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BCC Minutes 08/06/1999 S (EAC Appointments) August 6, 1999 TRAi~SCRIPT OF THE SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, August 6, 1999 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, had a Special Meeting on this date at 2:50 p.m. which was not convened but reset for Monday, August 9, 1999 at 9:00 A.M. at the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRWOMAN: Pamela S. Mac'Kie Barbara B. Berry John C. Norris Timothy J. Constantine James Carter ALSO PRESENT: Robert Fernandez, County Administrator David Weigel, county attorney Page 1 August 6, 1999 CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: I'm not going to bang the gavel or officially convene this meeting until we have a report from the county attorney about -- so the Board can decide as a group if now is the right time to meet or not. You have in front of you a memo from the Environmental Advisory Council asking us please to appoint the balance of their committee. I obviously think that's really important and don't think it can wait until September 14th because that's the date by which the natural resource protection areas will be drawn, and I would very much -- I think the Board would be well served by having a full committee to make that environmental recommendation. So with that as a background, I asked Mr. Weigel if we could, for our convenience, frankly, more than anything else, try to make our special meeting, if we had to have one, today since we were going to be here for MPO. I would like for him to tell you what he's done for notice and then we'll decide if we should convene a meeting today or if we're going to have to come back. MR. WEIGEL: Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And I'm glad my mother traveled out of state today so she can't see me. But in any event I want to mention -- CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Nobody's perfect. MR. WEIGEL: -- I want to mention that I appreciate, until I finish -- until I finish with a brief discussion here, that the commissioners would not enter into any dialogue among themselves or with me in regard to the substance of the agenda, that is the agenda items that are before you today. Potentially, and has been scheduled, was a notice of special meeting today. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't mean to enter into any dialogue with you, but is this like an anti-meeting right now? CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Right now what we're going to do is -- a decision has to be made whether or not we are going to convene a meeting. I can -- you know, I could say no, and we could all go home, but that means we have to come back up here in the next few days. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No, no, by all means, let's hear it. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So let's hear from Mr. Weigel. MR. WEIGEL: Okay. Thanks. And what it is is, we want to advise you in regard to some of the technicalities of the Sunshine Law. Under county ordinance, the chairman of the Board of County Commissioners can call a special meeting, and under ordinance that's exactly what has been done. With that determination and with assistance from the county attorney, all efforts went forward yesterday afternoon to provide the notice for today's meeting. And the issue that I am going to talk to you about is the notice for today's meeting and any questions that there may be in regard to the degree of advance notice that was -- that has been provided. I want to first commend very much the staff of the county administrator and specifically not only his office on the second floor but Jean Merritt's office in putting out way beyond the call of duty and very quickly the notices for the meeting today. You probably noted, many of you who are here and others in the public, that the county premises are festooned with notices. There was blast fax that went out to electronic media and the print media yesterday afternoon at approximately four thirty, within a few minutes of that time, give or take, as well as almost at that very same moment a repetitive information and notice of the meeting on channel Page 2 August 6, 1999 fifty-four. Beyond that, beyond the twelve notices that the public information office put up outside, I put some additional ones up outside when I closed my office and also put notices up on the county museum, the building W, facilities management building, the health services building, traveled to the Lely library and put them up there, put up eight notices at the -- at the Golden Gate Community Center, gave a notice to the security guard at the Conservancy, put up notices on both main street doors of the central library and traveled to the Pelican Bay library and put notices up there. And lest I forget, I also put notices up on the public doors of the development services building. We worked very hard to provide notice and make this a meaningful meeting. Aside from that, though, our office touched base with the State Attorney office this morning to see if, in fact, there were to be a question raised about the -- a question or complaint raised about the advance notice that had been given, if that was a concern to the State Attorney. And we were informed that yes, that they would view that with a degree of concern and they did question also the degree of emergency to hold the meeting today. Now, there's a great convenience to hold the meeting today with the commission potentially segueing from the NPO meeting. But with this in mind, it seems to me that I would advise the Board that it's theirs to determine whether to go forward today and that my advice would be to take this opportunity to set a time certain in the future to take care of the issues of the two agenda items that are before you today. I would also like to note that the county attorney office, since the Tuesday meeting three days ago, had finished its dialogue with the commission on ethics attorney and that is reflected in the response that's before you and for the public in the public record that's been provided. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So there were two items, one is to -- to close off discussion about whether or not we had qualified applicants for the EAC that's in our -- that would have been, will be, if you want to, our first item. And then secondly to appoint members. The question for the board is do we want to have the meeting now or shall we set a time for early next week? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Or any other option? CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Well, we have got to -- well, we seriously need to, I believe, have a full Environmental Advisory Council so that they can review the most important environmental decision that's being made in this community in a long, long time, and that's the designation of the natural resource protection areas. It would seem a shame to have that important a decision made without a full functioning Environmental Advisory Council. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Excuse me a second. It seems to me that if we're not legally advertised to have this environmental meeting, we're not legally advertised to sit here and vote on when we're going to have a meeting at all. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: No, we can. We can decide today -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We can talk about whether or not -- CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: -- whether or not we're going to meet. We can meet now. Here's the thing, John, we can meet today. The question -- the point is if we do and if somebody challenged it, there might be an investigation. So I don't know if that's worth it for the Page 3 August 6, 1999 convenience of not having to come back on Monday or Tuesday. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: It's not worth it to me, I'll tell you. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So is it worth it to anybody or shall we start looking at Monday and Tuesday? MR. CARTER: I think we have to find another time. I do not personally want to go -- put myself or this Board in a position where we can be criticized or challenged on this issue. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I agree that today isn't the time. My question is, does this rise to the level of an emergency, do we need to fill that, and does -- because when we had the discussion Tuesday as to whether or not we could live with this through September 14th, the majority of the Board was okay with that. And I'm wondering if a majority of the Board thinks we have to have a meeting because we have to do this now? I don't have any problem with that. But I'm not sure that's what the majority thinks. That was my only question. Today is not the day if we decide we do, but -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Seems to me that we do have a functioning EAC now. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: But they don't feel that way. And I guess -- David, let me get this clear. Is it -- do I have the authority to call a meeting? I guess they can not show up if they don't want to. But I think this is important enough to call a meeting for. MR. WEIGEL: You do have the authority to call a meeting. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You can. I would hope that if a majority of the Board disagreed, you would have, you know, the respect for the process and not try to do something contrary to the will of the Board. My question was or the reason I had said let's have the time in between is not only so we get an answer, an explanation of the Sunshine Law and who can and can't be on there and so on, but also, you know, does that alter anyone who might have participated either that resigned, might have an interest again or that did not apply because they misunderstood the law, might be interested. I think the whole process is at question here and not simply is it okay to appoint these people. And that was my rationale for having some opinion given to us in writing prior to what -- having some idea that that may change people's minds and in the next three or four weeks that would have an opportunity to -- MR. CARTER: Well, until we have the meeting -- Commissioner, until we have the meeting, we cannot answer your question. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Right. Because there is a written memorandum that will answer that question, and it answers it in such a way that we should appoint from the applicants we have. I mean, I think that's going to be the clear advice we get, when we can get it, from the county attorney. And that's why even if you disagree with me, I think it's important that we come back and have a ten-minute meeting to flesh out that committee, because, again, September 14th is the day -- if we appoint a full EAC on September 14th, that's also the day that we adopt the NRPAs, so we will not have had a thorough, complete review by the EAC. So I'm -- I'm thinking like Tuesday afternoon next week. MR. CARTER: Well, from my schedule, Commissioner, I will not be here next week, so whatever you want to do is fine, but I will tell you I will be out of pocket next week. Page 4 August 6, 1999 CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: We can maybe conference call with you; is that a possibility? MR. CARTER: That's a possibility. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Commissioner Berry, any thought? COMMISSIONER BERRY: I don't know if it's fortunate or unfortunate, but I'm going to be around next week. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Tuesday afternoon a problem for you? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What about first thing Monday morning if we're going to meet? CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: My problem with the first thing Monday morning -- no, I could meet nine o'clock Monday morning. Is that adequate notice, though, David? He had recommended Tuesday to me before. MR. WEIGEL: That would be adequate notice, because you will be boot-strapping from the notice that's provided today. You're not talking of substantive issues today; you're merely talking about scheduling and calendering. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Any objection to nine o'clock Monday morning? Can you conference call with us then, Mr. Carter? MR. CARTER: Just let me know. Nine a.m. here, right? CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Yes, sir. MR. CARTER: That's the conference call. We'll work it out. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So, David, what should we do to officially set that as a time and a place for a meeting? MR. WEIGEL: Well, I think that you may wish to commit that to writing on your own. This is not a Board action, but you are setting the meeting yourself. You have not had a substantive discussion of the issues that you may be deliberating -- deliberating about in the future, so I don't think there's any problem there in what has occurred here in that regard. And the county attorney and county administrator will work again in concert to provide renewed notice, working with the media, print and electronic, and channel fifty-four and everything else so that everything will go out and there will be the notice without question concerning the next meeting. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Okay. I won't adjourn because we didn't meet - Time - :3:00 P.M. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS~C~NTROL · " ~/ PAMELA MAC ' KfE, - CHAI~OM~ ATTEST: - DWigHT E. BROCK, CLERK Page 5 August 6, 1999 presented ~" or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC. BY DEBRA J. DeLAP, NOTARY PUBLIC. Page 6