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BCC Minutes 01/28/1997 W (Economic Diversification Program)WORKSHOP MEETING OF JANUARY 28, 1997 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 3:24 p.m. in SPECIAL SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: VICE-CHAIRPERSON: Timothy L. Hancock Barbara Berry John C. Norris Timothy J. Constantine Pamela S. Hac'Kie WORKSHOP ON ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION PROGRAM, PHASE II PRESENTED BY COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISORS - DIRECTION GIVEN TO PLACE ITEM ON REGULAR AGENDA CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We'll turn around and open the workshop. Okay. The workshop would be Economic Diversification Program, Phase II, presented by the Council of Economic Advisors. Okay. There's a need to set some things up; so let's take a five-minute recess. We'll reconvene the workshop five minutes from now. (A short break was held.) CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: If everyone will go ahead and have a seat, let's reconvene the workshop. If I could ask for your indulgence to terminate your conversation so that we can go ahead and get moving. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I like doing that. It seems to get people's attention. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Folks, the -- this is -- thanks to our Council of Economic Advisors and the EDC for putting this together. I'll go ahead and tell you again that -- that Susan promised me 30 minutes or less; so I'm going to hold you to her commitment. MR. LOSKILL: You should have talked to me. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Why don't we go ahead and get started. MR. LOSKILL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the commission. I'd like to take this opportunity to very briefly just introduce the members -- some of the members -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Excuse me, Jim. I'm sorry. We need your name for the record for the court reporter. MR. LOSKILL: Jim Loskill. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you. MR. LOSKILL: Members of the Council of Economic Advisors who have labored for over 2 1/2 years to produce this economic policy for the board: Tom Walsh, Mike Cart, Jim Carter, Henry Tribble, Michael Simonik, and Larry Fox (phonetic). Is that it? -- thank you very much. Again, after some 2 1/2 years of effort and some 2500 hours, the Council of Economic Advisors is very pleased to present for your consideration the Economic Diversity Program of Collier County to the board. Economic diversification is really tax relief for residential property owners. The cornerstone of this economic policy is the maintenance of our quality of life while enhancing our property values. We're seeking your support and your commitment, and we hope after the appropriate reflection, that we will -- that you will pass a resolution that will be drafted by county staff indicating that support. And at this time it's my privilege to introduce Steve Kelly (phonetic), who worked with us as a consultant from Florida Planning Group, who will take you through a -- a brief and -- slide presentation, after which there'll be an opportunity for Q and A. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you. MR. LOSKILL: Thank you. MR. KELLY: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the board. My name is Steven Kelly, and I'm one of the partners of Florida Planning Group. We were the consultant hired to provide technical assistance to your advisory committee. And I think that just to start -- just to start things off, I -- from our own part, we'd like to thank all the members because I think Mr. Loskill was -- was less than -- than candid about how much time and effort the local committee put into this effort. We consider it every much their plan as it is our plan, which the best plans come out of that kind of cooperation. And I've worked with committees for the last -- over the last 20 years, and this one's put in more time and effort than any that I've ever seen, and they certainly should be commended over it. We're here to talk about the economic diversification program. I'm going to move it quickly following the chairman's advice. I've noticed today that it's always wise to take the advice of the board, and I intend to also. It's hard, I think, for a lot of people when they're looking at a county that's in the midst of a building boom that's been going on for a long time and will probably go on a long time in the future to realize that they might have a problem, that there might be structural problems with their economy. And we want to sort of hit on five of the key ones that we found, and we'll sort of take you through why they're a problem and -- and why the county should be doing something about it. One, of course, and you've heard it talked about, is that Collier County is becoming what they call a two-tiered economy. You've also -- as Jim pointed out, you've got a very high residential tax burden. The residential property owners pay a lot more in taxes here than they do in a lot of other counties across the state. We've also got a lack of economic mobility, both for the existing residents and our children in the future, and that's another area of concern. We're losing local businesses. They're under pressure from a lot of -- for a lot reasons and from a lot of places. And we're also very dependent on growth. So as long as the growth occurs, we'll have some growth and we'll have economy, but like in 1990 and '91 when -- when we went down in national recession and it got to Florida, the county took a big hit on that. So those are the concerns we're looking at, and of course, those have some implications in the long term for the county, because I -- I noticed that one of the -- you said earlier that you don't want to become like the east coast. And I think a lot of what we're doing here and what the recommendations are designed to do is to avoid that happening, because we're looking at -- that their -- as we said, there's increased pressure on small business. Downstream as we grow there's going to be more congestion. The pressure will be then on to keep taxes down, which is -- the first thing you usually do is you cut services, or you refuse to provide public improvements. That shows up. This kind of economy also starts to create higher social costs which have to be paid for, and if anything, that -- anybody that's reading the paper knows that in Washington they're passing those burdens down to the state, and the state's in the process of passing them down to the counties. That's called returning it to the locals, and they're in the process of doing all that now. And, of course, the bottom line for your -- for your taxpayers is higher taxes, because those costs will have to be paid somewhere. The overall implication is a slow, downward slide in your quality of life, and of course, that is the single most important thing that Collier County has. That's what you offer to the world, and we -- and part of what this program is designed to do is enhance that. And with every problem, of course, is the opportunity, and that is how do we proactively enhance our quality of life at the same time raising -- you know, reducing the tax burden on our residents, because thatws always got to be a concern. And it also offers us a challenge, and that, of course, is how do we enhance that quality of life? How do we create high-wage jobs for our children in the future so that they donwt have to leave the county and go somewhere else to find the opportunity? And how do we provide for that residential tax relief? Now, I am going to back up a minute and talk about the economy just to put things in perspective. Collier County has what -- what economists describe as a single-point economy, and that is itws really driven by population growth. Within the last 15 years, youwve had a hundred thousand people move to your county. Projections are in the future youwre going to get another hundred thousand; and, of course, that doesnwt account for the, perhaps, 30 percent of your population that comes in here as season residents every year. So youwve got a lot of growth coming in. That, of course, will continue to drive your -- your population growth. Youwve also got a very unique demographic profile. You have much more -- much more is too many words -- more elderly households -- I~m sorry -- but -- and also the very high-income households. We have a real cjuster of high-income and high-wealth households. And, of course, on top of that we have an affluent seasonal population that, from what we hear, is much more affluent than the people that are even living here. And you can really see where that starts to shape your economy, and this is probably the most important slide. Personal income in the county comes in three different ways. One is, of course, by investment income; the second is transfer payments, which are social security; and the third is, of course, earnings, people that work for a living. And you can see that almost half of the income in the county comes in through dividends, interest, and rent. And when you add in the transfer payments of social security and those kind of things, almost two-thirds of the dollars that float in here come in in checks in the mail rather than being earned here. Now, that, of course, creates a very unique economic structure. We like to say that every county or every community has a three-tiered economy. There are the basic industries that really drive it, and to put things in perspective, the $3 billion a year that comes in here in investment income and transfer payments is the exact same impact that a -- that the Saturn plant has up in Kentucky or Tennessee or wherever it is these days. So it has a major impact on your economy. It really drives it. Youwve got the secondary industries, of course, which support that growth directly, and then, of course, the service industries that -- and including government that provide services for everyone. Now, as -- as wewve shown, when you look at the income stream, you can see that two-tiered economy where in a sense we have a very wealthy group of people, and then we have wages and salaries which are remaining relatively flat over time. And one of the concerns we have, of course, is that in many respects Collier County is starting to lose its middle class. You can see also the high residential tax burden. Almost 80 percent of the assessed value in this county is residential property versus 66 percent for the state as a whole. And so you can really see that thatls the statistic that supports what everyone knows, that the property owners here are being asked an awful lot. And Iwm sure you hear it a lot more than I might hear it. Businesses by size. Of course, one of the unique things about the economy, the local economy, is that it's -- relatively small businesses drive your economy, local business owners. You've also got a high proportion of self -- self-employed people here, and these are the people that are being impacted by the big boxes that are moving in. They're the ones being impacted by the fact that -- that you're only an hour and a half from Fort Lauderdale now and that you can relatively get here from other places and serve this market. You can also see one of the other -- and it really causes a -- a problem in the economy, and that's the change in monthly employment over time. You can really see that we -- we drop to about 80 -- 85 percent of average employment during the summer when we're slow, and then it peaks up over the winter. And, of course, that really starts to -- to create some -- some of its own kind of dynamics because of the fact you've got people that are not working part of the year and then have to try and make it up over the winter season. Now, the growth sectors for the future, not surprising here, again, of course, retail, services, construction, and medical. Now, the problem, of course, with most of the new growth you're looking at under the existing scenario without doing anything is most of the jobs that are being created are what we call low-wage and no-benefit jobs. And those have costs that are passed on to the community, and we call it -- those people that -- more and more are being called the working poor. In a sense they have higher social-level costs, higher calls for services, for the police departments, for the social service agencies, even your medical services. Last year your local hospital spent over $12 million providing indigent care; and interestingly enough, they said that the person coming in for indigent care here was not a welfare mom. It was a 40-year-old white person who -- who's got a full-time job but just doesn't have any benefits. So those are the kind of jobs we're creating. You've got an increasing need for affordable housing, and of course, somebody has to pay for that. And the people that are going to be asked to pay for that are, unfortunately, the Board of County Commissioners. This is what happened when Home Depot comes to town. As they're -- as they're commonly called in the trade, power category killers or the big boxes, whichever you want to -- want to know them as. But essentially, they drive out your small businesses. The money doesn't circulate in the economy as much as it would normally do with the small businesses that are here, and you're seeing a lot of job losses. We're replacing small business owners with minimum wage jobs at these places. So there's a lot of dynamics going on that over the long term, really start to hurt your economy. And also you get an overall decline in service levels, which is a critical concern in a county like this where high service level is a part of what you're known for. I mean, I hate to say it, but when I go into Home Depot, it may have everything in the world, but all the guys that work there know is it's on Aisle 7, and good luck trying to find things. So you lose service levels there, and it hurts you downstream in almost all you're going to do. Now, why should you engage in economic diversification? There are a lot of reasons for that. Number one is -- and it's more of where we're talking about the changes in the economy and the value-added planning and sustainable communities, but I think the first thing you're really looking at is economic diversification in this market can now help you enhance property values, raise the value of people's houses and -- and the businesses here, and that, of course, contributes to your tax rolls. The communities that are not successful, they're the ones with the stagnant property values, and they're the ones where you're seeing disinvestment. Shifting, again, the tax base from the residents over to commercial developments, because as everyone knows, commercial properties, office parks, don't put people in the schools. They don't really have a lot of demand for services, yet they do pay a lot in property taxes. It also helps you reduce the economic cycles and the impact that they have on your community. Do you realize that since -- we had a -- a major recession here in 1991, and it's only this year that you're back at the job level that you were at in 19907 It's taken you that long to climb out of the recession. Helps pay for quality of life improvements that are -- that will enhance the overall lifestyle of the community, and it provides business and employment opportunities for our residents and their children. And how did we do that? Well, the old rule is you build on your strengths, and you minimize your weaknesses. Collier County, as everyone knows, has the highest quality of life in the state, perhaps in the -- in some instances, in the world. It's the thing that -- it's the thing that really sets you apart. That gives you a high transfer acceptance. A lot of people would like to live here if they could afford to or if they could put their business here. And whereas a lot of communities -- I use Jacksonville, where I'm from, as an example. We can't get corporate heads to move to Jacksonville. We can get all the back-office jobs in the world, but we can't get the corporate heads there. On the other hand, Seminole County, which is northern Orlando, was in Florida Trend today. It's a very high-tech center in the Orlando region, and that's because they designed it around the quality of life. Strong medical facility. Your hospital is a -- is a very unique asset. You've also got good schools, which is -- which overcomes one of the real concerns that people outside of Florida have about Florida. And we've got a very low crime rate, which, again, is a nice -- a very positive plus for businesses or people looking at your community. We've got to minimize our weaknesses, though, and the Council of Economic Advisors interviewed a number of CEOs across the -- the county. We've got a very small labor force. It works against us because we don't have a labor pool that we can draw on. One of the charms of -- of the county is also one of its detriments; it's difficult to get here. You're in a relatively remote location, especially to the business traveler who likes places like Atlanta or Chicago or New York because it's easy to get in and out of. Higher business cost. One of the things we've found was that -- we knew that property values are -- were higher here and rents were higher, but the -- but on average the county pays about $2,000 more a year per employee across the board than Lee County right next door. So we have to pay a little -- a little more down here, but again, for the kind of commune -- businesses that will want to come here in the future, that's not going to be a detriment. And, of course, there's a perceived anti-business climate, or there is an anti-business climate depending on who you talk to. But as we said, the most important single action that the county can do, both to strengthen its economic diversification and to preserve the community, is to preserve the county's quality of life. And we've had that in mind from the beginning, and that helped the committee form a five-step action plan. And you'll note, again, we started with quality growth management. A lot of communities, including Jacksonville, again -- I hate to use them, but they're a good example, because I get stuck in traffic every day, and I'm mad about it. Funded capital improvement program, we need to have that infrastructure come on line. Natural resource acquisition, making sure that -- protecting and preserving your natural resources. Those are what sells the place, and those are what the -- what the community needs over the future. And, of course, they enhance property values. We need to continue to maintain world-class schools. We need high-level public standard -- public service levels across the board, and we also need strong design standards. You should know when you drive into this county that you are in Collier County. It should have that look, and you -- and people should know it. Now, recommending a stronger and enhanced private-public partnership; and that, of course, needs stronger BCC involvement. The public sector involvement needs to come. The EDC, the Economic Development Council, is already in existence, and it should serve as the single focal point for all the community's efforts. You need one voice and one organization, and -- and most places have found that they can do the things that local government can't. We're recommending a regional approach that -- that joins with your surrounding counties and Enterprise Florida. Everyone's going to regional approaches; that makes sense. There's no sense in us trying to compete with Lee County. We should work with them in a number of areas and also our surrounding partners. If you don't do it now and -- today, you'll be hiring somebody like me five years from now to come in and solve that kind of problem. But the regional approach is -- is where you need to go. You're going to need to provide county financial support. Host counties in this state now provide support for their economic development efforts. And continued strong business support, the county's businesses need to keep stepping up to the bar every year and supporting this effort themselves. We need to improve the business climate, and this is not as hard as it sounds. We need a business omnibusman inside the county so that the county -- so that the county's businessmen have someone that they can go to when they need to talk about a problem. The county should provide, as many counties are doing now, a guide to permitting that explains to local businessmen why they need a permit and how to get one. A lot of times it's just education. Once you tell them how -- how to go through the system, it's easy for them to understand why they need to do it. Again, the same with streamline development review. As everyone realizes, time is money. You don't have to lower your design standards, but the time it takes to get a plan through a process or a development approval or a business approved is critical to the developers. One of the things we'd like to point out now is the No. 2 incentive in the United States for economic development and diversification is streamline development regulations, and that's a freebie. It doesn't cost you anything. A rapid response team. As the county found out when -- when you were looking at the Ford test track issue, you need a group of people that are -- that are ready to -- to work together and come together whenever you have that kind of big issue inside your county government and outside so that they can provide the county commission with the kind of information you need to act responsibly. And we also continue -- we need to continue to maintain a socioeconomic base on who we are and what kind of people that are here so that we can provide that to local businesses, because everyone knows knowledge is the key. Business assistance. Again, a local product network, a small business development center to help people get into business and help them expand their businesses; a business incubator program to help the people that don't have the wherewithal to grow with business; financial assistance packaging so that you help a guy get an SBA loan or you help someone put together a business plan that will go to a bank. And, of course, the keynote thing -- all your business community have -- have noted it. We need customized job training. We need to -- to provide the kind of level of employees that -- that the businesses need. Economic diversification, of course, is a marketing and information database on what we have to offer, site and building inventories so that if somebody wants to know if there's a site or building available, that we can tell them that instantly working with our local commercial realtors. And a targeted business improvement where you're looking at certain businesses that will help enhance the community. And we've recommended that the medical industry is your primary target because of the fact that it will enhance your local ability to provide medical services to the residents of your community, and it's a nice, clean, high-technology industry that's -- that will help build office parks here, and that's the kind of development you're looking for in the future. And we're recommending a limited use of business incentives in coordination with those that the state already provides which require a local match, especially in areas like Immokalee or Everglades City, where you're really trying to -- to move something uphill that might not readily occur. Now, we think this plan is going to -- is going to offer a number of benefits to our citizens, and we think over time you'll be able to -- that it will help lower taxes. It will provide enhanced property values for people that want to live here. It will enable us to provide better care for our residents and better public services and private services and will overall provide an improved quality of life. And we're asking today that you accept this proposal and this plan and that you direct staff to begin implementing it. And I'll open it up for questions. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Are there any questions? I know I have a couple. I'll go ahead then. As a part of this, did you investigate the current vacancy rates in retail, commercial, industrial space or office space? MR. KELLY: As -- as best we were able, sir, but one of the weaknesses we found was that you do not have a -- a database inventory that could tell us -- tell us what we have available. But we do know that one of the key problems we saw was that we found a lot of small space available, whereas the -- whereas the kind of businesses that are either going to be expanding or -- or the -- your residents might want to locate their businesses here are going to tend to prefer larger buildings. So we've got a wide -- we've got a fair amount of vacancy, but it's in kind of -- it's hard to say, but it's -- it's in, in many respects, unusable space for the type of people you might be trying to attract. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So I guess hand in hand with that is the fact that we don't have the acreage available that is ready to be zoned for industrial or office-park-type uses. MR. KELLY: Not with the supporting public services, sir. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. That's something I've known for a while, but it's -- it's not -- not so easy to do anything about. A second issue that -- I have to -- to bring this up, because my -- I've had two pieces of input on it. The first is my father owns a company that -- that has offices throughout the U.S., and -- and he travels quite a bit, and he frequently complains about the inability to get in and out of Fort Myers, you know, the -- the lack of flights. And when I was discussing business development with him, one issue he -- he brought up is that until we -- until you can get out in and out frequently or easily to an area, you're not going to attract world-class-type businesses or -- or large office- or conference-type centers for the simple reason that people have to have access. What is it about Southwest Regional? What is it about -- MR. KELLY: Well, it's -- it's not -- not even Southwest -- not just Southwest Regional, sir. It's -- Jacksonville International Airport has the same problem. It's -- if you're not -- and it's the -- it's the strength that Orlando has, and Orlando has the strength not because they're providing the direct routes for -- for the business community, it's because they're providing the direct routes for Disney. Miami has an inherent advantage because they have so many routes and so many places that they fly in and out of. It's -- it's that connection where you've got to go from here to Tampa and then somewhere or here to Atlanta and then somewhere. And that starts to -- you know, a four-hour flight becomes an eight-hour flight, and that's what -- and that's almost -- it's very difficult to solve that __ CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. I was going to say, it's kind of -- MR. KELLY: -- and I don't think you can, but I think that -- that over time as the region gets larger, some of that will solve itself. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: It sounds like the chicken or the egg. I mean, if you -- MR. KELLY: That's -- that's pretty straightforward. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: On the one hand, we're not going to become a maintenance hub where -- like in Atlanta where all the aircraft are going to come and go from. But on the other hand, we have a -- a new executive director at the international airport who's very aggressive and is doing a lot of work, Bob Ball (phonetic), a very, very sharp guy. And we have right now pending two -- actually three carriers that do not currently come in that will likely be in the next few weeks. And we have two international routes that aren't currently in place. Currently Germany's the only one we have here. We're looking at adding two new international routes. And if you think back -- it was only two years ago -- we had no international traffic, and we may have three international carriers within another 60 days or so. So I think we're taking steps in the right direction, but it's just -- part of that is as our community grows, the demand to get here and go from here grows and warrants those businesses to come in. But you said in 15 years we've added a hundred thousand people, and so when that airport was built, roughly that same time, there wasn't the same need the way there is now, but it is coming. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Are the ramp fees comparable at Southwest to Tampa International? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. There's -- MR. KELLY: It's just the traffic load, sir. It's not anything that -- it's not solvable by a local community. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, that's -- that's what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to target those areas this board has the ability to affect that can stimulate these areas, and one of them we can't affect necessarily is the airport with the exception of you being a representative on that -- that board, but I needed to know if that was a -- a priority area. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That was a good question. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Are there any further -- any other questions? One thing that -- I -- I guess the uneducated is -- is we have industrially zoned land, but we don't have it in large enough tracts in the right places near the -- the transportation hubs with the exception of two pieces down by 951 and 1-75, neither of which is provided infrastructure and is not ready for development. Therein lies the problem. If we have pieces out there that are zoned, yet there's not enough business to pay for the phased infrastructure to get them off the ground, is increasing the ability to zone property for industrial or office-park-type uses, is that going to have any impact if we already have some out there that's not being developed? MR. KELLY: It depends on -- well, I can't say that, but when we looked at the maps of where a lot of your land was zoned, I'm not sure that it was in the -- in the correct locations in the -- and with the right kind of connections to your infrastructure. But short of that, I think that's the beginning of getting the process going, and I think on a -- on a site-selective basis, if you start to work with your development community -- because part of what we're recommending is that you begin that public-private partnership and open that dialogue so that for the first time you are talking with your development community about where those -- where that infrastructure ought to come, how we should provide the planning, and how we should ultimately develop it as a -- as a particular area. A good example of that is in Seminole County where, in effect, the county planned the whole I-4 corridor almost as if it was an area-wide DRI. And as each DRI came in, they were plugging everybody into it so that we had the -- they had the ability to go on and made sure that -- that they -- that they sized the overall levels of infrastructure, they started to make sure that the roads would tie together; and that, of course, set the stage for the -- for the boom that they're now undergoing. So I think it's the beginning of a process. This is a -- this is a long-term commitment. It's going to take you several years just to get up and running, but it's the beginning of what you really need to do if you're going to -- if you're going to solve some problems that are going to be -- you're going to be looking at downstream. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Outside of Growth Management Plan and zoning issues, what specifically does the plan direct the board, or would the plan -- would the plan direct the board to do if implemented in its current -- MR. KELLY: I think what we're really -- really recommending, sir, is that you provide financial support to the EDC's efforts and match the private-sector effort and also that you add some additional staff people internally who would also be dedicated to economic development. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Are there further questions? Seeing none, this is a workshop, and -- and although official action can't be taken, direction can be given. Our request is that -- that we have our staff prepare this as an agenda item for the board's consideration and in some form incorporate it into a -- an adoption of policy by this board. I think as we look at that, we are going to have more questions and more concerns about -- you know, I'm always cautious of adopting something as policy that realistically has no chance of -- of being completed, and we have to be realistic in our approach and look at the dollars and -- and the fiscal impact that some of these recommendations have. I guess what I'm asking is for our staff to bring this as -- as a detailed discussion item to the board with the financial, I guess, proforma if you will, of not just what policy should be adopted, but what the fiscal follow-up to that is going to be. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Because the most important element being the implementation, what's the cost of implementation? And -- and that's exactly what I'd like to focus on as well. MR. KELLY: Basically, the -- the -- the board essentially recommends that you -- that you engage in the level of effort or support that's roughly the average for a community of your size across Florida and most of the country. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I think what's appealing is some of the options that have been laid out include our -- the fees we're charging our business. So it's business paying for business, and I -- I think -- just like we -- we try to have gas tax pay for roads and other things related to itself pay for it. It's a good fit. But I think that's good direction, and -- and I agree with you. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Interestingly enough, there is a business in town called World of Golf. It used to be Nevada Bob's, and it was the big kid on the block as far as golf. Well, Edwin Watts came in just a couple blocks down the road, another super golf store. And I asked the owner, I said, you know, "What do you think about that?" And he said, "I think it's good for business." He said, "Now people are going to come to one part of town for all their golf shopping, whereas before they had to make a special trip to come to my store." COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yeah, that's where I go. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You know, so I thought it interesting that -- that idea that business could be assisted by competition; so COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Sometime you ought to talk to NCH. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So that -- MR. KELLY: So one of the -- one of the key things, just to sort of drift backwards, is the technical assistance that -- that your organization can provide to your small business community through the Economic Development Council is the key thing of -- of supporting local businesses in that kind of effort where they are competing with people that have a huge amount of resources and a huge amount of marketing staff. So it gives -- helps them get on a level field, whereas normally they would just get wiped out of existence. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. Just a final thought. I'll just add I'm excited by where we are. I remember when we appointed this in 1994 and sitting down with Jim and some of the other folks and -- and them asking each of the board members at that time, one at a time, what do you want out of this? Where do you -- where do you expect us to go? And I think, from my own perspective anyway, many of the things we talked about are what we're seeing here and where we're headed here. So it's nice to have put a plan in action, and we may be well on our way with it now. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Yeah. I -- I certainly want to take this opportunity while we've got them here in this room to -- to make sure that -- from the board's perspective, we certainly appreciate all the hard work that -- that you members have done; and we're looking forward to seeing how well we can get into this and get it implemented and make your -- your efforts fruitful. And -- and we certainly acknowledge the -- the work that you've done and the benefit that it's going to have on our community. So thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Loskill, do you have any final comments for wrapup? MR. LOSKILL: I just wanted to mention that the key to -- to this plan and the policy and all the effort really has been a partnership, and it's only appropriate to acknowledge Susan Pareigis from EDC and John Passidomo and -- and other members of their committees that -- that also worked to help us. And we really -- I think the hallmark of it is a fine relationship that's been built between Greg Hihalic, Vince, Barbara -- Vince Cautero, Barbara Cacchione, and the -- and the staff. So we really have a great example of -- of the public and the private partnership working. And -- and I believe if we can continue that partnership, we'll be successful in -- in approving the economic diversity in Collier County; and we're, you know, counting on your continued support. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Again, thank you to you, and thank you to Barnett for loaning you to us. Is that it, ladies and gentlemen? Thank you very much. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 3:58 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL TIMOTHY L. HANCOCK, CHAIRMAN ATTEST: DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK These minutes approved by the Board on as presented or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING BY: Barbara Drescher