BCC Minutes 09/16/1997 R REGULAR MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS
Naples, Florida, September 16, 1997
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in
and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning
Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special 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:
CHAIRMAN:
ALSO PRESENT:
Timothy L. Hancock
Pamela S. Hac'Kie
John C. Norris
Timothy J. Constantine
Barbara Berry
Robert Fernandez, County Administrator
David Weigel, County Attorney
Item #3
AGENDA AND CONSENT AGENDA - APPROVED AND/OR ADOPTED WITH CHANGES
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Good morning. I'm going to call to order the
September 16th meeting of the Board of County Commissioners. We're
pleased this morning to have Pastor Fred Thorn from the Golden Gate
United Methodist Church to honor us with an invocation this morning,
and we'll follow the invocation by Pastor Thorn with the pledge of
allegiance.
REVEREND THORN: Let's pray. Your Father, as we come to you this
morning, we come with thankful hearts for the beauty of the day and
the beauty of your love in our lives. We thank you for those who have
been elected to work with the population of the county and the ones
who work with them for the good of the people in the county. We thank
you for those who will receive the service awards, the presentations
for the items of business that are before the county commission today,
and we ask that the wisdom of Solomon may be given to these who are
here that they might make the decisions that you want made. We do
thank you for all your goodness and all your love as we pray in your
great name. Amen.
(The pledge of allegiance was recited in unison.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Pastor Thorn, thank you for taking the time to
be with us this morning. We do appreciate it.
Mr. Fernandez, our all so popular hundred day manager. Good
morning.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Good morning.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: The first hundred days are the easiest.
MR. FERNANDEZ: That's what I'm thinking.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. Good article -- good hundred days.
What do we have this morning on the agenda?
MR. FERNANDEZ: We have no changes this morning.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do you want to sign him up for another
hundred days?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: What the heck.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Was that a hundred-day contract?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Yeah, let's renegotiate.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Oh, no.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Apparently, I -- well, anyway, I'll just go
from there and stay away from that one.
Okay. We have no changes to the agenda on the staff side.
Commissioner Mac'Kie?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Nothing, thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Norris?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Nothing further.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry?
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Nothing. I'll have something under
comments.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have no changes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'd like to pull 16(B)(8) to the regular
agenda for the purpose of -- that roadway project has got the
potential for a lot of problems, and I would like to have a little
clearer understanding of staff's reasoning for the ranking, and I may
even want to just ask that the board receive presentations and have
the opportunity to verify that ranking may be the easiest thing to do.
That's just -- we have power lines on one side, homes right on the
back of the road on the other, and I just -- I think that's going to
be a real sticky road-widening project. So I'd like to know a little
bit more about the contractor and have a little confidence in him
before we go into that. So I may just request that the board hear
presentations, but I'll ask at the appropriate time.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a
motion we approve the agenda and consent agenda as amended.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second. Mr. Fernandez, for the
record that Item 16(B)(8) will become --
MR. FERNANDEZ: It would be 8(B)(4).
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Thank you. We have a motion and a
second on the agenda. Any discussion?
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion
that we approve the minutes of the August 26, 1997, regular meeting.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second. Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
Item #5A1
PROCLAMATION PROCLAIMING THE WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 15-21, 1997 AS POLLUTION
PREVENTION WEEK - ADOPTED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We are to proclamations and service awards.
Our first proclamation this morning will be presented by Commissioner
Norris regarding Pollution Prevention Week.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could we get Allen
Ruth to step forward and face the camera, please, and I'll read this
proclamation.
Whereas, Collier County supports a healthy environment for the
community; and
Whereas, pollution prevention reduces or eliminates pollutants or
wastes at the source; and
Whereas, pollution prevention provides opportunities to improve
operating efficiencies, reduces operating costs, and decreases
environmental risk and liability; and
Whereas, pollution prevention reduces health and safety risks to
workers and the general public; and
Whereas, pollution prevention improves employee morale, team
work, and productivity; and
Whereas, pollution prevention serves as a tool for achieving
sustainable economic development; and
Whereas, National Pollution Prevention Week provides a
significant opportunity for local government, businesses, community
organizations, and residents to work together to promote a safer
environment and sustainable future.
Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that the week of September
15th to the 21st 1997 be designated as Pollution Prevention Week and
encourage all citizens to become more aware of and participate in
activities to prevent pollution.
Done and ordered this 16th day of September 1997 by the Board of
County Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, Timothy L. Hancock,
Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move that we accept this proclamation.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second. All those in favor
signify by saying aye.
Motion carries unanimously.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: For the record, A1 Ruth, county health
department. On behalf of the Environmental Pollution Prevention
Partnership, I thank you for this proclamation and designating this
week as Pollution Prevention Week. We call ourselves E P Cubed. Our
current active members are the county health department, county
pollution control, county storm water management, county mosquito
control, state department of environmental protection, South Florida
Water Management District, Big Cypress Basin district, The
Conservancy, the golf course managers from Collier's Reserve and
Stonebridge country clubs, and private citizens. We have occasional
visits from Tallahassee, the bureau of pesticide compliance with the
state department of agriculture and consumer services, the bureau of
environmental toxicology with the state department of health.
And our hope is that this observance will be the spark for
increased awareness of pollution prevention so that all citizens of
our fine county may enjoy a cleaner environment, better health, more
productive lifestyles, and a better economy. Thank you very much.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you, sir.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Mr. Ruth.
Item #5A2
PROCLAMATION PROCLAIMING SEPTEMBER 20, 1997 AS COASTAL CLEAN UP DAY -
ADOPTED
Our second proclamation today, Commissioner Constantine regarding
Coastal Clean Up Day.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe
our own Joan Mayer and Chef Compton and some other ruffian are here to
accept this. It's Mike Davis. Great looking shirt you got there. Oh,
and Steve Bigelow. Special guest appearance.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He was the ruffian you meant; right?
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Now there's two ruffians, but that's another
issue.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Proclamation: Whereas, the quality of
life and the ecological and economic well-being of Collier County
citizens are critically dependent on the continual protection of the
natural resource of Southwest Florida's coastal zone; and
Whereas, Collier County's sandy beaches, estuaries, rivers, and
lakes serve an essential community function by providing fisheries
production -- I'm sorry, it does say production -- protection, storm
protection -- we'll do the typo -- and recreational opportunities
while contributing to our county's natural beauty; and
Whereas, the Florida coastal clean up event is coordinated by the
Center for Marine Conservation as part of an international event in an
effort to inspire personal commitment to living in harmony with our
environment; and
Whereas, Keep Collier Beautiful, Collier County's solid waste
department, and Rookery Bay National Estuary Research Reserve have
coordinated a clean up event to be held September 20th, 1997,
throughout Collier County with the support of local businesses and
agencies including the City of Naples, GTE Mobilnet, Marine Trade
Industries Association, the National Park Service in Everglades City,
Waste Management Inc., and with statewide support from Publix and
Brita.
Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that September 20th, 1997,
be designated as Coastal Clean Up Day.
Done and ordered this 16th day of September 1997, BCC, Timothy L.
Hancock, AICP, chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion we approve this poorly
read proclamation.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: A big second for that one. And all those in
favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Congratulations.
(Applause.)
MS. COMPTON: For the record, Chef Compton, executive coordinator
of Keep Collier Beautiful. We want to thank the commission for this
proclamation, and we want to let everyone know that there are nine
sign-up locations around Collier County. And we want to brag a little
bit. We've already got 150 people signed up in advance. Several
scout troops around town have already made commitments to come out,
and we're looking forward to lots of other groups as well. Right now,
I'd like to turn the dais over to Mike Davis our current chairman for
just a couple of words.
MR. DAVIS: Thank you, Chef. Mike Davis, chairman of Keep
Collier Beautiful. I didn't want to miss the opportunity to recognize
two individuals who have spent all the long hours to look -- to make
volunteers like me from our organization look good. And that's Chef
Compton, our executive director of Keep Collier Beautiful that just
spoke, and Joan Mayer, the recycling coordinator for Collier County.
I know firsthand that they have got more hours than they would
like to admit to in getting this all put together, and I know it's
going to be a huge success for our community on this Saturday. And
thank you very much to the commission for this recognition, and also
to recognize Commissioner Constantine, who is a member of our board of
directors. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you.
(Applause.)
Item #5A4
PROCLAMATION PROCLAIMING SEPTEMBER 18, 1997 AS PARTNERS IN EDUCATION
RECOGNITION DAY - ADOPTED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm going to move the next proclamation down
one because there's an accompanying video, so we're going to go ahead
to No. 4, proclamation from Commissioner Berry regarding Partners in
Education Recognition Day.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could have
Danielle HcElroy -- and Terry Douglas I see is with her this morning.
Danielle, by the way, is one of Collier's own, so we're very pleased
to have her here this morning accepting this. The proclamation reads:
Whereas, the Collier County Education Foundation has developed a
program in conjunction with the Collier Association of School
Administrators to promote community partnerships that will enrich the
curriculum and ensure quality education; and
Whereas, this organization is called Partners in Education and
its mission is to strengthen the future work force and enhance work
ethics in Collier County by developing business/community/education
partnerships that will enrich the curriculum and ensure quality
education; and
Whereas, the Partners in Education second annual recognition
luncheon to be held on September 18, 1997, at the Ritz-Carlton,
Naples, will honor all of the outstanding partnerships; and
Whereas, Commissioner of Education, Tom Grogan, will be present
to recognize these outstanding partnerships; and
Whereas, it is fitting and proper to bring special recognition to
this outstanding group of local businesses and community
organizations.
Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that Thursday, September 18,
1997, be designated as Partners in Education Recognition Day in
Collier County and encourage all citizens to applaud these businesses
and organizations for the honor and significance of their
contributions.
Done and ordered this 16th day of September 1997, Board of
County Commissioners, Collier County, Florida, Timothy L. Hancock,
Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move the acceptance of this
proclamation.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second. All those in favor
signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Congratulations.
(Applause.)
MS. HCELROY: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record,
Danielle HcElroy, Partners in Education coordinator for the Collier
County Education Foundation. With me today is Terry Douglas. She's
our Partners in Education vice chair this year, and on behalf of the
entire foundation and all of the over 700 business partnerships within
the Collier County school this year, we thank you for this
proclamation.
Our luncheon is this Thursday at the Ritz-Carlton Naples. As of
yesterday evening we have over 480 people registered to attend. It's
going to be a huge event, and we're very excited. We thank you for
this, and Collier County students as well the businesses thank you as
well.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
Item #5A3
PROCLAMATION PROCLAIMING THE WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 15-19, 1997 AS INDUSTRY
APPRECIATION WEEK - ADOPTED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Our last proclamation, the reason I moved it
around is after the proclamation there is a video highlighting -- and
the reason I felt it was appropriate is the board has made an
investment this year in economic development that has not been done in
the past and one I think that is important that we see some of the
progress on.
But first and foremost is a proclamation designating September
15th through 19th as Industry Appreciation Week. And here to accept
the proclamation are Mr. John Passidomo, the chairman of the Economic
Development Council and Mr. Bill Blevins, Chairman of Industry
Appreciation Week. And I see Mr. Passidomo didn't make it. So Susan
will be surrogate of the EDC. The proclamation reads as follows:
Whereas, industry in Collier County is vital to the community's
economic health; and
Whereas, Collier County's existing industries are the key to a
prosperous future; and
Whereas, the expansion of those industries account for the
majority of new jobs created; and
Whereas, Collier County's industries help sustain our quality of
life; and
Whereas, public knowledge of the contributions made by industry
is essential to maintenance of a good community-industry
relationship.
Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida, that the week of September
15 through 19, 1997, be designated as Industry Appreciation Week, and
urge all residents to salute our industries and their employees for
their contribution to our community.
Done and ordered this 16th day of September 1997, Timothy L.
Hancock, chairman.
I'd like to move acceptance of this proclamation.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: All those in favor signify by saying aye.
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Ms. Pareigis, Mr. Blevins.
(Applause.)
MS. PAREIGIS: Good morning. For the record, Susan Pareigis with
the Economic Development Council. We have some assorted demographic
information, business assistance information we'd like to hand out to
you. And at this time I'd like to turn it over to Bill Blevins, the
chair for Industry Appreciation. Thank you.
MR. BLEVINS: Thank you. For the record, William Blevins,
Industry Appreciation chairman. I just would like to thank everyone,
especially the commissioners, on behalf of the Collier County
Economic Development Council for giving us the opportunity today. And
I also would like to welcome everyone to attend the luncheon today.
It's at 11:30 to 1:30 at the Ritz-Carlton where we're going to be
honoring 12 Collier County businesses. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Mr. Blevins. And we now have -- is
it a video presentation?
MS. PAREIGIS: Yes. One of the projects that we've worked on is
putting together a business recruitment video for Collier County. It
takes about eight minutes, and if you have any questions, we'd love to
answer them at the end. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Finally I can use these.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You have a computer. Welcome to the 20th.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm still in the 19th.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Almost the 21st.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yes. I've sunk to a new low and bought a
computer.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm so proud of you.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What'd you buy?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: A Dell. I want to report that Commissioner
Constantine has done the same.
Commissioner Norris?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I've had one for ages. It's a 286.
(The video was presented.)
MS. PAREIGIS: Thank you very much. I would tell you I think it
is a little more than eight minutes. We're real excited to celebrate
Industry Appreciation this week. As you saw in the video, we have
many outstanding companies currently in Collier County. We're eager
to bring some additional ones to diversify the economic base. And
through our public-private partnership, we're eager to work with the
Board of County Commissioners, and we appreciate your time very much
this morning. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Ms. Pareigis. I'd like to ask two
things. One is that if someone is able to play that during our 10:30
break in the hall for the -- because we don't have the visual system
set up in here that allows for the play to be seen by the audience.
The second thing is to provide the tape to our -- to our --
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Channel 54.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- to Katie to be run on Channel 54 so the
general public can see some of the partnership that's going on.
MS. PAREIGIS: Done and done.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
MS. PAREIGIS: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you very much.
Item #5B
EHPLOYEE SERVICE AWARDS - PRESENTED
We have service awards this morning. Commissioner Hac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yes. I'm pleased to get to present a
service award to Norma Boone, if she would come forward. Norma, there
you are. Norma has served with Collier County for ten years in
planning services.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: When I was in the private sector, Norma was
the one that always called me and told me I left something out of the
application I submitted so --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: She's one of the best they've got I'll
tell you that.
Item #7A
REGINA WAGSTAFF, CHAIRPERSON, RED RIBBON COALITION, REQUESTING A WAIVER
OF RIGHT-OF-WAY PERMITTING FEE FOR RED RIBBON WEEK MARCHES - STAFF
DIRECTED TO PREPARE AGENDA ITEM
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Next we have public petitions. For those who
have not presented a public petition to the board in the past, they
are limited to ten minutes in time. The board cannot take official
action on a public petition at this meeting, but we can give direction
to staff through the county administrator if the board should so
choose.
The first public petition this morning, Ms. Regina Wagstaff,
chairperson of Red Ribbon Coalition, requesting a waiver of
right-of-way permitting fee for Red Ribbon Week marches.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: You think we could get the TV moved?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. We probably need to get that TV at
least moved out of the way maybe after Ms. Wagstaff is completed.
MS. WAGSTAFF: Good morning. For the record I'm Regina Wagstaff,
and this is Sarah Hicks. We are substance abuse prevention
specialists with the David Lawrence Center. Sarah works with the
youth, and I work with the adult population.
The David Lawrence Center is chairing the Red Ribbon Coalition
this year. The Red Ribbon Coalition is a not-for-profit coalition
which is made up of individuals and businesses from the public and
private sector. And you have a brochure that was passed out in that
packet. A list of the members of the coalition is on that brochure, if
you're interested.
The coalition implements Red Ribbon Week here in our county. And
what Red Ribbon Week is -- you may be familiar with it. It's a
national campaign which promotes a drug free community and life-style.
And Collier County has been participating in Red Ribbon Week for ten
years. The board has supported this event in the past by signing
proclamations, which hopefully we're going to get one signed on
October 21st this year, and we'll be able to accept like the people
did earlier.
Red Ribbon Week this year is October 23rd through the 31st, and
the theme for this year's Red Ribbon Week is Get Had, See Red, Take
Action. The reason that we're here today is because we would like the
support of the Board of County Commissioners with Red Ribbon Week this
year.
The activities committee met and wanted to use the take action
part of the theme, and they came up with the idea of doing drug-free
marches in our community. And I see Lieutenant Waller is over there
with the sheriff's office. He's a representative on our activities
committee. And they took that idea back to the sheriff's office, and
it has now been supported by the sheriff's office that we will do
three different Red Ribbon marches, and they will all be held at the
same time on Saturday, October 25th at 5:30. There's going to be one
in East Naples, Golden Gate, and Immokalee.
And in the packets that I passed out to you are the routes which
have been given to us by the sheriff's office. We're working with the
COPS deputies in connection with these marches. The marches will be
escorted by the sheriff's office. There will be two units, one in the
front and one in the back. There'll be two deputies at each site.
Also EHS and the fire department have agreed to have a unit at each
march site.
And in order to conduct these marches, the coalition is
attempting to obtain a right-of-way permit from the county. We have a
letter of support from the sheriff. We have liability insurance, which
you'll see there's a rider attached there to the back of your packet
which would cover the event, and it names the board as certificate
holder. And we have the routes there.
We also have quite a bit of community involvement. I saw that
Fred Thomas is here from Immokalee. We --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Excuse me, Ms. Wagstaff, would it bother you
terribly if we just gave direction to staff to process this and bring
it back to us for an approval?
MS. WAGSTAFF: Okay. That would be fine. That's great. That's
why we're here.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: It was a fantastic presentation but --
MS. WAGSTAFF: We want your support.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think I was sold right about the time you
said "my name is ."
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Red Ribbon.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We've been a part of the Red Ribbon Week since
I've been on this board and have every reason to continue doing that.
So if it's the board's desire, I'd like to ask that we give direction
to Mr. Fernandez to process this and bring it back for the necessary
vote on the waiver of the right-of-way permit fee. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Ditto.
MS. WAGSTAFF: Okay. Thank you for your time and attention. And
we'd like to take this time to personally invite all of you out to the
marches and come out to it with us with, okay?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We'll see you there.
MS. WAGSTAFF: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you.
Item #7B
MIKE AND CAROL MATTHEWS, OWNERS OF SAND BAR RESTAURANT ON MARCO ISLAND,
REQUESTING A WAIVER OF RIGHT-OF-WAY PERMITTING FEES FOR WISHING WELL
FOUNDATION - STAFF DIRECTED TO WORK WITH PETITIONER TO DEVELOP
INFORMATION
Our second petition this morning, Mike and Carol Matthews, owners
of Sand Bar Restaurant on Marco Island requesting a waiver of
right-of-way permitting fees for the Wishing Well Foundation. Are they here?
Okay. Once again, are Mike and Carol Matthews here?
Not being here that --
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Wait.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Again, Mike and Carol Matthews, are you
present?
Not being here, there is no public petition to be heard.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, maybe I can help the board a little
bit with this, because they contacted me. Apparently they didn't
understand they need to be here to present it. But they're simply
just closing off a little alleyway on Marco Island for an event that
-- the Wishing Well benefits children.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So I think it's just a little alleyway next
to their restaurant where they want to have a little festival for a
fund-raiser.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I don't have a problem with that. I just --
I wanted to ask them how much money they hoped to raise for Wishing
Well Foundation, because I'm always curious when a business requests
this that it's not a money making opportunity for them, and the
Wishing Well Foundation gets a couple hundred bucks while they drag
in, you know, revenues for food and drink. That's not reason enough
for us to waive the permit fee. So I wanted to ask about that
relationship because --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Give staff direction to work with them.
Get that information and bring it back.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What if you go ahead and give staff direction
to work with them and get that information --
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: And bring that back --
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- and bring it back --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. I'm cur -- you know, I certainly don't
want to disparage the Matthews in any way. I just wanted to ask them
how much money they'd hope to raise for the Wishing Well Foundation
and what business interests, if any, they had in the event just to
make sure we aren't waiving a permit fee in a semi for-profit
situation.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Very good point. They have done this, I
understand, in the past so --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And just unfamiliarity may cause those
questions.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Those are very good questions, and we'll
see if we can get an answer before it comes back.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So I'll ask that it come back for final
board action hopefully with some answers to those questions. Is that
agreed upon?
COMHISSIONER BERRY: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Norris.
Item #SA1
RESOLUTION 97-358 REGARDING PETITION HD-97-1, THE COLLIER COUNTY
HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL PRESERVATION BOARD, REQUESTING THAT THE
ROBERTS RANCH BE DESIGNATED AS A HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT SITE, FOR
PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF ROBERTS AVENUE IN TRACT "E" OF
THE R. ROBERTS PUD, IN SECTION 4, TOWNSHIP 47 SOUTH, RANGE 29 EAST,
COLLIER COUNTY, IHMOKALEE, FLORIDA - ADOPTED
We're up to Item 8(A)(1), Petition HD-97-1. Hr. Weigel, I have a
note here that -- and members of this petition or elements of this
petition need to be sworn in; is that correct?
MR. WEIGEL: Is that for 8(A)(1)?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yes.
MS. STUDENT: Mr. Chairman, if I might.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Weigel, you're quick.
MR. WEIGEL: Right.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Ms. Student.
MS. STUDENT: Harjorie Student, assistant county attorney, for
the record. I opined that because we have criteria that we apply to
the facts to determine whether or not a site should be designated
historic, that's the application of policy establishing a criteria in
abundance of caution.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: But that's a yes?
MS. STUDENT: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yes.
MS. STUDENT: That's a lawyer's yes.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That's a lawyer's yes. I like it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Weigel. Petition HD-97-1
is the Collier County Historical and Archaeological Preservation Board
requesting an official designation of Roberts Ranch as a historically
significant site. Would our members of staff, any members of the
county historical and archaeological preservation board, and any
member of the public to speak on this item, please stand and raise
your right hand.
(The speakers were sworn.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you. Mr. Bellows, good morning.
MR. BELLOWS: Good morning. For the record, Ray Bellows.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Bellows, before you do your
presentation, could I just ask you a question which I think probably
gets to the part of it? What affect does this designation have? What
are the ramifications?
MR. BELLOWS: The main benefit for local historic designation is
the county can apply for state and national grants for preservation.
It also requires for any improvements done to the site to obtain
what's called a certificate of appropriateness from the Collier County
Historic and Archaeological Preservation Board. That's to insure that
any improvements are in keeping with the historic nature of the site.
They're also eligible to receive variances, so to speak, from the
strict application of building codes to keep the historic nature of
the structures so if something needs to be maintained, you don't have
to follow the strict intent of the building code or the zoning
ordinance.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Does it have any kind of commensurate
obligation to the county?
MR. BELLOWS: No.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Do you find -- and I read your staff report,
but do you find that all of the requirements and elements that need to
be met have been met by this application? MR. BELLOWS: Yes, they have.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Are there further questions of Mr.
Bellows?
Do we have registered speakers on this that were --
MR. FERNANDEZ: You have one speaker, Mr. Fred Thomas.
MR. THOMAS: Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Fred Thomas for
the record, and I'm here as president -- or chairman of your Project
Main Street. This Roberts Ranch location, we see it as a future
destination point of tourism and is the linchpin for the other end of
the Project Main Street project. And in keeping with the young lady
that spoke a minute ago, I thank you for your support.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's what I wanted to know.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, if it's good enough for Mr. Thomas,
it's good enough for me, so I'll make a motion that we approve.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Second it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Have you seen what he eats? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I'm just wondering if that applies just
to this decision or his life-style.
Okay. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on
the motion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero. Mr. Thomas, thank
you for being here and then, Mr. Bellows, thank you.
Item #8A2
STAFF RECOHMENDATION TO UPHOLD COLLIER COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY
COHMISSIONERS' TO ADOPTED ORDINANCE NUMBER 97-29, WHICH GRANTED A
REZONE FROM "A", AGRICULTURE TO "PUD", PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT FOR A
PROJECT KNOWN AS TWIN EAGLES - APPROVED
We're to Item 8(A)(2), recommendation to uphold Collier County
BCC decision to adopt Ordinance 97-29, Twin Eagles project.
MR. ARNOLD: Good morning, Commissioners. Wayne Arnold, planning
services director. This is a recommendation from staff, and it was
incorrectly stated as your Planning Commission recommendation, but it
is our staff's recommendation that the board uphold the decision
previously made regarding the Twin Eagles fezone from agriculture to
planned unit development for golf courses and limited home sites.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And the purpose for this coming back before
the board is?
MR. ARNOLD: The purpose for that coming back to the board is
simply that we have been challenged by petitioners Florida Wildlife
Federation and the Audubon Society. And the county and the developer
have been named by those parties, and this is sort of our recognition
that we find the plan -- find the PUD consistent with our
Comprehensive Plan and that you uphold that decision.
And Harjorie is here. I think she can provide the legal
background as to why we have to take the action now.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I was going to say -- running the risk of an
attorney's response, I was going to ask what -- did the complaint that
was filed in your opinion expose any elements that need to be
considered by the board that were not in the process of approving this
fezone?
MS. STUDENT: No. And I'm not going to comment in great detail
since this is precursor to litigation under the Growth Management Act.
And for the record this is the first time since we've had our Growth
Management Plan that we have had a challenge to the consistency of a
development order with the plan, and as a prerequisite, the
challenging party has to file a verified complaint before this board
within 30 days of the decision and have this board respond within 30
days of the filing of that complaint as a statutory prerequisite to
bringing a lawsuit in circuit court.
And that's what all this is about, and we would seek your
direction to uphold your decision and instruct our office to proceed
with any defense that may be necessary should the suit be filed in
circuit court.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you. Any questions for Miss Student or
Mr. Arnold?
Seeing none, is there a motion?
Oh, I'm sorry. We got a speaker.
MR. FERNANDEZ: You do have a speaker, Mr. Ty Agoston.
MR. AGOSTON: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I live in
Golden Gate Estates, and I'm speaking for myself. I have a -- maybe
I'm being naive here, but I question the authority or the standing of
these various environmental groups that gets into the decision making
that I don't quite see other than the current expanded environmental
objective of managing your education and health and the hol -- the
holistic philosophy. They get involved with everyday living. They
also want to educate your children and the whole nine yards.
And my question to you is that, is there any room and what can we
do to go to our state delegation to change these laws? When a Dr.
Goy, if I remember right, was in the power -- he had the power or
apparently the legal standing to stop an extremely good neighbor, the
Ford testing track, and I don't know how much money this board had to
spend in order to try to reverse that. You know, there's got to be
something wrong and there's got to be something that you can do about
it. You know, I mean this is -- this is just unreasonable for me to
see that one person or one group should be able to yield the kind of a
power to just simply stop everything that a publicly elected board
wants to do.
Whether you're right, wrong, or indifferent is a different issue
here. It's more a question of why should they have this power. I
mean, they certainly don't represent the broad base of the population.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think the answer to your question is,
because this is America, they have this power.
MR. AGOSTON: I understand, but I think it goes a couple of steps
further than that. You know, it appears that they have more rights
and their government support and reimbursement. I understand that if
they fight you, they are entitled to some legal reimbursements from
the legal government. There is something wrong with that as well. I
mean, nobody pays my legal fee -- nobody pays my legal bills, and I
have a few kids lawyers, thank God, so, you know, I get them for
nothing, but the fact of the matter, I have to pay for their tuition,
so thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think we're all or most of us are in favor
of tort reform. Frivolous lawsuits cost the taxpayer money. Whether
this is or is not frivolous is yet to be determined. That'll be
determined in a court of law. I assume we have no recourse to recoup
legal fees we expend on this lawsuit in any event; is that correct,
Miss Student?
MS. STUDENT: In the statute -- I don't believe that there is a
provision in the statute for that. In general, there has to be a
statutory provision or a contract provision to be able to do that. I
believe there may be a broader one that we would certainly research as
part of this. If there is a frivolous lawsuit, we may be able to
recover. A more general statute and its applicability to the Growth
Management Act, we'd have to research, but we could certainly do that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Miss Student, what is the time frame on
this? In other words, how much time can be tied up in this type of --
MS. STUDENT: Unfortunately when any matter goes to litigation,
aside from time periods to respond and so forth, it's very difficult
to say. It really rests with the court, and it's very difficult to
say.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Any further questions on this matter?
Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Motion to approve staff recommendation to
uphold our earlier decision.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: And I will second it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second. Any discussion on the
motion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero.
Item #SB1
RESOLUTION 97-359 AUTHORIZING THE ACQUISITION BY GIFT, PURCHASE OR
CONDEHENATION OF NON-EXCLUSIVE, PERPETUAL ROAD RIGHT-OF-WAY, SIDEWALK,
SLOPE, UTILITY, DRAINAGE, MAINTENANCE AND TEMPORARY CONSTURCTION
INTEREST BY EASEMENT AND/OR FEE SIMPLE TITLE FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF
THE FOUR-LANING IMPROVEMENTS FOR LIVINGSTON ROAD PROJECT BETWEEN GOLDEN
GATE PARKWAY (C.R. 886) AND RADIO ROAD (C.R. 856) - ADOPTED
We are under public works, Item 8(B)(1), recommendation to the
board about the resolution authorizing the acquisition for potential
road right-of-way.
Mr. Gonzalez, good morning.
MR. GONZALEZ: Good morning. For the record, Adolfo Gonzalez,
capital projects director.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Motion to approval.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Do we have any speakers on this matter, Mr.
Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have a motion and a second on the floor.
Is there any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero. Mr. Gonzalez, a
fine presentation.
Item #882
RESOLUTION 97-360 AUTHORIZING THE ACQUISITION BY GIFT, PURCHASE OR
CONDEMNATION OF NON-EXCLUSIVE, PERPETUAL ROAD RIGHT-OF-WAY, SIDEWALK,
UTILITY, DRAINAGE, MAINTENANCE AND TEMPORARY CONSTRUCTION INTEREST BY
EASEMENT FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SIX-LANING IMPROVEMENTS FOR
AIRPORT-PULLING ROAD (C.R. 31) PROJECT FORM PINE RIGE ROAD (C.R. 896)
TO VANDERBILT BEACH ROAD (C.R. 862) - ADOPTED
Item 8(B)(2), recommendation the board adopt resolution -- very
similar to the previous one.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Motion to approve.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Anything outstanding on this one, Mr.
Gonzalez?
MR. GONZALEZ: The reason why we bring these to you in a regular
general format -- just to remind you again -- rather than a consent
agenda is that if we acquire by gift, purchase, or condemnation, I
understand we have to give the property owner his or her due process
right of speaking before you. So when it's just by gift or purchase,
it's a consent agenda item. When it's gift, purchase, condemnation,
it's a regular agenda item.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Do we have any speakers on this one,
Mr. Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: No, you do not.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have a motion and a second on the floor.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Five, zero.
Item #883
SECOND AMENDHENT TO THE SOLID WASTE COLLECTION SERVICE AGREEHENT WITH
WASTE MANAGEMENT, INC. OF FLORIDA - APPROVED
Item 8(B)(3), recommendation the board consider approval of the
second amended agreement to the solid waste collection service
agreement.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I had the same question on this one as I
had on the previous two. I understood the answer to that one. I
don't know why this is not a consent agenda item since it's exactly
what we already discussed, had a thorough, careful debate, so unless
there are speakers, I'll make a motion to approve.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'll be honest with you, not every single
element of this contract was discussed, so I think it was important
that the board had the opportunity to review the contract. And also,
to be honest, I think it was a split vote on it. Was it five, zero or
was it a split vote?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Who knows.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So again, I wanted to go ahead and have the
opportunity to comment on the contract. That may be one reason why
it's on the regular agenda.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I got a motion to approve.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Second it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Russell.
MR. RUSSELL: I have nothing further to add.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We're in full agreement with Waste
Management, and did the county attorney's office review that
everything in the contract is consistent with our deliberations
previously?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, it better be or the county attorney
is in big trouble. No, I read it and didn't find anything to object
to.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We have a motion and a second on this
matter. Do we have any speakers on this, Mr. Fernandez? MR. FERNANDEZ: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Seeing none, any discussion on the motion?
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero.
Mr. Russell, thank you. Apparently I was wrong putting that on
the regular agenda.
Item #8B4
FOUR HIGHEST RANKED VENDORS DIRECTED TO PREPARE PRESENTATIONS TO DESIGN
THE WIDENING OF GOODLETTE-FRANK ROAD FROM PINE RIDGE ROAD TO VANDERBILT
BEACH ROAD - PROJECT NO. 60134 FOR BOARD OF COUNTY COMHISSIONERS
CONSIDERATION AT A FUTURE MEETING
Next item, 16(B)(8) is something I withdrew from the -- the
consent agenda. Mr. Gonzalez, the reason I asked for this on the
regular agenda was I get a lot of questions about this potential
project from the folks that live in Pine Ridge who back up to what is
now the drainage ditch which is in all likelihood going to be --
they're just concerned about what it's going to be. So I'm going to
be following the process.
What concerned me is there was a ranking on the applications of
one, two, and three; and then there was an oral presentation, and that
ranking flipped entirely. That's rare, and my experience doing that
and doing presentations is that's very rare. So as a board member,
that kind of concerns me.
I guess I want to see what our staff saw. And also I want to
know in this project, because of the immediate implications to people
that are already living there and have lived there since as far as
back as the '50s, I want to know that I have a very workable
consultant, and I can't make that predisposition without hearing or
discussing with them. And I can't meet with them during the RFP
process.
So I would like for the board to receive a five-minute
presentation from each of the consultants to verify staff ranking on
this matter. It's simply my request of the board, and if the board
doesn't mind placing that on a future agenda, I would be much more
comfortable after receiving that.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I certainly support you in that.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's fine.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Mr. Gonzalez, if you would set that up,
please, then we will either verify or have discussions on the ranking
after the presentation of each consultant.
MR. GONZALEZ: For clarification, would you like just for the top
four? We did have five proposals submitted -- or all five of the
consultants?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Who -- what was the --
MR. GONZALEZ: We asked four consultants to give us an oral
presentation.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Those are the four that I would like to
see, then. Because by application alone you had pretty much pulled
the fifth out, and I understood why after reading and seeing what was
submitted; but, yeah, those four. MR. GONZALEZ: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez. And thank you, board
members.
Item #8C1
CATEGORY "C" TOURIST DEVELOPMENT TAX FUNDS FOR A CATEGORY "C" TOURIST
DEVELOPMENT TAX FUNDS FOR A PROPSED IN-LINE SKATE PRO TOUR WORLD
CHAMPIONSHIP TO BE HELD AT THE EAST NAPLES - TABLED UNTIL LATER IN THE
MEETING
Item 8(C)(1), public services, request Category C tourist
development tax funds for proposed in-line skate pro tour world
championship to be held at East Naples skate park in October.
Mr. Olliff, our new in-line local guru is here to give us the
skinny on that. And after your presentation, I'd like to give the
board the benefit of the TDC's deliberations, so I'll take that end of
it, Mr. Olliff, if you'd like to give us the nuts and bolts, please.
MR. OLLIFF: For the record, Tom Olliff. He's learned more about
in-line skating in the last week than he ever cared to know. I think
the board's familiar with the actual project and familiar with the ASA
event that was presented to you last week. In the interim, the board
directed that the TDC -- or requested that the TDC hold a special
meeting, which was done, in order to be able to review a request for
tourist development tax funds.
I'll just -- I'll give you at least a summary of what the end
recommendation was, and we'll let Commissioner Hancock tell you a
little bit about the thought process I think that they went through to
get there.
The TDC recommended to the Board of County Commissioners that a
funding amount of $48,000 be approved for the event, for the
advertising and promotion of the event in what is now Category B-2.
And then, rather than trying to keep up with the categories, I think
it is still what you used to know as Category C, which was the special
events category.
The event hasn't changed significantly at all from what you saw
last week. It is still an item scheduled for the weekend of October
llth, 12th and 13th. It still includes a pro tour event, which would
be the primary feature. Also includes an amateur event. One note
that I wanted to make last week and failed to was that the event is
actually a free event to the public, so there is not an admissions
charge. One of the things that -- one of the reasons I wanted to
point that out is because it's not an event that is contingent upon
admission fees in order to make the event work as some of the previous
events that have been in front of this board and have not turned out
so well, and it caused us to have some concerns about these
special-type events.
In return for the TDC investment in this event, I think the
executive summary points out that the value of the media coverage is
valued at $600,000. An expected television audience in the United
States alone is over four million people, and the broadcast will also
go out to 170 different countries. All in all, I think it's a good
event. I think it can be done. I think it can be done at the East
Naples Community Park. And I'm here to answer any questions that you
might have.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just a couple real basic ones. From what
I understood last week, this was an event that was previously
scheduled to be held elsewhere? MR. OLLIFF: Yes, ma'am.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Can you tell me where that was?
MR. OLLIFF: It was in Broward County.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And now they want to come here because our
facility is so wonderful?
MR. OLLIFF: That is one of the reasons. It's also -- the event
in Broward County was scheduled to be held on the beach, and I think
there was some sea turtle nesting permit problems with that and some
logistical issues about it being on the beach.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And then if they were already prepared to
hold this event in another county, in Broward, were they getting
financial support from that county?
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Rick Bratman from the ASA is here, and I think
he's probably better equipped to answer that.
MR. BRATMAN: Yes, we were. We obtained assistance from both the
county and the city.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: She needs your name.
MR. BRATMAN: I'm sorry. Rick Bratman from the Aggressive
Skaters Association.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: The amount that the Broward County
association -- or county commission was going to contribute, had that
been determined?
MR. BRATMAN: No. It was a number that was a little bit influx
because of some of the other issues that were contingent upon
logistics. And I think to reiterate what Mr. Olliff had said, we left
Ft. Lauderdale for a couple of reasons, and number one was the sea
turtle issue, but I think more importantly there was some very serious
logistical concerns as to whether or not we could do it on the beach.
And those were the things that were going to keep the budget in flux.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And what's the amount of your
association's financial contribution to the event?
MR. BRATMAN: To this event?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Uh-huh.
MR. BRATMAN: We'll be contributing approximately a hundred and
forty-five, hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in that range,
depending again on the final list of expenses which we actually come
up with.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'll tell you that my -- a real important
factor in my vote is going to be a commitment in the contract for you
to make -- you to pay the first $150,000, if that's the number, and
then additional costs up to a cap of, you know, whatever we decide is
-- would come out of TDC money, but that our obligation be -- our
payment obligation be predicated on your payment. In other words, we
don't pay unless you pay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think I need to interject something that was
a TDC recommendation that may affect that direction. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The TDC in deliberating this -- you understand
we altered our ordinance to read that TDC funds could only be used for
promotion and advertising. So what happens, then, as we see events
such as this would take their promotion and advertising budget and use
their TDC dollars for that. The TDC recommendation was very narrow in
which areas of their application were qualified as promotion and
advertising, even more narrow than what Hiss Ashton had felt qualified
under the ordinance. So what the TDC's recommendation was -- was I
think it was $48,100 for qualified expenditures under promotion and
advertising, and they can only be used in that manner. So that would
have a material impact on what you're saying, because the dollars are
not allowed to be used generally in any way in the event that the ASA
deems necessary, only on promotion and advertising.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But I'm confused, because of this page
five in the staff report. It talks about projected spending and the
total 73,500.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That's where the 48,100 came from and, Mr.
Olliff, I hoped we would have had better information than what is
presented here, because there is a breakdown in promotion and
advertising --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd like to see that, please.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- and we went through and actually checked
off those that were appropriate and those that weren't, added them up,
and came up with $48,100.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, what I'd like to see, too, is where
is your 150,0007 What are you spending it on? I'd like to see a
budget --
MR. BRATMAN: Sure. We're all --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- for the event.
MR. BRATMAN: A budget was submitted.
MR. OLLIFF: It was submitted to the TDC, and I will -- and if
you want to delay this item, we can bring it back, and I'll have
copies made of both the budget that includes their expenditures and
the requested TDC funding.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I just think that's such a fundamental
issue, you know, where is all of the money going?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let's get a motion to table.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Motion to table.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Second it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and second. All those in favor?
(Unanimous response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We'll table this till we get that
budget information, and we'll pick up that discussion as soon as
that's available.
Item #8C2
INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT FOR CITY-COUNTY BEACH PARKING - CONTINUED TO
SEPTEMBER 9, 1997 SO THAT THE BUDGET INFORMATION CAN BE PROVIDED
Okay. Next item is approval of an interlocal agreement for
city-county beach parking.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I have some concerns
here, and maybe our staff can help us. But the $40,000 increase in
here is due to the fact that the city chose to remove some meters,
have assigned an annual collection to remove those meters of $50,000
and say that the county uses 80 percent of the spaces, so that we
should pay 40,000.
And it just seems to me that it was the city's choice to remove
those meters. It was the city's choice to alter the manner which they
oversee the parking. I'm not sure that the county taxpayer needs to
be penalized an additional $40,000 for that. We get into -- I mean,
we can statistically beat this thing to death if we get into all the
different issues of how much does the county spend here, how much does
the city spend. The county tourist tax dollars are -- an overwhelming
majority are collected outside the city limits, yet an overwhelming
majority was spent on a beach within the city limits. That's not a
complaint. That's just -- you can throw out any side of the argument
here.
The point is, for years we've had -- with the CPI adjustment,
we've had a standard amount, and it seems like we ought to just stick
to that standard amount and have an agreement that people can go to
the beach for that same amount of money.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: If I could just --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me refresh my memory. On those metered
parking spots that are in the city limits, aren't they normally
available free of charge for anybody with a beach parking sticker?
MS. RAMSEY: For the record, Harla Ramsey, park and recreation
department director. Yes, they are. A beach parking sticker can park
at a nonmetered -- metered spot as well, either way.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Either way, whether it has a meter or
whether it doesn't have a meter, you can park there. MS. RAMSEY: That's correct.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: So that just adds validity to Commissioner
Constantine's argument.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. There really doesn't appear to
be a rational reason to remove the meters and then particularly turn
around and charge the county for it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, the reason that there is a benefit
to county residents there is, yes, it's true that we, with stickers,
can park in spaces that have meters; however, also people without
stickers can park in places that have meters. That's what had been
happening at that particular park so that there were not spaces
available. The tourists or, you know, non-county residents were
filling up the -- all of the metered spaces, leaving only a few spaces
available to local residents, both county and city.
The fact of the matter is this started -- this discussion started
at Coquina Sands, but the -- the availability -- pushing the tourist
back a little bit and making more spaces unavailable to non-county
residents, in fact, has the result of making more spaces available to
county residents and city residents, and the usage of those spaces is
80 percent county. I mean, that's a factual matter; so it isn't --
although the spaces with meters, yes, were available to people who
have stickers, that was only in theory because they were not
available; they were taken. This makes more spaces in actuality
available.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I guess two comments with that. One,
that may be an accurate portrayal. If it is, though, then it's not
county residents' money there. I mean, it's -- you're voluntarily --
the city would voluntarily be giving up -- you described most of those
are being used by tourist -- nonresident tourists. And so that's
money that is neither from the city nor the county. That's money we
should be collecting from outside.
But also the request to alter that came from some folks who live
nearby in the city. So again I'm dumbfounded as to why that should
end up being a $40,000 charge to the county when it wasn't at the
county's request.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But the question -- the initial inquiry
was made by city residents. And what they asked for was please make
more spaces available to city residents only. Instead -- you know, so
their request -- their inquiry did not rule the day. Their inquiry
started the discussion. But, in fact, what they asked for is not what
the city council did. The city council did something much different
and that was make something available to county residents equal to
city residents and again based on the 80 percent usage.
I see this as a real olive branch from the city to the county,
that the city was asked perhaps to do something exclusionary, instead
did something inclusionary to Collier County residents and now expects
us to make it a break-even proposition for the city, having done that,
having extended that olive branch.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Again, I just look at it a little
different in that the city opted to tinker with the current formula,
and now we're turning around and saying we're sorry, the county needs
to pay for it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Norris.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Well, the other thing is that perhaps you
can make the argument that it does increase the available spots for
people with stickers, but the -- one of the primary purposes of having
beach parking is to attract tourists, and if you're going to now take
action that excludes tourists from your beach parking, isn't that a
bit contrary to so many discussions we've had in the past about trying
to do something to increase beach parking for tourists?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me ask a couple of questions. Miss
Ramsey, how many spaces are available within the city under the
current sticker program that county residents can use free of charge?
What's the total number, please? MS. RAMSEY: The 1,156.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. And by this action they're not adding
any spaces, but merely making 40 or -- making how many spaces -- MS. RAMSEY: Eighty-one.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- eighty-one spaces available for only
stickers that were previously available for anyone? MS. RAMSEY: Correct.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What percentage -- in their numbers, what
percentage of parking meter use was by tourists? Did they produce
that?
MS. RAMSEY: There were about 150, I believe, in that particular
park, give or take a few.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Do we know how many of those were used
by tourists in season or --
MS. RAMSEY: Well, the data that I got from Lowdermilk was
different than the 80/20 split. I got a 40 -- 40 percent city, 40
percent county, and then the rest tourism, is the -- is the Lowdermilk
numbers, specifically, that I received.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So you're saying that all of the spaces
were being used by tourists?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm saying that metered spaces were filled
by unstickered cars.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Which one does --
COMHISSIONER BERRY: By the tourists, though.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So what -- I guess what I'm saying --
what I'm getting to is it's really a simple equation. You know, we --
a dollar amount has been attached to the joint use of parking spaces
between the city and county. And if that number quantitatively
changes, then the formula quantitatively should change. It's a direct
mathematical correlation.
What's happening here is we've got, you know, a little bit of a
kind of a turf issue that is finding it's way into this contract, and
I'm not sure that's appropriate. An olive branch is one thing, but an
olive branch with a price tag at the base of $40,000 isn't an olive
branch; it's a financial deal.
I think the city did what was right. They didn't -- they didn't
necessarily kowtow to a small group within the city as it's been
described to me, instead took an approach that benefitted more than
just city residents. And I don't mind recognizing that in a financial
deal, but I think if you divide, you know, 1,056 spaces into what we
pay, it's less than $200 a space, and you multiply that by 81 spaces,
and I'm not coming up with $40,000.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Five thousand dollars.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. So this is a quantitative relationship,
and I think the $40,000 doesn't have a logical base to it. And that's
why I have a tough time with approving the contract with that in it,
because it doesn't make fiscal sense.
COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Do you understand where they came -- where
they got 40,000? As I understand it the lost income -- if you put
yourself -- if we put ourselves in the position of city council
members who are trying to extend this olive branch, then you want it
-- you want the olive branch to be fiscally neutral. I mean, we would
want that. We would want to be fair and be fiscally neutral for our
taxpayers.
In the city's case, the fiscal result of taking the meters off is
$50,000 financial loss. They lose $50,000 in annual revenues by
taking those parking meters out. Because 80 percent of the usage of
that park is county and 20 percent is city, they're asking that we
bear 80 percent of the financial loss. It is a number based in
facts.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's not what I heard Ms. Ramsey
say, though. I heard her say 40, 40 and 20.
MS. RAMSEY: The number -- the 80/20 number that you have in
front of you is dictated from the number of beach stickers that are
given out.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's not specific to Lowdermilk.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And help me with that again. I --
MS. RAMSEY: Yeah. The 80/20 split that you have in front of you
is really how many stickers the county is giving out and how many
stickers the city is giving out, so 80 percent of the stickers given
out are from the county, and 20 percent are from the city.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That doesn't necessarily reflect usage
at that park.
MS. RAMSEY: No, it does not, but they're using that as their --
because 80/20, that's the split.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Is there -- do we have any idea what the
usage at that park is county versus city?
MS. RAMSEY: The city did fax to me a survey that was done by the
residents in that area, and it stated that 40 percent were county, 40
percent were tourists, and 17 to 18 percent were City of Naples.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And was there any measurement that's been
done of the unmetered spaces, what the split is on the usage? I was
told that the split on the usage for unmetered spaces was that 80
percent of those are filled with county stickers, and 20 percent of
those unmetered spaces are filled with city stickers. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Told my whom?
MS. RAMSEY: I do not have that data. I do not know.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just conversations with, you know, city
council people.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Olliff, do you have anything to add to
clarify that?
MR. OLLIFF: I'm not sure we can clarify it at this point, but I
think the city's argument was that of the metered -- 81 metered spaces
that are under discussion today, their numbers were 40 percent county
usage, 40 percent tourist (sic) usage, 20 percent tourist usage.
from that they're also saying that of those people with permits
parking in those 81 spaces, 80 percent of those are county vehicles.
So they're saying whether you issue the permits -- the issuance is 80
percent -- or whether you look specifically at the vehicles that are
parked at those metered spaces, it's an 80 percent usage by the
county. So that's where they were getting that 80 percent number.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because 40/20 is 80 percent of the
unmetered spaces.
MR. OLLIFF: Actually, of the permit cars that are in there,
you're talking about 60 permitted cars in the 80 spaces. Of those 60
cars, 40 of them would be county cars; 20 of them would be city cars.
That's about 80 percent.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How many meters are there total in the
city? And how much money do they collect total? MR. OLLIFF: I don't know that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Are you questioning whether or not they
actually collect 50 grand off of these 81 spaces?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm asking a question --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I understand.
MS. RAMSEY: Don Worth told me that they do get $75,000 from
Lowdermilk Park on an annual basis.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And how many meters are there in
Lowdermilk Park? I mean, are we taking away two-thirds of the meters?
MS. RAMSEY: Approximately, yes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Did Mr. Olliff's answer -- was it clearer
in your mind about where that 80/20 number comes from because the --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Not entirely, to be honest with you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, if we start with that there's
$50,000 in lost revenue --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: No. I was talking about the usership, not the
spaces.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But even so --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So do that again.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Again, we can -- statistically we can
twist this any way we want. We can say, you know, how much per space
citywide we're paying when you use the 168,000 figure versus the 1,156
spaces or whatever that comes out to be. You can do that math and
multiply that time the number of spaces. It's going to come out
considerably less than 40,000. I think it comes out to five thousand
something.
We can twist this so that it makes logical sense using any
statistics we want. I don't think an additional $40,000 to the county
taxpayer because of something the city opted to do is an appropriate
response.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I guess I'm in the middle ground. I think
there is a --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: There may be something, but I don't
think $40,000 --
MR. OLLIFF: Well, if it's any ground to land on, I know that in
previous agreements, most in particular capital improvement
agreements, we have funded 50/50 agreements for the cost of the
improvements. When we originally talked to the city and the city
staff, I think we were talking about a contribution in addition to
last year's agreement that would equal 50 percent of whatever their
lost revenue was. And just from the discussions at the staff level,
I'm not sure that that wouldn't be an acceptable number.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That's where I was heading is something closer
to that, but the problem is -- I'm concerned that this type of a
change in the contract opens up every single action taken within the
city or the county to renegotiation of the contract. Number of spaces
aren't changing; the availability is. And there's a certain benefit
to city and county residents, and I think the city and county should
share in the loss of revenues from those spaces. I don't have a
problem with that.
What I do have a problem with is the way we're going about this.
It came from a small group of city residents, not a petition of 50
percent of the city residents, not from a third, not from a quarter,
from a very small group within the city that lives within walking
distance, for the most part, of the beach; so it's exclusionary. It's
-- for the tourist. It's -- it's really not a very firm formula by
which this contract is being amended. So I'm kind of in a big gray
area here. I want to find a middle ground, but I hate to open this up
to doing this every time there's a flare up somewhere in the city or
county about beach parking. All of a sudden we get an amended
agreement with more money coming from the county side. I'm concerned
about that.
Commissioner Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, the other part is really to a
relationship issue. We have in the past and hope we continue in the
future to have these agreements between the city and the county. But
here we have a case of the city deciding unilaterally that they're
going to take some action that we've never agreed to and then
expecting us to pay for it. I mean, that's really not what you do
with contracts.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think that's -- you know, we need to return
this into a negotiation if we feel that one is appropriate. I don't
disagree with you. I mean, I don't like the way it came about. You
know, I've been discussing with Mr. Woodruff and with Mayor Barnett
about this joint committee to look at this, but between our vacation
schedule and the mayor's vacation schedule, it never happened this
summer. And I was hoping that we would have a chance for that
committee to look at a -- take a holistic view of the beach parking
before we went amending contracts to this dollar amount. That hasn't
happened. So at this point, you know, again I don't have a problem
with looking at a fifteen or twenty thousand dollar increase in this
instance, but I'm not at all comfortable with a forty thousand dollar
increase. And I would not be inclined to even review this contract at
any time in the future until this joint committee is formed, up and
running, and I'm asking publicly that I get the assistance to do that.
We've just been -- you know, no one's -- it just seems it just hasn't
happened. We've wanted to do it, and it hasn't happened.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I wonder if -- I'm sorry. You were next.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I just have a question. There is nothing in
the information that we have in front of us that is any supporting
information for this increase. There is nothing dollarwise here that
supports it other than take our word for it, here's what we need to
do. Until they can come forth and show us either in lost revenue or
whatever -- in other words, what have they had in the past, what will
they be losing in the future, and this is why we need to do this, I
cannot support this agreement, because there is nothing here other
than emotion. There is no facts here that support it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If this was a staff item, we wouldn't
accept it this way.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: No.
COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, it is a staff item, frankly, and it
should have better back up.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I'm not blaming our staff. I believe that
the city should have provided this for us.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Agreed.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And I think if we had asked for it in more
detail, we probably could have gotten it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, then let's not move ahead until we get
that information.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, my suggestion was going to be
somewhat in the middle. I just -- don't have any idea if there's
going to be support for this, but my thought was if what we're saying
is that as a board we're willing to shoulder half of the lost revenue
from the removal of these meters, that we approve the contract with
the provision that up to a number, up to $25,000, we will, at the end
of the year, make a payment based on the actual numbers of half of the
lost revenue from the removal of the 81 meters.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Then you get real numbers instead of
budgets.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I got to agree with Commissioner
Hancock and Commissioner Berry. We need to see some backup on the
item first and foremost, and I think it would serve everyone, not only
on this issue but on all issues, if we can get that joint meeting and
discussions going on, and I applaud Commissioner Hancock's efforts on
that. But I'm not comfortable taking action until both of those
things have happened.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm going to hold off supporting what you've
asked for Commissioner Hac'Kie, because I'm concerned about the
precedent that this sets that any time something may occur -- we all
know pressure comes to bear in public office from different groups at
different times, and I don't want that pressure resulting in a
continually modified contract that has no logical basis. There was a
basis for the original contract and a basis for the dollar amount, and
it had to do with sharing the cost of beach maintenance and
maintenance in the parking areas and the walkovers and so forth. This
is something entirely different. It comes from a different place.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: There's a basis for this one too, and so
maybe the very best idea is to continue it for maybe a couple weeks --
or I don't know how long it'll take you to get the information.
MR. OLLIFF: One of the difficult things that we need to keep in
mind is that the current agreement expires at the end of the month.
And we won't have an existing parking agreement as of October, and
just to make the board aware of that. I mean, we've been working on
this for awhile.
One of the reasons we're in this position -- and I think we've
had this discussion with the staff, was the agreement actually got
approved by the city council in a format and then sent over. Then it
ends up putting us and you in a position of negotiating from board to
board, because changes can't be made once it's been approved at the
city council level.
So it's a difficult way to do the agreement. When there's a
fundamental change in the agreement, we think that in the future,
hopefully, we'll be able to try and work those things out at the staff
level before they ever get brought up before the city council and the
county commission, because this is very difficult, then, because the
agreement goes back and forth between council and commission and can
only be negotiated that way, and it's a very difficult process.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me suggest this. We have a meeting on
October 30th and --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I hope you mean September.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I mean September 30th. Excuse me. And you
said our current agreement ends when?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: At the end of this month, September.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: End of September. Well, that's the fifth
Tuesday, isn't it?
MR. OLLIFF: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So we only have one more meeting this
month.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I make a motion to continue it for a week,
ask the staff to get the budgetary information necessary for the board
to make, you know, a quantifiable decision.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And request the justification from the city
for that dollar amount. What I don't want to do is go down the
primrose path here and then up a week from now with no agreement
either.
MR. OLLIFF: I want -- I want the board to know, though, even if
the number comes in at 48 or 52, the issue is still going to be a
quality issue. I mean, it's not going to be that the county gains
any additional parking spaces. So the question is still going to be
in a week is it worth some dollar value in order for the convenience
of having reserved parking spaces, if you will, for permit parking.
And that's the question. And what's that dollar value worth, because
you don't net out any additional parking spaces.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And that's why I keep coming to a reduced
amount from what's been presented here simply because there is a worth
to that, but it's not to me even $25,000, because the county resident
will enjoy very little more than they did previously. Yes, increase
-- slight increase in availability, but heck, you know, I haven't used
Lowdermilk Park in years since my volleyball days, so -- and that goes
back a ways. And so, you know, I just -- I wonder. Now, with all the
efforts we're also doing countywide in trying to increase beach
parking if that shouldn't be recognized in this agreement also.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And I just continue to ask the board to
keep in mind that we are spending millions of dollars a year to
develop tourist industry in Collier County and Naples, and is it a
wise course of action to start removing beach parking spaces from the
tourist pool? I mean, it seems to be such a contradiction to me.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Because I could really debate that --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Sure.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: -- because, I mean, surely our first
priority is to have beach access available for county residents. I
mean, that's certainly my first priority over tourists. But I would
also ask if -- if there's support for my motion to continue for a week
that we ask the city manager if he could be here for this presentation
and also, you know, schedule a time certain if that would be helpful
in having him with us.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The city manager would be helpful. I would
also like to have the opportunity to address Mr. Barnett, because I
think we all have a good relationship with the mayor, and he can
probably give us a good firm idea of what the council is and what
their direction is. So I'd like to ask if both of them wouldn't mind
indulging us to appear for that discussion since the time will not
allow us to form this committee in the remaining period. So I would
be supportive of that.
What I don't want to do is go down, like I said, the primrose
path here. If there are members of this board that feel that there is
no reason to pursue anything other than the three percent increase and
are fairly confident there's not much to change your mind, speak up
now, and if there's three of you, you know, we don't -- I don't feel
that way. I want to take a further look at this with a big yellow
flag, not a red one, but a yellow one.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's going to take some pretty heavy
convincing for me. When we have had the conversation at least four
times a year for the past five years of how we've got to find more
beach parking, we've got to find more beach parking, we've got to
accommodate people coming to town. We talk about how expensive it is
per parking space, and now we're talking about taking them away. It
doesn't make logical sense. It's going to take something overwhelming
to make me think we should be spending money to take parking spaces
away.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Me too.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That's two. And, Commissioner Berry, you were
looking for more information?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I want more -- because I just don't see
anything that justifies the increase. There is nothing here
dollarwise that justifies the increase. And until I can see that, I'm
not going to support this. And I'm not saying it's not good. I just
say there's nothing here that supports it. It's just feel-good talk.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd ask the staff to also get a transcript
of this discussion to give to the city.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That transcript won't be available before next
week.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Chairman, we have a motion on the floor
to continue, but I don't believe we've ever acted on that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm going to second the motion to get it on
the floor. Is there discussion on the motion?
Call the question. All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Aye.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries three, two. We'll hear this
back next week with a list of items presented today. Again, this is
less -- you know, I hate this stuff because, you know, this is going
to be played up in the paper tomorrow as some turf war and some
garbage like that because, you know, hey, it makes for good fodder
whether it's true or not. It has nothing to do with city-county
feuding. It has to do with a fiscal relationship and a contract,
that's all.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: The pens are warming up now.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, don't seek truth there. If you want to
seek it, watch these meetings.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. My recommendation, too, is that we
don't -- we don't give that kind of credibility even, frankly, by
commenting on what they're going to write or not write. Let's just
stay out of it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We're going to see that next week,
then.
Next item -- actually, we're right about that time to take a
little break, so why don't we take -- let's take ten minutes and
return.
(A break was held from 10:25 a.m. to 10:40 a.m.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Good afternoon. We're going to reconvene the
Board of County Commissioners meeting.
Item #8C1
CATEGORY "C" TOURIST DEVELOPMENT TAX FUNDS FOR A PROPOSED IN-LINE SKATE
PRO TOUR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TO BE HELD AT THE EAST NAPLES SKATEPARK IN
OCTOBER - APPROVED IN THE AMOUNT OF $60,400.00 WITH CONDITIONS
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I make a motion we
remove the Tourist Development Council item for the Category G,
promotion and advertising and Category C thing from the table.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Item is untabled.
Mr. Olliff, where are we?
MR. OLLIFF: In reference to the thing, the handout that I
provided you is the actual TDC application package. The last three
pages are the actual budget for this particular event, and I do need
to indicate to you that this was -- you need to appreciate time frames
a little bit. This was in front of you on Tuesday and was then two
days later in front of the TDC, and this is a very quickly amended
budget from the event that was going to be in Broward County. But if
you look to the second to last page of that package, you will see the
advertising and promotion section, and those items that were actually
dotted there for you are the items that were approved by the TDC, that
when they went through the list they felt were items that met the
criteria within the ordinance for advertising promotion.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me also say that not only did the TDC say
these were deemed appropriate but that in the actual contract a more
specific breakdown should be required than just these open categories.
An example was print advertising in the Hiami Herald or the Tampa
Tribune would probably be more effective than in the local --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Seattle Times.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. So, you know, they wanted a little more
detail on that breakdown to be included as an attachment to the
contract. So when the board sees the contract, these will be more
detailed. That was very strongly stated.
A second thing that was requested that Mr. Spahn (phonetic) felt
there wouldn't be a problem with, but again Mr. Bratman had a conflict
and was unable to be there and is here really for the first time on
these particular items today, was that the $149,000 that's listed in
the application as a financial commitment on the part of ASA, that
they were willing to perform a post-tournament verifiable audit to
indicate those dollars had been expended by the ASA. Again, Mr. Spahn
couldn't commit on behalf of Mr. Bratman but he felt that would not be
a problem, again, trying to erase questions that have arisen time and
again on different applications and so forth.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: You're nodding, but it would be good for
the record if you would commit to that.
MR. BRATMAN: Yeah, I have no problem with doing a very detailed
accounting, a post-event accounting of what was spent and what wasn't
spent.
COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Is there a reasonable time within which --
I mean, could we say 30 days from the conclusion of the event, 45?
MR. BRATMAN: Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. Yeah, it's in
our best interest to get it done as quickly as possible as well.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'd like to make it 30 days.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Trying to summarize everything from the TDC so
I can get out of this so you can ask questions of Mr. Bratman or Mr.
Olliff as needed.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Question for you with the TDC, there
are -- normally, I'm whittling away things, but there are two or three
things on this list that are not dotted that would appear to fit in
the promotion production category, creative design, creative
execution. In order to really prep anything as far as television or
radio, you need to create it. That's just a natural part of it, and I
wondered if there was a reason why that wasn't included?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: There was. Based on the description given by
Mr. Spahn, the TDC was trying to be very, very narrow in the sense
that what is being done is directly related to the production, not
indirect. I will give you an example, things such as shipping and
stickers. Well, you may need to ship some things in order to produce
it, but you know --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I agree. Just those top two items,
creative design, creative execution from a marketing standpoint seems
like a necessity in order to do your advertising, radio.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And you would know more than I would. That's
why Mr. Bratman is here today. We asked Mr. Spahn to make sure Mr.
Bratman could be here today because although Mr. Spahn is a board
member of the ASA, he's not ultimately the one that answers to the
event; Mr. Bratman is. So I will say that every one of these, the TDC
asked what is that? And in the discussion, there was almost unanimous
agreement in either the exclusion or inclusion of each based on the
response we got.
So today if we want to bring up those that are either included or
not included for further explanation by Mr. Bratman, or a more
detailed explanation, I think that was expected by the TDC, and that's
why our amount was 48,100, because that's all we could put our hands
around.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: My question, though, is the top two
items, and then post production, that'll be used for what? Because
it's --
MR. BRATMAN: That's a critical item as well I'd like to discuss,
because without post production we can't go into the studio and create
the features and do types of things that will help to promote the
county. That's a really critical item here is post production.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You may go out and shoot all kinds of
stuff, but if you don't spend some time editing it in the studio --
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Why do it?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right. That was -- that was the one I
had, also.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Now, I had a question about signage. Now,
signage in terms of what?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Can I come back to post production for a
second, and then we'll go to signage? Post production, we're not
talking about creating videos for sale afterwards. Are we talking
about going back into the studio immediately afterwards and gelling
this thing for its ESPN viewing?
MR. BRATMAN: Correct, yes. The show -- we're going to be
filming approximately thirty hours of the footage that we have to edit
into, you know, two hours worth of programming. And so, from that
standpoint, it takes a lot of time to really go through all of the
material that we've shot, go into the post production facility and
mold it into the television show we shall see.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So that's directly related to the ESPN
side, not to -- we've heard about videos being produced later and
movies -- not to that? MR. BRATMAN: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I do want you to know that TDC kind of
drew a line there that if you're going to make aggressive, you know --
you know, one of these videos you see on late-night TV for 19.95 where
a guy's crashing into walls and stuff, they didn't want to be a part
of that, and I agree with that, so --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What a great idea. Hake a note of
that. The creative design or creative execution, I assume, you agree
with me --
MR. BRATMAN: You're correct. Yeah. That's exactly what we're
using it for is to create our print campaign, our radio campaign, our
television campaign, things of that nature.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Will -- will that be -- when this comes
back as a contract, can we have a more detailed breakdown of all of
these items?
MR. BRATMAN: Sure. That won't be a problem. I mean, as
detailed as you need it to be, we'll be able to supply it for you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry, you had a question on one.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: About signage. What did you have in mind
for signage?
MR. BRATMAN: It -- basically what we do is we come in and we'll
create stickers, banners, all sorts of things of that nature that
we'll place in and around the site to give exposure to different
entities, some of which will be Collier County.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I was just wondering why that wouldn't have
been included?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Precisely what Mr. Bratman said. Such a small
part of that signage would actually benefit Collier County. It really
is for the sponsors and whatnot that come into the event. And the TDC
felt that that was best borne by the sponsorship fees and so forth
rather than -- again, if we have a Collier County banner, I mean, what
really is that going to mean? Not a lot. So signage was excluded
really for that reason.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I was looking at this in terms of directing
people to this new site which not many people probably know where this
is located at this point in time, and that's what I was getting at.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: After this event everyone will know where it
is.
MR. BRATMAN: There's another line item also which I'd like to
address, which is not, unfortunately, under the advertising,
promotion, and production section. It happens to be under staging and
rentals on a previous page, and that's our electronic score board,
which I think will also be perhaps the most significant vehicle on
site in order to advertise and promote Collier County's involvement
and the Sanctuary. And it was put under staging and rentals because
that's where it always is in our yearly budgets. But that's an issue
-- an item that I think we should talk about as well.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Does that appear regularly? Like I
know at the golf tournament, that appears regularly on the television
screen.
MR. BRATMAN: Absolutely. It's in each of our bumpers which
basically means that each time we come in and out of the show, we
highlight the score board. And it's also positioned in such a
location that it receives regular visibility as the cameras pan
throughout the site.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What will be on that score board?
MR. BRATMAN: There'll be rotating messages that will -- the
score board has both a LAD function, which will rotate different
sponsor signage and also different text messages as well it will have
some permanent backlit signage on there of which we can certainly have
Collier County or the sanctuary, whatever it is that the county deems
appropriate there as part of that backlit panel, so there would be
constant exposure.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: A permanent part?
MR. BRATMAN: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd suggest following that, is that
you're going to need to rent the score board whether Collier County
opts to have its name there or not. But I think the creative design,
creative execution, and the post production are all necessary to make
the attention Collier can get out of this and the event itself can get
possible. Without those three things, I mean, it didn't make sense.
But the score board is going to happen whether we participate or not.
I would just suggest that whatever -- as part of the agreement, if we
agree to a final amount, that something on that score board from
Collier County should be part of that agreement.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. And I have a little tough time with the
score board, because I understand the in and out and there, you know
-- there may be a sign that says Sanctuary of Naples, Florida, on
there, and that's fine and everything, but for the dollars the county
is contemplating putting in, I'd think you would offer that to a
sponsor of that magnitude anyway. So I don't think that a real -- I
don't think that's a promotion and advertising benefit to the county,
to be honest. So I'm not going to support the score board.
Based on the information I've heard today, the creative design,
creative execution, and production, I understand it a little bit
better. I think had the TDC been given that information, most or all
of that probably would have been included.
I do want to applaud the TDC. This was a five, zero vote,
unanimous, to support a level of 48,100. And they were five skeptics
when we began the discussion, and we really went through with a
fine-tooth comb, and I have to applaud those members for their
willingness to try and find a way to do this project but do so
responsibly, and I don't disagree with any of the amendments made
here.
I do want to ask that if we move ahead on this that an attachment
to the contract -- these elements be listed in dollar amounts in the
contract specifically but an attachment to the contract detail further
the elements of each to the furthest extent Mr. Bratman is -- that it
is possible. An example was obviously the print advertising. How
many ads? How many days? Papers of what circulation? Obviously, we
had to do some of this to come up with a number anyway. MR. BRATMAN: Sure.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Those details for each of those elements needs
to be provided as an attachment to the contract when the board reviews
this should we get to that stage.
Commissioner Constantine, you have something.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The one at the bottom, printing, just
above site enhancements, for $1,600. What are you printing there?
MR. BRATMAN: We print posters. We print flyers. Those are the
two -- we print tickets. Those are , I would say, the three most
significant printing items that we have.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Those will be distributed where?
MR. BRATMAN: They'll be distributed at skate shops throughout
the Southeast as well as through the school systems here in Collier
County.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That's why I liked -- Mr. Thorn said that,
distribute through the schools so the kids --
COMHISSIONER BERRY: I don't know how they can do that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I don't know either, but --
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do you know how you're going to do
that? I'm not a school board member here.
COMHISSIONER BERRY: Well, there's rules and regulations, but I'd
be very surprised if you're allowed to distribute those through the
school system.
MR. BRATMAN: Well, we'd be certainly open to any suggestions,
and we'd love to be able to work with the school board as much as
possible, because this event, I think, is really targeted for the
youth. I think it's important that they all do know about it, and
that's probably the best way to reach them is through the schools.
And since it is a free event, maybe there's some ways we can --
COMHISSIONER BERRY: I suggest you talk to them. MR. BRATMAN: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: A couple of questions. One is I see a
line here about permanent enhancements for either four or five
thousand dollars.
MR. BRATMAN: Yes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What are those?
MR. BRATMAN: What we're going to do is we're going to take the
existing half pipe, which is the large ramp, and extend it to make it
perhaps the largest ramp in the Southeast. It will be the -- top
quality piece of equipment that there is in this area. And we needed
to do that because for the championships, this had to be the best ramp
on this part of the coast. We're also going to be adding railings and
some other things to help to make the site look better for television.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I just wanted to know exactly what that
is, but it's noteworthy to me that there's about $5,000 worth of
permanent improvements as we're analyzing this financially.
A question, too, is, I -- my reason for asking is I want to be
sure that you have the financial ability to make the -- the fulfill
the commitments that you're making. Can you tell me something about
how many of these events have you done in the past or something about
the history and financial stability of the organization? MR. BRATMAN: Yes, absolutely.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Were any of them in Canada only?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just say no.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm sorry, inside joke.
MR. BRATMAN: Inside joke.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. BRATMAN: We are essentially -- besides being the governing
body of the sport, we're a professional events organization. In 1997
we will have produced 83 events. That breaks down to 16 on our pro
tour, 57 on our amateur circuit, and 10 college events. In 1998 we're
also launching a high school tour which will expand that number to
well over 200 events a year. So there's really nothing speculative at
all about this venture, and we have already raised a significant
amount of money through tour sponsorship for the year, which is
contractually committed to and is already in place. And, as I said,
we really are -- if you boil it down, we're an events company and a
television production company, because all -- everything that we do on
a pro tour we do take, shape, and mold into television programming
for ESPN and ESPN-2. And we do have a four-year agreement with them
as well.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Are you -- are you willing -- well, let me
see. Are you requesting that the payment made be on a reimbursement
or an invoice basis?
MR. BRATMAN: Whatever the standard policy is, we're fine to work
with. Our preference would be on an invoice basis but --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: My preference obviously would be on a
reimbursement basis, but I didn't know since you had agreed to the
audit procedure --
MR. OLLIFF: We've already discussed the reimbursement basis, and
that's the typical way that these are handled, and that gives the
staff an opportunity to be able to review the invoices that are
submitted before we actually make payment.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And now let's be clear about this. What I
mean -- because, you know, I thought that this was the way -- let me
see how to ask this question. I don't think what I'm suggesting is
typical. I think what I'm asking for is that they pay it and we
reimburse it, not they show us the invoice. And we pay because we
verify the invoice. I would like for them to pay, and then we
reimburse them, and that's -- that's sort of how we got into some
messes before. I'd like them to pay first, and then we reimburse. Is
that -- are you financially able to do that?
MR. BRATMAN: Yeah. That's something that we could probably work
out. I'd like to maybe look at the numbers and work with Mr. Olliff
more closely on that but, yeah, that's an idea that I don't have a
problem with.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I guess I -- you know, rather than creating a
contract that we're not sure can be fulfilled entirely that way, if an
invoice is presented, and that invoice has "paid" stamped on it or
not, the invoice is verified in the same manner. It either is
qualified or it isn't. So I don't know that the invoice necessarily
has to be paid. What we're saying is the 149,000 that they're saying
they're going to spend, they also need to have another, at this point,
60,450 on hand --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Cash flow.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- to pay in advance. I'm comfortable with
the fine-tooth comb the TDC has taken and what we have done here today
that our staff and the clerk's office can determine a proper invoice
so --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But if he's willing to do it on a
reimbursement basis, why argue with that?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I mean, if the invoice is approved by
the clerk and by our staff, what difference does it make? I mean,
either it's approved or -- an approved expenditure or it's not.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Bratman, what I heard you say is that you
would have to look at the numbers and you would try to work with that,
so maybe we need to have that discussion when the contract comes back
before the board, because I don't know that you anticipated paying all
of these amounts in addition to the 149,000 you've committed to and
then getting reimbursed.
MR. BRATMAN: Yeah. That is correct. It would only be a cash
flow issue, which I'd be happy to look at and to --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So if you could do it, I think we obviously
would say great. If you can't, then we need to have that discussion.
Does that satisfy your concern, Commissioner Hac'Kie? No, not
entirely, but how about halfway?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Halfway.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: The other question that I had is -- well,
I guess it hinges on that reimbursement question, because I'm not
concerned about his financial ability to complete the event if he also
has a $60,000 cash flow cushion that he can float and be reimbursed.
If that's the case, then I'm confident that he has the ability to put
on the event and --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is that one of the issues for your
contr -- I'm just trying to understand the difference. An invoice is
an invoice.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: It's a big part of the issue. It's a
fireworks thing. I don't want to -- I don't have a financial
statement --
MR. BRATMAN: Also, to allay any of your concerns, I mean,
everything that we do throughout the year, our 83 events that we put
on all leads up to this one moment. So for us it's far and away our
biggest event of the year. It's-- actually it's the biggest event in
the history of the sport, because it is such a young sport. It's only
been in its fourth year of professional development. So from our
standpoint we're going to put every resource we can into this event
and make sure it's the best possible show that we can do.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: When will the ESPN and ESPN-2 shows
air?
MR. BRATMAN: All the broadcasts on ESPN and ESPN-2 domestically
are airing the last week of November. The international will depend.
Certain countries will air almost immediately following the final --
of the event. Certain countries may wait three or four months to air
it.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do you know what the split is between
ESPN and ESPN-2?
MR. BRATMAN: Currently, it's -- I just found out actually on
Friday that we're allotted another hour on ESPN, so currently it's
three hours on ESPN and two hours on ESPN-2.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Great.
MR. BRATMAN: But it is subject to change. The schedule hasn't
been printed yet.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm going to try and wrap this item up.
There's one thing that -- that we really didn't talk about a lot at
the TDC that I think is important, and that is that this is a
nontraditional event. We have done a lot in the areas of golf and
tennis.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Bowling.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Bowling but, you know, golf and tennis are
high profile, very traditional. They kind of -- everyone seems to
think they represent the community well. This is something that draws
in a whole different segment of our community, particularly the kids.
I love the bumper stickers, you know, "skating is not a crime." You
know, it's a whole different segment of our community, and a way that
we can really present to those kids something that government pays
attention not just to the needs of our adults, but to the needs of
our kids, both in recreation and in other areas. So I'm happy to have
the opportunity to be a part of this event. And I would like to see
us do that. I do have to ask Mr. Weigel, since I have a pair of
in-line skates, do I need to conflict out on this? Apparently golf
clubs have caused that problem in the past. I just want to make sure.
MR. WEIGEL: As long as you've got insurance, you can participate
anywhere you want.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I'd like to go ahead and try and narrow
this down to a motion of possible. Why don't we hear from the
speakers?
MR. FERNANDEZ: You have Mr. Gil Erlichman who'd like to speak on
this subject, Mr. Chairman.
MR. ERLICHMAN: Gil Erlichman. I reside in East Naples. I'm a
taxpayer in Collier County speaking for myself. Well, from what I
just heard where the chairman state, evidently this a fait accompli.
You people evidently are in favor of this Aggressive Skate Association
pro tour world championships.
What comes to my mind is that they originally were supposed to be
over on the east coast where there's a tremendous population over
there which would give them great exposure. I'm very suspicious as to
why they've come over to Naples which insofar as population and
exposure is concerned is very minute compared to the east coast. And
I'm very, very suspicious as to why we want to attract attractions
that are working over in the east coast.
What I think that is happening now to Naples is that we're going
to become another Orlando. And I moved down here to Naples and live
in East Naples because I liked the nice calm atmosphere and the life
that -- that is entailed with it. I don't care for these large
attractions that are supposed to bring 25,000 people into the area as
is stated in this statement here, the papers. Twenty-five thousand
people. Wow. That's a lot of people, and I don't know -- I don't
know -- you're talking about the character and the age of the groups
-- group that would be attracted, teenage and so forth. I think we
have sufficient areas here insofar as ball parks, soccer fields, et
cetera, skating, or in-line skating parks, that are enough to keep our
teenagers busy.
I know nothing about in-line skating. I see people, adults,
teenagers using these skates. In fact, my grandchildren have in-line
skates. I have no objection to people skating like that. But what I
object to is bringing in this outfit. Aggressive, now that -- when I
hear the word "aggressive," it doesn't ring -- it rings a bell, but it
doesn't arouse pleasant thoughts with me.
I'm totally against anything like this and, you know, you people
were highly involved with the fireworks, Canadian outfit. We were
going to have a big fireworks outfit here, and you know what happened.
I don't think a lot of people got their money back at the end of the
performances which were not fulfilled. So I totally object to tourist
funds being given to this outfit. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to
approve the TDC recommendation with a couple of additions. With --
adding the creative design and creative execution at 2,013.50 and
adding the post production at 9,000. I don't have the TDC number in
front of me, so I can't do the math there to tell you a total number.
MR. OLLIFF: $60,450.
COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: $60,450 is my recommendation. I would
like for -- for the budget to be incorporated as an addendum to the
contract, an exhibit incorporated into the contract for the purpose of
requiring specifying what the financial obligation is of the sponsor.
And I would like for the payment to be on a reimbursement basis. And
if that's impossible, then the contract comes back before us, then
obviously that can be amended. But that's my motion.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We have a motion. Is there a second?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I would second the motion if we can delete
as I understand what you want as a reimbursement policy, because I
don't see any specific difference between having an invoice that has
been performed and requiring the promoter to pay it first and then get
reimbursed from us.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: The only difference is the financial
ability of the promoter to support that kind of a cash flow gives me
an extra level of confidence in the event's ability to happen and the
fact that we don't have any kind of a certifiable financial
information.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And the fact that they've put on 83 prior
events doesn't give you any confidence at all?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: A little bit, but I'd just have more, and
if they can do it -- I'm just saying if they can cash flow support
this --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: We understood that. I'm just saying I
don't support that, and I'll second it if you'll delete that.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'd rather not.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. OLLIFF: And just so the board is aware, too, I mean -- and
you had also wanted to include an audit within the 30 days. The
county's payment policy is, we frankly don't pay-- between 30 and 45
days is when our typical payment is. So we would actually be asking
for the audit before they would even actually be reimbursed for the
expenses that they had been asked to come out of pocket on these.
It's just an untypical type process for us.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have a motion on the
floor. Is there a second on the motion?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Mr. Weigel is wanting to talk.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Weigel.
MR. WEIGEL: Okay. I think in the course of discussion of this
agenda item this is the first that I've heard the audit word used as
opposed to an accounting, to be a full accounting to be provided
within the 30-day period or whatever the period is. So for clarity, I
would like to know when we're talking about an audit, are we talking
about the audit in the general sense of an accounting, or are we
talking about an independent third-party audit, which I don't think
has been the topic of discussion up to this point? But probably for
clarity and for the clerk's review since that has come up as a word
that was just used that we need to be clear about that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I need to clarify that. That was me. I meant
a verifiable accounting that would show paid invoices for expenses
incurred by the ASA to meet the contract amount you specified here. I
don't think a third-party audit is required of that. I mean, paid
invoices are paid invoices. And so if you can present those equal the
149,000, that was the nexus of my request.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And I guess based on what Mr. Olliff -- I
had -- you know, with the original golf tournament contract said thou
sha -- that we would be paying them on a reimbursement basis, and we
amended it to change that. So I didn't realize that our payment was
slow enough that -- I had presumed based on that golf tournament
contract that it was possible to do that within county procedures, but
if it's not --
MR. OLLIFF: I think it's difficult. And for an event that's
this size it, frankly, is even more difficult.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. Then with the 30-day verifiable
accounting at the end, I'll withdraw the business about the
reimbursement.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: In that case, I'll second your motion.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We have a motion and a second. I do
want to point out the word "aggressive skating" doesn't mean anyone
gets attacked, but if you've ever seen it, it's pretty aggressive.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's aggressive.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Is there any discussion on the motion?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tom has something to say.
MR. OLLIFF: A suggestion is there were also a couple of other
items in the staff recommendation that if we could include in the
motion, which is an authorization of the budget amendment. Just
because of timing of the event here at the very end of the fiscal
year, the staff expenses, which we don't expect to exceed $6,000, I
would like to be able to get a general fund budget amendment for that,
and a request to waive the normal EMS fee charged, because we would
like to have an on-site ambulance for this type of event, more for the
crowd than for the participants.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie, would you like to amend
your motion to include those two elements?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes, I would.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Second amends.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Second amends, also. Any further discussion on
the motion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Bratman, thank you. We'll look forward to
seeing the contract back before us and look forward to what I'll
equate to probably one of the best community carnivals we've had in a
long time for the kids in this community.
MR. BRATMAN: And thank you very much for your support. We
really appreciate it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you.
MR. OLLIFF: Could I ask just on that item -- just because the
board real -- the board realizing the timing on the event, would there
be any consideration of authorizing the chairman, following the
attorney's office review and approval of an agreement, understanding
the conversation that you've had, to go ahead and authorize the
chairman to sign, simply because you don't have a meeting at the end
of September on the 30th. Your next meeting is one week from now.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I would rather see every effort be made to
bring that contract back one week from today.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I would too.
MR. OLLIFF: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You know, if we can't do that, then I will ask
my colleagues whether they wish to do that, but let's make every
effort to get that thing back in a week. MR. OLLIFF: That's fine.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Go ahead. Blame me when something goes wrong.
Okay. And I saw Mr. Thorn at Home Depot buying sanders this weekend,
so I assume we're -- our crews are getting the park ready for
Saturday, but -- they're open Saturday. There's a ribbon cutting, and
we will see you there.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Five o'clock.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: He's promised to show me how to kill myself on
those things.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Hot dog.
Item #SD1
CONTRACT FOR GOVERNMENT-PROJECTED SPACE NEEDS ASSESSMENT ANALYSIS, RFP
#97-2658 - APPROVED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We are to item 8(D) -- I was expecting
applause at the end of that statement -- Item 8(D)(1).
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve the item.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That's the space-needs --
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I'll second it.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's the discussion we had during
the budget hearing.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Right. Motion and second. Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Camp, fine presentation. Thank you.
Item #8D2
INTERLOCAL AGREEHENT BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND OCHOPEE FIRE DISTRICT,
ISLE OF CAPRI MUNICIPAL FIRE SERVICE TAXING DISTRICT, MARCO ISLAND FIRE
CONTROL AND RESCUE DISTRICT AND THE CITY OF NAPLES POLICE AND EMERGENCY
SERVICES DEPARTMENT - APPROVED
Item 8(D)(2), approve interlocal agreement between Collier County
and the Ochopee Fire District, Isle of Capri Municipal Fire Service
Taxing District, Marco Island Fire Control, and City of Naples Police
and Emergency Services.
Good morning, Miss Flagg.
MS. FLAGG: Good morning, Commissioners. Diane Flagg, emergency
services department, for the record. This item is interlocal
agreements with, as you so named, City of Naples, Marco, Isle of
Capri, and Ochopee that addresses the State of Florida legislation
stating that all nonlicensed agencies who respond to emergency medical
calls should enter into a memorandum of understanding with the
licensed EHS agency. The agencies have sought to comply with the
legislation, and with the board's approval of the interlocal --
standards of patient care, quality assurance, medical equipment will
be achieved.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Miss Flagg, I see Golden Gate's not on here,
North Naples is not on here, East Naples is not on here. Why is that?
MS. FLAGG: That's the decision of their fire commission.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So their fire commissions have chosen not to
sign a memorandum of understanding for response to emergency calls?
MS. FLAGG: At this point, yes, sir.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Do we have any information about why
they've made that choice?
MS. FLAGG: Some have stated it's a financial situation for them.
What we have done is identified the costs associated with providing
the medical training and then made sure that the costs covered the
costs to provide the program, and some of the agents have indicated
that it's a cost issue for them.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But it's a mandated program under Florida
law?
MS. FLAGG: Florida law uses the word "should," not shall. So
they make every effort that they should enter into a memorandum of
understanding.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: In the absence of an HOU, what that means is
that the district is allowed to provide only first responder in a
given scene, not basic life support, not advanced life support; is
that correct?
MS. FLAGG: The HOU provides for strictly first responder care.
This doesn't provide them the opportunity to provide basic or
advanced, but what it does do is assure that the first responder care
that they are providing is consistent with patient care standards.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Established by Collier County?
MS. FLAGG: Yes, sir.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So the other -- the nonparticipating
agencies, districts, will they be -- I'm sorry. I'm starting to loose
my voice; something that causes cheers, too. Will they be able to
provide -- they will be providing first responder services but without
consenting to this agreement as far as what the procedures are?
MS. FLAGG: The State of Florida passed the legislation out of
concern that there were agencies out there who are not licensed to
provide medical care responding to emergency medical calls. So that
is why the state enacted this legislation saying if these agencies are
going to respond to emergency medical calls, they should enter into a
memorandum of understanding with the licensed EHS agency.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So from your knowledge of the -- of the
activities of the other nonparticipating agencies, do they provide
those kinds of services?
MS. FLAGG: They are responding to emergency medical calls, yes,
ma'am.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Which, again, I don't have a problem with. I
just think we're looking for consistency in patient care.
Unfortunately there's a price tag associated with that. In some cases
it's financial. In other cases it's control oriented, and I don't
care to discuss the differences between the two, but it's unfortunate.
I think anything we can do to look at reducing the cost of getting
that consistency we need to really try and do that, because it's
important we're operating on the same page. Otherwise the patient
care is jeopardized, and I think that's what we're trying to prevent.
MS. FLAGG: We will -- the costs have -- again for next year,
because we'll be doing another one next year -- will decrease.
They've decreased consecutively because the initial capital costs have
already been provided by the participating agencies, and we will
continue to seek to work with the agencies that have chosen not to
participate to encourage them to participate.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Do we get anything in writing from the
nonparticipating agencies declining to participate?
MS. FLAGG: What they've done is the fire chiefs have gone to
their commission boards, and then their commission boards have taken
action by motion not to participate, and that is our mechanism.
COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Because I'd like, Mr. Weigel, for the
county to be on record somehow for having requested their
participation or their consideration of participation and then -- so
that we've done our half of the negotiation.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Chairman, I think we are on record. I think
we have requested their consideration of the HOUs in writing.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And we have their responses, like, in
writing I guess as a result of the minutes if nothing else?
MS. FLAGG: Correct. We've gone to the meetings where it was
presented, and they've passed a motion not to participate.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: In those districts where it's a financial
issue, I can understand it a lot more than in districts where it's
not. You know, and I'm not here to determine who's right and who's
wrong in that. But I think we're doing what we can to comply with
state law which is our requirement. Let's continue to work on the
cost so we can eliminate the cost issue as a -- you know, a reason as
much as possible. If there are other reasons beyond that, then I
would assume Mr. Fernandez will become involved and help to resolve
those.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. I think we may be scheduling a
sit-down with those fire departments. I know there are a number of
issues that are going on over and above this one where I'm not sure
communication has been as clear as it could. And -- so we'll make
sure that it is by all sitting at the same table and talking.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, let's do that. Do we have a motion --
oh, I'm sorry. Do we have any speakers on this, Mr. Fernandez? MR. FERNANDEZ: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Do we have a motion?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Motion to approve.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second. Is there any discussion
-- and this is the interlocal agreement between all the entities
listed on Item 8(D)(2). Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Miss Flagg.
Item #BE1
COLLIER COUNTY CITIZEN'S PRODUCTIVITY COHMITTEE REPORT ON THE
PURCHASING SYSTEM REVIEW AND DISCUSSION OF THE FUTURE DIRECTION OF THE
PRODUCTIVITY COHMITTEE - PRESENTED; BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS AND
CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS TO PROVIDE RECOHMENDATIONS TO THE COUNTY
ADMINISTRATOR WITHIN TWO WEEKS
We are to Item 8(E)(1). This is the Collier County Citizen's
Productivity Committee report on the purchasing system review. This
is a review and discussion of the future direction of the productivity
committee. So we have two things here with this today and, Ms. Leith,
would you do us the honor of introducing our members of the
Productivity Committee this morning?
MS. LEITH: Sure. Sheila Leith, office of management and budget.
I'm going to introduce Jack HcKenna, who's the chairman of the
committee, and he'd like to introduce the committee and introduce the
report.
MR. HCKENNA: Good morning, Commissioners. Sheila mentioned --
for the record, I'm Jack HcKenna. I have the honor of being chairman
of the productivity committee. I'd like to take a minute --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You know, that requires that you serve
on the board of commissioners a couple years down the road.
MR. HCKENNA: I'm not going to make any commitment there.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: He lives in my district. Shut up.
MR. HCKENNA: We have a copy of the matrix that I think you-all
have seen that gives you some background of the membership of this
committee. To some extent I feel the accomplishments as listed on
that matrix are perhaps understated. It's -- the group of
participants that we have with this committee is really outstanding.
It's really been an honor working with them.
There are also several omissions from that matrix that I'd like
to mention, the first of which is Sheila. Sheila's been just
tremendous to work with. Her title as staff liaison does not do her
justice. She's definitely a very active member of the committee,
gives great input, you know. We couldn't do it without her, no doubt
about.
Another very valuable member who recently joined us is
Commissioner Berry, and we certainly appreciate her attendance. It's
always very helpful.
I've been with the committee for some time now as you know. It's
interesting to me -- at this point I don't think that I'd have a
chance of getting on the committee. It's such -- you know, my
background certainly doesn't justify my being here at all. A little
story I'll tell you. This past week or so -- I guess it was about a
week and a half or so ago we did a -- went through an interview
process for several applicants, and you have to keep in mind these
are volunteer applicants to be on a volunteer committee, and we had
them scheduled a half hour apart. We had about five members of the
committee, leaders of industry all in their own right there, and it
was actually a job interview for these folks. Each committee member
had very pointed questions, and I had to smile at the fact that
there's no way I could have passed this test. I know it.
I do have several items on your agenda this morning. The first
item, as Sheila mentioned, is the introduction of Bernie Weiss, also
known as Major General Weiss, and he's going to be presenting the
report on the procurement process or purchasing process to you.
We have with us members of the committee. We have Bernie Weiss,
Charles Gettler, David Craig, who are on that subcommittee. If you
folks would stand up. We also have Carl Alto and Bob Laird. Also,
give -- and John Stockton also here supporting us. This group has
worked very hard on this report, as I hope you will agree. I think
they've done an outstanding job. They've worked very close with your
staff.
At the back of the report, you may notice the list of contacts
that they made which I thought was quite impressive. It shows the
diligent work that went into this. You can -- I think the report
pretty much demonstrates not only expertise but also the commitment
of those members that worked on it. They've been working on it for
about a year now. I think this first came up at a workshop about a
year ago, and they've been meeting pretty much weekly working on this
report.
There have been several presentations of this made over the past
week to your administrator's office, public works, purchasing
department, OCPM, administrative services, and your attorney's office.
Again, we've made an effort to work with staff through the development
of this as well as all the projects of the Productivity Committee and
have enjoyed that relationship. With that I'm going to sit down and
let Bernie Weiss present the report to you.
MR. WEISS: For the record, I'm Bernie Weiss from Collier County,
North Naples. We do have some copies of the charts and the study on
the table there. As Jack indicated, we started this study about a
year ago and had some illness, and we had to kind of put the study on
hold for a little bit, but we were able to finish it recently.
I'm going to do it this way, Jack. The credentials of the
committee -- I spent 32 years in the United States Air Force and was
fortunate to retire as a major general. I was involved in the
acquisition process purchasing a lot of the major weapons systems and
a lot of the smaller base installation work. Dave Craig was a
director of contracting for Roman Aircraft Corporation, was involved
in a lot of major procurement work as well as some small purchasing.
Charlie Gettler was with Ford Motor Company in the controller
department and also involved in the purchasing process. So I think we
have the credentials to do a study of this type.
Our purpose of the study was twofold. One, we wanted to look at
the adequacy of the purchasing actions. And second, during the study,
a number of topics came up from Steve Camell, Adolfo Gonzalez, would
we look at some special interest topics? And we did that in the area
of design/build, best value, and then lump-sum and unit pricing.
The methodology that we used was to focus on high dollar value
procurements generally over 50,000. We asked Steve to do a judgment
sample of 73 major procurements above 50,000 in goods and services. We
were quite pleased with the sample that was picked out. We found that
it was a good sample of what we were looking for and it spread across
all the departments of Collier County.
We did look at '94 and '95, but most of the purchases that we
looked at were in '96. We started this in September of '96, and we
tracked purchases from what we called the requirements-generation
process down to the final payment. And we tried to look at as many of
those 73 purchases through that whole process.
The next chart is a little bit of an eye test, but it tries to
show you the process. And we start over on the left with is the
requirements process. We go through the arrows into the purchasing
process. The center area, the area to the right which is contract
administration, is by no means only a single column. When you look at
Collier County purchasing practices, the greatest effort is really put
forth in the area of contract administration by the users, by OCPM,
and people who are involved in monitoring and assuring they get the
goods and services that were contracted for and that which we need in
this county.
And then the last part is the final payment process and the
closeout process. That involves finance, the clerk's office, them
closing out the contract and any records retirement that may be
necessary.
The overall observations that we came up with are basically -- we
were pleased, very excited with the dedication and the committed work
force that we saw in Collier County. We also noticed that there was a
growing work load. Unfortunately there were high turnover rates.
And at the time we started the study, there was some loss of key
management personnel across the county administration.
We basically felt as we did this study that certain functions
were over decentralized. The contract administration responsibility
was not equipped to handle many of the responsibilities that they had,
and we felt we needed some rebalancing, and you'll see that as I go
through the 18 recommendations. But the system was working, it was in
compliance with established procedures. A kind of a foot stop to here
is that we do need improvement in training and procedures to handle
the growth in activity and the growth of Collier County.
The first of the 18 recommendations deals with a conflict of
interest recommendation. We know that you ladies and gentleman are
tied to a two year cooling off period when you leave your post as
commissioner. This is required by state law. The state law also
recommends that a cooling off period also be provided for people
within the employment of Collier County. Not elected officials; other
than elected officials, that they be prohibited from above a certain
pay grade to sell, lobby, or present -- represent their new employee
before the county or their former colleagues for a period of two
years. We believe that this is very important. It varifies the
sanctity of the procurement process. It avoids the appearance of a
conflict of interest which is probably more potent than any other real
problem that one could have. So that is our first recommendation.
Our second recommendation deals with the use of negotiation of
changes by consultants. We found in reviewing the various forms for
contracts that are used that the professional services agreement
provides authority in that particular paragraph for consultants to
negotiate changes in terms of prices and schedules and then bring that
to the owner for approval. We believe that's very inappropriate. We
believe a consultant can recommend, advice, support negotiations but
only the owner or the contract administrator or the purchasing
department should have the authority to negotiate any change to our
existing contracts. So we recommended that that be removed from our
professional service agreements.
The third recommendation deals with change orders negotiation and
authorization. We reviewed a number of change orders under those 73
procurements that we looked at, and only with one exception were we
able to find an audit trail from the development of a negotiation
objective with an OCPH to the conclusion and a handshake of the
negotiation. Records were missing. We didn't find anything that we
felt was wrong, but we just didn't have the documentation and the
method to result in a reasonable price for that change to the county
taxpayer. So we're recommending that that responsibility be
rebalanced, that all changes above $10,000 be now accomplished as a
team effort within the purchasing department with the support of the
contract administrator. We feel that's prudent. It may, in fact,
over time as we build up the professional expertise of the contract
administrator, rebalance it back. We don't believe that the $10,000
threshold is an unusual requirement to bring back into the purchasing
people where we have business acumen and the discipline to negotiate
changes and record the result of those changes and how a fair price or
extension or time amendment was made.
The fourth one deals with past performance database. I believe
this probably has a most important impact on Collier County. Across
the nation people are trying to get away from awarding to a low
bidder. We're recommending that we create a past performance
database, the use of a form, something simple. We're prepared to work
with Collier County on just a pro bono basis to help do this, but add
to the purchase policy a requirement for completion and maintenance of
some record of how that vendor did on all procurements in excess of
$25,000. If a contract administrator feels that it's warranted for a
lower dollar value because of excellent performance or negative
performance, he has the ability -- or she has the ability to complete
that. Data that would be included would be conformance to contract
workmanship standards, schedules, number and nature of design flaws,
history of reasonable and cooperative behavior. And I'll talk later
about this, but the use of a past performance database supports making
an award to the source who offers the best value to Collier County.
And it's an inherent part of that best-value determination.
The fifth recommendation deals with source selection procedures.
We've reviewed a number of cases where source selection panels were
established with your approval in which the purchasing representative,
the purchasing department representative who was not included or if he
was included, there were cases where he was not a voting member. We
believe that as we move forth in the area of past performance and we
believe that the purchasing department should keep those records that,
in fact, a purchasing member ought to be on each source selection
panel. And we recommend that be added to the orders.
The sixth recommendation deals with your approval authority to
approve purchases over $15,000. In 19 -- FY '96, which ended 30
September of last year, there were 5,200 purchase orders awarded. You
approved 550 purchases, which were valued at $157,000, $7 million less
than the total value. We believe that the approval process adds delay
and unnecessary work load. Looking at the growth of Collier County,
we would recommend that we raise the threshold to 25,000. Using the
same year as a base point, we would end up with 400 purchases orders
that you would still review. We believe from a business point of view
and a private sector point of view, adequate number and that would
still let you look at 155,000 -- 150,000-- $5 million dollars worth of
purchases. Working with Sheila we wanted to find out how the other
counties in our surrounding area operated. And I think we have your
county on there, Mr. Fernandez.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It's not my county anymore.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That's right.
MR. WEISS: Your former county. These are what we saw. There's
only one county that's less than what we are right now, Marion County,
but you could see the number between twenty-five and fifty thousand
dollars is probably a number where we should be.
The seventh recommendation deals with enforcement of purchase
orders. This was a finding that we felt was important to the county
and important to the taxpayer. As you know, most contract's purchase
orders contain various remedies for work that's not performed on
schedule or not with the requisite quality. The maximum action is
termination for cause. In 1996 or FY '96, we found that that was
never used. We went and looked at liquidated damages where we hold
contractors responsible for pecuniary liability for late deliveries.
We found that that was only used three times for an amount of $67,000.
In our report, we detailed 3 other cases of our 73 that we reviewed
that were, in our opinion -- and this is an opinion call using our
best commercial experiences and practices -- we felt that there were
non-compliance situations where the county failed to implement the
remedies that should have been initiated.
We also looked at policy letter 90-53 that requires that the
county maintain a list of the disqualified bidders, and we couldn't
find that listing maintained. So overall we say that we need to
develop more consistency, a little bit more aggressiveness in getting
the word out to our vendors that we are going to enforce the terms and
conditions of our contracts.
The seventh recommendation deals with enforcement of purchase
orders. We believe we need to be more aggressive, as I talked about.
We need training programs for not only contract administrators and
buyers, but we need to set up a list of disqualified bidders that I
talked about, and we try to avoid saying we're too busy or overworked
to pursue this type of effort. And in all cases where we have
problems, we need to involve purchasing so that we can kind of get a
consistent application of the remedies in Collier County.
The eighth recommendation deals with purchase order schedule
delinquency. We found some communication between contract
administrators and Steve Camell and his people where there were
delinquencies, but we didn't find it to be a requirement or we didn't
find it to be very regular.
In our review with OCPM, we found there's a monthly progress
report which lists the distribution. Neither is the attorney's office
or Steve Carnell's office on the distribution. Steve indicated there
are times when he has seen it, but he has not seen it on a regular
basis.
We maintain that purchasing ought to be involved in all
delinquencies in excess of 30 days. Any problem that comes up with
quality compliance or the need to enforce liquidated damages, the
problems in negotiating changes below $10,000 and other areas where
noncompliance becomes a problem. Part of the rebalancing that we've
been talking about.
The ninth recommendation deals with the use of innovations in
purchasing. Our subcommittee would like to applaud the county for the
use of field purchase requests which allows a user to go out and
purchase anything of $500 or less in value that's authorized. We
think that makes a lot of good sense. We also like the approach on
the use of blanket contracts for professional engineering services.
We think that makes a lot of sense and speeds up the procurement
process. But we really believe and our experience is throughout the
United States is that there are more things that can be done. We want
to, you know, recommend that the county be a little bit more
aggressive in testing simplified ways to speed up purchasing and also
to try to control and where possible reduce staffing requirements.
Credit cards for the use of all or some of the field purchase
orders may be an approach. Right now a field purchase order is an
innovation. A requiring activity gets a block of numbers, awards a
purchase order to some vendor in town, gets a receiving document, that
receiving document certifies that we got the product, flows to
finance, and finance pays that individual field purchase order. With
the use of a credit card, all those individual payments and put --
payments could be eliminated into one monthly bill. There's a charge
for that, but it's a charge that I think will be offset by the
savings in time and effort.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Not if you use American Express.
MR. WEISS: The state has just entered into an agreement with
NationsBank, and they are leading the effort within the State of
Florida to do that. There are other things that can also be done.
And this is construction work, repair, rehabilitation work, during the
off peak hours. I worked in the Pentagon for many years and used to
cross the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, and there came a time when the bridge
had to be repaired, resurfaced, restriped. That work was done between
seven at night and six in the morning.
As a matter of fact, Montgomery County and Fairfax County went
out and asked for alternate proposals, during the day and at night.
Obviously, the night time, there was some of a premium. And as the
counties have done more work during off-peak time, we find the premium
is coming down. It's cooler to work at night. You get more done.
You don't have to move partitions so many times. These are the things
that we feel are innovations that ought to be tried and tested in
Collier County.
The tenth recommendation deals with the development of procedures
and training. And while it's our tenth recommendation, we believe it
affects every recommendation we've made and probably will make. We
think the director of human services or resources needs to establish
an effective training program in concert with OCPM purchasing to cover
the weaknesses that I've talked about. And then we need to find --
purchasing and OCPM and finance needs to update their procedures.
With the turnover rate, particularly in OCPM of 20 percent, there's
constant people coming in, and we have not found, you know, a
formalized training program. Much of it is on-the-job training.
While that's good, it's not enough to create a professional employee
in any of these critical departments.
One of the innovations that we wanted to recommend is -- that
will fall under the prior recommendation number 9 is the use of what
we call two-step sealed bids. It's where you don't have a handle or a
clear definition of specifications or you're afraid that your
specifications could be misunderstood by your vendors. So what you do,
in step one you submit your requirements out in a solicitation and you
ask for the submission of a technical proposal, no price. You get the
technical proposal. You have your evaluation committee evaluate it.
You have discussions with each of the offerers to insure he or she
understands the requirements.
And then once you feel that they do understand it, you then ask
for the second step, which is the submission of a sealed bid, and you
make the award to the low offerer.
This is what is an innovation being used around the country for
many years. It's not all that new, but we think it has a place. It's
not a panacea, but has a place in the tool box of Steve Camell and
Adolfo Gonzalez's operations.
The twelfth recommendation deals with the use of standard --
consolidating standard heavy equipment. You do this with passenger
vehicles. You write a requirements contract and you order vehicles
throughout the year against that contract. We found that of the 73
purchases there were three individual purchases for heavy equipment
which were within weeks apart. We believe that you could get better
terms, conditions, better pricing and also possibly standardized
logistics support if you would issue or get a consolidated requirement
for the year either through a requirements contract or one buy. We
know there will always be exceptions, but at least you could
consolidate and get the efficacy of scale.
The thirteenth recommendation deals with adequacy of contract
files. Again, we found in this particular case, files could be in as
many as four places. If you have consultants involved, you could have
files at the consultant's office, you could have files in purchasing,
you could have files in OCPH, and you could have files in finance.
And we believe that you need to consolidate these files. And
discussions with the attorney's office, many times there have been
cases where because of lack of records, litigation has been inhibited.
And so what we're recommending is that the director of purchase
identify and lead the effort as a team to create what will be the
official county records, establish an outline so things are in the
same place, and even establish a uniform numbering system.
As we went through, we dealt with a requisition number. In
finance there was another number. We need a common identifier. And
then these records be maintained for the period that's required by
county or state law.
The fourteenth recommendation deals with the continuity of legal
support. We briefed Mr. Weigel yesterday and some of his staff, and
we really have a mutual understanding of how attorneys should be used.
Our feeling in our subcommittee was they ought to be an active part of
the whole procurement process and that they -- they're in there
avoiding problems, they're not trying to litigate problems, and that
they should be available.
The last two years Hike Pettit has been providing excellent
support to purchasing. Prior to that time it was hit or miss. This
recommendation is to enforce the management commitment to providing
adequate legal support with the requisite skills to the purchasing
process. You save in the long run by accomplishing this. And I see
Commissioner Hac'Kie is waving her head. The fact she's an attorney
has nothing to do with it.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Not a thing.
MR. WEISS: It's extremely important.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It is.
MR. WEISS: Contract completion and final payment, the -- we
found that as things get much more sophisticated in our daily lives,
that not everything is a separately-priced contract line item.
There's many data software warranties, as-built drawings as delivered.
As we went through this whole process, we didn't find a fail-safe
technique to ensure that the county got the software-type items.
They're not separately priced. Certifications are made but, in fact,
payment could be made when drawings, warranties, software data
packages are still outstanding even though final payment has been
made. So we're recommending a policy be developed that would create a
fail-safe way of doing that.
Number sixteen deals with the need for a cost analyst. Before I
talked about changes. We did find a lot of changes within county
government. Many projects have what we refer to in the trade as
change order creep, and that's why negotiations of changes are
extremely important. At one point Adolfo was personally considering
hiring a cost analyst to assist in developing a matrix for use by all
of the contract administrators, program managers, to find out what
things cost in terms of linear feet and cubic yards, et catera, also
to develop sound estimates for your approval and also to assist in
negotiations. We -- unfortunately he avoided that because of manpower
constraints or staffing constraints.
They would get involved -- an analyst would get involved in
material, labor, equipment, and facilities. They would analyze it. We
would develop an Air For -- excuse me, a Freudian slip -- a county
objective, and we would go into negotiations. So the recommendation
is that we hire such a cost analyst with particular experience in
capital projects, assign him to the purchasing department for use
across all county operations.
Number seventeen deals with the use of field purchase orders.
The productivity committee asked that while we were doing the study if
we would expand our study and look at FPOs. They're not high dollar
values, but there is an opportunity for abuse. We looked at 4,900 POs
with issues -- we didn't look at all of them -- for about $800,000, a
very fast and efficient way of accomplishing small purchases. We
found that blocks of PO numbers are issued by purchasing to the using
departments. Unfortunately there were no misuse found, but we did
find that the organizations weren't completing the MIS field so that
we could accomplish a thorough review.
What they do is they accomplish the purchase, put the vendor's
name, a PO number in, but a lot of the other information is done at
the end of the fiscal year, and we felt that it was difficult for us
to evaluate those purchase orders without them being done. In only
one occasion the MIS people did complete everything in a very timely
manner.
The recommendation is, if we're going to continue to use field
purchase orders, is that Steve's people ought to give them in smaller
blocks and only reissue blocks of purchase orders when the original
block is complete.
Above and beyond that we recommend that we really consider the
use of the credit card as maybe a substitute or an alternative to the
use of field purchase orders. We would start -- and I think purchasing
has some ideas already with certain activities to test it and make
sure it works. There still has to be audit. There still has to be
follow up, and purchasing is equipped to do that.
Use of standard terms and conditions. We get into more detail in
the report, but we found that there's limited standardization by types
of contracts within the county. And it started out a number of years
ago where there was a standard boilerplate. People started to
deviate, and we find that if there was greater standardization, the
legal people wouldn't have to spend so much time on each individual
contract for review and that their time could be devoted to preventing
problems than sitting there doing a desk review.
So we're recommending again that purchasing, with the assistance
of the legal community, develop some standard terms and conditions
that would be used for acquisition of various supplies and services.
The special topic that we focussed on was the use of design/build
contracts. We believe it's an excellent tool. Some communities have
had great success with it, and others have had very poor problems.
The prerequisites as I would like to put it, if you're going to use
design/build, then you have to state county needs in very broad
operational terms. I want a jail to house so many people with so many
floors and so many square feet. Then, in fact, you let the design
and general contractor community make trade-offs on how you go about
doing that. What type of roof, what type of insulation up to certain
standards you would do.
And if you're not willing to state your requirements in broad
operational terms, then design/build is not an effective tool.
The second is to make minimum changes. If you're going to go
with that technique and you inundate it with changes creep because
somebody wants this and somebody wants that and you don't think of the
whole project initially, it's doomed for disaster.
Then you need one legal entity. You need one entity which under
it's corporate umbrella has both an architect/engineering contractor
and a general facilities in one company so that there can't be this
finger pointing. He's at fault. I'm at fault. And the county's in
the middle. And that's what we tend to have now, not just in Collier
County, but across the country.
We do find that some counties and municipalities are using joint
ventures where an A&E firm teams up with a general contractor, become
a joint venture, and thereby bring on the auspices of a legal entity.
It may be worth trying.
And the last prerequisite is a lot of architect/engineering
firms don't want to compete. It's a profession. It's covered by both
federal and state law here in Florida, and they don't want to get into
the area of competition. But we think it's something worthwhile. We
think it has benefit. It tends to work better in very large municipal
areas where you have a very big vendor base and maybe not so much in
Southwest Florida. The best value in source selection -- again, fully
support. This is the ability where you -- if you put into the
solicitation the basis for award, that will include your past
performance record and the risk of doing business with you, you can
justify making an award to other than the low bidder, but you got to
document your solicitation. You got to document your source selection
decision. And you also have to have a operative working database.
This all goes to best value. What is the best value besides
lowest price to Collier County? It could be past performance record
and risk. It could be life-cycling costs. It could be warranty
packages, maintenance support, payment terms. It could be reliability
and maintainability and safety. These are all factors that can be
expressed in a solicitation document. Again, the key is you must
place it in the RFP as a basis of award.
We were also asked to look at a final special topic, and that's
lump sum or unit pricing. We -- people we dealt with realized that
wasn't an either/or. And that's what we're trying to emphasis here.
County governments, municipalities, the federal government want to pay
a fair price. If you go the lump-sum way, there's greater risk to the
overall. Bidding a three, four million dollar project, there are a
lot of unknowns. And nothing's worse than having a vendor lose money.
You're not going to get what you want when a vendor is losing money,
so the -- the unit-price approach is good for very large
procurements. And what we're recommending -- our bottom line is that
lump sum be used for small dollar value purchases, and the unit price
be used for large purchases. We feel greater than $250,000 would be
an appropriate threshold, but that could be worked out by the detail
here in Collier County.
Our summary: We didn't find anything broke. We found the system
working, a dedicated work force. What we're concerned about is the
professionalism of the work force and their training. We need to
enhance that professionalism. We really need to balance some of these
particular responsibilities between contract administration and
purchasing. But honestly, purchasing doesn't have the -- the
requisite skills themself. They need to have more -- right now
they're more into the clerical responsibility of awarding and
distributing contracts, not getting into the great depth, and so Steve
needs to increase the level of expertise of his people.
But we believe that rebalancing is still necessary. Past
performance is critical to this -- the future of making the best value
determinations. We need to enforce our terms and conditions.
Our recommendations are not oriented toward saving people,
although we find that credit card purchases and use of standardized
terms may help, but in doing a better job and avoiding future
problems. And we believe all of the three special tools are very
useful and that they have got to be used correctly. And that
concludes our presentation.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: General Weiss, on behalf of the board of
commissioners, to you and all members of the productivity committee,
I'd hate to think what we would have had to have paid to receive this
information from an outside consultant --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We couldn't have gotten it.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: With the level of expertise.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely. Couldn't have gotten it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I can tell you before we get into any
questions the board may have, I want to recognize David Craig. Dave
was on the productivity committee when I started, and David back then
was trying to get us to do this report. What he didn't have -- and I
was a part of the problem -- was the expertise on the balance of the
committee to assist him.
Finally, that expertise came on line in the form of General Weiss
and the others that have assisted in this report -- Katherine and
others, and I think the results are obvious. That's the good news.
The bad news is now this report is complete, I believe we're going to
loose Mr. Craig from the Productivity Committee. But I wanted to
recognize you for your tireless efforts over the years to get this
kind of report brought to the board, and thank you.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What I'd like to do is if the board has direct
questions for General Weiss or a member of the Productivity Committee,
I think that's fine. But I think what we've seen are 18 points and
then some other recommendations that I would like to have the
opportunity for Mr. Fernandez to look at a scheduled implementation of
those that he feels are strong policies that need to be implemented
immediately, prioritize them. Those that he has questions about and
the administration of, to bring those back.
So I think it now becomes a directive and an administrative
function to determine which of these are most applicable and needy
versus those that there are questions on in which the Productivity
Committee needs to be consulted on and the implementation on down the
road.
That seems to make sense to me, but I'll offer that as a
direction, but let's go to questions. Commissioner Constantine, then
Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, pretty impressive list
they put together here. And I agree with almost all of them. There
are two I had questions on. Recommendation No. 6, and it isn't a
question as much as it is just a comment and that is that on the
purchase order authority, I know that has bounced up and down in the
last five years. I think it got as low as 5,000 at one point and has
been as high -- I think when I came on the board it was at twenty or
at fifteen at the time, and I just -- knowing that, we might want to
review our own history there and see the reasons why we have changed
that up and down. I know more recently we put it up to the fifteen
for several reasons you outlined here, and it may make sense to go the
next step up. But I just wanted to make sure we reviewed our own
history as part of that.
The other one -- and I may be criticized for this, but I don't
agree with Recommendation No. 1, and the simple reason is when we have
the highest level of professionals for attorneys or for engineers, I
understand the perception issue and this board, probably better than
in a long time, understands it right now very clearly, but I fear it
will put some of our best professionals in an unfair disadvantage and
an unnecessary disadvantage should they choose in their private life
to pursue the private sector. It makes them less marketable, and I
just don't -- I don't want to penalize those people or I don't want
that to be something people think of before they even accept a job
here. We had Ed Ilschner come from Texas to take this job, entered
that -- and a number of our people have worked their way up through,
so it's not a concern. But he comes and enters at a high level
position. And in his case maybe it wouldn't matter anyway. I know
he's done a lot of work in the public sector for a long time. But I
want to be careful that we don't handcuff or penalize our own people,
particularly when we have -- when we're trying to attract the best
people like Mr. Ilschner.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I guess I have the other side to that a little
bit. First of all, I don't even think the public is aware that we are
subject to that. When I quit what I was doing to take this job, I
can't go back to it for two years because everything I did was a
public policy issue.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Ditto for me. I was in land-use
practicing.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So, you know, I made that sacrifice and I did
so willingly.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I differentiate between someone who
takes this on as an elected official and someone who is doing the job
they're trained for.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I agree, but you point out Mr. Ilschner. I
think it's a good example. He came to us from Texas. The last thing
I would want him is here 18 months and then working for one of the
local engineering firms, you know, because he established
relationships and can -- knows the people and becomes more valuable to
that firm.
So I think there is another side to that, but I think there's a
cutoff. There's a point at which you move into county administration
at which you are dedicating yourselves to the furthering of moving up
that ladder whether to an assistant county manager position or to
further higher administrative roles, and you have chosen your path in
the public sector. And where that line rests I think is probably more
a topic of discussion -- because I actually believe -- Mr. Dorrill's a
prime example. Whether he has or has not done anything improper, the
questions surrounding that and what we were faced with when he left
and went to a private sector -- I mean, the raises given before he
left and so forth. All of that was extremely suspect. And I think --
I think that does send a signal that you -- you know, you dedicate
yourself to the public sector, but there has to be some limitations to
that. And it doesn't say you can't take a job with a company out of
Jacksonville or a company out of Fort Lauderdale. It doesn't tie your
hands outside of the municipality you're in.
So I see it less limiting and more protecting in the higher
levels. You know, today's not the day to have the entire debate on
it, but I would -- rather than throw that out, I would like to really
get Mr. Fernandez and some of our top administrators' feelings on that
matter before discarding it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I hope we're not throwing any of them out
today, because I definitely don't want to throw that one out, and I
hope that we're not going to go through and try to eliminate any of
them today, but maybe do what you said.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No. I'm just sharing my thoughts --
MR. WEISS: Let me just add something to that one, because I
knew that was a, you know, contentious one. It is. I think if you do
a study of the municipalities across the country, I think you'll find
that they have that type of cooling off period. But there are two
points. One, you don't want to provide a negative incentive for young
people, engineering, you know, entering the work force for county
governments or municipalities. So you want people to come in and up
to a certain grade level. They're not covered by this two-year
moratorium. We do that in the federal government. We don't start the
moratorium until the GS-12 category. At that point you've been with
the county -- you've been with the federal government for four or five
years and you now have a position.
Secondly, we found that there's a -- an affect within the
employees that remain in the county government when people leave and
go and work for the vendor or supplier or consultant or whatever it
may be, that they feel demoralized because they feel they've been led
away, you know, that they're here. They don't have the position to
get that job, and now their morale goes down to some extent.
I found in almost -- well, more than 40 years now, I found that
if an employee is outstanding -- and I've gone through the revolving
door myself -- companies are willing to take you regardless of the
two years. If the two years becomes an impediment, then they don't
want you for the long term. They want you for what you know now, and
that's inappropriate. So that's the only thing I have to offer.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I would agree that we need to have this
discussion more in detail before -- and that would come at a time if
this policy were to come before us for implementation.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd be more comfortable, particularly
with some of the contract employees, maybe the county attorney or
county manager. I think the point you made with Mr. Dotrill and the
raises and the authority and the ability that goes along with that,
but I mean, you can think off the top of your head of Bruce Anderson,
Rich Yovanovich, Ken Cuyler, Tom Conrecode, all people who worked long
term -- I agree with you. I don't want somebody to come in 18 months
and disappear, but all people who work long term with the county and
who have successfully moved on and who have never done anything or was
perceived as doing anything inappropriate and -- but make their
livings doing business among others with the county. And I just want
to be very careful that we don't limit those people. I understand we
need to be careful of perception and I understand the goal, and
perhaps at our highest level we want to do that, but I want to be
real careful that we don't penalize our employees for working in the
public sector.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I actually didn't have a big comment on
that particular one, but would like to just briefly say that I think
it is a good idea and probably is something that we should really
carefully look at.
I have some specific questions, but just as an overall comment,
what I would like to see happen at the conclusion of this report is
that we direct the county administrator to report back to us about --
on each specific recommendation what his plan for implementation is or
his reason for choosing not to implement so that we -- because,
frankly, I think all of these sound extremely good, and I'd like to
see -- I should tell you up front, I'm going to use them as a part of
my evaluation process for you, Mr. Fernandez, to see, you know, how
have we done in implementing some of these. And so to be fair, I think
it would be a great idea --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think that's consistent with what
Commissioner Hancock said --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, the only thing -- I know a few
of these are policy-type issues which Mr. Fernandez doesn't have the
authority to do without some direction from the board. And so I
assume some of those will come back just because of that, but I agree
with both of you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Great. And my other more specific -- I
tried to take a few notes as we went through here. I guess my most
important one is probably a question for Mr. Weigel. It has to do --
there goes my voice again -- has to do with Recommendation No. 7 where
we talked about enforcement of purchase orders and contract remedies.
And I would ask you if you would please to -- if we have only used
liquidated damage penalties three times in 1996 for $67,000, from a
statute of limitations perspective, that sounds to me like a place
that the county attorney's office should be doing a thorough review to
see where we've lost our right, our opportunity to enforce contract
terms, or if there are still some doors that are open there, it seems
it better be a high-priority activity for the county attorney's
office.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Let's --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry. I think I have one more.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I thought you were done.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just one last one. On Recommendation No.
9 just a comment that I agree that one of the things that we do really
well is that we have these standard -- approved lists, for example, of
engineering service providers who can provide up to a certain amount
of service to the county because they're on the approved list. I
would like to ask you to look at other county services or other
services provided to the county, for example, landscape architecture
or landscape design or the installation of landscaping and maintenance
in all these medians. I think a long time ago the county recognized
that we needed to have that sort of a standard procedure for
engineering services, and I think now we may need it in more areas
than we presently have, and landscaping is one that's brought to my
attention.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And let's understand that is an individual
informational request, not a board direction at this point.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The reason is I don't want one commissioner,
whether it be me or you, to sit up here and give direction to Mr.
Fernandez as if it's board policy, because these all, I think, need to
come back to us in the form of a report and they need to be expanded
on that at that time. That decision will be made then or made by Mr.
Fernandez. So I just want to draw a separation between the two.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that one that you have a problem with
or are you just --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm not willing to give that direction the
same as you did at this point. I want to look at it a little bit
further. I would like some more input from our staff on it before --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: See my -- let me be clear. My request of
the county administrator was to look at landscape service providers
and perhaps others to make a recommendation to us about whether or not
those services should be provided in the same manner as engineering
services are provided. Not instructing him to do it any particular
way, but please to look at it and tell us if there are other areas in
addition to engineering where that procedure could be used, just to be
clear.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I guess what --
MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Fernandez.
MR. FERNANDEZ: If I may offer a comment. First of all, I'd like
to say that I'm very pleased and encouraged by the report. First of
all, I found it to be very complimentary of county staff. Also, I am
absolutely overwhelmed at the amount of time and effort that the
committee has put into this with their credentials and their
willingness to give us as much of their time as they obviously have in
preparing this very well thought out report. I just want to express
my thanks to you for that.
(Applause.)
MR. FERNANDEZ: I also want to say that I look forward to
continuing to work very closely with the Productivity Committee on
this report as well as future reports. I find this to be a very, very
positive move forward. It gives us a real firm basis to develop some
plans for implementation of some of these improvements, many of which
I have already considered previously in my career. But I find them to
be right on point on a number of their recommendations.
I look forward to the opportunity to bring back to you an
implementation plan that I'd like to arrive at after some discussion
with the committee. I have already told the committee that it's been
-- it would be my intent to either present to the board an
implementation plan for everything they recommend or to give them a
reason why I felt it wasn't a very good idea. I think that's
something that they're looking for. They understand that there may be
a different point of view on some of these things or some of the
things that they came up with. But I have -- I have pledged to them
that they at least expect -- or should expect an answer from the
administrator on their recommendations, and I have vowed to give them
that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And to share that with us?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Be glad to share that with the board as well.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: One of the values of this committee has always
been that they go to the departments with the recommendations, and the
majority are made in consensus by the time they're implemented. And
that's one thing that is so rare. They're not confrontational. You
know, these business people understand how to get things done.
So what I would expect is on the left column we have their
recommendation, on the right column we have staff recommendation, and
a discrepancy description that would come back to us on any
differences between the two.
MR. FERNANDEZ: And I fully intend to do that. So I'm looking
forward to coming back to the board with a rec -- implementation plan.
At that time we can identify each of the issues. We can give you the
staff recommendation on implementation. And then I think that's the
appropriate time to have the discussion about pros and cons, the
approach that we're taking if it may be at variance from what's been
recommended by the Productivity Committee and so forth.
But I really -- I can't stress enough how impressed I am with the
report and with the ability of the Productivity Committee to give us
so much of their very valuable time.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Agreed. The second element was a request --
Commissioner Berry, did you have something? I'm sorry.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: No. I'll wait until you get done.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I was going to say the second element was a
request for future applications the Productivity Committee has. With
the production of this report, there'll be some follow up, but we have
some very talented people who now have more times on their hands than
they did yesterday, and we think that's unhealthy. So we want to help
fill that time.
I don't know if that is something we're ready to make today.
What I would like to do is each commissioner to make a tally sheet of
those things they feel they would like to see the Productivity
Committee delve into, to submit those tally sheets within the next two
weeks to me, and we'll put this on a future agenda item as we have in
the past for ranking of those items to then present to the committee
so that they can choose those that they feel they have the greatest
expertise to accomplish, and pursue them in the ranking that the board
provides.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Chairman, could I ask for permission to have
input into that list as well?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Actually, I would expect, yes, that you'd ha
-- not just you but I'm also going to be asking certain constitutional
officers if they would invite the Productivity Committee to a certain
element of their operation that I have had questions with and see if
that would work.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Or maybe it would be more democratic to
offer that opportunity to input to all the constitutional officers as
well.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That's democrat, but I think I'm going to be
little more direct.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yes. But let's offer the opportunity in
addition to your specific request.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That was intended, but a little steering
wouldn't hurt.
Mr. Weigel.
MR. WEIGEL: Mr. Chairman and the board, in regard to tally
sheets that may be submitted to you -- in light of the scrutiny that
does occur --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Oh, there will be names on every sheet, Mr.
Weigel.
MR. WEIGEL: I was going to make that suggestion that there be
names on the sheets. And, in fact, it might be appropriate -- you may
make your choice to have them actually tendered at the meeting itself
so that they are not received outside --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I make a different suggestion, and
that is we pass them on to the county manager who could assemble them
and have them as an --
MR. WEIGEL: That would be fine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- item in our agenda to review ahead
of time.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: To include with his own and any other
constitutional officers that wish to submit lists. Does that cover
everyone's needs?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm happy with that.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Why don't we do them verbally, in code of
course?
(Laughter.)
COMHISSIONER BERRY: I mean, I'll will be happy to sign my name,
my children's names, our dog, which we don't have.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Blood type, your mother's maiden name, your
birth date.
COMHISSIONER BERRY: I can do all of those things. I don't mind,
but this leads me, Mr. Chairman, to another issue. This committee in
the past -- and again I have to tell you that I'm awe struck when I go
to these committee meetings with the high level of expertise of the
people that serve on this committee and what a pleasure it has been
for me and what a learning experience to be with these people. And
they're so knowledgeable but they've got a great sense of humor, too,
obviously to put up with me. But at any rate, I have learned a
tremendous amount from this group, but this is a committee that was
put in place by the county commission a number of years ago, probably
at that time almost from the standpoint of trying to delve into some
areas where there was a, quote, difficulty.
It has surpassed that and moved on to an even higher level at
this point in time where they are going and looking and working with
departments to see what they can do to improve and help the
department, which to me is a very positive step. It's not going in on
a witch hunt to try to find problems and have no positive effect and
just point out the problems and then walk away. They have done far
more than that, which brings up some past reports.
There was a report, I believe, a subcommittee of this group that
did something in regard to the budget. And I don't know what of that
particular report has been able to be enacted by our budget
department. I would like a follow-up personally to know what -- from
that particular study that was done, what we've been able to implement
and with -- if the rest of the board concurs, or if you don't concur
you can certainly say so. I would like our administrator to perhaps
pull that one from the shelf and take a look and see, in addition to
this report that we've gotten today on the procurement, what we might
be able to apply from that previous report if there's anything. It
doesn't have to be all done. This is the first one, but if you want
to deal with this first, that's fine, but I would certainly like an
ongoing -- continue to pursue that other report and report back to the
board as well to see what we can implement from that.
At the same time, I think it's extremely important that we do
give direction to this group for a further study. Again, how it's
done, whether it's in writing or verbally, that's immaterial, but they
do stand ready and I -- I think -- I can think of no other group that
has the expertise in place to go ahead and look into any current
discussions that we may want to have in terms of our department.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Agreed. I think what Mr. Fernandez has --
You need a paper change?
COURT REPORTER: I'm going to need a paper change.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Do we have any more time here?
COURT REPORTER: A couple sentences.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: A paper change.
(Brief break was taken.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What Mr. Fernandez has indicated and the
manner which you would like to bring this back will keep us from
having that same problem occur, because there -- there are very
specific recommendations here, and we're going to know staff's
position on them and recommendations, and so that -- that's going to
be very, very helpful. So I would agree with you that if there's a
past study, that that needs to be done with and, Mr. Fernandez, I
would also like to see that occur -- MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- on that study.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let's have two weeks to give recommendations
to Mr. Fernandez on areas of interest from the commission, from the
county administrator's office, and from other constitutional officers,
of which that will come back to the board for ranking, discussion and
ranking.
Mr. HcKenna, is there anything we've left out at this time that
you feel is necessary for the committee to do to put its best foot
forward?
MR. HCKENNA: I had a couple other things I'd like to just
mention briefly, if I could. I appreciate all the comments that I
heard here today, I sincerely do, and I'm sure the rest of the
membership does also. This membership has evolved. As was mentioned,
the committee has evolved with membership, I guess, I should say. Our
function has evolved also. We've enjoyed working with the county
staff. We certainly look forward to working with Mr. Fernandez in the
development of future projects. We continue to be receptive to any
direction the board has.
We're currently still active with the jail study, and also we're
-- we've been asked recently to help out with some human resource
issues. That department has come to us for some assistance and review
of some of their procedures. Again, any other direction, we're
certainly receptive to, depending upon our expertise, and there is a
wide range of expertise on the committee.
The last item that I had on my agenda, which was already touched
on, and it is a very sad one for me. On any committee such as this,
there is a turnover of membership, and that you can't help. This one
is a little bit different to me. David Craig has been on this
committee since February of '93. I hesitate to say he's the oldest
member, but he's certainly the longest with the committee. He has
quite an impressive background. He was the director of Drummond
Corporation. I won't go into all of his credentials, but I will say
that he's personally helped me substantially in my position as
chairman. You know, he was a personal tutor for me for awhile. Any
of the members that have had the opportunity to work with David on
subcommittees have smiles. They refer to him as a tough taskmaster,
but he gets the job done. He's worked very hard, very diligently.
His reports have always been very thorough and insightful. He's always
taken a very strong lead on any subcommittee he's worked on.
I'd like to just mention a list of some of David's
accomplishments. During his tenure here, he was active with the study
of the 800 megahertz communication system, the request for a sheriff's
helicopter, report on community development division. The West Palm
mini grace committee report; that is something which Mr. Craig pretty
much single-handedly did. I say that, but he was always consistent
reporting back to the committee and open to suggestions of the
committee as a whole. But he is solely responsible for the production
of that report. He also was active in the process for the selection of
our information technology director. And he was involved with the
first and second reports on the improvement to the budget process
which we just mentioned. Of course, he was also instrumental in this
purchasing system report that you just heard.
As you mentioned, David agreed to stay here until the completion
of this report. To some extent I have always dreaded the conclusion
of this report for that reason, because I knew the significance it had
to this committee. I realize now that he's a short timer. I think
everyone will agree, though, that he needs to stay on as long as we
can keep him here for follow through of this report.
There's a lot of -- we need to suck every bit of information out
of him we possibly can. I would say that he is an individual -- his
quietness thunders with knowledge. He sits in our meetings, doesn't
say much, but it's like E. F. Hutton; when he speaks, you listen, you
know. Certainly has my highest respect, and I think I speak for the
rest of the committee, also.
David, on behalf of everybody here today, I would like to thank
you for your tremendous contribution to the committee and to the
citizens of Collier County. It's truly been a pleasure working with
you, learning from you. It will be hard to replace you.
(Applause.)
MR. CRAIG: Commissioners, for the record I'm Dave Craig, and
I've heard a lot of nice words today, particularly from my past
chairman there, Mr. Hancock, and our present chairman, Mr. McKenna. I
just want to thank the commission, this one, the one before it, and
the one before that for the opportunity to serve the citizens of this
county. I think it's a good and valuable work, and I would certainly
call to anybody's attention that thinks he has something to offer to
stand forward, step up to the plate, see what you can do. Thanks very
much.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Now you can start the second half of your
retirement.
We have a decision to make here on the agenda. We don't have
that many items left. I know one commissioner has a two o'clock item.
The court reporter does need a break. Is a ten-minute recess and then
continue with the agenda acceptable to everyone?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can we knock the next two off, because
those will only take about 30 seconds each?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Was there something, Mr. Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes. You had a speaker on this item.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Oh, on the report? I'm sorry. Then let's go
ahead and hear from the public speaker. I apologize. I've erred on
that two or three times today.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Gil Erlichman.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Must be that upper respiratory infection.
MR. ERLICHMAN: Gil Erlichman, East Naples, taxpayer and resident
of Collier County. I'm overwhelmed with this past report from the
Productivity Committee. I have sat in this -- in these chambers for
quite a few years, and this is the first time that -- sitting here
that I've spent my time so well. As a taxpayer and for what my
opinion is worth, I just cannot express my thanks to this committee,
Productivity Committee. Of all the committees that we have here,
citizens committees in Collier County, I think this is the greatest.
And as I said, these gentleman, Mr. McKenna, Mr. Weiss, Mr. Craig, Mr.
Gettler, I have to thank them for all those recommendations, and I
hope that the commissioners and our county administrator can implement
most of those recommendations. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you. And as another feather in their
cap, you're the only group I've ever know to leave Gil almost
speechless.
(Laughter.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you for your kind words, Gil. I know
they appreciate it.
Let's go ahead and knock off the next two items. I don't think
either one's very long, and then we'll be to the public comments and
public hearing side.
Item #9A
RESOLUTION 97-361 ORDERING AND CALLING FOR THE INITIAL ELECTION OF CITY
COUNTY FOR THE CITY OF MARCO ISLAND, TO BE HELD BY HAIL BALLOT ON
NOVEMBER 6, 1997, AS SET FORTH IN THE CITY CHARTER, CHAPTER 97-367,
LAWS OF FLORIDA (HOUSE BILL 1729) - ADOPTED
County attorney's report, 9(A), a resolution ordering and calling
for the initial election of city council for the City of Marco.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Motion to approve.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Weigel, anything that needs to be on the
record on this item?
MR. WEIGEL: Just one additional comment, and that is that to let
you all know and the record show that under fiscal impact section
10.02 of the charter, which shows on page 32 of that in the agenda
packet, page 36 specifically provides that the election expenses
should be repaid within 12 months.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I knew that was going to be a question.
Thanks for bringing it up. Any discussion on the motion?
I'm sorry. Any speakers on this, Mr. Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero.
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you.
Item #10A
RESOLUTION 97-362 APPOINTING HARIO DELGADO TO THE COUNTY GOVERNMENT
PRODUCTIVITY COHMITTEE - ADOPTED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Item 10(A), appointment of members to the
Government Productivity Committee. We have Miss Delgado being
recommended by the committee.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Motion to approve committee appointment.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Is it Mr. Delgado?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Mrs. Yeah, it says Maria on the blue
page, but it's Hario.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Motion to approve Miss Delgado for
appointment to the Productivity Committee. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second. Any discussion on the
motion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
Seeing none, motion carries five, zero.
Jack, Sheila, thank you very much. We'll be talking to you
Soon.
PUBLIC COMMENT - TY AGOSTIN RE LANDFILL/INCINERATOR
Public comment on general topics. Mr. Fernandez.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Ty Agoston.
MR. AGOSTON: Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman. My name is Ty
Agoston. I live in Golden Gate Estates, and I'm speaking for myself.
I'd like to make a comment on the current status of the landfill.
Interestingly enough, there was a letter to the editor last week
either Thursday or Friday from the Lee County director of
Environmental Protection Agency. They may not be my favorite people,
but the fact of the matter is here is a director of the Environment
Protection Agency who is suggesting that if we want to do a favor to
our environment and a clean air and whatever that entails, we should
build an incinerator which on the current technology is certainly safe
for the air and what have you.
Now, I understand that there are some substantial opposition to
the issue, and I'm not promoting the incinerators. What I am
promoting is that before we spending some four, five, six or whoever
-- you going to talk to, but a very high amount of money, I don't
think we should approach it with the tunnel vision the way we're going
and we are selecting landfill sites.
So essentially we are walking into a situation where we will
only consider one aspect and one method of dealing with the landfill.
You already have an opposing opinion from what I assume to be an
expert.
Another subject I wanted to comment on, and I didn't get here
early enough, but then Mr. Hancock does not allow a response to a
proclamation. But it's my understanding that you have declared a
proclamation for a pollution prevention week.
Now, I'm calling it to your attention that it appears to be a
relentless effort by some groups in the county, in the state, and in
the country to include the word sustainable economic development,
sustainable future. And I'd like to read three sentences from
Sustainable America, which was commissioned by Mr. Clinton, accepted
it, and it's being implemented currently by executive order. And the
three sentences I refer to is as follows: individual freedom, private
property rights, national sovereignty and free enterprise are all
concepts which this report recognizes as obstacles to be modified,
harnessed, or overcome.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. You know you got to tie this in. I
mean, just because the word sustainable showed up in a proclamation
doesn't mean we're going to hear about Clinton's, you know, ideology.
MR. AGOSTON: No, no, no, no. I'm not talking about his
ideology. Let me take it one step further. The sustainable also
appears on Sustainable Florida, which is Florida. It also has
appeared in your working language of Colonel Rice's involvement in
Collier County. So what you're saying is that this only involves Mr.
Clinton. No, it doesn't. It also involves the local people and --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But does it involve this board of
commissioners? I mean, have we at any point argued with anything you
say?
MR. AGOSTON: No, you have not.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Then what's the purpose of you getting
up and telling us about it? This isn't a forum to talk to the public.
This is a forum to address issues that come before the board of
commissioners.
MR. AGOSTON: Mr. Constantine, you have approved a proclamation
here that uses the specific words, and I feel that all this is an
effort on some groups to develop the use of the term sustainable
economic development which is -- dovetails into a national, state, and
a local level policy. Is that your policy? Are we looking to develop
a sustainable -- a sustainable economic development? CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: As opposed to sporadic?
MR. AGOSTON: No, not at all. Do we know -- can you forecast
the future, Mr. Hancock? Can you go down 10 years, 20 years, 30
years and sustain, you know, forecast?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: No. But I want economic development to be
long-term sustainable, yes, I do.
MR. AGOSTON: Well, I understand that. And based on some of the
material that's available from the state that my tax dollars have paid
for --
(Timer sounded.)
I've been too long.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Agoston, the document that you really
object to is called Sustainable South Florida. Shall we also
discontinue the use of the phrase "South Florida" or "Florida"? I
mean, just because we use the word sustainable in a harmless little
proclamation -- I mean, it really didn't justify all of this.
MR. AGOSTON: I disagree with you, Mr. Norris. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Obviously.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I just need to respond
to one thing. I assure you we have not entered into the
three-year-old now process for the landfill with tunnel vision. If
you'll recall, we actually started the process opening it up to look
at every technology on the planet with the exception of incinerator,
which they are doing for three times the cost of what we pay here in
Lee County.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We are to public comment. Let's do
this. Let's take --
And thank you, Mr. Agoston.
Let's take a ten-minute recess, return, and wrap up this agenda.
(A short break was held till 12:35 p.m.)
Item #12B1
ORDINANCE 97-45 REGARDING PETITION NO. PUD-89-6(2), BARBARA CAWLEY,
AICP, OF WILSON, MILLER, BARTON & PEEK, INC., REPRESENTING GREY OAKS
DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, FORAN AMENDMENT TO THE GREY OAKS PUD,
ORDINANCE NO. 96-82, FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING A HEIGHT OF BUILDINGS
LIMITATION OF SIXTY-FIVE (65) FEET IN THE EVENT A HOSPITAL IS
CONSTRUCTED IN THE NORTHEAST QUADRANT OFFICE OFFICE/COHMERCIAL DISTRICT
OR AIRPORT-PULLING ROAD (C.R. 31) AND GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY (C.R.31 AND
GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY - ADOPTED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Reconvene the board of commissioners meeting.
Let the record reflect Commissioner Berry referred to me as a twerp.
Okay. We are to advertised public hearings. Who says we don't get
along up here.
Advertised public hearings. We're to Item 12(B)(1) under zoning
amendments -- I hate to get back to business, but I feel the need to
do that. Petition PUD-89-6(2), Ms. Barbara Cawley, AICP of Wilson
Miller representing Grey Oaks Development Corporation. It says
quasi-judicial, so again I'm going to ask staff members, petitioners,
and anyone here to speak on this item to please stand and raise your
right hand.
Madam Court Reporter.
(The speakers were sworn.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Good afternoon, Mr. Nino.
MR. NINO: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Ron Nino for the record. The petition before you, while at face
value would appear to fezone the Grey Oaks PUD from a PUD to a PUD, I
would have you appreciate that that -- that procedure is more for
administrative convenience to staff, but in reality what we're gaining
with it is an amendment to the Grey Oaks PUD. And that amendment is
of a singular nature. It would have you change the height standard
for a hospital if one is to be built within the northeast quadrant of
the Grey Oaks PUD, the northeast quadrant being an activity center
that is larger than your normal activity center.
If you refer to map -- page 24 in your executive package, you
would see the area where that facility is currently authorized as a
land use. Again, I must emphasize that a hospital is a permitted land
use within the Grey Oaks PUD at the current regulation with respect to
height of 50 feet. A hospital is permitted anywhere within the area
designated O/C in Town Center and C/H, and you can see that area lies
north of Golden Gate Parkway and east of Airport-Pulling Road.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So the fezone would apply to anything
designated O/C or C/H on the map on page 24?
MR. NINO: No. It would only apply to a hospital within that
area. All of the other uses would remain at the current height
standard of 50 feet. The Planning Commission reviewed this petition
at their last meeting and unanimously --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Nino, from a structural standpoint
or from a land use standpoint, what differentiates height necessity
for a hospital from any other use? MR. NINO: I beg your pardon?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Why are we singling this out? Why
would this be okay and it wouldn't be okay to have an extra 15 feet on
a bowling alley or on an office building or --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What is this multistory bowling alley that
you're talking about?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You like that?
MR. NINO: From a staff point of view, staff would not have a
problem, nor would we think it is a terribly important planning issue
given that piece of geography if all of the buildings were built to a
height of 65 feet, but that was not the request of the petitioner. So
in answer to your question, yes, it wouldn't make any difference.
From our perspective there's no substantive planning issue here if the
height in general as applied to that activity center were 65 feet.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How many acres in the PUD are subject --
I'm just trying to understand. I mean, here, I colored my map. Is
that -- have I got it right? That's how much property in the PUD is
available if this amendment's approved for a sixty --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I borrow your blue?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah, here.
MR. NINO: I can't see from here, but it is all of the land on
map -- page number 24 that is designated Town Center and O/C. How
many acres that is, Ms. Cawley can probably speak to that more
accurately than I can.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Town Center and O/C, but not C/H?
MR. NINO: And C/H. I'm sorry.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Nino, when this project came through, this
Town Center was touted as a concept of kind of a cross between
Waterside and a mall. I mean, there was a concept associated with it.
Was the -- was the fezone -- let me ask first -- did you do the fezone
on this?
MR. NINO: Yes, I did.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Was that concept a part of the fezone
application? Was it presented, or was it more or less just a bubble
diagram as --
MR. NINO: There was never a concept proposal.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I knew there was a concept --
MR. NINO: This is the concept that was represented by the bubble
diagram. There was never any indication or commitment that certain
types of activity would occur within this area. That came later. As
you know, there was talk about an entertainment center and a theater.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. The second --
MR. NINO: It got down to some pretty firm drawings but that was
never part of the PUD.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. My second question is that, was there
rationale on the planning side for a 50-foot height versus a hundred
foot, or is that just what was requested and you deemed it compatible?
MR. NINO: Your statement is correct.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. The second statement.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Either or, so the second one?
MR. NINO: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. Okay. To your knowledge, have any of
the residential areas immediately adjacent to O/C or C/H had contracts
for purchase or been purchased prior to today's hearing? MR. NINO: I can't answer that question.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I'll need to have that answered from
Ms. Cawley.
MR. NINO: We have not received any letters of objection for
this.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Further questions for Mr. Nino on this?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yeah. I have one. Just trying to
understand what property would potentially be available for this high
structure. Was Poinciana Elementary School notified or the school
board notified, because that seems to be a potentially impacted
property if none of the residential has been sold? I mean, if I've
done the map right, there's a piece of --
COHMISSIONER BERRY: They're not close. They're across --
MR. NINO: We're talking about the northeast quadrant.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: -- Airport-Pulling Road, and they're
northwest of the site.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Then I -- okay, so --
MR. NINO: We're talking about the northeast quadrant.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So the O/C on the west side of Airport is
not included?
MR. NINO: Is not affected.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay. I'm sorry. Now I understand. Only
on the east side of Airport is the only property we've been talking
about.
MR. NINO: Yeah. Although let me correct that statement. A
hospital is permitted in anything designated O/C, but this height
variation only applies to the O/C in the northeast quadrant.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: This is a use specific, land specific
amendment for a single user within the PUD. I mean, there's a general
approach being done, but that's really what's behind it. So typically
when we have end users, I like to see a lot of detailed information on
what the impact is going to be and that is the petitioner's
responsibility and not necessarily our staff's, so I'll be looking for
that.
Further questions for Mr. Nino?
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, just on the Growth Management
Plan and LDC consistency, the logic that's used here, if I'm reading
it properly, says that other activity centers in the county have been
approved with heights up to a hundred feet. And that's saying so this
is only 65. And I guess maybe others have been approved at that
height, but clearly at this point in time, we're trying to discourage
that. I think the effort has been fairly clear and the public message
has been fairly clear, less dense, smaller, lower, whatever. I --
just less is what -- I don't hear the public clammering for larger
buildings or for more. And I just -- I'm afraid that if the rationale
used to justify that this meets the LDC is that there are others at a
hundred, what prohibits us from using that logic or a petitioner from
using that logic for almost anything by saying, well, other ones have
been approved at that height? The bottom line is this was approved at
50 and they're coming back for an increase, and that's not what I hear
the public asking for. I just -- I'm not sure I follow the logic
there.
MR. NINO: I'm not sure I hear the public asking for anything.
This is not an LDC tel -- this is not a Growth -- there is no
relationship -- there's nothing in the Growth Management Plan that
restricts height in Collier County. The LDC does that. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Right.
MR. NINO: And we have zoning districts that permit buildings in
excess of a hundred feet. I remind you that in the RT district under
conditional use is an allowance of 125 feet. We have PUDs, many PUDs
that have -- you know, I again remind you we have 200 -- 200 20-story
buildings in them.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And 200 20-story buildings.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Geez.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And the -- I mean, what you're's
saying there is the exact question of my logic. Just because it's
happening somewhere else doesn't necessarily mean it's okay. I mean,
there are other places that are a hundred feet or hundred and
twenty-five feet, so if they ask for seventy-five, we'd say okay? Or
if they asked for 85, we should say okay?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me ask from a planning perspective. Just
because it's 35 feet less than the maximum? That's all you're saying,
is that it's 35 feet less than the maximum, not that it's preferable
to 30 feet or 50 feet, but just that it's 35 feet less than the
maximum?
MR. NINO: Right. Right.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And I don't read any judgement in that other
than that single statement. MR. NINO: Exactly.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Is that correct?
MR. NINO: Exactly. From a planning perspective, there is no
bias built into our makeup whether it's thirty feet or a hundred feet.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just pure policy.
MR. NINO: It's how you do it that counts more than how high the
building is. There is no planning goodness or badness or if you want
to put it into some other term -- COHHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I like that.
MR. NINO: -- to height per se. And that's why we've argued --
sometimes we've argued over the years that perhaps we ought to be
talking about the application of four area ratios and not be as
concerned with height, because it's really -- you know, it has
relevance, I might suggest, for certain people but for other people, a
20-story or a 30-story or a 40-story building is wonderful.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Picture of beauty.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Well, I don't know if this is the proper
place to ask this, but if they are awarded this additional height, do
the architectural standards come into this?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: They will anyway.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. The architectural standards will apply
regardless, because this is a commercial designation within their
zoning.
Mr. Weigel, am I correct there?
MR. WEIGEL: I think you're correct.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So regardless of the 15 feet in the
stan -- the commercial architectural standards would apply.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You made -- Mr. Nino made my point exactly is,
you know, the height is secondary to how it's done. Because if
you're 50 foot and you're 500 feet away or you're 70 feet and you're
2,000 feet away, there's not much material difference to that point
source. And that hits exactly where I have a little bit of concern.
What is the height of the building -- the Poinciana Professional Park,
those buildings on the southwest corner of that? I think they're four
story --
MR. NINO: I think they're about --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- so we can assume they're 50 feet or less.
MR. NINO: They're about that. Somewhere in that neighborhood,
yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. That is kind of a character that's been
established and accepted. I have -- in all those surveys that go
around, no one's ever picked that as obnoxious or -- it's almost not
present, because they --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Invisible.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. They shielded it and buffered it and
done that. So, you know, had they put those roads -- those buildings
right on the roadway 15 feet away from the road, it probably would
have a different appearance.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Right.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So what I'm more concerned about is the
perpetuation of what is an accepted character at what potentially
could become a very, very busy intersection. We've seen at Airport
the character issue being perpetuated in a way not consistent with
what the community would like. I want to make sure we don't let that
happen here.
So those are site-design specific ideas that we need to hear from
the petitioner on. Mr. Nino's job isn't to tell them how to do it.
It's just to more or less bring it to us. And what I hear you saying
is you're not necessarily saying that 65 feet is better than 15,
you're just saying there are places in the county where it's allowed
higher. You don't really see a problem with that. Is that because
you've seen the site design criteria and --
MR. NINO: No, I haven't.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. You haven't. All right. Further
questions for Mr. Nino?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Nothing.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Let's hear from the petitioner.
MS. CAWLEY: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Barbara Cawley
with Wilson, Miller, Barton and Peek. I'm here today representing the
Grey Oaks Development Corporation in this petition. I really
appreciate your comments Commissioner Hancock, because that's exactly
the points that we're trying to raise here about your concerns about
what it's going to look like visually and architecturally and
structurally.
As you know, the Grey Oaks is a DRI and a PUD. And as a DRI,
long-term planning has gone into what happens out there. This is not
a short-term project, as you know. And when you come in originally
for your design standards, there is not one DRI in Collier County that
has not amended it's PUD and DRI to update it for market conditions
and for more modern standards and design characteristics that are
going on out there. And that's basically what we're asking for right
now.
Mr. Ink is here -- Jim Ink is here with Grey Oaks Development
Corporation, and he'll say a few words about how important design
standards are to the Grey Oaks Development Corporation per se. And I
have Mr. Hassey here who would like to discuss a little bit about
hospitals if you're interested in hospital type of activities.
As you know, Grey Oaks is a very, very nice community. It has
done a lot to set high standards in this community in terms of not
only architectural things, but as everyone knows along Airport Road,
the canal is now a beautiful lake, and it doesn't -- it doesn't cause
any problems; it improves our community. And we want to do that as
well with this request.
As your planner has said, we're asking for a 15-foot increase in
height from 50 feet to 65 feet. What we're going -- what is going to
go there is actually a four-story building, and it was not -- when the
project -- when Grey Oaks came in originally for approval, what was
always contemplated out there was four-story office-type buildings,
and a hospital is basically an office-type building.
The additional 65 feet will allow flexibility in terms of their
height of ceilings internally. A hospital requires a lot of
infrastructure, internal infrastructure in terms of air conditioning
over and above your normal type of facilities, you know, computer
things throughout the building. Very, very high tech kind of internal
infrastructure that will go internally into this four-story building.
As your planner also said, this is a permitted use within this
activity center, and when it was permitted -- when the DRI and the PUD
was approved, all of the external uses were reviewed and approved from
traffic, from compatibility of your zoning, from any impacts on
adjacent neighborhoods. Impact fees, of course, will be paid for this
project. Rights-of-ways have been donated to improve Golden Gate
Parkway into the city. Grey Oaks has really been a very valued member
of the community in terms of working with the community to improve it.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Ms. Cawley, I appreciate all that, but
let's just get down to the one issue and that's -- we all know Grey
Oaks is going to be a wonderful development. MS. CAWLEY: Yes.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So far it's certainly lived up to that
reputation, but you're looking for an extra 15 feet.
MS. CAWLEY: We are.
COHHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Maybe you can give us a compelling
reason why.
MS. CAWLEY: Well, I think I had just gone into that. One of the
things that we need to look at is how to be able to design the
buildings, and the buildings themselves need the additional 15 feet in
order for the infrastructure to be located within that building to
build it in accordance with the requirements of the state and with
modern standards.
And I'm going to let Mr. Hassey talk to you a little bit about
hospitals, but let me show you the plan design on the ground first and
the location of where this is going to go, and maybe it'll calm some
of your concerns about what it's going to look like from off site.
Just to orient you a little bit, this is Golden Gate Parkway and
Airport Road (indicating). Grey Oaks commercial area is included in
this entire -- this is the northeast quadrant. It's all designated
commercial right now for Grey Oaks. The site is a 25-acre site that
would be located internal to the commercial designation. Along Golden
Gate Parkway is a park that is in the DRI. It's an approved park,
will always be a park there. A number of trees through here. There's
a golf hole that's planned for right here. As Grey Oaks does, they
like to have the visible -- visual niceness of people driving down the
road, and they can see golf and berming and landscaping and that type
of thing.
The distance from Golden Gate Parkway to the hospital will be
between 600 and 725 feet off of Golden Gate Parkway. You'd have the
park, you have an FP&L easement that's there right now that will not
go away, obviously. You've got an internal right-of-way, then you
have your hospital site. Of course, the hospital will be heavily
landscaped and buffered as well as it has to be by the Land
Development Code.
So you're talking about 15 feet between 600 and 725 feet from
Golden Gate Parkway. It would be imperceptible. From Airport-Pulling
Road it will be over 2,000 feet and you can't tell 15 feet in 2,000
feet as you can't in 600 feet. So visually this is not -- there is no
compatibility issues in terms of visually for the -- for the area.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Where's the closest residential owner or
property owner, residential or commercial, inside '-
MS. CAWLEY: Well, there have been no sales as of yet. You can
see there's a golf hole right here (indicating). So the closest will
probably be up in here somewhere.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Does anybody own that '-
MS. CAWLEY: No. It's owned by Grey Oaks Development Corporation
right now. They have done no sales in that area at all. And there's
another nine holes planned for this area which this will be one of the
holes as part of that new nine. That goes with their Palm Course
that's opened up out there. This would be the second nine of the Palm
Course.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: So basically the trees that are off of
Golden Gate Parkway '-
MS. CAWLEY: They will remain.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Basically -- they're going to remain there?
MS. CAWLEY: Yeah. Except, of course, for the golf course.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I understand.
MS. CAWLEY: You can't put them there as a golfer but, yes, these
trees will be buffers all along here, and this is a park as designated
on the DRI as a park, and it's about a hundred feet wide right there.
So if you're here, you will not see this, because these trees are
mature pine trees, and it's quite a heavily buffered area already.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You won't be able to see it across the
golf hole?
MS. CAWLEY: Well, you may be able to see it, but you're not --
if it's 50 feet, you're going to see it too, you know. This is
Livingston Road here. And into the distance there is probably, again,
about 2,000 feet, and 15 feet would be totally imperceptible from a
community standpoint for visibility. Let me show you a picture. This
might help a little bit.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Actually, Ms. Cawley, why don't you go ahead
and grab the other microphone. It's very tough to pick you up unless
you've got a General Weiss kind of voice.
MS. CAWLEY: I wish I had that kind of voice. This is a picture
of Doctor's Hospital in Sarasota, and it's considered a very high
quality hospital. This is actually five stories. We're talking
four, so it's not exactly this design, but it's -- this is the concept
that will locate there. As you can see, a lot of landscaping, soft
colors. This is another view of the same hospital. Actually I have
two of each.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do you know how tall that building --
the one you just showed, first one you showed?
MS. CAWLEY: This is probably a hundred feet, because it's
actually --
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Now, the first one -- is this the same
building on the back side?
MS. CAWLEY: Yeah. It's the same building. This is five
stories. Again, if you think about it being four stories, we're only
talking four stories, and it'll have a very attractive roof line that
will soften it to give it more of a modern architectural --
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do you know it's a hundred feet or are
you just --
MS. CAWLEY: I'm just guessing -- I don't know -- because it's
five stories in this picture, so I'm saying -- I'm going to guess
it's probably between eighty-five and a hundred feet, I'm not sure.
But I know Doctors Hospital is looked at very positively in Sarasota
County in terms of its visibility and visual character.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Ms. Cawley, I have a question on traffic
circulation.
MS. CAWLEY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Because we're not talking about this tract in
the PUD, it's very difficult for me to take what you have up there and
put it in the PUD. So let me kind of throw at you what I'm looking
for. There's an internal circulation road proposed as a part of the
PUD master plan that connects Golden Gate Parkway to Airport Road.
That to me is an integral part of this PUD master plan.
MS. CAWLEY: That's Grey Oaks Boulevard right there.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. This hospital would be inside of that
MS. CAWLEY: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- or near the intersection? Okay. Does that
mean that that roadway will be constructed before the hospital is
occupied? And the reason I'm asking that is because I don't want a
single point of entrance for a hospital on Golden Gate Parkway or on
Airport Road. I want the whole road constructed.
MS. CAWLEY: I think Mr. Ink would like to answer that. They're
in their planning process for that road, I believe.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. And the reason I ask that, I know it's
not necessarily a correlation, but I think there's a realistic chance
here that if the 15 feet is agreed upon, that the chances of Columbia
building a hospital are greater, and with that I think there's a
logical tie to the traffic circulation element inside the project, and
that's why I'm bringing it up. You can argue that in a court of law
later, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
MR. INK: James Ink, Grey Oaks Development. Our plan is to
construct access on both Golden Gate Parkway and Airport Road prior to
this being opened.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So there would be an internal loop
road. Would it be a roadway built and constructed to county standards
for public use or for private use?
MR. INK: It would be for public use.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. INK: We still intend to provide the retail-commercial type
entities that we've always been planning on the Town Center aspect -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And they would access off of this internal
roadway?
MR. INK: Correct.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I wanted to make sure that was -- at
least in this discussion, the integrity of that decision was
preserved. Okay.
MS. CAWLEY: Yes. There's no other changes -- there's no changes
to the master plan. It's basically asking for 15 feet for a use
internal to the commercial. And we were very specific about where we
wanted the location, because we didn't want to have concerns about the
west side of the road or the south side. There just wasn't any need
to do that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I just -- I'm looking at your arrow and
looking at this where this roadway is located, and something doesn't
jive, but the commitment's on the record so that's good enough.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What page is that on?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Page 24.
MS. CAWLEY: Well, the PUD does give some flexibility in moving
the road around a little bit, so that's probably what you're not
seeing --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah. I think the connection of Golden Gate
Parkway to me looks much closer to the intersection than it would be
had it -- would have wrapped around the far side of that '-
MS. CAWLEY: Yeah. I think the county actually would like to
move this.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yes, we would.
MS. CAWLEY: So --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. That's something that's very, very
important to me is that internal circulation element. MS. CAWLEY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Do you also have minimum setbacks and buffers
from Golden Gate Parkway at 50 feet?
MS. CAWLEY: Yes. That was the approved.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. That's the approved. You've stated on
the record there would be X number of feet from Golden Gate Parkway.
MS. CAWLEY: Yes, yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: If you're going to call out a separate height
for hospital, would you be willing to call out a separate setback for
the hospital, also?
MS. CAWLEY: Are you looking for a particular number? We could
go to a hundred feet. We could go 200 --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm looking for something that gives credence
to what we've seen which is a five-story building way off the roadway
as opposed to a five-story building -- or four-story building much
closer, so I need a reasonable -- reasonable number there, and 50 feet
is not reasonable.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is the setback going to be measured from
the road or are you talking about because the park is there or what
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: This section is external rights-of-way, not
internal. So that's the concern is that if we approve the 15 feet,
they could actually turn around and put it 50 feet from Golden Gate
Parkway.
MS. CAWLEY: We would accept 400 feet.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Questions for Ms. Cawley?
Do you have any further elements to your presentation, Ms.
Cawley?
MS. CAWLEY: The only elements that -- well, I don't have that
much more to say. Basically. This does not set a precedent. I know
we amend PUDs every day, and it's always done on the merits of the
project and how it affects the community. And I believe that in this
case that the community is well served by an additional 15 feet, and
there's no precedent-setting nature here.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can you explain to me how the
community is well served by the additional 15 feet? I heard you say
that, but I haven't heard an explanation of how.
MS. CAWLEY: The explanation is that there will be no impacts
associated with this --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's not a benefit. That's just --
you're saying there's not a detriment, but you've said the community
will be benefitted. How will the community be benefitted? What's
the plus?
MS. CAWLEY: Well, that's difficult to say plus and minus. Again
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm just asking you to explain your
comment. You said the community will be benefitted. How will the
community be benefitted.
MS. CAWLEY: Maybe I should take my words and say there will be
no detriment to the community based on an additional 15 feet of height
located 400 feet off of --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And you can think of no benefit
either?
MS. CAWLEY: Well, there's a benefit of having an architecturally
modern building and a building that has functionality that works in
the community. That's a benefit.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm pretty sure we have
architecturally attractive, workable buildings that are 50 feet tall
in the community, too. I mean, that's really not a benefit of adding
15 feet.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, with all due respect, I can
articulate -- I mean, I think there are some obvious ones. If we have
decided that --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Are you representing the petitioner?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, no, I'm not. But actually I don't
think you're doing a great job of representing the county, so I'm
going to try to do that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Let's stick to the issue at hand,
folks.
COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: My assessment is that if there has been a
decision made that a four-story office building and hospital are both
appropriate uses on this site, and we have somebody here, if you want
to hear from him, who says that if you want to have a four-story
hospital, it's going to have to be 65 feet high. Those two together,
you know, create the conclusion that the additional 15 feet is
appropriate for the hospital.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I just don't see it that way, because
the original PUD limited the heights to 50 feet. This is a request to
accommodate a single user. It's not anything but that.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, then change your amendment and make
it to any office, any building within that -- within those O/C.
MS. CAWLEY: It is. I will say that is not for a single user.
It is for a single use. And if for some reason the user you think is
going to go here doesn't go here, this would allow any user to use
this as 65 feet. That's not --
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I'd like to hear from Mr. Hassey what this
extra 15 feet will do for this hospital.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Why they can't do in 50 feet what they --
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I don't know. This is not my area of
expertise, so let's hear from some people who know.
MR. HASSEY: Hello. My name is John Hassey, and I am a resident
of Naples. I'm also an authorized agent of Columbia. I'm an
engineer. We work all over the United States. I've worked on about
400 hospitals, so I do have some experience in them.
It's very difficult once you take a program for a building such
as this -- and every hospital is programmed. There's been a specific
use identified for this specific location, and that was addressed in
the certificate of need application that was made and approved by the
state. It dictates what's going in this building and generally how
it's integrated together. You have ancillary areas and bed areas and
square footages required for each of those elements, and those
elements comprise the building.
It has been determined in this program that a four-story building
is necessary to provide the required elements established in the
certificate of need. That's where the four stories comes from.
A hospital is not quite like an office building, because you can
build an office building that has nine-foot ceilings and twelve feet
floor heights. And that separation between the nine and the twelve
feet allows you generally to get all of the mechanical, plumbing,
electrical elements installed. A hospital is not quite like that.
The other thing is when we were going to an architectural element
such as this with a sloped metal roof, it does require an additional
height of the building to be considered. Host hospitals are flat
roofed buildings. This building is not, so it did require additional
height to build this building. And that, again, is where the 65 feet
is coming from.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Did I understand your comments correctly
that in order to build your building at all you need to build it four
stories? You cannot build it less than four stories?
MR. HASSEY: Not and meet the program that's established.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: What program, established by whom?
MR. HASSEY: The established program -- and, again, we as part
of the real estate division of this company, do not necessarily
establish the program. The people who are going to operate, run, and
provide the services in this hospital have determined what elements
need to be here. And that's where this program has come from.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So that answer --
MR. MASSEY: Then an architect gets involved and they take those
elements, and they make square footage based on the element to be
served.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So the program and the criteria were
established by Columbia is what you're saying? MR. MASSEY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you.
MR. MASSEY: And the architects that work for Columbia.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Mr. Massey, are there other currently
zoned areas that are at 65 feet or greater that Columbia has looked at
and is considering?
MR. MASSEY: Well, I handled the site selection process here for
them, and I looked at probably ten different sites, many of which had
a similar PUD or a DRI that had been approved for a height greater
than a hundred feet. We elected not to select those sites, not
because of the height and not because of the zoning, but
predominantly because of the location.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Questions of Mr. Massey?
Seeing nothing, thank you, Mr. Massey.
MR. MASSEY: If I could make a couple more comments.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Please.
MR. MASSEY: Only 30 to 40 percent of the upper floors of this
building comprises the overall footprint, so the footprint of the
hospital is much larger than the portion of the building that would be
65 feet tall. Those areas that would be 65 feet tall would be patient
rooms. So if you take the overall footprint, which is roughly a
hundred thousand feet, and you only use 30 to 40 percent of that in
the upper floors, that's where the 65 feet is coming from. It's not a
structure that's sitting out there that's 200,000 feet that's 65 feet
tall; it's only the patient towers.
Again, I'd like to go back to this. When we move away from the
flat roof and go to the sloped roof, it does take additional height to
do that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: How much height? What's the difference there?
MR. MASSEY: Probably 10 feet. So we are compromising even at
the 65 feet -- compromising our ability to locate mechanical,
electrical, and plumbing services in the upper portion of the roof
air portion of this building from floor to floor. So we're even
trying to do this in less area than what would normally be required
with this type of sloped roof. And we have agreed to do this and not
build a typical hospital that has a flat roof.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Further questions for Mr. Massey?
Seeing none --
MS. CAWLEY: I'd like to say one other thing. I understand the
concern about public benefit and the worry that there's not a public
benefit with this additional feet. And I was just speaking with the
developers of Grey Oaks. And they would like to know if -- it's
basically a question for you. If they were willing to give up some of
the commercial square footage in the project to get this 15 feet,
would that be considered a public benefit enough to allow the 15 feet
of height? And that way we would have a reduction in commercial.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Nino, if there's a reduction in commercial
square footage at a major intersection, is that considered a public
benefit by planning standards?
MR. NINO: I would be inclined to say that it would. It would
certainly reduce the number of automobile trips that would be
impacting that intersection. As we all know, that's an intersection
that's going to certainly rise to a considerable problem some day, so
I would think there would be some public good. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Some day.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: As we hold our breath. Okay.
What type of reduction were you considering, Ms. Cawley?
I'll tell you what, let's go to public speakers and then if
you'll answer that question immediately following.
MS. CAWLEY: And then we can -- I'll answer that. I was just
trying to get a feel if that would be a benefit that would be --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And I don't know. I just '-
MS. CAWLEY: -- looked at positively by the board.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I wanted a planning principle in that, and then
we'll go from there.
Let's go to public speakers, Mr. Fernandez.
MR. FERNANDEZ: We have one speaker registered, Mr. Chairman, Mr.
Tot Kolflat.
MR. KOLFLAT: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is
Tot Kolflat. I live at 2713 Buckthorn Way. I've lived in the Grey
Oaks development for three years. I have a private home there. I am
sorry that this comes before you at this time when all of my
neighbors are up north or out of town, but it's not by coincidence,
I'm sure, that it occurs in the summertime.
I oppose this very much. When I bought that land up there, I
relied on you as my county commissioners to uphold the PUD that was
approved and to -- I was entitled to that I felt, and I relied on that
in the purchase -- preservation of my property and its value.
And I feel that any increase in height of this building is going
to increase the intensification affecting traffic both on the ground
as well as in the air. And I'm very much opposed to it.
I realize that probably with the DRI there isn't a backtrack, but
it always seems when these amendments come up, they never talk about
going downward at all. I would propose if you want to amend this
thing, let's go back to 35 feet height and prohibit use as far as a
hospital. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Could I ask you, have you had any discussions
with your neighbors that are out of town on this matter? I know they
can't '-
MR. KOLFLAT: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: They can't -- I'm just curious if you --
MR. KOLFLAT: Yes, I have had discussions, and several of them
talked to me, and they oppose it. They're very concerned about it.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I need to state -- and we didn't do this
initially, but for the record, I have received some phone calls and
letters of objection on this but will base my decision on the
information presented here today. Thank you, Mr. Kolflat.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I've had minimal outside contact, and I'm
going to base my decision on this hearing.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I haven't discussed this with anybody
outside of here today, so I'll simply base my decision on what we've
discussed today.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: I've had contact with the outside world on
this, so I'll base my judgement, however, on what I hear today.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: As required by state law.
COMHISSIONER BERRY: As required by state law.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Ms. Cawley, you had mentioned something
about a reduction of commercial square footage.
MS. CAWLEY: Yes. I wanted to find out what the size of the
hospital was planned for before we decided what number might be a
possible number. And the hospital is going to be about 200,000 square
feet, and we're offering a hundred thousand square feet reduction in
square footage, half of the size of the hospital, to be removed from
the PUD and DRI, and that property would be used for residential
development with no additional units at all.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me ask just to make sure that we're
clear. You're saying in this particular quadrant?
MS. CAWLEY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: How many square feet are allowed today
total, 400,0007
MR. NINO: 1.303.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: In this quadrant?
MR. NINO: In the entire PUD.
MS. CAWLEY: 700,000 square feet.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Seven hundred thousand and the hospital's
taking two.
MS. CAWLEY: And we're reducing it by one.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So there'll be four hundred left instead of
five hundred left?
MS. CAWLEY: That's right.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's what you're saying?
MS. CAWLEY: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I'm glad you clarified that, because I
wanted to make sure that didn't mean there were 600,000 left, so the
hospital is -- it's a cumulative reduction.
MS. CAWLEY: No. That's a cumulative reduction.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yes, Commissioner Berry.
COMHISSIONER BERRY: Ms. Cawley, what would be the closest --
currently what is the closest -- what is the distance of the closest
home -- if this hospital were built right now, what would be the
distance of the --
MS. CAWLEY: It would be over here in Wyndemere.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Need you on a microphone, Ms. Cawley.
MS. CAWLEY: It's a -- it is over here across Livingston and
Wyndemere with -- and, of course, they're buffering so --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: So you're telling me that a residence in
Grey Oaks is really quite a distance from this hospital?
MS. CAWLEY: Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. Anyone who's familiar
with Grey Oaks know that -- I wish I had the map in front of me, but
it's --
COMHISSIONER BERRY: I just wanted that on the record. I just
wanted to get you to say that.
MS. CAWLEY: I don't know what the distance, you know, half a
mile, about half a mile.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: About half a mile.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Kolflat brings up a interesting thing that
we deal with and we will deal with on another application in the next
couple of weeks is when people buy into a PUD, they feel like they
know the rules. And then if those rules change -- and we're always
asked to change them, I mean, invariably on almost every PUD. I look
for at least a neutral position, a neutral effect on the homeowner. I
don't know if we can say that about this. It's pretty close. I
always have concern when people have purchased property under what
they believe to be the rules, and the rules change; that really causes
me concern.
MS. CAWLEY: Well, I would agree if, in fact, we were asking for
a new use. This use has been in the original DRI and the original
PUD. This is not an additional impact associated with this project.
It's 15 feet that we're asking for that the existing owners will never
see because they are half a mile away buffered by trees and, as you
know, the area of Grey Oaks is heavily vegetated and landscaped and
always will be. But it's something very important to this developer.
So I agree if we were coming in and saying we want a new use and this
is something that these folks don't know and it was going to exist,
but it's really -- it's been there all along.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Further questions of Ms. Cawley or staff?
Okay. Seeing none, I'm going to --
We have no further speakers, Mr. Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: No further speakers.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm going to close the public hearing.
MR. MASSEY: Could I say one more thing?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Actually, sir, for procedure -- no. I think
it's our questions that we need answered. We'd be happy to direct them
to you at this point. And I'm sorry, Mr. Kolflat, that applies to
everybody once a public hearing is closed.
I guess I'm looking for, you know, board direction and
communication on this, because -- you know, I'm a little torn, you
know, between someone like Mr. Kolflat who has more of the vested
interest than any of us sitting up here does. And the other side is
that there are -- I do believe that this can be done gracefully. We've
all received correspondence, and we all know that people in this
community given a choice, the majority would rather have a Cleveland
Clinic than a Columbia.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: But that's not the issue, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And that's not -- well, thank you for stating
that for me.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We're supporting you in that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And we can't make that decision today or about
this. This is simply land use. So, you know, I just want everyone
here and everyone in the press to understand that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I make a motion to approve the item with
the -- with the reduction of a hundred thousand commercial square feet
in this quadrant so that the net available after construction of a
two-hundred-square-foot hospital is four hundred thousand square feet
remaining in this quadrant. Wasn't there --
COMHISSIONER BERRY: A roadway?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, yeah. With the commitment about the
internal roadway. Could you state that for me, Commissioner Hancock?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I had asked that the internal loop roadway
connecting Golden Gate Parkway to Airport Road be constructed prior to
the opening of the hospital and that that be a public-use roadway.
The other thing was an increase setback for the hospital from
Golden Gate Parkway 400 feet. We didn't discuss Airport Road. I
think the number was 2,000 feet, so we'll just call it a 400-foot
minimum setback for the hospital from any external public
thoroughfare.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's my motion.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: And I'll second that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We have a motion and a second on the
table. Is there any discussion on the motion?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. Mr. Chairman, I have some
specific concerns. One, I appreciate the offer to give back a hundred
thousand commercial square feet, but the question on the 15 feet
itself really doesn't have a benefit. I mean, the change to the PUD
as a whole you can say has a benefit, but there's no benefit to adding
the feet. And as far as the land use issue, more and bigger clearly
isn't what the public is asking for. I don't mean specific to this. I
mean in general. The biggest issue in all of our short little careers
here has been growth and what's going on, and they want -- very
clearly have said -- the public has said they want less density and
less growth and they don't want more and they don't want bigger.
It was interesting Commissioner Norris expressed one concern, and
Mr. Massey actually got up and cemented your concern that this change
is being requested for a single specific use. It's not a PUD change.
This is something specifically to take care of one particular group,
and it's a valid concern.
And finally it does set a precedent. It doesn't set a legal
precedent in that we are absolutely bound to follow, but in five years
on the board, if there's one thing I've learned is that these things
do have an impact on future uses. If it happens once, it is referred
to, it is used in the future. And as simple as the use was in our
reference materials this morning that, well, there are others that are
higher, so this isn't a big deal. I mean, that's how these things all
build on one another.
And so there may not be a legal precedent, but this does set some
precedent, particularly you talked about the Airport Road corridor,
Commissioner Hancock. And I tend to agree with you. We're going to
see a lot of growth there in the next few years, and if you have one
here, I think you're hard pressed not to agree to that for others up
and down that corridor as well. And so for those three reasons, I'm
going to oppose the motion.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Mr. Chairman, when I looked at this issue --
I know there's lot of public sentiment out there in regard to who and
what this particular change affects. I think in my duty as a
commissioner you have to separate any of those negative aspects about
a particular company and look at the exact project as it is. If this
project has every right -- which we did not make the designation. The
State of Florida makes that designation whether there is to be a
hospital facility somewhere located in Collier County, then we have to
look at the project per se, not who the company is and separate that
out and away from that, so I have tried to do that and look at this
from a standpoint of if this is indeed approved by the State of
Florida, then what is the best possible facility that we can have in
our community. If this is deemed by adding this additional height,
this is not acquiring more space for to people to move into. We're
not increasing the use of our public schools or of other public
facilities by increasing the height on this building, then that's how
I'm separating this out.
As far as precedents, we're going to be asked in many cases down
the road to look at specific projects individually, and it's very
difficult -- there's no question -- once you say yes, but I think as
commissioners, we're all bound to look at each project as it comes
before us and weigh it on its particular merits. And I understand
that.
So I am going to support this from the standpoint of the things
that we have put in place, the buffer, itws not located directly on
the roadway, so youwre not going to have the tunnel effect as you
drive through that intersection. Itws going to be set back, both on
Golden Gate Parkway and Airport Road. Youwre going to have an
additional roadway around this and particularly inside that should be
able to be used, and thatws the reason I support this particular
project, and I donwt care who it is that has to be and whows bringing
this before us. I think thatls part of my job. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: And I have a question, too. The certificate
-- easy for me to say. The certificate of need for Columbia is under
appeal. Therels some possibility that they wonlt get it. Can we make
this approval conditional that if the appeal is upheld, that the extra
15 feet goes away?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We would have to have the petitionerls
agreement on that.
COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: We would be --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think -- and Miss Student, Iill save you
some words here. I think that itls not necessarily land-use related,
and we may have a tough time attaching it to a zoning decision.
However, if itls a voluntary commitment on the part of the
petitioner, thatls a separate ball game. I just saved Miss Studentls
expert advice on that item.
MR. WEIGEL: Well, not entirely, but Iill be succinct, and that
is thatls really not a part of the petition thatls before you today.
If, in fact, a petitioner should volunteer to make that part of it,
thatls fine. But again, your discussion and ultimate decision today
is based upon the evidence, the competent substantial evidence that is
before you today. And without going into detail I think -- I
reiterate that. The record has been created. Youlre reviewing that
very record thatls just been created at this point upon which your
decision, you know, will stand or fall in any form later on.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Ms. Cawley, is there any voluntary desire on
the petitionerls part?
MS. CAWLEY: We will agree to that condition.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You voluntarily will withdraw the 15 feet as a
hospital condition if the certificate of need for Columbia is denied?
MS. CAWLEY: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you very much.
I guess the appropriate thing is just simply to call the
question, and why donlt we go ahead and do that. Iill call the
question.
Any further discussion on the motion?
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Aye.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries four, one. Thank you.
Next item on the agenda --
Oh, and by the way, this board is on record as reflecting our
constituentsi concern regarding Columbia versus Cleveland Clinic. And
therels a letter to that effect to the state. There is a process now
going on. We may wish to reissue that letter. Iill just ask for --
Iill just ask that next week we -- Mr. Fernandez, can we place that
discussion on the agenda for next week on that particular matter? I
don't want to drag this afternoon's meeting on any further than
necessary.
Item #12B2
ORDINANCE 97-46 REGARDING PETITION PUD-97-6, ROBERT DUANE OF HOLE,
HONTES & ASSOCIATES, REPRESENTING HARK WOODWARD, TRUSTEE, REQUESTING A
REZONE FROM C-2 AND "A" TO PUD TO BE KNOWN AS U.S. 41/WIGGINS PASS ROAD
PUD FOR COHMERCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL OFFICES FOR PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE
SOUTHEAST CORNER OF U.S. 41 AND WIGGINS PASS ROAD, IN SECTION 15,
TOWNSHIP 48 SOUTH, RANGE 25 EAST, COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA, CONSISTING
OF 9.08 ACRES, MORE OR LESS - ADOPTED
12(B)(2), Petition PUD-96-7 (sic), also a quasi-judicial matter,
so I ask Mr. Nino, any members of staff, and the petitioner's team
that are here to present this item, please stand and raise your right
hand.
Madam Court Reporter, why don't you swear them in, and then we'll
paper change.
(The speakers were sworn.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We've sworn in all individuals here to
speak on PUD-96 -- or 97-6. Mr. Nino.
MR. NINO: Yes. For the record, Ron Nino. The petition that's
before you would have you fezone the southeast corner of Tamiami
Trail, U.S. 41 North at Wiggins Pass Road from agricultural,
approximately six acres immediately contiguous to the corner, to PUD
and a parcel of land that is now zoned C-2 to PUD. As you know, this
property lies opposite the Getmain dealership, the property
immediately to the south. It's in an activity center. This whole
quadrant is an activity center. Property to the south of it is zoned
C-2, to the north in part you have some C-4 zoning. There's a gas
station, a laundromat, and in the northeast corner -- I mean,
northwest corner you have a PUD called the Lawmetka Plaza which is a
commercial PUD, and it's currently undeveloped. To the west -- to the
east of the subject property, we have a mobile home park. To the
north, for a large part of its opposite relationship, you also have a
mobile home park.
Wiggins Pass Road was a road that was -- is the road that was
constructed --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Nino, has there been any
opposition to this as far as you know? MR. NINO: No, there hasn't.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: This looks pretty -- actually --
MR. NINO: No opposition to it. The uses that are requested are
generally consistent with the C-4 district. There's something
different about this PUD in the sense that one of the tracts, the most
easterly tract abutting the mobile home park, may be developed with a
mini warehouse as opposed to your traditional C-4 uses, which would be
steered to the frontage property, but could also go on the interior
tract if that's their decision.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You said the mobile home park. Do you mean the
TTRVC zoning? Because the mobile home park is next to the Preserve.
MR. NINO: Yes, next to the TTRVC.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So the TTRVC, travel trailer
recreational vehicle as opposed --
MR. NINO: Thank you for correcting me.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Yeah. That's pretty important.
MR. NINO: And as you can see, that master plan does provide a
natural buffer to the properties on the south, that is a mobile home
park.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, I've had the opportunity to speak with
the petitioner on this matter. I haven't received any correspondence
outside of that. I'll base my decision on what's presented here
today.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Same.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Same.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Ditto.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The entire board --
MR. NINO: May I bring to your attention -- I mentioned it to Bob
Duane earlier today, the agent for the petitioner and planner. I
didn't note until the last few days that there is one use in that PUD,
however, that does give me some problems. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. NINO: And that is an industrial use that I would ask you to
delete from the PUD. It is a group under 6 -- it's on your page 44.
It is Item No. 6, boat sales and service groups -- services, and the
group number is 3732. That's an industrial classification of land
use.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What number under permitted uses?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Six.
MR. NINO: Number six.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you.
MR. NINO: That group, 3732, is an industrial classification, and
it permits the manufacturing of boats. And I don't think that is an
appropriate use there. I think the petitioner really wanted to sell
boats, and they could do that by adding SIC code 5551 to the group 4.
They're already allowed to do outboard motor repairs under 7699 on
page 44 of Item No. 29. So I think it covers most of their agenda.
However, I'll let them speak to that issue themself, but I don't think
we want to allow an industrial use.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: That's a good catch. I think if any of us had
any questions about whether or not staff goes through this SIC code,
that's a good example of knowing that they do. I think that's -- MR. DUANE: We're in agreement.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Duane is in agreement with that. Is there
anything further, Mr. Nine --
MR. NINO: No, there isn't.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- on your part? Okay. And thank you for
your thoroughness on that. That was a good catch.
Like I said, you know, I haven't heard anything from the
neighborhood on this. That corner is in bad need of a good shot in
the arm from what's existing there. And if this actually allows that
to happen with the commercial architectural standards in place that
it'll be subject to, I think it's a win-win for everybody, quite
frankly, so I'm very supportive of the petition. Do we have any
public speakers other than Mr. Duane?
MR. FERNANDEZ: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I'll close the public hearing.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I'll make a motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We have a motion and second with the
change Mr. Nine has noted, the elimination of 3732 and a replacement
of 5551 as an SIC code. Okay. Any discussion on the motion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero. Mr. Duane, thank
you once again for your fine presentation. You can shorten up in the
future if at all possible.
Item #13B1
RESOLUTION 97-363 RELATING TO PETITION NO. CU-95-4, FOR THE SECOND
EXTENSIONOF A CONDITIONAL USE FOR A CHURCH IN THE "A" RURAL
AGRICULTURAL ZONING DISTRICT FOR PROPERTY DESCRIBED IN RESOLUTION
95-537, ADOPTED ON SEPTEMBER 19, 1995, PURSUANT TO SECTION 2.7.4 OF THE
LDC - ADOPTED
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Close the public hearing on the next one.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Item 13(B)(1) relating to Petition CU-95-4,
second extension of conditional use for a church. For the mundane
stuff, Mr. Nine.
MR. NINO: Yes. Ren Nine, for the record.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Nine, nething's changed since it
was originally passed?
MR. NINO: No.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Close the public hearing.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Do we have any speakers, Mr. Fernandez?
Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Motion to approve the item.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Third.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion by Commissioner Constantine, second by
Commissioner Norris. Good luck in hearing this on the tape with this
congestion problem --
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero.
Item #14A
REPORT FROM THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR ON THE MARCO ISLAND INCORPORATION
TO BE PRESENTED ON SEPTEMBER 17, 1997
We're to staff communications. Mr. Weigel.
MR. WEIGEL: No. Nothing, thank you. Well, one slight thing. I
came back from a Detroit courtroom technology conference last week,
and it was very technical. I'm not a technical person. I've learned
quite a bit, and I'll look forward to providing you a synopsis report
written in the future.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you. Mr. Fernandez.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I'll dispense with the lengthy presentation I
had planned for this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, but I do have one point
I'd like to mention to you. I have prepared a matrix to identify the
impacts of the Marco Island incorporation. It's not in complete form
yet, but I just wanted to let the board know that I'll be presenting
that at the public hearing tomorrow night. I understand that's the
expectation of the board to have some more information. I don't think
it's final or conclusive, but it does shed some light on the issue,
and it's a matrix in which we have identified the services provided to
Marco Island and whether or not we have the option to change those
services, and the cost impact of each. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. FERNANDEZ: So hopefully that'll shed some light on the
issue.
Item #15A
COHMISSIONER BERRY REGARDING THE CREATION OF AN ETHICS COHMITTEE -
DISCUSSED; AGENDA ITEM TO BE INCLUDED ON SEPTEMBER 23, 1997
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think that's precisely what we're looking
for, understanding everything is very preliminary at this point.
Thank you.
Commissioner Hac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nothing, thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry.
COHMISSIONER BERRY: Yes, I do have something. Over the past
few weeks, actually probably months at this point, all of us in some
fashion have been concerned about the ethics issue. When I'm speaking
about this, I want to separate this from any of us seated up here or
any other elected official in Collier County, but I want to speak
about this generally. We have been asked -- or there's been comments
made in the local media regarding a desire to form some kind of an
ethics commission or committee to perhaps raise a standard, as they
view it, in ethics for elected officials in Collier County.
At first blush I don't think anyone probably is in opposition to
that. I think that many of us try to do and conduct ourselves in a
manner that is fitting for a commissioner or board member, whatever
the title might be. My problem is with this whole thing, number one,
if one will review the state statutes that govern each of us in
ethics, it's pretty well spelled out. It basically is in favor of the
public that we represent and it certainly, if you want to look at it
in opposition to elected officials, you can look at it in that way,
because it certainly is very definitive as to what is expected of
public officials and what we have to do.
My concern if we do something on a local level, if something is
-- if there is a committee, a blue ribbon committee -- and let me say
from the outset, if that's the desire of the members of this board to
do something like this, I certainly support that. However, I do not
want this to become a committee that becomes a witch hunt committee
for Collier County and for all public officials in Collier County.
These jobs on these boards are very difficult at best. Anyone
who takes the job seriously, there's a lot of work that has to be
done. There's a lot of responsibility that we all have to carry out.
I'm not in a position to sit up here and to partake and be a part of a
witch hunt for any group or any elected official in Collier County. I
don't believe that that is my duty. My duty is to carry on and conduct
business of this county, and to do that, I might add, in the most
ethical manner that I'm aware of.
We can create all kinds of documents stating of what we should
live up to, and it comes down to a personal intent no matter what is
written on any of the books. My big concern is -- and I really
hesitate to get into this, and I want this to be separated out -- is
that we've had a perceived incident, and now it's -- as I relate back
to education many times and probably will continue to do so, and give
me credit because of my age -- we have one problem and everybody now
must pay. It's an old adage in the schoolroom. Susie pushes Sally
down on the playground, and now the whole class has to suffer in some
way. And we've all been drug through the muck. I'm sure that like
many of you -- and I know that this has happened to me repeatedly out
in the community. We're continually hit with this as to what we think
ought to happen and so forth and what needs to be changed.
It's my point to make at this point in time that we go ahead and
let's establish a committee, but at the same time that we establish a
committee for public officials in Collier County, we also establish
that same committee to look into the ethics and reporting in the
printed media. I understand we have -- there's first amendment rights
and you have all those kinds of things. But I also believe that there
is a responsibility with the media to represent fairly what has
transpired. I know that by bringing this issue up today, we will
probably read a rehash for the third time this week of an incident
that transpired almost six months ago. And I hesitated to do that,
but it's time that we get this thing brought to a head.
So I would like to ask the commissioners that we go ahead and
let's appoint this committee. Let's get it in place and give them the
instruction as to what needs to take place. I don't think this needs
to be drug out. I think it's very clear in terms of state statute
what needs to be done. That's point number one.
Point number two, I am not interested, however, in creating a
committee to become part of a group that becomes involved in a witch
hunt, and I think that that is incredibly important that that point be
made. That's basically all I have -- the points that I wish to make
on this.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I endorse the concept that you just
described and want to put the emphasis, too, on no witch hunts, and on
-- I think maybe it was Commissioner Hancock. Somebody I read in the
newspaper lately saying let the process work, which is what I agree
with. There is a process in place, and the process has to work. And
lynchings before -- you know, without a trial just ain't fair. And so
I don't want to interfere with anything that's presently ongoing.
The suggestion that I received a copy of from the chairman of the
Marco Republican party was that each of us appoint two members to a
blue ribbon committee. As I have thought about that, I -- my
suggestion would maybe be a little variation on that, and that would
be that we each appoint one, maybe the school board appoint a couple,
city council appoint one, and think about if -- you know, and I'm
certainly open minded to if there are others who the balance of the
board think should have members appointed to this committee,
especially in light of the separate issue Commissioner Berry raises
about the ethics of journalism.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: They have none.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, okay. I think that it's very
important that we be deliberative about how we -- how we define the
membership of the committee. If we did -- with all due respect to Mr.
Hart, I think it was a great idea, but if we -- if we each appoint
two, then we're going to hear about the fox guarding the hen house.
But if we can try to diversify it somehow, I think that it's a really
good idea. And let me just say this, that I don't think there is a
great deal of improvement that needs to be made in ethics laws
regarding conflict. I think that those are pretty darn clear. I
certainly don't mind looking at it.
I do, however, think that we could get some clarification. If
you recall when we first came back from break and I asked the county
attorney to give us some answers about the gift disclosure law. And
if, in fact, the gift disclosure law does not include a land use
attorney as a lobbyist, then I think that's a loophole we need to
close at a local level. There may be other gift disclosure types of
loopholes that we could close or clarify. So that's something that I
would like to see the committee look at, all of those being generally
under the category of ethics. There's ethics for conflicts. There's
ethics for journalists, and there's ethics for gift disclosure issues.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The difference is we can't hold the journalism
profession to any standard because we don't have the authority to do
so.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, that's right, and I'm -- and it's
not -- I think, however, it would be a useful part of the community
debate for -- for the role of journalism to be discussed in the whole
ethical debate. I can't see how that could hurt. I don't think that
this blue ribbon committee is likely to come out with any
recommendations about, you know, what Collier County should pass as
ordinances to control journalists. I doubt there is any, you know,
likelihood of that, but there's nothing -- it would lend to the
debate, I think, for that to be included.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think it's very important to recognize a
couple of things. And I'm not going to stand in the way of this. My
problem is, and I said it in the paper, if there's a process in place
that is and always has been illegal to use this office for private
gain, to vote on things with a determined conflict of interest
without recusing yourself -- it has always been illegal to do that.
It is illegal today, and I don't know how it gets much clearer than
that.
What is happening is because of all the attention, the repeated,
time and time again repeating of both some facts and some
misinformation by the editorial board of the Naples Daily News, this
issue continues to stay alive. It continues to stay alive, and we
continue to get phone calls, and we continue to be hounded, because
the perception is by us allowing the state to do its job and allow
this process to run its course, that we don't care. Someone please
explain that to me -- and don't waste your time, because you can't.
By allowing a process in place to take its course, that is being
responsible. That is reacting appropriately.
And when the conclusions of that course are done and everything
is over with that, we then have a position in which to say we believe
things either worked correctly or don't because we then will have all
the facts used in arriving at whatever conclusion came from that. And
I see this as reacting to a problem that has yet to surface, that has
yet to exist.
I'm getting phone calls from the media. Someone asked me
yesterday if I accepted a golf membership from a course. I mean, what
kind of idiot do you think I am? You know, those kinds -- someone
calls the paper and says, yeah, I saw him playing golf out there. I
think he took a membership. You know, get a grip. And that kind of
frenzy will get attention -- and I'm grateful it didn't show up in the
paper today. I mean, I really thought it would, and I think --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It will now.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It will now.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: But the point is any Tom, Dick, or Harry can
call the paper and say the commissioners are doing X, and it finds its
way into an editorial, because there is absolutely no standard
whatsoever to use factual information in that, and that has created
this -- this perception we're talking about.
Now, again, I'm not going to stand in the way of this. I think
we appoint five people, the school board appoints three, and the
council appoints two. But I think the focus needs to be where, if
any, are there gaps in the state law that need to be sewn together so
that our public is insured of complete and above board ethical conduct
as far as is practical.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And so I will go that far with it, but I
resent this topic being pushed to the surface before we actually even
know if the process does -- runs its course and does a good job,
because we don't know that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But let's be careful that we aren't --
this is not a Commissioner Norris committee. It's not, and I don't
want anybody to think it is. And that's why there's no reason to wait
for the outcome of the ethics business with the state, because if we
-- if this were about Commissioner Norris, then we would need to wait
and find out, you know, what the state's going to do. But this isn't
about Commissioner Norris. It needs not to be about him. And the
fact of the matter is some of the things that we have learned as a
result of this experience are -- I have learned anyway, maybe you knew
it already -- is information about how limited the investigative
powers are of the ethics board. How, you know, there are, in my
judgment, things that could be improved on, and I want to focus on
that and not look at any particular issue.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, you talked about things
that are already addressed or letting the process work, and Fred
Hart's comments that I read in the paper are good. And I don't think
any rational person would argue with them. But they're lifted
literally from Chapter 112, the existing law. Every single item in
there we should follow, but every single item in there is addressed in
Chapter 112 and --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: It will be a short committee, then.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So -- yeah. And if there's some
loophole, that's fine. But the last thing I want to do is for the
sake of public appetite cause or create a duplicative ordinance,
something that just covers exactly what happens in the state. A
couple of years back we had a human rights commission come to us, and
it was a wonderful idea and had wonderful concepts, but it was exactly
duplicative of what already happened by state law. And we turned it
down not because we didn't care about human rights, but because we
didn't want to have the exact same thing at a local level we had at a
state level.
And the other comment I had in the paper was I don't want to end
up with just some feel-good ordinance that sounds great and doesn't
have a way to enforce or doesn't have anyway to do anything. So -- I
mean, if we want to -- I think the idea of diversifying that group
and all would be great.
If you want to create it, fine. I think it's a wonderful idea,
but I think literally every single thing in that speech is already
addressed, and we do need to let the process do its work. And
whether we say it's specifically about Commissioner Norris or not, the
issue this summer is what has raised this whole issue.
So I mean I don't think -- as much as we as an individual group
want to separate it, unfortunately it's not, and you will get unfairly
tarnished in the process.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Mr. Chairman, could I say one more thing?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Perhaps one of the things that needs to
happen is the fact that we go ahead and let the current process come
to an end. Okay. Let that -- let that evolve and let it come it to
an end, and that's within a few weeks or a month or whatever the time
frame is. After that point in time, appoint this -- I mean, we can
have the committee appointed, but let them review the state guidelines
that we all have to live with and the laws that we have to live with
in terms of ethics, and let them make the decision. Are we covered?
I'm not suggesting creating another local ordinance. And I agree I
don't want to be duplicative in doing this, but let them take a look,
and let them publicly come out and see what their findings are,
because nobody's believing us. Nobody is believing us.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's a good point, but the whole request
is to set up a committee to develop an ordinance and some method of
enforcement. I mean, that's what this request is about.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Well, I don't have that in my hand, and I
haven't read that, Mr. Norris. So what I'm talking about -- what I
was talking about was a creation of a committee to look at what the
current laws or rules are that we all have to live by and see what the
problems are. Are they sufficient? I don't know. In the case of --
maybe all these people feel that they're not sufficient. But if
they're not, where do they really need to be dealt with?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I'd like to see anybody sit in this
position that I'm in and say it's not sufficient. I'd like to see
that.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Well, but -- see, we know that, because we
have to live with it, John.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I live with it. I live with it every day,
and I'm -- I just can't wait until the investigators get down here and
we can show them the facts and they don't read the drivel they get out
of the newspaper, which has continually been represented time after
time after time. Even though the facts have been presented, we still
get instances where the reporter -- the one sitting right back there
in the back of the room -- still writes stuff that she has been shown
that is not correct. She still writes it.
And you know -- so I couldn't agree with you more -- I couldn't
agree with you more that ethics are a very important thing. I mean,
they can a look at it, fine. I want to point out as I've said before
that the real danger here is like Commissioner Berry's concern. You
set up some local board that has some authority to issue punitive
action, and you're going to have problems. You're going to have big
problems. You're going to have --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, it does become a witch hunt.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: You'll have people ganging up on one
another and throwing each other out, and this sort of thing. It's
just -- it's not what you want to do. That's why this is held at the
state level. If there's something that you need to do in the ethics
rules and regulations that is not covered now and you feel very
strongly about it, you need to address it at the state level. But to
bring it down to the local level where you can have people that are
politically involved with one another ganging up on one another, I
mean, that's just a silly mistake.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie, then I think Mr.
Fernandez had something, and I want to try to wrap this item up.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I want to support what you're saying. I
am not suggesting that we take Mr. Hart's speech and do exactly what
he suggested, because it does say let's create a committee to create
an ordinance to create an enforcement -- you know, those kinds of
things.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The irony of the chairman of the
Republican Party asking for more government.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, what I am supporting is what I think
I heard Commissioner Berry say, and that is a committee to study
whether or not there is a need for any local action and to make a
report back to us. And I'd like to suggest that the membership be
five -- each of us appoint one; three members appointed by the school
board; two members appointed by the city council and that we try to --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Sounds familiar.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I was repeating your suggestion -- and
that we -- that we do that in the next couple weeks.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I know this is going to sound really
nitpicky, but the city then effectively has three representatives.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Assuming you don't appoint someone from East
Naples.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right. I mean, I do have more than --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. I know. You don't have -- you
understand what I'm saying.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: A little sensitivity to that I think would be
appropriate.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I will be sensitive to that.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: After the argument --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Fernandez.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I was just going to raise the issue of you said
two city representatives. You have more than one city here. How do
you deal with that?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: They don't have a council yet, so it's --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I meant City of Naples.
COHHISSIONER BERRY: We have City of Everglades, too.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Right. City of Everglades, and yeah -- it's
kind of funny. Sammy Hamilton's running a line issue lasted how many
days in the paper?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Was it Commissioner Berry that said perhaps
we should wait till my personal case runs its course and then seat a
committee?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think there's a way to accomplish this that
makes a lot of sense. Right now the only information that people in
this community are getting is through the news pages and the editorial
pages of the Naples Daily News. And the editorial side is where I
take the greatest exception with what is displayed as supposed to be
newsworthy information that was actually nothing more than unfounded
opinion. People don't understand that. They think because they read
it on the editorial page -- and there's some people that think that
when they read it in letters to the editor, that it's true. So, you
know, just because you read it on that page doesn't mean it's true.
But that's the only way information has been going out.
Let's be assertive as the county leadership role here, and that
is I think we need to set up a series of town hall meetings to discuss
through our county attorney, through myself, to Mr. Fernandez exactly
what the ethics laws say. If the problem is that the public doesn't
seem to understand the ethics laws or thinks that they don't cover the
areas that we all know they cover and that we are subject to, let's
begin the process by providing that information. And by the time we
do that, the case involving or any issues involving Commissioner
Norris should have run their course. And if there still deemed a need
to strengthen those, then we will have an informed public to do that
with.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That's a good suggestion. We could do like
we've done town hall meetings in the past and have one in each
commission district.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Exactly. And let each commissioner be there
to answer and to discuss with the people what these ethics laws mean,
how they govern, how they affect your daily life. That has been
missing from all of this. It hasn't even been discussed. But people
who have taken the time to call me, get off the phone saying, well, I
may not agree with X, Y and Z, but I understand what you're saying.
And I feel so much better about that. It's the people who don't call
that are the ones that are out there without all of the information.
So I think we can be aggressive on the information side and do the
town hall meetings.
Commissioner Hac'Kie was first.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Do we have any reasonable expectation
time, Commissioner Norris -- or maybe, Mr. Weigel, whoever is
appropriate to ask. I hate to just leave this hanging with an
uncertain time frame. I don't know why we can't -- certainly if you
want to do a town hall in your district and I want to do four to five
in mine, whatever we want to do as far as town halls are a good idea.
But I don't think that's a substitute for this committee, and --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't think he's suggesting it as a
substitute. It's a precursor.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Or as a precursor, frankly, because of the
uncertain time frame on when we might be able to get around to the
committee. Because something -- you know, if it were a civil matter,
I'd know that it's going to take, you know, two years or something. I
don't have any idea how long it might take.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I thought you agreed on this. Then let's
appoint a committee and rush to judgment. That's the problem that we
have now.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just exactly the opposite is what I'm
saying, so let me try it one more time, because I want -- if we do --
if we wait until Commissioner Norris' question is answered, then we
have made this a Commissioner Norris committee. I'm determined that
it will be separate from, that the state's doing Commissioner Norris'
question and the local people want to have an examination of ethics on
a broader scale.
And there are places where the law can be improved. One of them
is in gift disclosure. Others are in the investigative powers of the
conflict-of-interest questions. So there are -- there is room for
improvement in the state statute, I think. And I don't see why -- I
think that we will send exactly the opposite message that we intend if
we say let's wait and let the state decide, you know, on their case
with Commissioner Norris before we appoint this committee. This is
not a John Norris committee.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Then maybe there's a hybrid that makes sense
here. Maybe we do form a committee, but its first role is to attend
town hall meetings in every district in which the ethics laws are
discussed and presented.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Hay I make a suggestion?
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You know, I don't want to kowtow, you know, to
the head of the Republican Party for fear of political retribution or
being looked like -- like I don't support the ethics issue. That's
just silly. And I don't want to do that. I think there's a
reasonable course here, and I don't want to be forced to do something
that's not in the best interest of the public.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, could I make a
suggestion? We're all kind of, like, coming up with ideas off the top
of our head on what we'd do here. It seems to me that all five of us
have said, great, let's appoint a committee. We should include the
other elected bodies as well. That much we've agreed on. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Uh-huh.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The rest seems to all be just grabbing
things out of the air. Why don't we all think about it for a week,
and come back, and have some specifics in mind, and come in and say,
okay, they can do it in this time frame. Okay, we'll have X number of
people and off with it. But I think right now we're all just kind of
grasping. The idea's new to us. And let's put a little thought into
if we're going to do it instead of being reactionary.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let's place it under BCC for next week's
agenda if that's agreeable to everybody, because I think there are --
one, I'd have to agree that no one disagrees with looking at the state
law and determining if there are gaps or holes that need to be
improved. But I think that's where the agreement starts to waiver, so
let's look at that next week. Try and have your own concepts on paper
so to speak, so we can organize them. We'll take a look at that next
week.
Commissioner Constantine, do you have anything further?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. A final comment, and this falls
under the uncomfortable category. But I realize we trade barbs and we
sometimes have heated discussions here. But I just -- I take some
offense at the personal insult today that I'm not doing much of a job
representing the county. That's unnecessary and just unprofessional.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm sorry. You're right. And what I was
referring to at the time, and I should have been more specific, is
that the tone of the conversation was a little confrontational, and
that was bothering me at the time. But I do apologize. That was
inappropriate.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thanks.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You're welcome.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Everyone has different styles up here, that's
for sure.
One very -- I already asked about the Columbia and Cleveland
issue, which we'll talk about next week. Very important to me is it
was brought up to me it's been over two years since we did our
goal-setting workshop. I want another one. So what I'd like -- if
the board agrees, I'd like to ask Mr. Fernandez to get an estimate
from Mr. Sumac to do another goal-setting workshop. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Feel good Lyle.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Hey. Something good came out of that. We
took an economic development approach that we hadn't prior to that. I
mean, things materialized out of it. And I think it's time to update
and move forward with that.
Okay. There's one, two, three, four -- okay. That enough. So if
you would review with Mr. McNees how we did that and let's determine
the cost and get it back for board approval at some point in the
future or for board denial at some point in the future.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I've seen Mr. Sumac in action, so I know what
you're talking about.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: You have seen him?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I know we're not in total agreement on the
worth of that session, but majority agreement anyway.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Anything else, Miss Filson?
MS. FILSON: No.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What a lovely day.
***** Commissioner Constantine moved, seconded by Commissioner Norris,
and carried unanimously, that the following items be approved and/or
adopted under the Consent Agenda
Item #16A1
ADDITIONAL CONTRACTOR ADDED TO THE LIST OF PRE-QUALIFIED CONTRACTORS
PERMITTED TO WORK ON PROJECTS FUNDED BY THE COLLIER COUNTY RESIDENTIAL
REHABILITATION PROGRAM (RFP# 94-2280)
Item #16B1 - This item has been deleted
Item #1682
1997/98 RECYCLING & EDUCATION, WASTE TIRE AND LITTER CONTROL AND
PREVENTION GRANT AGREEMENTS; SOLID WASTE DIRECTOR AUTHORIZED TO SIGN
AGREEMENTS
Item #1683 - This item has been deleted
Item #1684 - This item has been deleted
Item #1685
RESOLUTION 97-356 AUTHORIZING THE ACQUISITION BY GIFT OR PURCHASE OF
ROAD RIGHT-OF-WAY, SLOPE, SIDEWALK, UTILITY, DRAINAGE, MAINTENANCE AND
TEMPORARY CONSTRUCTION INTERESTS BY EASEMENT AND/OR FEE SIMPLE TITLE
FOR IHMOKALEE ROAD (C.R. 846) BETWEEN 1-75 AND C.R. 951, CIE NO. 08
Item #1686
AMENDMENT #2 TO PROFESSIONAL SERVICES CONTRACT NO. 95-2331 WITH AGNOLI,
BARBER & BRUNDAGE, INC., THE DESIGN PROFESSIONAL FOR RIVIERA COLONY II
- IN THE A_MOUNT OF $21,368.00
Item #1687
INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT WITH THE CITY OF NAPLES FOR THE RELOCATION OF A
36" RAW WATER LINE ON GOLDEN GATE PARKWAY AT THE LIVINGSTON ROAD
INTERSECTION
Item #1688 - Moved to Item #884
Item #1689
BUDGET AMENDMENT FOR THE WATER DEPARTMENT
Item #16C1 - This item has been deleted
Item #16C2
INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT FOR FUND SHARING OF THE NAPLES BEACH ACCESS
IMPROVEMENTS PROJECT - AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $25,000.00
Item #16C3
FIRST AMENDMENT TO LEASE AGREEMENT BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND TASK
FORCE FOR THE HOMELESS FOR USE BY THE ST. HATTHEW'S HOUSE FACILITY
LOCATED IN THE OLD EAST NAPLES FIRE STATION
Item #16C4
ACCEPTANCE OF LIBRARY LONG RANGE PLAN, IN ORDER TO QUALIFY FOR FY1998
LIBRARY OPERATING GRANT (STATE AID TO LIBRARIES), ADMINISTERED BY THE
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF STATE, DIVISION OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION
SERVICES, AND PERMISSION FOR CHAIRMAN TO SIGN APPLICATION
Item #16C5
AWARD BID #97-2659, RELATING TO EXOTIC VEGETATION REMOVAL AT BAREFOOT
BEACH PRESERVE COUNTY PARK, TO NATIVE CREATIONS, INC., UTILIZING PARK
IMPROVEMENT RESERVE FUNDS
Item #16C6
AGREEMENT ON THE 1997-98 FUNDING CONTRIBUTION TO THE DAVID LAWRENCE
MENTAL HEALTH CENTER, INC. - IN AN A_MOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $810,400.00
Item #16C7
LEASE AGREEMENT BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND COPELAND BAPTIST HISSION
Item #16D1 - This item has been deleted
Item #16D2
RESOLUTION 97-357, COUNTY GRANT APPLICATION AND THE GRANT DISTRIBUTION
FORM FOR EHS MEDICAL EQUIPMENT
Item #16El
BUDGET AMENDMENT NOS. 97-428, 97-434, 97-435, 97-436 AND 97-445
Item #16G1
SATISFACTION OF LIEN FOR SERVICES OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER
Item #16G2
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 #16H1
SHERIFF'S OFFICE REQUEST FOR A LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT BLOCK GRANT
ADJUSTMENT AND RELATED BUDGET AMENDMENT
Item #16J1
INCREASE THE AIRPORT AUTHORITY'S FUEL BUDGETS AT THE MARCO ISLAND
EXECUTIVE AIRPORT AND THE IHMOKALEE REGIONAL AIRPORT SO THAT THE
AUTHORITY CAN CONTINUE TO SUPPLY AV GAS AND JET FUEL TO THE CUSTOMERS
AT THOSE LOCATIONS
Item #16J2
RECOGNIZE REVENUE FROM CHEVRON FOR MARKETING ASSISTANCE AND TO
RECOGNIZE REVENUE FROM ADVERTISERS AND TO INCREASE APPROPRIATIONS FOR
MARKETING AND PROMOTIONAL EXPENSE
There being no further business for the good of the County· the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 2:26 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL
ATTEST:
DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK
TIMOTHY L. HANCOCK, CHAIRMAN
These minutes approved by the Board on
presented or as corrected
· as
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC.
BY DEBRA J. DeLAP, NOTARY PUBLIC.