BCC Minutes 02/02/1999 W (Goal Setting)February 2, 1999
TRANSCRIPT OF THE GOAL-SETTING MEETING
OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Naples, Florida, February 2, 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, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in WORKSHOP SESSION at the
Vineyards Community Park Center, Naples, Florida, with the following
members present:
ALSO PRESENT:
CHAIRWOMAN:
Pamela S. Mac'Kie
Barbara B. Berry
John C. Norris
Timothy J. Constantine
James D. Carter
Robert Fernandez, County Administrator
Mike McNees, Assistant County Administrator
Vince Cautero, Community Development Director
Mike Smykowski, Budget Director
Tom Olliff, Public Services Administrator
Leo Ochs, Administrative Services Administrator
Ed Ilschner, Public Works Administrator
David Weigel, County Attorney
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February 2, 1999
MR. SCHOENFELD: Everybody ready to get started? Good morning.
Wow, that's a good response. I'm Jerry Schoenfeld, and I've had
opportunity to meet with most of you over the last couple of weeks.
And I'm your facilitator for today's strategic planning session.
And I have to tell you right up front, I'm very excited about
this opportunity, because I've done this numerous times with many
different organizations, and I always find it a very rewarding and
enjoyable experience, and I'm looking forward to our progress today as
we begin the process of identifying those key factors or segments of
your environment that you find of particular strategic importance over
the immediate and moving into the long-term future.
And as we continue our discussion today, we'll start synthesizing
some of our thoughts and viewpoints regarding these key success
factors, moving down to more useable and implementable action items.
And that's the process that we want to follow as we proceed through
the day.
Is there a need to go around the table with introductions?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Not unless you need to know who we are.
MR. SCHOENFELD: No, I -- 90 percent or 80 percent I have
everybody's names down, and I'll pick up the rest as we proceed
throughout the day.
Now, one of the best places to begin in terms of these types of
activities is to be clear as to what everybody's expectations are for
the day. And as part of that discussion, we can talk about what our
roles are as far --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I just expect to be gone before 5:00.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, one expectation is to be done before 5:00.
Good one. We'll put that right up front there, Pam.
What I'd like to do for the first few minutes is to list some of
everybody's expectations so we can agree on what we want to achieve
for the day, and then for the last half hour we'll go through the list
to make sure that the expectations have been fulfilled as you've
proceeded through the day. Ail right?
I'm just going to go around the table, so --
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Clear policy direction from the board for the
upcoming year.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, good. So one of the things that we want
today is clear policy direction.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: You're suggesting we're ever less than
clear, right? Could that happen? Sorry. I'm in a mood. I
apologize.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, I'm going to talk about brain-storming --
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Do I have to answer that question?
MR. SCHOENFELD: No, we'll have to jump right in. I thought I was
going to do that second. We'll have to have brain-storming rules for
conduct right away.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: You see what we're up against.
MR. OCHS: You mentioned it earlier, if we could then get that
policy broken down into some actionable steps that as a staff we can
take and implement.
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February 2, 1999
MR. SCHOENFELD: Good, Leo, thank you.
Tim?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have no expectations today.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Well, then you'll be the most satisfied person
at the end of the day.
MR. CAUTERO: Discussion items we haven't discussed before.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, good.
Jim?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I don't know, I have expectation that we're
going to stay focused on objectives and we'll clearly define those
objectives, and then we will develop strategies to those objectives.
But it fits into the first one, so that we are giving clear direction
to staff.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Good.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: So I'm the guy that says however we define
goals or objectives, to me that always tells us what we're going to
do. Strategies always tell me how we're going to do it. I would hope
that would be our focus.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Very good.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I want a list of what we're going to
accomplish this year and what we hope to accomplish in the next couple
or three or five. Priorities.
There's two N's in planning. I was an English teacher. Planed.
Air planed accomplishments? There's two N's, sorry.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I told you this was a rough crowd.
MR. SCHOENFELD: I've become overly dependent on the word check.
Bob?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Many of my objectives have already been
mentioned, but I do want to elaborate on one that Vince mentioned and
that is, there's an expectation that today's an opportunity to have a
discussion about issues that we have not directly talked about. Maybe
some things that we sense a feeling that the Commission has about
certain issues. Hopefully today we will get those issues clearly out
on the table and discuss with a view towards some policy direction how
do you feel about that.
So it's along the lines of the new item, introduce new items, but
it goes beyond that; introduce new items and formulate some policies
with respect to those new areas of concern. MR. SCHOENFELD: Barbara?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: My item basically was what Pam said in terms
of kind of, I guess I could say it, short-term goals and then how it
fits into the bigger picture of what we're doing in five years. And
at the same time, we certainly need, as we've all found out, if we
have anything in mind, if it involves money, we need to at least be
able to give staff direction or have some discussion about how these
items will be funded, and make that a key item in almost everything we
do.
MR. SCHOENFELD: We want the short term to be linked to the long
term.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Right. Not a lot of items in isolation.
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February 2, 1999
MR. SCHOENFELD: Right. Very good.
MR. ILSCHNER: I would have to echo all of those. And in addition
to is that, of course the one that I particularly am interested in is
a prioritization of needs, which was listed by Pam.
And then finally, I think a better understanding of each other as
we relate to each other.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I feel a lot of love in this room
today.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Well, I don't, but I hope I do before we
leave here.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I have a feeling it's getting rather deep in
here.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Yeah, I didn't know I had to bring a shovel
to this thing.
MR. OLLIFF: I guess I'd like to get a feel from the board about
what they think is important. Because I know as a staff that we have
discussions about what we believe are the important issues. But we
don't often have the opportunity to talk about what we think and what
they think are also important; make sure that we're spending our time
in the right places.
And in addition to that, I would hope that we could leave here so
that I have a sense of what it takes on our part to be successful in
their eyes. I want to know on those particular issues what it is
they're looking for us as an organization to accomplish.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Very good. We want to define success.
John?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: What I expect today is that we will start
out by maybe analyzing how we've done on our goals that we've set in
the past the last couple of years in this session and how we may want
to rearrange our priorities on those goals and perhaps add new ones to
them.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay. So introduce new items here related to
this --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, if we -- if we're going to go through
this every year, there's very little point of doing it if we don't
look at how we did on last year's goals, our previous year's goals --
MR. SCHOENFELD: Correct.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: -- if we don't examine how we've done in
the past, there's no point doing these things.
MR. SCHOENFELD: I'm going to paraphrase that as to connect the
past to the present to the future. There's a relationship to what
you've done in the past to where you're going in the future. MR. SCHOENFELD: All right. Mike?
MR. McNEES: I guess in addition to the policy direction on some
specific things that I think we're looking for today, maybe just
expectation that we'll have an opportunity to communicate from a staff
point of view some of the things that we see out there, and maybe some
of the options we'd like the board to be open to, and then to use that
to help to develop the policy direction.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Good. You know, I see that as a real theme for
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February 2, 1999
the day. I mean, one of the things, we have an agenda in terms of the
specific outcomes that want to be achieved in terms of the strategic
goals and defining them specifically as time allows. But as a
parallel to that agenda is this whole theme of relationship building,
greater understanding between the participants, sharing of
information. That's something that will be -- because of the
opportunity that's present in this type of dynamic forum, it's a real
opportunity to get to know each other a little bit better and have
greater understanding that we'll facilitate future discussions and
interactions.
Now, I've been very pleasantly surprised and pleased by the level
of joviality present so far this morning. That's good. I think you
can have fun while doing serious business. And I want to try to keep
things enjoyable. Because if you're enjoying what you're doing,
you'll pay more attention, you'll be more focused and you'll be more
dedicated to the results.
But one of the things that I wanted to pass out briefly is some
guidelines for brain-storming, guidelines for discussion and for
generating ideas.
And as I pass that out, let me tell you a little bit about how I
envision my role for the day. My role, of course, is that of
facilitator. And with that, I bring certain skills that deal with
process facilitations.
I'm very familiar with the strategic management process. I've
gone out and done similar activities with numerous organizations, and
as such, I bring that experiential base to today's meeting.
With that, I also bring the opportunity to create synergy.
Somebody mentioned introduce new items that haven't been thought of or
discussed before. We have a great deal of knowledge contained in this
room right now. So one of my goals and objectives as I envision my
role is to ensure that we can capitalize on all these individual
knowledge bases to create some type of synergistic effect; that we
come up with outcomes and results today that haven't been considered
or thought about individually before coming into this meeting today.
My other main role, as I envision, is to keep everybody focused
on task. You know, there's going to be a lot of opportunities to go
off on tangents and to go off in directions that will slow down our
ability to achieve the outcomes and expectations that we've mentioned
already for the day. So I'm going to have to at times say, you know,
do we need to be talking about this issue to this level of depth right
now or do we need to put it in a parking lot so that we don't lose
track of where we want to end up at the end of the day.
Now, in terms of brain-storming, a couple of key issues. The
first one is be clear on the expectations. And you see that. We've
already achieved that one by listing them up here on the flip chart.
Another one is to keep you open minded. A lot of us will be --
we'll be talking about a lot of issues today that a lot of you have
thought about in the past and have a certain position on. I ask
everyone to be open minded to get as much information out on the table
as possible before we start drawing conclusions, and that's what we
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February 2, 1999
mean by being open minded. Let's get all the information out then we
can start evaluating that information as you proceed through the day.
With that, we want to generate as much ideas as possible,
focusing on the ideas initially and then evaluating each and every one
of those ideas, determine whether they're worthy and plausible and
should be implemented.
In order to create this open climate, in order to build the
relationships and get greater understanding of each other, that is the
parallel agenda for the day, what we need to do is try to eliminate
criticism. We can talk about the strengths and weaknesses of ideas,
we can talk about whether it's an actionable item or implementable
idea. We want to keep talking about the idea, not in terms of who
generated that idea. So it's going to be very important that we to
try to limit criticism that becomes personal in nature.
And I trust as adults, most of us would not dare do that or
desire to do that verbally, but there's also a lot of criticism that
can be done non-verbally. So try to be aware of some of the
non-verbal signals that you may be sending that may impact that
person's willingness and ability to contribute their knowledge.
The point here is that everybody has a lot of knowledge that they
can contribute to today's meeting. Everybody is sitting around this
table because it is felt that they have valuable contributions to
make. If somebody feels inhibited from contributing and being
forthcoming with their information and knowledge base, then everybody
loses, because somebody had some ideas or some information that wasn't
shared as a result of feeling impeded in their ability to contribute
their ideas, and as a result, everybody loses. So some things to keep
in mind.
Any questions or comments so far?
All right, now, because I've had the opportunity to interact with
most of you over the last couple of weeks and get a sense of your
ideas for today's meeting, I went ahead and tentatively created an
agenda for the day. And what I'd like everybody to do as it goes
around the room is to look this over and see if this is meeting with
of what your ideas and goals are in today's session in terms of the
flow of discussion for the day.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: We have the 5:00 problem.
MR. SCHOENFELD: So we're hitting your goal right there.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: No, mine was before 5:00.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, take a pen down and change the 5:00 to
4:59.
Okay, you can see as you look this over, it's now 9:28, so we're
right on target in terms of agenda items one and two. They were the
easy ones to keep in sync with in terms of what we want to achieve for
the day.
Item three, critical success factors, are those areas of
discussion for the day that I saw as central themes to individual
discussions with the commissioners and the administra -- key
administrators. And we'll review those in just one second.
Once we discuss those success factors, what we want to do is
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begin the process of formalizing them into greater degrees of
specificity. And that's what we mean by key strategic issues, key
result areas and key performance standards. They're all taken into a
new level of depth so that we have actionable items that will guide
performance over the short term, over the next year or so. And those
are some of the things that came forward. And the expectations, the
list that was generated.
Any questions or comments on this agenda for the day?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Barb joked about the length of lunch.
I really did schedule a working lunch somewhere other than here, so
I'll miss a short portion of our agenda then. So I didn't realize we
were staying through lunch, so I apologize for that.
MR. SCHOENFELD: With the exception then of Tim, is a half an
hour for lunch sufficient?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I'll be leaving at lunch.
MR. SCHOENFELD: You'll be leaving at lunch as well? Okay, so
now we have two of the commissioners that are going to be taking an
extended lunch. Do you know how long?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Is John coming back after lunch?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I'm not coming back.
MR. SCHOENFELD: That's an extended lunch.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: It's until tomorrow.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I heard leaving. I thought I'd better
clarify that.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Why do you think I have a tie on?
MR. SCHOENFELD: Because you're trying to impress me? I don't
know.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, this was scheduled for last week --
MR. SCHOENFELD: Right.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: -- and I had already scheduled things today
that --
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yeah, thanks for changing it.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: No problem. I think we can work around
that. We've got some good ideas when John's gone.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We're going to put out the good ideas in
number four, which I'll be here for. Then you can fine tune them
after --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: So then we can throw them out after you
leave, right?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's a good way of phrasing it, actually,
John, fine tuning. That's what we're doing, process of fine tuning as
you proceed through the day. So most of the main body of work in
terms of getting the main items out there will be done during the time
that you're able to contribute.
Okay, now, let's get to the heart of the matter then and
introduce some of the -- what I'm labeling critical success factors,
those areas that were common themes in some of the discussions I had
as areas that need attention for today's meeting.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Oh, my God, Social Services is in here.
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Let's talk about that after John leaves.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The democratic portion of the agenda.
MR. FERNANDEZ: That's part of the stuff that I was saying, we
need to talk about some things that nobody wants to talk about.
That's an example.
MR. SCHOENFELD: The first step in process, as you look over this
list, is to simply agree on those areas that are most important to
focus on for our time that we have available today.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Question.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Discuss or is this somehow the list
that we've decided somewhere other than here that we're actually going
to take action on?
MR. SCHOENFELD: This is my synthesis of disparate discussions.
And as someone who's not intricately involved in the work at hand,
it's -- I would call that a rough estimate of those issues that are
most pertinent to focus on today.
So the first thing that I would think to be -- to decide whether
that list is appropriate, whether it's missing something, or that
something should not be on that list.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't mind discussing any of them,
but I'm not predisposed, and I hope the board or the staff isn't
predisposed that at the end of the day this is the list we're working
from --
MR. SCHOENFELD: In terms of?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- necessarily.
Well, some of these issues are issues that we have discussed over
the last six years, despite my joking, and that we've opted either to
participate only in a small level or no level at all.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I'm sorry, we're going to need to do the
Social Services part while he's at lunch.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Could I speak to that, please?
MR. SCHOENFELD: Sure, Bob.
MR. FERNANDEZ: What we had hoped to do was to develop a proposed
agenda based upon issues that your staff feels the board needs to
address.
Also, Jerry added to that through the conversations he had with
the commissioners and the things that he got from those discussions
that each of the commissioners felt needed to be on this list, and he
kind of synthesized it all together.
Our expectation here is to maybe, if nothing else, put some
issues before you that we know we feel the board needs to be aware of.
If you choose not to discuss them or you choose not to proceed with
them or even rank them as high priorities, that's of course the
board's priority. So it's just our expectation that these are the
things that we will have action plans on by the time we leave this
meeting.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's all I'm asking. I just don't
want any assumption that those are --
MR. FERNANDEZ: No assumption, no.
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February 2, 1999
MR. SCHOENFELD: Yeah, in terms of what's labeled action items,
the action might be, you know, at a very high level. You know, we
need to phrase this issue and get clarity on what the policy should
be, or position. You know, what is our position? It might be the
level of depth that it goes to.
But in terms of topical areas, do you feel this list reflects
those areas that you feel are -- those that are most strategic
importance in the future; areas that in order for Collier County to be
successful, need to be addressed in some fashion? John?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: The primary area of our focus over the last
number of years is not on the list and that is what do we do to
control growth. Everything else flows from that. Growth is the --
growth is the primary concern, and everything is a subset of -- on
that, everything we do.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: But John, there's two things, this rural
versus urban and environmental issues and impact, those are growth.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: They're part of growth.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Not necessarily --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: A big part.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Not necessarily. But that's again what I
said, is everything is related to growth. The issue --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Infrastructure.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: -- itself is not on there.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Well, the reason is because as you're
characterizing it, because everything is related to growth, that it is
the overriding --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, that to me is the mega objective. It
all flows from that process, as Commissioner Norris is saying. So
everything interrelates to that.
What I would like to tie is the fact of John's earlier statement,
what did we set in the past, how well are we doing in these areas, get
an update, and then how will we integrate what we have on the sheet.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I guess what I'm probably getting around to
is that everything -- because everything relates to growth, you can
say everything on this list is therefore related to growth. But I
don't see anything in here that addresses what we may or may not do in
the future with our comprehensive plan progress. MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Maybe that's a better way of saying what
I'm trying to say.
MR. SCHOENFELD: So in terms of this list, if we say that
everything here is a sub area within growth, there is also a need to
add.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Where are we going from here with our
comprehensive plan? Now, we've set out direction that we're working
on for the moment, but what about five years from now, where are we
going then with a comprehensive plan? That is of primary importance,
because everything else will flow from that. So what are we going to
do in the future?
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And it may be a little premature to start talking about it now,
since we have a fairly large initiative on the table with that plan to
begin with.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, so John has raised the issue of the
discussion of the comprehensive plan as a separate issue from this
list or one that also is --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Sort of an umbrella over all the things.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think so.
MR. OLLIFF: Well, personally, I've always felt like our
comprehensive planning board only sees the comprehensive planning when
we do updates or the 2020 plan updates, those kinds of things. And
the opportunity for the board to sit down and take an element and say
let's look at that element and is this still where we want this
element to be, is this still the guiding principle as far as the
comprehensive plan we want. We never really had that opportunity with
the board. We're always talking about updates and minor changes that
are occurring. And most of those are from the development community
or someone from the outside because of the commitments of the plan.
And rather than a format like this, there may be a structure
where we do bring an element a month or something to the board in
order to be able to say is this still where you want to element to be
and know what the time line is for the comp. plan amendment so that we
know that over the course of 12 months the board will have looked at
each one of those elements and we have -- will have works for those
deadlines.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It's really related to the conversations we've
already had about levels of service and how perceptions of levels of
service need to match our definitions of level of service, adopt --
expand that discussion to the entire growth management area is what
Tom's talking about, and that is, let's try to articulate what it is
you're looking for and ask ourselves do the tools that we're using,
the comprehensive plan, get us there, and if not, what changes do we
need to make to make sure that they do get us where we need to go.
So having those discussions outside of the boundaries of the
specific products that we always seem to find ourselves talking about
that are on your agenda formally structured and so forth. This is the
opportunity.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: What you're talking about is what I thought
being on the County Commission was going to be like. I thought that
we would be policy makers and we would be -- you know, we would know
what the policies are.
And those of you who have been here for six years or however -- I
guess that's the longest, right, six? You know, you have much more
perspective about what's in the comp. plan than those of us who have
been here for four or two or new.
If we -- and all of what we're talking about doing today could be
addressed regularly if quarterly or something we reviewed a section of
the comp. plan. This is the status, is this where you want to be?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Another way to express this discussion is
that everything on this list essentially is reactionary to what we
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should be doing proactively.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That's right. And how do we ever get a shot
at being proactive? We don't ever get proactive presented to us. We
are reactive by nature. And that's the --
MR. FERNANDEZ: Well, I think the answer to that is because of
the structure that has been prescribed for you. You have deadlines,
you have structure, you have the agenda. We have certain forms that
we have to present everything. And that's why I think discussions
like this are so valuable, because we're able to get to the meat of
the issue without that constraining structure, so that we can then
turn the policy direction into the proper form to carry out.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You'll recall that when we had our
discussion a week ago at the LDC hearing, the commission had the
opportunity to suggest changes in that anywhere along the line and
give staff direction. And so whether there is a structure on Tuesday
to do that or not, there is nothing that prohibits us individually
from reviewing and addressing parts of the comp. plan as we go along
and bringing those to the board or bringing those to staff and saying
does this make any sense.
And there have been at least a couple of occasions I know in the
last six years that that's how changes get started is a board member
will for whatever reason dig into a particular area, outside of that
structure Bob described, and move the issue forward.
And so there is an opportunity, I just don't know that we do that
with any regularity. And I like the idea of reviewing things with
some regularity, but there's certainly an opportunity for all five of
us as individuals and as a group to do that now.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: My best example of how this opportunity is
lost on us is we have the annual update inventory report where
Litsinger gets up there and tells us, you know, that -- all that data
that's in that chart. And he has to do it the way he does it because
the state makes him produce to stay compliant.
But, you know, if we could just get an English language
translation of that, we would know a hell of a lot more about what's
going on right now even than we do. You know, what roads are getting
close to capacity, and what is the capacity of the sewer system. You
know, just real basic stuff that we don't -- that I don't know.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Well, we talked many times about level of
service and roadways. I mean, it's came out several times at board
meetings, you know, is what we've determined or has -- what's been
determined in the past, is that satisfactory. Are we happy with what
our level C is or level D or whatever.
And we've never had the opportunity, or maybe we've never taken
the opportunity to sit down and look at changing that. If we think
that's not the way it should be, if we want a better level of service,
and we think that's what the people in Collier County expect, then why
don't we change it? And if so, then we need to ask staff, how do we
go about doing it?
And this is the opportunity, because it's the number one item on
this agenda that says transportation, and perhaps other
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February 2, 1999
infrastructure, but those are items that we've talked about level of
service. So I think we really need to start here and let's see where
we can go from here. But that is an area that we've talked about. We
talked about it at the MPO meeting and we've talked about it at
commission meetings from time to time.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Let me just say that it's my expectation, and I
hope that Mike McNees's presentation on that issue -- we're going to
give you a little bit of a head start on the issue -- is a good
example of exactly what you've said. He's worked very hard on the
presentation, and the early draft of this thing, we realize that the
spreadsheets and the volume of data that he had compiled in order to
make the points was going to be overwhelming, it was going to be too
much information.
And we talked about putting it in terms that really gets to the
bottom line, that puts it into English so you can see what it is we're
trying to convey. And the question is, is the current policy of
funding for transportation going to meet our needs, yes or no. You
don't need columns and columns of numbers to get to that point. We've
done that. We've done that analysis. We've looked at it, and we're
going to present to you in Mike's presentation the conclusions that
we've reached from looking at that with a view towards is this the
direction you'd like to see it go, or would you like to change this
bottom line that we see and are heading for. So I think that
presentation will get us going in the right direction. Now I've built it up.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: No pressure.
MR. FERNANDEZ: No pressure, Mike. I'm sure he'll do a good job.
MR. SCHOENFELD: So in terms of where we're going to focus our
attention in relation to the comprehensive plan, how we're going to
proceed.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I like the idea of starting with
infrastructure as the first one, because it's one we've kind of talked
about a little bit. You know, we've kind of begun to recognize that we
need to talk about it. There are others, too.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I think the framing of issue, as
we've done in the last couple of minutes, we all understand that
really primarily we deal with the comp. plan and now we're going to
talk about specific parts of it and how that relates. So I think that
we're focusing ourselves in the right track --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: And then if those parts need to be changed
or whatever, then we can address those, but we're going to have better
information to know what we need to do.
MR. OLLIFF: But on the broader question, before we lose it,
because there seemed to be some discussion on the board's part that
they would like to have opportunity to see on a broader policy level
what does the comp. plan actually say in layman's terms. You know,
rather than forcing the commission to lead to an element and, for
instance, bring up density reduction issue on their own, does the
board want some opportunity where there is a review of those kinds of
issues?
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February 2, 1999
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: If we don't do it, if we don't do that kind
of a regular review, Sunshine prohibits us from having, you know, real
opportunities for action.
MR. OLLIFF: What we're doing is we're focusing on
transportation, because it's forefront and at the center, but there
are stormwater management issues that may not be as forefront right
now that are on the comp. plan, or densities and those kinds of things
that are out there, does the board want opportunity to look at those?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: My answer is definitely yes, and it's -- you
know, one of the things -- and I appreciate you bringing it back to
us, is I hope that one of the things that will come out of this is a
list of -- this would be a clear direction for me if it has support of
the majority. I wish that at least quarterly we would have some kind
of a presentation on comp. plan elements to tell us status of and is
this the way you want it to be, do you have any direction to us about
what you want to see in the next cycle.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Would you have any objection to making
that part of a regular Tuesday meeting -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Sure.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- instead of bringing out a special
workshop?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: No, I think we should take time to do that,
take these elements, whether it's water management, infrastructure,
you pick the areas and give us an update. We need that. I need that.
Because I'm playing catchup here. I see bits and pieces. I'm trying
to figure out what we've done, what we're trying to do and where we
are.
And at the same time, every day you get a load of stuff that
comes at you about what about this, what about that, and make a
decision here, and we get pulled away from policy and get too much
into the management side, which I don't see as my job.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Right.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: So I think that would be a plus. Do it up
front on Tuesdays.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Regular Tuesday meetings.
MR. OLLIFF: It doesn't have to be long.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: No, just give it to us in layman
terminology and not all the other stuff around it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You know the idea on that for the
Internet, where the guys comes in to give a report to the board of
directors. Tell me in terms. For every buck we spend, we'll make two
bucks back.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Get that on the list, for God's sake, about,
you know, what are the clear directions that will come out of this is.
You know, regular corporate boards of directors get white papers. You
know, they get bullet points here. And I want all the guts, too. I
want all the stuff to be able to read, but I just want a white paper
on the top. English language translation. Or beige paper, green
paper. I don't care.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, I've tried to summarize the conversation
Page 13
February 2, 1999
as has just taken place over the last five minutes or so. And so what
I'm hearing is there seems to be a great deal of consistency and
agreement over the idea of having a regular presentation to the board
on segments of the comprehensive plan at the regular Tuesday meetings,
with the goal to facilitate policy direction, and that these summaries
or presentations need to be white or executive summaries, meaning that
they're not overly laden with the numbers and statistics, but that
they are concise narrative descriptions of where you're at, where you
need to go.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: You know, what would be helpful in that
would be what the current policy is within each of those elements, and
what we have said in these meetings our policy should be and how that
relates to each other. Are we on track or are we not on track, or do
we need to change, try to change what's in our comp. plan.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I for one don't mind all the detail
included, if the summary is on the top. I don't want to make an error
there that we don't want to be able to have that information.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: You want the summary, and then you want the
backup so that you feel comfortable.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Sometimes it feels that we get so much data
that it's -- you know, with the hope that you don't bother reading too
hard.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Hey, Bob, that would fall into the
nonverbal criticism right there.
MR. FERNANDEZ: What did I do?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Stare.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Did you get that on the record? Stare.
MR. FERNANDEZ: The reason I'm looking puzzled is because we have
a tradition of doing executive summaries on items that come before the
board that have the details attached. Now, if those aren't meeting
the mark, I guess I need to understand better what you mean by the
executive summary.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think on regular Tuesdays most of
the time you do a wonderful job. I think when we do our every six
month review -- and Pam made the best example of when Stan gets up and
starts reading through. I mean, you've got a book that has 100 pages
with some stuff underlined and some stuff crossed out. But we don't
-- if you had some summary in there of where we -- why we're changing
things or what the changes mean, those are the areas we have concern,
I think.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Part of the battle that we have with that is
avoiding a problem in the future if there's something that we know to
be very significant that's somehow buried in the form of what we
presented to you, that if we don't mention it at the microphone, the
board will later say oh, yes, we approved it on a consent agenda or
buried it in a presentation, but we weren't aware of the fact that it
was significant.
So we feel the need to let you know some things that may be in
the material we've given you, but to highlight it for your attention.
I think that's what the staff is sometimes dealing with when they
Page 14
February 2, 1999
come up to that microphone. They've got to get a lot of stuff out on
the written record for you to hear.
And I keep saying make it clear in the backup. And if the board
wants to move quickly through the presentation, then we can do that if
all the information's in the backup, the executive summaries are well
prepared and the issue has been clearly framed for you.
MR. CAUTERO: This will come to you in a different format, the
way I see it. It will not be that annual updated report that then
comes with that and contains a lot of numbers and a lot of facts and
so forth. The facts you'll be getting will be presented a different
way. For example, you don't want to be bogged down with facts. You
won't be seeing the Planning Department doing these, if I have
anything to say about it, because what will happen is when it's time
for the Parks and Recreation update, the Parks and Recreation staff
will be standing in front of you saying in the last quarter you agreed
to spend this amount of money on community parks, and here's the
maintenance structures and here's the policy on each community park.
Oh, by the way, we're two million short and in fact we have to build
the park on level of services to be graded. That's the kind of
two-second answer I think you want. And you're going to kick back and
say do we really want to do that, and readjust your policy and talk
about how that affects the policies in the plan, like Commissioner
Norris said.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, but that's how we do our budget
is the staff is there so that when we say why are you spending
$100,000 on X, Y and Z, they can tell you.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: But that's exactly the way Vince described,
that's exactly what I'm looking for.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, that's great.
MR. ILSCHNER: I might mention, one of the things that we've been
working on in the public works arena is having capital projects
quarterly reports that is hopefully going to be as close to layman's
language as we possibly get. It will also have a linkage to whatever
your comprehensive plan policy is, how it relates to that. And we
should be doing that in the next two weeks and have it available for
distribution. That should help you, too, regarding those capital
projects and how those relate to your overall policy.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: The tie-down is what you're saying.
MR. ILSCHNER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: To connect so I don't get a piece that has
10 questions --
MR. ILSCHNER: Right.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: -- about where do they come from, and how
-- to get the bigger picture.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay. We said that the opportunity to have this
personnel all together around a table provides opportunities to
increase understanding, mutual understanding. And I really saw that
as a theme right here in this discussion. But I wanted to just take a
moment before we move on to make sure that we have that mutual
understanding in terms of what the commissioners are looking for and
Page 15
February 2, 1999
what's going to be delivered to them by the administration.
So somebody want to paraphrase how things will be different in
the future?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes. I see us making periodic presentations to
the board, which are progress reports, relating the implementation of
their previous policy direction to actual issues that we've
implemented. And presenting that in a very concise, generic, really,
format so that the commissioners can give us a reality check; are we
heading in the right direction, or do we need to amend something, a
policy direction. To do that periodically.
MR. SCHOENFELD: And in terms of that format, that represents
something different than has been done in the past.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yeah.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes.
MR. SCHOENFELD: That will be at the regular Tuesday meetings.
Some segments of the comprehensive plan will be discussed.
MR. OLLIFF: That's the other thing, just for the board's
knowledge. Bob has put together an internal training program where
he's got Mike and I and other people teaching classes, like how to do
executive summaries, to do more presentations. So if there are things
that have irritated you about how the staff, you know, does maybe
over-complicate issues, let us know, because we're trying to make sure
that all the staff is giving you the kind of presentation that you
want.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Let's talk.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: We're teaching that at the end of March, so
let us know.
MR. SCHOENFELD: You know, because your audience is present who's
going to receive those types of summaries, it might be good as part of
training to provide them with samples -- outline of training samples
of an executive summary so there's some agreement as to whether this
meets their needs prior to that training.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: The one thing that I would bother to flood
in front of everybody to see if there's general agreement on it is how
meaningless the fiscal impact direction is.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: As written right now?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: As written.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I want a fiscal impact section, but
I'll tell you the two parts that bother me. The fiscal impact, when it
gives some non-answer answer. But also the recommendation when it says
we recommend that the board consider the following. Well, that's why
it's on the agenda item. If there's no recommendation, just say
there's no recommendation. But if you have a recommendation that boy,
you ought to go with A, then say that. And if we disagree, we
disagree.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: In our professional opinion. Otherwise, why
do we have you guys? We can get up there and make mistakes on our
own.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, let me tell you where that came from.
That came from -- in fact, when we were first on the board the staff
Page 16
February 2, 1999
used to recommend approval of zoning changes. And we said something
like wait a minute, wait a minute, let's leave this up to the board,
not the staff saying this is where we think you should change zoning
or
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Because on that appeal we would -- if
we have --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Because we felt that then it looked like
the county was on the side of the petitioner. We said that's not
really what we want --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I do remember when things went too far that
way.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: -- that's not the impression that we want
to give with the county deciding on the rezone. So we said don't make
a recommendation. But that, to my recollection, was really for a
planned use type petition, not park expansions or equipments or things
like that.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: But I also want to know some options. If
there's something where there are some options on ways we can approach
the problem, I certainly want to have those included.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And we've asked for that several
times.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: In other words, I like A, but B or C might
have something that we can go along with. So I would hope --
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay, I want to say something here that needs to
be said, really. First, we've talked a lot about this at the staff
level, and I thought we had done a much better job of biting the
bullet and making recommendations, even though we know they may not be
popular, okay. I thought we were doing that more. There's still areas
where a recommendation is really not appropriate, and we go in with a
reasonably worried recommendation that says essentially there is no
recommendation. Maybe for those we ought to say there is no
recommendation --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Right.
MR. FERNANDEZ: -- and get it clearly before you.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Right.
MR. FERNANDEZ: But the board says they want to hear options, the
board says they want to hear our recommendations, but we've had our
heads handed to us days when we have given you our recommendations.
And I will say, for example, the day I recommended that we rescind our
action on supporting the clerk and in his lawsuit over Uhlberg
(phonetic). I had my head handed to me over that one, and I still
feel that that was a correct recommendation to make.
That's our responsibility, to bring you those recommendations,
whether they're popular or not. And as we see the facts from our
perspective, we have that obligation to bring you those
recommendations.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But realistically. Part of your job
may include -- and just as it does for all the elected officials,
getting beat up now and again. And if your head gets handed to you
sometimes, it happens to all of us.
Page 17
February 2, 1999
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Right.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I don't think we can take that
personally. If the board as a whole disagrees with your
recommendation, that doesn't necessarily reflect on you. It may on
that issue, but, you know, and how many times have us as commissioners
gone out and gotten beat up for some stand we've taken on something,
but that's just part of the job.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Somebody said they didn't agree with your
recommendation or how --
MR. FERNANDEZ: It went beyond that. If they didn't agree with
that recommendation, I could have accepted that and that's fine. But
there was criticism for having made the recommendation.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: And that's wrong, in my opinion.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yeah, and I'll tell you, I'm going to be
honest about it, I was critical -- I mean, as opposed to lying to you.
I was critical of -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Will you preface the lies that way,
too?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: -- of bringing it forward because I thought
it showed bad judgment. I thought that the -- that making the
recommendation of no was bad judgment. And so I was honestly voicing
actually -- I think, you know, you got conned and you bought the con.
MR. SCHOENFELD: But is that the best form for that personal bad
judgment discussion, as opposed to individually after the fact?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No, but I think the point is there are
times where you are going to have strong feelings that it may be
better to -- and you meet with each of us at least once weekly, and
there may be an appropriate time to sit down and say Pam, boy, I think
this is bad and this is why, and then see where that goes on Tuesday.
But rather than dig your heels in on Tuesday and have some sort of
struggle in public.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Now, let me draw our attention back to where
this all began. We're talking about creating white papers or
executive summaries, or whatever label you want to put on it, that are
more meaningful and useful. And then we started discussions of what
that should entail, what should be included in those summaries. One
of the things were more specific recommendations.
The issue is if we see more specific recommendations, is that
going to lead to a level of risk that a person is unwilling to make
because of some sense of a personal attack. And so if the
commissioners want to see recommendations, there has to be a process
where the people who are generating those recommendations feel
comfortable doing that without feeling that there's something at risk
personally.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I think they're going to have to go
on risk. I mean, that's management. If I sit here, I want to hear
the recommendations, I want the options. I may not agree with them,
but if you start trying for feed to me what you think I'm going to buy
into, then we're not going anywhere. I mean, sure, it's a lie, but --
MR. SCHOENFELD: There's a risk of the recommendation not being
Page 18
February 2, 1999
one that meets the agreement of the commissioners. But the risk I'm
taking about is the personal risk that you're going to be out in a
public forum getting personally, you know, 40 lashes.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, we get that all the time.
MR. SCHOENFELD: That will impact somebody's willingness to
provide recommendations.
MR. OLLIFF: It's just a reminder about criticizing the idea, not
the person. If a person stands up there, they get criticized, they're
going to be reluctant to bring that instead of a recommendation.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: But at the same time -- and I appreciate
that. And I hear some appropriate criticism for the way I reacted to
that, and I'm sure there are others, as opposed to I hate the
recommendation, how could you be so stupid to bring it.
The other thing, the flip side is that you get the big bucks
because you have to take the heat for having professional opinions.
If you don't have them, you know, give the job to somebody else.
MR. ILSCHNER: What I hear you saying to me is that you want the
options and you want us to open and get out of our box and think about
what those options are, give you all the options that you should
consider, not just what we might --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Not just the ones that you think are
politically correct.
MR. OLLIFF: In a nutshell, what we're teaching is that the forum
in the issue -- what the problem we're trying to solve, what are the
options we consider to try to solve the problem, what we recommend,
and why, justify why you did it. And that's really it. That's all
we're really trying to tell. And that's what a fiscal summary ought
to say. And if that kind of flows with what you think it ought to be,
then we're on the same page.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Tom, that's good. And coming back is don't
-- as Bob says, don't be so wordy kind of thing. If you don't have a
recommendation, tell me. But don't try to couch it in cute little
ways that I'm sitting there thinking -- you know do a little side
step, do a little side step. I don't want that stuff.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think a point, too, is that I want -- I
personally want the recommendations, and I want your best professional
judgment in whatever it is. And don't worry about the politics, that's
what we have to worry about.
And at the same time, commissioners, don't sit here and tell
staff that you want recommendations, and then when they make the
recommendations, on the day of the meeting get up there and play
politics by chewing out the staff. I mean, you've got to be mindful
about that as well. If you don't like the recommendation, then just
shut up about it and vote the way you want to vote. But to sit up
there and get these guys on the professional staff -- they are paying
the big bucks and being paid big bucks.
I wouldn't do their job. I'm not even sure I like what I do at
times. But at the same time, don't get them out there on the limb and
then proceed to come and after you've asked them to do it and then
come along with your saw and chop the limb off.
Page 19
February 2, 1999
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: You're right.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: You know? I mean, I think it's a two-way
street here.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, the thing is you can have a
healthy disagreement on the issue, as long as you're not attacking the
individual. And I'm not going to shut up if I disagree. I'm going to
share why I disagree.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: And that's fine, Tim. But you don't need to
privately go chew the guy out in the back room and say I thought your
recommendation was stupid.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No, I agree.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I mean, that's not right.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But I'll give you a great example.
When we hired Wilson-Miller on the Santa Barbara extension and the
facts that they plugged in there were just A, some of them were wrong,
but B, some of them used very, very faulty logic. They were ignoring
certain things that were happening in the area. And we chewed them
out privately instead of publicly. And that's a consultant, not
staff.
But nonetheless, the recommendations there were, you know, put
together with faulty information. And so if that makes it to the
public forum in that format, the last thing I'm going to do is shut up
and vote some way.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I'm not suggesting that, Tim. But what I am
suggesting is that you don't belittle -- in other words, don't chew
the messenger.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Agreed.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: You asked the guy for his professional
opinion. If this is what they've rendered, then you may disagree with
it, fine, go ahead and vote however you want to for whatever reason
you want to. But at the same time, don't shoot the guy that you asked
for the recommendation. In other words, don't sit here today and say
you want recommendations, then the first time they come forward with a
recommendation, they stand up there and you're filling them full of
bullets. I don't think that's fair.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me say that I totally agree that most
of the times the recommendation from the staff is clearly appropriate
and helpful from our point of view. But I hope we're not saying that
we're going to now go back to having staff recommend on land use
items. We're not saying that, are we?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I think you're right on that, John. You
pointed out an area to me where that's what we have to decide and not
asking them to do that.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's why you see the pros and the cons in
the executive summary, simply because of the discussion we had years
past about this. Give us the pros and the cons, let us decide. Don't
make us a recommendation on land use items, because we do not want to
give the impression that we are in any way sided on one side or the
other.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: That's fair. I agree.
Page 20
February 2, 1999
MR. CAUTERO: Just for clarification, commissioners, we do
recommend to the Planning Commission, okay -- COMMISSIONER BERRY: Sure.
MR. CAUTERO: -- and then the Planning Commission recommendation
is carried to you.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And the -- this is the one that I'm
uncertain about how the majority of the board feels. Remember when we
had, for example, the road from hell, the alignment of Santa Barbara?
And you guys, before we were on the board, had told them don't do X,
Y, Z, and then the professional opinion was X, Y, Z is the only
logical thing to do. I was glad to see it. I was glad to be told
that despite prior -- and I remember that made you furious, that
probably would have made me mad, too, if I had been on the board and
they said just say no to X, Y, Z.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, but then X, Y, Z in that case
used faulty information. Because it said its logic was in that
particular case because it was the only way that it would connect
through to 41. Which ignored the fact that the whole board was saying
the direction had been -- and even the consultant was saying, okay, we
won't let it connect through to St. Andrews, so you're going to have
to turn one way or the other.
So they're making, you know, arguments that are contrary to one
another. It ignored the fact that you had to widen
Rattlesnake-Hammock, so they didn't include that in the cost. So they
said it's the cheapest, but then the result of putting that in caused
to you spend another two million dollars or something.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: So your frustration was it wasn't so much
that we've already looked at this and given you direction. It was the
advice you're giving is faulty.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: It was both.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: It was both.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The reason we had already looked at it
and given direction was the information they were ignoring. So we
revisited an issue. The issue, when you plug all the facts in, comes
out the same way.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay.
MR. SCHOENFELD: In terms of the executive summaries, what should
they contain? We're going to outline what the executive summary will
contain. What would that be? What would you like to see in the
executive summary?
MR. CAUTERO: Well, do we really need to change what's in there?
Perhaps writing it better and focusing on what information is
pertinent to the board is the issue. Because I'm hearing some of the
commissioners say the fiscal impact portion of that summary is not
giving them the information they need. Maybe we need to do a better
job. Because I know it's helpful to staff that use it later, like the
budget office. So perhaps writing it differently, that Mike and Tom,
when they teach the course, can give that information to the staff.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I think the fiscal information is
helpful in most cases. I'm not objecting to that. I don't know --
Page 21
February 2, 1999
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: The one that bothers me is the one that's in
every rezone or any kind of land uses. Although there is no direct --
in fact, I have it quoted, I think. Although there is no direct
fiscal impact by this particular land use decision -- COMMISSIONER CARTER: Many times you --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: -- blah, blah, blah. I mean, it just
doesn't say anything. So just put down ditto.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't want the message to be
delivered, though, that the executive summaries we're getting overall
are bad or poor or anything else. I think by and large, we're getting
good executive summaries. I think those particular areas, there are
times where that fiscal stuff is -- the boilerplate thing doesn't
work.
And as Jim said, if there's no recommendation, then say no
recommendation.
MR. FERNANDEZ: What we're trying to do with fiscal impact is
look beyond the immediate fiscal impact. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Which is good.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Which is why you're seeing some of that vague
language. Because we've said the question here is not just is this
money budgeted or not. That's one of the questions. But there's also
the question of if it's going to cost us money down the road. And
then that's the question that needs to somehow get addressed in that
fiscal impact statement as well. And for some -- some issues will
lend themselves better to that kind of explanation than others. Then
when they don't, you get boilerplate language.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: My point is simply in great part we
have very good --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Agreed.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- summaries. These are a couple
areas we ought to improve on.
MR. OLLIFF: Sorry I brought this red herring out here.
MR. SCHOENFELD: No, it was a good discussion.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: This is everyday business.
MR. SCHOENFELD: What action is going to be taken as a result of
this discussion?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: We're going to sharpen up the executive
summaries overall.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It was a stupid thing to do, Tom.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Now, that's a good phrase, Jim, sharpen up the
overall executive summaries. But what does that mean?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Recommendations, when you have a clear
statement that you don't have one if you don't. Options, even when
you have a recommendation, what are the other alternatives.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: If it's appropriate, you might want to
expand the pros and cons and do something other than land use items,
if it's appropriate. Don't feel that you're limited only to land use
items to use that pro and con --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Right, if there's an opportunity to --
MR. OLLIFF: I think in a lot of cases it's more incumbent on us.
Page 22
February 2, 1999
We know what you're looking for a lot more than somebody that two
levels down do, and maybe it's more incumbent on us to make sure the
information is correct before we --
MR. FERNANDEZ: That's why --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Don't get trapped in the boilerplate on
these. Be flexible. But when we need certain things that, as John
was saying, give it to us and expand it, but just don't try to shove
it all through one little pipe and make it fit.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: The way I heard Bob say was don't let the
forum drive the presentation, which it does a lot.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: On those rezone items, would you rather just see
none for fiscal impact than -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: No.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: -- than that boilerplate? I mean, in that
specific instance, though.
MR. CAUTERO: The only impact that you're going to see is when
the development process is engaged. The rezone itself only has a
fiscal impact on staff analysis time, which is paid for by the
application fee. So we should give you new boilerplate information or
say none. And once I agree with Bob and Mike on what we're going to
say, that's going to be --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: What I wish is that you'd tell us what the
fiscal impact of the development, if approved.
MR. CAUTERO: I don't think I can do that at that point. In some
cases I might be able to. But in some cases I probably won't.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Well, couldn't you tell us if you approve
this, here's how much more pavement we've got to lay, here's how much
more sewer we got to --
MR. CAUTERO: I don't know if I can do that without delaying the
process, quite frankly. I will certainly look at that, but I don't
know if I can do that that easily.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't want to see it printed out.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Me either.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I would like to get some indication on
that, Vince, of what that future impact is going to be, when you can,
that is important to me.
MR. CAUTERO: I will tell you, it's probably going to cause a
routing to the public works division, which is going to slow down the
process, and you're going to hear about it from the constituents.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And maybe you don't need to if we're getting
quarterly updates and seeing the big picture. Maybe we don't need to
know on each individual rezone, but -- you know?
MR. FERNANDEZ: We're really dealing with the same issue the
legislature has on that. There's a requirement now that you get
fiscal impact statements for every bill that's presented. If you've
read any of those, you can read the entire fiscal impact and have no
better idea of what really it's going to cost the State of Florida
than before you read it.
And in some cases, the impacts are going to be so difficult to
get a handle on it, particularly the land use things, that it will
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February 2, 1999
delay bringing it to the board in order for us to do a more thorough
job of trying to analyze what the fiscal impact ultimately will be to
the county.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: But there is real fiscal impact for every
zoning decision we make. For example, and I always liken it to the
parks discussion. Yeah, you can build these parks so cheap, free
money, it's impact fee money, isn't that great. But the maintenance
of a park is what you've got to decide. That's how you decide whether
or not to build a park, can you afford the maintenance.
I wish there was some mechanism for deciding whether or not we
can afford a rezone, based on what its impacts are going to be.
MR. SCHOENFELD: All right. Turn to the executive summaries.
When is the change going to take place, and who's going to be
responsible for ensuring that?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Obviously me.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Bob's in charge of everything.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I'll be responsible to make sure that our
executive summaries are more responsive to the need for commissioners
to have direct information, concise information and understandable
information regarding the issue being presented, the options, the
recommendation and the fiscal impact.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: You know what your recommendation section
should contain, if appropriate, is if we're -- if it looks like we're
headed in a direction that violates policy that we set out in the past
sometimes, say so. Say this is contrary to a policy that the board
established in 1951 or 1994 or whatever. Put that in there so that we
can -- if you can catch it, you know, maybe we can see that we're
violating our previous policy.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay. Good point.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Yes?
MR. WEIGEL: One comment in regards to the executive summaries.
Bob and I worked closely and the staff worked closely on submittals
from our office. From time to time ours are maybe less project
oriented as actually more policy oriented. Maybe we've had a board
director or even individual commissioner request for a resolution or
typically board directire for ordinance. And that's where some of our
language, call it recommendation, and in the title of the executive
summary itself said that the board consider the adoption of such and
such. Because it's -- it has been your policy decision. Perhaps
individual commissioners monitor forward on it and up to this point
we've tried to steer pretty clear of making a recommendation to the
pure policy aspect of that. We've always tried to respond to the
fiscal impact or growth management impact, sometimes working with
staff to fine tune that.
I would hope that Bob doesn't find himself having to try to edit
the executive summaries that we create from our office in that
particular subject matter. But if you want us to provide
recommendation that's stronger than that, then I think you're asking
us to enter into the policy field that you probably wouldn't want us
to get involved with at that stage.
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February 2, 1999
MR. SCHOENFELD: Comments?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think we've beat this horse to death.
MR. FERNANDEZ: We're ready for a break. Is that appropriate?
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, since we're out of paper, why don't we
take a 10, 15-minute break right now.
(Brief recess.)
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, if we can have everybody seated, we can
get started again.
Okay, we had a real, real good discussion for the last hour or so
on a topic that helps us facilitate some of the expectations for the
day in terms of mutual understanding, forum for open discussion, and
relationship building. I think it was a really valuable discussion
that we had to be able to achieve some of those purposes for the day.
However, it was a little bit off. It was an operational issue,
so it was a little bit off from our strategic focus for today's
session. So what I'd like to do right now is to have everybody's
attention back to that list of critical success factors, those areas
that were continued themes in my discussions with all of you as areas
that need to have some attention and focus today.
Those items are not listed in any order of priority, they're just
listed there. Are those the areas that we want to focus on for the
rest of the day? In terms of information-sharing, understanding and
where possible, moving towards more actionable items.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Can we talk infrastructure? We also get
into other areas of water management --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Stormwater and --
MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes, that's why that title was expanded from the
original discussion of solely transportation funding. When we
developed this, we said well, we really need to address the other
infrastructure issues, the stormwater and really county facilities as
well.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Okay, well, why don't we just go for it.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Start with that and see -- because that's a
big one right there.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, infrastructure and funding issues. Where
to begin. What are the driving forces, the key questions or issues.
And you look on the agenda, and you see that after identifying
critical success factors, the next one is what is the key strategic
issues. In this regard what are the key strategic issues with regard
to infrastructure and funding issues.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: First you got to know what you need to do
and then you have to figure out how you're going to pay for them.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I like that.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Okay. Well, we took care of that.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: What are you going to build, how are you
going to pay. Next.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, Commissioner Carter has phrased the
cognizant issues very succinctly and meaningfully. So what are you
going to do?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: What do we need to do, and from the staff
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February 2, 1999
perspective, I'd like to hear what they think are the requirements
right now. So I'd like to hear from what they think are the
requirements -- or what the needs are, and then let us take a look and
perhaps when it comes to the funding, maybe staff also have some
suggestion in terms of how we're going to pay for all of this.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay, we have a presentation prepared for this
item that compares your current plan and the projects that are in that
plan to the current funding arrangement, and projects out over time
what that picture's going to look like. It also projects how that
picture changes, for example, as facts change, for example, with the
five cent gasoline tax sunsetting.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Why don't you show it to us?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay. Mike, are you ready?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you.
MR. McNEES: I'm ready. I had some recommendations I was going
to make, but I'm afraid to make them now.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I wouldn't think of it, Mike. Banish the
thought.
MR. McNEES: This little presentation is focused pretty much on
transportation issues, but when we get to the end of it, it will
broaden a little bit into some of the larger funding questions. And
the intent of this is only to provide some background for your
discussion and to frame the issues a little bit.
And I'm going to start with what's almost a primmer on
transportation funding, and talk about all the different options that
you have. And when I talk about transportation funding, I'm going to
talk almost equally about both capital needs and the funding for your
road and bridge operations, because as you pointed out with parks,
paying for the capital is only half the battle. You have maintenance
needs.
And when we throw into that the maintenance of the median
beautification projects that you're building, that's a very
significant issue, and how that grows is an issue. And I'm going to
kind of throw all that together almost into a pot and talk about that
as your transportation funding.
It's fairly simple, the options that you have. You can use
gasoline taxes, you can use sales taxes, impact fees, something that's
related to a sales tax, which is just a subsidy from your general fund
that we're going to talk about in a few minutes. And then something
we've talked about a little in the past is utility franchise fees.
We're going to go through and talk about each one of these just a
little bit in turn.
Gasoline taxes, there are three that you need to be aware of.
There's a constitutional gas tax; raises right now about 2.4 million
dollars a year. Can only be used for capital. That's the only thing.
Can't use that for your road and bridge operations.
There are some continuing local option taxes, they raise right
now 6.7 million dollars a year that are ongoing, don't require
reauthorization. Again, 6.7 million a year. Those can be used either
for capital or for operations and maintenance. You are using those
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February 2, 1999
primarily now for capital. And we're going to talk about that again
in a minute.
You have, additionally, a five cent local option gas tax that
sunsets December 31st, 2003, unless you have a reauthorizing
referendum. That's a very important issue. We're going to talk about
what happens to the numbers if that goes away. That raises right now
about 3.7 million a year.
Sales taxes. Sales taxes for you are a general fund revenue.
You are now transferring from your general fund five million dollars a
year to the road and bridge operation. That -- we're going to go to
your policies in a few minutes. But that's a result of the policy
that you have for all as-you-go road funding. We're going to talk
about that in a few minutes.
There is also available to you a local option infrastructure
sales tax that requires a referendum, can be used for a variety of
purposes, depending on the wording of the referendum, would raise,
approximately -- today one cent would raise about 31 million a year,
half a cent would raise 15.7 million a year. That's not limited only
to transportation, that could be used for a number of things.
Impact fees you know all about. You get about 3.7 million a year
from road -- 6.7 million a year from road impact fees. Somewhat
volatile revenue source. We're spoiled. We think that's an every
year, every year, every year. It ain't. Okay, that's a revenue
source that can go away in a hurry.
So your ability to bond that or -- you can bond it as long as you
back it up with some other sort of a pledge. But we like to be sort
of conservative when we talk about impact fees, because it hasn't been
that long here since we did have some dips, but long enough ago that
some don't remember it.
This is one we're going to talk about a little today, the general
fund subsidy. You have a policy that says you will not fund road
capital with ad valorem taxes. But the form that has taken with some
of your other policies is you end up subsidizing your road and bridge
operations with sales tax from the general fund which then is made up
by increased ad valorem taxes. So even though it's not direct, you are
in a way subsidizing the transportation network with ad valorem taxes.
In the past four years, that subsidy amounts to 18 million
dollars. That's real money. And I think one of the things we're
going to ask you to look at today is whether you really want to
continue that. We're going to talk about your policies here in just a
minute.
The last thing we're throwing up here for discussion is the
concept of utility franchise fee. And as we talked about a little
while ago, when we're bringing something up that you've already talked
about, I'm telling you right straight up, you have talked about this
in the past and rejected it. You were not interested in the utility
franchise fee, but you did say that at some point in the future you
might be willing to talk about it if we could tie the revenue raise
from the franchise fee directly to the expense of maintaining the
right-of-way that is based upon the fact that there's -- the electric
Page 27
February 2, 1999
company is using the right-of-way.
So we're throwing this one out in terms of a potential funding
option for your transportation network, if we can tie it to specific
right-of-way expenses that are part of your road and bridge operation.
Each one percent of a franchise fee, utility franchise fee,
raises about 1.6 million annually. I think when we talked about it,
it's been about four or five years ago, we talked about a three
percent franchise fee that you eventually did not adopt.
I'm going to move now, since we've gone from the general issues,
transportation funding options, let's talk a little about your
policies. Let's talk about Collier County. We are operating under the
assumption that these are the policies, because these are the things
over the years that you've said to us. One, you have wanted as-you-go
roads capital funding. You specifically told us four or five years
ago you did not want to bond gas taxes.
I think one of the things that we're going to talk to you about
today is to ask you maybe to reconsider that and to consider whether
it's realistic to continue to want pay-as-you-go funding for 20,
30-year assets, and whether from a business standpoint that remains a
reasonable approach. And when you see some of the numbers, you'll
understand why we're saying that.
The last thing is you've said you want no ad valorem support of
road capital. And yes, you could probably say that we are not
directly taxing the ad valorem taxpayer to pay for road construction,
but through that little indirect shuffle game, that shell game where
you empty one pot and it fills up from another pot, which fills up
another pot, you really are. And again, that subsidy in the last four
years alone has been a total of 18 million dollars.
I'm going to throw some numbers at you. As Bob said when we
started to put this presentation together, he and I looked at
spreadsheet after spreadsheet after spreadsheet and we just couldn't
make it mean anything with all the information that we had. So I'm
going to throw some numbers at you pretty much for the purpose of just
giving you orders of magnitude. So you kind of understand when we
talk about all these funding sources and how it all fits together, you
can kind of get an idea for what are the relevant factors.
If you look at as you're existing policies stand today, the total
revenues over the next 10 years and the capital project needs over the
next 10 years. Now, I know we have the 2020 plan, we have the 2010
financially feasible plan, we have the five-year plan. This is the
McNees's best guess of the next 10 years road projects with the
revenues. And the 2020 plan includes state roads.
And, you know, you all talked about some plain English. Well,
this is plain English. This is what it looks like. 239 million in
revenues, 220 million in projects. As things stand today, we have a
surplus of approximately 18 million dollars over the next 10 years.
Now, that is not funding any grade separations. Because frankly,
the way I understand it is, staff kind of feels like you can't build
the road network out over the next 10, 15 years without grade
separations, but the board's policy has been we don't want them, so
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February 2, 1999
they're not in the plan.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: So it can't be done without them, but we
don't want them, so they're not there.
MR. McNEES: I'm not saying can't. I'm saying they're not in the
plan. This --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Headlines, Mac'Kie wants grade
separations.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: How about commission in denial?
MR. McNEES: This number doesn't include anything like Gordon
River bridges. This number does not include level of service
adjustments that you had recently talked about. And in that -- this
surplus goes from surplus to deficit real quick, if you start talking
about changing levels of service on some of the roads. Because you
have said already your adopted levels of service, even though they
look good on paper, do not look good when you're driving down that
road. And that's an issue we're going to have to face. And that
number changes real quickly. I'm trying to show you status quo.
Now, 2003, your five cent gas tax level option goes away, okay,
without a referendum to keep it going. That 18 million dollar surplus
goes to a five million dollar deficit.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: So that's really our present situation.
MR. McNEES: I would say that is your present situation. That
was really the status quo --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What was the last one then, Mike?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Assume the continuation of the five cent.
MR. McNEES: Yeah, that was --that assumed that the five cents
would be reauthorized. Thank you for clarifying that.
And again, that's current levels of service, no Gordon River
bridges, no grade separations, nothing else.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: You'll be driving on a go cart path.
MR. McNEES: Now, the next thing I want to talk about is you, as
a part of your adopted budget policy, have begun to phase out that
general fund subsidy of road and bridge. You started this year with
one million dollars of sale -- of gas tax going back to road and
bridge to pay for operations, which is really what that tax is for.
Now what happens if we continue that, a million dollars a year to
decrease that subsidy where you take the gas tax from capital, put it
back in road and bridge, where frankly, we think it belongs. Your
deficit goes to 71 million dollars, okay?
So in other words, without charging the ad valorem taxpayer to
build your roads, your deficit goes to 71 million dollars.
MR. FERNANDEZ: There's still some subsidy, but you're reducing
it; is that right?
MR. McNEES: At the end of the 10-year period, the subsidy is
gone.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Right, but during the 10-year, the --
MR. McNEES: Oh, yeah, there's a million less per year. That's
still --
MR. FERNANDEZ: A million less a year.
MR. McNEES: That's still probably 20 million dollars a year --
Page 29
February 2, 1999
MR. FERNANDEZ: Right.
MR. McNEES: -- over the 10-year period.
MR. FERNANDEZ: So if you cut out the ad valorem subsidy entirely
MR. McNEES: Immediately.
MR. FERNANDEZ: -- immediately, you add 20 million dollars to
that deficit number, right?
MR. McNEES: 33 million --
MR. FERNANDEZ: 33 million.
MR. McNEES: -- in subsidy over the next 10 years.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: It would stop this shell game of how we are
actually subsidizing road capital with ad valorem. Our real deficit
is 100 million dollars?
MR. McNEES: If you stop it immediately.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: If we stop it today.
MR. McNEES: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Where's your attention?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I got my attention.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Here again, that's assuming no improvements in
the plan of projects.
MR. McNEES: No change in the levels of service.
MR. FERNANDEZ: No changes, no more roads, no speeding up the
pace of development of those roadways.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And if what I'm hoping for is that we raise
the level of service, then that means more money.
MR. FERNANDEZ: More money.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Gets worse.
MR. McNEES: So now that I've brought you all the good news,
let's talk about what some of your options are.
Assuming that the five cents goes away, you have the ability to
bond the remaining gas taxes that you have. And you have the ability,
you have enough of those taxes, to fund your deficit, given current
levels of service, as it stands. Because your deficit is not that
big. That's a realistic scenario.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Say that again? If we bond them, we can
solve our problems?
MR. McNEES: If we solve today's deficit with today's level of
service, you have enough to do that.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That 70 million or whatever you showed us?
MR. McNEES: If you continue the ad valorem subsidy and you --
today's level of service, you can find your gas taxes.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: But remember, we don't like --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: We hate that.
MR. McNEES: Well, you have enough gas tax to bond -- if you
discontinue the ad valorem subsidy, it's a close call. That would be
stretching the gas tax probably father than it will stretch. You have
the option of reauthorizing the five cent local option gas tax and
bonding that. With that, you have enough.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: But we have the option of a referendum to
reauthorize.
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February 2, 1999
MR. McNEES: Yes, you have the option of a referendum to try to
reauthorize. You have the option to continue the general fund
subsidy. It may be, if we can't make any of these other things
happen, that may be something that we're stuck with for awhile.
Obviously that's something we've never felt like was a good idea.
I'm going to throw a new option out here that we talked about a
minute ago. You have the option of a referendum to approve either a
cent or a half cent infrastructure sales tax. We're going to talk
about that one in a little more detail in a minute. But I want you to
hear those numbers and how they relate to all these other numbers we
talked about, which takes us then into the broader area where probably
your discussion is going to go, when we talk about the other capital
needs.
Then lastly, you have the ability to adopt a franchise fee, which
would support your road and bridge operations, which would allow the
general fund subsidy to decrease without having to syphon off the gas
tax for your capital needs. That's an option that you have to fund
the operation of road and bridge to leave your gas tax for capital.
Infrastructure sales tax. This is just a big picture for your
information. One half cent of infrastructure sales tax, if you were
to bond that, will fund your jail expansion, will fund your space
plan, all of which equates to more than 80 million dollars. I think
84 million is the big number.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Over 20 years.
MR. McNEES: Over 20 years.
MR. FERNANDEZ: No, wait a minute, 80 million is the first five
years; is that right? MR. OCHS: Yes.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Sorry.
MR. McNEES: Funds your transportation capital deficit, allows
you to Sunset the five cent local gas option tax.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Is this cumulative or --
MR. McNEES: You get all these. And it's nice. It also allows to
you phase out the general fund subsidy of road and bridge. And I'm
not really making a sales pitch here as much as I am trying to get you
oriented to the order of magnitude of these different types of taxes.
And that's about a third of a mill; between a third and a half of a
mill. So a half cent of infrastructure sales tax gives you almost a
half a million in ad valorem tax relief, gives you funding for your
road and capital deficit, pays for your jail and your space plan, and
allows to you Sunset the five cent local option gas tax. That's a half
cent.
Now, a full cent, obviously the biggest difference is there, it
allows you to fund your transportation capital deficit pay-as-you-go,
because there's enough money in that tax to continue your
pay-as-you-go road money, if you choose to do that, and then gives you
then additional money as we begin to talk about drainage and the other
infrastructure needs that we haven't even addressed yet.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Are you going to tell us anything about what
the -- how much of the stormwater program could be covered by the half
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February 2, 1999
a penny or something? Have you done those numbers?
MR. McNEES: I can tell you that a half a penny leaves not very
much money once you have funded the jail and once you have funded your
transportation needs. I can tell you --
MR. FERNANDEZ: Assuming that the five cent isn't renewed and you
have to cover that.
MR. McNEES: Right. It leaves four to five million. Actually,
closer to six million a year. So there is -- there's really money
there. So there would be enough for some funding. Depending -- it
all would depend on how much you wanted to bond, how much you wanted
to pay as you go. Those are the kind of things we would have to bring
to you more specifically without getting real deep into the numbers.
But yes, there would be some money left.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: You can also get into things like
maintenance, medians and that type of thing. I mean, it's probably
unlimited.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It's capital.
MR. McNEES: The penny sales tax, or half a penny could not be
used for median maintenance, but what it would allow you to do is fund
your transportation network in such a way that you can use your gas
taxes --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Where they belong.
MR. McNEES: -- to fund median maintenance and other road and
bridge operations, which now all of that gas tax money is going to
build your roads and you're having to hit the general fund to maintain
your medians.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Can I ask just a minute from the older board
members, what was the thinking on the previous commission in terms of
pay-as-you-go for roads?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: You mean older as in?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Time-wise. Not age, John.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: What was the thinking on?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: You want me to repeat the question?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Pay as you go?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Yeah, what was the -- did you have
discussion or --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yeah. Pay-as-you-go on road construction?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Right.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, you know, we've got a program right
now that's pretty solid for five years and goes out 10 years, you
know, that gets a little more indistinct as you go out in time. But
the problem for me on bonding road construction is that we've got a
program set pretty well now for the next five years if we bond that
out so that we can fund it. Two, three, four, five years from now
we're going to be looking at the same situation again. Everybody
knows it. We're going to have to come up with some more money. So
what are you going to do, put in another bond and then another one and
another one and another one? And that's --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: It is perpetual borrowing.
And, you know, I'm not sure where I come down on this, but one
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February 2, 1999
response is most people can't buy their houses for cash either,
because they know they're going to live there for 20 years, so it's
okay to borrow.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Well, I was criticized on a previous board
because we were on a pay-as-you-go for paying for school buildings.
And we thought we were doing the greatest thing. I mean, we thought
boy, that's what -- you know, that's the way you ought to do it. You
know, you save your money and then you buy whatever it is, so forth.
And there was a group here in town of older gentlemen who came to
us who were involved at the time, I believe, with the civic
association and what have you, and basically said to us, you guys are
crazy.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Fiscally stupid.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Yeah. There were several of them. But they
had quite a discussion with the board at one of our budget meetings
over this. And I don't know whether it's right or wrong, but I just
wanted to know philosophically from previous boards what your
discussion has been and if you had had any feedback from the public in
terms of this. So I'm just asking --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, you set yourself up for
perpetual borrowing. Pam, you're right, most people borrow for their
home; however, if you're given a choice of doing it or not, there's a
tremendous amount of security if you can pay cash for your home and no
matter what the economic situation is, what your personal situation
is, you never have that worry again. There's a certain security to
that. And most people don't have that option. But if you do, that's
one that warrants consideration.
So here if we have an option to do something other than set
ourselves up for perpetual borrowing, we ought to give that serious
consideration, too.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And if we have an option to do that without
paying for road capital out of property taxes, then we have that
option. But paying for road construction out of property taxes is
unacceptable.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: See now, there's good arguments on both
sides of this question. But to go to your buying a house analogy,
that's fine, because most people only have one house. But what I'm
saying is that we're going to buy a house today and we're going to buy
a house three or four or five years from now, we're going to buy
another one after that, but we'll own them all and we'll be paying for
them all, and do we want to do that.
And at the time, we went through a big analysis of can we arrange
our finances so that we can do pay-as-you-go, and the answer was yes.
So that's why we went to it. There are good arguments on both sides,
and one of the arguments is that if you go out on financing, that
you're going to capture new people to help you pay for that in the
future, and they're part of the reason why you're building the road
anyway.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: That's my point. That's what my thinking
is.
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February 2, 1999
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's a very good --
MR. OLLIFF: But the problem is with the house analogy, is we're
adding like 6,000 family members a year here, so we need the houses.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: We need the houses.
MR. OLLIFF: We need that next house and the next house and the
next house.
MR. McNEES: Just for your information, so you know how the
numbers work out, one penny of infrastructure sales tax would allow
you to discontinue your ad valorem subsidy, continue to do roads
capital on an entirely pay-as-you-go basis. You would have to
mortgage the jail and the space plan, but to use your analogy, that is
the house. You don't build that every three years.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The big house.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: The big house.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Ever-expanding house.
MR. McNEES: You would also be able to -- as you know, you fund
currently seven to eight million dollars a year of non-CIE capital
through your general fund; it would allow you to discontinue that
funding. So in essence, you would be with the ad valorem subsidy for
road and bridge and with the discontinuance of the general fund and
not CIE capital, you would be able to cut ad valorem by about a mill.
So one penny -- and if you want to oversimplify maybe somewhat,
one penny of infrastructure sales tax gives you one mill of property
tax relief, allows you to Sunset the five-cent local option gas tax,
and allows you to continue to do your roads on a pay-as-you-go basis.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The scenario of cutting the millage is
very appealing, if we make a commitment to do that. My general
distrust of government is if there's a money source there, we always
find a way to spend it. And I'd hate to say well, gosh, we have this
new sales tax, we could cut the mill by a third or, two mills, but
then find some other way we're going to spend that and not cut it off.
So if we made a commitment, okay, these are our alternatives, we
can -- we're looking at a half cent, but it's going to be a third less
next year guaranteed, then I can live with that.
MR. OLLIFF: Make it part of the question.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Make it part of the budget.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't know if you want to do that. But,
you know, one of the best arguments for this sort of a tax is the one
that I just mentioned awhile ago. You not only allow the future
residents to help you pay for these, but you give the tourists a
chance to be highly involved in the financing of this infrastructure,
and everybody knows that the tourists are in large measure responsible
for our infrastructure needs.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And that's why it makes so much sense to
sponsor the infrastructure with the sales tax. Because what is it,
like 52 percent or something is paid by non-county residents?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: 30.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think this is really a good issue, Mike.
Your presentation I thought was great, but I think this is a great way
to bring this forward and easily understood for us non-money
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February 2, 1999
understanding people.
MR. McNEES: Plain English.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: It was very plain, Mike, I even understood
it.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: The former English majors and PE teachers
got it, so --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Don would be happy to know I understood it.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I like the one cent sales tax for
long-range financing. It gives us an opportunity to say we'll
eliminate the sales tax, we will cut the ad valorem, and we'll make
that commitment to do it. But before I say that, I want to make sure
that that one cent will do what we need to do. So I need to see the
numbers. But if it will do that, then I think that we have an
attractive package to take to the community.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If that's actually part of the
referendum, I think the community can buy into that. If it's just a
vague, yeah, we'll cut your taxes if you increase this tax, they won't
go for it.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I think it has to be that. It has to be clearly
articulated what the intent is. What are you going to do with this
money, how is it going to meet our needs for the future? And the fact
that if you have to take care of a long list of needs, including the
drainage issues, the transportation issues, the facility issues that
we're going to have to deal with anyway, you're in a scenario, whether
you like it or not, you have no choice of facing the need to go to
referendum on the five cents if you're going to do that.
Our thought is if you're going to referendum anyway, why not go
for a measure that will go much further in meeting your needs, because
the five-cent gasoline tax will not address infrastructure unrelated
to transportation, it won't address drainage, it won't address the
jail.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think a lot of people will be excited to
see the five-cent sales tax on gas out the window. I really do. I
think that that in and of itself might --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: It's not going to drop the pump price, but
at least it says we're not the people that are doing it.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I've got one question on that sales tax.
Is this limited by state legislation to tax them a $50 purchase?
MR. FERNANDEZ: No, maximum of 5,000.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: 5,000?
MR. FERNANDEZ: 5,000. And the estimates that we've done is
based upon that.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So $50 is the most extra it could cost you.
If you bought a new car, it would cost you $50 extra. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That's right.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm not suggesting we want to do this,
because I don't know, but do we have the option of making that limit
something lower than 5,000 if we wanted to?
MR. FERNANDEZ: I don't know the answer to that.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That would be interesting to balance
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February 2, 1999
out. Because if somebody has to go buy a new stove or something, I
don't know I'd worry about that as much as buying a sweater, a shirt,
candy bar, whatever it happens to be. It would be interesting to look
at if there's a different level that makes more sense.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It will be tough --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I know you want as much tax as you can
get, John.
Don't give me that nonverbal criticism.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It's all over, that nonverbal stuff today.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: How can we do that? How can we give you
nonverbal stuff?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Like this.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: When he rolled his eyes.
MR. FERNANDEZ: He got me for twitching my mustache.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm very sensitive.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Oh, yeah, right. Sure.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Where's his double?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: His clone's outside.
MR. OLLIFF: What's the next step?
MR. SCHOENFELD: Let's go through some of the issues of pros and
cons of the one cent sales tax. Are there other options that need to
be discussed as well?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Well, the most important thing, as far as
I'm concerned, is what Jim just said and that is tell us what property
taxes -- what programs are currently paid for by that mill of property
tax that can be eliminated or the funding source can be shifted to the
penny of sales tax. Because I really -- I mean, I love it, a penny
for a nickel is a good deal. But a penny for a nickel plus a mill is
a really good deal.
MR. FERNANDEZ: The answer there is that the operating budget is
not impacted, although there would be up to about a mill, we're
estimating, cut in the ad valorem tax. So if you just assume programs
that are presently provided we'll be able to continue and we'll be
able to reduce the millage. And then also, we'll be able to reduce
that contribution from the general fund to transportation.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That I see. And then at the same time, the
next piece for me, because you guys know I think we ought to be doing
something more about stormwater flooding kinds of issues, then how
much money might be available for --
MR. ILSCHNER: We're looking at four million dollars per year for
10 years, or 40 million dollars for the secondary system.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: So is there that much money in the penny?
MR. McNEES: Yes.
MR. ILSCHNER: In the penny there is, yes.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Costs a lot to drain the swamp.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: But you tell people that you're also --
you're going to -- for a penny you lose a nickel, you get a mill and
you get some flooding problems solved, that's a good sales pitch.
MR. FERNANDEZ: We haven't even talked about the potential for
enhancing our road network plan. These assumptions are based upon it
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February 2, 1999
being held constant and being able to fund it through alternative
ways. You talk about adding to that plan, you've got some more
capacity there.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: And by the way, I'm going to bring up an
agenda item in the next few weeks that's going to talk about some
enhancements, too, so that's a timely subject.
MR. McNEES: What one cent really gives you is the ability to
deal with the level of service --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm sorry, enhancements to what?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Road network. Transportation network.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: As in more asphalt?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Lots more.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: He's going to pave over the Everglades,
right?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Pave the Glades.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Don't gloss over the fact either that our current
scenario leads us to a deficit. This takes care of that deficit as
well, and gives us capacity to do even more. I think it's a great
solution to what we're looking for.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I do, too.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I do, too.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I have tested the idea out on just a
couple of groups on would you trade the one cent sales tax to get rid
of the nickel in gasoline tax and be able to meet the capital needs of
this county in roads and so forth. And it's resonated well with a
variety of homeowners groups that I've talked to that said yeah, that
sounds like a great idea. I didn't get any resistance, just to find
out what would happen if. So I think we're on the right track with
this.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just to be clear, when we say we get
rid of the nickel, it doesn't get rid of the nickel, it means we don't
renew the nickel?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, we don't renew the nickel. Better
choice of words.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I think it gets rid of the nickel.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, the nickel goes away anyway,
unless we renew it in five years.
MR. FERNANDEZ: But our numbers show that we have to renew it --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I know. I just don't want anybody to
think it disappears. If we approve it, it's going to disappear
tomorrow.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Good point. But we can't do any -- I mean,
the other --
MR. OLLIFF: Could you.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: -- the other issue that I'm worried about is
the beautification maintenance, and none of this penny can go for
maintenance of the median beautification.
MR. McNEES: But it would make your gas tax available for that.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And then would the gas tax be enough for the
median beautification in addition to a regular O&M of roads?
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February 2, 1999
MR. McNEES: Sure.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: You mean that would solve our median
beautification and flood improvements, too?
MR. OLLIFF: Yes.
MR. ILSCHNER: Yes.
MR. McNEES: Yes.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay, I'm there. I get flooding
improvements and medians? I'm there.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: That's it. That's all you get.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Is there a down side to this?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I suspect, and maybe Mr. Weigel even knows
the answer to this, but I suspect that since the County Commission
imposed that five-cent tax rather than by referendum, that we have the
ability to eliminate it. I think we could probably give it up.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Toss it out.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Concurrent with the penny coming in.
Wouldn't that be the right way to do it. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Yep.
MR. SCHOENFELD: That gets back to your median beautification.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yeah, but they're acting like there's still
money even if we did it. I mean, you'd have to go to the numbers? MR. McNEES: Yes.
MR. OLLIFF: So what's the next step?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Yeah, I think we need to see the numbers.
But it seems like it's a number -- it's a very interesting thing to be
MR. SCHOENFELD: Next step then is what?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Referendum.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I think the next step is for us to come to you
with a very specific program of how this will work out, exactly what
will be included, how much money is available for each of these
components that we've talked about. A much more specific scenario for
you than the conceptual one you heard today.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: And can you realistically cut a mill out of
a three and a half mill budget.
MR. OLLIFF: Are there any of the other funding options that are
there that you want to see more information on as well, or is that it?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Anybody want to talk about the franchise
fee?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Especially not with this scenario, I
don't want to create a tax if we're doing all this anyway.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: What would be the reason for going with --
in addition to this, going with the franchise fee? I mean, what is
your best professional judgment? Do you think that that is necessary,
or do you think by doing this, this will do it?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, the one thing would be that this
would go into the unincorporated area general fund, and therefore be
available for operations and not capital. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Okay.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Franchise fee gives you -- Page 38
February 2, 1999
COMMISSIONER BERRY: The franchise fee.
MR. FERNANDEZ: -- operations money, and further ad valorem tax
reduction.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: But with the one cent additional sales tax,
you can supplant so much general revenue that you're probably not
going to have a problem, but that's the analysis that we're looking
forward to.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You know, the appeal of the sales tax
is you get rid of a bunch of other taxes and you actually ease the
burden on your average resident.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: On your local guys, and you put 52 percent
of it on tourists.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But the downer on the franchise fee is
you're creating new taxes, period. I mean, there's no offset to that
one.
MR. McNEES: The numbers are, the road and bridge subsidy is
about five million this year, your capital funding from the general
fund is about seven million. So that's 12 to 13 million. And one
mill right now raises about 18 million, I think.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: 21.
MR. McNEES: 217 So at this point, one to one isn't a full mill,
but we have to work those numbers and maybe see what it would be.
MR. OLLIFF: It's about two-thirds now?
MR. McNEES: About two-thirds.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's shrinking already.
MR. WEIGEL: One or two comments on the franchise fee. There's
also a companion privilege fee which has come through the judicial
scrutiny. Both of those are strengthened in the last three years
since the board looked at this last. And the local governments have a
stronger unilateral ability to impose it if they don't even reach
agreement with the franchisees, because a franchisee is a bilateral
arrangement in which the county gives up certain abilities to exercise
their own franchise utility franchise operations within particular
geographic areas of the roadways. Privilege fee is a unilateral
position at the local level. And that has been judicially
strengthened in the last few years also with the Florida Supreme
Court.
Another thing which of course Mike and Mike and Bob have talked
about is the application of the franchise fee, how -- and who it
affects as opposed to the ad valorem taxpayer. Because if it is a
pass-through whereas the utilities pay the fee to the county based on
a methodology usually of length of road or it has geographic
parameters, if it's a pass-through, it goes to the ratepayers, and
typically the ratepayers of the utilities are not necessarily merely
the ad valorem property owners, they are in fact the subscribers to
the services which includes renters which don't receive tax bills, per
se.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I ask a question, Dave? I didn't
see a whole lot of support from the board before this, before we spend
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February 2, 1999
too much time talking about this. I didn't see anybody on the board
looking anxious for that. I didn't know --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: No, I think if we're going to have a
serious discussion about this additional one percent sales tax, then
we ought to hold all other tax discussions in abeyance.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I agree.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I would agree with that.
Okay, what's next? I think we've kind of gone in the direction
that we're certainly interested to look further on the one cent sales
tax and -- as a funding mechanism.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The next step was your question,
Jerry, was I assume then put real live numbers in there. If one mill
isn't the actual number, what is?
MR. SCHOENFELD: When will that be done?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I like this guy.
MR. FERNANDEZ: We can put that on an executive summary, have it
maybe in two meetings, a month from now.
MR. McNEES: I think we're due to come back to you fairly shortly
with funding for the jail and the space plan, and it ties in pretty
well with that discussion, I think. Mike, when is that coming?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That was supposed to be for Tuesday to
incorporate this broader.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: But I sure wish you wouldn't make it too
tied to that, because if it becomes identified as we want to do the
penny for the jail, that ain't the idea. So don't tie them together.
MR. ILSCHNER: We got the Immokalee Road issue that we put off,
too.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Can I make a suggestion here on these major
capital items that you're bringing forward in the next foreseeable
future? Could you perhaps present it to the board as this is what we
are going to have to do, no choice in the future, and we don't have
any way to pay for it.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: As in tell the truth?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's right.
MR. FERNANDEZ: That's a fact.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: You see this as a total package, though, as
opposed to just the jail component with the space plan, you want to
see --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I want the total package.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Right, the total package.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: When we do talk about the jail, I hope
we can talk about why we need 10 million dollars of administrative
expenses.
MR. OLLIFF: But do we still need to have a separate discussion
on the jail and space planning?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Don't we need to, so that we can address
questions like you just did?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: And the board has given direction to the staff
that we improve these master space plans that they have in concept
already, and look at financial alternatives. And that included, you
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February 2, 1999
know, the jail and the administrative space already.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think it's a way of presenting it to the
public and pointing out that these are the things that are necessary
in the nearer term, mid-term future, and there is no way to pay for
them.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't want to lose what Mr.
Smykowski has said and that is I don't think I endorsed 10 million
dollars' worth of administrative space. So I don't know what you're
interpreting there. But I don't recall the board members --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And what I want to be careful of is this
space analysis. You know, how we were tired and we said okay, we will
accept it, but this is not an endorsement of it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We didn't approve it.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: This is not an approval.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay. I think there's a very important question
here about how we proceed from this point. I think it's a very
important issue that we frame this proposal for the sales tax in its
proper context. The fact that the jail is our next thing on the agenda
to talk about, we may run the risk of it becoming identified -- the
sales tax becoming identified with that jail.
So we need to think about how we come forward from this point and
discuss the various needs that you have so that the image that the
public has of what the purpose was for this one-cent tax would be
clear and accurate.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Then can we have the detailed analysis
of this three weeks from today, which would be our second scheduled
meeting?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Is that realistic?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes. The problem is, we were planning to come to
you with the plan for funding the jail at our next agenda.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How much time if we missed one
meeting?
MR. FERNANDEZ: We could pull it. We could pull it. But I
wanted everyone to understand --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Is the sheriff going to freak out over --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: He may, but hopefully he'll understand
the bigger picture of, you know, gee, we want to have this thing.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: So we'll be sure and explain why we're
postponing it, because we have this idea of the sales tax that will be
part of the big picture.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Frankly, after he's been discussing it
for 10 years, waiting one more meeting shouldn't make that big of a
difference.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think we might say to Gina that it's real
important how you're going to portray this. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: No pressure.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: If we talk about building A, he'll probably
be willing to wait on the jail.
MR. SCHOENFELD: February 23rd, detailed plan on the sales tax.
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February 2, 1999
MR. SMYKOWSKI: The global perspective of transportation, total
infrastructure, drainage.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Everything.
MR. FERNANDEZ: And the important part of this is that the
transportation on the funding, specifically for the jail, comes after
or in conjunction with that February 23rd. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: After.
MR. FERNANDEZ: After I think is better. Right?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Because then we will have done what we're
supposed to do which is set policy in a broad kind of way and then go
about implementing it as a subset in the broad policy.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Let the record reflect applause.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That would be a nonverbal --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Not a criticism.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: -- communication of approval. Thank you
very much.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Next week your impact fee person is going to be
in town talking about where he's at with the correctional facilities
impact fee. And you'll have to throw that in the mix as well.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Well, the other question, too, on the whole
road capital is our impact fees are right on roads.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have the distinct feeling we're
deteriorating, in my opinion. I thought we were making progress and
being productive. That's not a criticism, just an observation.
MR. SCHOENFELD: It's an accurate one.
So February 23rd.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I think he needs another banana.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Who will be making that presentation? It's sort
of obvious that --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: It's always Bob.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I can make that.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Make that presentation, in conjunction with the
Mikes?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Team Mike.
MR. McNEES: The one thing we're going to have to be careful
about from a staff standpoint is that we don't start bringing you a
Christmas list, that that's going to be our responsibility that we
don't see a gee, there's a lot of money now, what can we pay for it.
We wanted to, you know, bring you up --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How much can we cut?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Yeah, take a look at that list there.
MR. ILSCHNER: I think we already have that.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Not much room for Santa.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: As long as we emphasize roads, we'll be all
right.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, good. Good discussion, very positive
throughout.
Next item.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Well, the next one on your list is rural
versus urban.
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February 2, 1999
MR. FERNANDEZ: This one was one that came from the staff. We
felt that the board needed to be conscious of the delineation between
rural services and urban services. What typically happens is that
there has developed an expectation that we provide all services
throughout the county, and then water and sewer services in the urban
area, in addition to everything else. When in fact many of those
other services, other than water and sewer, are urban services.
MR. OLLIFF: Solid waste collection, for example.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: What did you say?
MR. OLLIFF: Library.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Library, parks, EMS. What's the level of service
for -- response time for EMS?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Are you suggesting that it should be
-- some of those I agree, but less in the way of solid waste
collection --
MR. FERNANDEZ: No, we're suggesting that the board should define
what it would like us to provide within the urban area and what level
of service it would like for us to provide in the rural area.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: This sort of flows into -- do you guys
remember in Lee County, I forgot what it's called, base level of
service. The county administrator there established a base level of
service that I've been just desperately wishing we knew what do you
get for your general property tax dollar in Collier County.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think we tried to get that with the
Sheriff's Department, did we not?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Oh, God, yeah.
So let's start in our own house and say what do you get? What's
the base level of service?
MR. OLLIFF: But that's almost a little different issue, just
because we were talking about even if we establish what is the base
level of service, the reason we had that discussion is then there are
the MSTU overlay issues, you know, how much additional service do you
want to have. But the distinction between rural and urban is a little
different because you actually start getting into the issue of talking
about size of lots, value of property, and can you continue to afford
to provide that urban level of service out there, knowing that the
revenue doesn't support it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You're saying if you live on
Everglades Boulevard --
MR. OLLIFF: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- you should expect the exact same
level of service if you're in the midst of the urban --
MR. ILSCHNER: An example would be a mowing cycle, for example.
On Airport Road, we want to have that mowed frequently so it looks
nice. But out in the rural area, can you afford to go on all the
roadway systems and provide the same cycle of service?
MR. FERNANDEZ: And it has to -- what we're looking for here is
more of a conscious delineation of that, rather than it having evolved
the way it has. In some cases, it's not been conscious. We've ended
up providing a level of service in an area because that's what we've
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February 2, 1999
ended up with. We need to examine those and be conscious --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Can you show us? Can you tell us here's a
map, or could you develop a map, here's where we provide what services
and where we don't?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes, we could.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: The same thing I think goes for I guess
particularly in my district in terms of ruralness. But let's go back
to the Everglades Boulevard scenario again. What should their
expectations be in terms of EMS service? In other words, do you put
an EMS out there, a station or whatever you want to call it, out in
that area? What should they be expecting? Because what they're going
to tell me is look, we pay taxes in Collier County, we therefore ought
to have the same kind of time that -- MR. FERNANDEZ: Response time.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Response time should be the same as it
should be anywhere else in the county.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: For me it goes back to the core belief
that the government is supposed to provide health, safety and welfare.
If we're dealing with EMS, probably everybody ought to get as close
as you possibly can to a fair share. Whereas, parks or libraries or
some of those, you have to realize --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Exactly, those are the kinds of things we
need to separate out. Let's just look at health, safety and welfare
and separate out what I might term the nice things to have --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: The fluff.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: -- maybe that's the best way to separate
them.
MR. OLLIFF: Well, the whole point is, though, we just need some
sort of policy about that, because right now we've just done it by
reaction only. And we've put libraries in response to demand or we've
put parks in response to demand, and maybe if we consciously go into
this with some established policy, then we won't get ourselves in a
box.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Could we ask our staff to create a
list to differentiate between health, safety and welfare and other
optional services?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I think you've got to factor into
that your growth pattern, because this can shift as your areas develop
in the county, so at least some projection to cover the bases. Plus
as you go in an area, then you're going to get into something
different.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay, generated a lot of good questions and
issues, but now we need to start synthesizing it in terms of what's it
all mean, what do we need to do.
Some of the things that I just heard in discussion is of course
the central issue is we need to define the level of services for rural
and urban areas. Next question is what is the basic level of service
that we're trying to provide as an issue. We're going to -- establish
that as the cycle of service.
Development of a map showing services received by area, something
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February 2, 1999
that was raised. Need to categorize services, health, safety and
welfare, versus parks and libraries. We need to categorize in some
fashion the different bases that we need in order to make some of our
informed decisions.
And then policy needs to be driven by the level of service we
desire for different areas, with consideration of the pattern of
growth. So not only current, but what is the foreseeable growth in
certain areas, as dictated from policies on level of services.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: You're going to find, too, that there's that
high level of growth out in that rural area, which is going to bring
you right back again to, you know, how much -- what are you going to
be able to do.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Right. And that conscious decision for health,
safety and welfare issue if you can have a six-minute response time
county-wide, there's a price tag associated -- COMMISSIONER BERRY: That's right.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: -- with that level of service in the estates area
and maintaining that six-minute response time. So that wanting to be
a conscious decision '-
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Because you get in the road situation again
that doesn't allow you in some cases to have the response time that
you're desiring. So it's going to be a domino effect, and they say
yes, we want this to be X number of minutes, which is going to trigger
a road situation that's going to have to be looked at in order to be
able to accommodate.
So, you know, I think we need to be prepared for that. And I
would hope that staff, that you can put that all together. But I
think that would kind of take some time to do that. But --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And I kind of hoped that this item was going
to have something to do with identifying what is the meaning of the
urban boundary. I mean -- MR. OLLIFF: It does.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It does. Because once you define what it is
you'd like for us to do within the urban boundary, then we define the
urban boundary.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Well, and, you know, what -- I hear in the
public what people would like to see is a meaningful urban boundary,
and that this would be one way of defining what it means is a level of
service. And the other way that people define an urban boundary is
when you cross it, you know you're in a rural area.
MR. OLLIFF: And here the only distinction is density, water and
sewer. That's it.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: There's no meaningful urban line in this
county.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, it's not meaningless, but it's
not as defined as perhaps it should be.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I was going to get back to the whole thing
that you put on the table.
MR. CAUTERO: It does relate to that. That's one of the reasons
why, at least for myself, I was reluctant to go into specific detail
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February 2, 1999
on it today, because it's an issue that you're going to debate many
times about in the future. And if you talk about it for the first
time, it's going to be a discussion on where the consultant's report
has led to. And what you want to see in the rural area versus the
urban area.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: When are we going to have this discussion?
MR. CAUTERO: Early March.
MR. OLLIFF: Half the people that live out there in the rural
area now expect urban service, the other half don't want urban
service, so it's going to be a contentious issue when you start making
those policy decisions. As you know.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I'm aware of that.
Well, and I think, too, and I don't know if this fits in in this
area, but I think along 951, that entire corridor from Immokalee Road
down to U.S. 41, at somewhere along the line, I think addressing the
growth management plans, even for the Estates, that they need to take
another look and redefine what their expectations are, particularly
along that roadway.
This is where -- this is where this commissioner got into
difficulty in regard to the assisted living facility. Because it's
estate zoned property. And I think somewhere we need to have either
some public meetings or whatever and see if they want to take another
look. Because I'll tell you, you do have a mixed group. You have the
vocal people who are saying absolutely not. Then you have those who
call you on the phone who tell you they don't want to get up in a
public meeting and express their viewpoint, but they would like to see
a redefinition.
So somewhere along the line we're going to have to address that
as it continues to grow and we do things with 951 and what have you.
And I don't have a feeling one way or the other.
MR. SCHOENFELD: You raised a lot of good questions. Now, in
terms of these, and I'll take these up so you can look at them right
now, you need to decide a lot of good questions. Now we're going to
start answering these questions.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Part of the answer has to come from the
presentation we're going to get in March. So that seems to me is a
benchmark in being able to deal with some of these other issues. If I
know what's coming there, decisions that are made, then it's going to
affect how we define the issues on the county, at least in my mind.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And if we discuss the density issue, if
that's how we define what our urban boundary is, then we're going to
~- then we'll need to define what services are provided in urban and
what's provided in rural.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think it becomes a clearer picture
if we end up going one to 20 or one to 40 than what it does when you
ask for gee, I would like to have that visually occur, to me. And I
think that's the differential. You will be able to see that. But if
you have a one-quarter acre lot, two-acre lots, you still need to have
a pretty good response time for emergency services. If you have one
home every 20 acres or every 40 acres, it's not realistic to expect a
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February 2, 1999
six-minute response time. But that picture, I think you're absolutely
right, will be clearer after the first week of March.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: If you're looking for a time line for us to
take action, that to me is March so we can begin to address those
issues.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Very good point. But consider for a moment some
of these other issues. Is there some other issues that can go
simultaneously as we await the report in March?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: We need to do what are rural and what are
urban services. You know, what from our staff's professional
opinions, what would you tell us what's rural and what's urban.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I imagine they're asking us to tell them.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: They know.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's what I asked before is also to
differentiate health, safety and welfare, and then optional things.
And we may choose to have those.
MR. CAUTERO: In our discussions at the staff level, we talked
about this a great deal, and we came up with the conclusion -- I think
I speak for everybody -- that people that live in the remote areas
expect the same type of things the urban area have, like the EMS,
libraries, parks. Maybe they don't. But it seems that the controversy
comes in when you're going to provide your commercial type services,
like a Winn Dixie to come on my street corner, or are you going to put
some big residential out there. They expect an annual fixed amount
out there.
MR. FERNANDEZ: In that regard, they're really telling us that
they want both, the best of both worlds. They want to live a rural
lifestyle with the full complement of urban services, but without the
implications, neighborhoods stores that come with that rural
designation.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I guess that bears on which -- can you tell
when you've driven across the line? What does it look like? The other
way is one house per 40 acres.
MR. CAUTERO: If you haven't defined urban area within urban
growth boundary, you will not see anything. And our discussion will
probably focus, it has in the past, on what type of development you're
going to see in the development area. Your policy decisions are
geared toward what type of development and what intensity.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That is such a perfect example of one of the
results that I think might be different is if the board had previously
been doing this quarterly review, or here's what your regulations
currently allow to be built outside of the urban boundary. Do you
like that, is that the boundary. When we got TwinEagles, it was,
Jesus, approve this fund, and it's going to be agreed it's going to be
a nightmare.
So what I discovered through that process was that our
regulations were what could be built outside the urban boundary don't
match my expectations. So if I had known, then I could have
proactively been saying oh, God, give us something else differently
out there.
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February 2, 1999
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think we are five weeks from now
saying exactly that.
MR. SCHOENFELD: We don't want to focus with what's already in
process. But with regard to, for example, development of a map of
showing services received or categorizing services, those actions
begin now. Can we begin on the map, for example?
MR. OLLIFF: Yeah, but the map is only a support document for the
discussion that the board wants to have in terms of defining policy,
so it seems to me that what we're doing is talking cart and horse.
Vince in March talks like we have the horse talking, and then five
days from that, we have to come back to you within the urban rural
program and make some recommendations to you, give you some options
and let you head us off in our direction.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Vince, whether we're going to be doing this,
is there going to be some discussion in the case of Immokalee Road?
You've got an extremely busy roadway there, which is a little bit
different than, say, when you go out Golden Gate Boulevard. I mean,
it's busy, don't -- I'm not saying that it's not busy, but you've got
a different type of roadway, for the most part.
In the case of Immokalee Road, you're linking the coast to some
inland area and eventually ends up in Immokalee and keep ongoing and
so forth. Is there a different designation or something for a major
roadway such as that?
MR. CAUTERO: I would say the short answer to the question is
yes. We can work on some development standards that will form an
overlay for that. And we've talked about that in the past.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: And the same thing goes for 41 East. I
mean, it's the same kind of thing.
MR. ILSCHNER: It links urban centers.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Exactly right. And it seems to me it ought
to be treated -- this really doesn't pertain to this -- that it ought
to be treated a little bit differently than when you get off that
major roadway and then you start looking at --
MR. CAUTERO: From a development standpoint, you mean, what's
allowed off that roadway as opposed to improving that road itself?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Yes.
MR. CAUTERO: The answer is yes. Good question.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: In other words, you drive off that driveway
and you turn into whatever off that roadway, as opposed to going down
Golden Gate Boulevard, which is off of 951. And it's pretty much
determined anyway. I mean, there are a few vacant lots here and
there. But you're not going to see the same development off Golden
Gate Boulevard as you're going to see off Immokalee Road in terms of
where it's going and what you're doing.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: If one is more point to point, Immokalee
Road, the purpose is getting from A to B.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Yeah, and development along that roadway is
going to be totally different than Golden Gate Boulevard or White or
some of the others as you go down. It's just a different scenario.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The Boulevard already has existing
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February 2, 1999
homes already adjacent. So it's not going to have somebody -- not
very many people fronting a home on Immokalee Road.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: It's going to be more of the, quote,
development or PUD kinds of things that's going to come in there,
which makes sense, along that roadway. It wouldn't make sense
necessarily along Golden Gate Boulevard, but I just -- MR. CAUTERO: No, I would say absolutely.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay. Do we stand pat until March, or do we
start preparing things for 30 days after the presentation?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If we could prepare the list that I
mentioned.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I think we can begin that. I think we can begin
the health, safety and welfare services differentiating from the
others.
MR. SCHOENFELD: So we need to categorize services; health,
safety, issue.
MR. FERNANDEZ: We can begin that.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: When will we get that?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: After Vince's presentation, when we get
ready to formulate policy.
MR. SCHOENFELD: That will be completed 30 days after the March
report?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Yeah.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Who will be responsible for that?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Me.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Bob. Bob's responsible for everything.
MR. SCHOENFELD: We can smile and laugh about that. Who's really
going to do the work that will be through Bob?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Bob's our only employee.
MR. OLLIFF: Give it to Bob, he'll eat it.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I've got some friends to help me do that.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Do we need to define that? Is what I'm asking.
MR. FERNANDEZ: No.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's his job.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I have a mechanism that allows me to do that.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: It's called delegation.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It's called delegation.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Parks, library --
MR. SCHOENFELD: Not to be off base, but I heard Barbara and a
few others mention what do our citizens want and desire in terms of
services, and some people were giving an anecdotal, and some people
mentioned public forums. Is there anything --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: People may have already heard some of them
this, but there's stuff in the works with Greater Naples Civic
Association. I know they're calling on county commissioners. What
they're talking about doing is trying to implement the quality
communities info. that came out of the focus, or try to come up with
an implementation plan. Because really, we've had this huge program
already, where we define ~- the communities define what it wants to
look like, and we got all that data out of focus. Now, if somebody
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February 2, 1999
would find the train to drive it, and Greater Civic is talking about
one idea to do that.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Pam, my only concern about that, I think
they did a great job and obviously just have all kinds of information.
But my concern is that there's life east of 951. And I'm not sure
that they were that much involved. They may have gone to some of the
meetings when they were out at the Golden Gate Community Center. Some
of the people may have attended that.
But for the most part, the people who are out of 951 are not big
meeting attenders for that kind of thing. But I certainly would like
to see some kind of something held whereby they can come and express
the services that they're looking for.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Or if we -- even a survey. You know, I don't
know if that's possible to do. I know it's not inexpensive to do. I
think who was it? I know Pat Humphreys, did she work with you, Vince,
in talking about a survey?
MR. CAUTERO: She did, she talked to --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I see Wayne shaking his head, because I
think he was still there at the time.
MR. CAUTERO: With the comprehensive planning staff. And I
forget if we did a cost associated with that. But there would have
been a cost associated with that.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: If there could be some kind of survey
generated so the residents feel like they have the opportunity to
communicate or have a meeting, I don't care, I'm open to either one,
but I would like to see it.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: One's more scientific.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Well, Chuck Moehlke's survey is just getting
ready to kick off again. He's asked me for authorization to send off
a document. There are 14 questions on there about cable service, one
question about EMS. One. And zero questions about some of the
others. So that thing has kind of been structured every year based
upon the way it was structured the year before, and not much change
has been made to it.
And I guess part of the value that -~ he reports to you every
year is the trend, how the same questions were answered from one year
to the next, and there is some value to that. What I'm thinking of,
if the board's willing that we do this, is we give them a whole new
set of questions, a whole new set of issues to address in his
questionnaire, because it is a statistically valid sample.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I'd like to see it done, and I'd like to see
it done perhaps in the evening hours, and with someone who can speak
something other than English to be able to.
MR. OLLIFF: They do.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Do they?
MR. OLLIFF: Yes, and Creole.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I'd like to see something specific about
that area, rather than something thrown into that entire area.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One thing that they removed that I
liked was they were asked name your county commissioner. And a couple
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February 2, 1999
of commissioners in the early to mid 90's asked them to remove that,
because they got embarrassingly low numbers. And I think it's a good
reality check for all of us.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: It's a test. Name your commissioner.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: In my district, they'll probably say it's
Tim.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think the point is every day we are
inundated with calls and letters. Sometimes we assume we're hearing
from everyone, and there are a large percentage of people who don't
know who we are or how to get ahold of us. I think the highest number
of any of the years was --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: It was like in the thirties.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It ranged from three percent for one
commissioner to about 40 percent. But there was no people that the
majority polled knew. And I think it's a very important thing for us
to know.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yeah, because I think I'm hearing from
people, and I may not be. I think that's a great ideal.
MR. FERNANDEZ: This is always a tough question. Who are the
people, and how do we access them? That's a very good point. I
always, when I get the opportunity, remind County Commissioners that
the numbers that they represent, how they don't fit into the
commission room. We tend to react to the people coming up.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think your point is Multi (phonetic)
does a statistic valid survey, and we can do surveys. Richard
Woodruff in the city does a number of surveys, but they are not
scientific. So you get a pole from whoever you happen to talk to, but
it's not necessarily a true representation. And if you're going to go
through the exercises, you need to make sure that it's done in such a
manner that you truly need --
MR. OLLIFF: On the rural urban issue, what are we really trying
to find out?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: What's their expectation?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: That's from my standpoint.
MR. OLLIFF: Are you also trying to find out willingness to pay?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Every year, 75 percent say they want
public transportation.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: 90 percent say they won't pay for it.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: That's a good point. Because then when they
do call a commissioner, you can say look, here's a survey that was
done, and here's the information for your area.
MR. OLLIFF: That's the point I was trying to make, you know, if
you call me and say do I want --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Do you want ice cream, oh, by the way, the
flavor is tuna fish.
MR. FERNANDEZ: That's right.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I hear a couple of things here. The survey
is one. And, you know, the one that we're working on is redesigning
questions. And part of it -- I think Barbara brought up the other
point. We have some touchdown groups to work with. East Naples
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February 2, 1999
Civic, second district association. We had some opportunities in
forums. As long as we have a consistent process to go through those
forums so we don't mix apples and oranges.
So I'd like to do a combination of things. The surveying. But
there's also another format to bring to those groups to give us an
input. So we can do an overlay.
MR. SCHOENFELD: You have the quantitative and the qualitative.
And it's a nice mixture.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I felt that that was my duty to my district
is to find out. And I'll probably find out -- well, hopefully 12
percent or something. But at least to know. I know who I have to
talk to. I know president council, but I want to have that, because
it's such a broad base. There are groups that I know it's my
responsibility to go to to make sure I'm communicating and they talk
to me. And if each person does that in their own district, don't we
accomplish that control?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We had that debate last night, should
each one of us only know our own district. But in 1994, we did a
little town hall meeting in each district so that all five
commissioners were there at the same time, and if we were in
Immokalee, there were all five of us there as a team. And frankly, we
worked -- the board worked very, very well that year because we kind
of traveled around as a team, and every couple of months we were in a
different part of the county. And while you may hear in the city, you
may not hear in Marco Island. So it was a very, very effective
mechanism we did that year, I think. And John -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yeah, uh-huh.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Wonder why we stopped doing that.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I like that idea. It would give us two
impacts. We have a standard format. I agree with Pam, when we go to
our various groups, it would be in a standard kind of process we go
through if each one of these groups would help. I like your idea that
we circle around as a team and do that.
MR. FERNANDEZ: What was your agenda, special meeting or --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No, most of them were at night,
because you have -- you go to Immokalee, because they're working
people. You take Golden Gate, you have working people. And we had
very good turnouts.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Where did they hold those?
MR. OLLIFF: Community centers, library. It was usually
district. You get there and there were issues that we put on the
agenda.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: We would all hear, instead of, say, Tim
hearing the Golden Gate issues.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It was a lot of fresh faces other than
folks we normally see every Tuesday.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Did you know the Marriott let us use their
room for that?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yes. We wouldn't have to go to the
city. We could hold it at the airport. Municipal airport.
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February 2, 1999
COMMISSIONER BERRY: One of the T-hangars.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Couple of questions for your information
gathering, which is helpful for the qualitative in terms of the
survey.
Moehlke, how do you spell that?
MR. FERNANDEZ: M-O-L-K-E.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: No. M-O-E-H-L-K-E.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Just put Chuck.
MR. SCHOENFELD: When is that survey undertaken?
MR. CAUTERO: Spring, isn't it?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: March and April.
MR. FERNANDEZ: He's ready to move right now.
MR. SCHOENFELD: And hold off on the implementation so it would
be administered prior to the provision of the questionnaire.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think if we told him we had wanted
questions in regards to those questionnaires, let him formulate the
questions and let him get back and see if that's what we're looking
for, I'd really like to see him poll some of this.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Do we need to identify a list of issues that
we want to tell him? I mean, is that something we should do right
now, or think about?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd like to do that over more than a
10-minute period of time.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Me, too.
MR. SCHOENFELD: And you all see that before it starts, you know,
being distributed.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: One thing that's been broken in that
process, is I wish we could solve the questions.
MR. FERNANDEZ: How about this, why don't we take a week, you
send me areas of questions. We'll send that on to Chuck and see if he
can turn that around quickly, at least in terms of a questionnaire.
MR. SCHOENFELD: February 9th, February 10th?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You want to talk about it next week?
MR. FERNANDEZ: That's exactly what I was thinking.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's a week from today. Next week's
board meeting.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That might be more productive.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Come to the meeting and then throw out your
questions.
MR. OLLIFF: Or we could have a workshop.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: We could have a questionnaire workshop.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I think we could make that an agenda item.
MR. SCHOENFELD: And again, as Pam mentioned, you're not writing
the questions, but you want to get the topics to be covered all out
there, and then let the consultant generate the questions.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Tim, when you did this going by district,
this caravan, did you do this once a month, or how did you do this?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Every other month or so. Just spread
them out throughout the year. And some parts of town are better
suited to different times of year. Doesn't matter in Golden Gate or
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February 2, 1999
Immokalee, winter, summer.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: So basically you're going to have about five
meetings. Just one in each district. You have to do two in mine,
because I have the largest geographical area.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, but it's a rural area, so you
can't expect us to have --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: If the level of service in the rural --
MR. SCHOENFELD: Now, regarding --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Nonverbal rejection. That's it.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Tim, you mentioned it was done one a month, like
five a year. But if you want to do it with a theme of infrastructure
services, then you might want to do a more --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I don't want to do a theme. I want to go
what are your issues you want to talk to us about.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: What concerns do you have today.
MR. SCHOENFELD: It's related but separate from our agenda topic
that we're covering right now.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Correct.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Do you want, since it's been brought forward and
there seems a lot of agreement about a good idea, do you want to set
the wheels in motion in terms of formalizing that?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes, Bob.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It's killing me.
MR. SCHOENFELD: I'm trying to save you, Bob. Instead of keep
saying Bob.
MR. FERNANDEZ: All right, let's -- okay, let's set a schedule
for when we'll start doing this. Since we don't have an agenda or
anything to prepare, I would think we could start as soon as we can
schedule the first one. You want to take them in order of district,
one, two, three, four, five, or do you want to mix it up?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I'm sure you can get enough notice out. For
example, in order to do it for one, you need to make sure East Naples
knows it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How about we all talk individually
with you and we have that on maybe the 23rd agenda, a proposed agenda
for workshops for 1999. Town hall meetings.
MR. OLLIFF: Looking at the annual list of issues that are coming
up, there's usually better times to meet at certain districts.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That could factor into the calendar you gave
us, Bob, in terms of the critical dates.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I could just put it right on there.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Ten months through the end of December. He could
do every other month.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thanks. That's amazing.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think it's -- I think we ought to try and
frankly get them done before we do the budget. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: What a great idea.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: It makes sense. That's how -- how else are
we going to know?
MR. OLLIFF: You mean before September?
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February 2, 1999
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Yeah. With the exclusion of July.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We have to adopt a millage in July.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I'm working on that calendar.
April. Frankly, August is going to be kind of tough, too.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I'm counting on you.
MR. FERNANDEZ: That's for next meeting. Bring a whistle.
MR. SCHOENFELD: In terms of the schedule, we had proposed
alternating months, we had proposed before the budget. So in terms of
that time line --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can we work on --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I'll tell you, guys, let's be realistic.
When you hit the summertime around here -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Don't bother.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Exactly right. And the same thing would be
true even in my area as well. I think if you -- any time after April
15th, you're going to start losing people. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: May 1st.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's not only budget driven. I
disagree that it has to be done by then, because there are a lot of
ongoing issues. There -- like Tom said, there are certain things that
crop up. We know in September something is a big issue in Immokalee,
or something is a big issue in Golden Gate. Those are the appropriate
times for us to be here for the public.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: We want this to be a continuing thing that
we do more than this year. We might get started on a reasonable
schedule.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: That's good. I'm agreeable.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay, so I'll --
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Despite what people say.
MR. FERNANDEZ: -- with an agreeable meeting on the 23rd.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: If they have something like --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, if you can come up with that
with whatever input, then you're going to come up with. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: No summer.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I'll tell you what, come out to Immokalee
first. And I'll tell you why. Right now you have the high migrant
population out there right now. Because they will be leaving end of
April. You will get some people participating. You know, you may not
get a whole room full, but you will get some participation.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have no objection to that, but we
can't set the whole schedule right now.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: She's got dibs on first.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: God bless her.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: We can all go eat, Gina, at the casino.
MR. SCHOENFELD: One other thing, with regard to our topic of
rural urban services, development of a map. Can that wait until after
March?
MR. OLLIFF: After March.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Excuse me, but I believe the lunch break is
on the table at this point.
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February 2, 1999
MR. SCHOENFELD: It's a good breaking point, because we've
concluded this topic.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have some particular information. I
may be late coming back, and I have some particular information on
incorporation, and if I'm not back, can you skip that?
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Wait for TJC.
MR. SCHOENFELD: With that, hold on before we dismiss. With that
thought in mind, John, do you have any final comments or suggestions,
ideas or contributions?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: This has been an exciting and pleasurable
meeting. I'm not happy to be here today.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: John, I've got my feet off the floor today.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: John, I'd like to tell you how much we'll
miss you in the afternoon.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Record that. Pam said that she's going to
miss John.
CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: As long as we're shoveling.
(A recess was taken.)
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay. Before we get started, I thought we
should all thank Phil for all his hard work.
(Applause.)
MR. SCHOENFELD: All right. We've covered two of our critical
success factors for the day and we've had real positive and forward
moving discussions on each of those. And we will continue that trend
throughout the afternoon hopefully.
Now, Commissioner Constantine asked that we --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Time --
MR. SCHOENFELD: -- time --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: -- while he's not here --
MR. SCHOENFELD: -- so we'd better say it now --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: -- and let us tell you that.
MR. SCHOENFELD: -- asked that we hold discussion on the
incorporation issues until his return, so the next -- moving through
these items, the next topic is social services.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It's probably because he wanted to talk about
social services --
(Laughter.)
MR. SCHOENFELD: Now, the way to begin each of these discussions,
and we would begin with the others, is framing each of the topical
areas in terms of what is a key strategic issue or what is the main
issue or question revolving around each of these topics.
So, does someone have a key question that centralizes or it can
be a theme for the discussion on social services? CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: I have one.
My -- the question for me is at what level are we meeting the
need in Collier County? Not necessarily what is government's job, but
at what level -- define the unmet need for things like working poor
and then we --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Besides commissioners for the working poor?
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February 2, 1999
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Yes. Amen.
But after we, you know --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: It's all those gifts we get.
(Laughter.)
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Thank you, God, for all that.
After we define, you know, what are the unmet needs, then we can
talk about whether it's private or public sector jobs to do it, but it
seems to me a basic Health, Safety and Welfare function of government
at least to me to define and identify the needs.
MR. OLLIFF: That's a great launching point and then sort of like
my cat, I think I had asked Dr. Konigsberg, who is the Public Health
Director, to be here to be able to maybe provide you some -- some
overview type information that are just his perspective as the health
director of the health of the community, and he may be able to answer
that specific set of questions with the information that he's got, so
maybe --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Is that everybody's question? I mean,
because -- because everybody knows this is an issue that I would get
all excited about, but I don't want it to be a one-person show because
I think it --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, you've got a two-person show, Pam,
because I -- I'm asking the same question, and I think it's praying
the way we need to hear it.
And Dr. Konigsberg and I had a conversation very early when I
came into the commission, is that I hate the piecemeal stuff that
comes at us. We need to get the bigger picture of what we've done,
what we need to do, what's done and what's not met, so let me roll it
out.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay. The floor is yours.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Okay. I think Commissioner Mac'Kie asked the
fundamental question. I wrote it down. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Cool.
DR. KONIGSBERG: What Tom and I talked about was -- was just
that, framing the issue, and it was actually a very interesting
exercise for me, having been here a couple of years, to go through and
see what it all made -- what it all meant to me.
I actually found there was more information out there that gave
me some clues, at least surrogates are indicators of what the need is
than I originally thought, not an updated, but more than I thought, so
I'm not going to talk about mental health or substance abuse or
long-term care, although I should have done that ad nauseam in
Delaware, but just stick strictly to access coverage in primary care
and, again, not offer a solution but try to be of assistance to you in
a staff way to -- to help us all think through it.
Let me start with the obvious, the changing forces in health
care. And you all know this, but at least it was helpful for me to
remind myself the cost of health care nationally is over a billion
dollars. I think that's the last figure I've heard. I think it's
more than that now. Once it hit that figure, I -- it sort of lost me.
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February 2, 1999
Another driver is a cost driver, is managed care, which I noticed
in the literature is beginning to fall out of favor, something about
the managed care companies are now losing money. That was -- it's
been a very interesting thing to watch.
It hasn't impacted Collier County as much as some other areas.
Depending on who you may talk to, it may or may not in the future. We
have a different kind of employment picture here.
Competition. The conventional wisdom when I got into health care
was that competition did not work in health care like it did in the
other sector. We used to say that it would -- it would drive cost up
because you duplicated cat scans, you duplicated hospital beds. It
made sense, I guess.
I don't think that's true anymore. I think that it is now having
an effect more like competition has on the rest of the marketplace.
Now, local competition, I guess, was somewhat unknown in this
community, is certainly a fact of life now. I'm certainly not here to
get into the details of the NCH-Cleveland Clinic issue, but is that a
sign of things to come? Yeah, I think so. It has been everywhere
else.
So, one thing for sure locally. It ain't like it used to be and
it ain't ever going to be like it used to be again. It's just not
going to be the same.
Now, having said all that, we still have 43 million Americans who
are without health insurance, but that's -- that's the whole country.
What about us?
Again, a little bit like a -- take on Commissioner Mac'Kie's
framing question that was, do we have a problem? That's another way
to look at it. I'm not sure everyone necessarily in this community
agrees that there is a problem with health care access or health care
coverage and it depends on who you're asking and what -- what the
perspective is. Is it really broken? And I think that's always a
good question to ask.
As a public health official, I always like to know, is our
population healthy or not? We've got the best health statistics in
the state. If you look -- and I'm going to come back to that in a
minute. We look pretty healthy here, particularly compared to, say,
Delaware, where I came from, where we had some really atrocious
looking statistics, including infant mortality that looked -- it
looked like some of the southern states. Is that misleading? It may
be.
So, let's look at some information, and this is -- I didn't use
power point, I didn't prepare handouts, but I can provide that.
That's something I can do.
It was helpful to me just to see what are the other dimensions
we've got. And it may seem that the data are at odds in terms -- with
each other in terms of what overall conclusions we might draw.
Collier County is clearly unique in terms of this -- this
demographics. We all know that, and it does lead to some puzzlement.
A few things; Collier per capita income is 38.7 percent above the
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February 2, 1999
state level. I knew it was high, but I had no idea it was that high.
We all know that not all of our citizens share in that wealth,
however.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Yes. Some of us in this room.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Yeah. Yeah. You drive around. I'm not living
in one of the $10 million homes either.
Health care costs in 1996 were about even with state averages. I
didn't know that. That is an interesting point.
A big question, and it gets back to Commissioner Mac'Kie's
original question is, the number of uninsured in Collier County. 43
million Americans is one thing, but doesn't really mean that much to
me or to most of us, I think. We really want to know what's here.
Let me give you some clues, and I don't think we have enough
information. In 1996, about nine percent of Collier hospital
discharges, so that would mean Naples Community Hospital, were without
third-party coverage, which is a fancy term for insurance.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: What was the percentage?
DR. KONIGSBERG: 9.1 percent.
Now, let me try to put that in perspective. Yes, that's
considerably below the national, which is 16.1 percent, but let me
bring it back again. If you put it in raw numbers, real people --
it's a better term than raw numbers -- in Collier, 9.1 percent is
about 20,000 real people. That's a pretty fair number.
My staff thinks this is kind of conservative because it's based
only on inpatient data and wonders how -- I quizzed Mark Crowley, how
sure he was of this, but he thinks the number is closer to 35,000.
But if you take the conservative documented number, it's 20,000 actual
people.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: You got that number -- do you mind if I ask
you a question?
DR. KONIGSBERG: Go right ahead.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: You got that number based on the percentage
of the people who were checking out of the hospital in NCH without
insurance.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Without insurance. Exactly.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: That's -- so, that is really a conservative
number compared to people who didn't get sick or who didn't get sick
enough to go to the hospital.
DR. KONIGSBERG: You got it. That's exactly, I think, Mark's
point, as well.
MR. McNEES: Or they didn't go to the hospital because they
didn't have insurance.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Right.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Dang right.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Right. That's exactly where -- that's exactly
the point.
Now, here's another figure that bothers me except there's some
good news on the horizon. In that same year, which is 1996, 14
percent of Collier residents, children, adolescents under age 19, were
without third-party coverage.
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February 2, 1999
Now, the reason I say there's some good news is because that's
before healthy kids had a chance to really kick in and before this new
kid care kicked in.
So, I'm going to be real surprised if we -- in fact, maybe not so
much '98, but '99 data, if we don't see the percentage of uncovered
kids down. There are those that may think that will go to zero. I do
not happen to share that optimism. There's still people falling
through the cracks but there's some good stuff going on.
The other thing we found -- we got better data on the kids than
we did the adults. It's higher in Immokalee and in Golden Gate than
it is in other places. That's no surprise. I mean, we would expect
that.
Another figure and -- is the Medicaid. I found some interesting
things there. In 1998, we got about 13,000 enrolled in Medicaid in
Collier. That's a pretty fair number of people, too, by the way.
Now, that would be over and above that 20,000, because Medicaid
is third-party coverage. That's about 6.3 percent of our population.
Now, what I found interesting was that's about the same as
Southwest Florida as a whole, which is the old District 8, Health
Planning District, from Sarasota on down. It's higher than Sarasota,
which didn't really surprise me, higher than Charlotte, and it's
higher than Hendry County, which did surprise me. Again, that's a
pretty fair number of Medicaid.
Now, let's look at some other indicators. You, as a commission
and as a county government, are already paying for care for several
thousand folks through county social services. Martha Skinner has
been talking to me before, but it seemed like only now to start
hitting home. It started to make sense what -- what's really going
on.
You're paying for lab and x-rays for about 1200 people. And I
just took some figures she gave me. You're paying for nearly 2,000
for physician fees and about 5,000 for drugs and medical supplies.
In dollar terms, according to Martha, this -- by this past
September, year to date, you'd spent about a half million on physician
fees, about 160,000 on outpatient fees, and I guess the inpatients
capped at 200,000. I believe that's right. MR. OLLIFF: Right.
DR. KONIGSBERG: If it wasn't capped, it would be two million --
MR. OLLIFF: Right.
DR. KONIGSBERG: -- or four million, 20 million, who knows?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So, what does that mean?
DR. KONIGSBERG: What it means is that -- that you, as a county
government, County Commission, county government, are already paying
for a lot of care, and -- but not necessarily in a -- in a completely
planned out way. That's not a criticism. It's just an observation.
I was surprised how much money it was. Like I say, Martha has been
telling me.
Yeah.
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February 2, 1999
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Well, I was just -- I had asked for -- I
got this little inventory, you know, and I'll copy it to everybody,
but I'm just trying to fit it in here. Basically, it says of what we
-- do we provide any social services, any medical care that's not
mandated?
MR. OLLIFF: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: What do we do that's not mandated?
MR. OLLIFF: About three-quarters of a million dollars a year we
provide in safety-net type payments.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And that's what he was just talking about
MR. OLLIFF: Exactly.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: -- drugs. And that's about $750,000 a
year.
MR. OLLIFF: And that's people who show up at our doorstep. And
we do not advertise. It's just simply by word of mouth. People who
are 100 percent poverty level, county residents, have no third-party
coverage, Martha is able to step in and usually with her relationships
with doctors, we figure she's getting -- she's paying a portion of
these people's medical bills. The doctors, in turn, are writing off
the balance.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And these people don't medicate?
MR. OLLIFF: There is no other coverage, because our job is first
to say no. Our job is to try and find them other coverage, whether it
be VA, Medicaid, Medicare, insurance, whatever it may be.
DR. KONIGSBERG: And Martha certainly is not advertising this
service --
MR. OLLIFF: No.
DR. KONIGSBERG: -- because ~- and I can understand that.
Another indicator, and this one you've probably heard before,
Naples Community Hospital, according to the Health Planning Council
documents in 1995, they had charity writeoffs of 12 -- about $12
million and bad debts at about 11 million.
Now, I don't want to get into a debate about the difference
between bad debt and charity, because with hospital administrators,
I've heard that one before.
But I'll tell you what, and I'm not here to carry anybody's
water, but if you look at the Health Planning Council document, you
won't find another hospital from Sarasota on down that's got 23 of the
single hospital system that's got $23 million worth of what appears to
be uncompensated care.
Now, that's -- you have to under -- we have to understand that in
Lee County there's multiple hospitals that may be sharing it, so I'm
just being totally objective when I throw this figure out.
To phrase Moehlke, we've heard about Chuck Moehlke earlier, he
also did a study for NCH in that same year, 1995, that confirms
essentially the same figures.
In addition, in looking over that, the majority of these people
he actually looked at, who were they serving? The majority were
white, middle-aged and came from east and south Naples, also
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February 2, 1999
Immokalee-Corkscrew area, and the Golden Gate areas.
They also mentioned the fact that the service industries as
employers are likely not to provide health insurance coverage, which
is again something I think we know. It was -- also, focus was
mentioned earlier, one of the studies that they did, it was not
scientific, but it came to the same conclusion as Fraser Moehlke, is
that many small employers and service industries do not provide health
care. And also, by the way, they don't provide sick leave, which is
another interesting thing that I hadn't thought about, which was a
good one.
Now, another one, a very narrowly constructed study, but I think
is an indicator, in the last year, 1998, the Health Department and the
Collier County Medical Society took a look at a physician
uncompensated here. This was a scientifically worked out survey not
of all physicians, but a representative sample.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: This was last year?
DR. KONIGSBERG: Yes, ma'am. It was 1998.
It was completed, I'd say, February, March of last year. It's
actually been nearly a year. They found -- we found -- I was part of
that -- that about five percent of physicians' care was charity, which
isn't really an astronomical number.
And there's some other things in there that I -- that's hard to
draw conclusions from. You can get the huge numbers of a
neurosurgeon, say, like John Little or somebody takes care of a
catastrophic head injury and he doesn't get compensated, you may see a
$300,000 bill.
But most of this was coming from emergency room calls, which to
me --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Come from what kind of calls?
DR. KONIGSBERG: Emergency room, the emergency department, which
is an indicator that we've got a primary care system that's not
working right.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Is there a dollar number that goes with
that five percent?
DR. KONIGSBERG: Yes. I'll have to dig that out. But there was
-- but there was some figure -- the problem with the dollar figure is
that it just -- that it's just all over the place from, you know,
small office visits to this catastrophic kinds of surgical stuff, but
the dollar figure can be there.
Now, the medical society had its own reasons why they thought
this was a good idea to do. We had our own reasons, but we worked
together on it.
The public health indicators that I mentioned earlier, Ken seemed
to be at odds with this bad news on the access. And let me just
mention some things. I didn't see the purpose of my visit here today
to do a lot of public health stuff, but let me just mention a couple
things.
As a public health doc, the death rate data here might suggest
that Naples and Collier was among our other charms here, is that I've
entered a public health heaven of sorts. We've got the lowest overall
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February 2, 1999
death rate in the state. This is age adjusted by the way, because we
do have a lot of elderly, and the lowest for -- specifically for
cancers and strokes.
So all my arguments -- yeah. All my arguments that I used to use
to give this same kind of talk in Delaware get a little weaker.
Again, these are age-adjusted.
So, is that all there is, just death rates? Well, I don't think
so. There are other things to look at. The problem we have with
health statistics is we've measured death beautifully. Civilization
has been doing that since London started it in the sixteen hundreds.
We've got great death data.
But most of what goes on isn't death. It's what makes us sick.
And that's where sometimes we don't have very good data. We've got
infectious disease data, we've got cancer. Our teen pregnancy rates
are higher than the state. That's a problem. Our nonwhite infant
mortality is higher than the state. Sexually transmitted diseases,
depending on which disease you look at, are right up there with the
state.
And we're not even really measuring our domestic violence issue,
which I believe is a public health problem. I haven't been able to --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: I was being the amen over here.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Pardon?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: I said I was just being the amen corner. I
was glad to hear you say that.
DR. KONIGSBERG: One of the things I tried to do was to take an
asset and liability statement, kind of like a -- what I try to do once
a year with my personal finances to see which way I'm going.
And assets, we have considerable assets. Naples Community
Hospital is a considerable asset. I think everybody knows that.
Hopefully Cleveland Clinic will be a value added.
Medicaid, with all its troubles, is an asset in our society in my
opinion. We have a community, a migrant health center, Marion E.
Fether, out in Immokalee, which does a great job in that community.
We have the Healthy Kids program. We were one of the first counties
to get in on that. Lee County came later by the way.
We have this new Kid Care program, which the state is trying to
fold into a complete system of care for the kids. Susan Craig on my
staff is the one who gives the lectures on a system for care for kids.
We have children's medical services. We have senior friendship
centers. We have healthy stock. We've got excellent facilities for
AIDS, HIV, both in the Health Department here and at Marion E. Fether
out in Immokalee funded in part by Ryan White (phonetic) funds. We're
pretty fortunate in that. We have people like Alison Nist, that I
think all of you know, providing excellent care. These are assets.
We have an excellent cadre of private physicians, a young cadre,
and we've got the county payments. You're putting a lot of money in,
$750,000 of discretionary money.
Now, what about the downside; liabilities? There is plenty of --
there are plenty of indicators that there's lack of access to care in
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February 2, 1999
the Naples area and East Naples for adults.
I think most of you -- some of you may have gotten telephone
calls about this. We do regularly.
I put down no teaching hospitals and I looked at that. There are
those in my profession who would suggest that not having a medical
school or teaching hospitals may be an asset rather than a liability.
It depends on how you want to look at it, but there are things that
go with residency programs that we don't share.
There are some links with Miami Children's and whatnot. It's not
complete wasteland here, but this is typical of a community of this
size that doesn't have a medical school. There's nothing unusual
about this. We can't get medically under a certain area or health
professional shortage area designations in Naples, East Naples.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Why?
DR. KONIGSBERG: Because, and Richard Aiken (phonetic) and I
talked about this. The problem is you've got to have a certain
distance from where the providers are, so Immokalee, no sweat. You've
got to have the poverty indicators, but you also have to be 30 minutes
or more from proriders.
Now, I think we all know the barriers can't be measured just that
way, but I looked -- I talked to Richard about it when I first came
here because I'm pretty familiar with those designations.
We talked -- I looked at the federal rules. I had trouble
getting from the state any idea where the office of primary care was
that I was used to in Delaware. So, I picked up the phone and called
back to Delaware to the person I'm acquainted with in that position,
got the rules, and we're not likely to get designated.
The trouble with that is then -- then we can't get some of the
federal goodies like federally qualified health centers or special
payments to go with that that Richard can get when he's in Immokalee.
That would be great if we could do it.
I think we have a lack of community understanding and ownership.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: A lack of what? Understanding and --
DR. KONIGSBERG: A lack of community understanding of -- that
health care accesses the problem, and that it's -- that they ought to
own it. Now, I'm making an opinion of that.
A little bright news. I'm rather pleased, to say the least, that
the group of people sitting around on the board of directors with Bill
and Nancy Lascheid's new adult -- or new clinic, a free clinic, that
got set up. Actually, it's not free. It will have sliding fees.
I see people there who have never dealt with this issue, who are
really pitching in. That's great.
There's a lack -- there's no clear identified source of funding
for indigent care. Now, that's a policy issue. I'm just simply
making a statement. There is the county discretionary payments, but
beyond that, there really isn't anything beyond the Medicaid issue.
I talk too much about the need for community health plans, at
least in the past I used to, but I'll continue to say if we really
don't have a plan for health here either, how healthy do we want to be
or what do we want to do with this. I think that's one of the policy
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February 2, 1999
issues.
So, I would kind of sum up by saying what -- what is our vision,
what are our goals with health? Do we want health care communities,
either in the classic health sense or in the broader sense? Do we
want access to health care for everyone? And that is a policy issue
because, as we all know, there's no legal right, that's what the
lawyers tell me, to health care in the United States, unlike nearly
every other industrialized nation.
We're not going to solve that problem in Collier County for the
nation. We can't do that.
What do we want to achieve? I probably shouldn't say this, but
you pick up the newspaper and what you see is plastic surgeons
advertising everywhere. Okay. It tells you something.
Yeah. I could probably do something about my chin or the hair
would be the first thing.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: We wanted to mention that to you, doctor.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: But we didn't because we didn't want to
start the discussion among the rest of us.
DR. KONIGSBERG: I'm not against plastic surgeons but they're not
doing much to help this issue here.
So, what other information do we need? I mean, I think this is
an uncomplete picture. It is to me. What could we do? Well,
creating new assets is a policy issue. Who would do that? Where does
it come from? Could we make better use of what we've got, which I
believe we could, which require some kind of mechanism as well as a
will to actually do that.
That's basically what I had to say. I don't know what our
facilitator put up there.
MR. SCHOENFELD: I'm trying to put up some of the statistics that
you were saying out loud.
DR. KONIGSBERG: I can certainly provide those and some other
statistics in a handout form at some point.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: But what I heard is that there's somewhere
between 20 to 35,000 uninsured, but probably employed, because if
they're unemployed, they'd come under Medicaid.
(Commissioner Constantine entered the room.)
DR. KONIGSBERG: I suspect most of them are employed but we're
not going to know that for sure, but I would agree with you that's
probably the case.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And so many of them live in Commissioner
Constantine's district that I'm sure he's extremely concerned about
this, the uninsured working poor.
20 to 35,000 uninsured employed people in Collier County.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: You know, one thing I'd like to know, Pam,
is if you could ever get a handle, and I don't know how you would do
it, but get a handle on the income of those people. Is this a private
decision that they are making? Are they choosing something over being
able to provide insurance in their life-style or are they just flat
out not able to obtain insurance?
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February 2, 1999
Well, that's something that I've always been curious about. Is
it a personal choice that we'd rather spend the money on another car
or something that's not in the best interest of their family or is it
just not available to them?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And that's a really good question.
MR. SCHOENFELD: It is a good question.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: And if they're making a choice, then --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: They're making a choice.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: -- shame on them.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: You know, then I don't think government
needs to step in and, you know, pick them up and be their conscience
other than say I think you're making a huge mistake, but obviously
it's your personal decision that you're making.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So, then the question would be, of those 20
to 35,000 employed but uninsured Collier Countians, how many of them
wish there were some program they could participate in, whether it be
a partial buy-in, a sliding scale payment or whatever? How many of
them would just rather spend their money on cigarettes and booze?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm -- I'm not sure I believe that
there isn't something that they could buy into now. I think the
assumption is that -- I'm sorry, maybe I missed some of that, but
surely there are ways. Also maybe -- I apologize for missing the
first part of this, but when you say 25 and 30,000 -- is that the
number you said?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: 20 to 35.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: 20 to 35,000. Is that families or is
that individuals who are working?
DR. KONIGSBERG: I think that's individuals, commissioner. Where
this came from, the low figure was based on a percent a couple years
ago of discharges from the Naples Community Hospital; in other words,
people that have been in the house, who had no third-party coverage.
I think most of us seem to agree and certainly some of my staff
and I do that the figure is probably higher because we've got people
who were not necessarily in the hospital.
I guess the point -- I think Commissioner Berry has got a good
point, and this is part of the reason I'm saying we need more
information. There are probably a number of reasons that people
aren't insured. In some cases, they are unemployed and are uninsured.
In some cases, they may be employed but the employer offers no
insurance.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: But if they're unemployed, aren't they
Medicaid?
DR. KONIGSBERG: Not necessarily.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Okay.
DR. KONIGSBERG: If they're moms and kids, they probably are.
We've got a problem with adults. This keeps coming -- the other thing
is if you've got -- and if you've got a -- if you've got a family with
a very limited income, and they can barely make ends meet to get the
roof over their heads and some food on the table, they may not be able
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February 2, 1999
to afford health care.
And what's neat about this Healthy Kids is that somebody figured
out a way, but it got taxpayer money behind it, to allow to make it
very affordable for families to buy health insurance for their kids
and has several advantages, one of which is, it mainstreams these
kids. It's a private sector solution even though it has public money
in it.
The only thing you have to be sure of is, is that private sector
actually responds. I think they do pretty well in this community.
And Delaware is a lot of tougher because they're real short of
pediatricians. That's the only thing you have to be -- have to be
careful about, because there really isn't anything like that for
adults except in the AIDS area there's some insurance programs.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So, you can be employed and wishing you had
something you could buy into, make your -- get your employer to
provide some insurance program you can totally be without.
DR. KONIGSBERG: If any of you tried to pay a -- had to pay a --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: I know.
DR. KONIGSBERG: -- monthly fee or a premium for health insurance
like when you --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: As an employer, I did. It's not a pretty
picture.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Not a pretty picture.
DR. KONIGSBERG: I changed -- I didn't have -- I didn't have to
do that when I came here, but when I left Kansas and went to Delaware,
I had to COBRAmy insurance for several months because there was a
long waiting period.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I did that.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Six years ago, I paid $550 a month for family
coverage. That gets my attention, never mind some of these other
folks. It's great coverage, but, boy, was it expensive. I didn't
dare do without.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, does the -- you made a statement, a
better use than what we have. Is there a way to look at what we're
doing implying ways of doing it better that begins to address this
issue?
DR. KONIGSBERG: I think that's part of it, yeah. We don't have
-- I'm not saying -- I'm not going to say there aren't any
opportunities. There's always opportunities. I'm not -- you don't
see the providers who are in this business really sitting down and
having some kind of an ongoing dialogue, a discussion, about what they
could do.
We had the privatization that occurred two years ago and three
years ago that I think all of you are familiar with. It was
precipitous. There was a number of issues of the fallout from that
that we might want to talk about sometime and that I think need a
looking at.
I think we could do a better job of trying to make better use,
not so much Immokalee, but in Naples. It just doesn't seem to have
been a priority.
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February 2, 1999
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And since Tim missed this -- this piece,
did you tell us what percentage or were we able to know what
percentage that these uninsured workers are Golden Gate and East
Naples? I mean, it was a lot.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Hold on a second.
We can dig deeper on this data by the way. I mean, this --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Oh, I know.
DR. KONIGSBERG: It's --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: It's multistudies.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Yeah. We can ~- we can go -- okay. On the
multi-- let me see what I've got for you.
Okay. The children -- I do know on the children-adolescence,
which again is two-year-old data that may be better now because we've
got the insurance program for kids, but it still gives us an idea
about what the families are dealing with.
So, from that -- and these are pretty good data that Susan Craig
on my staff extracted. Children-adolescence under 19, no third-party
coverage, 30 percent in Immokalee, 18 percent in Golden Gate and over
14 percent in East Collier.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And it would be reasonable to think that
it's likely that the adults are also uninsured.
DR. KONIGSBERG: I think it's very reasonable, too.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Or even if these kids are now covered under
Healthy Kids, the parents --
DR. KONIGSBERG: May not be.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: -- may still not be working.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Dr. Konigsberg, are we to assume that all
these people -- if you're talking about the 30 percent in Immokalee,
are we to assume that they're all citizens?
DR. KONIGSBERG: I'm not sure I can answer that. I wouldn't
necessarily -- I don't have the information to know. I don't -- some
of them may not be citizens. I would guess most of them are, but
that's a good question.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: At least documented, whether they're
legally documented or not.
DR. KONIGSBERG: A lot of stuff is anecdotal. We got a call
yesterday about a woman that was turned away that was a non -- a
noncitizen situation, and I won't go into the detail on that. So, we
get this anecdotal stuff, but we don't have good figures on it, but
that's a good question.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, and as cruel as it sounds,
that's an important factor because we shouldn't expect public citizens
to be paying for people that are not even residents of the country.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Really. Even if they're not citizens, if
they're legally in the country. I mean, I think that's the most --
you said citizens, but I assume you mean -- COMMISSIONER BERRY: Legal.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: -- legal or illegal. But at least it ought
to be a prioritization question, that we ought to take care of those
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February 2, 1999
who are legally here before.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, maybe or maybe not. I mean, I
guess I disagree. I appreciate where you're trying to go and point
out that a big chunk of this problem is my district but I don't know
that that's government -- county government's role to try to take care
of the insurance or health care and needs of people.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And we started this discussion with that,
that what we needed to do as a county, the health, safety, welfare
responsibility of ours would be to quantify the problem and then to
decide what portion of it, if any, is the government's role, but at
least to be able to just disseminate information so that the private
sector knows where the gaps are if we're not in --
MR. OLLIFF: I think that may be the only issue. It's not -- I
don't think that Dr. Konigsberg is trying to say that this is a
government problem or this is a government issue. I think what we're
trying to say is because all of the providers here are private
not-for-profits for the most part, they -- they do what they do.
But there's no overseeing way to determine how is the system
working, and we just keep getting these little tips of the iceberg
that there are populations that are falling through the cracks and
whose responsibility should it be to look at it from a system-wide
perspective and maybe organize though the private and not-for-profits
and say, okay, look, there are some gaps in your system, can we at
least collectively get together and see that there must be ways that
we can't fix that.
And I don't know whose role that is, but that's the reason
it was brought up.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Yeah. I think that's a very good point, Tom.
That really kind of summarizes, I think, a lot of the points that I
was trying to make.
And the other thing, and I'm familiar with the debate about them
nationally even what we do about -- about the illegal alien situation.
There is a public health aspect of this that I can't escape. If
we've got, quote, illegals who have tuberculosis and we don't deal
with it, we have a threat to all of our health. Yet even -- even
pregnant moms, they will deliver somewhere because the hospital can't
turn them away and it will cost somebody something.
Again, that's another debate, but the folks just don't go away
here. They're there.
But I think Tom's point sums it up. And I think the policy issue
for you is, is that a role that you see for government? I mean, I'm
-- I made a very conscious effort not to come in here and give you
what I think is a solution or bring a tin cup, which I know has been
the case before. I'm aware of that.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: If -- if -- I don't guess this is something
you're going to have an answer for today, but if these numbers are
good and we have 20 to 35,000 uninsured in Collier County, and that's
the liability side of our ledger, and the asset side of our ledger as
the county contribution to solving the problem is $750,000, there's
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February 2, 1999
actually -- there's a whole lot -- what am I trying to say?
That's the whole balance sheet for this situation. There's
nowhere -- except for, I guess, some private -- some new private
program because this underinsured number is based on -- is taking into
account all the current programs that are already there, all the
private programs that are already there.
So, what we're spending this $750,000 to solve the problem or to
address the problem of $35,000 -- 35,000 uninsured, if you had to put
a dollar value on 35,000 uninsured, what would the dollar value be?
DR. KONIGSBERG: I don't know. I think it could be quantified, I
would think. I'm not quite sure how one would do that.
MR. FERNANDEZ: A question came in my mind on what she was
saying, and maybe it's the same thing you're asking or maybe it's
something different. In order to try and quantify the 20 to 35,000
that we're talking about and the financial impact that that is, are
those exclusive or above the ones covered by this $750,000
discretionary payments that we make, or is those -- in other words,
are those all being absorbed by the hospital and paid by the sick tax,
those who go to the hospital unpaid?
DR. KONIGSBERG: There's probably an overlap. Again, you know,
you'd have to do -- do more studies, but I would assume, without being
able to sit here and say for sure that the 750,000 that you're paying
is for people who don't have -- they either don't have traditional
health insurance or it's grossly inadequate which is almost the same.
They presumably don't have Medicaid which is a different issue.
Am I right, Tom?
MR. OLLIFF: Right.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Okay. It would then overlap with the 20 to
35,000 uninsured, but it's -- the amount of money is a drop in the
bucket.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Well, yeah. That's my question, is, what
percentage of that need is addressed by the $750,000 we're spending?
I'm assuming it's addressing some percentage of it, but what, one
percent --
MR. FERNANDEZ: A small percent.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: -- two percent, 20 percent?
DR. KONIGSBERG: I mean for the hospital's perspective, $200,000
versus 23 million is almost unmeasurable, the drugs and the medical
supplies. And that's a tough thing. Even some insurance doesn't
cover it.
MR. OLLIFF: And is that the best place for the county to spend
their money?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: That's a good question.
MR. OLLIFF: That's the other question, because what we're doing
is we're fixing the end of the problem. We're certainly not being
proactive. We're just simply fixing people who are in a bind. Now --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Because most of the 750 that we do spend is
basically on x-rays and drugs for people who can't pay for it any
other way.
DR. KONIGSBERG: I'll tell you what my -- what my bias is when it
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February 2, 1999
comes to spend the health care buck, and Tom and I've had this
conversation before, and I'm not talking about just pure public health
population measures, I'm thinking more as a health care person at this
point, is the biggest bang for the buck for our society is in what's
called primary care and preventative care.
And may I just use one of these -- it won't upset you too much if
I flip this? Is there a --
MR. SCHOENFELD: Yeah, just keep going.
DR. KONIGSBERG: If I may, let me show you something that I
didn't include but probably should have. I think Tom has seen this,
but I'm not sure.
I didn't make this up. This came from Dr. McGinnis (phonetic)
who used to be assistant secretary for prevention under Health and
Human Services, a great guy except Governor Carver of Delaware didn't
like him when he came to give a talk. And I think -- because he
didn't individualize his talk to Delaware, which was a political
problem, I admit.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: We're going to change that.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Yeah.
Anyway, this is acute care in hospitals, and this is prevention;
you know, pap smears, immunizations, blood pressure checks, et cetera.
And this is -- I've forgotten the details, but basically in here is
primary care; doctor's offices and places you go if you're not going
to the hospital and you're sick.
We spend in this country 95 percent of our health care buck right
here. And that's not just plastic surgeons.
Now, we spend less than one percent on prevention and we spend
about three to four percent on primary care.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: What about this county? Can you tell us?
DR. KONIGSBERG: Only by inference. There's no reason for me to
believe it would be any different.
Now, when I -- when I spend more time talking about this, I try
to explain to people we don't want to do without the acute care. I
mean, I've got a grandchild who's had a very interesting piece of
surgery resulting from her spina bifida that should give us a
productive citizen down the line. The Lord only knows what it cost.
The Navy paid for it, okay.
So, I'm not against this, but I know, and there's plenty of
documentation, that if we don't put the money in here in prevention --
and one of the real weaknesses in Collier County in my opinion,
especially outside of Immokalee, not so much in Immokalee, is in this
primary care and prevention, because we may be treating way too many
strokes that we haven't tried to screen blood pressure, take care of
the diabetes before it gets into complications, get the pap smears
before we get the cervical cancer.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Help me with this though, doctor. I
mean, the theory of that and those of us that choose to go for annual
physicals and so on can relate to that easily. But how do you reach
that population and get them to go have those checkups and get ~- get
them to go do those things?
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February 2, 1999
DR. KONIGSBERG: It's tougher with the populations who
traditionally have not had access. That's a good question.
I think most of us -- we may not, including me, may not always do
what we should do, but we do know. Every one of us does.
But this population, the way they use the health care system
tends to be, wake up, I'm very sick, I go to the emergency room.
They've never -- it's an educational process. And one of the
things that -- and I'll just draw a quick analogy from -- from --
Medicaid managed care came in on -- like the wind in March, overnight,
turnkey in Delaware. Small state. You can do some interesting
things.
Overnight, all Medicaid patients were in a managed care system in
Delaware. What they anticipated and -- but maybe not as far as they
should, was that the extent to which not only would you have to
educate the families, the patients, how to use the system in a
preventative way, they had to be educated to even sign up for the
system.
And I'm getting another dose of this because one of the biggest
learning hurdles I've got now is serving on the Region 24 Wages board.
And, boy, is that a change of pace.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Well, and just look at how hard it was to
get, you know, rolling on Healthy Kids. What a great deal -- DR. KONIGSBERG: It's a good example.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: -- and it was hard to get. But -- but the
communication through -- you know, get it on the report card now.
Every time you get a report card, does your kid have health insurance?
If not, call 800 --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I guess it's just a little easier to
structure with kids though is why. You ask a parent, you know, do you
want to do something for your kid, they're going to say, yeah, but,
too, through the schools or through wherever, you can schedule time.
But if I'm getting up in the morning, going to work drywalling, I
can't say to my general contractor that midway through today, geez,
I've got to go in for my annual physical today, I'll see you later.
And, so, there are a lot of hurdles to jump here beyond just
saying, boy, 95 percent is going. I think -- you know, that same
drywaller falls and gets hurt that day, then he goes. That's where
our big chunk of that 95 percent comes from.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Which gets back to the thing that a focused
study on insurance found, which is in addition to a lot of the small
employers not providing health insurance, also didn't get sick leave.
You don't work, you don't get paid. You don't get paid, no food.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: You can come to work sick, you share it
with your neighbors.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Yeah. You've got that, too. It's something to
think about. It will certainly help me clarify some of my -- okay.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Thank you, doctor.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Thank you.
MR. SCHOENFELD: All right. All the issues, all the cognizant
questions have been raised, and there's a lot of good questions. So,
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February 2, 1999
we're at the question phase. That's where we're at.
So, the action now is what do you want to do about it? What
action needs to be taken by all of you with regard to answering or
addressing some of these very important issues and questions?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Do we have an inventory of how we
participate in funds available, matching funds program? Is that part
of what you have?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: That's kind of what I asked for is, you
know, what do we spend money on for these services and --
MR. OLLIFF: I can see that, but we have -- we have that if you'd
like to have that. Yeah.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Okay. That's kind of an educational
process.
Let me ask it in another way. Are we taking advantage of all the
programs that are available to us that makes some sense to match up,
provide services?
MR. OLLIFF: From a county government perspective I can tell you
pretty much. We -- we applied for and have grant programs for a lot
of the programs that other counties won't even mess with because
they're so difficult, but I think we do a good job of taking advantage
of what grant funds are out there.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: But isn't there some big grant that the
whole -- they're trying to get all the counties to participate in?
MR. OLLIFF: There is. There's a community service block grant
that might be available for some of this, that the money has just
recently gotten to the point where it may be worth Collier
considering. It's up in the 40 to $50,000 range with some promises
that it may grow much higher than that.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: There may be another $50,000 to go after,
but we might spend more than that going after it.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Well, I want to be real leery of some of
these grant programs. They're fine. They get you started. They get
you out there three years or two years or whatever it might be, and
then they say, that's it, and now county or whatever the entity, it's
up to you to make up the funding from here on.
At this point in time people who have accessed this program think
that that's entitlement and you don't do away with it.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, you're right about --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: And you've got to come up with a funding
source.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: What's the cost? What's the benefit? Is
it just a hook and then you have to sustain it over time?
MR. FERNANDEZ: I can address that. The -~ I think the nature of
these funds is typically to jump-start you into an activity that you
will ultimately be involved in anyway and to give you a head start
with that.
If you enter into a grant program with the notion that the
program will only live as long as the funding is there, first of all,
you're fooling yourself and, secondly, I think you're making a big
mistake.
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February 2, 1999
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. I think you have to decide is
this what we want to do long-term, realizing it will be our expense
long-term?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Is there any interest in having some kind
of a committee to identify, to try to quantify, get more information,
flush out the bums that Dr. Konigsberg has given us? The reason we're
asking is, we have had the comfort, we've had the safety net of NCH is
out there and they turned nobody away, so whatever, if it was 23
million uncompensated care or it was 50 million, we didn't have to
worry about it because they would take them at the ER. And it was the
sick tax that paid for it and that was the way this county ran it.
But now with competition, with Cleveland here, with Cleveland's
charter or whatever their certificate of need, whatever they got, says
that they have to provide their share of uncompensated care, is it
county government's role to at least identify what uncompensated care
is so that we can know if the two hospitals are doing what they're
supposed to do?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I would say the information can't
hurt, but do I think it's our role, no, because it's a state process
and you have a certificate of need on how you enforce those and so on.
It's all state level.
If we're going to do something with that information, it
certainly can't hurt us to have it, but I don't see it as our role to
try and be the policemen on that. I would think if we want to do
that, doc has a couple of different oars that are oriented or created
already. Rather than create yet another one, we ought to suggest you
do that. This might be a topic of interest, ask for a help working
unit.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Well, is it true that the CON process -- is
there a CON police? I mean, do they enforce -- what happens now that
they've told Cleveland you must share with NCH on this uncompensated
care?
DR. KONIGSBERG: Well, a lot of what I know about CON is what I
experienced elsewhere, but probably fairly similar. I wouldn't look
for Agency for Health Care Administration, AHCA, and the CON follow up
to be the -- the monitor, if you will, of this kind of vehicle.
Now, they might look at it. There are certain -- those of you
who looked at the agreements between -- the agreement between NCH and
Cleveland Clinic. I believe Columbia was part of that, too, by the
way.
Fascinating document, even more fascinating probably would be
what the story is behind it, which I've never seen, heard or read. I
-- my experience with CON is that that's probably not going to be the
answer.
And Tom -- Tom's heard this one. I think somebody ought to be
watching in here because we're the only ones that really care.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We have no authority to enforce it.
MR. OLLIFF: Yeah.
DR. KONIGSBERG: That's also true.
MR. OLLIFF: None.
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February 2, 1999
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Isn't it a health, safety, welfare, a care
-- pull out all the stops here. Even Jeb Bush, in his inauguration
speech when he talked about what are the four functions of government,
one of them was to be the safety net, you know, for those who can't
help themselves.
I'm curious, and I genuinely do not know the answer to this
question. At what level is -- is that a county, a local government
function? I mean, how much is their job, how much is the fed's job,
how much is our job? I don't know how to quantify that? But it seems
like if we don't quantify it, we're just continuing to pretend that
there's not a problem.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, it seems -- I don't think we're
pretending that there's not a problem, but if we don't have no
authority to do anything, if we see NCH isn't keeping up with their
agreement through the CON process or Cleveland, then we ought to just
share that with them and they have to enforce that. We don't have any
authority, so if --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: They don't enforce it either.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, yeah, they do. I can cite
things around this table where they have, where hospitals are not
meeting their obligation and that has brought state attention, and
there are ways to handle that.
But to just maintain information without any ability to do
anything about it, it takes me back to three or four years ago when we
were collecting all kinds of environmental data and putting it on a
shelf and doing nothing with it. It was warm, fuzzy and feel good,
let's even use that information, but if we're not going to use it for
anything, then why are we out there collecting it?
And, so, we don't have the authority here, the ability to do
something specific with that, then I don't want to spend a whole lot
of time and effort.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Let me tell you one thing that concerns me.
It's only partly fueled by Cleveland Clinic coming in.
All hospitals these days related to the title reimbursement
schemes, managed care, whatnot, are facing financial squeezes.
I have this somewhat free floating, but sometimes more specific
fear, Tom's heard this, that we might wake up a couple years from now
and we have less money going to indigent care, fewer resources.
That's not what a lot of people think. They figure this is a
value added, Cleveland Clinic. I'm kind of worried about it because
there could be things that might be pulled back, and I -- I want to
emphasize again if we lose in the primary care area, we're going to
lose big time, because people get hospitalized and taken care of.
They're going to come to the emergency room no matter what, anywhere
in the county.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Let me try to put it in real concrete terms.
Doctor, is ~- is there -- what are the chances of this scenario
playing itself out? Cleveland Clinic opens up, doesn't offer the
level of indigent care that Naples hospital thinks they should be,
Naples hospital thinks they're shouldering the burden of indigent
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February 2, 1999
care, and then it comes to the Board of County Commissioners and says,
because of this imbalance, you've got to help us out with the $12
million debt.
DR. KONIGSBERG: It could happen.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Is that potentially what we're looking at?
DR. KONIGSBERG: I think there's the potential for a continued
conflict behind the scenes with the people that signed agreements. I
don't know that I want to say anymore.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: There's no different than pre
Cleveland Clinic ever even considering coming here. Naples Community
Hospital has come off and on for years, trying to get county
government to create a tax to help, help them out and --
MR. FERNANDEZ: That's why I brought the Cleveland Clinic into
the picture. Do they then have an equity issue to give more strength
to that argument if they can argue Cleveland is not meeting the same
obligation?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, again, that obligation level is
set by the state and not by us. And either Cleveland is meeting their
obligation as required by the state or they're not. And if they're
not, we can't correct that. That ought to be corrected on the state
level. And us taxing the public isn't going to correct it either. MR. FERNANDEZ: No.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So, NCH can come and ask us and
probably will because they have in the past, but it's not a, you know,
viable option. If they're trying to blame now, gee, there's another
hospital, they're not doing as much, there's a process to go through
to correct that. And taxing the public at the county level isn't that
prosperous.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: But even if NCH continues to do exactly
what they've always done, and even -- and even if Cleveland shares
equally, we have clear info that there is -- there are uninsured and
underinsured working people in this community, my question is, does
the county have any role in that matter?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't think so.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Let me interject into the discussion at this
point because we've been talking about indigent health care for about
an hour now and we've raised a lot of issues, a lot of questions,
we've got a lot of good information, but in terms of bringing that --
funneling that discussion into are there any types of options or steps
or projects in terms of information gathering that the county wants to
undertake, we haven't moved any closer to -~ in that direction.
So, while the information that's being exchanged is real helpful
and interesting and eye opening, in terms of leading to some type of
strategic planning, we're not making much progress and we have -- even
under the category of social services, we have a number of different
other agenda items.
So, at this point it might be a good time to decide whether you
want to continue the discussion, move it towards some type of action
or table it and move on into the agenda.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I'm going to put it on the table because I
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February 2, 1999
don't know where to go with it. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I agree.
MR. SCHOENFELD: No. I don't want to just -- I hate to say we
table it and just move on right from there. I mean, table it to when
to do what?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I heard table it and move on. It
sounded like a great suggestion.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: In other words, shall we just put our heads
in the sand and move on? I mean, table it is a nice parliamentary way
of saying put your head in the sand.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: What are we -- what's your -- Pam, what's
your interest? What do you want to do?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: At -- at the least, I wish that -- that we
would quantify the unmet need, quantify the unmet need and then either
divvy it out. I mean, it seems to me that if we're not going to spend
money on solving the problem, we ought to at least that -- if county
government has any role in health, in this level of health, safety and
welfare of this unmet need, if we have any role at all, even it's not
spending a dollar towards, you know, buying a pill, surely we have the
obligation to quantify the problem so that the private sector, who I
assume we think then it is their job to take it over, knows what
they've going to do.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't know, because then do you
carry that over to other issues? Do you carry that over to housing
and to other things, too? Shouldn't we have to determine all that and
the private sector can solve the problem or should the private sector
solve, you know, figure that out on their own?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: But -- but health, safety and welfare. I
mean, housing --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If we can quantify it like
Commissioner Berry said, you know, how many people are choosing that?
And I think we've got to be very careful with the loosie goosie
numbers of 20 to 35,000. And at one point I heard you say,
Commissioner Mac'Kie, well, if we're dealing with 35,000 households
here, which I don't think is the case, because we've got less than
100,000 households in the county, and -- CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: No.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- I would be surprised if one, out of
you, agree, or more than that, they are in this situation. And so
we're not dealing with 35,000 households. I doubt we're dealing with
35,000 people, but we don't know.
And it doesn't sound like we have any concrete numbers locally,
and then before we can ever go to the next step of finding out whether
those are life-style choices or whether that's, you know, an
honest-to-goodness problem, it seems to me if you are on the very low
end of the scale fiscally, financially, there are certainly federal
programs to assist you with your health care needs.
And, so, where then do we -- where is the difference? Where is
the break between those who choose, who have the money, who are higher
than what the federal programs allow you to make but choose not to
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February 2, 1999
spend it on that?
And, so, I wonder if, you know -- and I'm making these numbers up
completely at random. If 20,000 people is the number in the county
and 10,000 of those are people who are below whatever the income level
is and qualify for some federal programs, then that's being addressed.
And then how many of the remaining 10,000 are making that life-style
choice and are spending their money on something else?
And, so, does it boil down -- is it really 35,000 people or does
it boil down to 1,000 people that -- that were --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: But that's a real important question and
I'm glad you said it because -- and then I promise I'll stop on this,
but the 35,000 or the 20,000 people is those who don't, you know,
qualify for any federal assistance. We've already whittled them out.
We're down to -- these are the ones in that gap that are above
Medicaid and below being able to afford it or, you know, having it
provided with their job. So, you can't narrow the 20 or 35,000 more
because there are federal programs.
But I'll say this, and that is, one thing I've learned in the
last four years is how to count to one, and I can -- this has been an
issue that only I, you know, had much to say about over the last four
years and even I'm not willing to work on a committee and get all this
information just to do nothing with it. And I can spend my time on --
MR. SCHOENFELD: Bob wants to speak and I have one final thought,
as well.
Go ahead, Bob.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Just to try and to pull this into an actionable
item that you can decide with proceeding with it or not, I think we
heard Dr. K. talk about his feeling that there are ways that we could
better spend the 750,000 that we are spending. Is there any interest
in us formulating a new proposal to -- to --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We shouldn't just --
MR. FERNANDEZ: -- to reformulate that in the budget process, to
come back to that process and maybe have the 750 take a different
shape than it has in the past?
The other thing he said is at the very beginning, he had some
indicators, and asked the -- the question, do we have a problem? And
I guess the way I would look at that is our contribution of 750,000 is
part of the balance that results in these indicators that we're
looking at.
If that situation is okay, then we're okay where we are with the
750,000, and maybe spend maybe more efficiently by reformulating the
balance on how to spend the money.
If it's not okay, then ask ourselves what's the solution, is that
to devote more resources for this area, move more to the primary care
area than --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But do we need to give special
direction to that or isn't that Dr. K.'s job anyway as part of the
budget process? I mean, if Tom decides in Parks that we should do
something very different, that he brings that back as part of the
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February 2, 1999
budgetary process and says, well, I know last year we allocated X
percent to this, it's not working or we think it should go elsewhere.
MR. OLLIFF: No. And I agree.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It should be the same process now.
MR. OLLIFF: I agree. I guess the only outside issue that we
were trying to bring into this mix was because again there was several
private not-for-profit organizations providing the health care
coverage for the community and there is no one providing any overall
system, look at that.
Should the county be involved in, and even if you wanted to limit
it within the existing resources currently being provided, you know,
saying let's not go outside the box that we have but from a system
perspective, is there a way to provide a better coverage for that
population than is being provided today? And that may mean rather
than spending $23 million at NCH in the emergency room on unmet care,
funneling some of that off to the volunteer clinic and sending
patients from the emergency room to the clinic instead, because it's a
smarter way to spend our money and just having a committee that might
look at those type issues --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do we not have a committee that deals
with health issues right now? What are those committees that we --
MR. OLLIFF: We actually eliminated that committee because that
one was created with the specific focus of looking at the time that
our contribution to the public health product wasn't being spent
wisely. And I think they did their job. We came to some conclusions
and then we just abandoned it.
DR. KONIGSBERG: This is a much broader issue, if I may, than
just the finding of the health department. A couple observations.
Again, I think Tom has really encapsulated the issue very well.
The Health Planning Council of Southwest Florida has a regional
focus, and what I've -- and I'm not -- I'm just simply making
statements. I'm not, you know, taking -- taking sides on any issue
here, but I thought it was remarkable that it was inadequate, and it
is inadequate, Commissioner Constantine.
I think that before you got here, I commented on that at the
front end. As inadequate as our data is, the vast majority of what I
did have came from anywhere except the Health Planning Council,
because they tend to do it on a regional basis, which is what they're
set up to do.
And I think what -- what I'm hearing from Mr. Fernandez and Tom
Olliff is the sense that maybe one of the things the county can do is
to try to -- to focus in more on the data gathering, defining the
problem, providing some -- some -- some structure to this.
And the budget process is only part of that. I see the health
department's role. This is a little -- unless I've missed something,
I think that what I did here today is a different role than you may
have had from the health department from the past.
And I -- one of things that pleased me about my -- my own staff
when I began to ask for some help on this, as well as an assessment
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February 2, 1999
we're doing on determining child health or the health stark is that
one of the good legacies that Dr. Polkowski left is that epidemiology
by Mark Crowley and some of his staff.
We can do more with what we've got, I think, if we feel like it's
going to be used and -- and contribute to some kind of -- to a process
so that we are not only giving you better information on the health of
the community, which we're also working on, the whole public health
issues, but also the health of the health system, which is what we've
been struggling with as you see how inadequate the data is. You're
frustrated, we're frustrated. And it's -- it's hard to make -- for
you to make public policy decisions without having something to go
with.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: You're talking about a regional. What
about if we have a Collier County health services council? What if we
do what you're asking us to do, put that together, come back to us
with recommendations, whether it's in the budgetary process or a
bigger picture. I can handle that.
My frustration of this conversation is I don't know how to get at
what you want us to do. And I want to do -- I want to spend well what
we're already spending. If we can do it better, let's do it better.
If we need to add to it to provide some other level of service as it's
being dropped out here, then I need to know that.
But if this council would do that, then I will actively support
and participate in that process if that's what you're going to go to.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Well, that's exactly where I think we ought
to go.
MR. SCHOENFELD: All right. Summarize that then. Take it a step
at a time.
MR. OLLIFF: I'll take a stab at it. I mean, we can bring back
to you the structure for a committee and the limitations of that
committee that I think we can satisfy the majority of the commission
to create a committee that would do exactly what you're looking for.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Ad hoc committee? Definite lifespan,
as opposed to a perpetual --
MR. OLLIFF: Ad hoc, and I think the success of that committee is
going to depend on the participation and knowledge of the Naples
Community Hospital, the Cleveland Clinics of this world because that's
what this committee is. It's a committee of the players. And if
they're not willing to participate, then we really don't have a
committee.
And, so, we can bring back to you within 30 days a structure for
that, we can talk about it, decide whether you like that or not.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And during that 30 days, you would ask if
we can get participation from the players, and if we can't, then tell
us so we can stop --
MR. OLLIFF: Right.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: -- because without their -- their
participation -- they're the only ones that have any data and they
hold it so close to the vest.
DR. KONIGSBERG: The only group that I've seen that regularly
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February 2, 1999
meets, that worries about some of these issues is the Healthy Kids
Council that Burt Saunders chairs.
Now, we've expanded that in that we were required to have an
advisory committee for the new Kid Care program.
The state encouraged us to fold that into Healthy Kids and even
there there was a debate, you know, because you get the turf -- the
turf stuff going on, but Burt really bought the system idea. We
talked about it in advance.
So, we have the nucleus of the group there that at least looks at
the whole system of care for children, but they're only looking at
children.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So, what we're talking about is something
that would do that for --
DR. KONIGSBERG: More globally, yes.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Would the local physicians, not the ones
with the Cleveland Clinic because they have a different arrangement,
but would local physicians do this a little differently -- DR. KONIGSBERG: Do what?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: -- than the hospitals?
DR. KONIGSBERG: They might. But even that would be divided.
First, you have to find the ones that want to listen, and there are
some. The Lascheids are getting a lot of support in a physician
community that has not been there before in a lot of places.
MR. OLLIFF: I think even private docs would like to see some
better organization.
DR. KONIGSBERG: There are some. I know some.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Well, that's why -- that's why I think that
you might get a different perspective if you involve some physicians
as opposed to just the hospital.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Oh, I totally agree.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Yeah. I mean, the Medical Society.
DR. KONIGSBERG: They wouldn't even --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You're not limiting them to --
DR. KONIGSBERG: I wouldn't even think about leaving them --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I would think they need to be
included.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think they need to be included. Oh, I'm
not -- no, no, no. I'm not saying that at all. Just they ought to --
you need a mix.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Yeah.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Very good.
Let me throw out one other idea as a suggestion, see how you
react to it.
I've talked about the Chuck Moehlke survey countywide. Why not
add some items on there regarding -- I don't know if you -- you
probably have income level on there, and then whether they have health
care, what type of health care services they're utilizing.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: I'd love that. That would be on my list.
MR. OLLIFF: And we need to put Bob's name on that. I'd hate for
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February 2, 1999
consistency's sake to have anybody else do it.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Me, too.
(Laughter.)
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay. Now, before we move on, I want to ask the
question of whether the discussions of housing and public
transportation are similar in nature as far as -- CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Frustrating?
MR. SCHOENFELD: I won't use the word frustrating, but in terms
of being able to get a grip on and handle around, as our discussion
just now with indigent health care, on whether we want to spend the
time going through those at this time or move on into the
incorporation issue.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I just want to ask a quick question of
public transportation. If it would be possible to get some
information from some areas, which I'm familiar with, that have public
transportation, that as a user of that transportation you pay nothing.
I'd like to know how they finance it, what their financial structure
is. If we could obtain that information.
MR. ILSCHNER: Well, subsidies. My system is --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Is that what they do?
MR. ILSCHNER: General fund subsidy with the federal government.
MR. FERNANDEZ: They used to pay a good portion of the half-year
operating deficit and the county could subsidize the other half of the
operating deficit.
MR. OLLIFF: Right.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I'm just amazed when you go to mountain
towns and you talk about pollution, you know, they're all extremely
concerned about that to the point that you don't have a wood-burning
fireplace anymore, it all has to be either -- they're all converted to
gas because of the pollution factor and the valley and all these kind
of things, and yet there are these big buses running around and pay
nothing to ride these buses and I'd like to know how they do it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If Johnny Nocera has his way, they'll
all be electric buses.
MR. FERNANDEZ: The answer to your question is yes, we can find
that data.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I'd just like this information. Whether
that becomes a priority or not, I'd just like to know how they do it.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Well, then, if it's agreeable to all, let's move
on to the incorporation issue. And as we --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Were you going to drop housing?
MR. SCHOENFELD: I was just raising -- asking whether, with
housing and public transportation, whether those discussions should be
tabled at this time.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: On housing, I wish -- it's one of those
things I wish we can get an English language report every now and then
about what is the deficit in a board of housing industry. MR. OLLIFF: That's an element.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: In fairness, Mihalic has done a pretty
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February 2, 1999
good job putting that together, I'm encouraging that, but what would
be fun is to break down to what's -- we'd like -- we use a different
definition here of affordable than HUD because of the skewed income
levels in Collier County.
So, I think that obviously you may be familiar with that, but
probably not, is because you haven't gone through it the last eight
weeks and probably a review of that and talking about what is
affordable and what's not, and then using some real life examples. I
mean, there's things out there running for 850 bucks a month that are
affordable housing and --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: It'S true.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So, when we say, gee, we ought to
encourage more of this, what is it we're really trying to solve and
are we trying to solve that?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I see that as far more probable -- and
we can debate what level we should be doing health care of at, but
there's a -- probably a general agreement that something for health
care is our concern. I don't know. We should be aware of what's
going on in housing and have some policies that encourage housing that
is affordable for all levels of income, but I don't know how far into
that our role is to try to dictate the market.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Well, to the extent we're spending money,
we need to be sure we're spending that as effectively as possible, so
I would wish that we get an inventory and needs report.
MR. OLLIFF: You just want a policy standpoint. You've always
taken the position that we are an incentive based, you know, system
and then just making some report back to see whether that's working
and how well it's working, where it's working.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't know how recent the most
recent one is. It seems like it was last spring or summer, so it
can't be more than a year old, but we should have those numbers
readily available. It's pretty up-to-date.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: What we're talking more about is we take in
the consideration of our senior population, the Navy population that
may be getting squeezed --
THE COURT REPORTER: Mr. Carter, could you please speak up? I
can't hear you.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Senior housing, would they be a part of
this? Are they getting squeezed into this process, too?
MR. CAUTERO: They're in the statistics, but the latter part of
your question is I don't know how you qualify that.
THE COURT REPORTER: Mr. Cautero, I can't hear you. The air
conditioner is making too much noise.
MR. CAUTERO: I don't know how we would quantify the latter part
of your question about whether or not they were able to afford
housing, and that's where you're headed, in fact, so if there's
something you want us to elaborate on --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I don't know. How big of an issue is
it here? Is the aging population having a problem with housing as a
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February 2, 1999
part of the --
MR. CAUTERO: I would say yes, but I don't know what that
breakdown is compared to people in other age groups. We can certainly
add that to the equation to --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I, for one, don't have a whole lot of
interest in spending a great deal more time than we do right now. We
do get our annual update. We do look at those numbers, what Pam's
asking for. We get all that information and we do have an incentive
based program.
I don't have a whole lot of interest in going back and tinkering
with that, of course, certainly not in starting from scratch.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Why don't we take a ten-minute break and come
back and talk about incorporation issues?
(A recess was had from 2:25 p.m. until 2:35 p.m.)
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay. The next critical success factor that was
raised for the agenda today is the issue of incorporation.
And I know that some of the staff have some insights they'd like
to share on this and maybe they can begin by couching it in terms of
what is the major issue with the incorporation.
MR. FERNANDEZ: This one is pretty straightforward. It's
something that staff feels an essential responsibility to the board to
let you know of the implications that we see coming from the potential
incorporation efforts that are really in progress because of the
creation of the community development districts.
Vince, could you give some idea of what this issue --
MR. CAUTERO: Sure.
MR. FERNANDEZ: -- is all about, please?
MR. CAUTERO: Certainly.
There are seven community development districts in the county.
And at one time there were between 12 and 15 that had made some kind
of application or inquiry to the county, but only seven have
incorporated.
And state law requires that when a 5,000 population is reached of
qualified electorate to the county -- in that particular community,
excuse me, a vote is taken on whether or not the incorporation issue
can proceed in accordance with Florida Statutes.
If that vote is in the affirmative, it does not mean that the
incorporation has taken place. It means that the next step can be
attained, which is a legislative bill or referendum issue.
The list that I've given you on the chart shows the seven
community development districts. None of them are at that population
at this point.
Marco and Fiddler's Creek -- Marco Shores and Fiddler's Creek,
Lely Resort are in the approximate 1500 to 1700 in the population
range with the rest being below 1,000.
We were showing you what the buildup population is of those, and
of the seven, three do not show a buildup population that would reach
5,000. Three do and one is hovering around 5,000; Port of the
Islands.
But keep in mind that's no planned unit development package that
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February 2, 1999
was approved for that area, so it is basically the number of units
that we believe would be constructed if the entire subdivision is
built out. Given the environmental census over the issues in that
area, it's unlikely that they would reach 2200 units, but we point out
the maximum number for your information.
I said that those two developments, Lely Resort and Marco, are
hovering between 15 and 1700. Naples Heritage, our calculation based
on these units on the chart is less than 200 people. Pelican Marsh,
according to these numbers, but those numbers are probably growing
every day though with building permit activity, is approximately 1,000
people, and Key Marco, a little over 350.
So, none of them are close to 5,000, but at that number, that
vote would be triggered.
I've also handed out to you a fax sheet on community development
districts. Of course, the purpose is for the long-term financing
mechanism of those improvements and that's why communities do it. And
we've listed some other items which are self-explanatory on the sheet.
What we wanted to do is talk about some of these issues that
surround the incorporation vote if and when those votes take place in
those issues.
But look at some of the other issues surrounding the
incorporation. For example, it's no secret to anyone that Bonita is
considering that and the positioning of that community is a lot
different from Marco because the services that could be provided are
potentially from two counties, Lee County as well as Collier.
So, we wanted to bring that into the discussion. At least I
offer that up for you if you want to talk about not only community
development districts but about an area that is on the verge of -- of
at least -- at least on the verge of having that organization take
place.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I had asked about this specifically,
the CDD's, but there are other incorporation areas as well. And my
worry -- I've said this before, but my biggest worry when we talk
about not wanting to be like the east coast isn't anything that we're
going to have the intensity that they are or the traffic that they
are. We're not going to end up with a million people here.
But there are, between Miami and Lauderdale, like 18 little
governments all the way up. And we've seen just in the last year what
a disagreement between local governments, what an inconvenience that
can cost, cost per share, cost for the public safety, cost for any
number of things.
You start multiplying that out times four or five or five or ten
cities and it's a genuine problem.
Two different ways I'd like to ask us to address this. One is
when CDD's come before us, if they are anticipated to be of any size
anywhere near 5,000, they will usually come to us and ask our
endorsement before they go to the state process.
And I voted against it each time. I don't think we should, as
long as the incorporation load is part of the CDD, I don't think we
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February 2, 1999
should endorse those globally because I don't think any of us believe
another level or another layer of government long-term is in the best
interest of the overall county.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Tim, I just don't think that CDD -- I don't
think it's ever -- are there any stats on how many CDD's eventually
become cities?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: They've only -- it's only created in
'91, I think, so you have very, very few only because they haven't
grown to it yet. But most incorporations are ego driven. You have --
you know, occasionally you have some areas that are blatantly being
treated inappropriately around the state.
But if you look at the number of the incorporations over the last
decade or so, that has dropped dramatically since around 1980, but
most are ego driven. So, if you have a vote, you know, it's going to
the same argument that we hear them argue over here in Bonita or
anywhere else.
I can't hear myself. Sorry.
The -- you know, it is -- we think we can do it better. We want
-- so, when these votes come up, Vince makes the point that no
automatic incorporation results, but the fact is that the majority of
the people vote on it, there's going to be -- in that area, there's
going to be some expectation that they go ahead and finish what they
started. It's not going to -- they're not going to vote, yeah, we
voted to incorporate and then it's going to disappear.
That's just realistically not going to happen, so I think we need
to be very careful and not endorse CDD's before they go on to the
state level if it includes that item.
CDD's outside of that are great. They take on the responsibility
for a number of things that they don't then hit up the rest of us for.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Can they opt out of the incorporation vote
or is that -- I think that's a statutory requirement.
MR. CAUTERO: No. It's mandatory that the vote has to take place
when they meet 5,000.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So, the only CDD's that could ever get
approved would be those with a potential population of less than
5,000.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: For commercial CDD's, yeah, that's
correct.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And, see, I think the CDD's -- I mean,
Pelican Marsh, the odds of it becoming a city, I think, are so slim
and it -- you know, it's -- it's merely a finance mechanism. I think
a more effective use of our time would be to urge the legislature to
take that line out.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I agree with you, and the Florida
League of Cities, which has a very effective lobby, does not want that
taken out, because it's to their advantage to create more cities.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Right.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Ken Van Assenderp, who wrote this,
worked and still works very closely with the Florida League of Cities
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February 2, 1999
on this item.
But I just disagree with you and maybe we disagree, but I think
to suggest that Pelican Marsh will never become a city, when they get
5,000 people, and they will, they're going to hit 20,000 people, then
they have a vote.
And, so, to suggest that, oh, they'll never ever vote that, maybe
they will and maybe they won't, but it's not an absolute no. It's a
very real concern. And I think that's our biggest worry long-term is
it's not unrealistic at all, the fact that ten years from now you
could have seven, eight, ten different governments in Collier County.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And that would be the worst possible
thing.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It would be, yeah, but to allow the
situation. So, one of the things -- and I'm not advocating this. I'm
just saying one of the things to explore would be what are the options
under a charter government, not -- I certainly don't like the idea of
taking any authority away from our constitutional officers. They do a
wonderful job, are very popular, and I'd like that separation,
frankly, but you can create a charter to accommodate that and --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Meaning --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- then terminate all kinds of things.
And, so, that may be something we want to explore which then
prohibits that incorporation long term. You can design it so that
that is your -- your coverage area.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: So, you can have charter government with a
constitutional officer and appraising and taxing and -- CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You can pretty well -- it virtually
mirrors what we have right now.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: But protects us from --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Get somebody that knows something.
MR. FERNANDEZ: We did that in 1987 in Alachua County and
essentially did not redefine the roles of the constitutional officers
because, of course, that was the big concern. And we were able to
reap the other benefits of charter government without incurring the --
the concerns and the fears of the constitutional officers that we
would be redefining their roles.
Essentially, you can design your own powers within the limits of
state law under a charter. You can custom design the shape of your
government. Whether that power also involves more control over CDD's
I'm not sure, but there's more than that.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, it's not so much that as you can
actually design it to prohibit incorporation of other areas. Once
you're a -- once you're a charter, your existing cities are there, but
it doesn't allow for the addition of a bunch of new incorporations.
And the CDD's I love but --
MR. FERNANDEZ: Well, you still have state law that provides for
incorporation, and as I said, you can give yourselves this definition
of powers within the powers identified by state law.
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February 2, 1999
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Correct. And using that state law, if
you choose to use that state law, you can -- in a certain way, you can
essentially prohibit any of those from becoming -- and it's one of
those issues that nobody in the public -- you ought to go to a
homeowners' group and have them say, God, I'm worried about all these
cities that are going to be here in 2010.
DR. KONIGSBERG: Because it doesn't come up high on the list.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But that's one of those things when I
think it -- we could be very pro active, and if we don't do it, then
in 2010 or whenever that is and we get a bunch of cities and they're
all fighting like cats and dogs, or have a bunch of different sets of
rules and ordinances, somebody is going to say, well, why didn't --
why -- how did this happen, why did we ever get to this point? And we
have the ability right now to avoid that.
MR. OLLIFF: I think strategically doing it now before you're
sitting there facing three incorporation votes where it looks like
you're doing it as a defense mechanism to prevent that makes a lot of
sense.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Where is the political arena -- I think
this is one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time, frankly, as
far as potential true leadership, you know, really long-term how
leadership -- the practical nightmare is that constitutional officers
you can't even say the C word without them going crazy, so how -- you
know, this would be very tender ground to walk on.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think they have to be pretty sure,
and it's the scenario I would like best, is to keep what we have right
now.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Keep them elected.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, because where -- how they do
their job is very well-accepted by the community and -- but we'd have
to communicate that pretty clearly to them on the front end.
MR. FERNANDEZ: The reason I've referred to these as chicken
charters in public is because I think there are some issues that
really should be addressed that don't get addressed in them, in a
charter that doesn't change much about the structure of the
government.
And -- and one is -- takes us to a different subject that we may
not want to go into. But, one is, I think the Board of County
Commissioners should have a final say over the budget. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: The whole budget.
MR. FERNANDEZ: The whole budget and not being concerned about it
being appealed or reversed from the governor and the cabinet.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: But you have --
MR. FERNANDEZ: You have the potential to do that --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Right, but if you turn --
MR. FERNANDEZ: -- and if you're going to go through the charter,
it's my feeling you ought to go ahead and take on those issues. It
may bring on the baggage that will make the thing fail and that's the
reason why many communities don't take those on.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Could I interest the board in
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February 2, 1999
exploring that in the coming months? CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: I'm interested.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Yes. I think we ought to explore it as a
pro active move to just see what we could find out. It would be -- we
have to be careful how we do this so that it doesn't get out there
like -- suddenly like to do something that undermines the other
constitutional officers.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I propose that we brief them in our
thinking we're ready to do it, but we ought to have a good position
paper so that we could have a meeting with the constitutional officers
and say, what do you think about doing this, and this is how you're
protected, and this is the advantage of us doing it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: They should be a part of the process.
And I don't think that's --
MR. FERNANDEZ: And --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think that that's the best way, to
give them some level of comfort and make them a part of the process.
MR. SCHOENFELD: So, what needs to be done to explore charter?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's --
MR. FERNANDEZ: We can put together a work program that
identifies the steps and the requirements and procedure and maybe a
skeleton plan on how we're going to approach it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: There are some obvious pros, there are
some perceived cons, and we need to go through all those and be clear
on all those so there won't be any surprises.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: But I think in a time line of everything
else that I'd see on Bob's list, I mean, you know, you can probably
look at this in the fall of --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: He has a longer term.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: -- this year.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: About two weeks?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Hey, give him three weeks on this one.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Thank you.
We will -- we will chase that but there's another dimension to
this discussion that I'd like to bring out.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: July 7th.
MR. FERNANDEZ: July 7th.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: February 9th.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I'd like to. I'm frankly a little surprised to
hear so much support for the position that philosophically there seems
to be a sentiment that incorporation should not be encouraged and that
the board has a position about that.
Historically, it's not been the case and, in fact, we were
recently invited to participate in a forum where Commissioner Carter
and I were asked to be speakers in a debate on the pros and cons of
incorporation of Pelican Bay, and I declined respectfully because I
felt it would be inappropriate for us to participate in a debate of
that nature, because clearly we're going to be asked to speak in
support of a status quo scenario.
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February 2, 1999
And I declined because I felt that the board direction was that
we really didn't have a position on that issue.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: And the LDC meetings saved us both because
of them so we respectfully declined, but would come back at a later
date and discuss this with them.
MR. FERNANDEZ: My question is, is that still the case or should
we be more active in participating in community for arguing against
incorporation?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We had this discussion a couple years
back. I think it was on one of the Pelican Bay go-arounds, but as to
whether we should or should not participate, and we decided then, and
I'm trying to remember if this was two years ago or four years ago or
how long ago it was, but we decided then that we probably should not
be out there spending all our taxpayer money, but that we should be on
record thinking that the county was doing a good job and was taking
care of things and didn't think incorporation was necessary.
And I know Neil actually did a handful, probably three or four
different forums, outlining the why and when and where and
particularly hitting on some of the cost issues. But we didn't think
it was necessarily a bad thing at that time that county thought it was
doing a good job and thought that surely there were areas we would
improve but creating a whole another layer of government probably
wasn't the way to do that.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And even -- even on top of that is -- is
that when we say we don't need a coast like the east coast, that is --
this is the one area where we're most at risk for the east coasting,
because like you said, there ain't going to be a million people, there
ain't going to be high-rises, but it might be a lot of little cities
and that would be the worst possible case.
I mean, do we need to do something to make that an official board
policy?
MR. FERNANDEZ: I heard what we need to hear.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I feel very strongly about this.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: I do.
MR. FERNANDEZ: But at this point be sure if you-all hear that
I'm out there making these arguments, it's consistent with what you
want me to do.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You go.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: We'll have an opportunity to --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Just go, boy.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay. Good.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Good discussion, good movement towards some
action on the topic.
Now, the next one on our agenda is economic development support.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Pass.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: There should be more. It's like one of our
biggest successes. How does that come to be on the agenda, I guess,
is my question? Nobody put it on the agenda?
MR. SCHOENFELD: I have it as a side question. Next to it is
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February 2, 1999
what do we mean by this? How are you defining economic development
support?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So far we've spent a little bit of money to
get a huge return.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I think probably the discussion here, if
we're having a discussion, is do we continue to do what we've been
doing or are we looking to expand that into any kind of incentives no
matter how you might define them, incentives to be stronger in
economic diversification to come?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think it's a good question. We had
done in the past when we did our blue ribbon committee and so on, they
laid out a number of recommendations.
The majority of what they recommended and that we adopted was
incentive based, but that did not mean special tax breaks or -- it did
mean a fair number of programs that have certain things available to
bring X number of jobs, or if you were adding Y number of jobs over a
certain number of years, and so if we can encourage them to make good
things happen or our fast track stuff on zoning or the various things
that would help them that way, that's fine. I think we've made a
pretty clear statement that did not include it, cutting somebody's
time for a ten-year time frame.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Unless we found that -- that what we're
trying doesn't work and, frankly, you know, so far EDC's problem is
they can't be asking us for much more when they can reduce the level
of what they have with such a small amount of money. You know, I
certainly prefer this ground before we feel the need to spend more
money.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Does the EDC have something they want to
share with us?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Well, you're here. Thank you.
MS. CAREIGIS: Susan Careigis with the EDC.
THE COURT REPORTER: Ma'am, would you stand and say your name
again and spell it, please?
MS. CAREIGIS: Susan Careigis, C-a-r-e-i-g-i-s, with the EDC.
I will tell you within a short amount of time, I think we've done
-- covered a lot of ground. We have some issues we need to deal with.
One is employee housing, one is the availability of skilled
labor, and we're working on that on a daily basis, but the other issue
that I really run into on a daily basis are sites. Where are we going
to put these employers? So, when we're talking about density
reduction and, you know, models of what we want to be when we grow
out, I would just urge you that -- I left three days of being with a
gentleman up in Tallahassee last week and his issue has been final.
Make sure you have a healthy working business environment as business
friendly and -- and really target those high wage jobs in which you
set as a precedent.
And I think Barbara would agree. We had the opportunity last
Wednesday to do the groundbreaking for Shaw Aero. 284 aerospace jobs
in Charlotte County. This is what we're talking about. And it has
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February 2, 1999
not been an easy task.
The greatest issue I've had to deal with was the site for the guy
and labor. If I could solve those two issues, we're down the road.
Incentives, not corporate welfare that deal with those two issues
could be critical.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: What are the site issues?
MS. CAREIGIS: I'll share with you, they measure out pretty well.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: What are the site issues, that we don't
have enough industrial zoning or we don't have what?
MS. CAREIGIS: It's location, it's contiguous parcels for some of
the ones that bring 284 engineering jobs or bring 200 IT jobs. It's
contiguous parcels so that they can actually make a signature
building. We have it in the comp lab.
You talk with Wayne Arnold. The capacity is there but are they
contiguous or are they in the areas of the county where these CE0's
want to develop?
MR. CAUTERO: You mean Bob Mulhere.
MS. CAREIGIS: I was talking about Wayne actually. Wayne I
talked to about this and Bob as well.
MR. CAUTERO: You mean Wayne Mulhere.
MS..CAREIGIS: It might be Wayne, too. We're trying to honestly
get our arms around, you know, GIS system or some way. No. I really
did mean Wayne. But no one talked to Bob at all. Bob was there most
every single day, like Wayne is not now.
But one of the issues that we're trying to get our ground through
the private sector now that Wayne is in the private sector is trying
to understand what our capacity is and where are those locations.
You know, when you're talking to a client off the top, our land
down here in Collier compared to Lee, which a lot of people for some
reason think are similar, is 25 percent more off the top. Lee County
offers $2,000 per job, same criteria as what we're looking for, off
the top, cash to them.
I will share with you from the private sector. We've had a lot
of conversations about incentives, and whether or not we need them.
Honestly, the conversation was how quick can you get me operational?
And that's what we brought to you as a board. And you guys have done
everything you can to make sure that worked.
And that's where Bob Mulhere and Vince Cautero made the
difference and Greg Mihalic. These guys can master the forces
internally in staff and get them operational quickly; permitting,
zoning, site development, review all of that.
So, now that we have the fast track permitting in order, the real
issue, Tim and Pam and Barbara and Jim, is the issue of where are we
going to put these guys? Where are the contiguous parcels?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What do we do with -- how do we
approach the issue of skilled labor? And Soddy (phonetic) is probably
a good example of this up in Lee. They're having trouble filling all
the jobs they've already brought. Soddy would love to expand there,
but they're having trouble --
MS. CAREIGIS: They've got a good group, too.
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February 2, 1999
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- finding the bodies to actually fill
those jobs.
MS. CAREIGIS: High rent. High rent in your own county. Tight
element in your own county. The issue for us is recruitment. We are
now in the private sector, trying to put together a co-op program
where we actually take similar type jobs skills that are needed and go
out and recruit these types of skills to the low market. That's the
short-term effect. The long-term effect is figuring out what we're
going to do with our university here.
I just had lunch with Addison Fisher (phonetic), talking what
they want to do with their corporations. The smart risk is to sign
the joint venture with Toshiba and NEC, some big stuff going on, but
the question is, are they going to have enough leg room?
So, the short-term fix, you've got prudent long-term systemic as
we've got to work with the universities. We may need a center of
excellence here for computer science majors just very narrowly looking
at the industries that we're trying to bring here. And that's what
we're trying to do in the private sector side.
The public sector side, I have mixed opinions. I'm a native
Floridian. I live in Collier County and I looked around to see what I
have to sell.
Lee County right now has a million and a half dollars annually
prorated just to write checks from. In addition, I mean, my
competition on a daily basis, they have a million dollars for staff ad
valorem. They have 15 staff --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: They have a rich county.
MS. CAREIGIS: -- members. But look at the results. I just went
to their annual meeting last Friday. And they had 420 something jobs.
We had 698. We're getting a healthy return on investment for what
we're doing, but the next step for us -~
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Got that, too.
MS. CAREIGIS: Well, it's not -- we've got Naples, Florida, too.
I mean, be real. Look at what we're selling here. MR. FERNANDEZ: You mean Collier County?
MS. CAREIGIS: The next level for us is the marketing program.
And I think that that's really where Jeb has talked also last week, is
the recurrent find, a fixture like a business climate, taxation
issues, you know, look at accounts receivable, look at the taxation
issues, but also look to what you're going to do for improvement.
And we have not tackled that in Collier County. What we've been
trying to do in the last year since we've had this program is play
catch-up with the expansion of who's already here. The next step is
an active advertising campaign of business recruitment.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Susan, what is the average salary of these
people?
MS. CAREIGIS: The average salary --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Pretty bad.
MS. CAREIGIS: 698 jobs last year. $31,400 a year. The
stipulation that the board set as a policy, a job that is created and
retained that's 115 percent of an average area wage. The good news is
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February 2, 1999
the average area wage increased last year dramatically for Collier
County.
It's happening. I mean, we're actually bringing about jobs in
Collier County that but for the public-private partnership would
absolutely not be in Collier County.
I will tell you Shaw Aero is going to be a Westinghouse gateway.
We actually entered into the conversation with Shaw when there was
100,000 square foot expansion on the desk. And they're here. We can
do it. We've got to now actively -- we're trying it.
The two o'clock I had today, after I found out about this
meeting, was with Dolly Roberts (phonetic) to actively figure out what
is that marketing advertising campaign? And that does take some
money.
We also see holistically that there's a lot of tie-in to the
tourism efforts here. If we could ever get our message out from
tourists that vacation here, seasonal visitors, about bringing all or
part of your business here, there's a good tie-in there, but unless
it's mandated, the tourism industry would --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Wayne. Wayne Arnold.
(Laughter.)
MS. CAREIGIS: You'll see.
MR. MULHERE: For the record, Bob Mulhere. I just -- I wanted to
add one or two very brief comments that -- and, Susan, correct me if
I'm wrong, but I think one of the biggest challenges -- MS. CAREIGIS: He's Wayne Mulhere.
MR. MULHERE: One of the biggest challenges that we have is the
time frame that it takes for someone to select a site and then be into
the site and operational. And the problem is, I'm not sure if it's a
question of do we have adequate location for areas zoned industrial.
For example, there's an awful lot of industrially zoned land out in
Immokalee. Is that the right location for everybody?
MS. CAREIGIS: Is that where the CEO want to locate?
MR. MULHERE: Correct.
And then the second question, and one of the things that we were
arguing in Immokalee, is an example of where we would like to be
elsewhere in the -- in the coastal area is, is a development of that
airport property so that if someone is interested, they can walk in.
All of the infrastructures are in place, the zoning is in place, the
parcels are designed, they're platted and they're ready to go.
The problem we have in the coastal area is we had a couple of
pretty good locations close by to 75. City Gate is one, White --
White Lake is another, but there's no infrastructure and at this point
in time there was very little interest from the private sector. Sure,
they wanted to sell the land, but they weren't quite ready to invest
money into an infrastructure yet.
Now, it's just started to occur, really the Shawaero and a couple
of other things. So, I think the good point or the optimistic
approach to that was the glass was half full is that we now have a lot
of movement towards development of those two very significant or large
industrial opportunities.
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MS. CAREIGIS: Absolutely. And I would concur. I would tell
that everything that we've done in Immokalee, the foreign trade zone
and the ability to do the foreign entrepreneurial investment zone, the
enterprise zone, those are incentives when we're selling Immokalee.
And Pam said, you know, but nobody wants to go there. There will
be. We're going to keep turning over rocks until we find one. And we
think we might have found one. But the key issue out there is to grow
the industry close to there, but the training component will be
absolutely viable to that, but that again being able to get those
people skilled in other areas that traditionally may have not been --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Training and a roadway.
MS. CAREIGIS: Correct.
I would share with Bob Arnold, Wayne, Wayne Mulhere, that this is
an issue. As you sit down with a client, the location of the parcels
that are available is absolutely paramount. The first thing they ask
then, where can I find 20 acres south of Immokalee, don't want to
probably go any -- or south of Immokalee, not more than north of
Golden Gate. And here's the infrastructure I need for high-speed
transmission. What do you have?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, Don Arnold will come up with a
building.
MS. CAREIGIS: But, see, there you go. The client won't do it.
(Laughter.)
MR. SCHOENFELD: Mike.
MR. McNEES: Just to go back to something you said a few minutes
ago in talking about work force development, and I'm certainly not
trying to speak for any of the commissioners but it would seem like
when it comes to how Collier County wants its money invested, you
talked about highways, jobs and the potential for recruitment or
outside recruitment to bring in the people who can fill those jobs.
MS. CAREIGIS: Skilled labor.
MR. McNEES: It would seem to me that the preference of the
county would be where -- you know, where it's possible would be local
work force training and development as opposed to bringing in an
employer who will then go elsewhere to recruit people to come in,
which just adds to our growth problem --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Right.
MR. McNEES: -- as opposed to --
MS. CAREIGIS: Absolutely.
MR. McNEES: -- to recruiting a local work force in developing
that so that our people get the benefit of the high wage jobs.
MS. CAREIGIS: I agree 150 percent. I would share with you that,
as you know, 80 percent of the effort of the EDC is business for
potential expansion of existing industry. That correlates with the
long-term labor force.
The key issue though, the systemic flaw right now is how low
unemployment is. There is no labor.
MR. McNEES: I understand that's --
MS. CAREIGIS: We have a labor deficiency.
MR. McNEES: I'm just pointing out the double-edged sword. If we
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February 2, 1999
have full employment and we bring in new employers, that means we've
got to bring in more people, which is, we started this whole thing
today, our biggest problem is the growth in the first place.
MS. CAREIGIS: Okay. So, here's the systemic question that we --
we banter around with the EDC private sector table is, would you
rather have more Wendy's type service, driven people coming to
Immokalee, or had you rather have than more computer software
developers?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Computer software developers.
MS. CAREIGIS: You choose. I mean --
MR. OLLIFF: Well, there's always the underlying. There's always
the underlying benefit of diversifying the economy.
MS. CAREIGIS: It is a build out certain. The mix of what's
going to come is the critical issue. How do you account for that?
MR. OLLIFF: That's always the benefit. The increased tax value
is always a benefit, but, you know --
MR. FERNANDEZ: It's the ability that comes from diversification.
MR. OLLIFF: Right. But I don't want to get away from that point
because for me --
MS. CAREIGIS: We don't either.
MR. OLLIFF: -- you know, who graduated from high school here and
wanted to come back and work professionally here, it's very, very
difficult, you know, to --
MS. CAREIGIS: Tom McElroy.
MR. OLLIFF: Yeah.
MS. CAREIGIS: It's systemic.
MR. OLLIFF: And it is really hard to go to college and then come
back and find a place where you can plug yourself in. And I think we
need to do something in the way of developing programs to recruit
those who come back.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: We're going to have to hurry up because my
son goes to high school next year. MS. CAREIGIS: I hear you.
We are, Tom. And, as a matter of fact, what we've done is we've
actually gotten the alumni list from the local high schools figuring
out which ones are out in the market, what skills they have and trying
to attract them back, because we think they're an easy sell. They're
waiting for the right opportunity.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Well, training, too, in terms of like
Shawaero, you're working with -- MS. CAREIGIS: Anybody.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: -- E1 Witt now? Is that letter technology?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: E1 Witt?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: E1 Witt. But that's technology.
Anyway, that's the -- that is incredibly important, so there's
got to be a relationship with economic development and education. MS. CAREIGIS: Very much so.
MR. SCHOENFELD: But in terms of the county government --
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February 2, 1999
COMMISSIONER CARTER: The sites for commercial development, with
the fact that the land development goes, it just gets back to a lot of
things, but if we do technological parks, I would rather see a
technological park in an intersection than I would another shopping
center.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Right.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Or another hotel.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: So, there's a way to do a tech park. We
have sites. We could do a tech park. And you might even have a hotel
in that tech park.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Right.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I'd like to know where those are so that we
can encourage that.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And that -- that comes in with the density
reduction study. You know, as we are reducing density, where are --
might we be identifying areas where there are some technical and
industrial parks?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, VWH is on its feet, so --
MR. MULHERE: Bob Mulhere.
We do have -- the board did approve in the land code this
amendment about a year ago to offer business park zoning districts --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Right.
MR. MULHERE: -- which is geared towards the industrial, the high
tech, but at a higher level than what we have, for example, across
Airport Road in -- in -- off Enterprise, and higher level in
appearance and in function and in larger size, too.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: But that's a zoning possibility.
MR. MULHERE: Well, that's exactly what I was going to get to.
The issue there is we have always relied on the market to drive
whether or not that exists. Someone has to come in and asked for
that. We have not -- STEP has not driven -- MS. CAREIGIS: Exactly.
MR. MULHERE: -- because the Comprehensive Plan will allow that
anywhere near an area. You come in and you ask for it through a
Comprehensive Plan amendment or a zoning amendment or both.
And, so, again, the question is, we did an industrial land use
study. We could certainly do an update to that to determine whether
or not we have an adequate amount of industrial or some hybrid thereof
and --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I don't like the word "industrial"
That turns off neighborhoods.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I could put a high tech --
MS. CAREIGIS: Commerce.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: -- commerce kind of thing in a signature
neighborhood as long as they don't see trucks rolling in and out and
all that stuff.
MR. MULHERE: Well, the --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: But what -- what I'm hearing that problem
is, and we've all heard this from the beginning, is how fast from when
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February 2, 1999
they first show up until we can give them a key to the front door.
And, so, having the right to make a comp plan amendment, which we all
know is a six-month process minimum, is meaningless.
MR. MULHERE: But I think there are some examples. Creekside
Park is one, City Gate is another one. There are several examples.
The question is, is there sufficient space?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I want to be real careful about -- I
want to be real careful about creating new space though until we take
full advantage of those we have.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: If, if the private sector has appropriately
identified, you know, where these users want to go. And what I heard
Susan say was south of Immokalee, north of something, you know, and I
MS. CAREIGIS: Well, one particular client, not for all clients.
I will share with you, I think, Bob's suggestion, maybe doing an
update on where it is, Tim, and see what is available and then let's
-- let's show what the market dictates.
We're currently into EDC doing a high tech corporate park survey,
basically understanding the 200 software firms that are here, what are
their space needs, what are their time frames, where they're looking
geographically.
The key for us in the private sector is to be able to get that
anchor tenant that uses 50,000 square feet to run actually an IT
incubator is the thought process here, so you can grow those smaller
firms into the larger ones that perform more, and it is an IT commerce
park concept that we're talking about.
MR. MULHERE: We can target that to the target industries that
the EDC --
MS. CAREIGIS: Correct.
MR. MULHERE: -- is trying to promote, and that would be the way
to do it.
MS. CAREIGIS: Very much. Thanks.
MR. MULHERE: Now, I'm sitting down.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Thanks, Wayne.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Is there any type of report necessary at this
point?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: It sounds like we're going to be getting it
on availability of, we don't want to say industrially zoned. And,
frankly, maybe that's something we want to change, stop calling it a
MR. MULHERE: Properties for targeted industries.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: There you go.
MS. CAREIGIS: Maybe we can update what Bob Mihalic has.
MR. MULHERE: Yeah.
MS. CAREIGIS: And one of the things we talked about in the
beginning was we would get these regular updates on the status of our
comp plan. If we can get one more of those.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: To incorporate that regular process.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And just like we need to quit saying -- we
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really do need to quit saying industrial zoning.
MS. CAREIGIS: It's a misnomer.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: It really is.
MR. OLLIFF: It's just a business. It's more like a business
zoning.
MS. CAREIGIS: It's more than that. It's targeted industry as
Bob said because it's not, you know --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: T-i-z.
MS. CAREIGIS: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Thanks.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Thank you, Susan.
Okay. Anything else with regard to economic developments corp?
Now, let's move to environmental issues and impact. That's the
next item on our list.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Is that NRPA's?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: It's partly NRPA's. And we're going to be
seeing that, hopefully, as part of our NC production stuff.
Well, I have something I have to talk about environmental issues
and impact, but I don't think it's the same stuff.
Who put this on there? What did you guys have in mind to talk
about?
MR. FERNANDEZ: I think this is yours.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Okay. Good.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Who put this on?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Oh, could it be me?
Well, I mean, this is moving along okay. There's not that much
that's due until -- not much more we can do until we get the March
report on the density reduction and see how -- as far as I'm
concerned, you know, that is the beginning of an environmental program
being implemented in Collier County because we've had such a great
comp plan without much of an implementation program to go with our
award-winning Comprehensive Plan but -- but I'm not pushing that one
too far because I think it's going to start rolling on its own with
the density reduction study.
One of the things that I'd want to ask in the survey would be
whether or not there's support with some kind of conservation
acquisition program since the green space thing failed so miserably
before, to at least keep that question alive in the survey process.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One of the things that I'll be
bringing to the board probably within the next two months is I've
worked for several months with a group of folks on oak space,
preserved space and so on.
And the -- Saunder's green space tax did fail miserably, and a
big part of the reason was because it was just kind of a warm, fluffy,
he wanted tax because it's good for green space, but it didn't talk
about where or when, how. There were no details.
And, so, we've -- the group that I've been working with has laid
out a number of suggestions that are more incentive based than taking
the particular thing, just buying it up.
But it's really well-done, and so I would just -- as we talk
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about, okay, what action do we take from here, we're not that far away
from bringing that back to the board, and that may be a starting point
for the discussion anyway. You may or may not like exactly what we've
crafted, but the idea is that that's the end-all. That is a starting
point for us to have our discussion and see what is appropriate for
the community.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Is that the end of March ballpark --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Who are we, Tim, that you're --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's just a citizens group I've put
together.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay.
MR. FERNANDEZ: You know it's not me.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: It's not Bob.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: The other thing that needs to be kind of
out there for everybody is -- I think it's into March or first of
April -- Nancy, you probably know better than I when we expect the EIS
to come down from the Corps or who would bring them in.
MR. MULHERE: Yeah, Bob Mihalic. It's at least 30 days behind
schedule as we speak, so it could be any day.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It will be done in 18 months.
MR. MULHERE: Well, I spoke to Bob Barron from the Corps and he
was, you know, desperately trying to get it out as quickly as
possible.
And I think that -- Nancy, you know something I don't know.
Go ahead.
MS. PAYTON: Well, I hear that --
THE COURT REPORTER: Ma'am, did you want to stand up and state
your name, please?
MS. PAYTON: My name is Nancy Payton, P-a-y-t-o-n, Florida
Wildlife Federation.
Last weekend I was in the Everglades Coalition meeting and all
the players were there with EIS, Army Corps.
And what apparently is developing is that you have the Army Corps
of Engineers, who is eager to get this document out within the
18-month time frame, and then on the other hand, you have EPA and the
Fish and Wildlife Service that feel that it has a lot of shortcomings,
and rather than putting out a less than perfect document or inadequate
document, they are trying to impose upon the Army Corps to take a
little longer and do it right.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So, where that goes, you know, who knows?
MS. PAYTON: I suspect you'll see it when you see it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm actually shocked.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Well, that's going to be coming and -- and
it seems to me -- I really have two things on my mind about this and
worked hard, so I'm going to tell you what they are.
One is that with the creation of the Environmental Advisory board
that's now going to be on par with DSAC, Environmental Services
Advisory Commission, or whatever it's called, Environmental Advisory
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February 2, 1999
Council, Development Services Advisory Council.
I'm -- I'm wishing that there could be some staffing added in the
environmental area in the division that could bring that environmental
the level of work if, in fact, we mean what we say when we said that
this Environmental Advisory Council is going to meet on par with DSAC,
then it's going to take some time because, you know, Vince, Bob,
everybody in the world goes to DSAC meetings and, you know, they sort
of drive an agenda.
I'm -- I'm hopeful that we mean what we said about this new EAC
is going to have equal treatment. If it doesn't, it's going to
require some staffing and some serious attention, so I just want to
put that out there.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I respectfully disagree, only that
last year during the budget hearings, you remember saying, gosh, we
should add some folks, and actually we did during that process. And,
so, I think we need to --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: The environmental staff?
MR. CAUTERO: (Nods head.)
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And we had -- you remember there was a
rather animated discussion on environmental staffing there at the
budget hearing --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Uh-huh.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- we don't need to revisit --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Please.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- but I would rather have that come
out of the staff in what they see as shortcomings. I'd hate to think
that because we turned two advisory boards into one, that that
requires more staff.
And I understand you want this to be when it's done and, you
know, gets -- digs their hands into the process but -- and I wouldn't
endorse more staff to make that happen and once it was pretty clear
why, and I think that needs to come from the folks who are dealing
with it.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: I'd agree with it. And I do hope it comes
from the people who are dealing with it and I just -- it -- this is
going to come -- this is going to come up and come up from me because
that's what I want to see as a driving issue for this year, but the
other one that I don't think bears any action at this point, but that
I just want to make you guys aware of is that there's -- there's a
movement in the state and certainly in the country for defining
environmental impacts in a different way than we have, and basically
what I would call it is, you adopt the level of service for the
environment.
You adopt what is the water quality level, what is the amount of
water. You know, it gets -- you basically adopt it, LOS for
environmental constant issues, and then make development decisions
based on the impact to the environment and whether or not it
diminishes that adopted level of service.
So, I'm trying to get more info about that to bring to you.
Say what a great idea that is, Jim.
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COMMISSIONER CARTER: I think it's a great idea.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Thank you, Jim.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Water is always a critical issue.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Just --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What time frame would you have that
information back?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Yeah, Bob.
I'm just -- well, I've got a lot of research going on, so --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: What we do -- when we talk about the
environment, whatever we do, whatever green spaces, preserves that we
create, I would like to remind all of us that it belongs to the entire
county, that we cannot get the parochial belief that any NERVA, that
any forest preserve is responsible to the people who live around it.
So, we have to -- I think in our thinking, my perspective is it
belongs to everybody. If we're going to keep it, let's protect it,
let's maintain it or we don't put it in there in the first place.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Boy, do I agree.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Especially the last part of what you
said; we don't put it there in the first place.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Or we sell it to the people who are
responsible for it.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Do you think that -- Jim, do you think this
has happened? I mean, what -- what are you -- what's your reference
point here?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, my reference would be the only NERVA
in this county happens to be Clam Bay and the taxing authority there,
the people in that community is the ones that are paying to save it,
and there has been hardly any kind of participation in that process.
And I just believe that as we create these, wherever they are,
that we have a countywide responsibility to it. If we expect county
money to save Lake Trafford, we should be funding the same kind of
things to green space. You pick the environmental area we're going to
protect.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Wait a minute.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Let's get a countywide -- let's make it a
countywide process.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I see a reaction coming from --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Correction. Correction point, I think.
MR. OLLIFF: I -- well, we need to be careful when I think in the
case of Pelican Bay when it was a PUD issue when the developer first
came there.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: It's a zoning question.
MR. OLLIFF: It was a zoning question and it was a -- a
commitment that I thought that the developer at that point had made in
terms of responsibilities for that as opposed to Lake Trafford public
lake kind of issue. So, it's a fine line but it's one that you need
to keep in mind, those future NERVA kind of things.
The problem is always in a case like Pelican Bay is then the
developer then turns over that obligation to the homeowners'
association and whether or not the association is ever aware that
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that's actually in the original development plan, and that's another
whole matter.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: And WCI acts like they're great white
knights coming and giving you gifts when it's their obligation all the
time.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: People that have no control, I mean, we're
told by the state, by the county, by the federal that you can view it
that, so I think it's just when we were dealing with these issues,
you've got to find out how are we going to protect it if we're going
to protect it?
MR. CAUTERO: We may be comparing apples to oranges because the
Natural Resource Protection or NRPA area that we're talking about may
not in fact end up being open space areas of the county. If and when
the county decides to purchase these properties, it would be the ones
that are well-maintained by the county.
What we are going to present to you is part of the
recommendations on settling your comp plan issues with the state would
be establishing Natural Resource Protection Areas that aren't
necessarily under your control.
That would satisfy state law, Rule NJ(5), the Comprehensive Plan,
minimum criteria. That is what that is. And at the same time afford
protection for these environmental areas that are already under
someone's control, but are not necessarily Collier County government's
responsibilities. That --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Then as we add to them, we add them to
somebody else's control, like for example -- MR. CAUTERO: Perhaps.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: -- if somebody acquires them, some panther
preserve, then we -- they acquire it and contribute it to panther
preserve or they acquire it crudely and contribute it to crude. We
don't need to own it.
MR. CAUTERO: But that needs to be divorced from the initiative.
Commissioner Constantine was talking about where -- is that how a
committee comes forward with some initiatives and some incentives for
the county to acquire open space and then developing a plan for what
the Collier County government can do with that and how it benefits the
people. Those need to be separated.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: There's a county ownership program and then
there's an environmental protection --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It really isn't a county ownership
program.
MR. CAUTERO: Correct.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But I understand your point. I mean,
your point is the same.
MR. SCHOENFELD: All right. Now, it sounds like for most of the
discussion with regard to environmental issues, an impact that
everything is predicated on two main reports that are going to be
generated in the month of March. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Yeah.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Correct? And then in terms of discussion and
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actionable items, that will all be dependent upon the information
that's gathered at that time.
Is that a correct summary?
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. Yes.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay. Good.
All right. Now, one other agenda item is employing development
and satisfaction.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Ah, screw them. Just kidding.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: That went down in the public records.
(Laughter.)
MR. OLLIFF: So, there's no change in policy?
(Laughter.)
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Status quo.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Same old, same old.
MR. SCHOENFELD: How would you phrase this issue?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I think it was just done.
(Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER BERRY: What do you want?
MR. FERNANDEZ: I think this is Commissioner Carter's.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: It is mine, and my point for putting it on
here is that I believe we need to invest in our greatest resources.
THE COURT REPORTER: Mr. Carter, speak up just a tiny bit,
please.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I said I think we ought to invest in our
greatest resource, our people, and I want to assure them that we are
putting enough dollars into employee development, not feel good
programs, but very objective driven that when somebody does something
to come back and bring it to the group, which helps that group be
better at what they do.
And that's the charge that -- the direction I feel for me going
to staff is, you tell us what you need so that we can begin to put
together -- you know, you bring budgets to us, but we've got to know
how you're going to spend the money.
But I don't want this left out. I think it should be as much a
part of everything that we do as anything else.
I mean, it's just as important as capital expenditures, anything
we talk about today. It's about people who don't get anything done.
MR. ILSCHNER: Is that a key to your training?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, that's part of it. But I think every
person needs a development experience from the county administrator
down each year. There should be budgeted items for that against an
overall people development plan that says, where are you going, what
are you trying to do, and how is that going to make us more effective
in the organization.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: What does that mean, the development
experience? I just don't know.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I think everybody needs to go and ask
yourself, what do I need next year to make me a better manager or
administrator? What do I need to do?
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February 2, 1999
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Oh, about a six-month vacation wouldn't be
bad for a start.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm working on it for you.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Keep it up.
(Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER CARTER: If I have a guy that wants a return on
investment for those dollars, I always said, anybody who works for me
can go and do any of these things you need to do, but you've got to
tell me how it's going to be return on investment in this
organization. What are we going to get out of the fact that if you
went off and did this -- if you went to the Center of Creative
Leadership in Greensboro, what is that going to do for us? If you
take a team building course, what is it going to do for us?
So, I think it's part of the planning process, but I would like
to see it there.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: You know, we had none of this for awhile.
I remember Neil talking about, you know, that we just had nothing, put
a little something in, you know, allow to put something in the budget.
And, you know, I don't know how that translates into productivity,
but I know that Jim does and, you know, that's got to be if we can
show that it's an investment that pays off.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd like to ask a question. You know
this past year we did the merit increase thing, which I think it's
great, so that everybody, regardless of whether they offered the same
or not, probably shouldn't all get the same increase.
But what might be interesting to look back at now that it's been
put in is how many people on management level got those merit
increases versus how many on the clerical or steno workers got that
and whether we're seeing -- I think they're -- and I have no idea
whether it's true or not, but you hear through the rumor vine that,
gee, the managers ate up all of that and the little guy didn't see
that.
There's two problems with that. Hopefully, the little person
does -- the smaller income, smaller job, does see that. But if
they're not, the secondary thing is then we say, well, our average
entry level worker or average lower end worker is only making X number
of dollars, we've got to adjust the whole pay scale.
So, I hope when we talk about those merit things that we're
recognizing people all up and down the scale. And I wonder if we
might get a report back on that to score how many on whatever various
levels got that. It would be interesting to see.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I think we have that readily available because
the question came up at the Employee Advisory Committee, and they had
the impression that there was a -- a disproportionate distribution of
raises.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And if it's not true, it ought to be
fairly easy to demonstrate.
MR. FERNANDEZ: I think we have the evidence.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: This is such a ridiculously minor item that
I'd bring out, and put it on me for bringing it up, but I think it's a
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February 2, 1999
shame that we -- that we have the state senator from Florida given our
employees their annual Christmas party and that they have to pay to go
to it.
You know, Burt Saunders still does their Christmas party.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, still does. He kind of
reinvented that. It's not something he's done for a long time.
We actually tried to do that. They threw it out when Burt was
still a commissioner. They discontinued it, so I don't think it's
Burt's --
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think he's trying to make up for it.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Maybe, but Lord.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We tried and we have had a few in the
last three or four years. We've had our little picnic thing over with
the families at the community park in Golden Gate.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Did they have to pay?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No. I don't think we did.
MR. FERNANDEZ: No. Last year, no.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I think it is good to do something
like that where they bring the families out and have a fun time,
whether that's Christmas or something else, but I don't know that --
that's not a long-standing tradition of Burt Saunders by any means.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: I went to see him and asked him would he
mind that -- if he were not in charge of the county employee Christmas
party in the future and he said, no, I just wish somebody was doing
it.
MR. OLLIFF: On the subject, I think we had decided as an
employee group to move the picnic problem in the October time frame,
when it was last year, to the spring, so that it is coming up shortly
and then we will, as we have in years past, come to you and asked for
partial support of the event, and we also try and get some corporate
sponsorship that they don't pay for.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Well, shouldn't it just be in the budget in
the future?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Well, it should be and it came out because of
that policy direction from years ago and it's one of those legacies
that we've been living with. And that's the next -- this is an
excellent forum for us to ask you, is that still your policy direction
or is that a --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No.
MR. FERNANDEZ: -- cost of budget?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And actually about three years ago, we
started doing it again, although we've done it as an individual item,
some sort of adjustment. So, if we need to put that in the regular
budget --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Please.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Put it in the budget.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: ~- we will.
MR. OLLIFF: We'll do that and get back to Commissioner Carter's
point. I think, just so you're aware, and I think Bob is going to
bring to your attention at an upcoming board meeting some of the
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February 2, 1999
internal training programs that he had us create. We mentioned to the
executive summary training classes. We've actually called that county
college, where we got a whole bunch of our internal people teaching
our new employees and new managers how we do business.
We can't get that by sending them someplace else, so specifically
how we do executive summaries, how we do budgets, how we do
purchasing, how we do all of those things, we're trying to train our
own that way.
And, in addition, we've started playing that Learn to Leap
program, which we've provided to the rest of the community in house,
so that we're taking advantage of some of the University of Florida
people that we have to teach our people to put them in a better
position to be able to step up and step into management positions at
the next level. So, we've got a lot internally.
And then I know, you know, we are looking for as part of our
action plans, I know, added our individual employee levels. We are
looking at what areas do employees need to improve in picking specific
training externally to address those issues.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Tom, I think when you -- when you have a
good experience to go externally to a seminar, you need to say, this
is really a home run, and you can integrate it into what I would call
your own curriculum or campus activity for government, that we would
have budgeted dollars that you could go bring that source to us so
that 25 managers can have that experience. And I'm an advocate of
doing that kind of thing.
Just a couple of thoughts. The worst thing that can happen, and
I can remember several years ago that someone from administration in
this county called me and said, because it was the in thing to do to
have some training, we need a team building session.
I said, well, that's possible. How long?
Well, we can only spend three hours on it.
I mean, that's just chasing dollars because somebody says you've
got to go do something. You might as well do nothing. I never want
to see that happen.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Did you take your money, Jim?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: No, I didn't.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Thanks.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I told them I couldn't do it. Three hours.
Number two, we started saying we ought to have something for
employees. That always bothers me. I would hope that we would ask
the employees what they want. If they want -- if one group wants to
have a picnic, fine. One group wants to do something different, maybe
we don't have to be universal on this. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: But we've got some dollars there that said
various groups want to do something that boosts their morale and makes
them feel better about being a part of this organization, let's do it.
But I hate a talk-down group of programs that say thou shalt go to
the picnic, thou shalt go to the Christmas party because we've always
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February 2, 1999
done that, and everybody says, I don't really want to go to this.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No. It's a great point. And that's
-- we don't need to beat up the Christmas party too much, but Tom can
probably tell more detail than me, but it was about three years ago
where we said, do we want to have a Christmas party, and the majority
of the employees said, not really.
And so we said, well, what do you want to do? And that's where
we ended up with that first picnic. And, well, we did do that because
that was where the interest was. They wanted to have the family with
them where they could bring everybody and -- COMMISSIONER CARTER: That's right.
MR. OLLIFF: And some of that, just some of it evolves. I think
the old format of a Christmas party was fancy, where you had to wear a
coat and tie, and I think it intimidated your rank-and-file employees
who didn't want to attend that kind of event, which made us move to a
more family-oriented outdoor picnic with the pool open, you know,
which is a whole lot more popular.
MR. FERNANDEZ: What I've also heard that some of the employees
looked forward to that event because it was their only chance to dress
up all year long and go to a fancy event.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Let divisions do their own or whatever.
You guys go with that, however you think you ought to, but --
MR. OLLIFF: There's a lot more going on out there perhaps than
you're aware of, too. I mean, we just recently created an employee
travel club where employees have opportunities to take trips to
Viscaya or the Metro Zoo or whatever it may be on a bus. And, you
know, they pay and cover the full cost of that, but it's just an
opportunity to organize and provide some organizational type benefits
that don't cost taxpayers.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Improve morale.
MR. OLLIFF: Yeah. And, so, there's -- there are a number of
efforts.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Neil or Wayne. I get mixed up.
(Laughter.)
MR. McNEES: A couple points. I'll say something that Tom won't
say. When you see the budget maybe for the picnic for the coming
year, it may be a little higher, at least depending on how this little
conversation goes, because what he won't say is we bring that in at
such a tight budget because, you know, we go hot dogs and grill and
because his people in parks and rec and a handful of other volunteers
bust their butts for a period of time and do all the work themselves
and serve all the food and --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: It sure would make sense if we were serving
the food.
MR. McNEES: -- in that way.
Well, in that way, they save a lot of money. Now, if we were to
do it to where it was actually for all of the employees as opposed to
by a few for the rest, it's probably going to cost a little bit more,
and I think it's only fair that his people also be able to enjoy it as
opposed to have to carry it and you're going to see it's going to cost
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February 2, 1999
a little more.
MR. FERNANDEZ: So it will cost more to do it that way instead of
all employees enjoy it.
MR. McNEES: Another thing, Commissioner Carter, back to a point
you made a minute ago with our internal training. We agree completely
that there's a big value to a certain amount of external training, but
we also think that when we do what we're trying to do with this county
college program, you have not only the benefit, the development
benefit, of the people in the class, but you get the benefit of
putting our people in the teaching situation, where, you know, as you
know, sometimes you'll learn more as the instructor than you did as
the -- as the pupil.
So, we think that's a real good situation for us where it's
putting our people and they're getting the development benefit on both
sides, and we think for what it costs us in terms of times, we think
it's going to be very successful now. It's a new thing for us.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Do you use the -- what I call a trained
trainer where you give them a --
MR. McNEES: We just completed that.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: -- format --
MR. FERNANDEZ: We just completed that.
I think the big message for us here in this session is if there
is a sentimental part of the commission that this is important to us,
it's something that is worthy of us expending some resources on, so
that there is a return on your investment to the organization. That's
a departure.
One of the questions I was asked during my interview; how did I
feel about training. I said, oh, I think training is very important.
It's critical. It's something that typically gets cut when you're
cutting budgets, but it's a very important part of what we do in the
organization.
And I sensed that there was some -- some anxiety about that
because it had developed to the point that it had become a minor --
well --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, it goes back to Robert Demerez
(phonetic) sending his employee to some human sexuality course because
they have books in the library about sex, and, you know, we spent
taxpayer dollars on that and it clearly was a bad judgment call, and I
think that was one that kind of pushed it over the edge.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: That was the one that pushed it over the
edge.
MR. OLLIFF: And I think we ended up throwing a good baby out
with some good --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Yeah.
MR. FERNANDEZ: We have some good positive things in this
organization that suffers.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So, hopefully, you're hearing from us that
we think that the baby is thrown out with the bath water. MR. FERNANDEZ: Sure.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The one thing I would just like to
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February 2, 1999
poll the board members and make sure that there's going to be support
for is on the morale building items like our Christmas party,
whatever, that when a TAG, Taxpayer Action Group, or someone comes and
complains, that we're reasonably sure we're going to stand by them,
because nothing is -- I would rather not say we're going to do
something, that I think it's far more damaging than retreat and back
off.
I happen to think it's important and I think out of a $400
million a year budget, we can cough up 5,000 bucks to make the
families happy for a weekend, and we ought to, but I just want to make
sure everybody is comfortable with that because somewhere we will get
some criticism.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I have another issue. Is the clerk going to
pay for this? Is he going to define this as public purpose and pay
for it?
MR. OLLIFF: He does if we bring you a resolution which you
approve.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: So, yes.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: If that's what it's going to take, then we
do whatever it takes.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Whenever we need to do.
MR. OLLIFF: Thankfully we have a summary agenda for this kind of
thing now.
MR. SCHOENFELD: With regard to employee development and
satisfaction, we talked about a couple of items, a lot of support, a
couple of the most budgetary type of issues and there's a lot of
support for that. This was very positive.
However, since this is one of my own areas of expertise, I can
tell you that when it comes to asking employees what makes them
satisfied, picnics and Christmas parties aren't the first thing on
their list.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Pay me.
MR. SCHOENFELD: So, well, certainly pay is part of that,
certainly managerial styles and interactions and job design, and
there's a whole slew of issues that go into employee satisfaction.
Quality of work like that are beyond just having a picnic or a social
occasion.
I just want to make sure that that's well understood that in
terms of having a picnic, that it's a great activity and it's great
for morale and getting people in a social atmosphere. However, it's
not the end-all or cure-all for any type of employee satisfaction
related issue.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, you're right. It's the work
environment and the ability to succeed and express and be creative and
not be intimidated and held back is what's key here. And that's what
I mean by developing courses so that we make sure the managers get
that message.
MR. SCHOENFELD: Okay. Good.
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February 2, 1999
MR. FERNANDEZ: I just want to say I'm really very pleased to see
a Board of County Commissioners that understands the significance of
employee morale, and just leave it at that because it's very
important. That's a very important --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: I think we're pleased that you're pleased.
Now, let's move on.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Don't make fun.
MR. OLLIFF: I do want to add that there's a real issue here
though, because like when Susan stood up and said this is an
employees' market, it is hard to get positions filled, and it is
really hard to -- to deal with an organization if you have a high
turnover rate and those kind of things. And if we're talking
continuous organizations, what kind of total employee package we have
to try and get and retain employees, I can't tell you how important it
is on our ability to be successful.
MR. FERNANDEZ: And your support of that is critical. It really
is.
CHAIRMAN MAC'KIE: And -- well --
MR. FERNANDEZ: That's why I'm pleased.
MR. SCHOENFELD: All right. Now, we've talked about a number of
issues that were on our agenda today. The last one is really not a
strategic issue by any means and you've decided where there's a need
to talk about. Part of it was an chance in seeing how the discussion
went today, what we need to talk about, rules and procedures for
interaction, how you're going to conduct business. So, it's not a
major issue in terms of things that came up in any of the sessions
that I have with individuals.
A couple things; a really good positive discussion, I saw a lot
of good interaction among all participants in terms of discussion
issues in a very open and free manner, concerns about inhibiting each
other, verbally and nonverbally was able to become a joke, which is
great.
In terms of moving down, in terms of our agenda items in terms of
actionable types of activities, I think we made some really good
strides with regard to that and they're up here on the foot charts
which I'll tape up in a quick manner, that says that they're some
assigned responsibilities and targeted dates.
Talk about goal setting, the more specific we can be the better.
We're able to get some of these issues down into very specific level
of action.
Now, a couple things that we haven't done is talk about --
reflect on where we were last year in some of those issues and whether
this falls in line with that and then you have to decide right now
whether that's an activity. I didn't want to start off that today.
I wanted to jump right into some of these issues, see where everybody
was raring to go, but we can decide whether we want to go back and
look in terms of where you were last year and the progress you made in
relation to where you're going now after today's meeting, and
everything falling in line or if there's any gaps that need to be
addressed if you decide that's an activity you want to spend time with
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February 2, 1999
right now.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Bob, didn't you just provide us a
report like six or eight weeks ago that went through that literally
item by item and looked for our progress?
MR. FERNANDEZ: We've been doing that on a quarterly basis, but
there's a concern with whether those broadly stated goals and our
reporting to you within those categories is really very useful to you,
and if it is, then we'll continue to do that.
But our hope today was to get to more tangible, more specific
issues where the direction could be much more direct. We accepted the
fact that we weren't going to be able to cover the entire spectrum of
policy direction of the Board of County Commissioners, and to the
extent that what we talked about today did not conflict with our
standing policies from our previous efforts, we will assume those to
continue to be in place for purposes of policy direction but, yes, we
have them in warranty.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I assume all the commissioners agree
that I -- I don't know if we need to go -- I don't know for me anyway,
that we need to go back through, because I do find those very helpful.
MR. FERNANDEZ: If you do, we'll continue them.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: God, this is what we wait on and we're
meeting it, or, boy, we're way behind, and I think they're great. I
don't know that I need to --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, one of them is consistency. I mean,
I'm new so I just have to know if this is consistent with where we're
going and everybody is comfortable with that. That's fine by me.
MR. OLLIFF: Personally, I think it's a little overkill and I
want to make sure that what I'm providing is not a waste of time. And
what we've done last time, you guys pick like five or six goals, a
small town community type thing and then, frankly, what we did is we
went back and plugged in our programs where they were appropriate.
But whether or not the board honestly cared when the ag department
held their workshop --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I don't care about the action steps.
MR. OLLIFF: That level --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Your reports are my favorites.
MR. OLLIFF: I'm sure they are.
Now, the book discussions at the library, you know, we say we're
going to have that in April. Yeah, we had it in April.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It's pretty specific.
MR. OLLIFF: Yeah.
Is that the level that you want? I think some of the water
management is one more issue. You know, we were hearing those kind of
level improvements. Yeah, that's important.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How demanding is that on you-all to
put them together in that detail, because it's helpful for me, but if
it's taking you 40 hours to do it, then it's probably not worthwhile.
MR. OLLIFF: It's probably less than 40. It's probably somewhere
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February 2, 1999
between 20 and 40 hours per quarter on my staff. Now, you know, I
don't know what the rest of them are.
MR. FERNANDEZ: We've got to the point that we've automated the
form and that has facilitated it a little bit, because it's consistent
now in the way each division reports but it's still a considerable --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Of course, with these every other week
meetings, we've got a lot of free time and --
MR. FERNANDEZ: If it's useful, as I say, we can continue to do
it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I'm just one. I don't know. For
me it's very interesting.
MR. OLLIFF: Will do.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Well, for me, it's -- it's a start toward
what we talked about, the quarterly division reports, that -- you
know, we talked about it at the beginning of the meeting that we would
like to have these quarterly comp plan kind of update, here's where we
are.
I, frankly, have more interest in that than I do in your
quarterly, you know, production of reports, for lack of a better term,
because then we would be getting the big picture. It seems to me the
two could be rolled together instead of separate, instead of adding
something else.
Would that work for you, commissioner? Do you need the report
the way it currently exists?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What's the second thing?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Do it separate. It's really kind of combined,
the way we're doing the budget quarterly report and we're doing the
programmatic.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: I think you're talking about -- I think Pam is
talking about the programmatic and the item we discussed today about
bringing the comp plan element in. You know, here's current policy
and more like here's the current practice and --
MR. FERNANDEZ: Well, what I'm saying is you're doing a quarterly
report, too.
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: That everybody likes, right? I mean, I do.
MR. FERNANDEZ: So, adding the comp plan quarterly reports is
third level of --
CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: You know, it's second really. To add that
to -- to modify the programmatic reports.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay.
MR. SCHOENFELD: When we talk about strategy, we talk about a
plan for resource allocation that allows you to achieve your goals and
be successful in your environment.
We spent a great deal of time today talking about a number of
issues that were generated by all of you individually over the last
couple of weeks.
Now, before we conclude, on a positive note of what we were able
to achieve today, I just want to make sure that there's no other
issues that somebody has that they think is of a strategic importance
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February 2, 1999
in the immediate short term talking about the next year that hasn't
been touched upon today.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Barb, are you still working on that
spring training baseball facility?
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Two of them.
MR. SCHOENFELD: All right. Well, then, if there's no other
issues besides the spring training facility, I'd like to thank you all
for allowing me to participate in this process with each of you. I've
got to tell you that having done this a number of times, this is a
very positive effort and the dynamics of the group were one that
allowed some fruitful action to take place, so you should all be
commended and congratulated for your hard work today. CHAIRPERSON MAC'KIE: Everybody pat themselves.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Thank you for a good job you've done today.
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:00 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPEC/~AL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL
· '.,/½. T~e.se.~ m.l. nute~ approved by the Board on
or as corrected
as presenfed.
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC.
BY CHERIE LEONE and ROSE M. WITT, RPR
Page 114