BCC Minutes 01/06/1998 R REGULAR MEETING OF JANUARY 6, 1998
OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in
and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning
Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as
have been created according to law and having conducted business
herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building
"F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the
following members present:
ALSO PRESENT:
CHAIRMAN:
Barbara Berry
Pamela S. Mac'Kie
John C. Norris
Timothy J. Constantine
Timothy L. Hancock
Robert Fernandez, County Administrator
David Weigel, County Attorney
Item
AGENDA AND CONSENT AGENDA - APPROVED AND/OR ADOPTED WITH CHANGES
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Good morning. I would like to have everyone's
attention, please. Call to order the January 6th meeting of the Board
of County Commissioners.
This morning it's our pleasure to have Reverend Fred Thorn of the
Golden Gate United Methodist Church with us to offer the invocation.
And Reverend Thorn, if I could ask for that at this time. We will
follow that with the Pledge of allegiance.
REVEREND THORN: Let's pray. Dear Father, we thank you for your
blessing of this new morning, the blessing of being able to be up and
about and have the health that we have. We thank you for our leaders
here and we ask your blessing to be with them as they make the
decisions for the good of the community, that all of the hidden
agendas that each of us have might disappear and we might work
together, that the community might be better and grow and prosper. We
do thank you for all your blessings and continue to ask your support
for each of us as we pray in your dear name. Amen.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited in unison.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Reverend Thorn, thank you for taking the time
to be with us this morning. We certainly appreciate it.
First of all, I'd like to wish a happy new year to everybody.
It's always -- believe it or not, we like seeing a full room. I just
hope that we have -- throughout the day that everyone will have a
chance to have a seat. If not, Mr. Fernandez, is there a way we can
get additional chairs out in the hallway, possibly?
MR. FERNANDEZ: We're trying to make arrangements.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: There's a lot of folks standing. If we could
do that, that would be helpful.
1998 is officially the year of new facial hair.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: For some of you. Not for all of us.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We're all going to do it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, no.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: But again, welcome back. It's a new year and
hopefully we're going to get it started off the right way today.
*** The next item on our agenda is approval of agenda and consent
agenda. Before getting to that, Mr. Fernandez, do we have any changes
to the agenda?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes, Mr. Chairman. The first change I have is
add item 8-A-2, interlocal agreement between Collier County and the
City of Marco Island for the county planning services department staff
to present ten land use petitions to Marco Island planning board and
Marco city council. That's a staff request.
In addition to that request, Mr. Weigel has informed me that he
has one and also some editing for the consent agenda. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Mr. Weigel.
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you and happy new year. I would like to, if
it's the board's pleasure, have an add-on to the county attorney
agenda, number nine, and this would be for the presentation to the
record of the certificate of the Collier County canvassing board that
issued this morning in regard to the Lely community development
district.
Beyond that, in today's consent agenda, as is kind of typical of
the case with some items that are carried over and placed on the
agenda, there are some references in the consent agenda which will not
be able to be discussed on the regular floor where there are -- the
year 1997 in regard to resolution and resolution numbers appears, or
'97, on some agreements, and there may be a need for appropriate
change in a place or two for the chairman name. These items
specifically are 16-A-2, 16-A-5, 16-A-6 and 16-A-7. I will address,
and you have had I believe passed out to you, and I will provide of
record, the fact that a resolution under 16-A-7 does not show the
number of the resolution for which a scrivener's error correction is
being made, and that number is, for the record, 97-453.
So if the board would adopt this additional information into
their approval of the consent agenda, that would be of assistance.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Mr. Weigel.
Commissioner Mac'Kie, any changes?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nothing, thank you.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Norris?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: No changes today.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry?
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Nothing.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Constantine?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to remove
16-B-1 from the consent agenda and put it on the regular agenda,
please.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Fernandez, where shall we locate 16-B-l?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Chairman, I would recommend that be placed as
item 8-B-3.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: 16-B-1 formerly will now be heard as eight --
I'm sorry, you said B-37
MR. FERNANDEZ: B-3.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. And I have no changes to the agenda.
Is there a motion on the agenda and consent agenda?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Chairman, I will make a motion that we
accept the -- or adopt the agenda and consent agenda with changes as
noted.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. And for the record, those changes do
include the comments by Mr. Weigel.
We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion?
Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
Motion carries five-zero.
Item #4
MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF DECEMBER 2, 1997, LAND DEVELOPMENT
CODE MEETING OF DECEMBER 2, 1997, REGULAR MEETINGS OF DECEMBER 9 AND
16, 1997, LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE MEETING OF DECEMBER 17, 1997 AND
EMERGENCY MEETING OF DECEMBER 22, 1997 - APPROVED AS SUBMITTED
Item four on our agenda, approval of minutes.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: I would like to approve the minutes for
December 2nd, 1997; December 2nd, 1997, Land Development Code meeting;
December 9th, regular meeting; December 16th regular meeting; December
17th, LDC meeting; and December 22nd, emergency meeting.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Appears the court reporters were busy over the
holidays. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, signify
by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
Motion carries five-zero.
Item #5Al
PROCLAMATION ACKNOWLEDGING THE "DO THE RIGHT THING" PROGRAM OF THE
COLLIER COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE ADOPTED
Item five, proclamations. 5-A-l, Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I am thrilled to get to do a proclamation
for a new program. Chief Jackie Kline Captain Paul Canady are here,
if you will come up to receive the proclamation. This is a
proclamation about a new and a very exciting program in Collier
County, so tune in.
Whereas, it is the duty, honor and tradition of the Collier
County Sheriff's Office to preserve and protect the lives, property
and constitutional guarantees of all persons through an unrelenting
commitment to professional excellence; and
Whereas, Sheriff Don Hunter and the Collier County Sheriff's
Office have joined the "Do The Right Thing" program, which the Miami
police department began in 1990; and
Whereas, the "Do The Right Thing" program seeks to build
self-esteem in youngsters by reinforcing socially desirable behavior;
and
Whereas, the "Do The Right Thing" program stimulates
identification in the community with positive role models, peers and
law enforcement.
Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida that the "Do The Right
Thing" program of the Collier County Sheriff's Office is a truly
unique and innovative endeavor, valuable to the community of Collier
County.
Done and ordered this 6th day of January, 1998. Board of County
Commissioners, Timothy Hancock, Chairman.
I am pleased to move acceptance of this proclamation.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have a motion and a second. All those in
favor, signify by saying aye.
Congratulations and thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. CANADY: For the record, my name is Paul Canady with the
Sheriff's Office. If you would for just a moment, I didn't know about
the facial hair. I shaved this morning.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We didn't get the memo to your side. My
apologies.
MR. CANADY: On behalf of Sheriff Hunter and the Sheriff's
Office, we accept and thank the commission for the proclamation for
the "Do The Right Thing" program.
Just a few words, if you will. The program officially kicks off
tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. with a news conference at the Sheriff's
Office in Building J at the courthouse complex. And, again, you have
already read a little about the program. We're looking to reinforce
good deeds and good achievement by children. Plenty of information has
been put out about the kids that do the wrong things that get in
trouble. And we feel that we can achieve a couple of things with this
program by positive reinforcement, by bolstering that we do look for
kids to do things and we do recognize it. And that if the youth is our
future, the future of Collier County may look a little brighter than
what we believe if we read the papers and look at the news at night.
And that's what we hope to achieve. Again, we thank you for your
continued support of our youth programs at the Sheriff's Office.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, Lt. Canady. And you'll certainly
be hearing more and seeing more about that program. Several members
of the board have asked to be involved and have agreed so we're
looking forward to it. Thank you.
Item #5A2
PROCLAMATION PROCLAIMING THE WEEK OF JANUARY 11 - 17, 1998, AS COUNTY
FAIR WEEK - ADOPTED
Our next item, Item 5-A-2 under proclamations, Commissioner
Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is Terry Wolfson
here with us today? Oh, there you are, Terry. Terry is the president
of the Collier County Fair Board. Terry, if you will come up here and
face the cameras, we have a little proclamation for the fair.
Whereas, the county fair is the link between our urban areas and
our agricultural heritage; and
Whereas, the county fair provides a unique forum for the display,
exhibit and recognition of the productive activities of our young
Collier Countians; and
Whereas, the county fair provides a unique educational
opportunity for our youth involved in 4-H, FFA and other organizations
to exhibit their livestock, handicrafts, horticulture and other
projects; and
Whereas, the county fair and its partners throughout the county
sponsor the development of practical skills and leadership in our
youth; and
Whereas, the county fair partnership includes the volunteer
services of the Board of County Commissioners, the fair board of
directors, the cooperative extension services, the county council of
family and community educators, and the county public schools.
Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County
Commissioners of Collier County, Florida that the week of January 11
to 17, 1998 be designated as County Fair Week, and the Board of County
Commissioners urges all citizens of the county to attend the county
fair and show their support and recognition to young Collier Countians
who proudly participate.
Done and ordered this 6th day of January, 1998. The Board of
County Commissioners, Collier County, Florida. Timothy L. Hancock,
chairman for the moment.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you for that reminder.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I would like to move acceptance of this
proclamation, by the way.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and a second by Commissioner Mac'Kie.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Terry, congratulations and thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. WOLFSON: This is exciting for me. Good morning, everybody.
For the record once again, my name is Terry Wolfson. I am here as a
representative of the Collier County agricultural fair and exposition,
known to most of you as the Collier County Fair.
This year, in addition to being sponsored by our fair board, we
have a title, the Allen Systems Group. I mention these things for
several reasons. We are no longer a one-event per year organization.
We have had several concerts this year. We have had a circus. We
just completed a farm festival -- our second annual farm festival in
November, which is a fundraiser to help us complete the wings on our
livestock pavilion, which this panel was so gracious to loan us money
to begin several years ago.
This -- none of this could be completed if it weren't for the
support from this local government, which is you folks, our business
leaders, such as the Allen Systems Group and many other businesses
that have supported us over the years, too many that I can't name
today. Nevertheless, we really appreciate their contributions. And
also from the support of our private citizens and from our 4-H parents
and 4-H youth. It takes a lot to put on the fair and the other
organizations that go on.
Our 4-H children not only contribute and learn from this.
They're our future leaders of tomorrow, not only in this county, not
only in this state, in the United States, and some will be leaders
worldwide, I'm sure of it, and that's quite an impact to me.
Today I have a gift to present to each of you. It's a hat and a
jacket with the Collier County fair logo, and for the record, the
declared value is twenty-four dollars. I don't think that exceeds the
limits.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank God.
MR. WOLFSON: I think it's good to know that.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You knew we were going to ask, Terry.
MR. WOLFSON: I thought you might. One of our 4-H'ers ms a
leader today. So we don't have to wait until tomorrow to recognize
her leadership. And she's here just to tell you just briefly -- I
know we're pressed for time -- but to give you just a brief idea of
what 4-H and the fair has meant to her.
So it gives me great pleasure to introduce Miss Jody Brown.
MS. BROWN: Hi. For the record, my name is Jody Brown. I'm 17
years old and a senior in high school. I am my club's president,
county council president and member of the coordinating committee.
This ms my sixth and final year in 4-H.
4-H has required that I do some things that I might not otherwise
have done, such as community service and public speaking. And I will
participate in service work when it won't count for an award and I
often volunteer to speak in front of different groups. 4-H has taught
me a lot of leadership skills, record keeping, note taking,
organization, responsibility, being a good team member are just a few.
4-H is no longer the only thing that requires that I do these things.
I require it of myself.
This transformation is something I know 4-H -- the 4-H program
in our county produces in young people. I know Wendy and Ryan can say
this too. And I know that if these younger members continue in the
program, they will one day say the same thing. 4-H is a very
worthwhile youth program, one that I know has helped me and has been
good for me. Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. WOLFSON: Thank you, Jod¥.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Now I am just hoping the weather is cold
enough to wear it, Terry.
Again, thank you very much.
(Applause.)
MR. WOLFSON: Once again, the fair begins this Friday at 5 p.m.,
January 9th. It ends January the 17th on a Saturday. I'll see you at
the fair. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Terry, we've been out there a couple
of years where it was about 30 degrees. Looks like we got a good one
this year.
Item #5B
EMPLOYEE SERVICE AWARDS - PRESENTED
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Next on our agenda is Item 5-B, service
awards. Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, it's my privilege, we
have a series of service awards to our employees today. We have two
employees who are celebrating five years with us. If we could ask
Brent Smith and George Richmond each to come up.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, we also have three
employees celebrating ten years with us. We have Susan Rossi from
utility regulation, Judith Puig from code enforcement, and Marilyn
Vanatta from the library.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And one of those rare birds who
tolerates the county for twenty years, the name synonymous with road
and bridge, Larry Henry.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Accepting for Larry.
MR. HENRY: I couldn't get out.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Congratulations and thanks.
You all remember the floods about three years ago? Well, Larry
saved me.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He saved you? Literally bailed you out.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And all I picked up was a reporter for the
newspaper.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Lucky guy.
Item #5C1
BRYAN THURSTON, CRAFTSMAN WITH FACILITIES MANAGEMENT - RECOGNIZED AS
EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH FOR JANUARY, 1998
CHAIRMAN HA/qCOCK: Next item on our agenda is 5-C-1 under
presentations. This is a recommendation to recognize the employee of
the month for January, 1998. The employee that has been selected is
Mr. Bryan Thurston, a craftsman with facilities management.
Mr. Thurston, are you back there? There we go. Bryan, if I could
ask you to come on up so we can duly embarrass and recognize you.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Bryan, the first thing I want you to do is
turn around and face the crowd here because we have a little dialogue
on you.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We got the lowdown.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Bryan has been employed by the county since
July of 1993 and has consistently provided quality craftsmanship for
all the building maintenance and construction that he performs.
Bryan, however, should be recognized for a special skill that he has
used to save the county thousands of dollars. Bryan is a master
cabinetmaker. You can find his work at the Immokalee and Everglades
airport lounges and customer service areas, the fine counters and
cabinets in the customer service area of development services and at
the county museum where he put the final touches on the professional
display case used for the Marco Cat and the Spanish Treasures
exhibits. Bryan also constructed a Civil War style bridge with the
Friends of the Museum's assistance that linked both parts of the
museum grounds with a safe walkway to give the area an appearance
reminiscent of the time period. Bryan's expertise was also used for
the Old Florida Festival to construct an authentic Florida-style
smokehouse for all the major cooking for the event.
Bryan is currently preparing another display cabinet for the
museum's next exhibit of Beanie Babies. I always get a laugh with
that one.
It's for the exemplary work he provides on a daily basis along
with the many projects he has built for the county that he's being
recognized for this special award.
Congratulations, Bryan. This award is well deserved. And Bryan,
I have a letter of congratulations signed by me as Chairman of the
Board of Commissioners. I have a plaque recognizing you as employee of
the month for January, 1998, I would like to present to you. And I
have, certainly not the least important, a check. And
congratulations.
(Applause.)
Item #5D
SELECTION OF NEW CHAIRMAN AND VICE CHAIRMAN - COMMISSIONER BERRY
ELECTED AS CHAIRMAN AND COMMISSIONER NORRIS ELECTED AS VICE CHAIRMAN
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Now, to the part of the agenda I've been
waiting eleven and a half months for, the selection of a new chairman
and vice-chairman.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Chairman, I would like to --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just before anybody nominates, I
wanted to compliment Mr. Hancock on the job he's done in the past
year.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He's done a great job.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: He has done a very good job.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's been a colorful, action-packed
year, but very efficient meetings, and while we didn't beat out
Commissioner Norris' record for the shortest meeting, I think overall
we had a history of very, very --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We had far more substantive issues to deal
with this year.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So a very efficient year --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I'm sure that's what it was.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- and we appreciate the work.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I have to agree that our outgoing chairman
has done a fine job, but I will nominate as next year's or this year's
chairman, Barbara Berry.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have a motion and a second. Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I would like to take a quick recess to allow
the shuffling of chairs and we will then pick up with the selection of
a vice-chairman.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Before we do that, Mr. Chairman, I have a
presentation to make. Perhaps this is a --
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: In that case, I will reconvene.
COMMISSIONER BERRY: Perhaps this is another precedent setting
moment. I don't believe that in the past this is the type of thing
that's been done, but being a chairman of any group such as this
requires a lot of extra time. There is no extra pay in it, but it
does require a lot of extra time. And so to start off with, I would
like to present this to our outgoing chairman. The plaque reads, "In
grateful appreciation for outstanding leadership to Timothy L.
Hancock, Chairman, January 7, 1997 to January 6, 1998, Collier County
Board of County Commissioners."
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And with that, I will pass the hot seat.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: And it will be warm today.
We will resume the meeting and open the nominations for
vice-chairman. And I would like to take the liberty of nominating
John Norris for the vice-chairmanship. Do I have a second?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll second.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. Motion made and seconded for John Norris
as the vice-chairman.
Ail those in favor, indicate by saying aye.
Motion carries 4-1.
Opposed?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, 5-0.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: 5-0, sorry. Excuse me. 5-0. First mistake of
the day.
Item #8Al
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES DIVISION STAFF
REQUESTING APPROVAL TO SERVE AS AGENT IN APPLYING FOR AN AMENDMENT TO
THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY VEHICLE EVALUATION CENTER PLANNED UNIT
DEVELOPMENT - APPROVED
Okay. Moving along, then, to Item 8-A, please, community
development and environmental services, having to do with community
development and environmental services division staff requesting
approval.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, move the item.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Do I have a second?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Well, this is easy. The presentation was
simple, Mr. Arnold.
We have a motion and a second.
All in favor?
Motion carries unanimously.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Do we have any speakers?
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Did we have any speakers on that?
MR. FERNANDEZ: You had -- you have three speakers to speak on
that subject, Madam Chairman.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They probably don't want to talk us out of
it.
MR. BRUET: Good morning. For the record, Mike Bruet, on behalf
of the owner, Collier Enterprises. We have some people who are
prepared to speak if necessary and if there's any other point of view,
we would be glad to discuss it with them. But if not, we'll step back
and let you move forward.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Who were the speakers?
MR. FERNANDEZ: They have all waived.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: They have all waived?
MR. FERNANDEZ: They have all waived.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. Very good.
Item #8A2
INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN COLLIER COUNTY AND THE CITY OF MARCO
ISLAND FOR THE COUNTY PLANNING SERVICES DEPARTMENT STAFF TO PRESENT TEN
LAND USE PETITIONS TO THE MARCO ISLAND PLANNING BOARD AND MARCO CITY
COUNCIL - APPROVED
Added item of the interlocal agreement with Marco Island.
Mr. Cautero.
MR. CAUTERO: Good morning, Madam Chair. Vince Cautero from the
community development and environmental services division. The
executive summary that was added to your agenda today is the formal
document that you directed staff to prepare on the December -- at the
December 16th meeting, which is the interim local -- interlocal
agreement with the City of Marco Island to prepare and present the ten
land use petitions that are outstanding to the planning board and the
city council. The first public hearing with the planning board is
scheduled for Friday, January 9th, and the meetings for the city
council have yet to be advertised to my knowledge. The city council
approved the agreement last evening.
I will answer any questions you may have.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Miss Mac'Kie, questions? Mr. Norris? Mr.
Constantine?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Move the item.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Second.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: I have a motion and a second for approval of
this agreement. All those in -- Any speakers?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mr. Weigel, do we have speakers?
MR. WEIGEL: Excuse me. No, we do not.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. No speakers on the issue. I will call
for the question.
All those in favor of the agreement with Marco Island?
Motion carries unanimously.
Item #8B1
RESOLUTION 98-3, RE HIGHWAY BEAUTIFICATION GRANT FROM THE FLORIDA
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION FOR MEDIAN LANDSCAPING ON DAVIS BOULEVARD
FROM AIRPORT ROAD EASTWARD TO COUNTY BARN ROAD; AND 98-4, AUTHORIZING
THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR TO ENTER INTO A LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE
MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT AND HIGHWAY BEAUTIFICATION GRANT MEMORANDUM OF
AGREEMENT FOR THE INSTALLATION AND MAINTENANCE OF LANDSCAPING AND
IRRIGATION LOCATED ON A PORTION OF STATE HIGHWAY 84 (DAVIS BOULEVARD)
BETWEEN AIRPORT ROAD AND COUNTY BARN ROAD - ADOPTED
Moving along, Mr. Finn, to adopt two resolutions related to
applying for a highway beautification grant from FDOT regarding Davis
Boulevard.
MR. FINN: Thank you, ma'am. Edward Finn, public works
operations director. This item is simply to obtain the board's
authorization for two resolutions required to seek an FDOT highway
beautification grant. The amount of the grant is capped at $150,000.
At this point, the project encompasses Davis Boulevard from Airport
Road to County Barn Road.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Finn.
MR. FINN: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Sorry to interrupt, but isn't this the same
process that we have been following for a couple of years? It's just
a continuation of this project.
MR. FINN: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I will move it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. We have a motion and a second by Miss
Mac'Kie. Motion by Mr. Norris for the approval. All those in favor?
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Motion carries 5-0.
MR. FINN: Thank you.
Item #8B2
RANKING OF ALTERNATIVE LANDFILL SITES PURSUANT TO THE FINAL REPORT FROM
THE LANDFILL CITIZENS ADVISORY COMMITTEE - SITE "L" DESIGNATED AS #1
SITE; SITE "U" DESIGNATED AS BACKUP AND DUFRESNE-HENRY TO RETURN TO THE
BCC WITH COSTS
*** CHAIRMAN BERRY: Next item on the agenda, which will be
probably a lengthy item, this is the ranking of alternative landfill
sites pursuant to the final report from the landfill citizens'
advisory committee.
If there are any seats out there, look around and advise people
and let's get as many people seated as possible. If you have a seat
available, please indicate so people will know that there are some
seats out there, please.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chair.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Yes.
MR. FERNANDEZ: While we're talking about logistics, I have been
informed that the fire marshall has advised us that we can accommodate
the crowd that we have in the room as long as we keep the exits free.
So if we don't have congregation around the exits, we would appreciate
that.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: All right. Thank you very much.
One thing I would like to bring out about what's going to happen
at this discussion today, the topic before us is the ranking of the
three sites that have been presented by the citizens' advisory
committee. This basically today is going to be a staff report.
There's not going to be a discussion about whether we move the
landfill or truck the garbage out or keep it where it is or any of
the decisions along that line. That is not the discussion today. If
you were choosing to speak to that particular issue, in other words,
about moving it or trucking or incinerating it or whatever your choice
might be, that's not today. What we're simply dealing with today are
the three sites and the information regarding those three sites.
If you have signed up to speak, your discussion and your speech
must be regarding the three -- one of the three sites or the three
sites --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Madam Chair.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: -- and merely the three sites.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Question on that.
CF_AIRMAN BERRY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My -- my position today is in advocacy of
selecting none of the three sites.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Well, but that may be reflected.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's what I want to be sure, that people
have the opportunity to speak on that point as well. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Right. Sure.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I guess that I am disappointed that
you would say that before you have heard any of the presentation.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, except that, Commissioner
Constantine, you know that I have done years of research and work on
this and have thoroughly reviewed the committee's report and expect to
listen and if something new comes up, I will be persuaded by it. But
I want to be sure that people who are here to advocate the position of
choosing none of the three sites have the opportunity to speak.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: No. That's -- but I wanted the conversation to
stay -- I don't want the conversation and the discussion to veer off
of the sites, okay? I mean, it's -- whatever is said is relative to
the sites that are being presented.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In other words, we're not here to relive
debates on composting --
CHAIRMAN BERRY: No. No, we're not.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- incineration.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: That's not -- that isn't our discussion. That
may come at another time, but that's not for the discussion today.
And basically, this is a staff report. I would ask that my fellow
commissioners would keep your comments in regard to the staff report.
Let's help them complete their report. Write down your questions and
then I will give each of you certainly an opportunity -- as much time
as you want to discuss those particular items. But I just think it's
important that we let them go through and give their entire report
today.
Mr. Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, along that line, some
people may be wondering, well, when then will we have that
opportunity? And hopefully where we head today, as we rank those top
three sites, when we have a top site, we can pluS some real-life
numbers into that and look at some of the costs in the coming weeks.
So I think it's three weeks or four weeks or whatever it is from now,
the trucking bids are due back. And as long as we have some real-life
numbers from a real-life site, you can compare apples to apples. So
that will probably be the appropriate time if anybody is wondering,
okay, when do we get to talk about those things? CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. That's fair.
Any further questions from the commissioners?
Mr. Fernandez, at this time, then, I would like to introduce Mr.
David Russell from our solid waste department, and I will turn it over
to you, David.
MR. RUSSELL: Good morning, commissioners. This item today
allows the community and the commissioners to hear the final report
from the landfill citizens' advisory committee who have been hard at
work for two and a half years plus in developing this final report and
brinHing to you these top three sites. The members of that committee
will be making the presentation, and I will introduce to you David
Wilkison of David Wilkison and Associates. He is a member of the
Dufresne-Henry consulting team that has been workinH with the advisory
committee helping them go throuHh this process. So I will turn the
meeting over to Mr. Wilkison and let the committee members make their
presentation now.
MR. WILKISON: Good morning, Commissioners, and happy new year.
For the record, my name is David Wilkison from the Dufresne-Henry
team. Today with me there are several members of the citizens'
advisory committee who are here today. Barbara Jenkins, Russell
Priddy, David Addison, Fran Stallings, Nancy Bisbee, Mike Delate, Tom
Henning and Jon Staiger. And also with me are several members of the
Dufresne-Henry team, Kim Boyd, Joe Spear. John Wood and Bill Bates
are here also with us today.
It's been our pleasure to spend the last about two and a half
years or maybe a little bit over that workinH with the citizens'
advisory committee, and it's been a long arduous process, difficult at
times, but it's been rewarding, and we really had the opportunity to
work with a great committee. I have served on several advisory
committees in the past and these folks have worked extremely hard.
It's been a difficult task.
So today we would like to present their final report to you, and
the presentation will be made by members of the Dufresne-Henry team
and also members of the citizens' advisory.
And I would like to introduce Joe Spear from our team who will
begin the presentation.
MR. SPEAR: Good morning and thank you for this opportunity. If
you would give me just a moment to get set up.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chairman, think we're ~oing to need
a microphone from the wall for this gentleman if he's going to float
about outside the podium.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. I think we need some more lights
particularly dimmed in order to see that.
MR. SPEAR: Good morning and thank you. We're here today
completing in essence a great circle, a circle that started for us on
the 16th of May of 1995 when the Board of County Commissioners passed
Resolution 95-333 and charged the citizens' advisory committee to~
identify and locate a site for the future landfill and materials
recovery facility for Collier County. A little later in the process,
in June of 1996, the charge was modified, and the modification was to
prepare a selection of the best three sites, one each from L, A-B and
U groups as suggested by the citizens' advisory committee. It is in
light of those charges that the committee has prepared its final
report.
The committee was composed of members of each of the districts
representing Collier County and members of the Conservancy, the Golden
Gate Estates Civic Association, the Florida Wildlife Federation, the
Audubon Society, Golden Gate Chamber of Commerce, and was supported by
the county solid waste staff.
In the thirty months that that committee has been working to
complete its charge, it went through a series of activities. And just
as an overview, the committee developed and applied exclusionary
criteria for screening of all property within the county. They
identified candidate areas by applying area definition rules and the
sites were developed by site identification rules. Candidate sites
were evaluated by developing and applying evaluative criteria.
Candidate sites were scored. A flyover was done of the top five
ranked sites.
The charge was modified. We -- the committee then selected one
candidate site within each of the three geographically diverse
candidate areas. Site specific field investigations were performed at
each of the sites A, L and U, and we are here today to present the
final statement identifying suitable sites to you.
Early on in the process it was evident that this process should
be conducted in a fishbowl. Public involvement was a major element of
the project. The committee has met at locations throughout the
county. At the end of every CAC meeting, thirty minutes was reserved
for public comment. At no time at any meeting was the public comment
period shortened if it went beyond thirty minutes. All of the
activities of record of the committee are in the public repository in
the public libraries of Collier County. We have had seventeen press
releases. We had a public information brochure. We have conducted
two town hall meetings. We have had presentations to the Economic
Development Council, Naples Area Chamber of Commerce, the Golden Gate
town hall meeting, and Dave Wilkison's daughter's third grade class.
In summary then, we have had twenty-five public information
meetings in the thirty months that the project has been operating.
Some seven and a half hours of public comment, if you just look at the
agendas. In addition, four hours each in town hall meetings plus four
activities involving speakers' bureau. An example of our coverage
with press releases, these are the organizations and print and radio
media elements that we released to (indicating).
It really wasn't an easy job. The project started with the
development of exclusionary criteria I'd like to ask Dave Addison to
step up and talk about the part of the process where exclusionary
criteria were developed and applied to the properties in Collier
County. Dave.
MR. ADDISON: Let me reiterate what Joe said. This was not an
easy process. Dave Addison.
The first step in developing the criteria that we were going to
utilize to select sites was to develop what we referred to as
exclusionary criteria. Most of the exclusionary criteria that we
dealt with were related to federal, state and local regulations
regarding the siting of landfill. But to define more clearly what
exclusionary criteria is, it's spelled out pretty straightforward
here. A criteria that prohibits a potential area from further
consideration as a candidate area in exclusionary criteria reflect
federal, state and local regulatory rules and regulations.
If we can look at the next transparency, these are the
exclusionary criteria that we came up with. There were seven all
together. The first six were basically spelled out in state and
federal regulations, which were pretty thick books. There's a lot of
laws that govern the siting of these things. We did, however, have
some latitude in applying additional exclusionary criteria if we so
desired. For instance, in the national park lands, what we opted to
do -- you could have had an option, I suppose, to swap land from an
existing preserve, say five hundred acres in the Big Cypress National
Preserve, and swap that and use part of that for a landfill in
exchange for some other land. We opted not to do that and to stay out
of the parks and preserves.
The other thing that we did dealt with residential areas because
there was a lot of concern up-front about residential areas with this.
So what we said about this is that no disposal area shall be located
within areas designated as human residential or incorporated as
identified by the Collier County or the Collier County, Florida
comprehensive future -- comprehensive plan future land use element.
There, I finally got that out.
So after we applied this, we ended up with -- with the following,
and this is what the exclusionary criteria did to the county. You can
see the areas in black indicate where you could not site a landfill
just as a matter of principle, so we had the area that much smaller.
Okay. The next thing we had to do then was to take -- identify
candidate areas within the search area. And the search area in that
transparency would be the white areas. We also had to have rules
that would define the candidate areas with respect to what they were.
The objective of this step was to minimize the effort of trying to
identify sites in areas where it wouldn't be feasible to locate a
landfill. And what happened then when we applied these areas, this
further reduced the areas where we could actually locate candidate
sites.
We can look at the next picture from that. Okay. When we ended
up with the candidate sites, you can see it further reduced the areas
where we could put this landfill in an area where we thought we could
reasonably locate it. And they're broken down into A, B, C, D, et
cetera. Now, to actually identify the sites, we had to evaluate them
with a set of rules. And these site definition rules that we came up
through -- and most of them are pretty straightforward. For instance,
all sites must be permittable, that's obvious. And then we talk about
the disposal area and Area A, and if you will turn attention over on
that wall, which is blocked by that TV camera, which I asked the guy
to move -- thank you. The landfill disposal area is defined as Area
A. The facilities area is defined as Area B, and then the total
property is defined as Area C.
So when you look through these things and the information that
was provided for you, I think it will make it a little bit more easy
for you to follow what some of these rules were that we used to define
the sites.
Let's see the next transparency. We also had, again, more site
definition rules that we came up with as the committee. That's
something you have to keep in mind. These weren't guidelines that
came up through some regulations. These were things that we came up
with with the committee and reached a consensus on after what in some
cases was considerable debate.
As I said, most of them are pretty straightforward. There are a
couple of them, I think, that on the next transparency that David's
got, that I can explain and it will make it a little bit easier for
you to understand. I got a little bit confused with them, too, when I
was going through it. They talk about having a buffer area shall
extend five hundred feet from beyond -- beyond the boundary, and the
landfill Area B shall not transect the areas of critical state
concern. And there's another one I think that we have got here.
Okay. Here they are. Disposal area should have a capacity of five
years or more and we're allowed -- a maximum of three disposal areas
are allowed within one site. And if you will turn your attention to
this transparency over on the wall, if we can have that light again.
What we're talking about when we said that each area had to have
a minimum, we needed a 50-year life expectancy of this site, so we
wanted to have each disposal area go for at least five years and three
disposal areas. So you had to have a way within those disposal areas
to come up with 50 years. So you could have one site -- and I took my
glasses off like a fool -- you could have one disposal area -- may
have a five-year capacity and another disposal twenty years --
twenty-seven years of capacity, and then a disposal area of eighteen
years of capacity, giving you your fifty years.
The reason we did this with the three sites was to keep it from
getting in a situation where we had a site where we would have ten
disposal areas sandwiched here, there and everywhere around the site
that would give you your total of fifty years of landfill capacity.
And that's essentially what we did when we started to do the -- do
some of the -- define the sites and do the evaluative criteria for
this thing. And I will reiterate again that this was -- involved
compromise from a lot of us that were on the committee and it took a
good bit of time to develop this stuff.
That said, I will pass the microphone over to Barbara Jenkins,
who will talk about the evaluative criteria that we came up with to
apply to the different sites.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chairman, I have one quick question
for Mr. Addison, if that's appropriate. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In the facility site selection candidate
area map, the second one that you showed -- MR. ADDISON: Right.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- is the current landfill site in the
black area?
MR. ADDISON: That's -- it is? Okay. I'm trying to find it in
all of this stuff. It looks like it may be.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The net effect of that is that the current
site is in'the prohibited area, the not-able-to-be-considered under
these criteria?
MR. ADDISON: Right.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll wait to the end of the
presentation to go through it, but there's some specific rationale of
why. That wasn't just a random.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No. The residential criteria,
exclusionary.
MS. JENKINS: The next step of the committee was to establish
evaluative criteria, and evaluative criteria is criteria that enables
a potential area to be evaluated against other potential areas within
the limits of a particular issue or a community concern. The first
thing the committee had to do to come up with this criteria was to
come up with a list of issues, and we did that through the committee
members' input and community input. The committee members were asked
by the consultants at the very beginning to close their eyes and
imagine what it would be like to step out of their backyard and to see
a landfill sitting there. And they were asked to think about what
their feelings were if that were the case and list what their concerns
were. So that's what we did. We made up a list of issues.
We also were asked to go and speak with our neighbors and the
rest of the community as a whole, find out what their concerns would
be and bring that back and add them to our list of concerns. And also
the citizens who attended our meetings, they had input as to what
their concerns were and those were added to those issues as well.
These issues that we came up with became the foundation of the
evaluative criteria that was developed by the committee. Some of the
issues were rolled in together and made one criterion, but none of the
issues were discarded. Each criterion was discussed at length and
was brought before the committee at a minimum of three meetings. So
it wasn't something that we quickly said this is what the criterion's
going to be and it was over with. We brought it up at at least three
meetings. We used a color-coding system so that we could keep track of
where each criterion was in the process. We -- our preliminary
criterion sheet was yellow, and as we discussed it and -- and agreed
upon it, we put it on another sheet that was colored blue and that was
the final criteria.
All the members and the public viewed the criteria all the
members of the committee and the public agreed upon the wording and
the committee had to agree -- reach a consensus before the criterion
was accepted.
In the end, the committee established twenty-three evaluative
criteria, and there's an example of one of the criteria that's up on
the board. And each criteria had an evaluative statement, which
listed the issue, the objective, the criterion, the data sources, the
proposed measurement methodology, and the data scale.
And the issue on the example up above is the drinking water
protection. The objective in this case was to establish a minimum
distance from the landfill area to individual off-site potable wells.
The criterion is a statement of the criteria. The data sources was
the resources the committee felt could be utilized to obtain the
information needed to measure the data. The proposed measurement
methodology was a specific way that each criterion was to be measured.
And that -- that methodology was given to the tech. team who used it
to map the sites.
The committee members at this point in time were not told where
the potential sites were. And the mappers -- they were not from
Collier County, so they had no prejudices about any specific property.
The data scale was rated on a scale from one to five. One was the
worst and five was the best and all the others kind of fell in the
middle.
Once the evaluative criteria was established, the group set aside
an entire Saturday for the NGT workshop, and this was a structured
group process to assign weights to each of the criteria we more or
less sat at a round table, went around the room and each committee
member discussed each criterion and how they felt about how that issue
should be weighed and why.
Then once that process was finished, each committee member filled
out a weighing form and turned it into the tech. team. The tech. team
then would score -- tallied the scores and returned them to the group.
And when the first score was returned to the group, everybody was
surprised how far the committee was. And I think that's when the
committee realized that this was going to be a lot of effort,
everybody was going to have to compromise, and we were going to have
to balance some of our values.
About the second or third round, things started coming around.
People -- the group was reaching more of a consensus and by the fourth
round, the committee agreed that they had reached that consensus.
The consultants told the committee members at that meeting there
were 46 possible sites, but once again they did not tell any of the
committee members where those sites were. If there was any areas that
any of the criteria -- that did not really discriminate or
discriminated very slightly, such as the cultural and historical
resources, those items -- the committee was told that so they probably
-- those areas did not weigh heavily, because it really did not make a
difference on any of the sites. Collier County didn't have any
historical resources in this case that would be affected.
Once the weights were established, they were multiplied by the
candidate site score, which is the data scale that we used, and that
total was used to rank the sites. And there's a slide now, I think,
of how each site ranked. The bottom half of the sites were discarded
at that point and the sites were reranked. That left twenty-three --
twenty-three of the forty-six. And there was some changes when the
reranking occurred and that's because of the data scale and the
minimum and maximum data scale numbers changed.
The consultants publicly identified the sites and their rankings
to the Board of County Commissioners, the committee members and the
general public at a Board of County Commissioners' meeting on February
6th of 1995 and at that point everyone knew where these sites were.
And that's pretty much it. So I would like to turn this meeting
over to Joe Spears.
MR. SPEAR: Thank you, Barbara.
Well, we have done a lot of work. We have eliminated areas of
the county that by state and federal statute are unable to be used for
a landfill. We have identified areas of the county where we could
begin to look. We decided on a set of rules that enabled us to define
candidate areas. We set up a number of rules that enabled us to
define candidate sites. We gave all of that information along with
criteria statements developed by the committee to a group of guys
working in Gainesville mapping sites, applying criteria we ended up
with a -- the weighting exercise. The four rounds took from 8:30 in
the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon that Saturday. There was a lot
of discussion. We came, we identified the sites publicly, and the
next steps were to visually confirm the criteria measurements using
walk-overs to receive site-specific input from the community at two
town hall meetings, to review the walk-overs and town hall meeting
data with the committee, to confirm the site ratings and go on and
ground-truth the high ranking sites.
As you know, we had difficulty gaining access to the sites, so we
used flyovers as a surrogate. We had some changes in score because of
the flyover information that we developed. Some examples. We have a
criterion for potable water wells on site, and the criterion defined a
potable water well on-site as a structure shown on the USGS map. On
the flyover we could identify the little black squares on the USGS map
not all as structures, but as trailers, tractor trailers, homes,
barns, and that changed the scoring some. There are other visual
characteristics that visually could be identified in the flyover.
They modified the scores slightly.
At a Board of County Commissioners' meeting, the charge to the
committee was modified. The committee was to look in these three
areas that are geographically diverse, select the optimum site in each
of those areas and return to the commissioners with those three sites.
We utilized the committee's criteria and manipulated boundaries
of the sites to optimize the criteria for each site in each of the
three general areas, giving us the optimum location. And as you read
through the detailed work that the committee did in the final report,
you will be able to get a sense of how that manipulation was done,
since all of the criteria measurements are based on one of the three
boundaries, the boundary of Area A, the boundary of Area B, or the
boundary of Area C.
We have the three sites. Now, let's quickly take a look at them
on a little bit closer scale and get a feeling of what's around them
and a feeling of their shapes. Site A. Site L.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Joe, could you just describe -- as you
put each one of those up, can you kind of describe where they are for
people who may not be as familiar?
MR. SPEAR: Yeah.
MR. WILKISON: For the record, David Wilkison, Dufresne-Henry
team. Site A is located northwest of Immokalee off of Highway 82,
which is about a mile west of the intersection of 82 and State Road
29. It's north, obviously, of 82. It's primarily composed of citrus
groves with a small amount of farmland and some wetland areas, and
it's basically two owners. David C. Brown Farms, and Turner
Corporation.
Site L is located off County Road 858, which used to be known as
the Old Well Grade. It's about eight miles east of Orangetree. It's
less -- it's about three quarters of a mile west of the intersection
of County Road 858 and Camp Keais Road. It obviously is north of
County Road 858. It's ownership is Silver Strand Partnership and
LaMar Gable, et al. It's composed primarily of citrus groves with
some wetlands and also some pasture area.
Site U is located in an area that's known really as the Six L's
area of town. It's out east on 41, southeast of the intersection of
951 and 41. It's about a little over a mile north of U.S. 41 off of a
road that's known locally as Tomato Road. It's primarily farmland,
row-crop farmland, with a small amount of wetlands.
MR. SPEAR: We took a look at each of the sites and did a
conceptual layout. This is not a design. This is more of a
pictograph of what could be. We have an access road, a white goods.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is this a particular site?
MR. SPEAR: This is A. This is how A could look.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you.
MR. SPEAR: A white goods area, a C&D processing area, a
citizens' drop off, storm water retention, scale households and
scales. That indicates a wetland that would be taken under this kind
of a design concept. Composting. Leachate treatment, additional
stormwater retention, and one, two, three, four -- eight cells, each
cell being roughly five years, five and a half years in capacity.
Groundwater monitoring is indicated along the border. Additional
stormwater. This wetland would not be taken out in the buffer, which
is this area surrounding the site. That buffer is five hundred feet
in width. Wetlands inside the buffer would be taken.
This is a -- the same kind of a build-out schematic -- schematic
for Site L. The entrance, citizens' drop off, scale households,
materials recovery facility, white goods, stormwater detention,
composting, C&D processing, more stormwater. And a developed facility
would have ten individual cells of five years' capacity each.
And a similar build-out for Site U. Again, the access coming in,
scale households, citizens' drop off, white goods, C&D processing,
stormwater retention, materials recovery, biomass, composting,
stormwater retention. And again disposal cells, additional stormwater
retention.
Now, I'd like to take a minute and take a look at how Site U, as
an example, and if in your -- in the final report, this is shown for
each of the three sites, but Site U, for example, could be developed
if what we saw for Site U, the total development, was, in fact, what
was done. This is a hypothetical, again, based on a concept. But a
landfill, unlike a lot of structures, isn't built in one shot. It's
built sequentially over time as disposal capacity is required by the
operation.
So this is a hypothetical for Site U at ten years. And you will
note that we have a lot of fallow land here. A little more than -- a
little more than half the site or a little less than half the site.
In recognizing this --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I'm sorry, I'm not going to
interrupt the thing, I just want to make sure I can read what each of
the things over there to the left is.
MR. SPEAR: Access road, citizens' drop off, scale households,
C&D processing, white goods, stormwater retention, materials recovery
facility, stormwater retention biomass, composting, leachate
treatment, biogas recovery and in ten years now we're into cell two.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay.
MR. SPEAR: So we're working in cell two and all of this land is
just sitting there. Recognizing this, the committee suggests, and I
believe it's in your cover letter, that the land not being developed
be permitted to be farmed by the prior landowner at no cost to that
landowner, keeping as much agricultural acreage in tillage as possible
over the life of the landfill.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chairman.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We may need to make a comment. For those
who weren't here earlier, the doorways must be kept clear. If you're
going to stand two and three deep, it would be far better to do it on
this wall, otherwise, the fire marshal is going to have to remove
people. So those doorways have to be kept one hundred percent clear
or we're going to have to ask people to leave. I know it's tough, but
thank you for your cooperation.
MR. SPEAR: Here we are working in the 30th year of the 50-year
project. We're working in this cell and we still have a third of the
site available for active agriculture if, in fact, the committee's
recommendation is accepted.
At the end of site use life, there would be two hundred and sixty
acres available for active ag. at the site.
Now, the next step was to get on the sites, which we did
accomplish, and take a good hard look at them. And we did some
subterranean work. We did some borings, and we did very few borings,
and we did them very far apart, but we also used ground-penetrating
radar to confirm that what we found in the borings was indicative of
the subterranean materials between the borings. And as an example, I
am going show you the north-south cross-section for each of the three
sites and this is Site A. And what we have is a sandy material at the
surface, a groundwater table aquifer in that sand. The sand is
overlying in Site A a bed of about, oh, six to four feet of clay, and
that clay sits on a limestone bedrock.
Site L is going to look like it's very cramped up. If you
remember the orientation of Site L, it's -- north to south zs its
width, not its length. Even so, this represents thirteen hundred feet
between two borings. See the sand at the surface, a water table
aquifer, a little bit of silt overlying limestone bedrock.
And then Site U, essentially the same characteristics, sands
overlying a silt, sitting on the weathered limestone bedrock.
As part of the open site work, we looked at the potential for
threatening endangered species. We looked at water quality issues.
We look at wetland issues. We took that information and provided it
to the committee, and they generated a series of advantage and
constraint tables. I would like to ask Jon Staiger to talk to you
about that process and to offer to you the committee's final
recommendation.
MR. STAIGER: For the record, Jon Staiger, representing
commission district four. As you have just heard, this process was a
very lengthy one involving development of exclusionary criteria,
evaluative criteria, application of those criteria, and a lot of
research on the ground on the part of the consulting team. The
committee provided a ranking of five top sites approximately a year
and a half ago. Unfortunately, all of those sites were cjustered in
one geographic area. The step that Joe Spear just discussed carried
through to looking at trying to find an optimal site in each of three
different geographic areas, one area north of Immokalee, the other one
in the northeastern part of the county east of Orangetree, and the
third down off the East Trail in the -- in the area that is
agricultural land north of -- north of 41.
The committee in its final efforts received the report from the
technical team and essentially reached agreement. Every one of the
committee members was asked specifically if they felt that the
criteria that had been given us were -- were adhered to, if the task
that we had been charged with, we had fulfilled, if we felt that we
had actually fulfilled the obligation imposed on us by the county
commission. Individually the committee members all agreed that they
were satisfied that they had done this and collectively the committee
had done it, so that we have -- there may be some different opinions
amongst committee members, but the committee feels that it has, in
fact, done what the Board of County Commissioners asked it to do.
Excuse me. The -- before I get into this a little bit more, I would
just like to say that the committee labored long and hard trying to
balance economic issues, socioeconomic issues and environmental issues
throughout this process. There was no one individual on the committee
or no individual philosophy that dominated this process. The way we
arrived at the ranking and the set of twenty-three evaluative criteria
effectively assured that it was a balanced process that we went
through. And I think that's important to understand, because the
committee was made up of a diversity of philosophies about which
criteria were more important than which others.
The recommendation is essentially three sites in three different
areas. The tech. team has reached a delineation that we feel is
optimum for each of those diverse areas. Each of those sites is
unique. Each has constraints. Each has advantages. And the
committee is of the opinion that each one of them is a viable location
for a new landfill and materials recovery facility. And we're
recommending all three as potential sites. The committee is not
recommending one particular site over the other. Each of the three is
-- would do, and we're recommending that you consider those three as
potential sites for future landfill should you desire to relocate it.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Mr. Staiger, could you -- or Mr. Wilkison,
whichever, could you, could you replace the one slide up there that
had the --
MR. STAIGER: Advantages and disadvantages?
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Yeah, for each site, please.
MR. STAIGER: The -- just for an example, Site A has an
advantage. The nearest off-site potable water well is eleven hundred
feet from it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: These advantages and disadvantages --
MR. STAIGER: Site L is eight hundred feet.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Jon, these advantages and
disadvantages are as the three sites compare to one another?
MR. STAIGER: These are the sites compared to one another and
these are essentially the criteria that we applied. But it's
important to notice, for example, if you're talking about wetland
vegetation, two acres are impacted here. In this one, it's five
acres. So the numbers essentially represent the scale of advantage to
disadvantage, and they're not very far apart. But those are things to
be considered in the future.
The list on the bottom are the criteria that essentially are all
the same for each site. Numbers of on-site residences, effect on rare
and unique natural areas and the like, but the -- this is essentially
our list of evaluative criteria as they apply to those sites and what
the committee felt were the important advantages and potential
constraints for each site.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: If we could leave that slide and at this point
in time, we're approaching about 10:20. We're going to give our court
reporter a little break here. We'll take a break for approximately
five minutes and then we'll return.
(Break was taken.)
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Excuse me. If we could find as many seats as we
have available, please do so now.
I failed to mention this prior to this discussion beginning, but
we still have a few minutes while they finish their presentation. If
you wish to speak at the end of this presentation and after the
commissioners have asked their questions, I suggest that you fill out
your form now. In other words, once we start the public part of the
speaking, we're not going to be accepting any more public papers
coming up here to speak, because what ends up is a rebuttal. You will
hear something from one person in the public and you may not like it,
so you're going to stand up and try to rebut what he or she has said.
That's not the purpose of this. If you have a point that you wish to
make, you're certainly welcome to do so, and we encourage you to do
so, but we want you to make sure you get your slips handed in before
we start the public part of the presentation. So if you haven't
filled out a slip, please get it now and get it handed in. Mr. Spear, we'll return to you at this point in time.
MR. SPEAR: And I'm here to accept any questions that you might
have about the report or the presentation today.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have just one.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Miss Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In general -- well, I know the answer to
this, but it wasn't brought out, that the recommendation from the
committee, was that a unanimous recommendation? MR. SPEAR: No, it was not.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What was the vote?
MR. SPEAR: Eight to two.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Is that your only question?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Mr. Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Spear, one thing I noticed is you
recommended a one hundred twenty-five foot maximum height. Can you
just give me minimal background for the rationale for that as the
maximum height of the landfill?
MR. SPEAR: First of all, let me correct an assumption that you
have. I didn't make any recommendations for height.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, the committee.
MR. SPEAR: We worked with the committee to look at perspective
-- we used perspective drawings, line-of-sight drawings to attempt to
identify the maximum capacity. The landfill can be flat, it can be
humped, or it can be a peak. Its shape and its height controls the
area or the area controls the height and shape. So the higher one
could go, a little bit smaller space one might take. We tried to
balance that, and we also tried to balance it -- the we I'm talking
about is the greater we, the committee -- by having something that the
natural vegetation in the area could screen. And using perspective
drawings, the committee came up with one hundred and twenty-five feet
as a maximum height that they would think would be acceptable,
suitably screened on average, not as noticeable as something higher
than a hundred and twenty-five feet.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So operationally, if we were looking at
just percentages, by going up in height a minimal amount, you could
reduce the percentage of land necessary for acquisition? And it's
just a direct relationship?
MR. SPEAR: There's a relationship to the various sizes, the
geometry of the landfill, yes.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: My second question, and I'm not sure who
on the team is most appropriate to answer it is, for each of the sites
there was a combination, with the exception of one, of groves and
pasture. An active farm grove has a different value than does pasture
land. Do we have in this report, because I didn't see it, how many
acres of grove versus how many acres of pasture in the selected sites?
Because as I look through, I did not catch that. Is that somewhere in
our report or does someone have that information?
MR. SPEAR: I think we can get that information to you. I do not
believe it's in the report.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Because I saw acres of farmland.
MR. SPEAR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: But I think that was inclusive of
pastureland and groves.
MR. SPEAR: Of pasture and groves, yes.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And, again, there being an acquisition
cost differential between the two, that might be an important element.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I can't remember statistically off the
top of my head, but I know we did review that information either in
the September or October meeting of this year.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: If two sites are very, very similar, that
may have an impact one way or the other.
MR. SPEAR: We may be able to give you that information today.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Thank you. That's all I have for
now, Madam Chairman.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Mr. Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I was just going to offer my
congratulations and thanks to the committee for all the hard work they
have done. I know it ended up being a lot bigger job than anyone
anticipated at the outset, and the members put mn a lot of time and
are to be congratulated. So we ought to give them a little hand.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The gentleman I appointed is no longer
speaking to me.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Mr. Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Spear, you had talked about the
usability of land during that thirty-year life or fifty-year life.
Included on that you put back up on the chart, and I had asked you
specifically because I couldn't read the chart, what some of that
information was and you had the recycling facilities. You had a
composting facility and so on. Those are all options for us. If we
operated not to have a MARF (phonetic) on-site, I assume that much
more land would be available for farming as part of that as well?
MR. SPEAR: Oh, yes.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Commissioner Mac'Kie just inquired
about the vote on the recommendation that came to the board being 8-2.
You had mentioned during your presentation that at the conclusion of
virtually all of the meetings, there had been unanimous consent from
the group as far as the action taken those days. Can you explain that
again?
MR. SPEAR: The committee was polled. As part of the
facilitator's job, on numerous occasions, I've had to poll the
committee individually and collectively to be certain that there is a
consensus. We have said this over and over again, but everything that
has come to closure, in general, has come to closure by consensus. The
committee's recommendation to the board and the language used was
brought to closure by a vote.
It was one of the three votes the committee took in its entire
thirty months of work. All of the other closures were by consensus,
and when an issue was contentious, where there had been a lot of
discussion, I would poll the committee individually and then ask them
if they agreed to that collectively. And that was done as the last
part of the facilitation of the end meeting to determine if the
committee did, in fact, feel individually and collectively that they
met their charge, that their criteria was sufficient to meet their
charge, and that they had, in fact, found three suitable locations for
the county landfill.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just to reiterate that, the two points
that each committee member agreed to was the committee had done its
work as assigned by the board?
MR. SPEAR: That's right.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And that it was satisfied with the
process itself?
MR. SPEAR: That's right.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Where we started thirty months ago and
where we are today?
MR. SPEAR: That's right.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't know who is better for this,
you or Mr. Wilkison, there is a slide that I understand wasn't part of
the presentation, but I understand you have, that demonstrates -- kind
of draws a five-mile radius around the existing site and around each
of the candidate sites, and I think that's fairly telling. Let me
hand these down to each of you and there's one extra if you would give
that to the clerk. Can you put up for me, Joe, the slide that shows
the criteria, the twenty-three criteria? MR. SPEAR: Sure.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Is that the new eight hundred megahertz
radio system I'm hearing over there?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Whatever it is, it's frustrating.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's actually work on Guy Carlton's
building, I think.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Oh, it's outside? Someone give Guy a
call. Tell him to keep it down over there.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: And your tax bill next year will be --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The number one item out of all the
criteria, and I know you went through the whole process, how out of
the eleven committee members, we all ranked different things different
ways, but the number one item by far was residential buffers; is that
right, Joe?
MR. SPEAR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The memorandum I just handed out to
each of you shows -- there's actually a separate memorandum showing
the current site, so I have handwritten that number on for you, but
the current site, if you draw a five-mile circle around it, the
population is just under 49,000 people. We have population counts
that are done, and the memo describes how that is done. It's done
through county information.
MR. SPEAR: Can everybody see this graphic now that I have put
this chair in front of it?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I can see fine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Population count around Site A, you
can see brought in on the bottom portion of that, just about at the
five-mile point is part of the Immokalee community. That's 4,000 --
roughly 4,000 people. Site L is virtually all agricultural. It has I
think three streets that total about four or five tenths of a mile
from estate zoning that sticks into the far western portion of that.
Total population in that five-mile circle is eighty-two people. And
Site U down at the bottom has sixteen fifty-six. I think the
important parts of each of the three of those are looking at the
future zoning for each of those two. When you look at Site U, you do
get into some zoning issues. We have got a couple of communities
right on 41. We also have that portion of Fiddler's Creek that
extends up into there. So I think we need to be very careful there.
One of the things, when we talk about residential buffers being a
number one criteria, we have all said on the record we don't want to
simply move the problem from one neighborhood to another. But as we
look at the other couple of sites, 49,000 people versus 4,000 in a
pretty limited area for future growth and particularly 49,000 people
versus 82 people and virtually all agricultural. It sets itself aside
not to have any future growth. So I think it is an important contrast
between those points.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Couple of questions on that point.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Could I just make a comment first, please? Just
a quick question regarding -- on your previous chart that you had up
there, you showed the different terrains, the sandstone, limestone
and clay.
MR. SPEAR: Yes.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Could you just give me a general answer -- I
don't know if you're the one to answer it or Dr. Staiger or whoever --
but what is the best filtering of those different properties? Which
one would be your best filtering?
MR. SPEAR: If you're going to be removing materials from water,
it would probably be sands, if the material is not dissolved. If the
material is dissolved, it would probably be the tills (phonetic) and
the clays.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: So the clays would normally hold any -- anything
that comes down?
MR. SPEAR: They retard flow and there is some absorption, yes.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. All right. Just because the group chose
these particular items, does this mean -- we're certainly not limited
to this being our criteria for establishing -- this is what the
committee -- this is what they chose as their top criteria; is that
correct?
MR. SPEAR: There are innumerable ways of looking at values in a
community.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay.
MR. SPEAR: Keep in mind now that every site that was defined was
permittable.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay.
MR. SPEAR: So now we're trading site against site based on the
values of a cross-section of people representative of Collier County.
If you add to that group or subtract from that group, you may affect
that balance of values.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: All right. Miss Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I just ask -- I know you have a
follow-up to my question. I've got a follow-up to yours.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We'll get back to your point eventually, I
guess, but sure.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The -- on those criteria, there's been
some concern. I just want to stress. Someone -- at different times
along the way, I have either gotten phone calls that said how come
Item 13 or whatever it is isn't important? And the point is, all
twenty-three of these are important and that's why they're on the
list. If we didn't think something was important, it wouldn't be one
of the criteria. But once we had twenty-three, we had to put them in
some order.
Commissioner Mac'Kie, I think you actually did on your own your
own ranking because we had had this question a year ago or whenever it
was. And I -- but I think the sites came out roughly similar to when
we ranked all forty-six or twenty-three.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. The problem -- the problem was --
well, let me respond to that and then I'll go back to the -- it gets a
little complicated when you have to take things out of order. But
from my point of view the fundamental flaw with the process is in the
evaluative -- evaluative criteria and the fact that -- that the
question posed by the consultant was, imagine that you wake up in the
morning and there's a landfill in your backyard, what are $oing to be
the problems that will result? That's only one point of view for
evaluation, and it significantly ignores other tremendous points of
view. If you don't mind if I finish?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Not at all.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: For example, imagine you're a ratepayer
and you wake up in the morning and your rates are going up
significantly. And that is, as I have preached and preached and
preached -- the fundamental flaw here is that the economics of this
consideration have not been given adequate address. And that is in
the evaluative -- evaluative criteria is where that -- that process
failed. But I want to go back --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I will go back to the siting,
because I have more comments, too. I want to finish. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Let Pam finish, please.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Before we go too far, do you remember that
there were -- about three sections back there were some questions I
had.
On your point about population and the sites and the population
within those sites, first of all I would just question the eighty-two
in Site L and wonder if the independent Seminole population was
included in that eighty-two; do you know?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I didn't do the count.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Who did the count? I don't know what the
population is there.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The count for all areas was by the TAZ
numbers that are evident now, and those are actually performed, I
believe, by the state.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What's a TAZ number?
CHAIRMAN BERRY: That's that traffic analysis zone.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So I doubt -- I just want to point to that
that eighty-two appears to me to be an error based on the fact that
there is an independent Seminole settlement there with which we are
all intimately familiar.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So that number might be a hundred and
eighty-two.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't know what the number might be. I
just want to point that out.
The other thing that I want to point out is that -- your numbers
here about what the current population are within the five-mile radius
of the three sites reflects the population as of the date of potential
siting. And I would challenge you to look at the population within a
five-mile radius of the existing site on the date of its siting.
Because what you're about to do is to repeat -- if that was an error,
we're about to repeat that error if we choose any of these three sites
because the population, I would suggest, within that five-mile radius
was probably ten or twenty or fifty, but not four thousand, not one
thousand. It was significantly lower than any of these and that's
very important that we look at that.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And I guess that's a very important
point. I'm glad you brought it up, because if you look at maps from
1975 and '76 when this was done, Golden Gate City was already platted
at whatever it is, six units, seven units an acre, and it did -- while
I am sure no one anticipated the level of growth that we have had in
the last twenty years, it didn't take a rocket scientist to see that
that growth was going to occur in a residentially zoned area, and
that's my very point. If you look at Site L, for example, that is
almost one hundred percent. It's about ninety-eight percent
agriculturally zoned. It is outside the urban boundary, and so there
is no way it can develop at seven units an acre or even at estate
zoning of one for every two and a quarter.
So I appreciate your point, but I think it drives further home
that we're not going to make that mistake again.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, I would disagree with that analysis.
And the other -- the other thing that I want to point out about Site L
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Surprising.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- is, I wanted to know if the committee
had the benefit of -- well, couldn't have had the benefit of this
particular letter because it's dated January 5th, 1998 from the South
Florida Water Management District -- but if the committee had the
benefit of the following information with regard to Site L? The
site is located approximately four miles northeast of the City of
Naples eastern Golden Gate well field. This well field provides the
lion's share of drinking water supply, not only to the residents of
the City of Naples, but also to a significant portion of the residents
of the unincorporated urban areas of Collier County. Important is
this, the general northwesterly direction of groundwater flow
movement, as enunciated by several recent groundwater modeling
efforts, may make this well field significantly vulnerable to being
polluted by the leachates from the proposed location of Site L.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Was that information provided to the
committee?
MR. SPEAR: Three things, working from this one backwards. The
committee was not privileged to have that particular letter.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Of course.
MR. SPEAR: However, the well field was considered during the
committee's deliberations and was part of the exclusionary criteria
and was impacted by the evaluative criteria, and I believe that we can
go back to the slide showing advantages and constraints.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: That was one of my questions, Miss Mac'Kie, in
looking at the ranking up there.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't understand how it could have made
the ranking when the number two criteria -- and even though I disagree
with those weighting criteria, the number two one was the effect on
potable water wells, and this one is --
MR. SPEARS: As you can see, Site L has a constraint and that
constraint is that it is the closest of the three to individual
off-site potable water wells.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I guess my suggestion would be that like
-- like proximity to residential areas, because that's the driving
force behind moving the landfill. Like proximity to residential areas
was an exclusionary criteria. Likewise, something this close and in
this pathway of the water source for the City of Naples and most of
the urban area should have been exclusionary criteria. Site L should
be gone.
(Applause.)
MR. SPEAR: In terms of the population growth in the area, please
be advised that the criterion for the residential buffer -- not the
residential buffer, the exclusionary criterion for residential
development utilized future land use development mappings, not current
land use development mappings.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Understood.
MR. SPEAR: So that high probability, high density areas were
excluded.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My point was that something in this
proximity and within this water flow way should have been excluded.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Your point, however, ignores basic
engineering and technology principles. The ones you need to consider
are quite simply, four miles is not a hop and a skip. Four miles also
depends on the strata. What is the subsurface strata? Not just a
flow pattern. The northwestern flow pattern may be an upper aquifer
that deals with surface water, not the potable water traveling
pattern. There are -- you know, we don't picture the -- many people
picture what's beneath the surface as a sponge and it all goes the
same way, it all travels the same way, it travels at a fair rate. We
currently have an existing landfill, a leachate recovery system.
We have potable wells in far shallower conditions than what is --
is the city's well, much nearer distances, and after twenty some odd
years of operation, absolutely no sign in those shallower wells of any
leachate whatsoever out there.
My -- my -- the reason I say that is not that it's not a concern,
but that we have to be reasonable in understanding the technology
involved in the development of landfills and apply that in making
these decisions, in looking at a four-mile distance, in looking at the
strata, in looking at the depth of the well, looking at the material
and the travel rates, looking at monitoring wells that are in place to
indicate far before any real concern would surface in that type of a
water system that we would know about it and be able to address it.
All of those things have to be factored in.
So I read the same letter you did, but the question is on the
engineering side, can it be addressed to the full satisfaction and
safety of the residents? You don't have that information in front of
you, I don't believe, nor do I, but experience would indicate at the
existing landfill that it can be.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And Commissioner, with all due respect,
and I know that you do have a background in planning, the opinion of
the director of the Big Cypress Basin's board who calls this, quote,
significantly vulnerable to being polluted, carries more weight on
that question than our feeling that it might be able to be engineered
around.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: No, ma'am, that's not what I'm saying.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You can't ignore that letter.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: No, ma'am, I don't believe I suggested
ignoring it at all. Did anyone hear the word ignore?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You said engineer around the problem.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: That's fine. Let's --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I believe what I said, if you would
listen carefully, is that we have to have that information in front of
us that deals with the specifics of the strata, of the material, of
the travel flows and so forth before we can determine if it's
significant. I don't believe Mr. Spear had that information in front
of him or he would have presented it to us. So I wouldn't discount it
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't think he would have said
significantly vulnerable if he didn't.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm sorry to interrupt your speaking.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well --
~OMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I don't think he is making a detailed
statement but registering a concern of which I appreciate.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Mr. Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I agree wholeheartedly. The one thing
I would ask of each of the board members is, we have a committee who
has put in thirty months on this. The board has put in five years on
this, and because a letter indicates something might be a concern with
no factual data is -- and then to say well, we should just throw that
site out, I think is irresponsible. If you have some factual
information that puts a particular distance in mind, great, this would
be a wonderful time to bring that forward, but to just throw that out
as a scare tactic I don't think does anyone a public service.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Going back, you found the flaw with
the evaluative system to be that there was only one question asked and
that is, if you wake up in the morning with it in your backyard. If
you listened to Barbara's presentation, that was not the only question
we asked. She said that was the first question we asked. And it was
kind of appropriate because Barbara does have it in her backyard,
literally, but that was the very first question we asked to try to put
some reality in the situation for the people who didn't live in the
Golden Gate area, who aren't subjected to it every day. But we went
on and asked any number of questions including what Barbara said,
going out and talking to your neighbors, talking to people all over
the community and getting what are their specific concerns, and that's
how that list was built. Not simply from us closing our eyes and
doing an exercise of imagination.
So when you suggest that the evaluative criteria was flawed
because that was the only question, no, it wasn't. We went through a
very, very comprehensive process.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry if I misstated that, because
there's no question that I have an untold amount of respect for the
volunteers on this committee. The consultants have been paid about
$850,000 to serve, but the volunteers, I have an inordinate amount of
respect for their service and don't mean to belittle that in any way.
The -- the fact remains, however, that the evaluative criteria
don't include what I think -- and you heard this from me over a year
ago -- I don't think that there's an adequate evaluation of the cost
associated with the potential relocation.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: At this time, is there any further questions for
Mr. Spears?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chair, just as a -- as a response to
what we're hearing, although I'm sure those speaking either appreciate
the applause or hastily are concerned by boos, we need to get through
this today in a timely fashion, and I would just ask that we try and
give respect to the speakers and allow it to occur in a timely
fashion.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. At this point in time, do you have
something more?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, I have two other items. One,
cost analysis wasn't done by this committee or by this consultant
because that wasn't the job that was assigned to them. Their job was
simply to find the most suitable sites. Once we have established
which site is the most suitable, then we plug in real-life numbers and
we can see okay, what's the impact of that. If it's a buck a
household, it's a no-brainer. If it's fifty bucks a household, it's a
no-brainer the other way. I suspect it will be somewhere between
those two numbers and we will hash out where we are. But that wasn't
the charge of this committee, so I don't want anyone to think they
haven't done their job because they have.
One question, Mr. Spear, do we have -- we may not have them here
-- do we have the slides that show the breakdown of the individual
criteria? Barb put one of them up. You don't need to pull them out.
And just kind of -- if you do have those, maybe after we have gone
through the public speakers -- I may have some question on those.
Rather than try to dig them out now and use time, but just have those
prepared as we conclude the public speakers. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay.
Mr. Spear, anything further?
MR. SPEAR: Do we have Site A yet?
We're still in the process of calculating the various types of
agricultural land. We'll have that for you at the close of the
meeting or sometime prior.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Based on the number of speakers, you have
got some time.
MR. SPEAR: We do? Good, good.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Thank you very much, Mr. Spear. And also, I
would like to add my sincere thanks to the committee for this awesome
and obviously tiring task that has taken up a couple years at least of
your life. So again, I offer my thanks in that regard as well.
At this time, we're approaching -- we have approached eleven
o'clock.
Mr. Fernandez, how many speakers do we have on this?
MR. FERNANDEZ: About thirty.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: We have about thirty speakers. Well, let's see,
it doesn't take rocket scientists to figure if you have thirty
speakers at five minutes each how many minutes you've got. So we will
approach twelve o'clock. We will be taking a lunch break because we
want happy people sitting up here, don't you? And so we will take a
lunch break at noon.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm not really sure that's their concern.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: I think that is their concern if we're happy in
the way they want us to be happy.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: At least not low blood sugar.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: That's right. At any rate, we will take a lunch
break at noon and we will start.
Have all of you turned in your slips at this point in time?
Those of you that are desirous to speak, have you given the slips to
Mr. Fernandez? I will give you a few minutes. If you still want to
speak, please do so because this is it. If you haven't turned your
slip in now --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Forever hold your peace.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: That's right.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Or at least until the next meeting.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: If you need to turn your slip in, please do it
now. Is there anyone desiring to turn a slip in to speak? This is
your opportunity. Last call. The slips are, I believe, out in the
hallway on the table.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Fernandez, you're taking these as you
get them? We're not queuing anybody at specific times are we, or
anywhere in the order, so to speak?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Taking them as I get 'em.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. I think we're waiting for one young lady
to get a slip and get it filled out. So if we can get that in here
ASAP, then we will continue. I'm going to give her about thirty
seconds.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In that thirty seconds --
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Could we call the first two speakers and get
them ready, please, so when they hand in that slip we're ready to go?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay. The first two speakers are Bill Thiesen
and Matthew Fatherly.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: If we could have the two speakers and we will
continue this way. The person at the podium and have the next one
standing ready to speak so we're -- we're not wasting time getting
people up to the podium.
VOICE FROM THE AUDIENCE: There are two more people out there
filling out slips.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Tell them to hurry.
VOICE FROM THE AUDIENCE: They asked me to wait; I said no.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Good girl. I guess you-all don't believe when I
tell you and ask you for something, you don't believe what I say. Bad
judgment.
When you speak, please give your name so our court reporter can
get your name. Are we ready? Let's go.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Bill Thiesen.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Please give your name.
MR. THIESEN: Bill Thiesen. I have been a resident of Collier
County for almost nine years now.
Is this a little better?
CHAIRMAN BERRY: That's better.
MR. THIESEN: Bill Thiesen. I am a resident of Collier County.
I would like to see the landfill moved, because it's not really right
to have one in four people in Collier County living next to the
landfill within a five-mile radius. As this landfill goes up in the
air, it's going to create more and more problems for the people living
around it. If we can get it to an area of the county that affects
only maybe five one-hundredths of one percent of the population in a
five-mile area, it will benefit everybody. Agricultural
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Excuse me, sir. Let me just remind you, the
discussion today is on the three sites.
MR. THIESEN: Yes, well, any one of the three sites would reduce
the exposure to the population of this county.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: We're not -- we're not talking about the current
site. We're talking about anything that's related to these three
sites, information regarding these three sites.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I just want to make sure we're
consistent. I don't have any problem with that, but it was
Commissioner Mac'Kie who brought it up at the beginning saying well,
are we talking about the current site, too, right? So if we are, we
are, and if we're not, we're not.
MR. THIESEN: My understanding was that you said the current
site, if you don't want to move it. Well, if you don't want to move
it, then I should be allowed to say it should be moved and that's what
I'm saying.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: All right. Continue.
MR. THIESEN: I think to knuckle under to the interests of a very
few people for --
CHAIRMAN BERRY: I'm not. I'm just trying to keep us on track so
we don't get into discussions other than the sites.
MR. THIESEN: Fine. Any one of the sites would reduce the
exposure of every resident of Collier County to the negative benefits
of having a landfill in their approximate area. Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: Next speak is Matthew Fatherly.
MR. FATHERLY: My name is Matthew Fatherly. I live at Golden
Gate Estates.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Will you hold on just a minute so we can get the
next speaker up behind you, Mr. Fatherly?
MR. FERNANDEZ: The next one is Chuck Stephan.
MR. FATHERLY: You're timing me here.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: That's all right, you'll have plenty of time.
MR. FATHERLY: I need every minute I can get.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Yeah, I know. I talked to you yesterday.
You'll get it.
MR. FATHERLY: I promised you that I would not curse, jump up and
down or make a mess, last night on the telephone. CHAIRMAN BERRY: That's right, you did.
MR. FATHERLY: But I am going to make an individual up there mad,
and this I didn't promise you. Commissioner Constantine, you have a
damn in trying to get this garbage dump in the Orangetree site for a
long time. I have talked with you, and I don't know why. I think
it's archaic and primitive to have any garbage dump in this day and
age. There's other methods of getting rid of it. I don't know what
they are; I'm not an engineer.
My argument is this in site Orangetree. Commissioner Mac'Kie
brought it up here. She got a letter from the water board saying that
this is a very possible contamination problem there if something
should happen. Four or five years ago there was seventeen inches of
rain that fell up there. I flew over this region, took pictures.
There was a sheet of water that stretched all the way east of the
Fakaunion River. It flowed into the Fakaunion River and your wells in
Naples. Ninety percent of them are out there that the people drink in
the City of Naples, ninety. I can back these figures up. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Please.
MR. FATHERLY: Now, I want to make a point here. Seventy percent
of the people in this county didn't know what this garbage dump was
about, but I would like for these people that drink this water, if
this garbage dump is put at the Orangetree site, to know where their
water is coming from, and maybe some influential people will
understand that maybe this shouldn't be there either. And maybe more
than seventy percent will -- will not know about where these wells are
going. Commissioner Mac'Kie, I would like to get with you at a future
date sometime.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Sure.
MR. FATHERLY: I condemn you for wanting this site at Orangetree,
Commissioner Constantine. And I'm going to do everything in my power
to see that it doesn't happen there. And if it means decimating your
character, I'm going to do that.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Excuse me, sir. I don't think -- I don't think
these are the kinds of things that we're going to have happen in this
commission chamber. Excuse me. Let's be respectful, not only of my
fellow commissioners up here, but we are trying to show respect to our
speakers as well, and I don't think by personal comments and
particularly derogatory statements, I don't think that's the way to do
it. So if others have that in mind, it's not the place and this is
not the thing to do.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just a quick thought. That's not an
Orangetree site any more than the current site is a Coastland Mall
site. It's actually further from the proposed Site L to Orangetree
than it is from the existing site to the Coastland Mall. So I don't
want anybody who lives in Orangetree to think, my God, we're going to
wake up and do that visual that Barbara is talking about and seeing it
in your backyard. It's 10.2 miles away. It's almost twice as far as
it is to the Coastland Mall from the current site.
All right. Mr. Stephan, and who is the next
CHAIRMAN BERRY:
speaker, please?
MR. FERNANDEZ:
CHAIRMAN BERRY:
MR. FERNANDEZ:
CHAIRMAN BERRY:
Nancy Bisbee.
Nancy, you're going to pass? Okay.
Then Ron Hamel.
Okay. Mr. Stephan.
MR. STEPHAN: Madam Chairman, Commissioners, I think I have been
known as someone to throw a monkey wrench into things. I want to tell
you a short story. A friend of mine had someone call him and wanted
to sell him reverse osmosis for his well in Golden Gate Estates, and I
live on the eastern edge of Golden Gate Estates. The people came out
to test his water, his well water, so he says oh, great, you know,
test my well water, because he had a business in the City of Golden
Gate and he was bringing bottled water from his business to cook with.
Now, they tested his water and they came back with a report. And
they said, did you give us water from the City of Golden Gate? He
says, no. He says, that's from my well. They said, boy, the water
from your well, which is unfiltered, is far superior to the filtered
treated water from the wells and the City of Golden Gate city water.
That Golden Gate City water well is directly west and very slightly
north of the present landfill. My well is right at the edge of the
five-mile limit from your landfill in I think Location L off of Keais
Camp Road.
I don't think that you people want to take and pipe city water
all through Golden Gate Estates when you ruin the water wells in
Golden Gate Estates. You can ask Mr. Tears and you know I'm a very
good friend of Mr. Tears, the water flows to the west and to the
south, the groundwater, and just like Tom Hancock said, it depends on
the water underneath. Why then is the City of Golden Gate's well less
quality than the untreated wells in Golden Gate Estates? Why did the
City of Naples move their wells from first Goodlette-Frank Road, then
Airport Road, then out to Everglades Boulevard? It's because every
time you moved the landfill, you had to move your wells. So if you
move the -- if you move the current landfill west -- I mean, east or
north of where it presently is, you just as well start looking for
sites for new well fields. Thank you.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Ron Hamel and then Kathleen Passidomo.
MR. HAMEL: Madam Chairman, members of the commission, for the
record, my name is Ron Hamel and I am executive vice-president of the
Gulf Citrus Growers Association. And Gulf Citrus represents
thirty-four citrus growers and about 35,000 acres of citrus here in
Collier County including the citrus groves that are included in two of
the three sites selected by the Citizens' Advisory Committee.
In July, 1996, I wrote each of you commissioners that were I
believe on the commission at that time a letter expressing our deep
concerns for uprooting hundreds of productive and expensive acres of
newly producing citrus in order to site a new proposed thousand-acre
plus landfill.
Today I stand before you to respectfully restate our
association's position in opposition to this taking hundreds of
producing acres of citrus out of production.
I would like to take just a second to put the citrus industry in
Collier County into perspective. As you are aware, during the past
ten or twelve years, the gulf region of Southwest Florida has
experienced unparalled growth in Florida's citrus industry and Collier
County has contributed significantly to that growth. Citrus acreage
has increased in this county over three hundred percent, from ten
thousand acres in '86 to over thirty-seven thousand acres today. The
number of citrus trees has increased over four hundred percent and
fruit production has also significantly increased.
Today, Collier County ranks ninth in Florida's counties in citrus
tree numbers, in acreage, and in fruit production. It is one of
Florida's top citrus counties and as such contributes significantly to
the economic well-being of this county or region in the state of
Florida.
One of the primary reasons that citrus has expanded in such a
strong growth here in Collier County is that this county is blessed
with some of the most unique citrus growing and agricultural land in
the world. Each year fruit buyers from Japan, Europe and all over the
world visit groves here in this county to purchase the high quality
citrus grown here.
One of the activities of my association is to promote this region
and this county worldwide to discriminating consumers of citrus
products. As you well know, in promoting this area for tourism and/or
for economic development, perception is reality. And so it is with
fresh marketing of citrus out of this region. Replacing a citrus grove
with a landfill would not only reduce the crop, but it would also tend
to denigrate the image of the surrounding properties and the image of
the fruit produced in Collier County. Fruit buyers seek out the best
fresh fruit they can for customers, as I indicated, in the U.S. and
all over the world. And having a large landfill in the middle of a
key agricultural production area such as here in Collier County will
create a negative image for the fruit grown here, therefore,
devaluating the economic value of the crop and reducing the value of
the industry.
Collier County has some of the most unique and productive
farmland in the world and we urge this commission not to reduce this
acreage in any way to site a new landfill.
We would also like to remind the commission that permitting a new
landfill will probably be one of the most difficult projects to permit
in this state. Particularly in a county like Collier County which is
truly one of the more environmentally sensitive counties in the State
of Florida.
In addition, with landfill ability as scarce as it is in Collier
County, we ask, is it not in this county's best interest to maximize
existing space and/or look at regional landfilling and other options
at this time.
We would also like to remind the commission that circumstances
that existed in 1993 that led to the board position to move the
landfill have since changed. In '95, things began to change as
management of the facility was privatized and in '96, the operation of
the facility also changed with the installation of a gas recovery
system.
Based on these changes, we feel the entire landfill and/or solid
waste disposal issues need to be reevaluated, bringing in such factors
as cost and some of these others. We also encourage this commission
to do more research into the entire solid waste disposal issue rather
than simply pick a site based on several criteria which may or may not
be based on today's situation and concerns. Site ranking, for
example, had a lot to do with what ultimately ended up here, a
thousand acres plus site, if the site would have been smaller, chances
are these same criteria would have not led to the picking of citrus
groves to be eliminated.
In closing, we hereby request this commission to postpone the
selection of a site here today, and we respectfully request that the
commission explore all solid waste management options including
maximum use of the existing facility and the adoption of a policy for
use of regional landfill options. Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Kathleen Passidomo and then Steve Price.
MS. PASSIDOMO: Good morning, Commissioners, Madam Chairman, my
name is Kathleen Passidomo. I am an attorney and I represent David C.
Brown, III, Turner Corp., Florida Farm Development and Barron Collier
Company, who are the owners of the farm sites the Citizens' Advisory
Committee selected as suitable sites for relocation of the Naples
landfill.
I intend to keep within the five-minute limit, however, Chairman
Berry, if I do run over, I would appreciate your indulgence, as for
the past year and a half this county commission and Citizens' Advisory
Committee have been talking about my clients' property and we believe
it's important that they have an opportunity to be heard.
I also represent Friends of Farmers Save Our Soil, a
not-for-profit Florida corporation whose members consist of
representatives from growers throughout Collier County. The
organization was formed by local farmers to preserve valuable farmland
in our community from consideration as a site for the relocation of
the Collier County landfill.
As I indicated to this board over a year ago, when this first --
when this process was first initiated, none of my clients had any
desire to sell any portion of the sites in question to the Collier
County for relocation of the landfill. At that time I indicated that
it was our position, a position that we have consistently maintained
throughout this process, that if the county takes any action to pursue
the acquisition of any of the sites in question, my clients will have
no choice but to defend their private property rights at the expense
of the county against this unauthorized taking.
Section F of the future land use element of the Collier County
comprehensive plan provides that the location of public facilities,
which includes solid waste facilities, must be identified as an
existing land use and on the Florida -- and on the future land use
map. The current comprehensive plan clearly locates the current
landfill on the future landfill map as the site for solid waste
disposal in this county. It also designates the existing site for
expansion. Ail three sites selected by the Citizens' Advisory
Committee as suitable for landfill relocation are shown on the future
land use map as rural agricultural or areas of environmental concern.
Thus, in order to relocate the landfill to one of those sites, we
believe that the county would need to initiate an amendment to the
comprehensive plan which would force my clients to challenge that
process through administrative proceedings at the department of
community affairs.
Additionally, since the selected sites are all currently zoned
agricultural, the majority, the county would then need to begin a
rezoning process of the property against the will of my clients, which
would again force my clients into legal action to defend their private
property rights.
Both of these challenges would be expensive and time-consuming
procedures even before the condemnation process is begun. With regard
to the condemnation issue, the Florida constitution as affirmed by the
Florida Supreme Court has cited two controlling tests which must be
met for the county to prevail in eminent domain proceedings.
Number one, private property may be taken for public use only.
Number two, private property may be taken only when it is reasonably
necessary for such use. The real concern here is whether or not the
taking will be held to be reasonably necessary.
The engineering firm of Burns and McDonald Waste Consultants,
Inc. performed a study on the potential site life of the existing
Collier County landfill. Burns and McDonald has over twenty-five
years of experience providing professional solid waste management
services for governmental and private facilities and completed two
hundred and fifty solid waste projects. The results of the study
completed last July concluded that with minor changes in the operation
of the current landfill and the use of heavier compactors, the current
landfill site can be expanded to serve the county waste disposal
requirements for another fifty years to the year 2050.
In our review of the minutes of the meetings of the board at
which the decision to move the landfill was made, the only issue
before the board was that the odor emanating from the landfill was
intolerable and thus the board decided to move the landfill from its
present location.
Since that decision was made, several improvements have been made
at the current landfill such as the gas recovery system and better
management of the site, all of which have greatly impacted the odor
issue.
Additionally, we also understand that a large part of the odor
problem may, in fact, be the smell emanating from the wastewater
treatment plant, which it is anticipated will be alleviated with the
installation of the scrubbers which is scheduled for sometime this
spring.
It is clear that it is not necessary that the landfill be
relocated. Thus, should the county pursue the acquisition of one of
the selected sites through an amendment to the comprehensive plan,
then rezoning, and then final condemnation proceedings, my clients
have no choice but to vigorously defend their private property rights
at each level, all at enormous cost to this community. And in the
final analysis, we believe that the county will not prevail because it
is not necessary to move the landfill.
For the foregoing reasons, we request this board to explore the
possibility of utilizing the current site through its remaining useful
life and in the meantime seek alternatives to condemning valuable
farmland for use as a landfill site. Thank you.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just a question, since you're the only
person I can get to answer this. I heard some discussion about the
possibility of leasing back land to the farmers for use until the
different sections would be necessary for use as landfill pods. Is
that something that any of your clients would consider, leaseback to
the county?
MS. PASSIDOMO: Absolutely not. That issue came up several times
during the past year and a half. Just like those who would not wish
to live next to a landfill, my clients believe that no one would like
to purchase fruit grown next to a landfill.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I have got to ask the question then.
Why are your clients currently farming right next to a landfill?
MS. PASSIDOMO: The -- the farming operation next to the
Immokalee landfill is for juice crops. It's not the same quality, and
it doesn't produce the same kind of value.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. Juice drinkers don't mind
drinking leachate citrus?
MS. PASSIDOMO: It's totally different. Commissioner --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I just think it's amazing. I would
expect you to say nothing other than, of course, they won't consider
that, but if push comes to shove and somebody offers the citrus
farmers free land to grow citrus trees on, they'd be foolish to walk
away from it. And I don't think when all is said and done that they
will walk away from it. But to suggest that they won't farm next to a
landfill, they are farming next to a landfill right now.
MS. PASSIDOMO: Different products -- one other thing, too, as a
real estate attorney, does Collier County want to get in the business
of being a landlord with all of the issues of hazardous waste and
liability? I mean, there's so many issues. What we're saying is,
think about it before you act. That's all we're saying.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Ms. Passidomo, I'm sorry, but I find that
kind of insulting. It insinuates that no one up here has thought
about anything.
MS. PASSIDOMO: No. You know, Commissioner Hancock, I really
don't mean to infer that. What -- what our position is, we need the
board to understand that we've had a position for a year and a half.
You know, you-all have been talking about properties that are owned by
individuals. These are three sites -- yeah, they're Sites A and L and
U and numbers, but they're owned by people who are farming them. It's
their property, and they really want to get that message across. And
it's not meant to be a threat; it's the reality of they will defend
their rights.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Understood.
MS. PASSIDOMO: Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. FERNANDEZ: The next speaker is Steve Price and then Wesley
Roan.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Just a moment. Okay. Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yeah, just to clarify some of Ms.
Passidomo's remarks. The decision to move the landfill has not been
made and it certainly is not going to be made here today, contrary to
what she said.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Mr. Price. Is Mr. Price here or has he gone?
Okay.
The next speaker then?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Wesley Roan.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: And following Mr. Roan?
MR. FERNANDEZ: A1 Perkins.
MR. ROAN: Happy new year to everybody. My name is Wesley Roan,
for the record. I would like to start out by saying I am a resident
within the current landfill's very close proximity and have
experienced the negatives that are involved, but I am also an employee
of a company that is being considered as their land for the purchase
and then the establishment of a new landfill.
Six-L's Packing Company and Six-L's farm operations do not want
to sell their land, they want to farm on it. And I'd like to touch on
an issue first that has been talked about a little bit and that's the
issue of farming next to a landfill.
Now, Commissioner Constantine, you asked why these particular
producers were growing next to the landfill, and what Ms. Passidomo
talked about as far as it processing fruit is a good point. We're
vegetable producers and we have been assaulted recently by federal
mandates -- not mandates but guidelines about microbiological
contamination. And our concerns for the ability to grow our crops
next to a landfill are extremely impacted by microbiological concerns.
We don't have regulations that are in place now, but it won't be long
before there will be.
There are issues about bird populations and things like that that
are associated around a landfill and we can't possibly grow fresh
market tomatoes under sea gulls. It just isn't going to work. And
when buyers know that we're producing winter products at that
location, they are going to choose to buy products elsewhere. And I
hear people laugh, but it's the truth. And I spent six hours on the
east coast two weeks ago being told by the federal government what
types of responsibilities we're going to have in dealing with
microbiological concerns. So it is an issue and it's a fair one.
Site U is an environmentally sensitive location. It's surrounded
-- it's in the general location of the Belle Meade area, the water
flow area. It's just northwest of the Collier Seminole Park. It is
in an area that six months of the year is under water. It's going to
present a tremendous amount of issue with dealing with water, not only
within the system but from upward percolation, if you will, trying to
impact from underneath.
The Site U for our company is our prime winter production area.
It is the only area with which our company can produce winter
vegetables. And so we do not wish to sacrifice twelve hundred acres,
all of which are being cultivated now. They have irrigation systems.
They have crops on a regular basis. It's a vital need for our company
to have this winter production area. We can't just go out and decide
to find another place to farm. It just doesn't happen that way.
Also, Site U is in an area that I anticipate probably has the
largest growth potential of any of the sites. It's on the 41
corridor. There is a development to the west and to the southwest of
new properties, and I anticipate that there will be more development
to come. There's a section not a quarter of a mile from the site,
Section 16, which is a privately -- private home owned type of section
where there are homeowners. There are water wells. There are easily
water wells a quarter of a mile from that site, let alone one mile.
There are going to be new schools developed in that area. There is a
tremendous amount of development coming.
We also don't want the value of our surrounding property to be
diminished by the fact that there's a landfill on it. You know, we
can -- we hope and will continue to farm on it, but ultimately the
value of the property will be diminished if indeed there's a landfill
site adjacent to it.
You talked about some hauling costs being greater or lesser in
various locations. I think that when you take all of that into
consideration, there's no less cost for Site U. The percentage of
wetlands around -- around the location - in the location is relatively
limited, but around the location like I stated earlier, there's a
tremendous amount of water, tremendous amount of wetland, tremendous
amount of natural wildlife that's going to be impacted by the
potential site.
As a homeowner, I sure would like the smell problem to be
eliminated. And I think that there are probably sources and avenues
to do that within the technology that we have without necessarily
moving the landfill. And if it can't be done, then I believe that
there are probably no suitable sites in Collier County to put a
landfill and that we probably ought to consider other alternatives for
managing our waste. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
MR. FERNANDEZ: A1 Perkins and then Maria Grimaldo.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Miss Grimaldo, is she available?
MR. PERKINS: Good morning, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen,
and you people listening at home. This is so important it isn't
funny. My name is A1 Perkins. I represent Belle Meade groups. I am
a resident, a taxpayer, a voter of Collier County, and I'm not being
paid to be here.
No sane person wants a stinking dump in their backyard, that's a
fact. I videotaped twenty-four of the twenty-five meetings of the
landfill advisory board, group. And I did this because I wanted to
have documented verbatim recall of the statements that were made
because you people are not privileged to that unless you go to the
minutes and the minutes can be manipulated any way you want to.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Al, Al, you address this board.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: We're up here.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: You're not on the A1 Perkins show here.
MR. PERKINS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Coming soon on the WB.
MR. PERKINS: Can I continue now?
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Sure.
MR. PERKINS: The statements of facts that have cost the taxpayer
for consultants and staff about two million dollars since the
incinerator was an issue ten years ago, several facts are being
downplayed because of the environmentalists. These facts were stated
that all the sites are wet, all of them.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Over here, Al.
MR. PERKINS: Yes. Ail the sites are wet. The groves and the
farms have water control systems in place to protect from root rot and
fungus. Every acre east of Airport Road is wetland. Wetlands can be
mitigated. Ask Reverend Mallory. Shipping trash and garbage can be
dangerous as no one can see exactly what is in the truck or dump. But
if a toxic dangerous liquid enters Pompano or Okeechobee landfills,
Collier will be held liable for this problem forever. It won't go
away. As you know, they don't sue people who don't have money or
assets.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Mr. Perkins, let's get back to the sites,
please.
MR. PERKINS: Well, I've got this, and it's within the time limit
that I am allowed. Since the beginning of man, the problem has
existed and will exist until the end of man. Collier County entices
tourists to come here and vacation. Fun in the sun.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Al, are you ignoring the chairman?
MR. PERKINS: No, I'm not ignoring the chairman, but you're into
my five minutes. Please stay out of there until I finish and I will
answer any questions or take anybody on head to head. Please.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Excuse me, Al. I did ask that the comments be
made relative to the three sites.
MR. PERKINS: Right. Right.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: We're not into trucking. We're not into all of
that, okay?
MR. PERKINS: I have got a lot of time involved in this thing and
a lot of people are pushing on me to push and make sure that you get
the message.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Well, I'm telling you what the message is from
this table, okay?
MR. PERKINS: All right. Still in all --
CHAIRMAN BERRY: You will have an opportunity to talk about
these other things, but today is not the day to talk about them, Al.
MR. PERKINS: These people didn't give up their jobs for today
and they didn't put their kids in day care center just to come out
here that they can sit and listen to a one-track direction.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Al, there's an agenda item, and you're
expected to address that agenda item, not whatever you want to
address.
MR. PERKINS: Okay. I'm addressing the dump and its smell and
its gas. It's dangerous and all the rest of it. The existing dump
located at the entrance of Naples, Marco, Golden Gate tells the world
that paradise's front door stinks, pollutes the air with gases and
heat like secondhand smoke.
To move the problem like the dump around is just putting the
problem in someone else's backyard. To avoid lawsuits from groves
which consumes carbon dioxide and emits oxygen, to put no burden on
the farmers, farm workers and the economy of this county, my
suggestion is that we have the wealth, we have the knowledge and we
have the people here who have the clout that affects the stock market,
real estate, gas and oil, land development, banking, et cetera around
the world. Recycling, composting is the beginning of a solution to
fix the problem. We have a willing seller. We can whip this problem
without hurting anybody. It's just that simple. Now, how --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Say good night, Al. Your time is up.
MR. PERKINS: I need to bring one more thing out and then you can
throw me in jail if you care to, okay? What was left out of this --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's terribly tempting, Al.
MR. PERKINS: I know. You tried that before, okay? But what
wasn't said, and listen up, people, the grove, an orange grove,
contributes $17,000 to the taxes of this community for one section of
land. Cattle grazing contributes $800. Now, as a taxpayer, I want to
keep those groves in business, because that is a lot of school money
that goes there that they can pay for that. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Thanks, Al.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Next speaker is Maria Grimaldo and then David
Guggenheim.
MS. GRIMALDO: Good morning. For the record, my name is Maria
Grimaldo. I came from Immokalee. It's 35 minutes from here -- I
mean, 35 mile from here. And I apologize because I don't know what
site is going to be discussed about. I only know that it was about
landfill. So I am glad that I covered some of the subjects, and if I
have another comment, I would like to know if you can spend time,
because I was not aware about this.
And I have a letter that is a petition from the Immokalee
community and I am going to read it to you so that the people here can
hear.
To the Board of County Commissioners -- the Immokalee -- to the
Board of County Commissioners from the Immokalee community and
concerned citizens, reference new land sites issue. We, the Immokalee
-- we, the citizens and community of Immokalee, would like to let you,
the Collier County Commissioners, know that we oppose the opening of a
new landfill. We do not agree to proposed county land sites because
all the new sites that you have chosen, either Sites A, L, or U, are
agricultural property around Immokalee. We do not want to eat
vegetables and fruit that are grown next to a landfill.
Our farming community is struggling enough without a landfill --
with a new landfill. Also, the new landfill will tarnish Immokalee
image, hurt its economy and hinder the development and growth.
We would like for you to take under consideration some other
suggestions. Another suggestion from our community members is that
you need to have these important meetings in Immokalee and at our
convenience so the working people can attend. It is no fair -- it is
not fair of you to have these meetings at your convenient time, which
is not beneficial for the people who vote for you. And this is also
-- I appreciate, you know, what Mrs. Pamela Mac'Kie is doing for the
people who volunteer, because I volunteer here. Nobody pay me for
come over here, and I know some of the people that would like to come
to this meeting but they are unable because they are working people.
And that's why, you know, I suggest, please, to have this meeting, the
concern to my community in Immokalee at a convenient time for the
people. Don't forget that we are the people who vote for you to work
for us.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Ms. Grimaldo, could I remind you that a message
you could take back, too, is I believe that the Citizens' Advisory
Committee did have some meetings out in the Immokalee area when this
was being discussed?
MS. GRIMALDO: Okay.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay? And those were -- some of those were like
late afternoon type meetings, early evening. Just a note.
MS. GRIMALDO: Yeah, I know. And another thing that is concern
me was about the article in the Naples Daily News that is very
touching, because, you know, one of the things that I think is -- one
of the things that why Mr. Timothy Constantine are supporting are the
people from Golden Gate to move or remove the landfill is because, you
know, these people, they complain about the odor, and then what it
says in the article is that they are complaining it is ruining -- they
-- they are ruining the quality of life. What did that mean? What we
are? The people who live on those sites that you already choose, what
about the people who is over there standing on the reservation,
Indian? What about the people in Immokalee? What about the people
that live -- is live on -- around the other sites that you are
choosing? We are -- I mean, what is it about? We are all people. No
matter where you live, it is a quality of life. Please, I mean -- I
suggest you consider that we are all people and you are the people who
work for us. Please don't forget.
MR. FERNANDEZ: David Guggenheim and then James Rideoutte.
DR. GUGGENHEIM: Chairperson Berry, congratulations.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Chairman is good.
DR. GUGGENHEIM: Chairman.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: It works.
DR. GUGGENHEIM: Very good. Commissioners, good morning. For
the record, David Guggenheim, president and CEO of the Conservancy of
Southwest Florida.
I would like to start by acknowledging the hard work of the
Citizens' Advisory Committee charged with siting this landfill. The
Conservancy believes that the county's siting process did a
satisfactory job of minimizing environmental impact based on location.
Many environmental concerns were addressed in the siting process which
prioritized environmental issues to avoid permitting delays or
denials, and many of the criteria used in ranking the sites addressed
environmental concerns.
Nevertheless, the development of any landfill brings with it
environmental degradation and concerns. The land itself will be lost
and the potential secondary effects it will have on wildlife, habitat
and groundwater are still of concern and should be avoided in the
first place if at all possible.
Our recommendation is not to select any of the prospective sites
at this time. The Conservancy believes that any decision to move
forward on the construction of a new landfill is premature at this
time, and we base this position on a list of ten factors that are
listed on the position statement that you have received and that is
available to the public.
The most compelling reason for our position is that our present
landfill has many years of life remaining in it. The Burns and
McDonald study concludes that the present site can be expanded to
serve the county's needs for approximately fifty years based on a
medium growth rate of the county. If the 97-acre expansion on the
county-owned property north of the landfill is considered, the overall
potential of the site will extend beyond the year 2050. Why impact
eleven hundred acres of undeveloped land in the rural part of our
county when we have more than fifty years of life left in the
remaining existing landfill?
I think we also have to recognize that we are not talking about
relocating a landfill. We're talking about constructing a new
landfill. The existing site isn't going anywhere and we have to
maintain it for many years to come.
There are significant technological advances being made in solid
waste disposal and recovery and increasing the use of recycling and
source reduction and the potential for alternative and
cost-competitive options to haul waste out of the county and other
options that could dramatically change the need for a landfill site at
all. With potentially more than fifty years to work with, we need to
consider the potential of such advantages and alternatives. And the
Burns and McDonald study tells us that we have time to carefully
examine the solutions available to us, many of which have changed just
over the past few years. Why rush into building a new landfill when
ultimately it might not be necessary?
One of the concerns we have heard about is a perceived odor
problem. If there is an odor problem, we need to address it no matter
what. We owe it to the citizens of Golden Gate. In Dr. Stokes'
report, he points out economical ways to deal with any remaining odor
problem at the landfill site. And as he eloquently points out in his
report, we must not let the solution to an odor problem be confused
with the issue of where and how to dispose of our solid waste. These
are two separate matters that must be handled according to their
respective needs and the values to the community.
I want to take this opportunity to pledge that the Conservancy
will do its part to work closely with the county to help us better
conserve our resources and work toward appropriate solutions for solid
waste. And I would cite three different areas where we would want to
help and hope to help.
The first is in continuing to expand our education program. We
had a special eye on the issues lecture last year on Earth Day. It
was very successful and the public learned a lot. The public got to
get out and tour the existing landfill site. The public also learned
a lot about recycling, but clearly there's an education component here
that's important. I think our citizens want to do the right thing and
they're just looking for some leadership to help them live with less
impact on our precious environment.
We're also offering a new -- a new outing called Waste, Wattage
and Water, field trips to some of Southwest Florida's dirtiest places,
which includes a field trip to the landfill, among other things. But
again, our attempt is to really help engage the public and get people
out so that they can better understand what's going on.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: You don't have a real long sign-up list
for that one, do you?
DR. GUGGENHEIM: I think we only have two so far, but I'm
promoting it right now.
We have -- we also have a recycling center on-site at the Naples
Nature Center. And that -- I invite the entire public to come and use
that facility which provides for the recycling of cans, bottles and
even cardboard.
And finally, we will continue to apply our technical expertise to
help you explore alternatives and we look forward to closely working
with you and your staff toward that end.
And on behalf of our five thousand family members, I thank you
for this opportunity to speak.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chairman, I think it would be
appropriate also to thank the Conservancy and Dr. Guggenheim. Dave
Addison, an employee of the Conservancy, has served on the committee
and it's been the Conservancy that has been there and loaned him to
the committee, so thank you for that.
DR. GUGGENHEIM: Thank you.
MR. FERNANDEZ: James Rideoutte and then Sonya Tuton.
MR. RIDEOUTTE: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Jim
Rideoutte. I am here as president of the Greater Naples Civic
Association. We recognize that the decision to possibly relocate the
landfill was made several years ago and was based on conditions that
existed at that time. However, the situation today has changed and
the cost implications of a possible relocation are now more clearly
defined. The landfill odor has been greatly reduced through the use
of gas wells and flares installed at the current landfill site. And --
I lost my place -- well, the landfill odor has been greatly reduced at
the landfill site and -- since the decision to relocate it was made.
Remaining odor often attributed to the landfill is actually coming
from the water treatment facility.
Landfill relocation would generate approximately thirty-five
million dollars in one-time costs that would not be incurred if the
present site was retained. Reserves would be insufficient to pay these
one-time costs and requiring debt financing. Relocation will increase
annual disposal costs by about three point six million dollars a year,
which is about a fifty-five percent increase. These total costs
translate into an average of two hundred and eighty dollars one-time
relocation costs per household, and in addition -- and an additional
thirty-four dollars per year for the average mandatory waste disposal
fee. Costs include direct costs and increases paid through fees by
households and estimated costs incurred by local residents through
higher prices for goods and services from local businesses.
And we feel that the relocation of this landfill has the effect
of forcing all the households in Collier County to subsidize the
investment decisions made by people who voluntarily purchase their
property near a landfill.
Considering the costs of relocating and lack of current
compelling justification to relocate, the Greater Naples Civic
Association recommends that the Board of County Commissioners
reconsider the decision to possibly relocate the landfill and vote to
retain the present landfill site.
And there are a couple of items that came up in some recent
discussions. One is the cost in this, although we show it at
thirty-five million, in our discussions with all the people, we have
heard the cost of the property out in the proposed sites to be
anywhere -- we used the conservative figure that the study group used
here, but we have heard costs running as high as forty, fifty and
sixty thousand dollars, which would substantially increase the amount
shown here.
Also, with respect -- we have heard some people that question
that the eighty percent -- of the wells with the flares. I got that
from the Stokes report, but I also called two other Florida land
sites, Gainesville and Ocala, and they confirmed that eighty percent.
They also considered -- confirmed Mr. Stokes' report that landfill
odors can only be detected or smelled slightly in excess of a mile. I
don't know where this five-mile radius comes from. The only thing
that's important is how far away you can smell it. And so they did
confirm -- it's not an exact science, you know. It's not a precise
measurement, but they did basically confirm his.
And what we think in summary is that moving the present landfill
is just the wrong answer. The odor is the issue and we should address
that odor. Thank you.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, I want to -- because
of the number of speakers we have, I am not going to rebut point by
point, but suffice it to say in my opinion the Greater Naples Civic
Association report is very factually challenged. Jim and I have had a
conversation on that, and we're going to not agree on it today, I'm
sure.
MR. RIDEOUTTE: I am not going to refute you; I just want to make
a -- you remind me of a point I forgot to mention. Attached to our
basic summary letter that I read to you is three pages of where we got
all of our facts. Every time there was a question, we took the most
conservative one. Now, you and I do disagree on some things, but --
but I think for the most part, we got it from your staff and from the
committee and from whatever best we could and we went on the
conservative side.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The information they used from the
committee and from the staff is accurate information. How they choose
to manipulate that I don't think is accurate.
MR. RIDEOUTTE: If you can point out some cases of manipulation,
I will be glad to address those.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I did for about a half hour yesterday
with you, Jim.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Sonya Tuten and then David Brandt.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Before Sonya starts -- don't start her time yet.
Sonya, I would assume that you're going to be our last speaker before
we take a lunch break. So if there are others out there waiting, we
will take the lunch break as soon as she finishes speaking.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I ask a question on that? And
maybe the board will want to take a full hour. I was just going to
say, I know we have people who have taken time off from work to be
here today, and would it make sense -- I mean, do we have time to get
something to eat in thirty minutes' time and at least people can still
stay here?
CHAIRMAN BERRY: How many -- how many do we have after Miss
Tuten?
MR. FERNANDEZ: You have still got about twenty or so.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I can eat in half an hour easy.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah, I'm game for a half hour. That
gives us time to run out and grab something.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: All right.
Go ahead, Sonya.
MS. TUTEN: Good morning, and thank you. My name is Sonya Tuten,
and for the record, that's S-o-n-y-a, T-u-t-e-n. I am here on behalf
of the citizens of Immokalee and representative of the Immokalee
Chamber of Commerce. The citizens of Immokalee and surrounding areas
would like the Board of County Commissioners to know that we oppose
the opening of any new landfill in our area or Collier County.
Now, I would like to have every concerned person here, whether
you're from Immokalee, Golden Gate, the Estates, Marco Island or
Naples, to stand if you oppose the opening of the landfill.
Now, not only by this representation, I also have, along with
Miss Maria Grimaldo, eight hundred and eighty-one signatures from
concerned people that might not could have made it to this meeting
today.
Thank you very much, and you may be seated.
CHAIRMAN BERRY: Give those to Mr. Fernandez, please, Sonya.
MS. TUTEN: I would like to make the commissioners aware of a few
facts, and these are very important facts that have not been mentioned
here at all. Some of the facts that I have discovered over my
research and time is that Collier County's tipping fee is low; as a
matter of fact, the lowest in the State of Florida. In plain English,
Collier County is the cheapest dump in Florida, yet one of the most
expensive places to live. Surrounding counties are hauling in their
trash. No wonder Collier County can't control the growth of its
trash, because the growth is faster than anticipated. If Collier
County doesn't know about this and waste management doesn't know about
this, this is a serious issue that needs to be studied and researched.
We are letting other counties bring in their trash. Why are we
letting other counties bring in their trash?
All of the top three sites are very wildlife inhabited areas.
Nothing has ever been said or discussed about how they will control
bears, panthers, alligators, wild hog, deers, from coming into these
landfill areas. These animals would be drawn to all of these areas.
And even though odor is the problem, cost -- cost seems to be the
real issue here. It's all about money, but when you start looking at
the pros and the cons of the new landfill, the list of the cons are a
lot longer on my list (indicating). The pros are odor and growth
potential. The cons are odor, growth potential, cost, endangered
species, a loss of jobs, agricultural lands, tax revenue for the
county -- less tax money -- and water wells. This is a big
difference.
Well, folks, I hate to bust your bubble, but the cost is going
up. Everything around us goes up every day.
Commissioners, I ask you to please don't make the wrong decision.
In fact, please -- I don't think you have enough knowledge to vote on
this issue yet, and if you do make your decision, please consider
trucking to a waste management facility.
And yes, I got some puzzled looks when you go, trash is coming
into our county? Yes. Wherever you want me to send the documents,
the proof, please let me know if it's the commission, the waste
management, I will surely submit them. Thank you.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN BERRY: This meeting is recessed for thirty minutes.
(A luncheon recess was taken.)
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: We will reconvene the afternoon session and
continue with the speakers regarding the site selection for landfill
sites.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I had a question.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Let me again remind people -- let's get
everybody seated here.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I had a question.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I had some people ask me for the favor,
that were not here this morning and were therefore unable to register
to speak, was there going to be a window opening at the beginning of
this session for them to register.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: How many people were not in the chambers this
morning that are desirous of speaking?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The city councilwoman for the city of
Naples.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Ms. MacKenzie, do you wish to speak?
MS. MACKENZIE: I don't know. How are you all going to vote?
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I thought you would have that figured out by
now. No. I am only kidding.
Councilwoman, if you would like to sign up to speak I would ask
that you do so now, rather than wait. And if you choose to waive your
position, that's all right. But if you would like to speak, please
get a form and sign up as we finish speaking here, okay?
Is there anyone else that was not here this morning? Because we
want to afford everybody the opportunity, but we have to have a little
bit of organization here.
Mr. Fernandez, our first speaker is --
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay. Our first speaker is David Brandt and then
following him is Glenn Wilt.
MR. BRANDT: Good afternoon. My name is David Brandt. I live at
931 Moon Court, Marco Island. And I am a member of the Marco Island
City Council. I have only a short prepared statement.
The Marco Island City Council addressed the landfill issue last
evening and asked that I come before you and express our concerns
about the relocation of the landfill. If one of the northern
locations is selected, we are concerned that this would have an effect
of increasing the waste disposal fee for the residents of the City of
Marco Island. Further, we do not want to see any rate increase if the
landfill is relocated. Thank you.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Glenn Wilt and then Cheryle Newman.
MR. WILT: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Glenn Wilt.
I live in Golden Gate.
Three years ago we went through this same type of meeting for
hours and hours and hours. Only it's a little different forum today.
Today we're a little bit further than we were three years ago. At
least we're looking towards maybe selecting a site today.
I've heard a lot of information passed around this morning as to
why I don't want a landfill in my backyard. Well, I don't want a
landfill in my backyard either. I live less than a mile from there.
You talk to one side and they say, "Well, with the current system
we have out there with the gas managed system there is no odor." It's
wrong. You talk to the people that run the landfill and they'll tell
you.
The only positive control you have over the odor is on closed
cells. You're going to have odor from a landfill on an open cell. I
mean, that's knowledge. You never cure all the smell.
There are two different smells in Golden Gate. One is a water
plant and one is a waste management. I mean, the landfill. Excuse
me. Not waste management. Landfill. Naples Landfill.
And for those people to say that it's all coming from the water
plant, I would challenge them to come out and take a tour and define
the two odors they have out there. The people are making some
statements out there and they've never been to the water plant to get
the odor or been to the landfill. I didn't say all of them. I said
some of them.
I heard interesting statements about, "We can't grow tomatoes
because of the birds and the gulls. We can't have it next to the city
well field out there."
It's four and a half miles away from that one site. How about
wells that are within a quarter of a mile? How about the bird problem
we have at the current site? I consider the gull disposal problem as
they fly over a lot more important against people than against growing
tomatoes.
How about 49,000 people in this radius of the area that we're
talking about of the current landfill versus -- I don't know. Take
your figure. 82, 182, even 500. It don't compare to 49,000 people
living in that area.
And then I go back to another point. If all these factors have
been corrected that people are talking about where there is no odor,
there is no birds, there is no pollution at the current landfill, why
are these people objecting to having a landfill moved to some other
site? All these problems have been corrected. Well, you talk to
them.
No, I haven't heard anything new here that I didn't hear three
years ago or three and a half years ago. It's all the same issue. And
you're revisiting all this information, except, as I mentioned, you're
on a different course. We're moving forward.
We're a little bit further than we were three and a half years
ago. We're actually going forward to select a site. I urge you to
stay on that course.
The time and the $800,000 plus, as Commissioner Mac'Kie pointed
out, for the consultant to study the issue, I think the time and the
money -- it has been studied to death. Let's move forward.
I also will concede the fact that I know there's an RFP out on
trucking. If those figures come in and they're favorable, I have no
problem with that. All the other technologies I don't see anything
that has happened in the last three and a half years.
And we're certainly not going to go back to the incinerator
issue. I hope not. I don't think that will fly anywhere. I don't
know anything about recycling that's going to take care of all of it
or all these new methods of disposal.
I thought it was interesting the one statement that was made
they're worried about the panthers and the bears and the alligators
for any new landfill at either one of these three sites. Is anybody
worried about the bears and the panthers and the alligators at the
current site? They're wildlife. They're going to go where they
belong or where they want to go.
The same reasons that required all the time and effort from the
community and by this Commission three years ago to get the process
started to move forward in selecting a site for a new landfill, those
problems discussed at that time are still current today. The same
problems that we're identifying today in the Golden Gate area are
those same problems that required the prior two relocations of the
landfill from the downtown Naples area. We're asking the same
consideration.
I won't delay the time any further. I just encourage you to stay
the course of the Commission that was established over two years ago
and in good faith by this Commission to move forward. Let's select a
site and move on. Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Cheryle Newman and then Bill Bramberg.
MS. NEWMAN: Good afternoon. For the record, Cheryle Newman,
Golden Gate Area Civic Association incoming president. I will try to
keep it brief and I'll try to keep to the criteria that the Chairman
has requested.
First of all, today I would like to start by saying that the
landfill is not just a Golden Gate issue, which it has been constantly
presented in the local press. Today you are being asked to choose a
new site for a landfill if we should need a new landfill. When the
bids should come in from the trucking out of the county, then at that
time if they are the most cost-effective measure, then that decision
should be made at that time.
I've pretty much cut everything else out. So in closing I would
just like to thank you for allowing me to speak and to remind
Commissioner Mac'Kie of some of the things she did mention to us at
our Civic Association meeting. And I hope that you'll move on in the
right direction today. Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Bill Bramberg and then Dr. Fay Biles.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Is Dr. Bramberg here? Dr. Biles.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Ty Agoston is next.
MR. AGOSTON: You go first.
DR. BILES: I'm Fay Biles. I am president of the Marco Island
Taxpayers' Association, approximately 1,000 members.
This kind of crept up on us. I think with being a new city we've
been so dog-gone involved with the city council that we've failed
really to address this issue and get to our Commissioner. I apologize
to Commissioner Norris.
We have looked at this very carefully. Being a new city, of
course, we will probably have to renegotiate a contract for the waste
management removal and so forth, but we are still very much part of
Collier County.
And I would like to just say that if we -- if the northern two
places are chosen, we would be about 60 miles from that landfill. The
trucking costs from going to Marco clear up to those two landfills
would be extremely expensive. And I think that our fees -- our
monthly fees would go sky high.
I think we have been very fortunate -- I think Collier County is
very fortunate in having one of the lowest fees in the whole state of
Florida. It's been equitable and we have been very pleased with that.
But I see big changes coming if there is a change. And certainly
there is going to be a change for Marco Island. So please remember we
would be 60 miles away. Thank you.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Ty Agoston and then Marilyn Bell.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think it would be interesting to point
out that the residential rate is not based on mileage from the
landfill. It has nothing to do with it.
MR. AGOSTON: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is
Ty Agoston. I live in Golden Gate Estates. And I'm probably speaking
more for my grandsons than for myself.
Let me backtrack for a minute and express a negative opinion on
the composition of the Citizens Advisory Committee. I think you are
paying a very heavy price for consultants. Consequently, I don't see
the need for the environmental representation on that committee.
Additionally, you have Mr. Fran Stallings who is a very, very
powerful person. He was essentially instrumental in bringing in the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to bring the different problem. And I'm
questioning his motivations in regards to the welfare of Collier
County.
The next problem I have is with the makeup of that criteria. The
so-called exclusionary -- and I am very happy to hear someone else
having a problem enunciating.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I do.
MR. AGOSTON: But the exclusionary criteria as it's set up and as
I understand, the original numbers were okay, but then they were
multiplied by the value of a given site. And at that point I think
most people with a normal level of math background got dropped out of
the following stage.
But let me bring some point home here. The number three
exclusionary criteria is the Rookery Bay Henderson Creek drainage
basin. Mr. Hancock had brought up the engineering technology that,
"Well, no, the water does not flow southwest. It flows" -- whatever.
And he lost me.
The fact of the matter is, is if the Rookery Bay people don't
want a landfill approximated near to them, to me, proves that there is
a problem with the landfill. If they don't want -- the reason the
only willing seller here, College Properties, was dropped from
consideration is because of its proximity to the Rookery Bay.
If they worry about contamination, guys, I have grandsons like
about this big. I'm worried about them. I'm worried about the
contamination to their water.
By the way, the drinking water protection is ranked after Rookery
Bay. Not before. We talk after. With due respect, gentlemen, I
mean, I respect all the political implications involved here and all
the promises and whatever that were made. As far as I'm concerned, it
doesn't come ahead of my grandson. You know, they come first.
And if we are dealing here purely on necessity, I would bow to
the necessity. But at this point in time I don't see the necessity.
Ms. Mac'Kie brings up a point of the landfill does not have to be
moved, naming a number of experts.
Guys, I know a little bit about the stock market and not a whole
lot about anything else. So I listen to an expert. If you are
dealing -- an expert is saying that the landfill currently, based on
current technology, is good for 50 years. Are you that wealthy? Do
you have all that much extra money that you want to spend to move and
solve a problem that is nonexistent?
And the question about people living immediately in the area is
somewhat selfish in my opinion. The people bought there bought there
in full knowledge of the existence of the landfill. They have gained
the price advantage in the pricing of that property because I am sure
that they were very fast on pointing out to the Realtor and the
seller, "Hey, you have a landfill right here. I want an extra $10,000
off the price."
P.S., as far as I am concerned, they want it on both sides. They
want it both in the pricing of the real estate, as well as the
advantage of moving it now away at taxpayers' event -- expense. So I
really don't see that line of argument as valid.
And then there was another one. Today we have a group of people
who are being disadvantaged. Are we ready to exchange to another
group of people who is going to be disadvantaged down the road? Are
they any worse? Thank you very much for the opportunity.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Marilyn Bell and then Dr. C.A. Stokes.
MS. BELL: I am a resident of Naples.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Would you mind pulling that down?
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Your name, please.
MS. BELL: I have in front of -- is that better?
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Your name.
MS. BELL: -- me a fax which I received --
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Excuse me. Your name, please.
MS. BELL: Marilyn Bell, B-e-l-1.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you.
MS. BELL: I have in front of me a fax which was sent to me for
transmittal to the Commissioners. The fax is from the Representatives
House, Ann Friedman, of the Navaho Nation in San Juan Pueblo, New
Mexico.
"I am very concerned about the proposed new landfill in Collier
County. My concerns are, number one, what seems to be the favored
site is near an independent traditional Seminole Nation village and
one of the other two sites is near another community of this Nation. I
hope your county can break the pattern of siting landfills near
communities of people of color.
In particular, the independent traditional Seminole Nation
community near the "L" site feels the landfill will endanger them,
especially their children. Even if it meets legal standards, there
can be no guarantees of safety for so large a waste dump only a half a
mile away from their community that uses wild plants.
This lack of concern for the independent traditional Seminole
Nations' health and safety contradicts your early attempts to force
them to modernize their buildings for supposed health and safety
reasons. Also, please keep in mind that moving would be a particular
hardship for the independent traditional Seminole Nation since there
are a limited number of places where they can live as a community
according to the traditions that are important to them.
Since the independent traditional Seminole Nation sees themselves
as caretakers of the natural world, they are the last people whose
environment should be damaged by outsiders. They are also among the
few preservers of an endangered culture with an extensive knowledge
about Southwest Florida and, thus, are entitled to the same kind of
consideration as an endangered species. Members of the independent
traditional Seminole Nation have seen panthers in their area.
All the proposed sites are now productive farmland. Using them
as landfills would put many people out of work and thus harm not only
them, but also the economy of the whole region.
True concern for the environment suggests that you take this
opportunity to implement a long-term solution to the waste problem
involving recycling, waste treatments, composting and so forth. Your
experience has already shown that landfills are unpleasant, expensive,
economically harmful and only a stopgap. Even disregarding the
environmental costs, the cheapest solution in dollars will be a
long-term solution.
In view of these problems, I hope you will conclude that the
studies you have funded have not found the right solution. Whether
the solution can be found now or needs further study, please do not
hurry to commit a plan that has every possible flaw."
As a personal remark from me, I would like to say, "Aren't we
getting tired of pushing around the Indian community?" Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Dr. Stokes and then Maria Tuff.
DR. STOKES: I am Charles A. Stokes, Naples resident, speaking
for myself and I hope in the interest of common sense.
I'm expecting a special award from the Commission for adhering to
the Chairman's instructions.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I just say while we're handing out
special awards -- I'm sure everybody wants to thank Dr. Stokes for
providing the odor study that he did at my request at absolutely no
cost to the county. I just do want to thank you for that, Dr. Stokes.
(Applause)
DR. STOKES: I really didn't ask for that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No.
DR. STOKES: I would like to recommend to you that you pursue all
three sites and any of the sites that may come to your attention to a
useful conclusion. By a useful conclusion I would suggest perhaps an
option on one site or other sites -- two sites -- or an option on a
part of a site. Or another useful conclusion might be that after
facing lengthy lawsuits and all kinds of delays you may conclude that
it's not on.
Now, if you don't pursue this matter to an end -- and a useful
end -- your whole solid waste planning is held hostage to it. We
can't move forward whatever we should do. And I'm not suggesting what
we should do at this point, but we have to move forward.
Now, if I dared depart from the Chairman's instructions, which I
don't, I would endorse Dr. Guggenheim's speech. But I don't dare do
that.
(Applause)
DR. STOKES: And I would say one more thing. That this board up
here is charged by state law to provide safe and sanitary disposal of
your waste. They cannot get away from that responsibility, whether it
is done here or in another county.
So I would urge all of you to recognize that if you stop them in
their tracks so they can't move forward, then please come forward with
a solution to the problem because we still have to solve it. Thank you
very much.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Maria Tuff and then Dan Marcis.
MS. TUFF: Good afternoon. For the record, I am Maria Tuff,
president of the Golden Gate Area Civic Association.
I come before you today to convey the importance of staying the
course of selecting a new landfill site. The facts are the landfill
does stink and it will only get worse as the garbage heaps get bigger.
Please put the scrubber on the water treatment plant. And that
is exactly what it is. A water treatment plant. Not a wastewater
treatment plant. We have waited a long time for that to happen and we
are still waiting for it to get accomplished.
But that isn't going to change the fact that the landfill stinks.
Most of us can tell the difference between stinky water smell and
rotting garbage.
The current landfill is located virtually on top of thousands of
people and it's still growing. It's an inappropriate location. The
landfill was moved on two previous occasions when they became
inappropriate because of population growth.
Consider how Golden Gate's population has changed since the
inception of the landfill in 1976. The CAC considered both present
and projected population figures on areas when looking at possible
locations for the next landfill. Residential areas, such as Golden
Gate, are not suitable and should be eliminated as consideration not
just for any future site, of course, but for the present site as well.
Is hauling an option? Maybe. But we don't have the numbers back
yet, so it's really too soon to say.
At two separate meetings last spring both Commissioners Mac'Kie
and Hancock were kind enough to join us as guest speakers at our Civic
Association meeting. If you recall, Commissioners, you both agreed
siting a new landfill site is important, inevitable and must be done.
Land isn't getting any cheaper, nor permitting any easier. The only
part we remained unclear on was the length of time the present site
should remain open.
I close with a quote from a Commissioner at the county workshop
held on September 15th, 1993. I quote, "Cost is not a factor. We're
looking at a five to six percent increase. That is not a factor in
determining whether we keep the current landfill or move it. We need
to determine other sites," end quote. We have determined those sites
and now it is time to act.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Dan Marcis and then Nettle Phillips.
MR. MARCIS: Dan Marcis. Madam Chairman, County Commissioners,
it's indeed a pleasure that you permit me to speak to you.
I also would like to express my gratitude to the CAC for the job
they've done for Collier County. It's a thankless job and nobody is
always going to agree with them, but they spent collectively thousands
of hours getting all this information to getting these sites.
They did not look at it as many of us are only taking one item
that we look at and we take that and we base our judgment on one
particular item. We say, "Well, the water," and so on.
But before I get into that, I was appalled the disrespect shown
our Collier County commissioners. They are elected officers. They
should be treated as such. I was appalled at the degradation of our
Collier County commission by personnel.
All items should be addressed to the chair as per all rules that
I abide by. So I would respect if anyone else coming forth to the
podium would respect that.
I live in Golden Gate. My name is -- did I say my name already?
I live in Golden Gate city. And the reason why I'm so concerned -- I
speak for myself -- is that it's -- as the saying goes, "What's good
for the goose is good for the gooser."
And I would like to say that in the past when we had built the
wasteland, if you want to call it, in Golden Gate, the technology was
not as efficient and proficient as it is today. I know that the
compactness of the -- I don't even know what the compactness was of
the clay that was used for the liners. I do not know the life of the
plastic that was used.
But in the last 10, 15 years we have made great strides both in
compactness for the liners and we had also made great progress in the
plastic liners. And we -- I am very concerned that the technology
that we had then is -- today is so much superior that when we do build
a landfill that it will withstand all of these things as a guarantee.
As of right now we could be living on a time bomb. I know we're
venting the gases. But, however, these gases, wherever you drill
these wells, they are pocketed.
It's known that methane is pocketed. And you can be 20 feet from
a pocket of methane gas and it will go undetected. And once -- and
once that we find that there is leakage, then we have no alternative.
It could be not only catastrophic, it would be cataclysmic for Golden
Gate to have our waters polluted.
But, however, I can't see the rationale of people saying, "Well,
it's okay. We can go another 20 years here in Golden Gate," but it's
not good for out there. Well, let's go back to the old cliche again.
It's the same.
The only thing is that we're looking at 49,000 people. We're
disregarding that. Let's build it more for Marco Island. They're
worried about hauling it 60 miles more. Some places they haul it 300
miles.
Of course, I don't think that that should be a criteria how far
that they can afford to haul the garbage from Marco Island. Because
the best solution would be if everyone went on their own basis in
their own backyard. Have a garbage dump in Marco Island, have it in
Rookery Bay or wherever.
But, however, the commission has been charged that we -- by the
state that they furnish this solution to our garbage problem. I
hereby would like the commission to'go forward posthaste and find a
spot to put all of our garbage. Thank you very much. I appreciate
it. Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Nettie Phillips and then Tom Henning.
MS. PHILLIPS: Good evening, Commissioners. For the record, my
name is Nettle Phillips. Can you hear me? Fifty plus year resident
of Collier County.
I have -- I have a question. Commissioner Constantine, at the
Golden Gate Estates Civic Association meeting you made reference to
the fact that the landfill would be operated at its site for the next
seven to eight years even if you decide to move the landfill and
purchase another site. This one will be used for another seven to
eight years. It will have to be maintained for 25 years after that I
would assume. Remember?
Okay. If this landfill is going to be at this site for another
seven to eight years and we're -- by the way, I signed the petition
several years back to move the landfill. I do happen to have
properties in areas that are affected by this smell. I smelled it
this morning coming to this meeting.
But if we're going to have this site there another seven to eight
years even if we buy another site, what are you going to do about the
smell in this seven to eight years?
And there was things several years back I didn't understand. I
didn't understand the Coyota (phonetic) Protocol, the Heritage Rivers
Act, all the pollution problems that we're -- that we have with water,
all the biological problems that we're -- that we are having with our
food source. The Mad Cow disease, chicken, geese, ducks and now just
last night and the other day I heard them mention that our produce and
our vegetables are being contaminated in this country because of bad,
you know, biological problems.
So we're talking about another seven to eight years it's going to
stay right where it's at. We're going to have the smell. So we're
going to have to do something with the smell or we're going to have to
smell it seven or eight more years anyway.
Not just talking about all the costs of moving it to another
area, we're looking at a 50-year site here. I don't like the smell.
I've heard that it's the dump. I heard it's the water treatment
plant. It's also sulfur water well, et cetera. I mean, it's several
things. Are we going to try to find the problem?
You said in March or April that we're going to put new scrubbers
on the water treatment plant. Could we not wait to see if this is not
going to alleviate the problem? We are still going to deal with it
seven to eight years. I'm sorry. It's going to be there seven to
eight more years that you're going to smell it. Surely we can get rid
of the smell in seven to eight years.
I am looking at other food contamination. I'm looking at the
Coyota (phonetic) Protocol that was just signed. I know it still has
something to do with our pricing. It has something to do with our
resource use. Even at the eight percent they went with that means the
U.S. cuts our recourse use 40 percent plus.
So we're looking at all these things. And, folks, we're going to
have it seven to eight more years where it's at. I don't see moving
it because we -- aren't we going to alleviate the problem within the
seven years, within a year?
I mean, it's been there several years. It didn't just happen.
Are we just going to say, "Okay. We're going to move it, but we're
going to have it for seven more years." You're going to smell it
anyway.
We'll buy more land, which is a food source. And, no, I don't
think the farmers would want to re-lease that from the government
because we're having all these food contamination problems. The
environmentalists are going to come in and say, "Forget it, folks. You
can't have that."
Commissioner Constantine, you mentioned several times at the
association meeting that whatever, there is going to be lawsuits,
lawsuits, lawsuits. You mentioned that several times. So if we move
it there is going to be lawsuits.
If we don't move it and we have all these other problems to
contend with, between seven and eight years I'm afraid that these
other problems are going to prevent you from using another site if you
buy one anyway. Because we're still going to have this one for seven
to eight years being used, being smelled if you don't do something
about the problem, correct?
That is what you said at the meeting. Commissioner Constantine?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What I said at the meeting is that
obviously it takes time to buy land, permit land and build a new
landfill and you would need to use the existing site in that time
frame. And at no time point have we discussed closing the existing
cell before it had lived its useful life.
MS. PHILLIPS: Right. So we're going to have this smell, unless
you alleviate the problem from the water treatment or the county dump
or landfill or wherever it's coming from. It's still going to be
sitting there. We're still going to be smelling it for several years.
So I don't see why we can't wait just a few months to see if the
scrubbers have an effect on the treatment, if it still is. Because
we're still going to have it for "X" amount of years unmoved.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Tom Henning and then Ann Olesky.
MR. HENNING: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, my
name is Tom Henning.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the board for
allowing the environmental community and the people at large in
Collier County to recommend a new landfill site that has been a
negative for Golden Gate and East Naples for many years.
The landfill at one time was at Coquina Sands. It was an
improper site at that time. The landfill was moved next to the Naples
airport. It was improper for being next to the Naples airport. And
then right now it is at a site bordering Golden Gate. And it's an
improper site now.
What really burns me, Commissioners, is the coastal community
doesn't -- thinks that the Golden Gate people don't know what they're
smelling. Most people -- two-thirds of the people in Golden Gate city
have a water treatment plant in their backyard. Ail the Golden Gate
Estate residents have a water treatment in their backyard.
The smell that we get from a water treatment plant is rotten
eggs. It is much different than rotten garbage. And I can tell the
difference.
A couple months ago I was in Okeechobee looking at that site out
there. I know that is one of the alternatives. The first thing when
I got out of my vehicle was, "Boy, I feel like I'm next to the Naples
landfill." So I know the smell. And I'm a little bit offended by
that and some of the reasons that we should keep it at its present
site.
During the CAC meetings the Naples landfill and College Property
was one of the 46 sites. And they fell out early because of the
environmental and people concerns.
In 1995 Waste Management identified 21 years at its present site.
Our growth management plan calls for a ten-year site of landfill
space. So the question would be: Would it be any easier to wait
eight years from now to pick a new site? And I think we ought to do
it now.
The three sites that the CAC is recommending, there is only one
that I have a little bit concern and that's the one north of
Immokalee. If the board chooses that and chooses to truck the
shortest distance, that would be through Immokalee.
There are other sites. I don't want Immokalee to have the same
problem that we do in the Golden Gate community. And I don't want to
oppose -- put any of those restraints on Immokalee.
The other two sites I think -- all three sites are permittable.
But I just -- I hope that the board would rank site "A" on the low
end. Thank you, Commissioners.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Ann Olesky and then Brad Cornell.
MS. OLESKY: Good afternoon. Congratulations, Barbara. For the
record, the name is Ann Olesky. I'm with Lake Trafford. And we're
still fighting, of course, to save Lake Trafford.
But I want to talk about an endangered species, which I'm well
aware of endangered species living on the lake. That species is
Immokalee with its diverse culture. We have the Indians. We have
Hispanics. We have white Americans. We also have African Americans.
We also have a lot of problems.
I'm against the landfill completely. I think that there are
other alternatives. And previously a gentleman had said that we
should go and visit some of the other sites, which is exactly what I
did. The smell in Golden Gate is atrocious. I do not live there, but
it is atrocious.
Upon visiting two of the other sites that are working sites, we
went during the day and then again in the evening. The smell was
entirely different. I won't say it was a better smell, but it was not
that horrible, rotten egg that wants -- you want to hold your nose
with. It was awful.
Immokalee has been hard hit with NAFTA with losing a lot of the
farmers. Mother Nature has hit us. And then the lake having the
difficulty with the fish and the breathing. Another slap in the face
could put Immokalee under.
Immokalee could be a golden goose. I picked that word up from a
previous speaker. But it really could be a golden goose. We could be
a three-legged stool.
We have -- and excuse the way I pronounce these because there is
one that's going to hang me up. Eco-tourism tourism, Immokalee;
agriculture tourism, Immokalee; and another one that we just started
looking into is heritage tourism in Immokalee. A wonderful
three-legged stool that will also benefit Collier County.
I heard that there are other alternatives to the landfill. I
think you need to address the problem for Golden Gate, which I know
you're working hard at, for the odor. But I think that coming on a
new millennium we should be able to find a new way to dispose of our
garbage and let the other counties around us dispose of theirs in
another way.
For the record, I am totally against going to Immokalee with the
landfill and hope that we can find other solutions. And I would be
willing to work at our end to find a solution. Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Brad Cornell. Eric Watler is next after Brad
Cornell.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I guess he left
MR. FERNANDEZ: Is Mr. Watler here? And then Janet Vasey.
MR. WATLER: Eric Watler, GNCA. Addressing the three possible
sites, we vote for none of the above. I think it's the easiest way to
put it. I am sure it doesn't surprise too many of you.
The real reason is that the emphasis has been for a long time now
on moving the problem as opposed to endeavoring to minimize the
problem. And when we say moving the problem, I think the real issue
here is $35 million of capital expense and $3.5 million per year
thereafter.
This is an expenditure we currently do not have. If you move to
any one of those locations those numbers are going to stay about the
same and you'll be paying for it. And I suggest that's an unnecessary
expense.
And I have to relate that to the other work that this
organization does with the board when we sit here for countless hours,
days, seems like months sometimes, going line by line through a big
budget that totals some $300 million or thereabouts and working with
them trying to help them as they try to save $5,000 here, ten grand
there, $200,000 someplace else, trying to determine what is the best
use of the taxpayers' money.
And we are opposed to this because it is not the best use of the
taxpayers' money, this $35 million, plus $3.6 million annually of
money that need not be spent. And I suspect if a fraction of that
money was spent on trying to minimize to its lowest possible degree
the odor that I'm sure is offensive, that would be a much better way
to go than trying to chase the problem all over the damn country.
Let me offer one other thing. All things are relative. If by
any chance some mythical benefactor says, "Hey, guys, here is $3.5
million to spend each year," if you put it to the vote, like the jail
and like the bridge, for example, I suspect that most people in this
county, from what I hear at the sheriff's emotional outbursts at
budget time, would vote for 60 more deputies. That's what it would
buy. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It would also buy the jail. The $30
million jail.
MR. WATLER: It would buy two jails.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Janet Vasey and then Victor Neiditz.
MS. VASEY: Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Janet
Vasey. And I am speaking first for the Women's Republican Club of
Naples Federated and then for the Greater Naples Civic Association.
Madam Chairman, I don't suppose you would allow me five minutes
for each --
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: No.
MS. VASEY: I just thought I'd try.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Nice try, Janet.
MS. VASEY: The executive board of the Women's Republican Club of
Naples Federated voted unanimously to recommend retention of the
current landfill site. We believe that odors from the landfill have
been significantly reduced and there is no compelling reason to
relocate the landfill.
We are concerned by the recently reported costs of relocation
that will be paid by all Collier County residents. We think the
currently permitted site and the additional 300 acres north of the
current site that's already been purchased by Collier County residents
has a remaining useful life of over 40 years. And we are concerned
that environmentally it would be more dangerous to our ecosystems to
relocate the landfill and contaminate another site.
For all of these reasons, the Women's Republican Club of Naples
Federated recommends retention of the current landfill site.
Now, what you're talking about here is spending $35 million at a
minimum in one-time costs to relocate the landfill. As was alluded to
a few moments ago, for that kind of money you could get one new jail
or two new Gordon River bridges.
And what do you have after you relocate the landfill? All you
have is a landfill. Yes, it's in a different location, but you don't
have any additional capability or any extra cost -- anything extra for
such a major cost.
And as you might recall, the residents of Collier County did not
want to pay the kind of money we're talking about here for a new jail
or a new bridge. So why would we want to pay this kind of money to
buy something we already have?
Also you should be aware that this fee is very regressive. It
falls most heavily on those who are least able to afford the increased
costs. While some people here are speaking in favor of a new
landfill, many of them may not recognize the costs that they will pay
both directly and indirectly in their -- both directly in their
mandatory trash bills and indirectly in higher costs of goods and
services.
And that's one of the things that the Naples -- the Greater
Naples Civic Association tried to quantify for the group. And I am
sure everybody can pick at the numbers. But that is what we were
trying to do is take the cost -- the total one-time cost and the
recurring costs and translate them into dollars per household. And
what we ultimately came up with was about $280 per household in
one-time costs and $34 per household in recurring costs every year due
to relocating the landfill.
Now, there is a very interesting and apparently very secret
survey commissioned by the Chamber of Southwest Florida. I worked as
a civilian for the Department of the Army for 20 years and I had
access to classified material, but I could not find this survey. I am
forced to get my information from a Brett Batten column that stated --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, it must be accurate then.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have seen the survey. I couldn't get a
copy of it either, but they did show it to me.
MS. VASEY: Basically what I understand this survey says is that
41 percent of the responders said they would not be willing to pay
additional -- anything additional to have their garbage taken to a new
landfill site. These people, many of whom are not here today, stated
that they did not want to pay higher garbage bills. The others who
were willing to pay something extra probably didn't realize what it
would cost them in terms of $280 one time and $34 annually.
Now, each area of Collier County has its own hassles and its own
problems. For example, there is noise pollution. Many Naples
residents have to put up with airplane noise, takeoffs and landings
that make communication very difficult.
Traffic pollution. Those of us in outlying areas -- and I live
in North Naples -- have to put up with longer commutes and
frustrations from traffic congestion. Odor pollution. Well water has
a lot of sulfur and water and waste treatment facilities sometimes
smell. And the waste treatment facility in North Naples at Immokalee
and Goodlette-Frank occasionally smells, too. There is smells all
over the county.
People -- in conclusion, I would just like to say that the issue
of the odor can and should be solved by odor reduction actions and not
by moving the landfill. Thank you.
(Applause)
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Perhaps I should have asked Mr. Watler when
he was here because he -- were you representing the GNCA in that last
portion of your statement?
MS. VASEY: Yes, I was
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Can you tell me what year was it when GNCA
was founded; do you recall? Does anybody know?
MR. WATLER: I believe it was created about the same time I was.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's very old.
MR. WATLER: Take your own --
MS. VASEY: It's very old.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So maybe 40 or 50 years ago.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's about what; the electricity era?
MS. VASEY: I think it was 60 something years. Back to the '20s.
It was in the --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So my question then is -- maybe you haven't
researched your archives. But I would be curious to know if GNCA's
position was to not move the landfill from Coquina Sands to the
airport and to not move it from the airport out to its current
location, as well.
Are you being inconsistent with this particular position?
MS. VASEY: Well, I really couldn't answer your question totally.
Although, Jim Rideoutte did go back and check why the landfill was
moved from the -- the airport area, Airport Road area.
And apparently a big part -- part of the decision related to
having it near filled up. It was not -- it wasn't odor or anything
like that. It was a question of whether it was ending -- nearing its
useful life. And that apparently was part of the issue. A big part
of it.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Thank you.
MS. VASEY: And this one has not neared the useful life. Thank
you.
MR. WATLER: May I add a point?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: No. No, you may not, sir. You've had your
five minutes.
MR. FERNANDEZ: The next speaker is Victor Neiditz and then
Russell Tuff.
MR. NEIDITZ: My name is Victor Neiditz. I'm a resident of
Collier County and a voter. Good afternoon, Commissioners.
I have been requested by the executive committee of the
Taxpayers' Action Group of Collier County, which I am one of the
co-presidents, to inform the commission of the following resolution
which was unanimously adopted at the TAG meeting on December 8.
"Whereas, the reason given for closing the present site, the foul
smell, has become moot because of the almost complete elimination of
the smell originating from the landfill;
Whereas, the remaining smell which cannot be eliminated will
continue to exist for 30 to 40 years after the landfill is closed;.
Whereas, the smell which currently pervades the area actually
originates primarily from the water treatment plant and which smell
should be shortly eliminated with the installation of long overdue
scrubbers;
Whereas, the landfill is expandable on adjacent property owned by
the county and can serve effectively and at minimal cost for many
years to come.
Therefore, let it be resolved that the Taxpayers' Action Group
opposes the closing of the present landfill and the planning to
acquire a new landfill site in the interest of the taxpayers, voters
and residents of Collier County."
In addition to this resolution, I would like to make a couple of
comments. I won't repeat the additional cost of $35 million or the
$3.6 million annual repetitive costs, which Eric Watler and Janet
Vasey mentioned. But the fact is that these additional costs make
this move a pretty costly one. And harking back to Pam Mac'Kie, we
aren't looking at the economic uses as much as we should.
Regarding the smell situation, I was very impressed with the
findings and approach in Dr. Stokes' analysis of the Naples landfill
odor problem and proposed solution, a study dated December 2, 1996
which Dr. Stokes undertook without fee. His conclusions warrant
further attention. It doesn't make sense to acquire a new site before
determining objectively and finally whether the county has a landfill
problem. The situation which existed four years ago when the
commission promised relocation, in the opinion of many, no longer
exists.
Finally, alternative solutions also deserve to be studied or
revisited. These include the use of a regional landfill, direct
incineration or indirect incineration, composting or a combination of
material recovery technologies. But it is imperative that accurate,
up-to-date costs be used and that all cost comparisons be on the same
basis of average cost per household per year. Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Russell Tuff and then Jim Coletta is next.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Fernandez, how many speakers do we
have left?
MR. FERNANDEZ: Nine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Nine speakers.
MS. TUFF: Obviously I am not Russell Tuff. That is my husband.
My name is Katie Tuff. If you will permit me to speak in his place.
It won't take me five minutes.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: We'll allow it.
MS. TUFF: Over 20 years ago the community of Golden Gate rallied
against having the landfill. For whatever their reasons were, the
commission at that time felt they were doing the right thing. Of
course, we didn't. And we have had it there since that time.
In '93 we had some commitments from another Board of County
Commissioners that we would have the landfill moved. Following that
it was privatized. We have talked today about jobs lost with the new
site considerations, but we have also in Golden Gate -- it would be
hard to measure -- but lost industry that I know of in the time that
I've lived there that may have located there because -- because it was
a good potential site for them.
When they discovered there was a landfill in the area, we lost
some of those businesses. So we have lost some possible jobs, too.
And, I guess, other speakers today have made good points. And that's
all I have to say.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Jim Coletta and then Naomi Sherwood.
MR. COLETTA: Madam Chairperson, Commissioners, my name is Jim
Coletta. I have heard a lot of facts being quoted today to you that
very much disturb me. I wasn't prepared to run into quite the
situation that I see.
I can't believe that the fact that the -- that people that have
no comprehension of what it is to live in my neighborhood can make
judgment decisions about what smells. I mean, they're making these
decisions from someplace else way far removed.
As far as the fact that my property values were degraded before I
bought the property is completely erroneous. It's not true. And I
will tell you why it isn't. When I bought my property, which is four
miles from the landfill, I bought it 15 years ago. There was
absolutely no problem to speak of.
As we got going farther and farther along, there was a slight
odor that appeared. And then back about seven years ago, eight years
ago, right about that time, is about the time that it all escalated
and got to the point that it's unbearable. It's unbearable quite a
few times of the year and it's not the water treatment plant. It is
garbage.
And anybody that's telling you differently does not live in my
neighborhood. And they're not working with facts. They're working
from other people's facts --
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Jim, we're up here.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Over here.
MR. COLETTA: Forgive me. But I'm listening to this and I
sympathize with people that have problems with the airport. I
sympathize with people that have problems with occasional odors from
different things. If I can help them with them, I'd love to help them
with those particular problems.
I would like to remind them about this cost that we're talking
about. I'm also a taxpayer. In the past five years this county -- of
my taxes which was a part of it -- spent $44 million on items that
weren't absolutely necessary to the well-being of this county.
Road beautification, beach renourishment. They also spent this
money on such items as parks and recreation. Beautiful. I use all
these things, too. The thing is that we're talking about making this
county a better place for everyone. And the way we make this county a
better place for everyone is that we take everybody's consideration to
fact.
Just because a person lives east of Airport Road doesn't make
them any less of a citizen of this county. And we have to remember
that. And I am going to get to the point that I wanted to get to in
the very beginning before I got sidetracked.
This has been an abomination on the landscape of Collier County
for a long time, this landfill. Something has to be done and it has
to be done soon. There's been many promises in the past that were
left unfulfilled; people finished the term, for whatever reason.
Always one study away for a completion.
The answer, as far as I am concerned, isn't even to move the darn
thing. I don't think to pass it onto our neighbors -- year 2020 they
say that the population of Collier County is going to be equally
divided between the east side of 951 and the west side of 951.
Now, if you're going to put that many people on the east side of
951, you're going to have a population density that no matter where
you got that landfill out there you've got a problem. And you've got
a serious problem that you're gomng to have to readdress about 10, 15
years from now.
Again, this thing is never going to end. Now is the time to take
the initiative and to get this situation done in the shortest period
as possible. I don't want to wait eight years or ten years. The
situation should have been corrected in the past.
A year and a half from now if you just went to removing the waste
from the county, shipping it out, you would have an alternative that
would solve the problem for everyone in this building. Everyone here.
It's really sad to see my neighbors and friends here from Golden Gate,
Golden Gate Estates and Immokalee all more or less vying to put this
particular problem in somebody else's backyard.
No one wants it. So let's agree with everyone. Let's not do it.
Let's get the waste stream out of the County and as soon as possible.
Thank you very much for your time and indulgence.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Naomi Sherwood and then James Jenkins.
MS. SHERWOOD: Good afternoon, Commissioners, and everybody else
that's up here. My name is Naomi Sherwood. I am speaking on behalf
of myself as a community resident and also a resident that's going to
live half a mile away from your site "L".
I've heard a lot of people speaking that they don't want it. I
am not here to -- to rattle off a lot of ratios, numbers, things like
that. I'm not a doctor. I am just an individual that is concerned
about not only my future, not only my kids' future that is standing
behind us, but everybody's.
I have a piece of paper here from the Environmental Research
Foundation and some of their definitions that I haven't heard be
brought forward. The number -- their first definition is: What is a
landfill? A landfill is a secure -- a secure landfill is a carefully
engineered depression in the ground or built on top of the ground
resembling a football stadium in which wastes are put. The aim is to
avoid any hydraulic water-related connection between the waste and the
surrounding environment, particularly groundwater.
Basically a landfill is a bathtub in the ground. A double-lined
landfill is one bathtub inside another. Bathtubs leak in two ways.
Out of the bottom and over the top.
I have heard them mention that the way they want to build this
landfill is to -- is to put a clay liner and also a plastic liner on
top of that. What is wrong with the clay liner? A clay liner --
natural clay is often fractured and cracked. We know that. It
doesn't take a rocket scientist. You don't have to have a doctor's
degree to know that.
A mechanism called diffusion will move organic chemicals like
benzine through a three-foot thick layer -- clay landfill liner in
approximately five years. Some chemicals can degrade clay. What is
wrong with the plastic liner? The very best landfill liners today are
made of a tough plastic film called high-density polyethylene or
called HDPE.
A number of household chemicals will degrade this polyethylene
permeating, passing through it, make loose the strength, softening it
or becoming brittle and crack. Not only will household chemicals,
such as mothballs, degrade HDPE, but much more benign things cause it
to develop stress cracks, such as margarine, vinegar, alcohol, shoe
polish, peppermint and oil just to name a few.
And you're talking about this -- the landfill that is already
currently in use and well going in Golden Gate. This landfill isn't
going anywhere. It's still going to be there, whether you cover it up
-- you're not going to be able to move -- physically move everything
and put it somewhere else. It's still going to be there.
When you cover that up the problems with covering it up -- covers
are vulnerable to attack by at least seven sources. One is erosion by
natural weathering; rain, hail, anything like that. Vegetation, such
as shrubs, trees. You're talking about maybe putting a park on top on
this. That is going to go into whatever soup you've concocted in
there already.
And what happens is that the -- what happens is everything that
is in there has no other way of escape, but either through the ground
or to leak over the top. So, therefore, you have created another
problem. And I haven't heard any suggestions or solutions to how --
what is going to happen.
I have no guarantees that you guys are going to protect my
children. Not only them, but seven generations from now. How you're
going to protect their safety, their health, their clean drinking
water. I haven't heard anything.
I really urge you people that have the capacity to do right by
people. It doesn't take a lot of knowledge. It doesn't take a lot of
years in college. It takes common sense to know that we have to look
for an alternative, rather than make the problem bigger. Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: James Jenkins and then Patty Appleseed.
MR. JENKINS: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is James
Jenkins, for the record.
I didn't receive a fax from Marco -- from the rednecks of Marco
today, but if --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: From the what? I'm sorry.
MR. JENKINS: From the rednecks on Marco. There just doesn't
seem to be any.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I didn't get it.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think that's a compliment, Fay. I'm not
sure.
MR. JENKINS: Anyway, now that we've talked this issue to death
and we've spent millions of dollars on it, the original commissioners,
the county manager and the solid waste director are no longer in this
process. It's time to get off the pot. Off the stink problem.
Expansion is not the solution.
The reason a relocation committee was formed was to find a new
and better site away from population. Many people worked very hard
and fair for a fair, just site. Do not let this work go down the
drain.
As was stated at the last landfill meeting, "Move the stink away
from population." I have been going to these meetings for the last
few years. I don't believe I have missed one landfill meeting, one
commissioner meeting.
I believe at a minimum that Collier County should commit to a new
location for a new landfill, purchase the property and designate it on
all future land use maps. As the county grows it will only get harder
to locate a landfill site, not to mention the price of trying to buy
land, let's say, 50 years from now. Where would you buy land 50 years
from now for a landfill site?
If new technology is discovered or alternative methods are
utilized, the land could always be used for alternative methods and
the land could be sold.
In closing, I want to ask the commission to keep the promises
made to the residents of Golden Gate and close the existing landfill.
Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Patty Appleseed and then Mary Zwicker. Marie
Zwicker.
MS. APPLESEED: Hello. I am Pattie Bailey Appleseed, your fine
artist. I live in Golden Gate. My family owns property and homes
there. They sell real estate there.
And when I heard just yesterday about this vote today, I knew I
would come and thought I would speak in favor of moving the dump. But
we are a small planet. And if I had 50 people in my house and my
neighbor had two, it doesn't mean that because we made more garbage we
could go over and put it in their house because we had nowhere to put
it in ours.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Excuse me. We're over here.
MS. APPLESEED: I'm sorry. You're right. I am sorry. Thank
you.
So I have to say that all people's rights have to be thought of.
We can't keep taking land away from the Native Americans. We are a
people of many colors and everybody has worked so hard on this issue,
but actually we have all grown so much from what has been learned.
And I would love to help work on ideas in a few weeks for finding
other ways to deal with our garbage problem than to just move the dump
somewhere else. Thank you.
(Applause)
MR. FERNANDEZ: Marie Zwicker and then Clarence Tiears.
Marie Zwicker. Clarence Tiears is not here either. Bonnie
MacKenzie.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Here is Clarence.
MR. FERNANDEZ: There he is.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: You almost got lucky and missed your
chance there, Clarence.
MR. TIEARS: Good afternoon, Clarence Tiears. Director of the
Big Cypress Basin, South Florida Water Management District. I didn't
plan on speaking today. That was the reason for my late submittal of
my card. I am sorry for that.
I just wanted to let you know that the letter we sent just raised
the concern in that if you did move forward with any of the sites we
want you to make sure you look at the hydrogeology.
As we've talked in the past, our water supply is critical in
Collier County and protecting that resource is important. So before
we add another footprint to Collier County, please look at it closely.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Clarence, so you have a general
concern; you don't have a specific -- specific data there? You're
saying if we pick any of the sites just make sure we look all that
over.
MR. TIEARS: You really need to look at it closely. General
concerns, it is in -- one of your sites is in the middle of the
watershed. We really need to look closely at --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Is that site "L"?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. You would have a lesser concern for
potable water sources in sites "A" or "U" than you would in "L"
initially. I know we don't have hydrogeology information.
MR. TIEARS: I would look at the hydrogeology because I think the
three sites have some importance to the environment. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Right.
MR. TIEARS: So we need to look at it closely.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I am glad you stayed all day because
that's how I interpreted your comments was a concern. "Hey, guys,
heads up. Take a look at this before you make any final decisions."
And I appreciated that. I am glad you stayed all day to --
MR. TIEARS: Another issue, too, is if you look historically at
the water in Collier County before it was channelized we had surface
flow. And in some areas in Immokalee you used to be able to stand in
water up to your chest. You could talk to Stanley Hole. He could
tell you the history about that.
As these canals back up during major storm events, we're going to
go back to that sheet flow. So the areas that historically had water
on them, once the canals back up you will see that also in the future.
So you need to look at the hydrogeology of the surface water, as well
as the groundwater of your future siting of a landfill. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you.
MR. TIEARS: That's all I have. Thanks.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Bonnie MacKenzie and then Russell Priddy.
MS. MACKENZIE: I thought I would be the last one. For the
record, my name is Bonnie MacKenzie. I am representing only myself
today. I am not here as a representative of either city council or
any other resident within the city. I am just a resident, voter and
taxpayer in Collier County just like all of you are.
Today's discussion has certainly put a new spin on taking the
trash out, hasn't it? I was privileged to attend several of the
meetings of the landfill committee. I would like to echo the comments
of other speakers. The members of that committee really approached
their task in a very conscientious and careful manner. And I have
every confidence that you, as a body, will also approach this very
difficult dilemma in an equally responsible and deliberate manner.
Your decision will not be an easy one, whether it is to retain
the current site or to move it to one of the three sites for
discussion today which will impact either conservation or agriculture
or residential areas that are of special concern, especially to those
among us who are particularly worried about wellhead protection,
groundwater protection.
On a different aspect of it though, if your vote today results in
an increase in rates for Collier County residents I sincerely hope
that you will endeavor to incorporate a part of that rate increase in
the solution of landfill problems and not just in creating more of
them.
As an individual, I would encourage you to consider retaining the
current site, to incorporate any and all technological advances that
may be available. Because you're right, Commissioner Constantine, I
have been out there. That smell is awful. It needs to be dealt with.
But it doesn't need to be replicated in other areas of the county
either.
We also need to make sure that future generations don't have to
spend their time, trouble and effort cleaning up after us. I thank
you very much for graciously allowing me to speak to you today.
(Applause)
MR. PRIDDY: In the interest of time I will not speak.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We love you, Russell.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that it for speakers?
MR. FERNANDEZ: That's all the speakers.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: At this point in time it is about 2:15 and
we'll take a short break and then we'll come back in --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Five minutes, ten minutes.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Five minutes. Enough to --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Four minutes and 30 seconds.
(A recess was held from 2:13 p.m. until 2:27 p.m.)
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Back on the record. Well, we have a few
more seats than we had this morning. So we have plenty of room for
everybody to be comfortable.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, I tried to make a
point and I joked with you during the break, it was hard at times. But
I made a point to try to go through as many speakers as we could
without making comments or questions. But I wonder if I just might
address a couple of the points that were made by speakers.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Well, let me tell you, Mr. Constantine, you
will as soon as we get done with Mr. Spear who has some information
that we had asked him for prior to.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's right.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: So if we can allow him to speak to us first
and answer, I believe, a question that Commissioner Hancock had or any
other questions that the rest of the commissioners may have for Mr.
Spear, we'll deal with that first and then I'll give you some time to
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: -- rebut or refute or whatever it is you want
to do.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You may want to point out too -- I mean,
you may want to check into while he is speaking, that someone came to
me on the break and said that they were registered, but didn't get
called on to speak. So if there are people who want to -- I guess I
am hanging around out here so I get to be the repository.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think you may have been misinformed. It
is possible.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: If you wish to speak I think we've mentioned
a couple of times you were to fill out a slip of paper to speak.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He did.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: And if you gave it to Mr. Fernandez that
should have --
MR. FERNANDEZ: What is his name?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The gentleman is Mr. Bramberg who knows
the process and has followed it in the past.
MR. FERNANDEZ: We called his name and he wasn't present at the
time. I remember calling the name.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: All right.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Spear, if you would continue please with
the information that we had asked you for this morning, please. MR. SPEAR: Thank you.
Commissioner Hancock, to restate your question. Of the acres in
production at each of the three sites, how many are in citrus, pasture
and row crop; is that correct?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Correct. Really the -- yeah. The
distinction was really between citrus and either row or pasture. But
a further breakdown is even better.
MR. SPEAR: Site "A" is 1,310 acres in size. 1,210 acres in
production. 960 acres in citrus. 250 acres in row crop. There is
no pasture.
Site "L" is 1,130 acres in size. 1,090 acres in production. 990
acres in citrus. 100 acres in pasture. No row crop.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. SPEAR: Site "U" is 1,280 acres in size. 1,180 acres in
production. All of that production is row crop.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The total of 100 acres of pasture is all
that there is in the pasture land out of the --
MR. SPEAR: Right. And that acreage is at site "L"
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. Are there any further questions for
Mr. Spear?
Ms. Mac'kie?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't have any right now.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Norris?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: No.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Commissioner Constantine?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Not of Mr. Spear.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Hancock?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Not at this time, no.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you very much. I appreciate the effort
in getting that information back to us this afternoon.
Commissioner Constantine, you had a couple of comments you would
like to make at this time.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. There were a number of issues
that seemed to be repeated by a number of different speakers. And
some of them were very good and on the point and some of them I think
were either misinformed or just didn't understand.
And I have to make one aside before I get into those. Ms. Vasey
had made the point about how all parts of the county have -- if I can
find where she is. Right there. Thank you. I just like making eye
contact.
All parts of the county have different problems they have to
contend with. You mentioned the airport or different wastewater
plants and so on. It's just something they have to put up with. And
I was very glad that someone made that point. Because I am reminded
of the wastewater plant in Lely that smelled in East Naples and we
spent $17 million to correct the problem for that East Naples
community.
And so I see this as very similar, except it impacts probably
about eight or ten times as many people and it's certainly not at
eight or ten times the cost. But I was glad somebody brought that
point up.
A number of areas were brought up with regard to agriculture. And
one was -- there was a sign I think out there and a couple of people
said we didn't want to put agricultural people out of work. And,
frankly, I don't think we're going to. Ron Hamel got up and pointed
out there are 35,000 active citrus acres in Collier County and that
number is growing every year.
What we're looking at on any of these sites to open up a landfill
would be taking 56 acres of active agriculture. And for that matter,
with the numbers that were just given us, at least a couple of those
spaces exist to do that without immediately impacting any of them.
But no one has any intent of simply going out and plowing down 1,100
acres and taking it away.
But 56 acres out of 35,000 acres in a number that is growing year
by year is not going to put people out of work. It is simply --
that's just a red herring. It ms not accurate.
The second issue that was brought up with regard to agriculture
was proximity with a landfill. And there are nine counties in the
state of Florida that are successfully farming directly adjacent to
landfills and successfully marketing their product and making a profit
doing it. So I'm not sure that that's an accurate concern.
I am sure it's one -- if I was a farmer I would raise the
concern. But I think if you look around -- and someone mentioned
tomatoes. They're growing tomatoes right next door -- I think if you
look at Manatee County they're doing row crops right directly
adjacent. Right next door to it. And it might be worth a phone call
to find out how they're successfully doing it.
I guess we talk about what our priorities are. Some of the folks
have talked about fiscal items being their highest priority. They're
worried about the financial impact. A number of people have said
agriculture.
For me it boils down to a couple of things. There are really
only three types of land you can locate a landfill on. You can locate
it on residential, you can locate it in wetlands or you can locate it
in agricultural. There are no other options. Wetlands isn't go be
permittable. Residential clearly is your least desirable, which
leaves agriculture.
I know when we first went through the process and ended up with
our list of 23 or 46 sites a great number of those were agricultural
properties. And Russell and some others said, "Gosh, how come so many
of those came up?" But the reason is unless you put it in a
residential or put it in an area that is not permittable, which was
one of the exclusive criteria that it had to be permittable, then
you're going to end up with agricultural property.
What is a higher priority I would ask; orange trees or people?
And hopefully people are going -- most people -- I think most rational
people are going to answer human beings are a higher priority of those
two. It's unfortunate that at some point you come to a choice between
those, but we do find ourselves there.
One of the other items I kept hearing repeated over and over is,
"We should look at all the alternatives. We should exhaust all the
alternatives." And for those who weren't part of the process or
simply don't recall, we opened up a request for proposals to virtually
every technology on the planet with the one exception of incineration.
And there are a number of reasons for that that we didn't choose
incineration. And we're not going to revisit that now.
But we did look at all those technologies and nothing came back
less expensive than about three times the cost of what we are doing
right now. So while alternative technologies exist and are improving
and maybe someday will be available for use, it is not a
cost-effective way of doing things right now.
I certainly am not suggesting -- and I don't think anybody --
perhaps someone is. I don't think any rational person is suggesting
that we simply move a problem from one neighborhood to another. That
is the last thing we want to do. And that's why I started out by
listing the distances from how far each of the sites is to populated
area and also we did the little five mile radius circles on that
display so we could look at what is the zoning all the way around
there.
We don't simply want to do it -- as we mentioned earlier, 1977
Golden Gate was already permitted and platted and laid out and the
roads were in place and homes were sold and so on. And we don't want
to re-create that. No one does. And that really was our number one
criteria out of the 23 was to keep it away from people. Keep it away
from residential areas.
It sounds as though the primary concern for a number of people is
cost. It's fiscal. Particularly the Marco Island folks and the city
of Naples folks. And that is certainly ~ very fair concern. You can't
simply do anything at any price. That is not realistic.
But I would urge the rest of the board to follow the advice of
Doctor Stokes and that is to follow this through and pursue it to its
useful end. And by that I just mean we need to be able to look at an
actual site, put some real numbers on there.
Yesterday when I sat with Jim Rideoutte and Janet Vasey and some
other folks on the different sites and the costs of doing this, we
disagreed. And at the end of the meeting we still disagreed on what
those costs are. There is one way to find out what the actual costs
for any one of those sites would be and that is choose one of those
sites and have our team or our staff go and plug in real life numbers
there.
That is the only way we're going to know. I disagree with Janet.
And the only way we're going to have real numbers though, rather than
speculative numbers, is to plug it in on an actual site.
Mr. Roan comments on site "U" were very good. I appreciate
everybody taking the time to come out, but his I took particular note
of because they were fact based. They weren't speculative. They
weren't on something that might happen or could possibly occur. They
were very factual. They were non-emotional.
I found you very persuasive. And much due to your comments I
think site "U" of these three is probably the least attractive.
Certainly to me it is. I think your points are very, very well taken.
The existing site is in the middle of 49,000 people and it is a very,
very real impact on those 49,000 people.
Someone mentioned economic -- a couple different people mentioned
economic impacts. I think it was Katie Tuff when she got up said, "We
have economic impacts by having that landfill in the Golden Gate
community." And I can give you a real life example.
Susan Pareigis from the economic development council came in and
sat down in my office a few weeks ago when we had the zoning change
for the new industrial property up on Immokalee Road. And I inquired
about -- and the rationale for the Immokalee Road change was because
we didn't have adequate industrial sites anywhere else in the county.
And I inquired at that time, "Have you shown these people the
industrial sites up near exit 157"
And Susan said -- and I won't get it exactly word for word. But
she said, "What happens, Tim, is we take people there every time we
have interest in a business coming here. And they get out and they
smell the area and they get back in the car and they drive away and
say, 'What else do you have?'"
When we talk about economic impact, I don't think you're looking
at a bigger impact than that right there. You are turning away
business from what is already zoned commercial and industrial and has
a very, very real impact on that area, but on the overall economy of
the county.
If we can put the next landfill in a location with nearly no
people -- and, again, I reference the existing site as 49,000 people.
If we can put it in a location with nearly no people and no zoning to
support future residential and if we can do so with minimal fiscal
impact, I don't know why we wouldn't do that. It simply doesn't make
any sense to ignore that.
I am going to make a motion because I think we can do that, but I
want to get more information before we do that. I am going to make a
motion that we rank site "L" as number one and site "A" as a backup
should we find a fatal flaw in site "L". And assign the Dufresne-
Henry team and our staff -- and I say particularly the team because
there was actually money left over and we have excess funds from --
Commissioner Mac'Kie mentioned we had budgeted over $800,000. That
was not all spent. And we actually -- I think it would be money well
spent to have real life numbers plugged into our number one site.
Let's know for a fact and not on speculation. Let's know for a
fact, "Okay. What would it cost to do all the specific things we have
talked about at our number one site?" And obviously we'd have to look
at what the expense of that contract would be and have that particular
item come back.
But my recommendation would be that we give them and our staff
the task of putting some real life numbers into that. I think that
can come back in about three or four weeks, which is also when our
trucking costs are due to come back. And what that allows us to do is
compare apples to apples.
We have real life numbers for what it would cost to move to the
alternative site "L". We have real life numbers for what it would
cost to truck somewhere else. And we can choose that. If it's a buck
a head, as I said earlier, that's a no brainer. That's easy. If it's
50 bucks ahead, well, it is probably not something we can do.
I suspect it's going to be somewhere in between and awfully close
to the first number instead of the second number.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Somewhere between a buck and fifty. You're
narrowing that down.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I would say between a buck and ten
bucks. I'm trying to be kind.
But I just think that allows us to make a fully informed
decision. And I think to simply halt today and say, "Well, we're not
going to look at anything else," is in error. It flies in the face of
what we've told the East Naples and Golden Gate communities
surrounding the existing landfill for at least five years and
reiterated on at least three occasions.
So I am going to go back and I'll put in a formal motion to rank
site "L" as number one, site "A" as a backup in the event that "L" --
we find "L" to have a fatal flaw; and to assign the Dufresne-Henry
team and our staff the task of coming back by the time our trucking
bids are back with some actual real life costs for moving at the
closure of our current cell to the new site.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: At this point in time, Mr. Hancock, I think
indicated that he wanted to say something, as well. However, we do
have a motion on the floor. Do I have a second for this motion?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Perhaps after comment.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Well, that's the reason I hesitated on the
motion at this point in time. I really felt that it was more
appropriate that we allow everyone up here at the table to make some
comments in regard to what we've all had the opportunity to hear both
from the report and also from the community.
So I would like to go to Mr. Hancock and then we'll come down to
John and Pam.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The one thing I realize today is that
without exception everyone in this room has exactly and maybe only one
thing in common. None of us wants to live near a landfill. There's
not a person in this room that would choose to do it given other
choices or financial situations.
I don't think the people that bought near the landfill did so
because they had a myriad of options available to them. I think they
did so because at that time that was the best choice for them and
their family. With the exception of those who operate landfills, the
rest of us all have another thing in common. And that is that we wish
landfills were a thing of the past. We wish there were a cleaner,
better way. But we're all guilty of producing the waste stream that
this board now has the responsibility of handling for the next minimum
of 20 years.
The thought came to mind -- and it kept going over in my head --
that landfills have become the leper colonies of the '90s. Nobody
wants them. Nobody wants to be near them. But they're a reality.
And the reason is that the technology that is available is
extremely costly when you look at the alternatives. More than
doubling of your current garbage fees in order to look at composting,
which does not have a record of success, nor to construct any type of
incinerator. We are simply looking at more than doubling your garbage
fees.
So with all of that, there is one thing that I would like
everyone to understand. We're required to maintain a 20-year life for
landfill. We have to have a 20-year plan to handle the waste stream
of this community, period. We can't turn our head. We can't put our
head in the sand. We can't say, "Let's only worry about the next
seven years or ten years." We have to worry about 20 years.
This board made some very sound, good decisions and commitments
that I think we should hold to. The first is not to expand the
existing landfill to the north to the 300 acres. We would be taking a
landfill operation and moving it closer to a growing community. It's
not very smart.
The second thing is not to increase the height. When we talk
about that landfill lasting for 50 years, we're talking about a
300-foot mound of trash. I don't think anybody thinks that's a good
idea. And the third thing we committed to is to only relocate the
landfill if it is fiscally a sound move. Those are three commitments
that this board made more or less in toro and three commitments that I
feel very strongly about.
The cost issue. Assuming -- I did some quick math here. And
those of you who have accounting degrees will want to whip out your
calculator and check this. But assuming $110 rate right now, if we
stayed at the existing landfill and assuming a three percent increase
per year, which I think is minimal but reasonable, by the year 2020
you would be paying $211 for your garbage collection and we'd have no
capacity remaining. If we just stayed there and do nothing that bides
us 'til 2020 and a $211 bill.
If, however, we acquire and permit a new landfill -- assuming it
can be done for an additional $10 a ton which will come due by the
year 2005 -- in the year 2020 your bill would be $15 higher.
What is the cost in that? There is another cost that's less
direct. It's the cost of construction. The time value of money.
Right now we look at about $35 million to put a new landfill in. If
we wait just seven years to do that -- currently the last estimate I
saw construction costs neared ten percent increase per year.
Let's be very conservative and do it at five percent. That means
in 2005 it's a $49 million landfill. So when we talk about what is
cheaper or what makes the most sense, we can talk about it next year
and we can talk about it the next five years. But if we're looking
out at a 20-year window, fiscally it actually makes more sense to
permit and relocate a landfill. Those are the numbers.
The remaining question for us is: If we're going to look at that
-- if we're going to narrow those dollars down to make a firm, final
decision and we're not going to pass the buck to our successors, which
has been done to us more or less, then we need to choose one of these
sites to get those numbers more specific, more targeted.
I am in the opposite end that you are, Commissioner Constantine.
I came in assuming if we had -- we're going to choose a site, site "L"
made the most sense. I am shifting more to site "U" of the three for
the following reasons: One, that, quite honestly, acquisition costs
of citrus production is far higher than that of row crop. The
investment to get a citrus crop growing and up and running is far
higher than row crop.
The land available for row crops in this community, thanks to
NAFTA and other wonderful ideas, is a little greater than the current
demand is. That's not a good thing, but that's reality. So I think
on a cost perspective "U" looks a little bit better.
The second thing is that we heard from the young lady in the back
who had her children here that they live approximately a half mile
from site "L" Our information has the nearest residents saying it's
near "U", which is 1.2 miles. She lives a half mile and someone lives
1.2 miles at "U", well, it sounds to me like the nearest residence is
actually closer to "L" there.
The third thing is that it's the least acreage of wetland
vegetation impacted. Only two acres of the entire 1,000 plus is
wetland. It does have hydric soils, which will give us some
permitting difficulty. But the last one that is very, very important
for me is that it's the furthest distance from community drinking
water wells. It's nine miles away. We have to, again, look at the
hydrogeology and determine whether that -- if it's a certain type of
soil or mixture that is going to allow faster groundwater flow travel,
then we need to consider that.
The big concern I heard about this one really was environmental.
It's too close to Rookery Bay. The chance of surface water flow and
whatnot damaging that system is something that obviously is a concern.
But what seems to mitigate that is it has the lowest rate of
groundwater recharge. Less than an inch a month.
I did percolation tests when I was doing materials testing. And
basically recharge is just how far does the water soak into the ground
and become a part of the traveling groundwater recharge. This has the
lowest or slowest rate mainly due to the hydric soils. There's
probably a lot of fines and what we call minus 200s and whatnot in
there.
So basically surface water runoff may be easier to deal with and
contain in site "U" than it would in an area with a higher groundwater
recharge rate. We may be able to protect the perimeter better at site
"U" because we can detain the water on-site for longer periods of
time. With a slower recharge it will percolate slower. It will clean
better and be better by the time it gets to that type of groundwater
travel.
So if you understand that we have to have 20 years life and if
you agree that expanding our landfill to the north 300 acres is not a
good idea and 300 feet in the air is not a good idea, the options left
us are not very many. And based on that I would like to see us look
at site "U" as the primary, site "L" as the secondary, and to proceed
with that to get specific cost figures to compare them with trucking
off-site and make a final decision at that time. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, everybody is making some valid points
here. These are very good points to bring out, but there is a big
piece of the puzzle missing under all of these scenarios. And that is
the cost of developing these three sites relative to one another. I
mean, we're not hearing that information.
We need that information, as well as the cost on an annual basis,
to operate each of these three sites relative to one another so that
we can then translate that down into impact on the residential solid
waste fees, which is the bottom line.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think we do actually have that one
piece of information. While we don't have exact numbers if you picked
one site and plugged in real life. What we did was plugged in kind of
a formula, if you will, to all three so that you could compare the
three.
I don't know if they have that at their fingertips. But we did
-- that may help you out because we do have some of those numbers.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's page 7-4.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: If we have that, then there is no sense
asking Dufresne-Henry to look at site "L".
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Actually, there is. That's a formula
that goes into all three. You can compare all three apples to apples.
But if you have a specific site in mind, then you can plug in more
real life numbers. I mean, these are generic numbers. There are
unique things to each one.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I'm probably not making my point clear
then. Because you're asking for a more detailed analysis of site "L"
and I'm saying that you can't after that analysis disregard the other
sites because you haven't put that same analysis to them. And the
only way to do it correctly in my estimation is to do the same
analysis on all three sites so that you have a more finite number that
you can apply then to the residential rate, which is what we really
are interested in in the financial scheme of things.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Page 7-4 does have three rates on it. It
has "U" at 26.5 million; "L" at 28.2; and "A", 30.1. I forgot to cite
that as one of my reasons for "U".
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Where is the -- what page?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: 7-4.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: 7-4.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Now, granted, these are preliminary
estimates. I have to assume with the gathering of environmental
information and whatnot that that is factored somewhat into that. And
I would also --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Maybe Dave can explain the formula or
Joe can explain the formula of how you plugged that in better than --
certainly better than I do.
MR. SPEAR: This happened to me a lot in school. I didn't hear
what you said.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: On page 7-4 in our books it references
estimates for capital costs -- infrastructure capital costs on each of
the three sites. Can you just kind of give us a general explanation
of how you arrived at those and how that would differ if you had -- if
you were looking at a specific site what you would do differently?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And whether or not that included site
acquisition estimates.
MR. SPEAR: The acquisition estimate, the estimate of the
development of a disposal area and the estimate for the development of
a disposal area and the estimate for the development of closure are
incorporated in the total cost estimate. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. SPEAR: The site acquisition costs are relatively equivalent
for "A" and "L" and a little bit less for "U" based on the data that
we used to develop these estimates. The site facility development
costs and the development of the actual active landfill area and its
closure would be the same for all three sites. So while we showed it
in this comparison, we set it aside and we said that the
distinguishing characteristic among sites would be infrastructure
costs, additional roadways, accessing the site or additional roadways
inside the site, the location of the public service area.
So that's what we're showing in 7-4. Capital costs. That
comparison table. And this is a concept design. The next level that
I believe Commissioner Constantine is talking about is the level of
cost estimate that would be done with an engineering design for the
new facility based upon site features.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And elimination of things like composting
that are unproven or unsuccessful, which I noticed that your
preliminary had plugged into each of them. It was equal, but it was
there just the same.
MR. SPEAR: And the preliminary again -- maybe I wasn't clear.
It's not a preliminary design. It is a pictograph of what could be
part of the landfill.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Understood.
MR. SPEAR: Because of the inherent features of each site, to do
a comparison at the next level would require a preliminary.design
effort for each of the sites. I'm not sure that you're going to get
sufficient information to justify that cost.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What does that mean?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It means it ain't worth the money.
MR. SPEAR: That means it's probably not worth the money.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So --
MR. SPEAR: The difference at the siting level between "A", "L"
and "U" may not carry on a one-to-one basis into the cost that would
be developed if you did preliminary design on all three sites, but
it's highly likely that they might order in the same order of cost.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In other words, the information on 7-4 is
probably reasonably indicative.
MR. SPEAR: It's indicative. It may not be definitive, but it is
indicative.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So the ranking of most to least expensive
-- I don't have it in front of me -- is --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Would likely stay the same.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's "U", "L" and "A"
MR. SPEAR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Least to most.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Least to most.
MR. SPEAR: But I don't think it's -- I don't think it would be
reasonable to do the next level of engineering -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: On all three.
MR. SPEAR: -- to compare costs among all three.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But the ratio of -- it's reasonable to
expect that the ratio would be similar in the cost?
MR. SPEAR: The order would be similar. I am not sure that the
ratio would be the same or that the cost would exactly be at the same
level that we're talking about in the siting document, but it's highly
probable that the sites would order out in the same order.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That "U" will still be the least.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I got it, yeah.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I would like to ask Mr. Russell a question.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Who?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Russell.
In the past we've been told by our staff that site "U" is
probably not viable or perhaps more problematic than any of the other
sites. Have we changed our opinion on that a little bit or are we now
as a board more free to consider site "U"?
MR. RUSSELL: It's a viable site. But as Commissioner Hancock
noted, the fact that it has hydric soils makes it permit-wise a bit
more problematic. It is a viable site. It is permittable.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: It is permittable. The hydric soils are
not going to be -- are not going to turn up to be the fatal flaw that
Commissioner Constantine was referring to?
MR. RUSSELL: I would have to defer to the consultants and the
people more familiar with the permit activity acquisition to answer
that. But since it's made this final cut, I mean, obviously they've
defined it as a viable site and permittable site.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That being the case, Commissioner
Constantine, I'm not willing at this point to not continue to look at
site "U".
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That was the key, as I saw, is the report
by the committee. And one thing I forgot to do is to thank
Commissioner Constantine and every member of that committee. I don't
care if the consultants are paid or not. I mean, you guys were hired
to do a job. And I think based on this report you've done an
excellent job. The volunteers in particular get a nod because you
weren't paid and you should have been. Put it that way.
But the report does say that they are presenting three viable
sites according to the CAC. So I think we have three options
available to us. It's just how you individually interpret the
information in the report and apply it to the site.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Madam Chairman, can I assume before we
double back on speakers that I will get a chance to --
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Sure. Yes, ma'am. You will.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I was just going to ask Mr. Norris a
question about his comment. That's all.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I am sorry. I didn't mean to --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's okay.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I promise I won't start on any more
comments. I just wanted to clarify something.
Are you saying then of the three, site "U" is your preference?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I didn't say that. But I'm not -- I
think we need to keep it in the mix at this point. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. Ms. Mac'Kie, just a moment.
Mr. Fernandez.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Just one point on the cost. We were only talking
about capital costs in that discussion; is that correct? There hasn't
been any consideration of operating cost distinction among the sites.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes. And that was the other part of the
economic --
MR. FERNANDEZ: I think it's important.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: -- puzzle that I needed to know before we
can finally rank these sites. Let's say that we had site "A", "L" and
"U" and they were all essentially identical cost-wise and --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Capital.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Capital cost-wise and desirability and all
of that, but it was really a coin flip. Well, we still need to know
what is the difference in annual operating costs on each of the three
sites before we can make a decision at that point.
Because if I think one of them is equal to the other, otherwise,
I need to know then what is the operating to make a final decision. So
how are we going to do that today is my --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I may be able to answer some of that.
Because from -- strictly from an operating the actual landfill
standpoint, my understanding is the cost is virtually identical on the
three sites. The difference comes in in your trucking and hauling,
which I am -- I think we've actually separated that out because we
recognize when you're on-site, regardless of where you are
geographically, it's the same. But the hauling is different.
MR. SPEAR: Yes. I would say the operating costs are going to be
virtually the same.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Despite the distance?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Hauling is a separate --
MR. SPEAR: That's the transportation costs. That's --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, yeah. It takes the same amount of
money to run a landfill no matter where it is, but you can't separate
out the transportation costs. That's --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Right.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- a critical component.
MR. FERNANDEZ: It really is.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My comments --
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Do we have an answer?
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Wait just a minute.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Let him go ahead and answer.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I thought that was the answer.
MR. SPEAR: Let me direct your attention to exhibit E-7 or -- no.
I am sorry. E-8 through E-II.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's towards the back of our booklet?
MR. SPEAR: That's toward the back, yes.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Which one?
MR. SPEAR: Page E-8 and E-9. It's the last two pages in the
report.
The committee dealt only with capital cost because capital cost
is the only cost factor that would discriminate if a cost factor did
discriminate among sites. To operate the cell at any one of those
sites would cost essentially the same as it would to operate the cell
at any other site.
The only other differentiating cost would be the cost to take
waste from some other central location and deliver it to that
landfill. And those costs are identified in the exhibits that I just
referenced.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Under exhibit E-8 we are looking at
$12 for "A", $10 for "L" and $9 for "U" hauling costs.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: All right.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman, may I ask Mr. Spear a question?
Are you then saying with that comment that there is no geologic
distinction requiring mitigation and therefore the operating --
MR. SPEAR: At the level of detail that we have, we have not
identified any.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And what about -- did you include in your
analysis the differentiation among permitting costs? Some sites will
be more difficult to permit than others.
My position is they're all impossible to permit because we have
an existing 50-year facility and the DEP is not going to give us a
permit. But even if -- but surely there is a differentiation among
the cost of permitting the three sites.
MR. SPEAR: The three sites will probably have different costs
to permit. I'm not sure that the costs will be sufficiently different
to be distinctive or differentiating.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It sure seems like the one near Rookery
Bay would be a lot more complicated than the one near -- you know, the
city's water source would be complicated and that perhaps the one at
"A" would be less complicated than those other two. And, you know,
those are going to be significant.
MR. SPEAR: That's quite accurate. And if we were to look at
permitting costs alone, which we did not, there may be some
discrimination. But if we look at the cost of development, which is
all costs other than transportation to the site -- all costs of
developing the site, the differential permitting cost would not
distinguish among sites.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay.
MR. SPEAR: The incremental numbers are just too small.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. My -- my summary kind of
comments here -- because like you said, Commissioner Constantine, it
was difficult not to rebut each point that came up. And I'm not going
to go back through that because everybody is going to have their lies,
damn lies and statistics way of looking at the numbers. We're all
going to look at the numbers the way we want to.
But every now and then government gets faced with the decision
that is momentous enough that we need to stop and forget that we're
government and act like regular people making a business decision. And
if you were, and we are, people making a decision about whether or not
to force someone to sell us their land, the first thing we would
consider before we wrote our personal check is: How compelling is the
need? What is the crisis?
There is not a crisis that causes us -- the assumption that there
is a compelling need is where this process has fallen apart. And we
have worked on this process for years to find the information. The
information has now been provided to us that we have a 50-year
capacity at the existing site using moderate growth levels and using
existing technology.
I would suggest to you that if it was -- what, three and a half
years ago, Commissioner Constantine, that the RFP went out for all
available alternative technology --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, it was before I was on the board. So
it'd have to be a little more than three. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The only thing that goes as fast as
computers in the change of technology is the change in how to deal
with the waste stream. It's changing as fast as computer technology.
You can't buy a system without it becoming obsolete because there is
so much new information.
And you have -- you received yesterday, for example, just for
example, a study from Doctor Stokes again proposing a system that
would result in an 80 percent recycle of all of the waste in Collier
County at a rate of about $34 a ton. That's not something that we
can't consider. We have to look at that. We can't move the --
continue the landfill problem.
But let me back up. What the reality of the situation here is if
you were deciding as a real estate purchaser whether or not to buy
this land and go forward with this project that, first, you would look
at, "Can you buy the land for a reasonable price?" The answer here is
absolutely not.
You're going to have to -- you probably can't buy the land. And
you're going to have to spend a fortune to find out that you can't.
Because the landowners have told us that they're going to defend their
private property rights.
We have to. We know. The Florida Supreme Court -- we don't have
to wonder what the standard is. The standard is the public necessity.
The public necessity cannot possibly be proved here when we have
quantifiable data about an existing -- existing site with 50 years of
permittability. Fifty years of continued use.
From the beginning I have talked about this as if we, as county
government -- we, as the stewards for the public, own a building that
now appears to have seven floors. We've used two of them. We've used
20 years worth of life. We've got 50 years more of life.
We've used two floors of this seven-story building and we're
going to say, "Just forget it. Just leave it there. Put some dirt on
top of it. We'll build some trees and some parks. We'll forget that
we, as stewards of the public trust, own this building on behalf of
the public that has five more floors in it waiting to be used."
We have the responsibility to use it. We can't get the land. We
can't get the permit. Those are basically -- Commissioner Hancock,
you know that from your prior life. The first thing you look at is
what's the price of the land.
Well, as a permitting specialist. And the second thing you look
at, and maybe even the first, is: What are the odds of being able to
permit it? You know we're not going to get a permit for this when we
have a 50-year capacity at the existing landfill.
Please stop the bleeding. We have spent $800,000. Well, we
spent $600,000. We have $274,000 left that we can spend under the
current contract. I hope we won't spend -- continue to spend hundreds
of thousands of dollars to find out that something is impossible.
Especially when it is not necessary and even more especially when
there are two positive things we can be doing with the public money.
We could be solving the smell problem at the landfill and the water
plant.
(Applause)
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We owe them that. We can do that. We can
spend the money that way and we can explore alternative technologies
to find a way to eliminate landfills or significantly reduce
landfills.
We will never need another landfill in Collier County. We've
got 50 years. At existing technology, if we get creative, we will
never need another landfill. And if we solve the problem of this
landfill, we will have solved all of our community's problems.
(Applause)
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Your entire comment is based on this,
quote, "new report" telling us we have 50 years life left in the
landfill. This is new information. There is nothing in that report
that is new.
Twice in 1994 we had public hearings and on October 19, 1994 we
made a policy decision and put in place that we would not go higher
than 180 feet for a number of reasons. I mean, we had computer models
showing how high it would go. We had all kinds of things. One group
wanted to make it 152 feet I think. One group wanted to make it 125
feet. This board made the conscious decision that we would only go to
108 feet.
So to suggest that this is new information and that if we go to
175 or 200 we can be there 50 years. Well, great. I will give you
even more information. If we go to 300 we can be there 100 years. I
mean, that is not new information. That is ignoring the policies set
by this board of commissioners that we wouldn't go over 108 feet.
And so -- that's the fatal flaw in the Burns McDonald (phonetic)
study is it takes into account all kinds of things. It takes
compaction rates and it takes everything, but it ignores the policies
of this board of commissioners.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think that's why we're here today is to
continue to make policy. And as we continue to get information, we
have to refine policies. And certainly when I agreed to those --
those criteria that you just described it was with a dearth of
information compared to what I've learned over the last two and a half
years.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Tell me what's different in the last
two and a half years about that it's now okay to go to 175 feet.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, a few things that it is now okay
have to do with identifying what available land there is in the county
for additional landfilling. There is not a good choice. There is not
a good piece of land. There is not a piece I can point to to say,
"This needs to be the next landfill."
Looking at the cost -- primarily the cost makes me know that I
have to stop and reconsider my earlier alternatives and look at them
more carefully.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So for five bucks a household that's
too much to improve the lives of 49,000 people?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's too -- the irony of --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's just a yes or no question.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No. I'm going to answer it how I want to
though. The irony of your doing that lowest common denominator kind
of math when you -- you hate that. You hate that when we go through
the budget process. You get so angry at people when they do that.
You can buy a vacuum cleaner for 20 cents a day. That is not the
cost we're looking at. The cost we're looking at by your committee is
$35 million. In reality it's 50 or 70 or more.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Our committee is not $35 million.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I thought that --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's Greater Naples Civic
Association's number. That is not this committee.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What is your committee's number for
up-front capital costs?
COMMISSIONER HAiqCOCK: I think it's from 26 to 31 million, I
believe, is the range.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. Darn. Only 30 million, instead of
35. Still could build a jail.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: First of all --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And the relevance of that is what?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The relevance of that is ranking,
prioritizing how we spend public dollars.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Commissioner Berry.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That is relevant.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: But you can't build a jail out of solid
waste fees. They're dedicated to the solid waste department.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Of course not.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, then don't make the comparison.
Because that is just --
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: One thing is -- I noticed as people stood
up to speak a lot of you said, "I'm a taxpayer." Well, more
importantly, we're all rate payers. And whether we operate the
existing landfill or we relocate it or we pursue alternate
technologies, regardless of the cost we're all rate payers in that
system. And the cost will show up on not just our individual bill,
but it will also show up in the gallon of milk we buy and the loaf of
bread we buy and everything else.
So there is a sensitivity to cost here. And that's why I did
basically a stay where we are and pray for the Godsend of alternate
technology that allows us to keep rates low versus taking a known
quantity -- a fairly known quantity.
And permitting landfills is not a new thing. They're happening
all over the United States. And I guess -- because, Commissioner
Mac'Kie, you made reference to it, and incorrectly so, that I know for
a fact that we can't permit the landfill and I'm basically ignoring
that is just simply ridiculous.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I didn't mean to make that point. What I
meant to do is -- you know how important the --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I know how difficult it is. I know how
difficult it is to --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's the point I meant to make. Not
that you would suggest it was impossible.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- permit those things. So I think you
and I have a difference on whether or not we can even acquire the
land.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And the reason -- the reason I'm going to
differ with you on that is because we do have issues in this
community. We do have issues before the Supreme Court outside of the
landfill that say a community has a right to set its own standards for
its citizens, regardless of where they live.
I think by this board making a policy decision not to expand near
existing, substantive residential development, not expanding higher
into the air at what has been called by everyone on this board a
gateway to our community on 1-75, we are basically saying those are
standards that are reflective of the desires of the people in this
community, regardless of where you live. I think those standards are,
in fact, considered when you approach these kinds of issues. So I
disagree with you there.
But it's not just dollars and cents. What I am hearing in the
50-year life -- and this is what's going to be bounced around in the
media is, "Gee, whiz. There is 50 years of life, but we're deciding
just to move it because we have money to burn."
That may please some people in this room to hear it because it --
it may be a point that you yourself agree with. But in order to have
50 years life you're advocating pushing an existing noxious use nearer
established residential homes. You are advocating nearly doubling if
not at least by a third -- moving by a third the existing height and
permitted height of the landfill at an entryway to our community.
You are advocating an area of some -- whether it be a mile away
is only 20,000 residents or five miles is 50,000 is not relevant. What
is relevant is the growth that is being experienced in the area of the
existing landfill. Shouldn't we consider 50 years from now the
population that will be there that will be subject to it?
I think when you put all of that in a mix going to 50 years is
not practical or reasonable. Going to 20 years is practical and
reasonable if we need to. And for that reason we don't have 50 years,
unless we change the policies this board has adopted in the past.
If I hear three members of this board want to change those
policies, then I think that's a whole different course and we need to
follow that. So far I haven't heard that. I am not one of them.
So I think with that policy in place we need to respond to it.
And the only way to respond to it is to pursue one of these sites.
It's not -- it doesn't mean that's what I would like to do in a
perfect world. But I think of the options available to us based on
the commitments we've made to people in this community that have
brought this issue again to the forefront, we need to stand strong on
those commitments.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me suggest that the Chairman poll the
board members and get a ranking from each board member and let's see
which one falls out. And then we'll make a motion on what we want to
do from that point on.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: All right. Before we do that, I just have a
couple of comments that I would like to make. I was not here when
this was discussed by previous boards. I don't know how many of you
are aware the current landfill site sits in district five. That's my
district. If there is any movement of this landfill, it's going to be
in district five. So basically for this commissioner it's a no-win.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Some girls have all the luck.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I know. In the past we have talked about how
the landfill has been moved from one site to the other. First from
Coquina Sands because it was probably inappropriate population-wise at
that point in time. And, who knows, maybe it filled up the area.
Secondly it was moved out by the current airport -- Naples airport and
then it was moved out to Golden Gate.
In each of those cases probably the people surrounding the area
at that point in time was minimal. Certainly when it went out to the
Golden Gate area that was the case. And for us -- what I see is we
can sit up here today and we talk about site "L" out east of Orange
Tree and we talk about, "Gee, it's ten miles from Orange Tree," or
eight and a half miles or whatever the technical number is.
And we can say today that there probably wouldn't be a lot of
growth out in that area. I venture to say that in 15 to 20 years that
there will be board members seated up here who may change the policy
and there will certainly be people living out in that area.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: They will be short --
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Well, if -- you know, depending on what
happens in terms of agriculture and so forth in Collier County.
There's a lot of changes that can take place. There's been tremendous
changes take place in the number of years that I've been in Collier
County. And there is going to continue to be change take place in
this County.
In terms of the odor problem. I don't care where the odor comes
from. We have mentioned we're going to address the water treatment
plant. That certainly needs to be done. We need to address and give
as much thought and resource to addressing the odor problems, whatever
they may be, from the landfill. The current landfill.
I think that goes without saying. And I think that Waste
Management has done a tremendous job in the last few years of
addressing it. It may not be 100 percent, but it's certainly a lot
better than it was. We need to continue that effort.
Talk about sensitive lands in South Florida. I think the entire
Collier County -- when you start looking at the map they put up there,
the relative area that was left after they took out all the
exclusionary areas there wasn't a lot to pick from. It's a very, very
small area.
The fact that we don't have willing sellers, which leads me to
believe that this is going to be a tremendous legal cost for the
citizens of Collier County, I have a great concern over that. Which
brings me to the fact that Collier County has always prided themselves
in doing things a little bit better. That we're a little -- we're
just a step ahead.
And I am saying all of Collier County. I'm not just singling
out, quote, "Naples." I'm saying Collier County as a whole. We try to
do things better down here. We try to be a little more on the leading
edge to do things a little different. I know full well we're all
charged -- the five of us up here -- in dealing with the waste problem
here in Collier County. That is part of our charge. We have to deal
with that.
I certainly would like to consider if we're going to do anything
with our solid waste is that we wait until we get the information back
on the trucking out of this County. Because as far as I'm concerned,
that's the only viable option that we have is to take it out of here.
I cannot support -- and my vote will reflect it. I cannot
support any of the sites that have been mentioned here today.
(Applause)
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Having said all that, I will start down with
Ms. Mac'Kie and we'll poll the board in terms of your thoughts.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In terms of ranking the three sites?
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Of ranking the three sites, yeah. The three
sites.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I rank all three zero.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay.
(Applause)
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Norris?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: "L", "U", "A".
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I better write this down.
Okay. Mr. Constantine?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If there is one thing I learned
through the CAC process is that each of these sites is suitable,
probably not preferable. I think there was a -- we were very careful
to change the wording at our last hearing. Obviously somewhere above
Fort Lauderdale would be preferable. Each of the sites is suitable
and each of the sites is permittable.
With that in mind, I think I would -- I would go with "L", number
one. I think I would echo your sentiments with "U" as number two and
"A", I guess, as number three. You've convinced me that "U" has a
number of stronger sentiments than I first thought.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I will be the odd person out here and go
with "U", "L", "A". But the one thing I would like to throw in to any
factoring of costs is to look at the phased acquisition with tax-free
use of the land until absolutely necessary to be acquired. I think
that can reduce the acquisition cost. It can reduce conflict and
mediation costs.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. And since I'm the last one and I have
to do pretty much the same thing as Commissioner Mac'Kie, it's zero,
zero and zero.
(Applause)
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, with the polling in
mind I'm going to alter what I had initially stated as a motion and
make a motion at this point to rank site "L" as number one, site "U"
as a backup should we have a fatal flaw on site "L"
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I want to point out tha~ --
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I conclude my motion?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry. I thought that was the end of
your motion.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Sorry.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Let him finish.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And to assign the Dufresne-Henry team
subject to returning to us with a particular cost for that task in
mind and approval from the board the task of putting actual cost
numbers in. Because I think you're right. The trucking costs are
going to be a key.
And if we can do that cost effectively long term, that's a
wonderful alternative for everyone. But at least this way we'll be
able to compare actual numbers to that trucking cost. So I'm going to
ask us to go ahead and plug some real numbers in there.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. So the motion is -- your current
motion is -- well, do we have a second to that motion?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Did you drop "A" off the page?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I had "A" as number two as the backup.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: "A" or "U"?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I am sorry. I did have "U". I'm
sorry. You're correct.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: "L" is the first choice, "U" is the second
choice and "A" is the third choice, is that correct, Commissioner
Constantine?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That is correct. Thank you. I'm
sorry. I misspoke.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I will second it.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: A motion has been made and seconded. Any
further discussion?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chairman, obviously I would like to
see it go a different way here, but I have two choices. That is,
either to stop this altogether by saying no or to at least allow this
to continue to get a price so we can compare it to a trucking option.
And I would rather do that even if it's not the site that I would
prefer. So I am going to support the motion.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. I will call for the question. All
those in favor of the motion?
And all those opposed?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Aye.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Motion carries three two.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I think it's important to note that this is
not a decision to go forward with building one of these landfill sites
today.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Right.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No. It allows us to make an informed
decision.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: All that has happened here today -- so don't
walk out of here and say, "This is what they've done." All that's
happened here today is that we have allowed staff to go forward and to
look at these two sites -- "L" number one and "U" site as number two
-- to pursue and get further information. That's all. There has been
no decision to move the landfill to either one of these two sites at
this point in time.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Correct.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Spear, I assume that's not a
problem to get that information back in the three, four or five week
time that we'll get our trucking bids back.
MR. SPEAR: I don't believe it will be.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Are we going to -- can we also get
assurance about the cost of that? MR. RUSSELL: Commissioners.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yes. Just a moment.
Mr. Russell.
MR. RUSSELL: Just a footnote.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Could you hold your comments down? We are
still in session.
MR. RUSSELL: Just a footnote on the time table for the RFP. I
am working with the county attorney on trying to make this happen. The
RFP has not been issued yet. And, of course, we need to get --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What RFP; what RFP are you talking about?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Trucking.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The trucking RFP?
MR. RUSSELL: Yes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you.
MR. RUSSELL: We need to give the firms that would respond a
reasonable amount of time. Say, three weeks and then two weeks
probably after that before we get it to the board. There is five
weeks. So we might be looking at a total of seven, eight weeks.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Middle of February, Mr. Russell?
MR. RUSSELL: End of February.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: End of February. End of February.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: They're negotiating.
MR. RUSSELL: That's the time we'll shoot for, yes.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Within that time frame. All right.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Which actually is kind of nice because
the scrubbers are due to be effective about March 1. So the timing of
that may work out very well.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Russell.
And thank you to all of the committee people and presenters
today. And thank you all in the audience. You were an excellent
group of people here during a very difficult discussion. Thank you.
Item #8B3
BUDGET AMENDMENT FOR THE PURCHASE OF A VEHICLE FROM PUBLIC WORKS
UTILITY RESERVE FUND (408) - APPROVED
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chairman, the next item is one I
had pulled off the consent agenda. My question for Mr. Ilschner is
just -- it seems kind of unusual that we're purchasing a vehicle for a
department in the middle of the year that wasn't budgeted. I wondered
what changed between 1 October of '97 and now to warrant a new capital
cost, such as a vehicle.
MR. ILSCHNER: For the record, Ed Ilschner, director of -- ~ublic
works administrator for Collier County. The thing that changed ms
that during my activities and the staff's activities in my division --
and I am new to Collier County as you know. I have been here seven
months.
I discovered there was quite a lot of activity taking me out into
the County itself without the use of a vehicle for most or part of the
day. And, of course, I also need to attend activities in the evening
hours.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: This vehicle would be for you?
MR. ILSCHNER: It would be partly for me.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Primarily.
MR. ILSCHNER: Primarily for me, but also for staff as well.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Let me just make sure I understand.
The two folks that head up each side of the utility department both
have a vehicle for the very same reason. MR. ILSCHNER: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Clemons and Mr. Newman?
MR. ILSCHNER: Yes, they do.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So maybe their boss should, too.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It makes perfect sense. I just -- I
didn't know the explanation on that.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll move the item.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. All those in favor?
Motion carries five zero.
Item #9A
UPDATE ON WEED ABATEMENT LIENS ON PROPERTY OWNED BY JAMES LORENZO
WALKER AND ALAYSIS OF OPTIONS RE THIS PROPERTY AND OTHER PROPERTIES
SIMILARLY SITUATED - STAFF AND MR. WALKER TO PURSUE LEGAL ASSISTANCE AT
REDUCED RATE
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. Moving on then to the county
attorney's report. An update on the weed abatement liens on property
owned by James Lorenzo Walker and any analyses.
MS. ASHTON: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, I'm
Heidi Ashton. Assistant county attorney. This item the board heard
by public petition by Mr. Walker last year. And we're bringing it
back now with an update of options.
Mr. Walker had purchased some property. It's lot 12, Golden
Gate, unit four in block 135 at a tax deed sale which have substantial
weed abatement liens on it. And Mr. Walker had approached the board
concerning his desire to donate the property to the county.
On page two of the executive summary I've outlined szx options
the board could pursue. I can go through these options in detail,
whatever the board's pleasure is.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I had a question about one of them, if I
may.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Option four, which was accept the land,
remove the liens and donate the property to an organization for
affordable housing. I would suggest that there might be a pro there
of, you know, property donated to a needy family or something. I was
surprised that that was blank.
More importantly, the con listed there is that there is little
equity in the property. But number four assumes remove the liens. If
there are no liens, then there is a lot of equity in the property.
MS. ASHTON: Right. But the county would accept the property and
then we'd have to extinguish the liens. So we would be losing money
and then donate it to a not-for-profit organization.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Like Habitat for Humanity or something
like that.
MS. ASHTON: However, title will still not be clear because you
need to do a quiet title action in order to clear title to this
property since it was acquired at a tax deed sale. And the previous
owner is unavailable. I'm not sure if she's deceased, but we have not
been able to contact her.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So there would be equity in the property,
but -- because the liens would be extinguished. Are we going to
physically --
MS. ASHTON: I guess it depends on the way you look at it. And
the way you're looking at it is probably a correct statement.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Do we have to write a check; do those
liens have to be paid or can they just be forgiven?
MS. ASHTON: Well, somebody is going to take a hit. Whether it's
the code enforcement budget or another budget.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Ultimately the taxpayer.
MS. ASHTON: Right.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because somebody has -- we've expended
money. This is a reimbursement at this point. MS. ASHTON: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. I am getting clearer.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: We have mowed those lots then?
MS. ASHTON: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Several times.
MS. ASHTON: That's correct. There's approximately a little
under -- a little over $6,500 worth of existing liens against the
property. There may be a little bit more that has accrued in taxes
since I wrote this.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's indeed an unfortunate situation that
Mr. Walker finds himself in where he has a piece of property that
isn't worth much. It isn't worth anything. It will actually cost him
money to unload it.
However, it was he who involved himself financially in securing
the rights to own the property, not the taxpayer. My concern is if we
begin taking property such as this, what we'll do is create a
situation where a property owner's either willful or accidental
negligence of caring for the property up to code is going to make us
the purchaser each and every time.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And then --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And why would we accept that when everyone
knows in real estate that property ownership is indeed a risk. There
are no guarantees. This is not 1965 and it's a great Florida land
sale. I was hoping that out of these options there would be one that
was a win-win. It didn't show up.
I am looking at number six where we actually form a policy that
the code enforcement board imposes liens in the form of a judgment
against the violator for the simple reason that there may be people
out there with financial means and they can take a $2,000 hit because
they made a bad investment. There may be those that can't. But the
taxpayer taking that hit just simply isn't fair. I don't see where
the taxpayer earned the right to pay for those mowing liens.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I agree.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So if we're going to do anything I think
it's a policy change in that direction and not anything to alleviate
it in the other way.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could I just ask isn't there one other
option? Well, I guess it's one of these. I guess it is one of these.
That is, under the existing policies the only real options are
Mr. Walker can own the property and we'll continue to mow it and then
we will eventually foreclose on it. And we'll have the expense of
foreclosure and we'll eventually own the property with the liens.
I mean, that's what is the current county procedure, right? There
is nothing else to do. What I wish is that he could give us the deed
in lieu of foreclosure.
MS. ASHTON: If we were to pursue the foreclosure option,
however, we would have a defense if there were contamination on the
property. Actually, not a defense. It's an exemption for involuntary
takings by government entities. So there is a little bit of a
benefit.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Weigel.
MR. WEIGEL: I think if we recall the public petition that came
before us originally was an offer by the landowner, Mr. Walker, to
convey the land. Foreclosure was not something in consideration at
that time. So I think it's a jump to say, "Well, we would foreclose
on the property," and go through that hurdle and expense and time, et
cetera, to get property that we still don't necessarily have absolute
clear title on.
But the negatives are still there. That is, that the county
would be accepting a kind of title to property. It would be
responsible for paying off or absorbing the costs that have already
been paid of a contractor repeatedly clearing the property or mowing
it. And it doesn't -- it doesn't ultimately solve the county's
problem on this particular piece of property which seems to have a
negligible use, as far as a use for county purposes.
And I think also in looking at the policy angle of this, our
office is working with Mr. Cautero and code enforcement, Ms. Sullivan,
in regard to the fact that this is symbolic of the county paying
significant sums of money over a period of time for periodic weed
abatement on properties and there is no end in sight. And that's what
we must also find.
And it may be that the last option here helps us pursue a kind of
end by moving the kind of liability -- not for Mr. Walker
particularly, but for other landowners who are absolutely unmoving in
terms of keeping their property up pursuant to the standards of our
ordinance 91-47.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Are we going to hear from Mr. Walker at
some point?
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's important -- at least for me, I'm
removing Mr. Walker from this discussion. Because I am not trying to
make it about him or what he does or doesn't have or has or hasn't
done. I am more concerned about the gross application of this kind of
offer, if you will.
This may be a little bit out of your arena, Mr. Weigel, but I
will ask it anyway. If you are foreclosed upon -- if you have
property that is foreclosed upon, whether it be a bank or county
government, does that result in a black mark on your credit, on your
ability to borrow money in the future?
In other words, is that something that someone looks on
unfavorably? In other words, there might be an incentive for you to
do something to make sure that that doesn't happen.
MR. WEIGEL: I think the answer is yes. In the commercial world
the answer is yes.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: My assumption was yes, but --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's going to show up on your credit
report. You own the property.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That to me seems to be the last incentive
for someone who is close to break-even, just get out, take their lump
and not suffer some type of negative long-term impact if they're
concerned about that. If we accept the property, we are alleviating
them of that eventuality. And I am not sure I, again, want to
shoulder that burden for everyone out there who has either chosen to
neglect or -- accidentally or by lack of knowledge neglected their
responsibility.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Ms. Ashton, have we been faced with this kind
of a problem in the past? In other words, is this a relatively
isolated situation?
MS. ASHTON: Well, I do understand from the code enforcement
department that there are a number of cases where substantial liens
have accrued against property. The code enforcement department also
was exploring methods of giving notice to property owners who would
not pick up the certified mail. So they were pursuing alternative
means to at least reduce the numbers of those.
But in this case I'm not sure that this is one where they did not
receive notice. The owner who owned the property prior to Mr. Walker
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I look at this --
MS. ASHTON: There are some other ones. I don't know the number.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Excuse me.
MS. ASHTON: Sorry.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I look at this today as kind of dealing,
number one, with Mr. Walker's problem and then looking at a policy
change to try and alleviate a future problem that we might have. So
if we could look at that in that regard maybe -- let's deal with this
in a two-step process of looking at the current situation in this
particular case and then going in regard to perhaps a policy change in
some direction.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I would think that's fair. And I'm hoping
we're going to hear from Mr. Walker who has been here all day.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Right. Mr. Walker, if you would like to come
to the podium you're welcome to do so.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: If there is something new, great. But for
me they are one and the same.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It will just -- I think the ability to
resolve it is there for the property owner. And I would like to see
them do it.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. And then go forward?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Well, that's what I'm looking for here.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I understand. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Walker.
MR. WALKER: I mean, reading these --
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Would you state your name, please.
MR. WALKER: Lorenzo Walker. In reading these options I
understand what you're saying on option six. And I think something
needs to be done by this board because I'm not the only one that's in
this position.
Since this lot clearing has taken place -- the first notice that
I knew anything about it was after I wrote the letter to the county
manager asking him to appear before this board. The next day did I
get a notice that there was liens on this property.
So in the past I don't believe there has been notices sent out to
the property owners that there was liens against it. So they should
be notified when that takes place.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mr. Walker, can I ask a question on that
point maybe of Mr. Weigel? I don't know who. Because I know that the
tax deed sale is actually run by Mr. Carlton.
But is there some process by which bidders at tax auctions could
know other liens or could be notified; is there some way they can know
what else is out there when they're bidding on this property?
MR. WEIGEL: I think the answer is yes. That is, that if a
person is purchasing anything, be it real property or personal
property, if you research the ownership behind it -- in the case of
real property the property records located here in this very building
-- you can, in fact, find the liens of record. There may be other
liens aside from mowing liens, such as special assessments in case it
was in a water and sewer district or things of that nature.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But, David, if you were going to do that
-- forgive my interruption. My question is not clear. If you're
going to the tax sale there is a whole section in the newspaper of
thousands of OR book and page that are going to be for sale. MR. WEIGEL: Yes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You can't go to the clerk and research
every single one of those and know what the liens are before you go
and raise your hand on a 12 percent interest rate for the tax
certificate. So is there some way that information could be made
available to people in a usable format. Obviously the information is
there, but not while you're there bidding interest rates on these tax
deeds.
MR. WEIGEL: I suppose a -- I think a system could be worked. It
would be rather comprehensive. It would probably require more than
one office or constitutional officers to do that. There would
certainly be a cost involved with doing that.
And obviously I think it could fall under the public service.
There would be a question of the kind of expenditure. Although, I
think it would be substantial to be able to provide that client a
service to potential purchasers.
At the same time, however, there are all kinds of purchasers.
There may be those that go in and have specific parcels in mind --
just a few -- and do their homework ahead of time and go in. They
know the risks and they know better what kind of bid they can give on
that declining interest basis because they know what is out there as a
negative against that particular property.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: So in some cases you don't know if you're,
quote, "Buying the pig in the poke."
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Exactly.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: It's kind of a --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Unless you go down and research the
property individually, which means ahead of time you have to say,
"Here are the properties I wish to target for acquisition. Let me go
down and check each one individually before I raise my hand and say,
'Here is my check.'"
Commissioner Mac'Kie, unfortunately the only resolution I see is
for us to use tax money to pay a county employee to compile that
information and make it available at the auction, rather than the
person who is coming in to buy the property take it upon themselves to
go do that research. I am not sure that that -- although I'm all for
more service, I'm not sure bang for the buck is there on that one.
If you're going to take a risk and you're not going to do the
homework and the research and you're not going to do the due
diligence, well, then you're accepting the risk. I don't think we can
fully relieve that burden no matter how much research we do.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: So something that glitters doesn't always
necessarily mean that it's the real thing. I think unfortunately in
this situation it's an unfortunate situation, but I also think we need
to deal with a policy change.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Walker, can I ask did you go into real
property and do any research on this property prior to acquisition at
the tax certificate sale; did you do any research on this property
before you purchased it at the sale?
MR. WALKER: No, sir.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. WALKER: I mean, I was there in effect, I suppose. But, I
mean, I have come to the courthouse steps and bid several times on
properties and mortgages and that sort of thing. Every time I ever
got a bid anything under that was wiped out. I got it at that price
and that is what it was.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: In other words, you were probably fortunate
in the past that you didn't end up with something like in this
particular case.
MR. WALKER: Right. I didn't get --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Or when you buy at a foreclosure sale it's
wiping out the junior liens. And in this case it doesn't.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Right. What is the --
MR. WALKER: All I'm saying is I will take my loss. I just want
to give you people the property. You can do with it whatever you want
to.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We are going to end up with it, you know,
one way or another.
MR. WALKER: See, if I don't -- if you don't do something about
six, what now if I chose not to pay the taxes and not to mow the
property anymore? Someone bought a tax certificate this past year
because it's been since I had these.
Within seven years that person has to do something about it or it
escheats to the state. That's what come with me. I got a letter that
said if I didn't do something it would have to go to the state. So I
wrote it, all right? I will apply for a tax deed.
I did and that's what I came over for the bid. And when I did
that, then I had to pay all of the tax certificates and all the
interest for the other six years that had been paid. So then now -- I
had paid all the taxes and the interest on it up until this last year.
And I'm trying to give it to you people with -- you know, free to
you.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's not free. That's our problem. If it
were free, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We'd say, "Thank
you very much. Have a nice day." And we'd put it on the auction
block and give the money back to the taxpayers.
From your perspective I understand. You've taken a loss. You've
taken a bath. I'm very sorry for that. But it's me asking the people
in this county to take a little hit when they're not really
responsible for the transaction.
MR. WALKER: Well, here is my question. Suppose I don't pay the
taxes and I don't pay for the mowing and it goes on out --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And we'll foreclose on it.
MR. WALKER: -- for six or seven years. How is the county ever
going to get the money back for what they're expending for the mowing?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's not going to because it's already
equal to the value of the property. If we keep doing it for a few
more years -- do you see his point?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yes. But if it's already equal to the
value of the property, how come we're not foreclosing on it now?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good question.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So we then sell the property and take a
minimal loss, instead of an excessive loss.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And all he's saying is --
MR. WALKER: You don't have to foreclose. I just want to give it
to you, then you can do it. You don't have to foreclose.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: All he's saying is instead of -- okay.
You're exactly right. Let's tell Heidi, "Go today. Start foreclosure
process."
What will happen tomorrow in a foreclosure is you say, "Dear
defaulting lienholder, instead of going through this whole mortgage
foreclosure process would you just like to give us a deed in lieu of
foreclosure?"
It's a particular document. And he is saying, "Yeah. I will
give it to you today." All he is saying is, "I'll give it to you today
without the expenses of filing the foreclosure lawsuit."
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Walker's question, Mr. Weigel, is if
he continues -- just says, "I'm not paying taxes. I'm not paying the
lien." And this is about seven years from now it goes to the state.
I'm not real familiar with that. Can I have some help with the
what if that he has proposed? If he just says, "Fine. I'm going to
walk away from it," and we as a county say, "We're not going to
foreclose on it," what happens then?
We continue to mow it and accrue costs. I know that.
MR. WEIGEL: Well, he's right that there is an escheat. And I
believe it is to the state. I haven't looked at that particular law
for a time myself. But the results, as far as the county's interests,
are the same in that it remains unpaid.
As I mentioned to you, his initial discussion to this board was
to offer the property and not say, "Please foreclose upon me," and go
through those expenses even if it was just an exercise in doing that.
So foreclosure was not something that was brought up from Mr. Walker's
standpoint at all.
The bigger question is that we have an operational ordinance that
either based on complaint or based upon notice properties will be
cited and re-cited over a period of time if they don't meet the
standard of mowing, such as 18 inches if it is developed property or
cutting back exotics or things of that nature when it's an undeveloped
situation. That will continue to repeat with this property and other
properties.
So that beyond today's agenda item I think we, as staff, need to
bring back to you a policy item with some direction from you, if you
give us some specific direction today, where it removes the burden
purely from the real property aspects and takes it more to the
personal owner aspects. And that's what number six does here.
There is a responsibility that goes with ownership. And the
county has standards we've talked about in a previous agenda item
today. The county has standards which attempt to be adhered to
through the county administration. There are costs to pay for the
services to achieve those standards. And those standards, I believe,
according to our ordinances, should be paid for by the properties that
are benefitted by that.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Is everything on this agenda a no-win
situation today?
MR. WEIGEL: It was. And we knew that coming in.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: What a way to start the new year.
MS. ASHTON: If I could interject for a moment. I did have an
opportunity to speak with Mr. Mihalic briefly. At one time Mr.
Lorenzo had indicated he would take care of the quiet title action. I
don't know if that offer still stands.
But Mr. Mihalic indicated to me that if Mr. Walker participated
in reducing the costs that he could be able to find a buyer who would
pay off the assessments. So I don't know if that offer still exists
if you would be willing to --
MR. WALKER: What was that offer?
MS. ASHTON: You said at one point that you would be willing to
pay for the quiet title action and then you'd convey it after you
clear title. Maybe we could negotiate that and talk about it and come
back on this item.
MR. WALKER: I said if I was going through a quiet title that I
-- if I was going to sell the lot, I would have to have a quiet title.
I can't --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: If you're going to give it to the county
MR. WALKER: -- do it without a quiet title.
MS. ASHTON: The issue would be whether the county would pay for
the quiet title action or whether you would. It seems that Mr.
Mihalic might have some interest if the county's costs were removed
if you cleared the title through a quiet title action and then
conveyed it to the county. At which time, the county would attempt to
find a buyer with the reduced liens on the property.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So we would accept it after quiet title
with the liens; he wouldn't have to pay the liens?
MS. ASHTON: Right. And then the purchaser would pay off the
liens to receive it from the county.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: To buy the property.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: What does a quiet title cost you, Mr.
Walker?
MR. WALKER: I figure somewhere around 3,500, $4,000.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Probably not an attractive option to you
then, is it?
MR. WALKER: No, sir. I mean, if I can find an attorney that
wants to give me a discount it might be.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I was just sitting here thinking I would
do it for $1,000. But, boy, would that be interesting news. Mac'Kie
makes a grand at a county commission meeting.
Sorry. Can't help you.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Why don't you abstain and we'll name you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I am not getting there.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Well, we --
MR. WALKER: I mean, I don't want to cause the county a problem.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: We understand that.
MR. WALKER: But this thing is not just Lorenzo Walker.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: That's what -- we're going to remedy that
problem hopefully today. We hope that we can take care of that
problem today.
Is there any direction from the other commissioners? I'm
actually looking at option six here as being, I believe, the direction
that we need to proceed.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I will make a motion to that effect.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I will second that.
Question.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Sure.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Mihalic, in your work with Habitat for
Humanity do they have anyone that volunteers legal services on the
real estate side for them?
MR. MI~LALIC: Not to the best of my knowledge, no. They pay
their attorneys.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Do they pay legal --
MR. MIHALIC: Well, I am not sure of the negotiated amount. But
they do pay their --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The reason I'm asking is if there is
someone out there willing to cut a deal on a quiet title here that may
be the win-win. If it only cost Mr. Walker $1,000 more than what
he's already lost to get out from under this and we can turn around
and sell it and pay the lien, everybody walks away and everybody has
pretty much got some of what they're looking for.
I don't know the organizations out there that have any
connections in the legal field to do that. I really don't know. Is
quiet title -- is the bulk of this title insurance?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's nothing. It's not even title
insurance. It's some preprinted forms on a computer that you spew out
and send to the courthouse. In a case like this there is no contest.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I've got to go to law school.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. Go. It's just a grand for nothing.
And if somebody charges you $3,000 for that, that's too much.
MR. MIHALIC: Well, Commissioners, one of the strategies in our
SHIP program is to take properties like this and recycle them back for
affordable housing. And we have monies to do that with. It's a
question of trying to resell something that the assessor believes is
worth about $8,000 when we have 12 or $13,000 in liens.
There does seem to be a little bit of flexibility there with the
pollution control assessment and things like that. But this is part
of a bigger issue, Commissioners. There is many properties out there
that I think we do have to deal with or the hole just gets deeper and
deeper and there's more of a gap between the value of the property and
what the liens are against it. And I do believe we should look at
that in the future, Commissioners.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I just have a hard time telling Mr.
Walker, "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. By the way,
we're going to make this a personal debt of yours now." I mean,
that's what we're talking about doing. I just -- I just don't think
that's the right way to go. I don't think that's fair.
COMMISSIONER HA/~COCK: Let me float an idea here. If we put
together an RFP out to the legal community for basically cut-rate
title work when things got to a point that the county's stepping in
and doing a title exchange and selling at the lien amount to
pre-qualified affordable housing type projects that would mean that
not only do we deal with Mr. Walker, we deal with similar cases in the
future at not just a no net loss to the county, but promoting
affordable housing venues and opportunities out there. I don't know
if there's a way we can work that out, but that is just -- I wanted to
float that as an idea.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We could talk to Florida Rural Legal
Services. We could talk to the Collier County Bar who is interested
as you've read in the newspaper and will be hearing in a legal aid
office. There is a lot of opportunities for staffing that at cut
rates.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, maybe we better ask the question of
where is this property. I would be concerned of whether it would be
a suitable property to talk to Habitat for Humanity in the first
place. I mean, what's next door?
MR. MIHALIC: This property is in Golden Gate City. But Habitat
for Humanity has a big difficulty in dealing with scattered sites. At
least up to the present time they don't want to deal with less than
ten lots at one time. It does not fit with the way that they handle
their operations.
But I do believe we could develop a program to have these lots
bought by a qualified affordable housing first-time home buyer and let
a developer build on them and get our money back on them.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's what I was talking about. I was
picturing this five acre lot that's a little ways out that may have a
market value of $8,000. But if we can make it available for the price
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: For five.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- of what is in it at five or $6,000,
would that let somebody buy it who can build a home that otherwise
wouldn't? That's kind of where I'm going. So that we don't get into
the real estate business. I don't want to do that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Let's ask. Instead of option six -- we'll
have that if we can't work out this kind of an idea. But ask Greg to
come back with a proposal for this over -- for county-wide. Because,
as Mr. Walker said, this is a bigger problem than just his. Let's see
if we can come up with some creative way to do just that.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chairman, option six will take us a
while to develop. In the meantime this problem will accrue. It might
not be a bad idea to run parallel courses here. I know it's extra
work, but we already see we're in a little bit of a bind. It's just
going to grow every day.
So, unfortunately, both become housed in the office of the county
attorney. And we know you're grossly overstaffed, Mr. Weigel.
MR. WEIGEL: Especially lately.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nothing to do.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: With Mr. Pettit being gone and whatnot, I
know it's difficult. But I guess I'm asking what is the pleasure of
the board. I guess it doesn't hurt to hold off on number six. Again,
I don't want the problem to grow.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I say go ahead with number six and then at
the same time deal with Mr. Walker's specific problem. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Cautero.
MR. CAUTERO: Thank you, Madam Chairman. Vince Cautero, for the
record. I would caution you in that -- as Mr. Mihalic said, it's not
just an issue that affects the housing department. Because there may
not be sites that he needs for affordable housing projects or sites
where organizations like Habitat for Humanity would be interested.
We need to come to grips with the fact that we are out there
picking up trash every day and hiring contractors every day to mow
lots and liens are placed and the money is never collected. And it's
a revolving cycle where you put 40 to $60,000 in the budget every year
for that and we are not collecting on that. I think we need to come
to grips with that.
I am not sure option six is necessarily the solution to that.
Because once you bring it to that quasi judicial board -- even if we
bring it there and develop a policy, they may not place a lien on that
individual owner or violator as policy number six dictates. They may
not do that.
We can bring it there. And I think that's what the
recommendation is. They may not place it on that particular violator.
It's going to be on a case-by-case basis.
My issue is this. Once we bring those resolutions to you that we
do from time to time -- and we usually do them in batches on the
consent agenda -- and you adopt that resolution to place a lien on the
property, we need to come to grips with the policy and how we're going
to foreclose on that. We are sitting on an enormous amount of money.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The suggestion I made regarding working
out some type of deal where we don't accept them if the liens owed are
far below market value. When they are sold for the price of those
liens, we then pay back the funds that were expended for the mowing.
So I don't see the county losing dollar one in that scenario if it can
be established. That's the big question with a capital I-F.
I mean, I don't know if we can get it done. If we can, we can
kill a couple of birds with one stone maybe. And that's attractive to
me.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: What is the downside?
MR. CAUTERO: I don't think there's a downside to that. I think
we need to take some small steps and show some small successes, if you
will, so that we're able to accomplish some of the goals in the
housing program.
At the same time, if it's not property that can be used by a
client of Mr. Mihalic in that particular program, the money could go
back into 1-11 and maybe funneled back to code enforcement so we set
up a program where we can use that money to start mowing lots.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Let me see if I can do this. I was the
second on the original motion. I am going to withdraw my second and
request a substitute motion.
That motion is to direct Mr. Mihalic and Mr. Cautero, the county
attorney's office and Mr. Walker to pursue the idea that I floated
today regarding seeking legal assistance at a -- I will use the word
cut-rate, but at a reduced rate if we can then turn this property for
what is owed so that the county is repaid its lien amounts. And if we
can do that, then bring that back to the board.
If we are successful in this little test case, we can then look
at developing a one or two-prong policy to deal with the balance of
these issues as they come forward.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: We have a motion and a second. Any further
discussion on the motion?
All those in favor?
Motion carries four zero.
(Commissioner Constantine was not present.)
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We'll keep trying, Mr. Walker.
MR. WALKER: I mean, if I can be notified of whenever they have
some type of a meeting.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yes. I will ask -- Mr. Mihalic, I assume
you're going to be kind of -- will you be spearheading that or the
county attorney's office?
MR. MIHALIC: I am not sure, but we'll coordinate together on it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Be sure Mr. Walker --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Walker needs to be a part of that.
MR. MIHALIC: We will be sure to do that.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you, Mr. Walker.
Mr. Weigel.
MR. WEIGEL: Ramiro Manalich will give the next item. But before
he starts with that I will mention in the item just discussed that --
as we discussed at the last board meeting prior to the Christmas
holiday in regards to Mr. Chlumsky's property down on Bayshore, when
the county becomes a title owner of the property we also assume
potential contamination and other problems that exist with that
property. So that's going to be part of what we bring back to you
with our policy report. All of the considerations we have and the
liabilities we might pick up if we come in with the change of title.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Understood. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Very good.
Item #9B
PROPOSED SETTLEMENT IN THE FEDERAL COURT CASE OF WADSWORTH V. COLLIER
COUNTY AND THE CITY OF NAPLES, ET AL., CASE NO. 95-88-CIV-FTM-23D -
APPROVED
Mr. Manalich.
MR. MANALICH: Good afternoon, Madam Chairman and Commissioners.
For the record, Ramiro Manalich. Chief assistant county attorney.
Also present with me today to answer any questions if necessary on
this item is Larry Pivacek, assistant county attorney, and risk
management director, Jeff Walker.
Real briefly. The executive summary addresses the background of
this case. And what is before you today is a proposed settlement
which was arrived at at mediation.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Manalich --
MR. MANALICH: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I have been briefed on this. I am
comfortable making a motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Is there any discussion?
Mr. Norris, were you able to talk with Mr. Manalich about this
case?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I certainly was.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. I wanted to check and make sure that
everybody had had the opportunity.
Anyway, we have a motion and a second on this. All those in
favor?
Motion carries four to zero.
(Commissioner Constantine was not present.)
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you, Mr. Manalich.
MR. MANALICH: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Three one.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Three one?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Uh-huh.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's okay.
Item #9C
RESULTS OF CANVASSING BOARD FOR LELY CDD - APPROVED
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: The next item before us deals with the
canvasing board. I don't have that issue.
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you, Madam Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Weigel.
MR. WEIGEL: This is very brief.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Motion to accept.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
MR. WEIGEL: Fine. Thank you. We'll make it a record.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We met this morning. That's this
morning's document?
MR. WEIGEL: That is correct, yes.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: All those in favor?
Motion carries four zero.
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you.
Item #10A
RESOLUTION 98-5 APPOINTING/REAPPOINTING MICHAEL HART, T. ANTHONY BROCK
AND CHARLES R. REYNOLDS TO THE OCHOPEE FIRE CONTROL DISTRICT ADVISORY
COMMITTEE - ADOPTED
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: 16 (A). Did we deal with that?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. We did that.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I thought we did. Yes, indeed.
*** Okay. Ten (A). Appointment of members to the Ochopee Fire
Control District Advisory Committee.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chairman, if I read it correctly we
have three appointments available. We have two -- Anthony Brock and
Michael Hart for reappointment. And Sammy Hamilton, the mayor of
Everglades City, has requested Charles Reynolds. Those three would be
the three vacancies, is that correct, as I read it? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: That's my understanding.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In that case I'll make a motion --
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Just a moment. Ms. Filson.
MS. FILSON: Excuse me. That's correct. But you need to waive
section 7-B (1) because they've all served more than two terms.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll include in my motion waiving that
particular section.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Second.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And request the appointment of Mr. Hart,
Mr. Brock and Mr. Reynolds.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. We have a motion and a second. Ail
those in favor?
Motion carries four zero.
Item #12C1
ORDINANCE 98-1, PROHIBITING THE CONVERSION OF ROADWAY SWALES TO
CULVERTS IN THE PUBLIC RIGHTS-OF-WAY WITHIN THE AREA OF NAPLES PARK
UNLESS A PERMIT IS OBTAINED AND PROVIDING FOR THE TYPE OF MATERIALS
ACCEPTABLE FOR USE - ADOPTED
Moving on then to public comment. Wait. Did I miss
something here?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: No, you didn't.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Public comment. Anyone from the public wish
to speak?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: The house is gone.
MR. FERNANDEZ: We have no registered speakers for this section,
Madam Chairman.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. The afternoon agenda.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: How about that? We're to the afternoon
agenda.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's four o'clock.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: And the advertised public hearings. We have
one. Recommendation to consider the adoption of an ordinance
prohibiting the conversion of roadway swales to culverts in public
right-of-ways within the Naples Park area.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is this the third or fourth -- well, the
third time since we've been on the board we've done this. Am I right,
Commissioner Hancock? It's the same thing we do once a year every
year?
MR. BOLDT: Commissioners, this is John Boldt. Stormwater
director. You've adopted some moratoriums in the past which are
temporary measures. This would be the last time you deal with this as
a permanent prohibition.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Motion to approve.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: There is public speakers.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: This one is a little more detailed. This
is the one where we have a typical cross-section and that if you're
going to replace it you have to do it according to that cross-section.
MR. BOLDT: Yes, sir. One of the special conditions of the
permit we had to enclose those Eighth Street and 91st and 92nd ditches
was a requirement by the Florida Department of Environmental
Protection for a permanent prohibition against the practice of
enclosing those swales.
Through the efforts of Dan Brundage of Agnoli, Barber and
Brundage and Robert Wiley of our OCPM department, they had long
negotiations with FDEP and they got them to grant an exemption to that
provided it's done under the terms of the ordinance you have before
you. Very specific requirements for construction methods and
materials and the detailed sketches you have there.
So people would be able to come in, get a permit from the county.
And if they follow these ordinance requirements for using the specific
materials and methods, they would be able to enclose their front yard
swales.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: This is what we've been working for for a
long time. And Mr. Wiley and Mr. Boldt and everyone else gets a lot
of credit for getting this hammered out. Because DEP just wanted the
absolute moratorium and this board said, "No. That's not good
enough." So finally there's a way for people to pipe their swales if
they want if we adopt this today.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: And follow all the rules and regulations.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The many, many rules and regs.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Hey, at least it's an option. I heard a
motion at the end.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You got it.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I know we have speakers, but I would be
glad to second at the appropriate time.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. Mr. Fernandez.
MR. FERNANDEZ: We have two speakers. First is Vera Fitz-Gerald
and then Genevieve Pistori.
MS. FITZ-GEP~ALD: I'm Vera Fitz-Gerald. I want to know how much
it costs. I keep asking, "How much does it cost?"
What are we getting dumped on now? Is this going to be
prohibitive? Is this just a way of keeping us from doing it or what?
Secondly, why isn't -- why isn't the streets -- why aren't the
streets on Vanderbilt Lagoon included in this? They don't have any
water retention area. Why are they allowed to just pipe their swales?
They are the same part of Naples Park, same situation. They just
dump straight into the lagoon. And the lagoon was one of the great
big reasons cited for all this. So why aren't they included in this?
I don't understand why this is being just Naples Park and just
ongoing discriminatory action. I want to know what the cost is. I
mean, if -- and I phone Mr. Robert Wiley and he didn't have any
answers how much it cost.
It seems that they've had to invent this. Obviously nobody else
in the whole state's got it. They had to go and look and look and
look for this type of piping and all this sort of stuff. So what's
the cost, please?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Nothing if you don't enclose your swale.
MS. FITZ-GERALD: Pardon?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Nothing if you don't enclose your swale.
MS. FITZ-GERALD: Have you seen my ditch?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't care.
MS. FITZ-GERALD: I know you don't. I know you don't. That's
what's wrong with this county.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In a nut -- yeah. No caring in Naples
Park. There is a lot of that going around.
I'm sorry. But right now you can't do anything. That was the
condition when I got this seat. It's been the condition for the three
years I've been here. We said we would do everything we can to try
and find a way to make that happen. That has been done.
So instead of someone standing there saying, "You know, maybe
it's going to cost a little more, but at least I have an option now,"
what I'm hearing is -- right now you just as soon not have it. You
just as soon not have the option.
MS. FITZ-GERALD: We're the only community that doesn't.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Do we know the per foot cost or if there's
some estimate we could give?
MR. BOLDT: We could give some ranges.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I would like to know.
MR. BOLDT: There is so many variables. Each property is
different depending where the driveway location is, whether the people
on either side of them have already enclosed it and you're making
attachment to it or they both have swales or whether they join in.
If you were to adopt this ordinance we propose to take another
step forward in doing a demonstration project. We would like to be
able to identify where these materials are available -- readily
available to property owners and provide that information to the
property owners. We would like to interest several small contractors
in this type of work and get them properly trained in understanding
what the ordinance requirements are.
So when somebody goes into Horseshoe Drive and pulls for a
permit, they will have a package we can give them that will include
the permit application form, the ordinance, the sketches and maybe
some suggestions on where they might buy the materials and which
contractors they might contact.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Now that's service. That's not
discrimination. That's great.
COMMISSIONER HA/~COCK: It's going to cost -- it's going to cost a
little more than aluminum RCP. I know that. Or aluminum pipe.
But, you know, Vera, I don't have an answer for you as to why
Naples Park and nobody else because I don't work for the DEP. I
didn't place it on Naples Park. Coconut Creek area ought to have
something like that. I mean, there are a lot of places that should.
But right now we have a restriction that we're trying to get out
from under. This is the only way we can find to get out from under it
right now. Maybe five years from now we can find a different way.
Maybe there's a different person in charge of DEP.
But right now this is our only option. And I don't want to throw
it away. So what Mr. Boldt has promised we will try and do. We will
get the cost as best we can on a typical lot, assuming connections.
But they wanted to get this to us quickly so at least people that
wanted to move ahead with it could. And to not approve this today
would be to say, "You can't do anything." And I don't think that's
what we want to do.
MS. FITZ-GERALD: I agree people would like to pipe their swales.
But if they can't afford to, it's irrelevant.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I know that. But it's the same in my
neighborhood.
MS. FITZ-GERALD: You can pipe yours.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Not if I can't afford it, Vera.
MR. FERNANDEZ: Next speaker is Genevieve Pistori.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's a step in the right direction.
MS. PISTORI: It has been a long day. I am half asleep.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Us, too.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It makes the meeting go faster.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have a caffeine --
MS. PISTORI: It seems that allowing the installation of swale
pipes in front of the owners' property on a voluntary basis may create
some problems, such as if a person installs a proper pipe on his
property but the person on the east side of the property, which is the
direction that the water flow is to drain to the pipe, has a smaller
pipe or a shallow swale. The water will not flow.
Now, this has been now -- it has been three years since this has
been scheduled that we were going to have this correction, correct?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yes.
MS. PISTORI: It seems as though after one year the program seems
to be at a standstill. Now, I have been attempting to correct my
swale because I am down here and Eighth Street is up here and water
does not flow up. And I haven't been -- and three times I have been
postponed. It was November, then it was January and now it is in May
that they're going to come and fix it.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's because they didn't buy our first
approach. The DEP would not permit the easiest thing we wanted to do.
So then we went to the next step and they wouldn't permit that.
So Mr. Wiley, Mr. Brundage and others have gone through several
machinations and this is the first one they approved. That's why --
things have been put off is by continual efforts of the DEP since they
basically are the decision-maker on this whether you can ever pipe
this, regardless of cost.
MS. PISTORI: I know.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So we have been working with them
understanding that they hold that authority. Believe me, Gene, if we
could have done it with metal pipe with holes in it two years ago --
MS. PISTORI: Before we go to this. Shouldn't the pipes that are
already in there be corrected? Some of them are high. Some of them
are small. I have one that's 12 inches high, 12 inches round.
Shouldn't that be corrected first? I thought that this was the -- the
three-year schedule was going to correct all this.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: What you're talking about is the grading
of swales in Naples Park. MS. PISTORI: I am.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Ilschner's department has been working
on that. As a matter of fact, I just got a phone call last week from
someone who had a section of their street done. So I know it's
happening. Maybe not on your street right now. But Mr. Ilschner is
really the one to give you the schedule and time frames on that.
As a matter of fact, I told Larry that a little bit earlier. I
just went and talked to him earlier. For that schedule you need to
get with Mr. Ilschner. This is just trying to at least give you an
option to pipe it if you can.
MS. PISTORI: When and who do we call to find out how much this
is going to cost us?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Boldt will be working on that estimate
on a typical lot in the meantime.
MS. PISTORI: If he needs a demonstration, come to my house. Mine
is deep.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Thanks, Gene.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you very much.
MR. FERNANDEZ: You have no other speakers, Madam Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. No other speakers.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Close the meeting.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. I close the public hearing. And do I
have a motion? I believe I --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie made the motion. I
will second it.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. All those in favor?
Motion carries four zero.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: It brings us close to the end.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: It brings us close to the end.
Any staff communication, Mr. Fernandez?
MR. FERNANDEZ: I have nothing to add to today's meeting, Madam
Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Nothing to add today.
Okay. Commissioners?
I am sorry. Mr. Weigel, do you have anything further to add?
MR. WEIGEL: Same comment as Mr. Fernandez.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thanks.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Are you sure you wouldn't like a little
more word today?
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Commissioner Mac'Kie?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nada.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Commissioner Norris?
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Nothing further.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Commissioner Hancock?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: One small piece of advice. If you can't
do it all, rely on your vice-chairman as I relied on you. And you
were fantastic to step up and do those things that I wasn't able to
do. So rely on your vice-chairman. They can be a big help.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And good luck. We will do everything we
can to make it an easy year.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: You have to ask Ms. Filson if we can be
excused.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I understand. I just want to make a quick
comment. That I do consider it a privilege to serve Collier County.
And I appreciate being able to serve in this capacity as your
Chairman. And I promise to -- I do make one promise. That I will try
to run these meetings as efficiently as possible and try and set a new
record.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Boy, did you get off to a crummy start.
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I know. At any rate, Ms. Filson, are we
ready to go home?
MS. FILSON: We are.
***** Commissioner Norris moved, seconded by Commissioner Mac'Kie and
carried unanimously, that the following items under the Consent Agenda
be approved and/or adopted with changes: *****
Item #16Al
RECORDING OF THE FINAL PLAT OF "PELICAN STRAND REPLAT - 4" - SUBJECT TO
CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT AND STIPULATIONS
Item #16A2
RESOLUTION 98-1, RE PETITION AV-97-025, AUTHORIZING THE ACCEPTANCE OF
"QUAIL WEST UNIT ONE, REPLAT BLOCK C SECOND ADDITION", AND VACATION OF
THE PERVIOUS PLAT OF THE PREVIOUSLY RECORDED PLAT OF QUAIL WEST UNIT
ONE, REPLAT BLOCK C FIRST ADDITION
Item #16A3
RECORDING OF THE FINAL PLAT OF "BOUGAIN VILLAGE" - SUBJECT TO
CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE AGREEMENT AND STIPULATIONS
Item #16A4
RETURN OF BOND #400FL2056 TO THE DELTONA CORPORATION FOR WORK
ASSOCIATED WITH "MARCO BEACH UNIT 24"
Item #16A5
ASSIGNMENT AGREEMENTS FOR EASEMENTS FOR FIDDLER'S CREEK, PHASE lB UNITS
ONE AND TWO
Item #16A6
RECORDING OF THE FINAL PLAT OF "CREEKSIDE COMMERCE PARK WEST - UNIT
ONE" - SUBJECT TO PERFORMANCE BOND, CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE
AGREEMENT AND STIPULATIONS
Item #16A7
RESOLUTION 98-2, PROVIDING FOR CONDITIONS RELATIVE TO AFFORDABLE
HOUSING AND A TWO YEAR EXTENSION TO THE DATE BY WHICH DEVELOPMENT
ACTIVITIES ARE TO BEGIN FOR THE SADDLEBROOK VILLAGE PUD AND SUPERSEDING
RESOLUTION 97-55 AS CORRECTED BY SCRIVENER'S ERROR 97-453
Item #16A8
EXCAVATION PERMIT NO. 59.451 (MODIFICATION) SAPPHIRE LAKES STOCKPILE
REMOVAL, BOUNDED ON THE NORTH BY INTERSTATE 75, ON THE EAST BY SHERWOOD
PARK PUD, ON THE SOUTH BY TWELVE LAKE PUD A_ND ON THE WEST BY BERKSHIRE
LAKES PUD - WITH STIPULATIONS AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Item #16B1 - Moved to Item #8B3
Item #16B2
AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS AND A LANDOWNERS'
GROUP FOR IMPROVEMENTS TO THE PINE RIDGE ROAD/I-75 AREA
Item #16B3 - Deleted
Item #16B4
AGREEMENTS WITH KRIS JAIN & ASSOCIATES, INC., ANCHOR ENGINEERING
CONSULTANTS, INC., AND JENKINS & CHARLAND INC. FOR PROFESSIONAL
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING SERVICES, RE RFP-97-2728
Item #16B5
BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE AMOUNT OF $200,000 FOR RIGHT-OF-WAY ACQUISITION
ACTIVITIES FOR COUNTY BARN ROAD FOUR LANING IMPROVEMENTS, CIE NO. 033
Item #16B6
BID NO. 97-2757 FOR PICNIC PAVILIONS AND PUMPHOUSE BUILDING FOR SUGDEN
PARK - AWARDED TO HIGHPOINT GENERAL CONTRACTING IN THE AMOUNT OF
$133,111.00
Item #16B7
LEASE AGREEMENT WITH COLLIER COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD FOR THE USE OF BIG
CYPRESS ELEMENTARY CAFETERIA, ALLOWING THE OFFICE OF CAPITAL PROJECTS
MANAGEMENT TO CONDUCT A PUBLIC MEETING ON JANUARY 8, 1998
Item #16D1
BOARD EXAMINATION AND APPROVAL OF THE SUFFICIENCY OF BONDS OF COUNTY
OFFICERS
Item #16D2
BID #97-2761 TO ESTABLISH CONTRACTS WITH QUALIFIED PROFESSIONAL MOVERS
- AWARDED TO ADKINS TRANSFER, INC., SUNCOAST MOVING, INC. Ai~D SCHAAP
MOVING, INC.
Item #16El
BUDGET AMENDMENT TRANSFERRING $13,206 TO THE STATE ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
FOR TELEPHONES FOR FISCAL YEAR 1997
Item #16E2
BUDGET AMENDMENTS 98-098, 98-104, 98-105 AMD 98-106
Item #16Gl
SATISFACTIONS OF LIEN FOR SERVICES OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER
Item #16G2
MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE - FILED AND/OR REFERRED
The following miscellaneous correspondence as presented by the BCC
has been filed and/or referred to the various departments as indicated:
Item #1611
STIPULATED FINAL JUDGMENT AS TO PARCEL NOS. 141 AND 14lA IN THE LAWSUIT
ENTITLED COLLIER COUNTY V. DAVID N. SEXTON, TRUSTEE, ET AL, CASE NO.
94-2826-CA-01-DRM (BONITA BEACH ROAD RIGHT-OF-WAY)
Item #16J1
BUDGET AMENDMENT WHICH WILL INCREASE THE MARCO ISLAND EXECUTIVE AIRPORT
TERMINAL BUILDING EXPENSE BUDGET, GRANT PROCEED BUDGET, LOAN PROCEED
BUDGET AND RESERVE FOR DEBT SERVICE BUDGET BY $45,000
Item #16J2
BUDGET AMENDMENT WHICH WILL INCREASE THE MARCO ISLAND EXECUTIVE
AIRPORT'S BUDGET BY $2,308
CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Meeting is adjourned. There being no further
business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by
order of the Chair at 4:13 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL
ATTEST: DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK
BARBARA BERRY, CHAIRPERSON
These minutes approved by the Board on
presented or as corrected
as
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE
BY: Debra DeLap, Kelley Marie Blecha, RPR