folks in, but I would just feel more comfortable and would ask the board to humor me and give me an opportunity to spend a couple of hours with our staff this week and then bring it back next week. And I think Commissioner Hancock is right. We'll probably come back with something very similar to what we have, but at least I would be more comfortable and be able to go ahead and fully support it. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I would like if we can in the intervening week, Mr. Dotrill, could you find some way to address the parity problems, because there are parity problems here? MR. DORRILL: Similar to the ones that the lady mentioned? COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Well, parity not only within the organization that were brought out but you just brought out yourself parity between the county manager's agency and the sheriff. MR. DORRILL: We're attempting to address that, and I will give you a point by point analysis for non-law enforcement or non-sworn type people, but I've got a whole page of them here, and I would tell you that there is not a single one where you're going to be on an identical parity with the sheriff. Typically your salaries are going to be a thousand to two thousand dollars less than the salaries that the sheriff proposed to go into effect -- I think his implementation date is either March 1st or April 1st. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Is the Clerk of the Court going to bring also a pay plan to us? MR. DORRILL: My understanding is that he has done one, and that he intends to implement that from his existing turn back or funds that he has as part of his own attrition. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I am going to make a motion that we continue the item seven days, and I'd have no objection if we have a time certain because I'm sure employees themselves will have an interest in knowing when this goes through next week. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: My question during this week, Mr. Dotrill, if in fact -- and it sounds like it is -- the majority of our attrition problems at the bottom of our pay scale, I think that's important that we don't give the top of the pay scale raises that we used the bottom of the pay scale to justify. Is that clear? What I'm going to want you to talk to me about is whether or not you specifically, not the consultant, but you specifically recommend that the upper, the nonexempt -- I'm sorry -- the exempt employees could get a raise or if we need to focus on nonexempt. MR. DORRILL: I think Ms. Edwards told us twice that the focus has been on the nonexempt positions, but we can break that down a little further and show you what the split is. I will be honest with you. There is no constituency in giving government employees raises aside from the person who's talking to you right now. But if we're going to be even remotely competitive in this town, whether it's Jennifer Edwards' position or Leo Ochs' position or that secretary I, we need to make some adjustments, and I understand that, and I'm not opposed to a week continuance. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And I'm going to second the motion for the reason that I would rather not send a split vote to the employees. I would rather this board be unanimous in its support of an increase whatever that increase may be. So I will second the motion and encourage folks to get their questions answered so we can have a solid show of support for what is right and fair next week. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: He have a motion and a second to continue for a week. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? Let's take a three minute break. We missed our 10:30 break. (A short break was taken at 11:15 a.m.) Item #BE1 FUNDING FOR A PROFESSIONAL SERVICE TO FULFILL REQUESTS FROM PROMOTION DURING THE GREATER NAPLES/INTELLINET CHALLENGE - CATEGORY "B" FUNDS TO BE UTILIZED CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We'll reconvene the Collier County meeting. Please take your seats. Because of obligations from some of the commissioners we will be taking a lunch break. We are now at 8(E)(1). This has to do with the TDC funding. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: What about the 10:30 item? CHAIRMAN NORRIS: The 10:30 item it says after 10:30. It's next on the list. MS. GANSEL: Good morning, Commissioners. Jean Gansel from the budget office. The Tourist Development Counsel received a request from the Collier County tourism committee for professional services to respond to the requests for tourist information that was generated from the commercials of the Greater Naples Intellinet Golf Challenge and in anticipation of the additional requests that were coming from the advertising that will take place during the spring. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Constantine. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How has the requests that already have come in been responded to at this point? MS. GANSEL: We had discussed that at the TDC meeting and the Chamber of Commerce response -- all of the requests that have been received have been responded to. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: They've received the prepared flyers and have they been mailed? MS. GANSEL: With the requests that have been received. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If I called a couple of weeks ago -- if I called the day of the tournament or a day or two thereafter from Oshgosh, I would have by now received the mail, little packages as promised? MS. GANSEL: This was -- I can't guarantee you that you would have received this. But when it was presented at the TDC meeting the Chamber of Commerce was asked if the calls were being responded to, and the request was, yes, that they have been responded to. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Do you have information, Mr. Watkins, on the answer to that? MR. DORRILL: He's your only speaker. MR. WATKINS: Did you say lonely or only? Good morning. I'm Mike Watkins for the Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club. I'm chairperson of the Naples Area Tourism Bureau. As you recall you funded the Intellinet Challenge $500,000 and in turn the county was going to be promoted around the country on the weekend of the event which we've seen and now subsequently through May in, I think, 29 markets, 10,000 spots -- 20,000 -- 12,000, a big number, a lot of spots. There was no specific fulfillment approach planned with the $500,000 money that has been spent to the Intellinet. So the chamber came forward because it had an 800 number. It had a phone company that we're working with, Fulfillment House, that is responding, and that service has since the weekend of the Intellinet Challenge, they've been responding to phone calls. The collateral material has been prepared, the postage and mailings have gone out for every call that we have received to date. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So when you say they have responded, that means not only that they've answered the phone and talked to the people but have actually mailed appropriate information. MR. WATKINS: Right. There are roughly three pieces of mail that are going out. One is the Marco Island Convention and Visitor's Bureau general brochure. One is the Naples Area Tourism Bureau general brochure which lists all the collectors of the tax, and the third is a specific fulfillment piece of literature collateral that is going to those people to tell them about the summer golf packages. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And, again, I just need to hear it verbally, you said they are going out but have gone out? MR. WATKINS: Yes, sir. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. MR. WATKINS: Thank you. You know we're still getting a few phone calls so there is a couple of days, but as you also know from your background, fulfillment quickly to those responses is very important. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That was the reason for the question. MR. WATKINS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Two questions. First might be a little more difficult. A list has been created of names of people who have called. I have been contacted by different entities. Who owns the rights to list? Who can use it? MR. WATKINS: I don't know. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. This is a question that we're going to have to have answered because there will be a lot of requests for the lists. Yet this was never hammered out initially. We're not going to get an answer today, but we need to develop a policy where this list is considered. Who owns it? Who has rights to it? I don't -- you know, because the Chamber took the phone calls. My concern is somebody calls about a golf package and for six weeks gets information on not just rentals and so forth but starts getting information on things that has nothing to do with this. And I think we need to be careful with that. MR. WATKINS: If I may in response to that. I guess that same question arises for any of the promotions that have been made with bed tax monies. There have been hundreds of thousands of responses and those have specifically come in either to the Naples Area Tourism Bureau or the Marco Island Convention and Visitors Bureau. And there are specific pieces of literature that have gone out that those lists have never been shared in any kind of public fashion for individual entities like the Naples Beach Hotel to see that list. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Even members of the chamber have not been able access those lists? MR. WATKINS: No, sir. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. My next question is this $94,000 that is being requested. I don't see any competitive bidding. I see costs that are put together. I don't see bidding. I don't know who it is going to. It's category C not B, so this isn't the general advertising dollars that you folks go do with what you want. What's this company that's handling it? Who owns it? I'm sorry, but I've heard rumors of conflict here, and I need to ask what company has been hired, and is there any joint ownership of that company and local hoteliers and so forth? Do you know? MR. WATKINS: I know that not to be the case. This same company that's fulfilling these requests is a company that's been fulfilling the Naples Area Tourism Bureau requests since the first bed tax monies have been spent. It's called Phase V. They're a Fort Myers based company that has done the Lee County Tourist Development fulfillment for approximately 10 years. The chamber is the responsible party for the Naples Area Tourism Bureau to handle fulfillment. The chamber evaluated a number of different alternative firms and selected Phase V based on costs and also professionalism and quality. So that organization is the one that has been handling the fulfillment. I think in another response. I sort have a prepared comments, and I got responding to a different question first. But one of the nice things about hopefully this application is that it is a piece rate based on a number of calls. We have a particular cost per unit. The only expenses that will be incurred by the county will be based on the number of calls that come in. We have absolutely no idea how many they're going to be with these 29 markets and 12,000 spots. Mr. Rasmussen is the one who came up with this campaign, and it is based on his suggested estimates that we came up with 30,000 spots which resulted in the costs. There are 30,000 responses which came up with the dollar amount that we have requested in this proposal. And if we have 30,000 this will be the cost. If we have less than that, it will be less than this. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Why do we have a request for category C funds instead of B? This seems like it's promotion as opposed to an event. MR. WATKINS: I talked to Mr. Rasmussen about the concept of a category C event, and it is both his and my belief that any event should have a full -- it should be a full circle from making the phone ring to answering the phones, to sending out the literature. And in this particular case it's a learning experience I think that the category C monies were spent to make the phone ring, but there was no allocation made for answering the phone. The Naples Area Tourism Bureau and actually the chamber first came forward and said we can do it, let's do it. We've got to respond to this thing. It's successful. We've got to do our best to come in. And we've learned that there needs to be better coordination I think of the entire aspect of promotion. The Naples Area Tourism Bureau and the Marco Island Visitors Bureau have programs that we have developed that include collateral material, public relations, advertising, a full gamut of promotional activities. And so we have allocated in our budget expenses for all those items. What has happened with this particular one is the money was allocated for the phone to ring, but there was no component in that application for answering the phone. And so it's sort of an after-the-fact activity. But the Naples Area Tourism Bureau doesn't have money allocated in its budget for answering the phone calls generated from a category C activity. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One could safely assume then if such a request were to come forward again we would have learned from the experience and all of this would be included in the initial package. MR. WATKINS: As any other category C request I think that's been approved by the county commission there hasn't been a fulfillment component like this. This is sort of a different animal that was dealt with. I think there has been success from it. I think we have learned from that. And as I said Mr. Rasmussen has, at least in our conversations, agreed that in the future he would come with a complete package that would include both the means to make the phone ring as well as to answer it. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Let me add that I'm glad that Mr. Watkins made the full circle analogy about this because this is the argument that I made at the TDC meeting is that it is a combination project in my view. The original funding for the project was obviously category C, but there is 12,000 television advertisements in a package that go along with it. That's obviously to me category B. I think that this funding is to be granted, I for one prefer it to come out of category B, not C. I don't think it's appropriate for category C for the fulfillment of the advertisement. MR. WATKINS: I would only hope that you would consider that for the future and not for this particular request since our category B funds have already been budgeted in a campaign that had nothing to do with this event. And there is not money allocated in category B from either the Marco contingency or the Naples contingency or contingent to answer these phones that were generated by a promotion that we did not plan. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Ms. Gansel, are there unused category B funds that are not budgeted and have not been requested? MS. GANSEL: The policy in the past has been that we have an annual cycle. We allocate the prior year collection, bed tax collections. Last year's category B funds that were there have been allocated. However, we're into the fourth or fifth month of this fiscal year. There are sufficient monies that are available in category B that we have collected this year. However, that will reduce the funding for the next year's request for category B. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Mac'Kie. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: My thought on this is that if this had been carefully planned and carefully thought out, this is an expenditure -- the $500,000 request would have been a $600,000 request. But this -- well, we need to recognize that what we're doing is funding Intellinet to the tune of 600,000, and I think we all recognize that it's been -- it was worth it. It's paying off. It was a great success. But this is a part of that. The learning experience that I'm getting from this, Commissioner Norris, is not that we need to divide these between C and B but that next time we see a category C request that is an event that's going to promote off-season tourism we need to recognize that we have to budget for success. And this is a part of that Intellinet funding, so it seems to me it belongs in category C. MR. WATKINS: There is money in category C as well to handle this. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Our choices then -- and to me to be three: One is to deny funding altogether; two it would be to fund it from category B; and three would be to fund it from category C. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm going to make a motion that we go ahead and fund it, but we do so from category B utilizing the funds collected thus far in fiscal year '96 and that the rationale is that while the request could have been put forth for an additional $100,000 as part of that, there is nothing that would have prohibited the board at that time from allocating some from one fund and some from another to make that full $594,000. So I fully appreciate what you're trying to do and how quickly we're trying to respond to these people, but I think it's important that we keep that line between what's set aside for events and what's set aside for advertising and this advertising in response to that event. The two go hand in hand. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I'm going to second that motion. My reason for doing that is that I'm aware that this event created the telephone calls and, God, bless the telephone for ringing. However, I also look at the fact that the Naples Area Tourist Bureau and so forth who has all the category B funds could have just as easily contacted Intellinet and say what do you anticipate the response to be and set money aside to cover it. Apparently they didn't do that. But I think we are all aware when we funded the half million dollars that the response was going to be large, maybe not as large as it is, but large. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Well, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? Four to one. MS. GANSEL: Could I ask, at the TDC meeting the recommendation was to fund the request. However, they did put a time limit on it per piece application, and the time limit that they recommended was August 1. I don't know if the board would like to also -- COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: When do the ads stop, May? CHAIRMAN NORRIS: May. But the point was that we gave it to August; is that right? MS. GANSEL: Exactly. And May was the last -- CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Which would be very unlikely that anything comes in after two weeks even after the last advertising. MS. GANSEL: More than likely. I would say the time that they gave was well after the last ads were going to be placed. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: It's a long time. But I'll make a motion to do that, but I think even August is an extended time. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: A motion to extend the possible payout for the phone calls and incoming requests to August, second. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: August 1st, right? COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: August 1st. And I seconded that. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: All right. And you seconded it. We have a motion and second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? Okay. COHHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Compliments to Mr. Watkins and to the NATV for stepping forward to make this happen because I think it could have left a big void there that no one anticipated if you hadn't. Thanks. MR. WATKINS: Thank you. Item #8E2 RESOLUTION 96-98 AND RESOLUTION 96-99 AUTHORIZING AND SUPPLEMENTING THE ISSUANCE OF GUARANTEED ENTITLEMENT REVENUE REFUNDING BONDS IN ORDER TO REFUND ALL OUTSTANDING GUARANTEED ENTITLEMENT REVENUE BONDS AND TO FINANCE ACQUISITION AND CONSTRUCTION OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS - ADOPTED CHAIRMAN NORRIS: 8(E)(2) is our bond refunding. This is the one we heard a few weeks back. MR. SHYKOWSKI: For the record, Michael Smykowski. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Is this is a no-brainer, Mr. Smykowski? MR. SHYKOWSKI: Pardon? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Is this a no-brainer? COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: We're going to save $125,000. MR. SHYKOWSKI: You are going to hear from our bond counsel and the financial advisor to present the bid results yesterday and recommend to the board. There are a few resolutions that we also have to adopt as a formality. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I love being asked to save money. MR. BRAUN: I will do it in as few words as I did last week. There were five -- my name is Howard Braun (phonetic). I'm with Raymond James. There were five responses solicited. We got three. Two of the three were right around the four and a half percent range that we expected that to occur. It was 4.19 percent. Clearly the winner was readily identified. The results are the savings of nearly 6 percent. We talked about five last week. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Net present? MR. BRAUN: Net present value, 6 percent is a net present value. The dollar amount is a hundred and forty some odd thousand dollars. Taking the money up front, which is the way we discussed it being done, $175,000 will be funded for capital projects in the county at the same debt service level that you had originally. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay. That's very good. What bond rating will be given to these? MR. BRAUN: There wasn't any. It was essentially private placement. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Oh, okay. MR. BRAUN: It was bought directly by banks so that the bonds don't carry a rate. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Are there any other questions? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do you know who the apparent low bidder was? MR. BRAUN: Yes, I'm sorry. The low bidder was First Union. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: The national bank, and they absorbed the whole issue? MR. BRAUN: They absorbed the whole issue, correct. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, motion to approve the award. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Second. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? Item #8E3 VALID PUBLIC EMERGENCY DECLARED AND PROCUREHENT OF ENGINEERING SERVICES AUTHORIZED TO PROVIDE SHORT TERM RECOHMENDATIONS TO ADDRESS THE CLAM BAY SYSTEM HANGROVE DIE-OFF AND TO AUTHORIZE A BUDGET AMENDMENT - APPROVED WITH CHANGES Being none, we'll move on to the Clam Bay mangrove issue. We have a large number of public speakers registered on this issue. We do have commitments that are going to force us to a lunch break right at twelve o'clock. We'll have to interrupt the discussion in all likelihood and bring it back after lunch. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: You know, there may not be an interruption necessary. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Well, there may not be, but we'll see about that. Commissioner Constantine, you had a comment you wanted to make? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No, but Commissioner Hancock might I am sure. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Constantine, do you have a comment? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No. Mr. Weigel is waving over there. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Hancock, do you have a comment -- Mr. Weigel? MR. WEIGEL: Excuse me, 8(E)(2) that was just heard, with the board's approval you have in fact approved resolutions, and the record should reflect two resolution numbers saved for these purposes, and we have those resolutions prepared. I've signed off for legal sufficiency. If we can, Mr. Chairman, we will look to have you sign so that our counsel can carry them off and go through the clerk and carry them off as they will quickly. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Be glad to do that and let the record reflect that we are saving two resolution numbers. MR. WEIGEL: Thank you. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Before asking Mr. Ward to make a summary of what is proposed, Mr. Dotrill, how many speakers do we have? MR. DORRILL: I'll say 30. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's over two hours worth of public speaking. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, we've got 20 minutes. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Ward, would you please give a summary of what task force reviewed and approved yesterday? MR. WARD: Thank you, Commissioners. For the record, Jim Ward, administrator of Pelican Bay services. As most of you are aware beginning in 1994 there was a significant die off of the Claim Bay system consisting of about 13 acres in the northern part of that system. At the time it was considered to be essentially an isolated problem of the mangrove system. It was replanted later that year. In 1995 with all of the rains and significant events that occurred during 1995, the area of the die off in the Clam Bay system has expanded to over 40 acres. It continues to grow as we speak today proportionately throughout that system, and we are starting to see some of the mangroves in the middle and southern portions of the overall Clam Bay system continue to die off. Through the efforts of many, many individuals and residents of the community, the Florida Wild Life Federation and the Conservancy in Rookery Bay and through the efforts of Commissioner Hancock and many others, we have taken a look, I think a significant look over the last four to five months now as to what's causing the die off of that Clam Bay system and what can we do both short term and long term in order to foster recommendations that would help alleviate some of the problems that we see in the Clam Bay system. We have before you today a proposal which we hope will alleviate some of the problems both short term and begin the process of looking at some of the long-term issues that we need to take a look at in terms of recommendations for you as part of your overall natural resource protection area program for Clam Bay. The proposal that you have before you does a couple of things. First, when we talk about the Clam Bay system, we've identified essentially three different elements of this proposal for you to look at. One is the Clam Bay system itself and what can we do in the next few months in order to ameliorate some of those deficiencies that we're seeing in the Clam Bay system. And the deficiencies really revolve around the lack of tidal flushing that is occurring within the Clam Bay system. We're putting a lot of water in that system for ground water, for rain water, from a number sources. We're not getting any flushing action at all within that Clam Bay system. A part of the proposal that you have before you today is to allow WCI communities LP to begin the process of preparing the permit applications and to provide some of the data collection necessary to go in within the next few months and actually open up some artificial tidal cuts that were put in the Clam Bay system in the early 1980s as part of the development order for the overall Pelican Bay community. In addition to that this part of the proposal allows consultants and WCI communities to take a look at some of the natural tidal cuts north and south in the Clam Bay system that had existed for many, many years and make some determination as to whether reopening those existing natural tidal cuts north and south in the Clam Bay system will be helpful in the overall process. This part of the program as outlined in your executive summary is being funded solely by WCI communities, both the permitting and the construction costs for this portion of the program. There is no cost to the board or to the community of Pelican Bay for this portion of the program. And I think what this does is will allow the community and the county to insure that the one item that we think will help most in terms of the restoration of the Clam Bay system will be useful. Part two of the program is for the Pelican Bay services division to evaluate the possibility of providing some overflow structures from our water management system into the Gulf of Mexico and to divert some of the stormwater directly to the Gulf and also to determine the feasibility of or the possibility of retaining some additional stormwater within the Pelican Bay system such that it does not flow directly into the Clam Bay system. The cost of this portion of the program from an engineering perspective is estimated at $53,000 to be paid for solely by the Pelican fund 109, which is the residents of Pelican Bay. The third portion of the program is sort of redirection of the NRPA monies that the board has previously allocated as part of your fiscal year 1996 budget. One of the things that I think we've learned over the last four months is -- certainly I've learned over the last year -- through the efforts of many of the individuals that I referenced earlier that there needs to be some change, quite frankly, in the direction that the NRPA funds were being utilized for fiscal year 1996. We've learned a lot of how that system really is currently operating or actually in this instance how it's not operating and how better to utilize some of the monies that you currently have appropriated for the NRPA funds allocated. As a part of the of the natural resource department's allocation which is a $32,000 allocation towards this program, it will take a look at some of the data collection that will allow you to evaluate the exchange of water between the Gulf of Mexico and the Clam Bay system. That's important in the long-term efforts to determine some of the hydrologic concerns that have been raised and the lack of flushing at all within the Clam Bay system. Quite frankly, it will allow you to determine whether or not any of the development activities that have occurred within the community have been of an instrumental help or not helpful in terms of whether this system is performing. And then the final part of it is to pull together the portions of the Pelican Bay services division is doing and WCI communities is doing and what we're calling an overall budget that will allow you to at least initially take a look at how much water in the Clam Bay system is really helpful to the overall system and how much excess water is in that system that really needs to be moved out or to recreate some of the existing tidal actions, recreate some of tidal actions that existed prior to development of Pelican Bay or even the Seagate or Vanderbilt areas. I think the scope, revised scope of service that you have before you more closely parallels the activities that are going on within the system and clearly in my mind differentiate specific scopes and costs to the various parties that are involved in this particular process for Clam Bay. With that, that's all the presentation I have. I'll be glad the answer any questions you have. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Hancock. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you, Mr. Ward for giving that overall view. I think probably the most important part we have to look at today, and I'll try to put this in a nutshell, is that through the creation of the NRPA the county has set aside approximately $45,000 for the removal of exotics within the 535 acre conservation easement. If we don't act on this today that money will be used to remove Brazilian Peppers from the area. I think it's relatively easy to understand that these uses listed under what the county would fund are far more beneficial to the Clam Bay system than simply the removal of Brazilian Pepper. And I would like to encapsulate the decision today to be simply whether or not that $45,000 is better used in removing Brazilian Pepper or whether it's better used in the water budget analysis necessary to the health of the system. And in addition, the reason I find the data collection regarding the ground water exchange more appropriate in the county, for the county to do, is WCI was a developer of the strand. For WCI to do a study and the study says nothing is wrong would be immediately suspect. We have a system that may have been partially harmed by construction activity. We need to understand that exchange, frankly, as part of the original monitoring to understand that exchange whether it's ground water or surface flow that enters the system through a water management system in Pelican Bay. So I find that to be an appropriate use. And so I guess I'm just trying to set the stage here that we're not talking about what's down the road. We're not obligating this board to anything beyond what you see in front of you. And it's the use of current funds that have been budgeted that are there, that are available. And my guess is that if this board felt that is an appropriate expenditure, the number of speakers would drop dramatically and everyone could go to lunch at noon. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Well, I for one was never in favor of establishing the NRPA in the Clam Bay system because it hardly can be classified as a wilderness area. In fact, it's right in the middle of the urban area. So to shift those funds to something that would give a great benefit to Clam Bay rather than just removing exotics I would certainly favor. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Commissioner Hancock, I think you hit the nail on the head. It's a matter of priorities, and I did not support the NRPA either for the same reason Commissioner Hancock outlined, and it wasn't a priority in the budget season. If we can put those funds to honest to goodness beneficial use, these are clearly a higher priority than those which I voted against us budgeting last year. So I too would support that. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I have a comment though about the exotic vegetation. We have some mangroves out there that are dead and pepper plant -- I guess that's the main one, isn't it? CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Brazilian Pepper. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: -- will invade pretty quickly, and I'm just wondering if that at the same time we're studying this water quality the pepper plant is going to invade and because we spent this $45,000 to figure out what the water situation is and the water budget ought to be, our exotic removal budget may treble. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Let me draw a scenario if I may that might help ease that concern somewhat. What's being requested is 32,000 of the forty-five. So there is an additional 13,000 out there. We have not gone to bid on the exotic removal, and the estimated cost is forty-five. It may be less than that. What I would like to do -- I agree that the removal of the exotics is important particularly concerning reinfestation of the die-off area. We don't want a Brazilian Pepper forest out there. Part of this, the water budget analysis may very well be predominantly staff time, which as you may remember the NRPA was a combination of staff time and hard dollars. So of the forty-five there may be more than 13,000 remaining when this work is done, and I think it would be wise to allocate the portion of that to the removal of the exotics particularly in the more seriously affected areas. So by not allocating that today, we reserve the opportunity to do that when this work and cost is identified to do just what we initially set out which is the removal of exotics. So I think that's in the wings. I think it is the intent to do some of that work. The question is how much of the funds would remain and how much can we get done for that. So if that clarifies at least a future path for the exotic removal for you and the use of those dollars, I think that's a fair assumption. And, of course, the services division is clearing exotics in the north portion that you're responsible for also. MR. WARD: Correct. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: You're currently doing that? MR. WARD: We actually put work on hold pending the resolution of this issue. Most of the work we were doing was on the west side of the berm itself. But I, quite frankly, can refocus some of those dollars on the east -- I'm sorry -- I mean on the west side of the berm versus the east side of the berm if necessary. I think if we're able to understand this water budget, get some of the hydrologics fixed out there, I think the Brazilian Pepper issue will go away, some of those areas will start to rejuvenate themselves automatically. So I think like Commissioner Hancock said we are not going to have a significant problem out there. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I can count to three, too, but I wish the question were as simple as the question that was posed today, but it is not. If the question were just we're already going to spend thirty thousand bucks should we go spend it on this or on the mangroves or on the exotics? That would be a pretty simple question. But, in fact, there's a whole lot more that's happening today if this is approved. One thing is I do believe in the NRPA. I did want the NRPA. I wish that we had funded the NRPA with more money. And if we take these funds away from the NRPA, I'm concerned that in the budget cycle that's coming up we're going to hear, see, we told you that they really didn't need that money in the first place. And they do need it. That NRPA fund should be spent the way -- it should have double the budget that it had. But certainly we shouldn't take away the little bit of money that we gave to the NRPA budget. The other one I'm worried about is the precedent that we're setting on who's going to pay how much for what gets -- what its overall cost is there. Let the record reflect nobody is saying that the county is liable for a third because we're not. And if, in fact, the county -- my preference would be that the people who directly benefit from the resolution of this problem pay for its resolution, and then if it is determined that the county has some responsibility, we should pay but not to pay up front when we have a well funded organization with $700,000 in its capital budget that could easily front this money. It troubles me that the county is going to be taking money away from an already valid and under funded natural resources protection area and instead spending in a place where there are adequate funds privately available to do it. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Weigel, are we setting any legal precedent by this action? MR. WEIGEL: No legal precedent, no. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie, I'm sorry. I'm sitting here looking at the minutes for February 28 meeting where I made a motion to approve over $300,000 for the NRPA, and there was no second. So I'm sorry, the time for conviction -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It doubled -- not said -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The time for conviction was then as it is now, and so, again, I just needed to point that out because I was as frustrated that day as you seem to be today. And we will have the opportunity during that budget cycle to crank up that NRPA again, so I look forward to it. In the meantime, I think the folks in the audience can see that there are three and half maybe four people that are in favor of moving ahead with what is presented for the county. That being the case and it being three minutes before noon, I would like to suggest the chairman that we go to public speakers, and if you are -- if you just agree with what you seem to see happening up here, just waive your right to speak. We'll assume that means agreement, and maybe we can all get out of here. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: We can't go through 30 people. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Well, let me do it a different way. There's not five minutes left for a speaker to get his turn in. There's a majority on the board that have stated their position of going along with the proposal that's been presented to us today. Anyone who wishes to speak certainly is welcome to. Don't feel compelled to if you don't want to. We are going to break for lunch now, and we'll be back, and we'll take all the public speakers that would like to speak at that point. (A lunch break was taken from 12:01 p.m. to 1:07 p.m.) CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We'll reconvene the county commission meeting. Hiss Filson, do we have a word on Commissioner Constantine? Will he be returning to the fold or '- MS. FILSON: He'll be returning, but I don't know when. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: You don't know when. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And at this point there may be some people that are left here to speak about it. I guess not. But I'm -- you know, once the public hearing's closed, I'm prepared to make a motion. However, if Commissioner Constantine is not here and that vote would be necessary as he alluded to prior to people leaving in order to -- to accomplish this, I will then motion -- make a motion to table. So just setting the stage in case he's not here. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Bettye, fess up so they'll know whether or not they can vote. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Nevermind. Proceed, please. At __ CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Nevermind. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Do we -- I guess it'd be easier rather than you calling 30 names I guess to find out do we have anyone here that's registered to speak on the issue of the Pelican Bay -- Steve Hart. Okay. Doesn't look like anyone is still here, so I guess we can close -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You know, Commissioner Hancock, I've been thinking about it over lunch. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Oh, no, you don't, Pal. I -- I already -- COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Come on. Convince me. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Is there anyone left in the -- the gallery that intends to speak on this issue? That being the case, that's the end of the public speakers, so if the -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm going to make a motion, and then with that motion hopefully someone to my right might see their way clear to -- to follow down -- follow that path. I'm gonna move -- it's actually a motion that includes a couple separate parts. The first part of the motion is to -- and let me clarify this. Mr. Lorenz, do we have to declare a valid public emergency to accomplish our part of the work program on a timely basis? My reading is that we actually don't. MR. LORENZ: The -- the work that's used for the strand, the groundwater work, that is typically done by a geo -- a -- a geologic firm. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Uh-huh. So that would be subject to CC and A. MR. LORENZ: I -- I think in terms of being a conservative, I think it would be better that -- if you did -- if you did that, but I'm not the purchasing agent. But typically that type of work -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. MR. LORENZ: -- is sometimes subject to engineering interpretations. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Since that monitoring is -- is critical to some of the other work that is projected to be done by WCI and by Pelican Bay services division that has a time frame relative to the wet season, I'm going to make a motion that we declare a valid public emergency and authorize the procurement of the necessary services to provide the scope of services in part C of the proposal to be performed by the natural resources division. As a part of that motion, we need to approve WCI and Pelican Bay services division roles as identified in scopes A and B since the county owns the land. The work that WCI and the services division will be doing will be on land that is deeded to the county. So since the county owns that land, we need to at least approve of the -- their scope set forth here even though we have no funding responsibility. Mr. Ward. MR. WARD: You do need to include as a part of your authorization that part B scope of Pelican Bay services division, that emergency declaration be included for the part B services also. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: So included. In addition, we will also need to get Westinghouse Communities' concurrence on activities that may apply to deed restrictions within the community if any of these do. So I -- I don't see that as a problem. But again, as a part of the motion, I wanted to state that. This -- and that's the -- the end of the motion. This -- the entire reason we're here today is simply because a degradation occurred of 13 acres many moons ago. The response to that was to establish an NRPA. The NRPA was formed but not yet funded until this past budget cycle. So all the best intentions of the formation of that NRPA, all the work that was outlined in the formation of the -- of the NRPA originally did not come to fruition in this past budget cycle. What did come to fruition were a series of steps that were minor in nature and involved monitoring of the system and removal of exotics. What's being asked today is to establish that what we're being asked to do is, in fact, a higher priority than the removal of those exotics. It does not answer all the questions in the original NRPA nor will it. Those -- those questions still need to be addressed. What we do have, though, is we have -- instead of the county bearing the brunt of the NRPA and the brunt of the cost of doing that, we have a partnership with the residents of Pelican Bay and that of Westinghouse Communities to accomplish it, a partnership that I dare say is unprecedented. With that being the case, I would like to ask my colleagues to -- to support the motion and for this step of work understanding that the NRPA will be the vehicle by which any future funding for work done in that area will be assigned. So again -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is an endorsement of NRPAs part of your motion? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: No, it is not. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Careful. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: An endorsement by you is not a part of my motion. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You just kind of went off on where we're going with NRPAs and I -- COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, I still had to convince somebody up here, so I was working on that one. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Careful not to lose number three which -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In your attempt to get number four. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One thing on a more serious note, the -- just for clarification -- this isn't to give you a hard time because it's not your difficulty, though it's been made that way in print from time to time -- is Wilson, Miller in or out of this? MR. WARD: They are included as part of the part B scope as the division's engineer which they have been since the mid 1980s. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just because I know a week ago they had verbally said they might -- COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yeah, I thought they withdraw. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- get out of the project. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They were out, but now they're back. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: In the for-what-it's-worth category. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I guess. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Do we have a second for the motion? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What's the motion? COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, come on. Huh-uh. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: The motion, not solely an endorsement of the NRPA, is to proceed with scope of services part C in addition to a couple other minor points I mentioned within the context of the established NRPA. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I'm going to second the motion, and this is why I'm gonna do it: Because I'm a firm believer and supporter of the NRPA and the fact that we created this NRPA based on an original mangrove die-off that for one reason or another failed to get funded and we need to begin to address it. And the county's portion of the $30,000 or so that's being asked for is for water quality studies which would have been done anyway with the N -- NRPA. I don't like the money coming from the exotic. I think the exotics are gonna be a problem and that the money's gonna double to -- to get them out of there, but we need to do this first. So I'm going to second that part of it and hope that we can clearly get some definitive answers. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Understanding that all -- not all members of the board may support the NRPA, we're just, again, asking for this step at this time. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. And opposed? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A lone dissenting voice. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: A lone dissenting voice. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So rare. Item #8E4 RESOLUTION 96-100 APPROVING A GRANT APPLICATION FOR FDOT FUNDING FOR DAVIS BLVD. LANDSCAPING - ADOPTED CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We'll move on now to 8(E)(4). Mr. Dorrill? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Not before I say thank you. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No. No. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: This is the grant for beautification of Davis Boulevard? MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir. I need your approval of a resolution for which we reserve and make copy to the record that only enables us to apply for this grant to be considered from FDOT for funding -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Is this matching funds? MR. DORRILL: -- for Davis Boulevard. Yes. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And do we have those matching funds appropriated or budgeted? MR. DORRILL: They -- they will be subject to your appropriation this summer as part of the normal process, and we certainly hope to be able to get this grant to be able to produce that amount. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I just want to be very careful because it seems like every time we go for a matching grant we say, well, we'll -- we'll worry about that on the other end whether we have funds and it comes back and then we say, well, we approved to -- to go get the matching grant so we must have wanted funds. And the argument works on both ends, and we never have a substantial debate on the actual issue itself so -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Well, we will intend to have a substantial debate on this Davis Boulevard beautification. The problem that we have here, as I understand it, is that the deadline to apply for the grant is -- MR. DORRILL: March 1. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: -- March the 1st which is -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Understanding that we -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: -- Friday. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- reserve the right to -- COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Friday. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- refuse any grant that's offered. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: And -- MR. DORRILL: Your authorization by the resolution -- I have had a chance to read it -- is specifically limited to the application process, and you're not agreeing to participate. You're agreeing to apply. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Do you need a motion to approve this resolution? MR. DORRILL: Yes. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Yes. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Then I'm making it. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that if Mr. Dotrill will promise to get me a copy of the transcript of today's discussion as soon as it's available. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's so funny. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: You don't want it on seven days, though, do you, where we have to pay extra for it? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No, as soon as it's available. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Before I call the question, let me ask Mr. Dotrill why are we here two days before the deadline wanting to approve the acceptance of money from the state to beautify one of our roads? How does this happen? If -- if an alert citizen had not noticed this, we would have easily bypassed this deadline. What is wrong with our system that this sort of thing could happen? MR. DORRILL: I don't have an answer for that. Had it not been for your call at five till nine this morning, I would not have even been aware of the -- the fact that the project was in progress, but the -- what little information I have is Naplescape was not aware of it. Or if they were, the initiating call came from the East Naples Civic Association as to the availability of it. But if -- if apologies are in order, I'll -- I'll certainly make those. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Do we have someone whose -- whose job it is -- MR. DORRILL: No. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: -- to scope out grants? MR. DORRILL: No. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: We've -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: But aren't they -- COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: -- we've talked about that from time to time. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Aren't they included, though? When FDOT puts out its publications which we -- we should be on their mailing list of all their publications that when new grants are made available that are identified through those publications in addition to engineering magazines and -- and so forth, I mean, is anyone reading this material as it comes through? That -- and you don't have an answer for that, I understand. But, you know, I used to read about grant stuff in the private sector dealing in planning all the time that was made available by agencies because I read the publications. So if we're not doing it -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Let's do it. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- we don't need a grant writer to do that. Staff should be doing that as -- as a responsibility. MR. DORRILL: I don't disagree. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just a -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Emphasis added. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- information item, this one we're applying for, the specific purpose of it is -- I don't -- I don't have any -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Beautification of Davis Boulevard between Airport Road and the intersection of 41. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No, I know that. I mean the -- the state is saying this a beautification type thing or -- MR. DORRILL: This is a state -- state highway beautification grant that requires matching funds for which there is already a -- a private sector initiative that is being sponsored by the East Naples Civic Association and Collier Naplescape for that segment between U.S. 41 in front of Royal Harbor and Airport Road. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So really one of the only applicable places in the county would be for Davis because there aren't that many -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: I think -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- state roads that fit our CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: I think it's specifically for this One. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Oh, I know. In this case it is, but I mean for any state grant of this type, that's clearly the best use for it. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: East 41 and Davis would be two of the -- the major ones that are left to be done. If there are no further questions, I'll -- I'll call. All those in favor signify by saying aye. And opposed? Hearing none, we'll move on. COHHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman, could I ask Mr. Dotrill one quick question if you don't mind? Mr. Dotrill, we've talked from time to time about contracting with a grant writer and paying them with a percentage of the successful grants. Would -- if we were to do that, would -- do you think this person would then be combing all of these various publications, state and federal and corporate, to look for grants that they could write -- write applications for rather than having to depend on somebody to bring it up at the last moment? MR. DORRILL: I'd -- I'd say that's probably preferable to having a paid staff person. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yeah, I'm not looking for a paid staff. MR. DORRILL: I don't think any of us are in favor -- I don't know -- in years past -- I'll say in the early eighties -- we did have a grants consultant at that time, but that was also in the heyday of federal -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Don't tell Neil. MR. DORRILL: -- grant programs. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yeah, I'm not -- I'm not looking for somebody to advise us but somebody who would be paid according to the success of the applications that they write. MR. DORRILL: I've -- I've made a note. We'll -- we'll ascertain whether those companies exist with the current contracts. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Because this one almost slid through our hands, and we don't know how many others might be. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Okay. Mr. Weigel, we're on to your section here. Item #9A REPORT ON THE 13 FT. EMERGENCY ACCESS EASEMENT RELATING TO "VILLA FLORESTA AT WYNDEHERE PHASE ONE" AND "VILLA FLORESTA AT WYNDEHERE PHASE TWO" - COUNTY ATTORNEY TO PROCEED WITH HASTE HR. WEIGEL: Thank you. 9(A) is a report on a 13-foot emergency access easement relating to Wyndemere, the Villa Floresta at Wyndemere, phase one, and Villa Floresta, Wyndemere, phase two. I wanted to report to the board about the status of -- of the development there and concerning the emergency access easement or the lack thereof. The -- without passing around pictures -- excuse me, or -- or plats, I'd just explain that we're dealing with a road that's over a thousand feet long and it's a cul-de-sac road, therefore, generally requiring under policy in the Land Development Code that there be an emergency access easement at the end of the cul-de-sac. And this has been the policy even before the Land Development Code for platted subdivisions. In the -- in the case of the -- of -- of this particular phase or phases of Wyndemere, the cul-de-sac at the end of the long road depicted an emergency access easement, and that was included within the PUD conceptual master plan which is a -- a graphic, a drawing that's a part of the PUD. And that was adopted in '86, 1987 time frame. The plat subsequently was adopted later in 1987. And for one reason or another, there is no access easement at the end of the cul-de-sac through one or two of the lots forming the horseshoe part of the cul-de-sac depicted on the plat. What that means is is that we have an anomaly between the PUD and the conceptual master plan document that was a part of the PUD and the plat that was -- that was ultimately adopted -- approved by the board after review by staff back then. The lots -- there are two lots particularly, namely lots 34 and 35, located, again, around the perimeter of the hub of the cul-de-sac. They are currently owned by an Anderson Development Corporation, reportedly in foreclosure right now. The lots -- at least one of the lots has not been developed, 35. And there's still a possibility of the emergency access easement being implemented or imposed upon the lot. By virtue of the fact that we do have this distinction between what was approved in the PUD and what appears on the plat, I bring to the board a few recommendations. One would be that the board authorize the county attorney working with development services staff to contact both the current owner, the Anderson Development Corporation, as well as the developer which is the Wyndemere Farms people to look to have them address themselves and make correction for the emergency access which by virtue of PUD and by policy ought to be there. Secondly, failing that, I would look to come back to the board. The county attorney would come back to the board, advise the board, and ask at that point for the board to approve a resolution that we would craft that would be recorded particular and pertinent to lots 34 and 35 indicating nothing more than the factual statement that the PUD and the PUD master conceptual plan provided for an emergency access and that that does not appear upon the plat. We're putting of -- we'd be putting a notice of record on the title. It would put everyone in an advisory situation that -- that -- that would have the legal responsibilities to look at title. And yet I don't believe it'd be an illegal slander of title. So that would be plan B if plan A does not work to come back. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But plan A is to get the developer to cooperate, and so plan B's just a real worst-case scenario because that's a -- MR. WEIGEL: That's right. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: -- a nightmare from my personal perspective as a title examiner. MR. WEIGEL: Well, that's -- that's plan B, and we don't propose to do that first, but those would appear to be the two logical things that could be done and in the order that I described it. I've had the opportunity to speak very briefly with Mr. Dobrovolny this morning who has his own independent information. He may wish to speak. I don't know if he's signed up to speak, but we look forward to any information that he might further wish to provide us to. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Let me -- let me press -- preface Jerry's comments simply by saying that I -- I asked the county attorney's office to look into this. We have a safety issue on that street that should something happen on the early part of the cul-de-sac, there's no way for these folks to get out. It was originally planned by the developer. When it came time to plat the lots, it was left out. Wouldn't you know, you know, there's -- all the lots look great. There's just no 13-foot emergency access in there. Whether it was intentional or accidental is unimportant. The important thing is that it be reestablished. And since they are in -- in foreclosure at this point, before a private individual purchases that lot to build a home on, now to me is the time to act and get it reestablished. That's the direction I would like to give to the county attorney, and the reason this is on the agenda today is to try to obtain that direction. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Can we get it on there in time before a title search is done regarding the foreclosure? MR. WEIGEL: Yeah. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Okay. MR. DOBROVOLNY: Yes. My name is Jerry Dobrovolny. I live at 152 Via Napoli which is the street in Villa Floresta, a subdivision of Wyndemere. I have been working at this on my own for about three or four years along with some of the other residents. I've gone to the engineers at Horseshoe Drive. They've provided me with information that shows the plat with -- for Grassmere and shows this to be platted. I've talked with Mr. Viggiani who is the representative of Wyndemere Farms about this. And I said hey, look, you -- you indicate this on the information that you're even sending out now to prospective buyers that the egress is there. He says, well, tough. It's already been recorded the other way. I've also talked to Jim Anderson, and he has been completely uncooperative about this. We have 60 homes in this cul-de-sac, and it's a cul-de-sac that's an extension of Pond Apple, and actually it's about a mile long. This last summer when you had 16 inches of rain here in one day, the Pond Apple as -- part of the cul-de-sac was flooded, and you couldn't get in and out for three days. The only way you could get out is through lot 35 which is not built on yet, and that's where the egress is supposed to be. And so I guess our -- the people that I represent in Villa Floresta would urge that you implement phase B of what the county attorney has recommended because we have worked diligently in working through the county. And I even have a letter here that was sent to the county from Wilson, Miller, Barton, Soil (sic), and Peek indicating that they would -- this is dated Hay 26. Finally be -- 1987. Finally be advised that a separate check and description is being prepared to provide for an egress easement through lot 35 and the adjacent parcel to connect to the egress parcel that exists to the east of the proposed plat. I've -- Tom Peek had looked through all of their records, and they have not found any subsequent sketch that was presented. The engineers have also looked through all their records at the Horseshoe Drive and have been very cooperative but, again, have found nothing. When I talked with Mr. Viggiani about this several times, he just kind of shrugged his shoulders and smiled as much as to say that's tough, Buddy. So I guess I would urge you to take a little stronger action because we have tried all of the usual means of trying to convince these people to live up to their commitment, and it hasn't worked. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Mr. Weigel, do you need board direction on this matter? MR. WEIGEL: Well, I -- I believe that I do. But in regard to a resolution, if you were to authorize a resolution today and we found -- we would be reserving a resolution number, what -- we may find that that isn't absolutely necessary at this point. I'd like the -- I think prefer the opportunity to come back to you quickly as we pursue this quickly for that authorization at that point. We -- it -- there is the possibility that with the county weighing in at this point and with the fact that I think that the current owner may himself find or the subsequent owner if foreclosure sale occurs that they may find themselves with some development problems when they come for building permit at the development services, that they may, you know, feel some pressure right now to face this more quickly than -- than let the title be addressed by the resolution. So as far as that goes -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: With -- with that, I think we have a responsibility since we apparently have a developer, slash, property owner that is not willing to live up to the promises they made to residents that for the safety of the people in Villa Floresta that we give direction to the county attorney's office to proceed with haste in the manner described here today and that should you need a resolution at the next available meeting to -- to schedule it as such. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Could we pass such a resolution today? MR. WEIGEL: Well, if you pass the resolution and we didn't need it, you'll have reserved a resolution number that's sort of lying out there in ghostly fashion. So I really wouldn't suggest that I guess. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Did you make a motion? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: My statement was intended as a motion. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I'll second. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: He has a map. Can I see that? Item #10A RESOLUTION 96-101 APPOINTING KENNETH RODGERS TO THE BOARD OF BUILDING ADJUSTMENTS AND APPEALS - ADOPTED CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: The next two items are -- are to be heard with 12(C)(5), Mr. Weigel, so we'll go down to the BCC agenda, 10(A). COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I believe there is one applicant for the one opening, so I'll -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- make a motion we appoint Kenny Rogers. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? There being none -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Free chicken for everyone. Item #10B EXTRA GAIN TIME FOR INMATE NO. 80293 - DENIED CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: 10(B). COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Hake a motion we deny. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Is there a second? Motion fails for lack of second. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: 10 -- 10(D), is that the gain time? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: 10(B) -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: B. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- is the gain time. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I'll second. I'm sorry. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We've gone through this to date a number of times and the idea of providing extra over and above the standard gain time that they get. And this is extra gain time -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Should we then have a discussion on just eliminating this all together as an incentive -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have had that. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- because if -- you know, what I hear from the sheriff's office is that it is indeed some level of incentive to compel, you know, proper attitude and proper work in -- within the jail. Maybe I don't understand the system well enough, but either we need to eliminate it all together or -- you know, because -- and keep them from putting this together and bringing it back. I -- I COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What I might suggest is Mr. Weigel had put or Mr. Cuyler had put together maybe a year ago a fairly substantial memo on this probably the two of you haven't had a chance to see. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Huh-uh. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Maybe this week you could pass that on to those two newest commissioners. MR. WEIGEL: Be delighted to. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Take a look at that, and then we can set a policy in the coming weeks. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Let me explain, too, why I seconded it, not -- not that we shouldn't have the program available, but read what the violation is. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Writing bad checks. COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Bad checks. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Well, no. The crime is the violation of state probation. He's already been cautioned and warned and warned again. And certainly giving him 15 days of gain time which will reduce his served sentence from 86 percent down to somewhere in the 70s, low 70s, you know, he's -- he -- this particular person's thumbing his nose at -- at -- at the system right now. And if the crime were not a violation of some other sentence he's already received, I wouldn't second it. So I think -- I think the program is good for the -- for the right purpose. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I've just seen us shoot them down for different reasons. One was -- dealt with -- with the either sale or use of illegal drugs and one -- you know, the reasons have changed, but there continues to be discussion about it being appropriate or not appropriate and I -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Different commissioners have expressed different opinions. Mine is simply that I'm not in favor of early release. I think they ought to do their time even for minimal offenses. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: In any case, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? That motion passes four to one. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I just want more information from the sheriff before supporting that. Once I get that, we'll have -- we can have that discussion on eliminating it all together. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Headline, Hancock soft on crime. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: You have to remember he already gets gain time. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I know. Item #11A REAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT AUTHORIZED TO EXECUTE LEASE AGREEMENT WITH NAPLES AIRPORT AUTHORITY FOR HANGAR SPACE - APPROVED CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have -- our next item is the lease for hangar space for the sheriff's helicopter. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Chairman, while the deputy's coming forward, I just want to advise you you do have a public comment today following this item. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Fine. Thank you. MR. CHERNEY: Mark Cherney, aviation supervisor, Collier County Sheriff's Office. This hangar, what we're doing is in light of the addition of the Navaho and also the helicopter, I believe we advised the board that the current hangar -- county hangar facility that we're in and share with EMS was only constructed for two aircraft because when it was funded it was funded for -- with no future growth in mind. Therefore, what we've had is we've got the Navaho, and it's been out on tie-downs on the ramp. And now with the helicopter, we've had to move our Cessna out on the ramp in order to facilitate the helicopter in the current hangar facility. We've also recently acquired a -- an additional helicopter that is strictly for cannibalization for parts so that we don't have to buy parts for the helicopter that we brought before you in January. This will extend our -- lower our operating costs and extend the current life of this helicopter. That aircraft, when you begin cannibalizing it, obviously you will open up holes and take doors off and so forth. So it is not very practical that it can be stored outside. At that time the airport had no hangar space available. They have contacted me. And as of February 1, a hangar became available. It is kind of a one of a type. It's an odd ball hangar that they have that is not only a T hangar but has a side bay that is open and attached because it is the end one. So logistically this will serve us very well because we will be able to use the main hangar space for one of the fixed wings, and then the side portion of the bay we will be able to keep that other helicopter that we're stripping for parts and also store parts there which currently at the current county facility we have no place to store parts. Our only other alternative was -- as discussed in January would be future expansion of the current facility we're in. And we know that's not fiscally possible in this year or probably not anywhere in the foreseeable future. So this is the least costly way out of this to get some type of storage space for one of our fixed wing aircraft and this parts helicopter. Now, the nice thing about the hangar is it is large enough where we can rotate our aircraft out, our fixed wing, so to speak. It will -- is large enough to fit either the twin or the Cessna so -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Excuse me just a minute. I'll make a motion we approve. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a motion and a second. Do we have public speakers, Mr. Dotrill? Being none, all those in favor signify saying aye. Opposed? Four to one on that one. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: It's weird today I know. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Can anyone remember the last 5-0? COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yeah. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Yes. As a matter of fact, it was __ COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It was the consent agenda, wasn't it? COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: It was earlier today. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: It was the appointment -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think it was the resolution, spay day U.S.A. PUBLIC COHMENT REGARDING LOW INCOME HOUSING ON RADIO ROAD CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a public comment at this point, Mr. Dotrill. MR. DORRILL: We do. Ms. Caycedo. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Public comments are limited to five minutes. Say whatever you want as long as it's not obscene. MS. CAYCEDO: I'm so nervous. I've never done this before. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Don't be nervous. MS. CAYCEDO: My name is Carol Caycedo, and I'm on the board of directors of Plantation which is a subdivision off Radio Road. And on Valentine's Day we all opened up our newspaper, and there was an article about a proposed housing project that's been tentatively granted two and a half million dollars by the state of Florida because of the flooding due to the hurricane. And we're tremendously opposed to this because when we purchased our homes, before we purchased, we saw the set of plans, and it was told to us that it was multi-family but it would either be condominiums or town houses or villas, and it would be owned. It would never be rentals in that subdivision. So I have all kinds of statements from the owners that -- what they were told when they -- before they purchased. I also have a statement from the sales rep. for the developer stating what she told us, and that was also that it would either be condominiums or villa-type homes with two-car garages and never any type of rentals. We asked before we purchased our homes. And I'm trying to think of what else. I'm so nervous. That's about it. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I've had a number of calls on this and this past week did some homework and don't have very good news, but at least we have some facts. She's absolutely right. A number of single-family homes in the $200,000 neighborhood were sold and marketed with the idea that there would be comparable either carriage homes or condos on the multi-family parcel there. That parcel has been sold off, and the individual developer of that has declared an intent to put very low income housing there. It is, however -- it was -- the PUD was approved prior to our current numbers, so it doesn't have to come back to us to get a higher density. It's already allowed. The entire Plantation thing has 4.99 per acre, but it's -- there is a concentration on this particular thing. It's a legitimate concern, but at this point the board doesn't have standing in order to do anything. They don't have to come to the board in order for approval. MS. CAYCEDO: Even if fraud -- you know, if they fraudulently sold us -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's a legal matter -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: That becomes a civil matter. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- unfortunately we don't have any authority over. I think particularly with your statement from the sales folks and all those it may be something you wish to pursue in a legal venue. But the -- the one other suggestion I've had for the folks I've talked to is the approval that the developer has received is tentative, the approval for that two and a half million dollars. MS. CAYCEDO: I think the middle of March is the final. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I would suggest it might be worth the while to make contact with that agency and let them know some of the circumstances. I think realistically how this complies with money that was set aside for flooding disaster relief '- MS. CAYCEDO: Yes. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- there's not -- in my mind there's not a connection. And I haven't seen the application and how they worded that but -- MS. CAYCEDO: Would you know how we would go about -- who we would contact because we only have two weeks -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll be happy to '- MS. CAYCEDO: -- before this -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- work with you all on that. I have some of that information in my office and have spoken with some folks this week. I'll be happy to -- as a matter of fact, if you talk with Ms. -- Ms. Filson before you go, we'll set up a '- MS. CAYCEDO: Okay. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- time maybe tomorrow and sit down on it. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine, this is something that is -- the first time we've had this type of complaint. What happens is when they come in for the PUD on that tract, they say these are the list of uses. Then when the person's selling you your unit, wants you to buy, they tell you, oh, but this is going to be quarter of a million dollar ranch-style homes. MS. CAYCEDO: He saw the plans. HALE VOICE: I have it in writing. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Just a second, sir. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Excuse me, sir. You're not registered. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And -- and this happened to my sister outside of Atlanta, the same thing. Supposed to be quarter of a million dollar homes behind them, you know, same type. Next think you know, apartments are going in. And what people don't know is to look at the zoning. The zoning is the real thing. You -- you want to trust that salesperson. And unfortunately on several occasions a salesperson has been more of a -- more of a crystal ball fortune teller. MS. CAYCEDO: But this is what they presented to her to present to prospective buyers. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And -- and the reason I'm saying that is that you're not alone in this, and there's probably been similar situations where some level of case law and an attorney might be able to pursue this on a civil matter because you're gonna have some valuation difference depending on what's next to you. MS. CAYCEDO: Now, were we unique in that it's directly inside our subdivision? Is there anything like this in Naples that's CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Oh, I'm sure that this has happened before, but Commissioner Constantine has offered to help you with your problem. MS. CAYCEDO: Okay. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Is that acceptable? MS. CAYCEDO: Yup. That's fine. Thank you very much. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Thank you. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine, is it likely that this developer is going to come looking for density bonuses or -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No. That's my point is they already have -- they don't have to do that in order to get -- COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Because the 4.99 is spread over the entire project -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Right. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: -- and they can concentrate it on this parcel. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The part that's in that particular parcel is actually a heavier concentration. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Gotcha. Item #12B1 ORDINANCE 96-5 RE PETITION PUD-95-3, MICHAEL J. LANDY, P.E., OF BUTLER ENGINEERING, INC., REPRESENTING AVATAR PROPPERTIES, INC., REQUESTING A REZONING FROM RHF-12 TO PUD (FOUNDERS PLAZA PUD) FOR PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE NORTH AND SOUTH SIDES OF GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY BETWEEN 53RD STREET S.W. AND 52ND TERRACE S.W. IN GOLDEN GATE CITY - ADOPTED CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We'll go into the advertised public hearing portion of our meeting today. Start with 12(B)(1), petition PUD-95-3. Commissioner Constantine, this is the other half of the portion that you wanted -- MR. MILK: This is the companion item, that's correct, and my -- I can present -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The PUD itself -- the PUD itself is consistent. As a matter of fact, you have it here. Subject PUD is identical in content, in architectural style with the Parkway Center PUD, Parkway Place PUD, and Parkway Promenade PUD. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: This is a continuation -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: -- of the ones that we've been approving? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: All of which we've already approved and -- and -- so I -- I don't know that we need a -- a full presentation on it. It's completely consistent with the others along the parkway that we've given approval to. MR. MILK: That's correct. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So unless there is someone who's '- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Let's see -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- gonna object -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: -- if we have public speakers on this item. MR. DORRILL: You do not. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: I'll close the public hearing. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve petition PUD-95-3. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Second. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? Being none -- COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: There's a 5-0. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Hey, we're back. Item #12C1 RESOLUTION 96-102 RE PETITION SNR-96-1, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES DIVISION REPRESENTING THE COLLIER COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS REQUESTING A STREET NAME CHANGE FROM MELROSE LANE TO MELROSE WAY LOCATED IN THE MELROSE GARDENS SUBDIVISION OF THE BERKSHIRE LAKES PUD - ADOPTED CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Another 5-0 -- we'll go to 12(C)(1). COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: This is a simple name change. Anything unusual, Mr. Reischl? MR. REISCHL: Fred Reischl, planning services. Melrose COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think it ought to be Melrose Place. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Melrose Place. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Somebody had to say it. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: If there's not any public speakers, Mr. Chairman, could we close the public hearing? CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Are there public speakers? MR. DORRILL: No, sir. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Close the public hearing. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Motion to approve -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: -- SNR-96-1. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Good job. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Good job, Mr. Reischl. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. And opposed? Item #12C3 BAR 96-1 APPROVING AMENDMENTS TO THE FISCAL YEAR 1995-96 ADOPTED BUDGET - ADOPTED Being none, item 12(C)(3), recommendation to adopt a resolution approving budget amendments. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm going to make a motion to approve since this is a reflection of nothing new. This is what we have -- COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Close the public hearing. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah, that too. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Do we have speakers on this item? MR. DORRILL: No, sir. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Motion to approve. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Close the public hearing. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll make a motion we approve. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? Item #12C5 ORDINANCE 96-6 PROVIDING FOR REGULATION OF WATER, BULK WATER, AND WASTEWATER UTILITIES WITHIN THE UNINCORPORATED AREA OF COLLIER COUNTY - ADOPTED AS AMENDED That brings us -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: God, you're good, Mike. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: That brings us to 12(C)(5) and the companions, 9(B) and C, Mr. Reischl. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Now we slow down. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: This is not yours, is it? I don't think this one's yours. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Unless you're talking about utility rights. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: You can have it if you like. Is anyone here on this one? I meant maybe somebody from our staff. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: 12(C)(5), going once. MR. WEIGEL: Are you ready for 12(C)(5)? I had letters coming from the right side there. 12(C)(5) is before you today. It's the rare occasion where we have actually double executive summaries in the -- in the agenda, but the one on top is the one to concentrate on, although they're -- they're both very similar. We've included in the executive summary the complete title of the ordinance which, of course, was advertised for today. 12(C)(5) is a 43-page ordinance which if the board takes certain other measures would become appropriate and effective for the board and, therefore, the county staff to become involved taking upon itself the regulation of water and waste water utilities in Collier County. And Tom Palmet who's worked long and hard and fast on this is here to address specific questions you may have. And also if -- if we may, we'd like to kind of prevent a -- provide, I should say, an overview of the ordinance and then appropriately the regulations which is agenda item 9(C) to be taken in companion fashion. So if I may, I'd have Tom come up and provide a little more depth than I'm just -- than I would give you myself. MR. PALHER: Afternoon, commissioners. For the record, Tom Palmet, assistant county attorney. As you know, we have here an ordinance that if adopted by the board would have the county assume all of the regulatory matters that are presently by the Public Service Commission over the water and waste water utilities in county with certain exceptions under chapter 403 which has to do with environmental matters. But all rate regulation matters, customer service, service availability, and those mat -- related matters would all become under the jurisdiction of the county. The ordinance is comprehensive, and it is supplemented by 111 pages of administrative regulations that fill in many of the details that are not in the ordinance itself. Both the ordinance and the regulations have many policy decisions in them. And they are -- there's a lot of latitude in the regulations and in the -- in this ordinance where the county can change things without legal restrictions. And what this is is a compilation of what staff believes to be the best of the best of several regulations from several counties and several ordinances as sort of a -- a menu. And there are a lot of choices in there. We have not had any comment from any of the utilities as to how they feel about many of these discretionary items. For example, the ordinance provides that no utility can have more than 80 percent of its capital contributed, and that requires that the utility have 20 percent of its own investment in its facilities. That is a policy matter. Some counties allow a utility to have up to 100 percent of contributed capital. In other words, the utility has none of its own capital at risk. And that figure could go anywhere from, say, or seventy or up to zero -- up to a hundred. That is one of the policy matters just as an example of the kind of things that are in this ordinance. Not having input from any of the utilities as to their attitude -- and I would think they would have a position on many of the items -- since we haven't had any comment, I do not know whether or not many of the policy decisions in this ordinance they would agree with or they would take issue with. And with that I could answer any questions you have on any of these documents. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Mr. Palmet, the -- the proposal here today is to set up a five-member authority; is that correct? MR. PALMER: Yes, sir. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: And they would -- they would handle the rate hearings and -- and other matters? MR. PALMER: Yes, sir. They would have final authority on most things. There are a few items that are reserved for the Board of County Commissioners. But most of the procedural and substantive issues would be decided by the utility authority and would be appealed if it -- if there was an issue directly to the courts under a -- permission for writ of certiorari. Very few items would come up to the board. However, there is a provision in this ordinance that allows the board to reach down into the authority not because they don't like the way a decision may be going but if they think there is something seriously wrong with a proceeding, and that is rare, but it is a possibility and their -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: So that safeguard is in here, though. MR. PALMER: That safeguard is in here. That's just -- that's an extraordinary provision under extraordinary circumstances, probably would never be exercised. But if this board should feel there is something seriously wrong with a proceeding as distinguished from feeling that it's not going the way a constituent may want it in the interim and so forth, that's not the purpose of it. It's -- once in a while a utility authority will be at odds philosophically with its board, and this would allow the board to correct such a problem if and when it arises. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Let me comment just for a second on the impetus for bringing this forward in the first place. We have, I believe, nine private utility companies in the county, and two of them are major, that being SSU on Marco Island and Florida Cities out in Golden Gate. The minor ones have not been a serious problem, but there have been citizen complaints and concerns with the two major utility companies dealing with the PSC. And -- and most of those complaints come from the remoteness and the unaccountability of the PSC. Ten years ago or eleven years ago it must be by now, we had this authority at the county level and transferred it to the PSC. And once you do that, it must remain in -- in that state for a ten-year period which has expired last summer I believe it was. MR. PALMER: April 16, yes, sir. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: And so the -- the feeling is that in order to give our citizens a better representation on their particular local cases that we would reassume that regulatory authority as the county and reestablish a utility authority. And for that purpose here we are today, and -- and I want to thank you folks for all the hard work that you've done to bring us to this point. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I -- I fully understand why the county did what it did in 1985 because they were attempting to purchase a number of utilities and build their own. But as someone who's been through the rate process three times, I was very anxious for 1995 to finally come about when we could take it back. I twice prior to being on the board, once since being on the board have worked with the Golden Gate community fighting this, and that's -- you're absolutely right. The frustration is I'm sure the Public Service Commission staff and their commissioners themselves do their very best, but they are dealing with water and sewer issues all over the state. They're dealing with telephone all over the state. They're dealing with electric issues all over the state. And when you deal with little Marco Island or little Golden Gate, Florida, tucked down here eight hours drive away, then it doesn't necessarily get the same scrutiny that I think it will when we have that authority at home. So very frustrating to have one public hearing here and if you want to participate in any other parts of the process, you had to go to Tallahassee. And so I think this will really -- by bringing it home, we'll be able to look closer. And I don't think we should mislead the public into thinking that there won't ever be utility rate hikes again because there will, but I think the process will be much fairer. And as a result, those increases will probably be less often and less steep. MR. PALMER: There's also the matter of the presently pending rate increase application of Southern States Utilities before the Public Service Commission. It's a major rate case. They're asking for major rate increases. That matter will stay with the Public Service Commission so that any rate increase that's given in this proceeding which may take up to maybe a year or longer, that decision will be made by the Public Service Commission irrespective of what this board does in regard to taking back jurisdiction. And as you all are well aware, there's a case proceeding in the First District Court of Appeals now regarding Southern States Utilities where the Public Service Commission has issued an order stating that they are a multi-county utility throughout the state of Florida. And if their order is sustained, this commission will not get regulatory jurisdiction over SSU. If that order is overturned, this county will get regulatory jurisdiction over SSU. Presently, if, in fact, the county passes this ordinance and adopts the so-called rescinding resolution, the county will get jurisdiction over SSU for matters other than the pending matters. Hernando County is in that position right now. They opted to take jurisdiction in March of 1995. They've got jurisdiction over SSU for all matters except those which are presently pending. And SSU has refused to pay Hernando County their regulatory fees because they're saying, well, we don't know who regulates us. And until such time as we find out, we're not paying Hernando County. So Hernando County is waiting to find out -- they've sued, but they have not recovered the regulatory fees. SSU is taking sort of an interpleader position. Well, we're not going to pay you, Hernando County, because we're paying the Public Service Commission, and we don't know what to do. So that's a -- that's an important consideration because SSU has such a huge rate base in which the factor of making the fees were concerned, if they are out of the picture and do not become the jurisdiction, there is a relatively small rate base on which to apply the regulatory fee percentage. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And we don't need to spend a lot of time on the SSU item but it's -- talk about not having accountability. If -- if they connect a number of different communities together in their rate requests, then we won't even have the one public hearing that we're allowed now in each individual location. We'll -- we won't have any public hearings on the issue -- COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Statewide hearing. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- in our community. You have to go -- if you want any participation, you'll have to go to Tallahassee. So it is certainly a disservice to the public and to the user of the system. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: That would be a major assault on our citizenry if that -- do we have public speakers? I assume we do. MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I've got some questions for Mr. Palmet if I -- if I could. MR. PALHER: Yes, ma'am. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: If -- if we pass this today and -- and it's got an implementation program that becomes effective when the resolution is passed? MR. PALHER: Yes, ma'am. That is the document that does one -- it merely advises the Public Service Commission that the county has taken jurisdiction, and they must abide by that. That is the document that implements both the ordinance and the regulations. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Have you heard anything from the utility department on their ability to implement this immediately if we were to pass the whole thing today? MR. PALHER: That's the problem, Commissioner, is that we do not have the apparatus in place to -- to handle applications should an application be presented to the county until such time as the utility authority is formulated and has a staff and -- and has the mechanisms to process applications. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: So if we were to pass the ordinance and the regulations today and delay the resolution until we could implement what the ordinance says, is it possible -- and what I want to try to avoid is other utilities getting their rate increase requests into the P -- PSC while we're in the process of implementing. I -- you know, how -- how can we deal with that because I don't want to put the burden on our staff to have to deal with the unknown tomorrow morning? But at the same time, I want to safeguard the residents and the rate payors that -- that the other eight of our private utilities won't go running into the PSC tomorrow morning as well. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Let me -- let me offer a response to that. I -- I think it's very important for the reason that you brought up for us to go ahead and adopt the resolution today so that there can't be a new application put into the PSC before we pass the resolution. The -- if -- if in the very near term an application for some function was -- was presented by one of our utility companies, we would not unduly delay that by the formation of our authority and its representative staff. So I personally would urge the board members to go ahead and -- and pass the resolution today, get it in place, notify the PSC so that we do head off the problem that you identified. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I understand that. I'm -- I'm just a little cautious also because these are -- at least two of these nine utilities are very large companies with legal staffs at -- at least as good as our own and -- and while -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: I don't know about that. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: -- we've got a very good legal staff -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: I wouldn't go that far. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Well, we have -- we have a very good legal staff. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a good staff. I wouldn't go so far as -- COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: And -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: -- to say that -- COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: And my -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: I'm sorry. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: My -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: I wouldn't go so far as saying their staff is as good as ours. I don't -- MR. WEIGEL: Well, there are more of them. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: There are more of them, and they can talk longer and maybe louder. But anyway, my -- my concern is that if we do adopt all three parts of this today and we can't provide the service, what -- what do we have to protect us or to tell these companies that yes, we can provide the service and in a reasonable period of time if the whole program isn't yet implemented? MR. PALHER: Well, that would depend on how long it takes to formulate the utility authority and get them in place. The ordinance also contemplates an executive director which could be a full-time or part-time position depending on the amount of work that's involved, and that's an unknown. That person would have to be hired to oversee the day-to-day proceedings, and it's a question just of the mechanics of how long it will take the board to appoint -- advertise for, get applications for, appoint the members to the authority, advertise for and employ an executive director -- COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: We could -- MR. PALHER: -- under the ordinance under its current format. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: We could appoint in that -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Let me ask Mr. Dorrill. Does 90 days sound reasonable, Mr. Dotrill, given all advertising constraints and all that? MR. DORRILL: I -- I would think that 90 days would be adequate. And if there's a problem, I'd come back to you probably within two weeks and let you know if I thought that was -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Okay. The -- that does not put any sort of undue hardship on any utility companyws application if wewre ready to roll within 90 days, so Iwm not concerned about that. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And also in -- in response to your concern is SSU has a case pending. Theywd be hard pressed to do concurrent requests. And, Bob, how long ago was it you guys did your most recent rate hike? I know. Mr. Dick from Florida Cities has indicated about six months ago, so Iwm not sure that a request is forthcoming in the next three months on that either. I realize some of the smaller utilities might, but I think the two big ones probably wonlt fall within that 90-day window. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I -- I just want -- Iim just looking at a word of caution that we not put something into play that isnlt yet ready to implement and have going full speed ahead tomorrow morning if itls asked to. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: I understand your concern. I think itls valid, but you gotta look at the greater danger. And I think the greater danger is to delay the -- the implementation or the -- the resolution and then have a series of rate cases thrown into the PSC because of that. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I understand. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: No matter how bad a job we do, it canlt get much worse, can it? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thatls right. Thatls absolutely right. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Public speakers, please, Mr. Dotrill. MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir. Mr. Twomey. Following Mr. Twomey, weill have Mr. Pettersen. MR. TWOMEY: Mr. Chairman, commissioners, Iim Mike Twomey. Iim from Tallahassee. Iim an attorney appearing on behalf of the Marco Island Fair Water Rate Defense Fund Committee, and Iill -- Iill be brief. I know youlye had a long day today with spay clinics and mangroves and so forth. I want to address a few points first. I think, Commissioner Matthews, you addressed a very real concern that was picked up by several of your fellow commissioners in terms of cases coming in, being filed if you didnlt get it done today. And I think thatls a real concern, and itls one you should be wary of. And I would urge you to go ahead and adopt the resolution today. I think as Commissioner Constantine pointed out, SSU is in now -- theylre going to be at the PSC for the next five, six, seven months at least. They canlt come in. In terms of filing applications which your rules require, that is, applications for franchise -- franchises here in Collier County, I think your rule says that they have up to 120, perhaps 180 days to do that. So if you adopt the resolution today, I think youill have plenty of time to get your executive director on board and get rolling before youill have any undue pressures on you. So I would urge you that you go ahead and adopt that now and be done with it and not get caught with other rate cases. I want to briefly just compliment your staff. Iive -- Iive been doing utility work for about the last 18 years. I know Mr. Palmet briefly from the Public Service Commission. This is an excellent job. I commend them for it. It's comprehensive. It's thorough. It's a good piece of work. I would like to presume just to suggest one change to you for your consideration. On page 28 addressing the regulatory fees, as I think you all know, there is -- currently the Public Service Commission hides a four and a half percent regulatory fee in your bills if you're served by one of their regulated utilities. The same is true of your telephone bills and for your power company bills if you have a -- a -- an investor-owned utility. As I read your rule, the staff suggests to you to go ahead and leave -- if I read it correctly, leave the four and a half percent in for the first quarter and then reduce it thereafter to -- I think it was two and a half percent. I would suggest to you that you consider leaving it at four and a half percent probably for the first calendar year and -- and accumulate some experience in terms of what it's gonna cost you to conduct this operation. If it's less than what the PSC is charging you right now which is my expectation and I think your staff's as well, then you'll accumulate a reserve. You'll have a rainy day fund. You'll have some experience for a year. And then if you see fit, you can -- you can take the credit for having a tax or fee reduction a year from now. My concern on the other hand would be if you -- if you precipitously reduce it after the first quarter and find that you have -- you incur legal expenses and rate case expenses and that kind of stuff, politically it's not gonna be the greatest thing if you have to come back in 12 months and raise it. So I would urge that to you. On the merits of this thing, commissioners collectively have said it all basically. You can't -- you couldn't do any worse than the Public Service Commission. I'm the fairly vocal critic of the Public Service Commission. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: We would have to try I think. MR. TWOHEY: I have -- I have been for a -- a long time. You people are local. Tallahassee where I live is at least 500 miles. It's a long ways away. You've been deprived of meaningful participation in these hearings. You can't go up there and watch what they're doing. They're distracted in this current SSU case with considering the rates and charges for 140 other systems aside from Marco Island. It's -- it is a -- it is a job that I maintain they can't undertake properly. And under the uniform statewide rate concept, they're pushing on your constituents at Marco Island. They make those people theoretically -- they want to make them responsible for the expenses of systems up in Washington County which is in the panhandle for those of you who don't know where it is, Amelia Island, and all around the rest of the state. It is just a bad system. You can't correct that now. We're finding it in this current rate case. But on a going-forward basis, I maintain that you folks wouldn't even consider that. So you're accountable. You're local. You're concerned. That right there is enough. And I've said enough. And if there are any questions, I'd be happy to try and entertain them. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thanks. MR. TWOHEY: Thank you very much. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Pettersen and then Dr. Biles. MR. PETTERSEN: Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Kjell Pettersen. I -- I represent 10,000 Marco Islanders who have directly or indirectly contributed to the fund which has provided us -- provided us with the strong opposition to the massive and unjustified rate increase sought by Southern State Utilities. I stood before this distinguished commission on September 12 of 1995 and asked you on behalf of your constituents on Marco Island and in Golden Gate to retake the regulatory jurisdiction over the privately owned water and waste water facilities in Collier County from the Public Service Commission. Later that day I returned to Marco Island and to announce to a jubilant gathering there that -- announce your unanimous decision to begin that process. Now three months later after hundreds of hours of outstanding research and legal work by -- by Tom Palmet and -- and -- and other members of the county attorney's office and outstanding administrative work by the county manager's office, we have I think comparable resolution and -- and ordinance that is before you. And in hope that it will be a -- a good day for the people of Golden Gate and the people on Marco Island, I would like to thank you, commissioners, in advance with great expectation for looking after our interest. And we hope to celebrate on Marco Island today. Thank you. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Pettersen, just so you know, you gave me a copy of that letter, your remarks that you made at that meeting. They're in my folder that I take to Florida Association of Counties board of directors' meetings. And every time we talk about the status of this case, I pull that letter out, and I set it on top because that has every reason everyone needs to know on why we should -- we should do what we're going to do today hopefully. MR. PETTERSEN: Thank you. I'm very -- very happy about that. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Thank you. MS. BILES: For the record, Fay Biles. I'm president of the Marco Island -- Marco Island Taxpayers' Association and also a member of the Fair Water Rate Defense Fund. We -- we have worked very hard on Marco Island, as I think you know, to gather the background on this before we would come and ask for you to retake the authority for the regulations. I must compliment both Mike and Kjell. Kjell has been instrumental in getting teams together on Marco Island. We sat down for several days, and we went through every single paper. And the boxes that came in were taller than I am. I'm five-two, and they were taller than I am. We discovered many, many things. And I think a lot of that is in -- is in the background. I'm not going to go over all of that. One of those things we did discover was that four and a half percent that's hidden in all of our bills. Also during the last rate hike, we were charged for 100 percent used and useful amount which is based on Marco's being 100 percent built out. Marco is now still only 45 percent built out. So all that money was overcharged. So many of us feel that not only do we want a rate decrease but we think we ought to be refunded the money that was charged that shouldn't have been charged. Marco Island serves as a cash cow for SSU and has. We account for 27 percent of all revenues. Marco Island's at the top of the list of the 140. I was gone, so I didn't get a lot of information to you. But I got back and heard we were going to have this today. But I did send to you through the mail -- you may not have -- even have seen it yet -- a list of all 140 of the systems. And if you'll notice, Marco Island is absolutely number 1, 26.70 percent of all revenues. So we're kind of a cash cow. And if the uniform rate would go in, it still means that probably we would be subsidizing almost the rest of the state. And Mike did say about going to Tallahassee in this next case. If there were uniform rates, we would have to go through 200,000 pieces of paper to go over everything that's going to happen. And I can't believe that the PSC could go over 200,000 pieces of paper to really come up with a fair and equitable background. So yes, our committee is vehement. We're so thrilled that it's come to this point. And we certainly hope you will grant us the authority and take it back. Thank you. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think each one of you received a copy of this letter but the -- Sherry Barnett, the president of the Golden Gate Civic Association, sent this in. I wanted to include it as part of the record. And that's just recording that the Golden Gate area civic association's board of directors voted unanimously to support this as well. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: That is all of the public speakers, so I'll close the public hearing. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Do we need three separate motions? CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Mr. Weigel, do -- do we -- MR. WEIGEL: Yes. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Do you want three separate motions on this item? MR. WEIGEL: You'll need three separate motions. In fact, what you'll be doing, the first motion -- I think the best order of things would be to adopt the -- adopt the ordinance first, and we have passed out a couple slight revisions that should be addressed within the motion for adoption of the ordinance if you will. And I would also state that the cautious approach advanced by Mr. Twomey in regard to page 28 on the fees is -- is a good point also. It's paragraph D. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Okay. Let's do that first. Let's take that -- the ordinance ordinance -- ordinance motion. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion we adopt the ordinance with corrections as outlined by our legal staff and with the correction -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: By Mr. Twomey? COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- by Mr. Twomey. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Second. MR. PALMER: That would be page -- line 40 on page 28, Mr. Twomey's recommendation. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Okay. Yes, that's the one. MR. WEIGEL: And for the record, I'll indicate as you prepare to continue there is that by the -- your action on all three measures today the ordinance and the effective date will reflect not merely the passage of the resolution, but it can be rewritten in the traditional style that we have that it is effective as of this date. The resolution will occur on its own. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Thank you for that. Did I hear a second? COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yes, you heard a second. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a motion and a second on the ordinance with amendments. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? Item #9B RESOLUTION 96-103 REGARDING SUPPLEMENTAL RULES FOR THE COLLIER COUNTY WATER AND WASTEWATER UTILITY REGULATORY ORDINANCE - ADOPTED And the next one -- COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: -- will be the resolution. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: The resolution? MR. WEIGEL: Well, a resolution for adoption of the regulations, and we have not included in the packet a resolution. We will draft one post haste upon the board's approval of the rules and regulations by your approving a resolution to adopt them. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion we assign staff the task of creating the appropriate resolution and adopt our -- MR. WEIGEL: Rules and regulations. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: And that we adopt it today? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. I was going to say -- no. And that we reserve the appropriate resolution number to accomplish that. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? Item #9C RESOLUTION 96-104 RESCINDING COLLIER COUNTY RESOLUTION 85-104, EXCLUDING COLLIER COUNTY FROM THE PROVISIONS OF CHAPTER 367, FLORIDA STATUTES, AND REMOVING JURISDICTION OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE COHMISSION OVER PRIVATE WATER AND WASTEWATER UTILITIES IN COLLIER COUNTY - ADOPTED And the third item is -- HR. WEIGEL: The third item would be -- COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: The resolution to take back. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: The rescinding resolution? MR. WEIGEL: -- the rescinding resolution which is agenda item 9(C). COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that we adopt the rescinding resolution. Is this the one that's pursuant to Florida Statute three sixty-seven one seventy-one? MR. WEIGEL: That's exactly right. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second the motion. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. And opposed? Does that do it, Mr. Weigel? MR. WEIGEL: That does it. I thank you very much. And I'll just indicate as I mentioned to a couple of the commission members is that with the additional authority being taken upon the county will mean additional responsibilities to both the county manager's staff and the county attorney's staff. We will endeavor to persevere. We'll do our best in that regard. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Thank you. Thank you for all the work on this item. That was very good. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do we need a motion to assure they do their best? CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: No, I don't think so. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: They always do their best. Item #12C6 ORDINANCE 96-7 AMENDING ORDINANCE 86-67 REGARDING CURTAILHENT OF SERVICE FOR UNPAID ACCOUNTS, DELETING 5/8" METERS, IMPOSING A LATE PAYMENT CHARGE, AND TO DISCONTINUE WATER & SEWER DEPOSITS - ADOPTED CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Our next item is 12(C)(6) which was the -- was misnumbered as 13(A)(4), adopt ordinance amending numbers eighty-six sixty-seven. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Is this to eliminate the water and sewer deposits and all those other fun things? CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Uh-huh. Is that that one? Is that going to take a little discussion? COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Oh, this is the one that stops the deposits. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah. MR. YONKOSKY: Mr. Chairman, commissioners, good afternoon. For the record, my name is John Yonkosky. Agenda item 12(A)(4) is a request to modify an existing ordinance, ordinance 86-67. Specifically the request is to modify four sections of that ordinance. The sections are -- I will briefly go over them. Section 3 of ordinance 86-67 is recommended to be modified to clarify language in the ordinance that deals with the ability of your staff to withhold and discontinue services under a new account if prior services have not been paid in full. Language currently exists there. This clarifies it for the -- as recommended by the county attorney's office. Number two, the modifications to section five of that ordinance deletes five-eighths inch water meters and imposes a late payment charge after 15 days of billing being rendered. The late payment has a 5 percent fee. And we calculated for the month of January it would have generated approximately $4,450 in the month of January if it had been in place. The current time frame is 30 days, and that -- because you have 31 billing cycles that are billed. If your current requirement is 30 days, sometimes cycles are billed 27, 28, and 29 days. The late payment fee is not imposed until the following month, and that does create a conflict. And this is a method of clarifying that by moving the time frame to 15 days in which the late payment could be imposed. And then finally section 7 which deals with water deposits and section 8 which deals with sewer deposits are requested to be modified by the board so that security deposits are no longer required for either water or sewer service. And I briefly will go over some of the points associated with the request for the board to modify so that sewer -- water and sewer deposits are no longer imposed. Prior to 1988 when the tenant-landlord act came into existence, this county by ordinance and by a prior special act allowed all tenants to have -- as well as landowners to have accounts. And that presented a problem for the county in that if a tenant moved, there was no recourse for the county to impose a lien for the water service or sewer service that was not paid for. In 1988 with the passage of the tenant-landlord legislation and a special act for -- that recreated the Collier County water and sewer district by the Florida legislature, two things happened: One is that the board at that time gave direction that there would be no more accounts established in the name of tenants. They would only be in the name of the real property owner; and number two, that liens could be placed -- statutory liens would be placed and would follow the title -- or the land itself. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: And that was when, Mr. Yonkosky? MR. YONKOSKY: In 1988. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: So that's been in place for quite some time. That's nothing new. MR. YONKOSKY: That's correct. Yes, sir. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Okay. Mr. Saadeh, do we have public speakers on this item? MR. SAADEH: No, sir, we don't. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: No public speakers on this item. MR. SAADEH: No public speakers. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: It was misnumbered. They may have registered under 13 -- COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A-4. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: -- A-4. Is there anybody that wants to speak on this issue? That being the case, we will close the public hearing. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion we approve amending ordinance number 86-67. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Second with thanks to Mr. Yonkosky. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I was going to second it, but I'd like one question. We're gonna -- how are we gonna refund it? Are we going to reduce monthly bills? MR. YONKOSKY: The -- the refunds will be applied as -- COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I read that in the paper. I just want to make sure. MR. YONKOSKY: And we will be processing them as a credit against the bill. Therefore, your actual cost in making this refund will be very, very small. And then the money from the refund or the deposit account will be transferred over into operating accounts, so that's basically the way that we'll process it. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: So after 17 years as a customer, I'm going to get my deposit back, Mr. Yonkosky? MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir, that's correct. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Isn't that something? Okay. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Those opposed? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's assuming you don't have a lien, Mr. Norris, for non-payment. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: No liens. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: 4-0. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: 4-0? Okay. Item #13A1 PETITION V-95-32, KEVIN P. GALLI REPRESENTING RANDY S. MINOTTI REQUESTING A 3.75 FOOT VARIANCE FROM THE REQUIRED SIDE YARD SETBACK OF 13.75 FEET TO 10 FEET AND A 5 FOOT VAIANCE FROM THE REQUIRED 10 FOOT LANDSCAPE BUFFER TO 5 FEET ALONG THE SIDE YARD ADJACENT TO THE PARKING AREA FOR PROPERTY KNOWN AS LOT 51, BLOCK 6, NAPLES PARK UNIT 1 - DENIED Our next item is 13(A)(1), V-95-32. Mr. Reischl, is this something that we caused? This is -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: This is to be built. MR. REISCHL: In the 1950s it was caused by platting. This is the variance for -- COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: This is Naples Park. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And I was not in office then I just want everyone to know. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Tim and I weren't in the womb then. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's true. MR. REISCHL: It was not necessarily a cause. This is a petition for -- Fred Reischl, planning services. This is a petition for a variance request on a 50-foot-wide Naples Park lot. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Fred, I'm gonna -- I'm gonna kind of go through your presentation here by asking questions that are important. We can probably get them taken care of. What use is anticipated for the property? MR. REISCHL: Medical office. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Medical office, okay. So the building square footage is -- they're trying to get building square footage. It has a parking generation, thus the need for some of the variances. MR. REISCHL: Correct, the 3.75-foot side yard variance for the building. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: They could just reduce the building size. MR. REISCHL: They could. The minimum building size in a C-3 district is 700 square feet. So they could fit a code-size building there. However, they're requesting 1,170-square-foot building. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What's the hardship? MR. REISCHL: The hardship would be on the parking lot spot where there's a 24-foot requirement for the 2-way drive aisle, minimum of 16-foot parking width, and 10 feet on each landscape buffer. Therefore, for the safety purposes of cars pulling in and out, he's requesting reduction from ten feet to five feet for each landscape buffer. In that there is a hardship. In the -- for the building itself, there is no land-related hardship. However, the petitioner is relying on the reasonable use of the property in the -- as one of the conditions for a variance. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is it safe to assume that if he went with a 700-square-foot building, that would legally be allowed on there without -- MR. REISCHL: Yes, or even -- even 900-square-foot building. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm not done with my question yet. Is it safe to assume if he were to go with the 700-square-foot building that is legally allowed on there, he would need less in the way of parking so the parking hardship would be relieved as well? MR. REISCHL: No. The parking hardship wouldn't because that is the -- across the width. Even if you only had one parking spot on there, he would need that landscape variance to put even one parking space aligned this way. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is there another way to align it if you have a smaller building? MR. REISCHL: Even with a 700-square-foot building, you'd still have a minimum parking requirement of four spots. And that would not fit across this way. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: The problem is in our code we require a 24-foot aisle whether you have parking on one side or both. And the problem is that 24-foot aisle when it was originally determined made the assumption of double loading with parking. MR. REISCHL: Exactly. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In truth, in reality, you can have less than a 24-foot aisle adjacent to single-loaded parking and have safe operation. So, you know, if the question's whether or not to reduce a buffer and allow a 24-foot paved aisle or have a 19-foot paved aisle and a full buffer, I'd rather give the variance on the aisle than on the buffer. You know, I know transportation would probably have a cow at that. But, you know, there is a problem in -- in the parking here. I don't have my -- unfortunately, I'm a planner without a scale, so I'm lost but -- COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Why do we require 24 feet then? MR. REISCHL: It's ten-foot buffer on each side if you understand me correctly. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Oh. So -- MR. REISCHL: Each side would need ten feet. He's asking for a reduction to five on each side. So code requirements require 60 feet of improvements across a 50-foot lot. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: So he's only got 30 feet of development width on the property according to the buffers alone. MR. REISCHL: Correct. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: He can only get three spaces if he pulled in front ways that way. MR. REISCHL: Exactly. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Going back to my question before, if you had a 700-square-foot building, you'd need 4 parking spaces. If you had two parallel spaces instead of front in, front out, front in, back out spaces the way they're designed on there, would those four fit on there? Just to scale in my mind as I picture that, it appears they would fit and still meet the code. MR. REISCHL: You mean have two here and then two -- COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Two parking north-south as opposed to east-west. Right there it appears the car would be facing east-west. MR. REISCHL: The code would still require the 20-foot-wide drive aisle opposite the ones that are oriented east-west, so that would -- that would relieve it in part of the area but not in those areas where he would have to have the parking spots oriented east-west. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It really appears to me you could somehow fit four parking spaces in there and still meet that requirement. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Parallel you can only get three. They require 10-by-20 pockets. I see what you're saying. I'm trying to see how that fits. You can get three. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One by the building? COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: If you make the building smaller, yeah. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: He's only got 30 feet. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: This -- this parcel is 50 feet wide. So if you're gonna put a commercial use on it, you know, you need to have a use that doesn't generate -- medical's one of the higher generators of parking as far as commercial uses; is that correct? MR. REISCHL: Somewhat higher. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: You know, if you had, you know, a sewing shop here or some regular retail, it's 1 per 250 which at 700 square feet is 3 spaces. So, you know, this isn't a land hardship. This is an intensity hardship. MR. REISCHL: And the planning commission did look at that as you saw from the executive summary. They recommended approval five to two. The two dissenting votes were based on the fact that this was not a land-related hardship. The five votes in favor were based on the fact that the variance criteria also calls for a reasonable use of the land. So the planning commission weighed those two and voted in favor of the reasonable -- what they considered a reasonable use. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I see what Commissioner Constantine is saying is you can get the minimum square footage on site in C-3 district in C-3 zoning and provide the necessary parking to meet that if it were a different use other than medical. So in my opinion I have to agree with you if -- if -- if that's where you're heading that this is not a land-related hardship. This is trying to put a use on a piece of property that in order to do it you've gotta get at least two -- well, in this case really three variances, both side yard for buffer and one side yard for building -- two side yard for building actually. So I think it's -- used it before and got in trouble but, you know, ten pounds in a five-pound bag. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Do -- do we have public speakers on this item? MR. SAADEH: No, sir, we don't. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm gonna make a -- a motion -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Well, let's close the public hearing first. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, after you do that -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: After I close the public hearing? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- I'm going to make a motion to deny. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm gonna second that and -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Deny? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Deny the variance. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I appreciate the -- the effort of what they want to do here, but I think you're right. It is trying to put a specific use. It's not a true land-related hardship, and so we're hard pressed. We don't have any legal reason in order to approve it. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I would like to see medical office in there, but you just can't do 1,170 square feet of it on that site. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a motion and a second to deny. All those in favor signify by saying aye. And opposed? Item #13A2 RESOLUTION 96-105 CORRECTING A SCRIVENER'S ERROR IN THE LEGAL DESCRIPTION OF A CONDITIONAL USE FOR ESSENTIAL SERVICES FOR THE EXPANSION OF EXISTING WATER TREATMENT FACILITIES LOCATED AT 1020 SANITARY ROAD IN IHMOKALEE - ADOPTED Being none, we'll move to 13(A)(2). COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: This is just a scrivener's error. MR. REISCHL: Yes. If you -- Fred Reischl, planning services. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If you close the public hearing, I'll make a motion to approve. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Close the public hearing. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I make a motion we approve 13(A)(2). COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Motion and a second to pass the resolution correcting scrivener's error. All those in favor signify by saying aye. And opposed? Item #13A3 RESOLUTION 96-106 RE PETITION NUC-96-1, BRIAN HOWELL REPRESENTING BILL RICIGLIANO REQUESEING A NON-CONFORMING USE CHANGE FROM COHMERCIAL RETAIL TO AN INDOOR 18 HOLE GOLF COURSE WITH ACCESSORY DINING FACILITIES, PRO SHOP, AND FUTURE OUTDOOR PITCH AND PUTT AREA ON PROPERTY LOCATED AT 6800 GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY - ADOPTED Being none, 13(A)(3), Hr. Howell. Is Hr. Howell here? This is petition NUC-96-1. MR. HULHERE: Good afternoon. For the record, Bob Hulhere, current planning manager. This is a request for a non-conforming use change. I'll step over to the map and give you a brief description. I think most of you are probably familiar with this -- I think most of you are probably familiar with this site located along Golden Gate Parkway. To the north past Golden Gate Parkway is single-family estate zoned lots. This whole area is zoned E estates. To the west is a vacant five-acre tract. And immediately or across 68th Street Southwest is a vacant two and a half-acre tract. And just further to the east -- excuse me, to the east is the Naples Skatery. To the south is a 2.7 acre-tract with a single-family home right here. And the subject tract is located south of Golden Gate Parkway. There is a pretty substantial amount of history behind this; therefore, your fairly lengthy summary. I apologize, but I did want to get all of that background information to you. The -- the applicant is -- is seeking to request permission to put in an 18-hole indoor putting course, not really -- not a miniature golf course but a professional putting course with ancillary dining facilities and with the potential future of a pitch and putt green area outside. A little bit of history on the project -- on the property, the property consists of 3 acres and contains a 28,000-square-foot structure. Most recently there was a request in to allow the Naples skating club, skateboard club, to use the property. The existing structure was originally constructed in 1974, and the property was zoned C-2. And it was issued a certificate of occupancy for a shopping center in 1975. However, the property was rezoned from C-2 to E estates as part of a countywide fezone with the adoption of 1974 zoning ordinance. Over the years since that time, property has had various non-conforming uses including the shopping center and a furniture store, video arcade. And the most recent use was kind of a flea market, hence the name mini mall. As I said, the property is currently zoned E estates. The only permitted use is a single-family home in the E estates district. In 1992 there was a request for a bowling alley which was approved by the board at that time. However, that -- that project never commenced. And staff was of the opinion that, therefore, the property would have to -- could only be used for the E estates single-family permitted use. However, there was an appeal to that brought to the board. And that appeal was upheld by the board in that the property owner did have the right to come back to you for a non-conforming use change, and that's why we're here today. Let's see. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Do we have questions for the staff on this item? COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Yes. Mr. Mulhere, if I may while you're looking at that -- MR. MULHERE: Sure. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- other than losing a great Elvis impersonator and a wonderful lunch sandwich, this used to be Gary and Fay's Nostalgic Cafe. So we've seen uses there since nineteen eighty whatever it was that have been commercial in nature. My two questions are, one, with this approval today, would the petitioner be required to bring the entire site up to landscape code, current landscape code? MR. MULHERE: Yes. The petitioner's going to be required to go through -- through the SDP process. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. MR. MULHERE: As part of that, I've -- I've attached some specific conditions to the -- to the resolution of adoption. We're going to have them entirely redesign the parking area including a right in only with an exit out to 68th Street so that -- so that exiting traffic can utilize the existing median cut to go east or west. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Uh-huh. MR. MULHERE: The plan that's in your packet shows, I think, 50 some odd spaces. However, my calculations indicate that more parking will be required for that use, and we're going to -- COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: That was my -- MR. MULHERE: -- resolve that issue during the SDP process, I believe closer to 90 parking spaces. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: That was my -- that was my next question was I was looking at this. And in order to make it happen, they'd have to use the existing parking area which does not have the required buffer between it and the right-of-way and so forth and so So that will be answered during SDP. But I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't a back door due to a possible continuing non-conformity that would exempt them from bringing this up to speed because one of my biggest problems is this thing's an eyesore, and it's sitting in limbo right now. And anything we can do to, you know, improve it I think is great. But I want to make sure that the applicant is -- is bound to those improvements per current Land Development Code and it's not grandfathered on those areas at all. MR. MULHERE: And, in fact, we've -- we've -- those stipulations require a 25-foot landscape buffer where the property being used for commercial purposes abuts existing estate zoned properties and except where the structure -- the structure's very close to the property line -- COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Right. MR. MULHERE: -- on the one side. We're not asking them to remove the structure but -- the other issues are that -- I have some pictures if you'd like to take a look at them. The -- the building is really in a pretty significant state of disrepair. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: And that's after work has been done. MR. MULHERE: And we did an inspection I believe in December with the fire marshal from East Naples and county's building -- chief building inspector and electrical inspector. And based on that inspection, we've put some stipulations in that the building be brought up to code in terms of meeting the fire code and any applicable building code restrictions in terms of public health, safety, and welfare. The applicant is aware of that and -- and agrees to -- to do that. There is one outstanding issue, and that is that the building's been vacant for five years. And as your executive summary indicates, one of the probably principle reasons why the property owner has been unable to either sell or lease the property I believe deals with the fact that as a non-conforming use -- first of all, the property requires a substantial expenditure of capital in order to bring it up to code. And yet still as a non-conforming use, if the structure's destroyed for any means, it cannot be rebuilt under current code. And the only way to resolve that issue is through a comprehensive plan amendment to allow for some zoning on the property that will allow the proposed use, whether it's C-3 or whether it's some other appropriate zoning district. So, you know, I've made the applicant aware -- aware of that. And -- and that's something I think the board has to consider. Our recommendation is for approval of the non-conforming use changes. I -- I also want to note that we notified all property owners within 300 feet as well as posting the property as well as the newspaper advertisement. I received no phone calls, no letters. I assume that -- this is an assumption on my part -- but that the neighbors would like to see some significant improvements at least on this building which the applicant, you know, is committed to. That ends my presentation if you have any questions. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Public speakers? MR. SAADEH: Yes, Mr. Chairman. There is Mr. Garland Edmonson, one public speaker. MR. MCVICAR: For the record, I'm Kevin McVicar from Gulf Coast Design Associates. We're the firm working with the county on this project. We agree completely with the staff's recommendations. Our applicant had no problem increasing landscape buffers and bringing the whole property up to current codes. One question we do have is what avenues you would suggest that we take to bring this into the comp. plan so that in case there is a destructive fire or whatever this may be rebuilt. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: I don't think this board's gonna advise you on that -- that matter. I think you're gonna have to get advice elsewhere on that particular matter. MR. MCVICAR: Okay. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman, I have one question of Mr. Mulhere. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Sure. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: This area down here, what is it? I can't read it. MR. MULHERE: It is a existing cypress or wetland which is -- COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Slough. MR. MULHERE: Slough, which is jurisdictional. COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Oh, okay. S-1 -- okay. S-l-u-e (sic). MR. MULHERE: And -- and, in fact, that's why I put a stipulation in the resolution that said existing vegetation could count towards a screen or buffering as long as it -- it achieved an opacity. I -- I neglected to mention that I've also required a six-foot high architecturally finished either masonry or wood wall with the finished side facing out to protect those adjacent residential properties. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Mr. Edmonson. MR. EDHONSON: Thank you. Good afternoon. My name for the record is Garland Edmonson, and I want to thank the commissioners who responded to my letter that I hand carried and delivered to the board of commissioners and a recent hand delivered response from Commissioner Constantine who alluded to some information that I was not aware of that I certainly appreciate. I wanted to come and speak before the commissioners today just -- just to put on the record some of the things that transpired during my association with Mr. Elhannen Combs and the Golden Gate mini mall. I personally have no opposition to what's going on or what's transpiring with the -- the -- the indoor putting golf range or whatever you want to call it. In fact, as I operated the skating club out of that building in the state of disrepair that it was in, a number of the local residents came to me and were excited the fact that it was being used and that perhaps something positive was going to happen there. So I applaud this particular effort, and obviously there's going to be some success there because I nor the skateboard club have the resources to do what these particular folks are going to do. However, during our interim of being in that site and trying to do something to that building or create the interest in that building, certain promises were made by the owner to myself and the club in the event what has happened should occur. And what I would like to ask is perhaps that the commissioners take into consideration those things I alluded to in the letters, even some of the things that I alluded to in error but even though I brought those particular points up simply because, as stated earlier, we operated in good faith. As you know, I was supposed to come before the board on January the 9th to ask for a non-use permit request, and that didn't happen because a letter did not come forward saying Mr. Edmonson has my approval or right to do so, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so basically what I want to say which I already said was that we had -- the Skateboard Club of Naples, we -- we do have a history in there. And I just want some satisfaction from the owner saying that I at least appreciate what you've done. You created the interest, and you forced the people who have come to me before to accelerate their timeline and we want to compensate you and your club so that you'll have someplace to have some type of indoor skating facility. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Thank you. Is that the only public speaker? MR. SAADEH: Yes, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We'll close the public hearing. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, motion to approve the item. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? Being none, that passes. Item #13B1 RESOLUTION 96-107 RE PETITION CU-94-17, GEORGE VARNADOE OF YOUNG, VAN ASSENDERP AND VARNADOE, P.A., REPRESENTING COLLIER COUNTY HOUSING AUTHORITY LAND ACQUISITION NEW DEVELOPMENT, INC., REQUESTING AN EXTENSION OF CONDITIONAL USES FOR CHILD CARE AND CjustER HOUSING THAT HAS PREVIOUSLY RECEIVED CONDITIONAL USE APPROVAL FOR PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE SOUHWEST CORNER OF BAYSHORE DRIVE AND THOMASSON DRIVE - ADOPTED AS AMENDED And that brings us down to the last item of the day, petition CU-94-17. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: This is a one-year extension on a conditional use? Is that what this is? CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: That's what it is. MR. WEIGEL: Mr. Chairman, as -- as Mr. Bellows comes forward on this, I'd mention -- and you have in your pass-out agenda revisions from this morning -- that there was an incorrect legal description noted on this. And that description -- that description was in the context of the executive summary or in the title of the executive summary and the title of the agenda item and the agenda packet. Thanks, Ray. It -- it mentioned the subject matter of conditional use, but it identified an area which is all together different than the area that's actually under consideration. So just so the record is clear in this regard, this is not an advertised item. It is a proposed extension of a conditional use. And it really should receive no different consideration by virtue of the correction that's being provided on the floor in the record at this point in time than any add-on agenda item would. So it can go forward with full propriety. The second item to keep in mind as you -- as you look at this -- and I'm going to be speaking longer than the item is I think -- is the fact that this is an un -- a non-advertised item that comes under the board of zoning appeals. And Mr. Varnadoe on behalf of the petitioner had made the request in writing that this be placed on the consent agenda. And the question came to our office, and I opined that it could not because at least up to this point as a policy matter a -- board of zoning appeals matters have not appeared on the consent agenda. This does not require a super majority vote. Again, it's not advertised. So if the board in the future wished to change their policy concerning extensions of conditional uses that may appear in the consent agenda subject to be moved to the regular agenda as any consent agenda item could be, the county attorney, the manager's office, of course, would -- would work to see that that's -- that that's accomplished. That's my statement. Thanks. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Just as one board member I'll -- I'll let my opinion in on this one is that even though these are 99 percent of the time routine matters, a conditional use requires a super majority for the simple reason that they're usually some sort of neighborhood concerns attached to them. And so, therefore, I feel the extensions of those conditional uses should come to the board even though we're going to probably look at them and pass them very quickly. That's my opinion. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I agree. It's a minimal inconvenience for the board or for the petitioner. Just a quick question, on the existing conditional use, nothing of any substance has changed? MR. BELLOWS: Nothing has changed. Thatws correct. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Theylre asking for something the boardls already approved. MR. BELLOWS: Thatls correct. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Itls just an extension thereof. MR. BELLOWS: Yes. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman, if youill close the public hearing, Iid like to make a motion. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Public hearing is -- is so closed unless Mr. Varnadoe is insisting on speaking. MR. VARNADOE: No, sir. COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman, Iid like to make a motion that we approve petition CU-94-17. COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: Second. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Question, Mr. Bellows. The child care center and the residential, can one be developed without the other? In other words, can the child care center be developed? MR. BELLOWS: We had no provision for one being developed without the other. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Oh, okay. That was the approval in 194. Okay. Nevermind. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. And opposed? There are none. MR. BELLOWS: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: That concludes our regular agenda. Welre down to communications. Item #14A MEMO RE PARTIAL YEAR AD VALOREH - TO BE PROVIDED BY COHM. MATTHEWS Commissioner Matthews? COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yeah, I have one item. Some time today or possibly tomorrow in your mailbox you'll have a memo that is a memo regarding the partial year ad valorem meeting I went to last Friday with -- to provide information to you on where that's going. If you have questions, I'll be glad to try to answer them after you read the memo. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Sounds like you've got a career issue going there, Commissioner Matthews. COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Partial year ad valorem? Well, it's been 17 or 20 years now, hasn't it? I mean, it is a career. Item #14B PACIFIC LAND CO. UPDATE - COHM. HANCOCK TO PROVIDE FURTHER INFORMATION CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Commissioner Hancock? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Just quickly, you have all received a memo from me on what may be a possible solution to the situation going on with the Pacific Land Company. Before asking for any board action or direction, there are a lot more questions I need answered. I thought it was important to at least set a direction before you that I was looking at. And if it works out, I'll -- I'll be back. If it doesn't, I won't. But I just wanted to let you know where I was heading with it, and I'll be working with our staff to try and get all the questions answered to see if -- if we can make that happen. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Well, thank you for bringing that forward. It seems like a very reasonable proposal. Commissioner Mac'Kie? COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nothing. Item #14C PELICAN BAY ANNEXATION - COUNTY MANAGER TO CONTACT CITY MANAGER RE PUBLIC HEARINGS CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Commissioner Constantine? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's come to my attention that -- as to all of our attention that the city is once again encouraging Pelican Bay to annex. I think they're holding a series of three meetings. Last time around on this issue we dispensed Mr. Dotrill to at least provide factual information. While we didn't take a stance, we thought it was important to make sure that information was provided from the county in a clear and concise manner. I thought it might be appropriate that we ask him to at least be in contact with Dr. Woodruff and -- and be aware of when those public hearings are going on and at least be there to answer any questions or have someone from his staff there. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I like that idea. Unfortunately, sometimes generalizations are made regarding what the county does or doesn't provide the residents of Pelican Bay that may not be true. And since Pelican Bay is being courted, I think our presence at a minimum would be a good idea. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's all. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Or shall I say the tax base in Pelican Bay is being courted. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Speaking of the city, it's my understanding that they've in -- excluded county residents from softball games at Fleishmann Park; is that correct? Does anyone know that? COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I had -- I had heard talk of it but I don't know that it -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd say this commission challenges that council to a game. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: We -- we could either do that, or we could simply remind them that the public library is county-owned property. Perhaps that would suffice. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: All I know is what I read in the paper about that. But it was a little disturbing that they eliminated the softball program because it was dominated by county residents and not city residents to free it up for little league, and I just think that's kind of a territorial move that probably isn't in the best interests of the community. Item #15 STAFF'S COMMUNICATIONS - COUNTY MANAGER TO PRESENT ITEM ON 3/5/96 REGARDING WAIVER OF EMS FEES FOR THE NUVEEN MASTERS TENNIS TOURNAMENT CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Mr. Saadeh, anything from the county manager's office? MR. SAADEH: Just the -- that the EMS will be providing services to the Nuveen tennis tournament, and I think this -- this board had taken action before on this issue. If not, Mr. Dorrill will present this to you next week. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: After -- after the tournament. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: After the tournament? MR. SAADEH: I believe this is covered in a previous -- CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: I believe it -- I believe you're correct. Mr. Weigel, you've been busy today. Do you have anything else? MR. WEIGEL: No. Thank you. CHAIRPERSON NORRIS: Miss Filson? MS. FILSON: I have nothing. ***** Commissioner moved, seconded by Commissioner, and carried unanimously, that the following items under the consent agenda be approved and/or adopted: ***** Item #16A1 FINAL PLAT OF "VILLAGE WALK PHASE FOUR" - WITH STIPULATIONS AND LETTER OF CREDIT See Pages Item #16A2 FINAL PLAT OF "HILLER INDUSTRIAL PARK" - Item #16A3 FINAL PLAT OF "REPLAT OF TRACT 93" Item #16A4 ACCEPT WATER FACILITIES FOR CARRINGTON AT STONEBRIDGE, TRACTS E AND F - WITH STIPULATIONS O.R. Book Page Item #16A5 FINAL PLAT OF "CANDLEWOOD TWO" - WITH STIPULATIONS, LETTER OF CREDIT AND CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT See Pages Item #16A6 ACCEPT WATER AND SEWER FACILITIES FOR CHASE PRESERVE AT LELY RESORT, PHASE I-A - WITH STIPULATIONS O.R. Book Page Item #16B1 AMENDMENT NO. 1 TO WORK ORDER HHA 95-2 WITH HOLE, HONTES AND ASSOCIATES, INC., FOR ENGINEERING SERVICES RELATED TO THE REDUNDANT TELEHETRY SYSTEM FOR THE WATER DEPARTMENT See Pages Item #1682 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENT RELATED TO THE RECLAIMED WATER TRANSMISSION MAIN FROM QUAIL CREEK TO THE NORTH COUNTY REGIONAL WATER PLANT, RFP NO. 95-2449 See Pages Item #1683 CHANGE ORDER NO. 6 RELATED TO THE NORTH COUNTY REGIONAL WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT EXPANSION See Pages Item #1684 STIPULATED ORDER FOR RIGHT-OR-WAY ACQUISITION CASE NUMBER 92-2079-CA-01-TB FOR THE WESTCLOX ROAD IMPROVEMENT PROJECT Item #1685 MODIFICATION TO THE LANDFILL OPERATING AGREEMENT BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND WASTE MANAGEMENT INC. OF FLORIDA RE CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION DEBRIS PROCESSING See Pages Item #1686 UTILITIES LIFT STATION EASEMENT AGREEMENT TO PURCHASE AN EASEMENT FOR THE INSTALLATION OF A LIFT STATION IN THE ROYAL COVE SUBDIVISION - WITH STIPULATIONS See Pages Item #1687 RESOLUTION 96-91 RE PETITION AV-96-002, JEFFREY NUNNER AS AGENT FOR OWNER, VINEYARDS DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, REQUESTING VACATION OF AN ODD SHAPED DRAINAGE EASEMENT LOCATED ON A PORTION OF LOTS 1 AND 2 AND 5 FEET OF A 25 FOOT UTILITY EASEMENT LOCATED ON LOT 15, ON THE PLAT OF OAK COLONY AT VINEYARDS, AS RECORDED IN PLAT BOOK 25, PAGES 67 - 68, OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS OF COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA See Pages Item #1688 - This item has been deleted Item #1689 - This item has been deleted Item #16B10 REPORT OF COMPLETED GAC ROAD IMPROVEMENTS IN FY1994-95 AND RECOHMENDATION OF GAC PROGRAM FOR FY1995-96 Item #16Bll moved to Item #884 Item #16B12 CHANGE ORDER NO. 5 IN THE AMOUNT OF $2,799.00 FOR BID NO. 95-2328 FOR COUNTY-WIDE DITCH BANK CLEARING PROJECT - ADDITION TO PHASE IV CONTRACT WITH MONROE TREE SERVICE See Pages Item #16B13 RESOLUTION 96-92 RE REVOCABLE TEMPORARY LICENSE BY FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT COMPANY FOR SUGDEN REGIONAL PARK See Pages Item #16B14 AWARD BID #95-2468, "NAPLES LANDFILL LEACHATE FORCEMAIN", TO DOUGLAS N. HIGGINS, INC., IN THE AMOUNT $263,885.00, AND RECEIVE REIMBURSEMENTS FROM PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BENEFICIARIES OF THE PROJECT - WITH STIPULATIONS Item #16C1 AWARD BID NO. 96-2472 TO WAL-HART PHARMACY FOR THE SOCIAL SERVICES PRESCRIPTION DRUG PROGRAM Item #16D1 AMENDMENT TO THE ENERGY MANAGEMENT BUILDING AUTOMATION CONTRACT See Pages Item #16D2 INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE BOARDS OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS AS IT RELATES TO THE SOUTHWEST FLORIDA JOB TRAINING CONSORTIUH See Pages Item #16D3 BID #96-2469 AWARDED TO VARIOUS CONTRACTORS AS LISTED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR AIR CONDITIONING SERVICES Item #16D4 RESOLUTION 96-93 RE SATISFACTION OF LIENS FOR CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL ACCOUNTS WHEREIN THE COUNTY HAS RECEIVED PAYMENT AND SAID LIENS ARE SATISFIED IN FULL FOR THE 1991 SOLID WASTE COLLECTION AND DISPOSAL SERVICES SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS See Pages Item #16D5 RESOLUTION 96-94 RE SATISFACTION OF LIENS FOR CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL ACCOUNTS WHEREIN THE COUNTY HAS RECEIVED PAYMENT AND SAID LIENS ARE SATISFIED IN FULL FOR THE 1992 SOLID WASTE COLLECTION AND DISPOSAL SERVICES SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS See Pages Item #16D6 RESOLUTION 96-95 RE SATISFACTION OF LIENS FOR CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL ACCOUNTS WHEREIN THE COUNTY HAS RECEIVED PAYMENT AND SAID LIENS ARE SATISFIED IN FULL FOR THE 1993 SOLID WASTE COLLECTION AND DISPOSAL SERVICES SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS See Pages Item #16El BUDGET AMENDMENTS 96-255 AND 96-258 Item #16E2 RESOLUTION 96-96 AUTHORIZING FUNDS FOR THE MARCH OF DIMES WALKAMERICA ACTIVITIES See Pages Item #16G1 CERTIFICATES OF CORRECTION TO THE TAX ROLLS AS PRESENTED BY THE PROPERTY APPRAISER'S OFFICE 1995 TANGIBLE PERSONAL PROPERTY NO. DATE 1995-57 2/13/96 Item #1662 MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE - FILED AND/OR REFERRED The following miscellaneous correspondence as presented by the Board of County Commissioners has been directed to the various departments as indicated: Item #1611 ACCEPTANCE OF THIRTY FEET (30') OF RIGHT-OF-WAY FOR FIRST AVENUE S.W., GOLDEN GATE ESTATES See Pages There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 2:50 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL JOHN C. NORRIS, 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: Catherine Hoffman and Shelly Semmler