meeting transcript provided by public resources 6, 2015.pdf · your mercy, your blessings upon the...

Meeting Transcript Provided By Public Resources January 6, 2015 Good Morning, Everyone. Happy New Year. Welcome To 2015. I'd Like To Call The Meeting Of The Lee County Board Of County Commissioners To Order. Time Is 9:32. Apologize For Being A Little Bit Late. I'd Like To Thank -- Do I See Any Local Elected Officials?

Councilman Birch Is Here.

Thank You Very Much For Coming To Our Meeting Today. I'd Like To Start The Meeting By Asking Everyone To Please Rise For A Moment Of Silence. One Of Our Colleagues Who Served Lee County For Well Over 20 Years In Veterans Services Passed Away Over The Holiday. So I'd Like To Ask All Of Us To Bow Our Heads In A Moment Of Silence For John. I'd Like To Call Up Pastor David Phelps For Our Invocation From Word Of Life Ministry.

Heavenly Father, We Thank You That You Are Great And A Good And Glorious God. We Thank You That You Are Presiding Over This Meeting And Father, We Thank You For The Opportunity To Call Upon Your Name And To Trust You In All Things. I Pray, Father, That Your Super Natural Health, Abundant Blessings Of Success And Divine Wisdom From Above Would Rest Upon These Commissioners Even As It Did On Your Servant Solomon. Father, I Pray That This Meeting Would Be Filled With Truth And With Integrity As We Stand To Present Our Causes Unto Them. I Ask, Father, In The Name Of Jesus That You Would Continue To Guard Our Great Country, Our State And More Specifically Lee County With The Sovereign Wing Span Of Your Protection. Father, Guide Us By Your Glorious Light. Forgive Us For The Times That We Have Disobeyed You And Wandered Away From Your Truth. Forgive Us For The Seasons That We Have Loved The Things You Hate And Hated The Things That You Love. Bring Us Into That Place Of Your Abundance, Of Your Truth, Of Your Love, Of Your Mercy. Father, Continue To Bless Your Servants. Continue To Guide Our Lives As We Do Dedicate Our Lives To The Pleasure Of Our King. We Pray For Your Mercy, Your Blessings Upon The Events Of Today And Upon This Great County In Jesus Name, Amen.

Please Join Me In The Pledge Of Allegiance. I Pledge Allegiance To The Flag Of The United States Of America And To The Republic For Which It Stands, One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, With Liberty, Justice And For All.

Thank You, You May Be Seated. Well, It Only Seems Appropriate That We Would Start Off The New Year With One Of Our Most Favorite Ceremonial Presentations. It's Our Pet Of The Month And I'd Like To Turn It Over To The Commissioner Pendergrass To Introduce The Item For Us.

1 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

Thank You, Chairman Hamman. Can You Bring Up For Us This Morning Yoda Looking For A Home And Yoda Also Lost A Leg In An Accident. So Yoda Is A Male Frendl.

A Hound Mix About 2 Years Old And Steven Has Fostered Him Since His Surgery To Remove His Leg. He Gets Along With Cats. He's Probably Going To Do Best In A Home With Other -- Without Other Dogs. If You're Looking For A Loyal Companion, This Is The Dog For You. He's Small. Even Apartment Sized.

I Notice He Get Along Really Good With Only Three Legs, Too.

He Hopped Right Over Here With No Problems.

Even Latest News? We Have Great News To Hear.

Last Month, He Received A Grant From The Petco Foundation. We'd Like To Actually Recognize Our Veterinarian And Our Staff, Too, For All The Work That They Did Not Only Getting This Grant But Taking Care Of The Puppy Who Was The Subject Of The Grant. This Summer, We Rescued A Little Puppy And Its Litter Mates From A Box Truck. And Their Mother. They All Survived By Some Miracle And Were Fostered By The Program. Little Rudy, However, Was Found. He Had A Diseased Lung That Had To Be Removed So It Was Really A Sad Story But One That Had A Good Ending And Fortunately, We Received $25,000 For That Grant. And 2500 Meals Also. Pet Food.

Great. Good News. Any Upcoming Events Coming Up?

Not This Month. Just Our Monthly Adoption Promotion So Our Pet Stars So, You Know, Check Out The Pets That We Have On Line. And The Ones That Are On Special. You Know, We Have A Lot Of Great Pets That Need Homes.

Thank You To You And All Your Staff And Volunteers And Hopefully Someone Will Find A Home For Yoda Here In The Audience Or Here At Home.

Anybody That Needs A Pet, Let Us Know!

Thank You.

Thank You All Very Much. Enjoy The Rest Of Your Morning. Thank You Very Much. Moving On To The Recap. We Do Have One Item On Our Recap This Morning That I Would Ask For A Motion For. We Need A Motion To Add The Class Act Recommendation To Item Number 11 On Our Agenda. Second By Commissioner Kiker. Any Discussion? Are There Any Objections? No Objections, Motion Carries Unanimous. Thank You Very Much, Gentlemen. Now, I'll Go Ahead And Ask All Of The Commissioners To Pull Items For Discussion Off The Agenda. So If A Commissioner Pulls An Item For Discussion Off The Agenda, We Will Take Public Comment On That Item At That Time. Commissioner Manning, Any Items?

None.


Commissioner Pendergrass.

None.

Commissioner Mann?

I Have Your Memo Message Here Of The Two You're Going To Pull.

Yes, I Wish --

Do That, Then. Then I Don't Have Any Because Yours Will Cover Me.

I Will Pull 1 And 9. Ok. And So You Have Nothing Further On That? Ok. Commissioner Kiker? None. Items Number 1 And Items Number 9 Have Been Pulled For Discussion By Commissioners. The Rest Of The Items Have Been Left On The Agenda And I'd Like To Take Public Comment On All Of Those Items At This Time. I Do Have A Couple Of Comment Cards. But If You Wish To Give Public Comment On Any Of The Items Other Than 1 And 9 That Have Remained On The Agenda, Please Make Sure You Get The Comment Cards To The County Manager And He Can Bring Them Up To Me. At This Time, Let Me Call Matt Uley For Comment On Agenda Item Number 2.

I Did Indicate On The Card That I Only Need To Speak If It Was Pulled. We Ask You To Approve It.

Thanks Very Much. Thanks, Matt. I'd Also Like To Call George Wheaton For Public Comment On Items 11, 16, 17, 18, 23, And 24. You Still Only Get Three Minutes.

Didn't Tell Him That, He'd Be Up Here All Day.

State Your Name.

Commissioners, For The Record, My Name Is George Wheaton And I'm Here Wearing Two Hats. First Hat Is For As The Chair Of Conservation 2020 And Simply Would Ask You To Move The Items 11, 16, 17 And 18. 11, 16, 17 And 18. Ok, We Would Ask You Because We Have Vetted Those And Feel Like They Need To Be Moved Forward. Thank You For That. I Have A Question Now As George Wheaton, A Member Of The Conservation 2020 Committee? Because I Haven't Discussed It With The Committee Members, So I Can't Act As Chairman. My Question Is On Parks And Rec Item 23 And 24, And Reading Through What You Want To Do. I Want To Support Those Items. I Have A Question As To Why It Doesn't Reflect The Fact That We Use Conservation 2020 Funds For Those Items. It Just Says Parks And Rec Funds. Those Are Conservation 2020 Funds. And I Would Like To Know Why We're Not Given Credit For That For The Conservation 2020 Program. I Think That's Important. It Will Show That We Actually Are Functioning As Conservation 2020. So If You Would Get Those Questions Answered For Me, I'd Certainly Appreciate It. Thank You Very Much.


Mr. Chair?

Oversight. Our Apologies.

Ok, Great.

Thank You, Roger.

Satisfy You?

Thank You Very Much. Appreciate Your Public Input. All Right, At This Time, I Have Public Hearing. Very Good. At This Time, I Have No Other Public Comment Cards. Brad, I Did See That You Wanted To Speak On 11, 16, 17, 18 And 24. Is That Correct? Ok, Come On Up For Those Real Quick And Then We'll Take Number 9 At The Time We Discuss Number 9, If That's Ok.

Good Morning, Commissioners. I'm Brad Cornell Here On Behalf Of Audubon Florida And Audubon In The West Neighborhood. I'm Sorry I Jammed All Those On One Card. You Were Running Out Of Cards Out There. I Took The Next To The Last One. So I Didn't Want To Be A Hog. And I Only Take A Couple Minutes. I Do Want To Support Your Moving Forward As Mr. Wheaton Had Just Also Supported On The 2020 Items For Negotiation. And Obviously, The Purchase For Parcel 519 Which You've Already Done. I Want To Make A Couple Of Notes. One Is That On The Negotiations, I Think It's Important To Remember That Price That A Seller Asks Isn't -- Shouldn't Be A Hindrance To Moving Forward To Full Consideration. That Should Be Worked Out. I Have Seen In The Past In Lee County That Sometimes Sellers Don't Always Have A Good Sense Of How Much Their Land Is Worth Relative To The Markets. So, You Know, Really Good Piece, We Should Be Moving Forward Under The Recommendation Of Your Class Act Advisory Board. The Second Thing Is I Want To Point Out A Set Of Two Items. One Is The Prairie Pines Management Plan That Mr. Wheaton Just Spoke About. I Just Learned This Morning That The Bond Ranch Which Is Part Of The Charlotte Harbor Flatwoods Florida Forever Project Is Moving Forward On The Governor And Cabinet Agenda Next Week. And So This Is Good News Because This Is Going To Help Prairie Pines Which Is, Unfortunately, Been The Recipient Of A Lot Of Dirty Water Coming Off Bond Ranch Over The Years In The Past. We Want To See That, That Fixed. We Want To See Restoration And I Just Want To Bring That To Your Attention As Something That You All As Lee County Commissioners Would Want To Support On The State Action That This Florida Forever Project Be Bought. And It Looks Like That Is Going To Happen. So We Should Be Hopefully Celebrating This In A Week From Now. And The Second Thing Is That Parcel 488 Number Two Is 249 Acres Next To Pens, Same Watershed, Same Issue. Really Important To Get. Thanks Very Much.

Thank You Very Much, Mr. Cornell. All Right. At This Time, Is There Anybody Wishing To Speak On Items That Are Still On The Agenda Other Than Number 1 And 9? Seeing None, I'll Close Public Comment. And I'll Ask The Board A Motion To Approve The Balance From


Commissioner Kiker. Second From Commissioner Manning. Any Discussion From The Board? All Right. No Discussion. Are There Any Objections? No Objections. The Motion Carries. Unanimous. All Right. At This Time, We'll Go In Chronological Order With The Two Items That Have Been Pulled. We'll Talk About Item Number 1 First. I Have One Public Comment Card. County Manager, Can You Please Just Introduce The Item And We'll Take Public Comment?

Thank You, Mr. Chair. Mary?

Good Morning, Commissioners. This Item Is Just To Extend The Waiver Of The Change Of Use For Impact Fees For Specific Buildings As Outlined On The Touch Resolution For One To Two Years At Your Pleasure.

Thank You. And The Reason Why I Pulled This Item For Discussion Was Because We Have Options To Either Extend It For One More Year, Two More Years Or Allow It To Sunset. So Commissioners, We Obviously Need To Have A Discussion And Pick An Option Out Of Those. Thank You Very Much, Mary. Randy Mercer, I Will Call You Up For Public Comment.

Good Morning, Mr. Chairman And County Commissioners. Happy New Year To Everybody. For The Record, My Name Is Randy Mercer And I'm Here As A Resident Taxpayer Of Lee County. As Business Owner And Founding Partner Of C.R.E. Consultants And Founding Member Of Team Lee. Wear A Lot Of Hats Here Today. Commissioners, I'm Here To Ask You For Some Help. Some Years Ago, You Made A Wise Decision To Restrain The Change Of Use Impact Fees. We Thank You For That. The Decision Has Helped The Industry Begin On The Path To Recovery. An Example Of My Firm's Year End Research Shows The Following. Lee County Class A Office A And B, Vacancy Is Currently 24.6%. Lee County's Industrial Vacancy Is Close To 15%. Lee County's Retail Vacancy Is Close To 14%. So We Are Not Even Close To A Balanced Market At This Time. And Since Growth Is Slow, We Must Create Leases And Opportunities For Business People To Set Up Shop In Very Creative Ways. And This Is Where The Change Of Use Restriction Can Be A Very Useful Tool. And So You Know Landlords, A Lot Of Them Have Been Operating At Half Rent, Half Vacancy Since 2008. They're Still Barely Making Their Mortgage Payments. In Addition, There Are A Series Of 10-Year Loans That Are Coming Due In The County That Were Taken Out In 2005, 2006. Rents Don't Go Up And These Spaces Don't Get Filled Up, There's Going To Be Another Wave Of Some Commercial Foreclosures So I Would -- I Would Take A Real Hard Look At Helping Us Continue To Try To Back Fill This Empty Space By Keeping The Moratorium On Change Of Use Impact Fees For At Least Another Two Years. We Have A Long Way To Go. We're Trying Very Hard To Fill These Spaces Up But It's Going To Take A Lot Of Time And I'll Talk About Absorption Later On. Again, Thank You For Your Actions Two Years Ago. And Again, I Would Ask That You Continue Change Of Use Waiver To Allow For A True Recovery. Thank You.

Thank You, Mr. Mercer. At This Time, I Have No Other Comment Cards For Item Number 1 On The Agenda. Is There Anyone Else Who Wishes To Give Public Comment On Item 5 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

Number 1? Ok. Seeing None, I'll Close Public Comment And Turn It Over To The Board For Discussion.

Comment, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Manning? Go Ahead, Commissioner Mann.

Just A Clarification, Everybody Knows Where I Stand On The General Subject Of Impact Fees And We're Going To Take That Up This Afternoon At Our Workshop In Depth. This Particular Component Of Impact Fee Discussion Frankly Doesn't Trouble Me As Much As The Broader Picture And We'll Have, As I Said, Many Opportunities To Talk About That. In Fact, I Called Miss Gibbs And Asked Her If She Could Give Me Some Idea Of What The Fiscal Impact Of This Little Piece Of It From Changing Usage And Charging Impact Fee There. She Didn't Have A Specific Number For Me But This Suggests That In The Big Scheme Of Things, It's Really Very Small. So The Fiscal Impact Is Probably In The Tens Of Thousands Instead Of The Millions. And Recognizing As A Commercial Building Owner Of Office Nature, Randy Just Pointed Out That There's 25% Vacancy There. Those Are The Kinds Of Things That We're Talking About Changing The Use There To Something Else That's More Usable In This Market. So Some Of That Makes Sense And It's Not A Huge Negative Impact On It And I'm Ok With This Particular Item. And I Want Everybody To Know I'm Supporting It.

Mr. Manning?

Chairman, Thank You Very Much. In 2010 And Again In 2012, This Board Chose To Renew The Resolution For A Two-Year Period Of Time. I Would So Move That We Do The Same Temporarily For A Two-Year Period Of Time This Time.

Motion By Commissioner Manning And Second By Commissioner Pendergrass. Any Further Discussion By The Board? Ok. Are There Any Objections? No Objections. Motion Carries Unanimous. Ok. Next On The Agenda Is Item Number 9. And I'd Like To Ask Our County Manager To Please Introduce The Item For Us.

Thank You, Mr. Chair. Glenn?

Thank You, Good Morning, Commissioners. County Manager's Office. This Item Asks You To Consider Legislative Options Concerning The Regulation Of Oil And Gas Well Extraction Techniques. This Will Provide Direction To Staff, Contract Lobbyists And Our Legislative Delegation Concerning Bocc Policy On The Matter. The Blue Sheet Outlines Three Of The Many Options That You Could Have Before You. Those Include Just Preserving Your State Legislative Agenda As It Currently Stands. Number Two, Amending It To Include Meaningful Legislation Reform As A Support Issue Or Third, Encourage The State Legislature To Study Oil And Gas Extraction Techniques. The Management Recommendation Is To Pursue The Latter Option And That Is Based Largely On The Fact That We Expect Numerous Legislative Proposals To Be Forthcoming. Representative Ray 6 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

Rodriguez Has Made The Annual Legislative Attempts To Require Disclosure Of Fracturing Hydraulic Chemicals But We Expect Many More Proposals Above And Beyond That This Year Both From Industry And Environmental Groups. So Encouraging The Legislature To Further Study That Issue Is Something We Think Is Important. Thank You.

Thank You Very Much, Glenn. Before We Go Into Board Discussion, I'd Like To Go Ahead And Take Public Comment On The Issue And Then Bring It Back To The Board For Discussion. The First Person I'll Call In Public Comment Is Brad Cornell.

Good Morning Again, Commissioners. Brad Cornell On Behalf Of Audubon. I Want To Support The General Direction To Option Two Amend Your Legislative Priorities To Include Reform Of The Oil And Gas Regulations That Are Going To Be Considered By The Legislature This Year. I Think It's Clear From The Experience That We've All Had In Southwest Florida Particularly In The Past Year That Regulations Aren't Really Up To Snuff For Evaluating And Considering All The Factors Including Public Risk And Risks To The Environment. So We Need To Be Looking At Bills Like Ray Rodriguez's Disclosure Bill And As He Just Pointed Out As Well As Reform To The Regulations Themselves. I Think That We Have Seen In The Discussions Leading Up To This Point And In Drafting Your Agenda That There Are Opportunities And Some Understanding Of Which Directions We Ought To Go Like Including, You Know, Setbacks From Drilling And Fraction Operations As Well As Looking At Financial Responsibilities And Capping Of Old Wells And Other Issues Like That And I Will Point Out One Other Issue That Concerns Us. And That Is That When There Is -- When There Are Mineral Rights Underneath Conservation Lands Like 2020 Properties That We're Buying, We Need To Be Looking At Those Policies As Well Internally. So There Are Some State Policies But There Are Also Some Things That You All Need To Do And Consider In Your Own Shop Including The Setback And What Are We Going To Do About Properties That Have Mineral Rights That Cannot Be Acquired, Should We Not Buy Those Or Should We? My Personal Recommendations That We Should Be Moving Forward With Those. But I Don't Think That's To What Your Policies Are Currently. So That's Something That We Need To Take A Look At As Well. So Please Move Forward. I Would Recommend On Amending Your Legislative Priorities To Include This. Thank You.

Thank You, Brad. Next Is Jennifer Hecker And After Jennifer Hecker Will Be Ralph Brooks.

Good Morning, Commissioners. Jennifer Hecker On Behalf Of The Conservancy Of Southwest Florida And Our More Than 6,000 Supporters. Lee County Is A Center Of Southwest Florida's Oil Reserves Along With Collier County And Now That Extraction And Refining Technologies Are Advanced, They Are Making Drilling For This Oil More Productive And Profitable Than Ever Before. And This Is Evidenced By The Renewed Interest In Drilling In Our Region And An Up Surge Of Permit Requests For Seismic Exploratory And Drilling Permits In Lee And Collier Counties Including The Trend Well. While That Has Been Temporarily Withdrawn, We Know It's Likely To Return Along With Many Of The Other Projects. However, These New Extraction Techniques Are Very Different Than The


Conventional Extraction That We've Had In This Area For Decades In That They Use Vastly More Amount Of Freshwater From Our Prime Public Water Supply Sources, Numerous Toxic Chemicals Including Known Human Carcinogens And Create Wastewater That Needs To Be Disposed Of. Those Property Right Owners Can Certainly Continue To Access Their Mineral Rights Through Conventional Extraction. But Before They Pursue Using These Extreme Extraction Techniques That Have Never Been Used Before In Florida, Before The Unauthorized Fracking Like Extraction At The Hogan Well A Year Ago, Florida's Existing Laws And Regulations Around Extraction Need To Be Updated. This Will Require Legislation And With Our Legislative Delegation Meeting Being Next Week, This Is A Time The County's Best Opportunity To Voice The Concerns And Recommendses On Behalf Of The Citizens That The State Legislature Should Address This Important Issue This Session. We Know That D.E.P. Will Be Introducing Legislation On This Issue. Primarily Focused At The Fines And The Bonds, The Accountability Piece. We Also Know That Our Local Legislator Will Be Introducing Legislation That Deals With The Public Information. These Are Two Of The Four Critical Components. However, The Other Two Components, Regulatory Oversight Which Is, In My Opinion, Probably The Most Critical Deficiency Right Now In Our Existing Laws And Regulations, And The Protection Of Public Safety, Coordination With Local Governments Are Missing. We Need Lee County's Support Right Now To Vocalize That All Four Of Those Critical Components Should Be Addressed In Legislation This Coming Session. Increasing Transparency, Increasing The Accountability From The Drillers And Higher Fines And Bonds. Increasing Regulatory Oversight Of This Industry Going Forward. Especially These Extreme Extraction Techniques And Increasing Protection Of Public Safety. Therefore, We're Asking Your Support For Option Two. That You Amend Your Legislative Priorities To Include A Simple Support Clause And We've Included That In A Handout That We've Provided Each Of You Ahead Of This Meeting. It Reads "Support Updated Comprehensive Oil And Gas Laws And Regulations That Increase Transparency And Public Disclosure, Provide Greater Driller Accountability And Financial Compensation, Enable More Effective State Regulatory Oversight, And Facilitate More Public Health And Safety Protection." We've Spoken To Representative Rodriguez As Well As Other Members Of Lee County's Legislative Delegation And They Welcome The Multiple Bills That Are Going To Be Introduced And Support For Those Bills. We're Asking That You Support That Option Two. Thank You.

Ralph Brook, Good Morning. I'm An Attorney Practicing In Cape Coral But Involved In The Collier County Oil Well Wars And We Have Been Through Administrative Hearings On Oil Wells In Collier County And We're Working In A Cooperative Agreement With D.E.P. In An Enforcement Case Against Dana Hughes Company That Performed An Extreme Extraction Technique Similar To Hydraulic Fracking. D.E.P. Shut Them Down And They Have Now Closed That Well And Withdrawn The Applications. One Of The Difficult Things I Can Tell You As An Attorney Working On That Case Is There's Only One Slight Reference That Could Be Hydraulic Fracking In The Statute. Florida Statutes 377.22p Says Secondary Recovery Methods. That's All It Says. Doesn't Say Hydraulic Fracking. When You Get Into


The Regulations, There's Only One Regulation That Uses The Words Hydraulic Fracking And It Said That You Have To Give Notice To D.E.P. After You Do It. So The Regulations And The Statutes Have Not Been Updated Really Since The 1990s. They Were Put In Place In The 1970s. It's Time To Address Hydraulic Fracking One Way Or Another. This Is An Issue That's Coming To Southwest Florida. It Affects Us. This Is A Local Legislative Issue. Collier, Lee And Henry Where The Oil Plays Are So This Is About You. It Should Be One Of Our Legislative Priorities And We're Asking That You Put It On Our List. Thank You So Much.

Thank You Very Much. Next, I'd Like To Call John And After John Will Be Dave.

Good Afternoon. My Name Is John And I'm Originally From Pennsylvania. I Moved Here Two Years Ago To Get Away From Fracking. The People From Pennsylvania Were Blindsided By What Happened With Fracking. The Recent Report From The Pennsylvania Auditor General Found That -- That The State Was Unprepared To Oversee And To Enforce Regulators On Fracking In The Year 2009 Through 2012. The People Were Not Aware Of What Was Going On. This Is The Exact Same Thing That's Happening In Florida. I Am Asking The Elected Officials To Really Think About This Because Once The Fracking Comes, It's Like Cancer. It Spreads. They'll Come All Over The Place. It's Like A Christmas Tree At Night. When You Turn The Lights On, You See A Christmas Tree Where The Oil Comes Down -- Where They Do The Fracking Into The Ground. You Can Burn -- It Burns Your Eyes. And How Do I Know That? I Know Because I Was There In Bradford County. Bradford County Is Up Above Scranton, Pennsylvania And I Talked To A Lot Of People Over The Times Since I Moved Here And It's Not Getting Any Better. Just Recently, They Ran Out Of Water Outside Of Monroe County Where They Had To Bring In Truckloads Of Water. Truckloads Of Water Because The People Didn't Have Any Water! In One Incident, Let Me Read This To You Real Quick. In One Incident, They Need To Talk. They Are Like Victims Of Rape. The Rapist Says Be Quiet. I Will Kill You. In Some Of The Stories, We Have Documented The Drilling Companies Have Told The People No More Water. The People Pleaded. Please, Give Me Some Water! The Oil Companies, We Have No More Water. Why Did They Ask For Water? Because The Water Was Contaminated. It Was To The Point Where They Didn't Care About The -- The Oil Companies Do Not Care About The People. I Can Prove That. I Have The Proof Right Here. I Have Documentation. Lots Of Documentation. I Don't Want To Get Political Because I'm Not A Political Person. But I Can Get Very Political On This Issue. I'm Asking The Elected Officials From Lee County, County Commissioners If You Care About The People, Think Twice Before You Make -- Decide On The Vote. Do You Care About The People Or Do You Care About The Money? They'll Come In, They'll Buy You A New Library And Fix The Bridges. But You, We Only Have So Much Water Here. I'm Telling The God's Honest Truth. I'll Take A Polygraph Tomorrow On What Happened. I Know -- I See What Happens. I'd Like To Say Thank You. And I'm Tired Of People Taking -- I'm Tired Of People Taken Advantage Of. I Don't Think It's Right That The Oil Companies Come In And Take Advantage Of The People. So Sorry About This. Sear To Get Emotional But It's The Truth. 9 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

John, Don't Break Our Stuff, Ok? They Won't Buy Us Microphones.

Good Morning, Dave.

Good Morning. For The Record, I'm Dave Urich Although I'm Speaking For Myself, I Have Put My Opinion Out To The Responsible Growth Management Coalition And I Feel They're In Full Agreement With Me. I Enjoyed The Last Speaker, I Can't Speak As Eloquently. But Folks, We Need To Ban Fracking. We Have An Opportunity. I Gave You Yesterday A Guest Opinion That Hopefully Will Be Published In The News Press And I'm Not Going To Read That To You. But We Now Have A Bill That Has Been Introduced By Senators Soto And Bullard To Ban Fracking. Bullard Happens To Be From Miami. Why Would He Be Interested In Fracking? Miami Is One Of The Top Cities That Is In High Level Of Vulnerability For Water Problems. The San Antonio Has Got A Rating Of 225. Miami Is 224. And Los Angeles Is Only 220 In Areas Of Water Security. Why Do I Bring This Up? Because Fracking Just Absorbs Water And Ruins It. And Then We Deep Well Inject It With Very Questionable Results. I Think It's Important That We're All In The Same Boat. Florida Has The Most Unique System That I Know Of, Of The Aquifers, We Do Not Know What The Injection Of The Chemicals Will Do To It. It Might Dissolve It. It's Time That Somebody Does Research On Those Issues Before We Even Begin To Proceed With Fracking. In My Opinion, Fracking Itself Is Imploding. The Current So-Called Father Of Fracking Has Lost $10 Billion In The Last Three Months. He Made His Money On Fracking. That's Half Of His Income, His Net Assets. I Just Plead With You. Let's Go To No Fracking, Not Just Controlling It. Thank You.

Thank You. That Is The End Of The Comment Cards That I Have For Item Number 9 On The Agenda. Does Anyone Else Wish To Speak On Item Number 9 On The Agenda? All Right. Please Join Us. Patty, Is That The Comment Card That You Turned In? Ok. Very Good.

Good Morning, Commissioners. Patty Whitehead For The Record With Both The Responsible Growth Coalition. Issue With Fracking In Florida Isn't That There's Vast Quantities Of Oil Trapped In This Lime Rock. There Actually Isn't. And, You Know, That There Were Certain Bills Pushed At The State Level And There's Certain Incentives At The Federal Level For These Companies To Come In And To Use Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques To Attempt To Get At Those So-Called Reserves Of Oil. And So, You Know, What They're Really Drilling For Is Not Petroleum Product. They're Drilling For Money. And Is It Really Worth Risking Our Aquifer For That? It Really Isn't. The Only Component Of Enhanced Oil Recovery, Of Fracking Whether It Be Fracking Or Hydraulic Fracking Is You Need To Dispose To All The Millions Of Gallon Of Water That Are Pumped Out And That Water Cannot Be Reused Unlike Agriculture Water. They Keep On Drawing The Analogy It's Like Agriculture. I Think Mr. David Micah With The Petroleum Institute Keeps Pushing That Analogy. It's A False Analogy. That Water Is Destroyed. Gone. Once It's Used, You Cannot Recycle That Water. It Needs To Be Pumped Far Down Into The Ground With


Unknown Consequences Because, You Know, They Pump It Into The Zone But We Don't Know How The Boulder Zone Acts. They Don't Know The True Composition Of The Boulder Zone. There's So Many Issues That Need To Be Analyzed And Studied And Probably Best That We Go For Either A Moratorium Or Ban In The Interim And Not Even Look At, I Don't Know, Tweaking The Regulations. Tweaking Regulations Are Still Going To Give Them The Green Light To Drill And We Don't Want That. We Don't Need That. Thank You. Those Are My Comments On Item Number 9.

Thank You Very Much, Patty. At This Time, I Have No Further Cards For Item Number 9. Anybody Wishing To Speak On Item Number 9? I'll Close Public Comment. Commissioner Pendergrass?

Ok. Thank You For Everybody Coming To Speak On This Subject Which Is Very Important To Me And This Board, I Believe. There's Nothing More Important To Me Than Preserving Our Quality Of Life In Lee County And Our Water Mostly. The Item Before Us Is Not Asking Us To Support Fracking And Not Support Fracking. Item Before Us Is To Use Our Tax Dollars For Lobbying For A Separate Group Other Than Lee County. Not For Profit. And Like I Said Last Time, Last Meeting, I Would Support It Personally With The Work Of The Conservancy And With Working With The Delegation. To Control Regulations And Review All Refining Here In Lee County And State Of Florida. My Concern Is Using Our Tax Dollars For A Group That Approaches Us, Had Conversation With Collier County And They Did Not Approach Us. Spoke With Our County Manager. They Were Not Approached By Collier County Management About This. It's A Regional Area, Regional Problem. I Do Want To Continue To Explore This. We Have Another Option On The Table, Though, Talked To The County Manager About. We Can Do A Resolution From The Board To Ask To -- The State To Review All Technology And Regulations So We Can Do A Resolution Or Take One Of The Options Here Before Us. That's What I'm Going To Bring Up In This Conversation Today.

Thank You. Commissioner Manning?

Thank You, Mr. Chairman. I Take An Opposite Viewpoint But Not That Far Apart From My Colleague Who Also Likes Cats, By The Way. Nobody Got That One. Ok. Mr. Brooks Spoke Pretty Eloquently About The History Of The Oil Extraction Legislation In Florida. And Actually, Some Of It, Ralph, Goes Back To The 1940s. So It Needs To Be Updated Significantly. I Would Encourage This Board To Ask Our Legislative Delegation To Amend The Legislative Agenda Before Them From Us And To Look At Meaningful Oil Legislation That Can Take Us Into The Future. If Anybody Knows Anything About The Legislative Process, Especially In The State Of Florida, No Offense, Commissioner Mann, It's Not Going To Be Done Overnight. And I Think Everybody Up Here Knows That. And There Probably Will Be Multiple Bills That Will Emanate From This Particular Issue. And That's Kind Of The Way It Works. If You Look At Past History, The Legislature Files 3500 Bills And Now It's Down To 2800. So We're Getting There And They Pass About 10% Of Them


Per Year. This Is Extremely Important To The State Of Florida And To Southwest Florida Because Of The Simple Fact That The Use Of Potable Water And In Collier County's Case, It Was Multiple Millions Of Gallons Of Potable Water That's Lost And Can't Be Recovered. I Make The Motion That We Pick Number Two As The Amended Option To Amend The Legislative Agenda To Include Meaningful Oil Legislation Reform As A Support Issue. That's My Motion.

Motion By Commissioner Manning And A Second By Commissioner Mann For Option Two. Commissioner Kiker, Did You Want To Add A Comment?

I Did. Thank You, Mr. Chairman. You Know, Last Year, I Had A Chance To Represent The Board With Our Legislative Agenda. And You're Going To Be Doing That This Year. And What I Found Is It Almost Becomes A Living Document As The Year Goes By And With Subjects Like This And It's Already Been Mentioned That We've Got Legislation Been Introduced From Folks In De Soto And We Have Mr. Rodriguez Here From Bonita And There's Going To Be Some Others. So We've Got To Establish Some Wiggle Room, If You Will, That We Can Talk About The New Legislation As It's Being Introduced. I Personally Actually Worked On Oil Rig For A Year. I Came From New Mexico And Texas. I Know How Fast Things Can Happen. And Things Can Get Out Of Hand Pretty Quick. And I Think That's What They're Talking About. So, You Know, When You Start Looking At Things Like Capping Or, I Think, What Was -- A Lot Of People Were Talking About Is A Two Mile Buffer And Things Like That, There's No Sij Piece Of Legislation That's Going To Take All Of That Into Account. There's Going To Be Separate Items That We're Going To Have To Discuss. So Just Having Said That, I Think That Option Two Provides For That. And I'll Be Supporting The Motion. And I Appreciate It. Thank You.

Commissioner Pendergrass?

No Comment. I Want To Make Sure We Understand What The Question Was On The Table. It's Not -- People In The Audience Looks Like We're Talking About Do We Support Fracking? It's Not That. Support Using Our Legislative Dollars To Make Sure We Understand That.

And I Agree. If I May, Mr. Chairman. That Includes Not Only Tallahassee But This Is Going To Extend To Washington As Well. And I Know That Some Of Us Make Trips Up There. And This Gives Us An Opportunity To Introduce Our Opinion And What We Do Or Do Not Support For Our Area Locally. And I Think That They Need To Be Told As Well.

Any Further Discussion? Commissioner Mann?

I Just See It Differently Than Commissioner Pendergrass Does. I Know We're Talking -- I Know All This Originated Recently Here In Collier Where The New Drilling Techniques Are Being Explored And They're Trying To Push It Further. Oil Has, In Fact, Been Extracted From Lee County For Quite A Number Of Years. And The Geology Of Lee And Collier


Counties Tied Together And The Whole Subject Of Fracking Needs To Be Better Understood In Terms Of Florida Geology. Even Our State Department Of Environmental Protection Has Admitted That They Know Very Little About This New Science And They're Kind Of Asking For Authority To Move Forward And Learn More Than They Know Today. And All We're Saying Is We Think This Is An Important Subject To Pursue And Learn More About. And That's All I Think This Motion Does. And I'm More Than Comfortable With It And I Appreciate It, Commissioner.

Thank You. Any Further Discussion? Ok. No Discussion. No More Discussion. Are There Any Objections? No Objections. Motion Carries Unanimous. All Right. That Is The End Of The Items That We Have Pulled For Discussion. We Will Move On Now To The Public Hearings Portion Of Our Agenda. And We Will Start With I Think Public Hearing Number One. Which Is To Vacate Public's Interest In Utility Easement At 14563 Riverside Drive. I'll Turn It Over To Our County Attorney To Introduce The Item.

Good Morning, Commissioners. County Attorney's Office. We Have Three Petitions To Vacate This Morning That Are Up For Public Hearing. I Have Examined The Publication For Each And Find That They Are Legally Sufficient. I Entered Them Into The Record And We Can Move Forward. We Have To Take Each One Of These Separately And Get A Vote On Each. So As You Stated, Mr. Chairman, Public Hearing Number One Is The Petition To Vacate The Public's Interest In The Utility Easement Located At 14563 Riverside Drive. And This Is A 10 Foot Wide Utility Easement.

Thank You Very Much.

If There's Any Other Questions, I'd Be Happy To Answer Them.

Any Questions From The Board? All Right. I See None. Is There Anybody Who Wishes To Speak On Public Hearing Number One? Ok. I Have No Comment Cards So At This Time, I'll Close The Public Comment.

Ok.

Motion By Commissioner Manning. Second By Commissioner Kiker. Any Further Discussion? No Discussion. Are There Any Objections? No Objections. Motion Carries Unanimously. Moving On To Number Two. Please Introduce That.

Public Hearing Number Two Is A Petition To Vacate The Public Interest In A 10 Foot Wide Drainage Easement Located At 3975 Plumosa Drive In St. James City. If There's Any Further Questions, Happy To Answer Them.

Any Questions? Ok. I Have No Public Comment Kashdz. Is There Anyone In The Audience Who Wishes To Speak On Public Hearing Number Two? Ok. Seeing None, I'll Close Public Comment. Any Discussions?


Move It.

Have A Motion By Commissioner Manning And Second By Commissioner Kiker. Any Further Discussion? No Discussion, Are There Any Objections? No Objections. Motion Carries Unanimous. Please Introduce Number Three.

The Final Petition To Vacate This Morning Is The Public's Interest In An Unimproved Road Right-Of-Way At Galdiolus And Summerlin. If There's Any Additional Questions, We'll Be Happy To Answer Them. This Is An Unimproved, Unused Road Right-Of-Way.

Any Questions? Ok, Seeing None, Thank You. At This Time, I'd Like To Call Laura Bowman Up To The Podium For A Public Comment.

Good Morning, Mr. Chairman. I'm The Petitioner And Landowner. I'm Here If There Are Any Questions And Thank You For Your Consideration.

Thank You Very Much For Coming This Morning. Is There Anyone Else Who Wishes To Speak On Public Hearing Number Three? Ok. Seeing None, I Will Close The Public Comment.

Second.

Motion By Commissioner Manning And Second By Commissioner Pendergrass. Any Further Discussion? Are There Any Objections? Motion Carries Unanimous. Moving On To Number Four. I'd Like To Ask The County Attorney's Office To Go Ahead And Introduce This One.

Good Morning, Mr. Chairman. Commissioners, Jack Peterson, Assistant County Attorney In Regards To Public Hearing Number Four, I Have The Affidavit Of Publication For Today's Public Hearing In Regards To Military Monuments. I Find It To Be Legally Sufficient For Its Intended Purpose. I'll Put It Into The Record. And You May Proceed At Your Discretion, Sir.

Thank You Very Much. I Have No Public Comment Cards For Public Hearing Number Four. Does Anyone In The Audience Wish To Address The Commissioners?

There Was Four Gentlemen In Uniform And I Believe They Left And Went Outside. They're Not Here Now.

Ok.

We Should Check On That.

Yeah, I Don't See Anyone Even Through The Glass Out In The Hallway.

They Weren't Going To Put A Card In.


They Were Just Here In Support. Great. At This Time, Then, I'll Go Ahead And Close Public Comment. And Ask For Any Discussion.

Move The Item.

Second.

Ok, We Have A Motion By Commissioner Manning, Second By Commissioner Pendergrass, Any Further Discussion On This?

Mr. Chairman.

Yes, Commissioner Manning?

I'm Just Thinking Outloud With The Rest Of You. Is There Some Way, Some Language We Can Put In As A Tag Particularly Considering Today That We Pass This While Honoring John Ebling? In His -- In Memory And Honor Of John Ebling. We Would Pass This Particular Blue Sheet Item.

Could We Put The Name Of The Deceased As Part Of The Ordinance On Description?

Mr. Peters' Head Is Going Up And Down.

Mr. Chairman, Yes, We Would Recommend If You Would So Like, You Could Amend The Title Of The Ordinance, The Advertisement For Amendments Made At This Public Hearing. And We Would Suggest Something Along The Lines Of An Ordinance Of The Board Of County Commissioners Of Lee County, Florida Provided For Protection Of Military Monuments In Lee County To Be Known As -- Then Insert Mr. Ebling.

I'll Move The Motion, Mr. Chairman.

I'll Second.

We Have An Amended Motion By Commissioner Manning And Second By Commissioner Pendergrass. Any Further Discussion? Thank You Very Much For That Suggestion, Commissioner Mann. That Was Very Fitting And At This Time, If There's No Further Discussion -- Commissioner Kiker?

Did You Bring This Up?

Yes. From The Groups That I Was Approached By, We Had It Last Year In Lee County, There Was A Monument That Went Missing And We Couldn't Find Out Where It Went To. There Was Nothing On The Books That Protected The Monuments. This Is Where It All Came From.

Thank You Very Much For Championing This. This Is Important. Appreciate It.


Very Good. If There's No Further Discussion At This Time, I'll Ask Are There Any Objections? Seeing None, The Motion Carries Unanimously.

Thank You, Guys.

Thank You, Gentlemen.

Ok. At This Time, We Have One Item On Our Appeals Agenda Today. This Is A Bid Protest Hearing Regarding Construction Management Services For Improvements To Estero Boulevard And I'd Like To Ask Miss Leonard From The County Attorney's Office To Please Introduce The Item For Us.

Good Morning, Commissioners. Assistant County Attorney. Today's Appeals Agenda Is A Bid Protest That Has Been Filed By Wright Construction With Respect To The Procurement Process For The Estero Boulevard Project. This Is A Public Hearing. However, The Right To Comment Is Limited To The Parties That Are Directly Affected By The Bid Protest. That Includes Wright Construction, Chris-Tel Construction And The County. Our Office Previously Provided You With A Memo With Regard To How The Order Of Proceedings Will Go Today. To Refresh Your Memory, Each Of The Parties, Wright Construction And Chris-Tel Will Be Given 20 Minutes To Make A Presentation. Followed By 10 Minutes For Rebuttal. And Then After That, The Board May Deliver And Make A Determination As To Whether To Grant, Deny Or Ask Staff To Take Other Action Such As Reject And Rebid The Project. These Proceedings Are In The Nature Of An Appellate Proceeding. Therefore, The Board Of County Commissioners Has The Right To Stop Somebody When They're Making Their Presentation And Ask Questions At This Time. That Includes Questions Of The County Attorney's Office As Well As Either Party And At This Point, Unless You Have Additional Questions, I'll Turn It Over To Wright Construction's Attorney.

Any Further Questions?

Mr. Chairman And Commissioners, This Is Going To Be Lengthy Procedure Here. And I Hate To Make It Even Longer. Sit Down, I Got Some Questions About The Whole Procedure. This Is The First Time I've Been, As I Recall, A Party To A Protest To Be Heard By Us. If There's Been Others, There Have Been A Few And I've Forgotten Them So I Need To Refresh Myself As To What My Role Is Here Today. Legally. And Are You Here? You Chaired -- No, Where Are You? He's Here Somewhere, Too. Yeah. You Introduced Pete At The Bid Protest Hearing. What Was Your -- And You Handled That Meeting. Or Chaired It. Here's My Question. And We've All Been Given The Transcripts And We Have The Recordings Of What Went On And What Not. Here's And It Will Bounce Maybe Between You And My Attorneys Over Here. Your Opening Comment At That Hearing And The Bid Protest, What Do You Refer To That Meeting As? What Do You Call It? The Meeting You Chaired?

It's An Internal Appeal Committee For The Protest.


Making Certain I Got It Pretty Close. Your Instruck -- Instructions To The Group Was Going To Be Making The Recommendations Here, Too. This Is Not A Judicial Process. It Is An Internal, Informal Dispute Process. To Look At Equity And Fairness. Not To Re-Evaluate The Proposal. You Further Went On To Say This Is To Review The Basis Of The Protest And Evaluate The Facts And Merits Of The Protest. And This Is What I'm Confused. Are We Just Talking About A Process Here Or Does Somebody Have To Prove That Something Was Technically Illegal Or In Some Way Deficient. What Is The Basis Of The Decision I'm About To Make Here In This -- If I Was To Support The Staff Recommendation To Uphold The Process As It's Reached Here Because The Recommendation By Staff Is To Reject The Objection By Wright Construction. And For Us To Go Ahead And Support Awarding This Contract To Chris-Tel. Right? And I Can Make That Decision Based On What? It Sounds Like Technically, I Have To Find Some Flaw In The Process, Not In The Vote Or What Was Said By Somebody. And Further, Let Me -- This Goes Into Your Court, Mr. County Attorney, You Stated In One Of Your Written Responses Here Local Government Exceeds The Bounds Of Discretion Only Where It Has Acted With Dishonesty. And I'm Reading From Minutes Of A Quote Given From You. Where It's Acted With Dishonesty, Illegality, Fraud, Oppression Or Misconduct. And Only Based On One Of Those Could We Not Honor The Staff Recommendation. We Would Have To Conclude That There Was Dishonesty, Illegality, Fraud, Oppression Or Misconduct. I'm Trying To Define My Role. What Am I To Listen To From These Folks?

Thank You, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner, Your Role This Morning Is To Listen To The Evidence And Testimony That's Going To Be Introduced Before You As Well As Your Review Of Any Previous Documents Regarding This Matter. Search That Record And Make A Determination In Your Mind If Any Of Those Criteria That You Just Read Are Present In This Case. And If They Are Present, Then You Should Uphold The Protest. If You Find That They Are Not Present, Then You Should Uphold The Staff Recommendation To Deny The Protest.

Wright Construction Attorneys Particular And Officers, I Want To Quote From A Document I Saw From You Guys In The Official Notice Of Intent To File The Protest. It Was Roman Numeral Three Where I Wrote This Down. It Is Well Settled Law That The Criteria For Any Government Solicitation Is Clear And Unambiguous. Bidding Law Is Grounded On The General Principle That Specifications And Criteria For Selection Do Not Contain A Reservation Of Rights Whereby The Agency, The County Can Choose The Winning Bidder Based On Undefined Or Not Specifically Defined Criteria. The Onus Of The Clarification Is On The Government Agency. That Seems To Go Beyond Your Quotes That I Read Previously Where The Only Way We Can Rule Is Based On Starting Misconduct. So I Don't Know Whether You Need To Repeat What You Just Told Me But I'm Mostly Kind Of Asking In Advance When Wright Makes Your Presentation. I'm Torn Between Feeling Not Much Authority Here If I Don't Find Something Illegal Or All Those Other Things. If I Don't Find That, I Can't Do Anything. I Can't Lean To The Right Position. I Want Wright To Explain To Me More Clearly What You Think I Have. You Represent Us. You Represent The Staff That 17 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

Has Made This Representation To Us Or Recommendation To Us. When You Get Two Lawyers In The Room, You'll Probably Have Four Opinions. I'm Kind Of Setting The Stage For What I Need To Know. We Don't Do This Every Day And I'm Sorry Again For Taking The Time. I'm Uncomfortable In This Role And To The Extent I'm Forced To Play It, I Want To Play It Well.

At This Time, I'll Have The Folks From Wright Construction Join Us At The Podium For Your 20 Minutes To Present Your Case.

Now, If They Answered My Question, Does That Detract From Their Time Or Should I Have Wait And Made Their Point --

You Can Stop Them At Any Point In Their Presentation And Ask Questions. You're Allowed Do That.

But That Cuts Into Their 10 Minutes.

They'll Have 20 Minutes To Present Their Case And Another 10 To Rebutt.

We'll Cross That Bridge When We Get To It.

Everybody Ready To Get Started?

Will There Be Preference That We Address That Question Before I Start The Formal Presentation?

> Frankly, Mr. Chairman, I Wish We Could Allow That To Understand What I'm Doing Here.

The Timeline Was Suggested In Order To Assure Fairness To Both Parties. At Your Direction And Direction Of The Board, Our Caution Would Be That Whatever You Do For One Side, You Do For The Other.

Mr. Chairman, We Heard From Him For, Call It Three Minutes And That's All I'm Asking For. Just The -- Their Position On -- In Response To My Question, What Do You View Our Role Here?

So I'm Fine With That. If We Give 23 Minutes To One Side, Though, We Should Probably Give 23 Minutes To The Other Side. Do You Want To Change The Rules?

I Don't Know That That's Necessary. I Don't Want To --

I Feel Confident With This Group That They'll Be Able To Answer The Question Within Their 20 Minutes And Then Cover Whatever Information, Too, In Their Rebuttal That They May Leave Out. Let's Go Ahead.


I Have In The -- Confidence In The Chair's Fairness. If They Can Begin With Answering That, We'll See Where We Get.

Excellent. We'll Give 20 Minutes To Each Side To Present Their Cases And We'll Do 10 Minute Rebuttals For Each Side As Prescribed And I'll Turn It Over To You, Gentlemen, To Present Your Case.

Good Morning. I'm Counsel For Wright Construction. I'm Going To Speak Briefly And Turn It Over To Wright. To Answer The Question That Commissioner Mann Raised, The Standard For Any Bid Protest Is Whether The Actions For The County Were Arbitrary And Capricious. That Is Defined By Case Law As Capricious Action One That Is Taken Without Thought Or Reason Or Irrationally. Not Supported By Facts Or Logic. I Believe What Commissioner Mann Is Referring To Is One Of The Arguments That Deals With Bias Or Favoritism. In That Case, There May Need To Be Some Showing Of Something That Would Indicate That The County Was Acting Improperly With Regard To Favoring Chris-Tel Over Wright Construction. But Generally Speaking, With Regard To Our Technical Arguments With Regard To The Standard For Any Bid Protest, It's Whether Or Not The County Acted In An Arbitrary And Capricious Manner. Thank You.

With That, Good Morning, Commissioners. We Are Grateful For The Opportunity You're Giving Us To Present For Us Today For The Protest For The Estero Boulevard Construction Manager Selection Process. With Me Today From Wright Construction Is Andy Powell, My Vice President. My C.F.O., Our Legal Counsel Has Already Introduced Himself To You And My Name Is Fred Edmond, The President Of Wright Construction Company. The Purpose Of Today's Hearing Is To Challenge The Integrity Of The Selection Process Utilized On This Project And The Arbitrary And Capricious Manner In Which The Selection Was Made. None Of This Is Personal. I'm Not Attacking Individuals Here. I Am Discussing Process Only. Before We Get Into That, The Discussion That We're Going To Have Today Predominantly Covers The Material That You've Already Been Presented With, The County Has Already Been Presented With In The Letter Provided By Our Attorney. So What You're Going To See Today Is A Brief Summary Because 20 Minutes Goes Really Fast So We Don't Get To Spend A Lot Of Time Digging Into The Meat Of All Our Protest Issues. But Just As A Background, The R.F.Q. Process, Every Construction Management Project Begins With Lee County With The Issuance Of An R.F.Q. This Is A Formal Legal Document Prepared By Your Staff. This R.F.Q. Sets Forth Specific Criteria Required Of The Firms For Each Project. This Criteria Is Unique To The Type Of Construction That Is Being Proposed. So For This Particular Project, The Criteria That Is Established In This Project Is Specific To Roads. If We Are Presenting On A Wastewater Treatment Plant, The Criteria That Would Be Contained Within This R.F.Q. Would Be Specific To Wastewater Treatment Plants. Same With Baseball Stadiums And Same With Renovations. It's This Specific Criteria That Creates The Basis For The Most Qualified Firm To Manage The Project. The Criteria Is Developed By Your Staff, By Lee County Staff For This Project. This Criteria Is Foundational To The Entire Selection Process For Every R.F.Q. Issued By Lee County From


The Beginning Of The Issuance Of Lee County Or From The Issuance Of The R.F.Q. All The Way To The End Through The Final Selection Of The Construction Management Firm. There Are Seven Criteria Contained Within The Typical Lee County R.F.Q. Some Of You May Already Be Familiar With Some Of These But They Can Be Split Into Two Categories. There Is The Project Understanding And Approach And Experience These Two Items Are Very Project Specific. And Require A Lot Of Specific Information In Regards To That Particular Type Of Construction For That Project. The Other Five Items Are More Generic In Nature. But It Is Based Upon The Objective Criteria For Each Of The Response Requirements That County Will Qualify For Further Consideration. Each Firm Is Then Scored Based Upon The Response To The Criteria Within The R.F.Q. These Scores Are Established To Determine The Most Qualified Firms Meeting The Requirements To Proceed To Presentations. Let Me Give You An Example. A Recent Project We Were Awarded By The Florida Southwestern State College Was The Renovation Of The Science Lab Facility On Their Lee County Campus. In The Short Listing Process, We Were Actually Ranked Sixth Out Of 16. We Were Short Listed And Brought Forward For The Presentation Regardless Even Though That We Were Only Ranked In Sixth Place. That Is Because The Scoring Was So Tight. The Number One Was Scored 93. We Were Scored 90. The Scores Were So Tight That It Justified Bringing Additional Firms Forward For Oral Presentations. So That's Why The Scoring Based Upon The Objective Criteria Is So Important To Determine Who Is Qualified To Be Brought Forward To The Oral Presentations. The County Did Not Utilize The Scoring As Required In The R.F.Q. Until After It Made The Short List In Spite Of The Recommendation Of The Director Of Procurement Management. The County Acted Both Arbitrarily And Capriciously When It Chose The Least Qualified Firm Over A More Qualified Firm From The Initial Short List. Three Steps To The R.F.Q. Process. One Being The Evaluation And Scoring Of Written Responses. We've Already Talked About That. Step Two, The Written -- The Request For Written Proposals. This Is A Little Bit Different Than A Normal R.F.Q. Process And We'll Talk About This More In A Minute. But This Is The Submission Of, Basically, The Entire Presentation One Week Prior To The Scheduled Presentations. Step Three, Finally The Oral Presentations. This Is The Short Listed Firms Making Presentations, Again, Based Upon Specific Criteria Established By Lee County Staff. And Then, Based Upon The Interviews Or Presentations, The Committee Will Provide A Recommendation To The Board Of County Commissioners Regarding The Most Qualified Proposeers, Let's Dig Into The R.F.Q. In A Little Bit More Detail. To Qualify For Consideration For Selection As A Qualified Proposer, A Proposer Must Meet Certain Designated Minimum Experience And Qualifications. In Other Words, There Is A Purpose Behind This And Not Just Anybody Should Be Able To Be Shortlisted. They Have To Meet Certain Minimum Criteria. What Is That Criteria? First Item, The Construction Manager At Risk Firm Selected For This Project Should Have A Minimum Of 10 Years Experience In The Construction Management Of Similar Projects. In This Particular Case, We're Talking About Road Projects. And Why Do I Say That? It's Because Of The Next Statement. Gives Further Definition. Preferential Consideration Will Be Given For Roadway Project Experience Located Within Florida. Why Do They Say It Like That? This Project Is Of


Magnitude That Nationally Based Firms Could Be Attracted To This So They're Giving A Heavier Weight To Florida Based Road Projects. Second Item, Staff Assigned For This Project Should Have A Minimum Of Five Years' Experience In Similar Project Roles. Preferential Consideration, Again, Will Be Given For Roadway Experience Located Within Florida. So Let's See How Everybody Shook Out On This One. There Were Six Firms That Submitted. Five Firms Submitted That Had 10 Years Similar Experience. There Was One Firm That Did Not. There Were Five Firms That Submitted Project Managers That Had Five Years Similar Experience. There Was One Firm That Did Not. There Were Five Firms That Submitted With A Superintendent That Had Five Years Similar Experience And There Was One Firm That Did Not. And In Fact, This Firm Does Not Work For Chris-Tel. The Committee Members Voting And Nonvoting Had Opportunity To Score The Submissions Prior To The Meeting. We Have A Couple Of Examples Here. One That We Received, Rob Falen's Score Sheet. His Initial Ranking Prior To The Meeting Was A Total Of 43 Out Of 100. Couple Of Comments In Regards To Rob's Sheets. Repeated Information In The R.F.Q., No Detail Provided On Their Approach To The Items Listed In The R.F.Q. Provided Minor Transportation Related Experience As A Company, Mostly Vertical And Site Construction. Next One From Fort Myers Beach Was Scott Baker. His Scoring Sheet Total Of 53 Out Of A Possible 100 With The Comment "Little Applicable Experience." Then We Get Into The Selection Committee Meeting Itself At Which Point The Committee Chair Made Some Arbitrary Changes To The Specific Project Criteria That Was Established In The R.F.Q. At The Onset Of The R.F.Q. A Few Quotes. Because Of The Make-Up Of The Selection Committee, What They Were Looking At And What They Were Scoring Is Probably Different Criteria Than What We Should Have Been Looking At. I'm Building From That. Experience Is Great. Experience Should Apply To Complex Prompts Done In Lee County. This Should Be The Focus Of What We're Looking At Here. Is Someone On This List Done One Of These Projects That Has The Elements In It Regardless Of Whether It's Roadway, Building Or Anything Else? So In Other Words, We Just Threw Out The 45 Points Of Experience That Was Established In The Initial Written R.F.Q. As A Result Of This Discussion, Chris-Tel Was Included In The Short List, Selection Of A Nonresponsive Firm And The Changes To The Specific Criteria Is Both Arbitrary And Capricious. Move On To Step Two Which Was The Written Proposals That Was Required Subsequent To The Short List That Lee County Procurement Office Submitted An Additional Document That Required Written Presentation Material. The Consultant Has Requested To Prepare A Written Presentation Setting Forth A Summary Of The Information Presented During The Interview. Deadline For This Was One Week Prior To The Presentations. It Had Two Components One Being The Specific Written Materials That Consisted Of Three Questions And The Second Being Specific Points Of Our Presentation Which Was A Total One -- Or Total Of 21 Points And Subpoints That We Were To Address During Our Oral Presentations. This Was Confirmed With The Purchasing Department On Monday, September 22nd Through The Response To A Request For Clarification Because This Was Kind Of Unusual To Have This Being Required As Part Of The R.F.Q. Process. We Thought Let's Make Sure. So Lisa Crone From Procurement Management Did Clarify Both The


Written Material And The 21 Specific Points Of Our Presentation Were Required To Be Submitted Prior To Our Presentation. Chris-Tel Was Nonresponsive In That They Not Only Provided That They Only Provided The Specific Written Materials Content And Did Not Submit The 21 Specific Points And Subpoints Of Their Presentation. Dig Down Into The Oral Presentation Requirements. Also Established By Lee County. On Page 9, Following Personnel Proposed For The Project Team Must Be Present For The Presentation. Third Item On That List Was The Public Information Officer. There Were Five Firms That Presented. Four Firms Included The Required Public Information Officer. One Firm Did Not. Item 6d Of The Specific Points That Were To Be Addressed In The Presentation. Chris-Tel Did Not Provide Or Address The Inclusion Of Services As Required In The R.F.Q. Documents. There Seemed To Be Some Confusion On What A C.E.I. Is. It's Construction Engineering Inspection Which Is On Site, Independent Observation, Testing And Materials Sampling With Full Reporting For The Project Theme. C.E.I. Services Are Standard On All Roadway Construction Projects Different Than A -- Or Contrast This With A Building Inspector Which Is Called Out Periodically For Inspections Prior To Pouring Concrete Or Closing Up Walls Or Ceilings. Five Firms, Again, Presented To The Lee County. Gave Oral Presentations. Four Firms Included The Required C.E.I. In Their Presentations. One Firm Did Not. 21 Points That Are To Be Addressed In The Presentation. This Establishes Clear Guidelines For The Selection Committee To Consider During Their Deliberations. Again, Once We Got Into The Selection Committee Meeting, The Procurement Director Made Introductions And Had Everybody Introduce Themselves And Then Opened The Meeting To The Committee Chair Who Then Made A Determination To Infuse Additional Criteria To Be Considered During The Course Of The Deliberations. And Those Items Are Listed There In Front Of You. Two Significant Comments Were Made By The Committee Chair At This Point In The Meeting. This Is A Little Different Than A Traditional Ranking System. I Wanted To Shift In Case You Were Thinking Something Else, I Wanted To Shift Everybody Back To Thinking Along Those Terms. Comments Were Then Invited By The Nonvoting Members. Three Of The Four Nonvoting Members Were Not Present At All Of The Presentations. Only One Of Them Recused Themselves From Commenting Despite The Fact That They Were Not At All The Presentations. The Single Nonvoting Member That Was Present For All The Presentations Made The Following Statement. Wright Stood Out Above Everyone Because They Hit All Of That. They Are Local And They Did Stress They Understand How Everything Works Down Here And They Presented The Most Ideas Or At Least The Most Detail About How They Would Go About Getting The Road Built. So Then We Moved Quickly Into The Voting Member Comments. Dave Loveland Based On The Presentations, The Information We Got Before, Which Is Talking About The Written Materials That We Submitted One Week Prior And Then Based Upon What We Heard Here, I Rank Wright Construction Number One. Two, Chris-Tel. Three, Balfour. Rob Phalen, Wright Presented The Best Overall Presentation. And Then To Demonstrate How The Opening Comments In This Meeting And In The Initial Short List Meeting Can Add Confusion To The Process, Rob Follows Up With A Statement. From A Technical Standpoint, Wright, And Balfour Had Better Presentations. It's The Softer Kind Of Things


That I Got Unsure About. The Final Voting Member, I Would Like To Propose Scoring Number One As Wright, Two Chris-Tel And Three Manhattan. Nonvoting Member Comments Were Then Invited And Discussion Was Turned Over, Then, To Two Nonvoting Members. Both Of These Members Missed Significant Portions Of Wright Construction's Presentation. After Several Minutes Of This Dialogue, Rob Phalen Is Obviously Influenced To Change His Position. And He Quotes "I Would Have Liked To Have Seen More Transportation Experience Than The Streetscape Project From Chris-Tel. Maybe They've Got It. They Just Didn't Provide It In The Written Materials And Oral Presentation. That Being Said, If It Is The Will Of The Committee To Move Forward With Them, I Don't Have A Problem With Working With Them." So At This Point In The Deliberations, You Have Four People That Witnessed The Entire -- All Of The Presentations. Two People That Did Not. Four People That Did Ranked Wright Construction As Number One. The Two People That Did Not See All Of The Presentations, All Of A Sudden Created The Will Of The Committee In Accordance To What Rob Phalen Just Mentioned. And Again, I Just Mentioned This, But At This Point In The Meeting, The Committee Begins To Move Away From Their Determination Based Upon The Comments Of Two Nonvoting Committee Members Who Were Not Present For Wright's Entire Presentation. After Indication From The Voting Members Of The Willingness To Change Their Vote Contrary To The Requirements Of The R.F.Q., Written Presentation, Then Oral Presentation, Dave Loveland Inquires, Do You Want Us To Put An Order In The Form Of A Motion? The Committee Chair Responds. Before You Do, What Would It Be? And I Put That In There Because Both During The Short List Meeting And In This Meeting, There Was An Obvious Steering For Whatever Reason, I'm Not Here To Comment On That. But There Was An Obvious Steering Of This Committee Towards The Selection Of Chris-Tel. In The Initial Short List And In This Meeting As Well. The Committee Concludes With Louis Malina Changing His Ranking To Chris-Tel Number One And Wright Number Two Based Upon, And He Qualified This And He Said This, Based Upon Doug's Approval That Chris-Tel Did Not Include The Required C.E.I. Services In Their Original Written Approach Or Presentation. So What Do We Have Here? We Have What Is Approaching A $50 Million Road Project In The Heart Of Fort Myers Beach. One Of The Most Complex Road Projects That Is Going To Be Or Has Been Taken On By D.O.T. In Recent History. So The C.M. That Was Selected For This Project Does Not Have The Required Roadway Experience The Other Five Submiters Did. They Did Not Have The Required Experienced Road Superintendent. They Hired A Superintendent From A Subcontractor. The Selected C.M. For This Project Did Not Have The Required Project Manager With The Five Years Of Substantive Road Experience. The Other Five Submiters Did. The Selected C.M. For This Project Did Not Have The Required C.E.I. Included On Their Team. The Other Four Presenters Did. And The Selected C.M. For The Estero Boulevard Project Did Not Have The Required Public Information Officer On Their Team, The Other Four Presenters Did. The Entire Presentation Was To Be Submitted In Writing To Lee County One Week In Advance Much The Selected Firm Did Not. Chris-Tel Was Nonresponsive In All Three Phases Of The Selection Process. The County Changed The Selection Criteria In Each Of The Three Phases Of The Selection Process. The


Selection Of Chris-Tel Is, Therefore, Arbitrary And Capricious Because The County Failed To Follow Its Own Selection Criteria And Chris-Tel Was Nonresponsive. Wright Is Asking That Chris-Tel Be Declared Nonresponsive And The Second Winning Bid Wright Construction Be Awarded The Project And I Thank You For Your Time.

Thank You Very Much, Commissioners Any Questions For The Wright Construction Team? No? Not At This Time. I Have One Question For Our County Attorney At This Point. Could You Address The Arbitrary And Capricious Standard? I See You Talked Earlier About The Other Standard, The Fraud And Such.

Commissioners, I Would Suggest To You That The Standards That Were Announced By Both Myself And Counsel For Wright Are Taken From Existing Cases That Guide Us Towards What The Law Is. If It Satisfies The Board's Thought Process You May Want To Think In Terms Of The Arbitrary And Capricious Standard Being Within The Misconduct Standard That I Announced.

What Was That Last Part?

That The Arbitrary And Capricious Standard Announced By Wright's Counsel Would Fall Within The Larger Category Of Misconduct That I Announced Earlier.

Thank You Very Much. We'll See You During The Rebuttal. At This Time, I'd Like To Ask The Chris-Tel Construction Team To Join Us At The Podium For Your 20 Minute Presentation.

Let Me Try To First Get Acclimated With This Technology Since It's Beyond My Pay Grade A Little Bit.

Let Me Take A Minute To Ask, What Am I Looking On For The Time There? Is There A Light I'm Looking For? So Light At The Podium, Great.

Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, I Represent Chris-Tel Construction. My Name Is Burke Edwards From The Law Firm Of Garrity, Doherty And Edwards P.A. Here In Fort Myers. I Want To Address The Issue Set Forth In Wright's Protest. Obviously, We Have Gone Through This Bid Protest Process From The Inception. We Did File The Requisite Written Response To That. We Did Attend The Dispute Committee Hearing. Our Arguments In Opposition To All Those Points Have Been Well Briefed In Our Position Papers And We'll Go Over Those Points Here Today With The Power Port Presentation As Well. The Initial Overview To Address The Points With Respect To This Public Bid Process, Obviously, These Are Positions In Opposition To The Points That Mr. Edmond Just Outlined On Behalf Of Wright. The First, The County Followed Its R.F.Q. Procedures When At The Concluded Additional Firm On The Short List. Two, Chris-Tel Was Responsive And Responsible Bidder. Three, The County Did Not Materially Alter The Scope Of Work In The R.F.Q. Four, The R.F.Q. Was Not Ambiguous As To The Selection Criteria For The Winning Bidder. Five, The Final Decision To Award The Contract To Chris-Tel Was Founded Upon A Thorough Process 24 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

And Lengthy Discussion. And Within The Bounds Of The Law. And Six, I Have Here Waiver. And I Am Going To Address The Issue Of Waiver Last. But When I Do Address It, It's Primarily Going To Be In Response To The First Two Bullet Points On This Page With Respect To What I Would Call The Short List. Because What I Am Going To Suggest To You Is That When You Review The Bid Documents And What Is Required To Be Done By Individuals Or Entities That Wish To Protest Certain Proceedings, There Are Various Interim Decisions Not Only Not Just The Final Decision Where A Party To The Extent They Find An Impropriety With The Process And Issue With The Responsiveness As To A Bidder, There Is A Requirement That At The Short List Ranking, You Are Required To Submit A Protest Within Three Days Of The Publication Of That Ranking. And Obviously, Wright Did Not Do That. That Is Going To Mute Or Eliminate A Majority Of The Arguments That You Heard Concerning Responsiveness And How The Short List Was Ultimately Chronicled And Short List Evaluation And Ultimately, The Parties That Were Shortlisted. Commissioner Mann, You Asked A Very Pertinent Question With Respect To What Your Role Is Here Today. Mr. Kotney As Well As The County Attorney Has Discussed The Standard Of Review. I Additionally Have -- Don't Disagree With The Standard Of Review. We've Cited Some Case Law Here With Respect To The Wide Discretion Of A Reviewing Body As This Board Sits In The Appellate Process. It's Important To Note The Case Law Says You Are Not Here To Second Guess The Members Of The Evaluation Committee To Determine Whether Reasonable Persons Might Reach A Contrary Result. The Sole Responsibility As Has Already Been Articulated And This Is From Well Established Case Law Is To Determine And Ascertain Whether Or Not The County Has Acted Fraudulently, Arbitrarily, Illegally, Or Dishonestly. And I Would Submit To You All That Is An Extremely High Burden That Wright Has Woefully Failed To Meet At Any Point Of This Process Including And Through Today. We First Discuss What An Arbitrary Decision Is. It's One Not Supported By Facts And A Capricious Action Is One That's Taken Without Thought, Reason Or Irrationality. Additionally, It's Also Important To Note What Case Law Has Determined To Be Is Not Arbitrary And Capricious. That Is If A Decision Is Justifiable Under Any Analysis That Is A Reasonable Person Would Use To Reach A Decision That's Similar Importance, It Would Seem That Decision Is Neither Arbitrary Nor Capricious. That Goes More To The Second Guessing. You Are Not To Second Guess What The Evaluation Committee Did. What Is Dispute Committee Did. You Are Here To Determine If, In Fact, There Has Been Proof Of The Requisite Arbitrary Illegality Or Capricious Standard Which We Would Submit There Is Not.

Short List. I'm Saving Them For Last. But One Of The Main Arguments Is How The Short List Was Created And We Obviously Contend That The Short List Was Created In Conformance With The Requirements Of The R.F.Q. Mr. Edmond Did Reference Page 12 Of The R.F.Q. That Sets Forth The Evaluation Criteria Of How Firms Are Short Listed And Before The Criteria Are Discussed, There's A Statement Which Appears In Bold To All Bidders In This Process And It Notes, This Bold Is Not My Emphasis But In The Original R.F.Q. Documents That The Respondents Receiving The Three Highest Point Scores Will Be


Short Listed And Interviewed And Invited For Interviews, Presentations. The County May Choose To Shortlist Additional Firms If It Feels It Is In The County's Best Interest. Again, We Have A Two Phase Process Here. One, Determination Of Who Belongs On The Short List. And After That Is Ranked And Scored And People And Entities Are Put On The Short List, We Go To The Verbal And Oral Presentation Process Of The Procedure. But Here, We Obviously Have A Provision In The R.F.Q. Itself Which Allows Additional Firms To Be Short Listed If It's In The County's Best Interest And I Would Submit To You All That That Is An Extreme Wide Discretion That Allows The Evaluation Of Committee Members At The Time To Short List More Than Three Firms. I Don't Know If You Had Occasion To Review The Audio Of The Short List Meeting But There's Been A Discussion That The Factors That Were Set Forth In The Evaluation Criteria Were Not Utilized. I Would Submit To You That Is Clearly Not The Case. That Each Members Scored, Ranked The Bidders Based Upon The Evaluation Criteria That Were Set Forth In The R.F.Q. Each Member Had The Opportunity To Discuss And Publish Their Scores. This Here Represents -- You Have From The Actual R.F.Q. Short List Meeting Itself. You Have Mr. Phalen With, I Believe, 12 Pages Of Comments And Scoring. You Have Mr. Malina With Essentially The Same Number And Lastly, You Have Mr. Loveland Who Was A Little More Complex. This Right Here, These 35 Or Some Pages Which Are Essentially What Wright Contends Were There Because Criteria Not Set Forth In The Short List Were Utilized Suggestion That The Evaluation Committee Members At The Time Really Were Not Capable Of Independent Thinking. That They Were Swayed And/Or Influenced By The Committee Chair And They Essentially Want You To Ignore All Of These Rankings Right Here. There's No Dispute That As The Score Sheet, The Final Score Sheet Which Is Set Forth On This Slide Shows That Chris-Tel Was The Lowest Ranked Bidder At The Short List. This Establishes There's Not A Single Argument Or Suggestion That Any One Firm Was Nonresponsive. In Fact, It Was Determined That All Five Local Firms And The One Nonlocal Firm Were All Responsive, Fully Qualified, Based Upon The Evaluation Criteria And Determined To Be Reasonably Susceptible Of Award. Keep In Mind, They Argued That Scores Are Not Important. That Is Not True. This Point Total Was Based On A Scoring Out Of 100. The Scores Were Not That Divergent And You Look At 83 Through A 97. You Had Some Bs And Got Some As. Bottom Line And What's Important To Know Is Every Firm Was Determined To Be Responsive And Subject To Short Listed Firms That It Did. There Was No Altering Of The Criteria. That's To Suggest That They Didn't Have The Ability To Independently Think And Independently Score And To Evaluate Is To Simply Disregard Their Independent Thinking And Their Thought Process At That Point In Time Which Is Simply Not The Case. We Have Multiple Pages As To How That Criteria Was Utilized In That Particular Point Of The Process. Next Couple Of Slides Here, Although It Wasn't Necessarily Verbalized To Mr. Edmond's Presentation, There Was A Statement That At Least In The Formal Written Protest Where It Talked About The Chairman, Mr. Mur, Had Made Comments About How There Was Some Importance, If You Will To The Soft Side Of The Soft Skills. Somehow, That Was An Evaluation Criteria That Was Not Expressed In The Bid Documents And Therefore, That Really Is An Alteration Of The Wait. But Soft Side Meaning Communication And


Experience, That Is All Clearly The Unequivocably Fall Within Four Criteria Of The Original R.F.Q. That's Criteria One, Understanding An Approach. Criteria Two That Deals With Experience. Criteria Three Which Deals With Scheduling And Criteria Five Which Deals With Communication. So The Suggestion Of That One Particular Comment That There Was -- That There Was A Directed, If You Will, To Consider Other Things That Are Not Within The Criteria, The R.F.Q. Is Simply Not The Case Because It Falls Within Four Of The Seven Criteria. Responsiveness, This Is An Interesting Argument Because At The Last Dispute Committee Meeting, There Was An Argument That Was Propered By Mr. Cottony That We're Not Here To Contest The Fact That Chris-Tel Was Placed On The Short List. And That Is A Quote From The Dispute Committee Meeting. If You're Not Here To Contest The Fact That Chris-Tel Was Placed On The Short List By Admission And By Reverse Implication, You're Acknowledging That Chris-Tel Was In Fact Responsive And This Is Going To Dove Tail Into The Waiver Argument That I'll Address Briefly Towards The End. But We, Nonetheless, Obviously Want To Address The Responsiveness Issue. We Have A Little Bit Of Case Law Here And Law About What Is Responsive. I'm Not Going To Go Over In Depth With This. The First Issue That Was Suggested, Obviously, Dealt With Chris-Tel's Experience. Sometimes, I Take A Look At This And I Hear The Responses. I Hear The Arguments And I Review The Actual R.F.Q. Response Submitted By Chris-Tel And I Listen To The Audio. I Look At The Presentations Submitted And I Sometimes Think We're Talking About Two Different Circumstances That Occurred. Our Response Clearly Sets Forth The Requisite Number Of Years Experience That We're Required To Have. It Does. The Experience Is That Of Chris-Tel, Mr. Wheeler, The Principal At Chris-Tel, Not Individuals Of Other Companies That Might Have Been Recently Hired To Only Augment That Experience But If You Look At The Actual Response To The R.F.Q. Which Goes To The Responsiveness Issues, It Clearly Sets Forth That We Have The Requisite Number Of Years In This Discipline That We Did Provide Contracts Within The Last Five Years And We Are, In Fact, Qualified With The Requisite Experience On This Particular Issue. So I'm Not Quite Understanding That The Argument That Is Set Forth Because The Documents Speaks For Itself, The Presentation Speak For Itself. While There Might Have Been Questions Concerning Whether Or Not The Experience Was Commensurate With Some Of The Others, That Is Immaterial. What Is Material Is The Fact That This Company Chris-Tel Did Have The Requisite Experience And Discipline To Do Construction Management On This Particular Project. Here You Have Mr. Wheeler's Resume In Response To The R.F.Q. One Of The Arguments Is Our Documents Were Not Responsive Because Our Resumes Don't Have The Number Of Years We've Been Associated With Our Company. If You Look Right Below Mr. Wheeler's Picture, You Will See That It Does Have The Dates That He Has Been Present There And All Of Our Resumes Did, In Fact, Include That Information. The Responsive Argument As To The Written Interview Requirement. Written Protest Suggests That We Failed To Discuss Interview Requirements And Approach To Pedestrian And Cyclists, Utility Coordination, Construction Inspection Services, Workload Capacity, Etc. What The Written Review Materials Requires, It Doesn't Reference Any Of These Issues, This Is This Is The Written Materials Comment From The R.F.Q. And Essentially What It


Asks For In Writing Is Litigation, Past Litigation, Construction Levels, Scope Of Work, Critical Past, And A Project Estimate. That's What It Was Required. That Is Exactly What We Provided In Response To The Written Portion Of Of The Evaluation. The Argument Around Directly Employed By Chris-Tel, The R.F.Q. Didn't Contain Such A Requirement, Plain And Simple. I've Already Addressed The Issue With Resumes Questioning The Number Of Years. Again, This Is Nicole Wesley, Our V.P. Of Business Development And Our Internal Public Information Officer And Once Again, The Dates Of Employment Quite Clearly Set Forth On The Resume. Failure To Identify And Have Present Is Public Information Officer. Not The Case. We Did Present Our Internal P.I.O., Her Resume And Extensive Background. Unlike The Others Who Did Suggest They Were Going To Have Them Present There. We Wanted To Make Sure The County Wasn't Duplicating Any Public Information Services With The Present Ongoing Relationship That The Town Of Fort Myers Beach Has On The Water Line. We Didn't Have Them There Like The Other Bidders. There Would Not Be A Duplication Of Effort. What We Clearly Noted And What We Espoused In Our Verbal Presentation On This Slide Was That They Will Be Our P.I.O. We Indicated That Company Would Be Retained After We Better Understood What Their Relationship Was With The Town Which Is Important Because We Do Not Need A Duplication Of Efforts. But We Had Our Internal P.I.O. There. We Suggested Who Was Going To Be There. Everyone Knows Who The Public Information Officer Is Going To Be. That Is A Red Herring Issue. Another Issue Concerns The C.E.I. Consultant Engineering And Inspection Services. Again, Another Issue That Somewhat A Myth To Me, The Actual Requirements From The R.F.Q. Is Noted On The Bottom Left-Hand Corner Of This Slide. And It Was Question 6d. It's What Will Your Plan Be When It Comes To The Following C.E.I. Services? Here's Our Slide. The C.E.I. Consultant Services, We Will Solicit Proposals, We Will Receive Competitive Proposals, We Will Be -- We Will Have A Truly Independent Consultant And Not Someone In House And Provide Complete Third Party Engineering Inspection Services. The Documents Ask For What Our Plan Was. That's Our Plan. It Was Not Required That We Have Someone Internal To Do That Job. It Wanted To Know What Our Plan Was. We Told Them What Our Plan Was To Hire Someone Independent To Make It A Truly Transparent Process. An Argument With Respect To Removal, This Is In The County's Scope Of Work When It Goes From The Short List Process To The Verbal Presentations Where There Was A Removal Of Construction Task And Removal Of Management Tasks And The Scope Of Work. You Have To Keep In Mind That Originally From The Inception, From Day One, This Is A C.M.A. Construction Manager At Risk Contract. It's Never Contemplated That The Contract Awardee Perform Construction Services. So This Entire Argument Where Two Incidents Of 21 Pages On What Is To Be Expected At The Evaluation Hearing On The Audience And What Is To Be Discussed, They Were Able To Pinpoint Two Incidents Where Verbiage Was Changed. But The Important Part Is Did That Change Apply Uniformly Or Did It Apply To A Particular Bidder Independently? These Are The Two Things Where -- Which Were Added Which Talked About The Cmar Using Phase Scopes To Minimize Impacts With The Public And To Management All Aspects Of Construction Which Is, By Definition, What A Construction Manager At Risk Does. The Important Issue With This Is


Whether Or Not There's A Question As To Inspiring Public Confidence In The Fairness Of The Process. There's No Suggestion That By Uniformly Making A Change, If You Want To Even Go That Far As To Call It A Change, I Will Call It A Change In Verbiage, Semantics, But It Did Not Question Or Take Away Any Public Confidence In The Fairness Of The Process For The Simple Reason That It Applies Across The Board. It Was Issued To All Bidders And If You Are, The Propriety Of An Amendment Must Be Sustained Because There's No Plausible Argument That The Government Cannot Maintain A Fair And Equal Competition By Allowing All Bidders The Opportunity To Respond. This Is The E-Mail Where The Change, The So-Called Change If You Want To Call It, Went Out To All Of The Bidders, Ok? All Of The Short Listed Firms. Not One, All Of Them. The R.F.Q. Was Not Ambiguous, Again.

Your 20 Minutes Is Up For Your Initial Presentation.

I'll Reserve The Final 10 Minutes For Addressing This Issue As Well As The Waiver Arc Um. Thank You.

Does The Board Have Any Questions For Council? Ok. I'd Like To Ask The Wright Construction Team To Please Return To The Podium For A 10 Minute Rebuttal.

Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, There Are A Variety Of Issues That Mr. Edwards Raised That I Believe Are Worth Addressing. First And Foremost, I Want To Make Sure That The -- The Commissioners Were Clear On The Standard. The Standard Is Arbitrary And Capricious And There's Been Some Suggestion That May Require Illegality Or Fraud. That's Not Necessarily The Case. That Can Be A Basis For Arbitrary And Capricious But Reality Is That All You Need Is A Illogical Action Or Any Actions That Show Irrationality. We're Here Today To Argue That Chris-Tel Was Both Nonresponsive And Nonresponsible. And You Heard Mr. Edwards Try To Make A Variety Of Excuses As To Why Certain Things Weren't Present At The Final Presentation Or Why Certain Members Weren't Present. And What You Heard From Us During Our Initial Presentation Is That There Were Problems Throughout The Entire Process From The Very Beginning At The Short List Presentation All The Way Through To The End Where The Selection Criteria Changed As The Process Went Along. One Of The Things You'll Hear From Mr. Edwards As A Rebuttal Is The Argument That The Initial Hearing Was Primarily Based On And That's This Waiver Argument And You Heard From Mr. Edwards That A Quote That I Had Made During The Short -- During The Initial Process Saying That The Short List, That We're Not Here To Contest The Short List. And That Was True. At The Time, We Are Protesting The Final Award. We Did Not Protest The Short List, We're Protesting The Final Award. But It's Key To Understand That With Regard To The Waiver Argument, Ok. There Is No Way For Wright Construction To Obtain Field Documents Halfway Through A Bid Process. This Was Something Where The Short List Of The Issued And The Bidders Are Not Giving Everybody Else's Bid During The Process. If That Were To Happen, It Would Create An Unfair Advantage During The Presentations Themselves. It's Important To Note There Is No Clear Point Of Entry And


They Can Look At This. You Will See A Disclaimer, A Statement At The End That Says This Is A Final Decision Which Must Be Protested Under Our Rules Within 72 Hours. That Is Not Contained On The Short List Award. It's Important To Note In Our Argument, We Didn't Understand The Full Extent Of What's Going On Until The Final Award And Presentations Occurred. At That Time, We Realized, Ok, There Were Some Issues Here. We Need To Look Into This Further And We Were Able To Abt The Submittals And Ultimately Obtain What Happened. One Of Arguments Not Touched On In Our Initial Presentation But Mr. Edwards Did Touch On Is There Was A Fundamental Change In The Scope Of Work. Not Just The Selection Of Criteria But The Scope Of Work On This Project After The Initial Short List Occurred. They Included Deleting Quality Control, And Then Adding A Statement That The Winning Bidder Must Assist In The Development Of Phased Goods To Maximize Work And Minimize Impacts To The Public. We Disagree With What Mr. Edwards Said. That Scope Of Work Needed To Be Set Up At The Beginning Of The R.F.Q. Process To Create A Level And Even Playing Field For All Of The Bidders. Not After The Short List Was Determined. You Can't Change The Rules Mid Stream Both In Criteria Selection Process And In The Scope Of Work To Say, Ok, Here's The New Scope Of Work. Let's Go With This. We Believe That Creates An Inherent Ambiguity. Once Again, Standard Is Not Dishonesty Or Fraud On Behalf Of The County. The Standard Is Was There Some Irrational Actions That The County Took? Were They Illogical In How They Approach Things? We Believe If You Look At The Case Law That Was Cited, The Other Secondary Sources That Were Cited In Our Materials, You'll See That This Type Of Actions By The County Leads To The Decision That Was An Arbitrary And Capricious Decision Justifying Our Protest. I'll Turn It Over To You.

Few Additional Comments. We're Not Disputing That The R.F.Q. Made It Very Clear That The County Had The Right To Bring In Additional People As They Saw That Was At The Best Interest Of The County. Not Disputing That. What We Are Disputing Was That The -- The Firm That Was Brought Forward Through Oral Presentations Did Not Meet The Minimum Criteria. We're Not Talking About Points. We Also Never Said There Was A Minimum Points Standard But The R.F.Q. Very Clearly Said That There Was 10 Years Of Construction Management Experience In Similar Projects. And Chris-Tel Is Not A Road Builder. They Are A Building Contractor Similar To What I Am Personally. I Don't Pretend To Build Roads. Andy In Our Civil Division At Wright Construction Build Roads. So For Chris-Tel To Stand Up Here And Say That They Have 10 Years Of Construction Management Experience In Regards To Building Roads, That Is Not The Case. The Only Thing That They Brought Forward In Their R.F.Q. Document Was One Turn Lane Project That They Completed At Florida Gulf Coast University. Responsiveness. We Talk About Responsiveness. Firm Experience. Again, We Talked About -- Let's Talk About Resumes. The Item That He Brought Up About The Dates On The Resumes, You Know, We Had 20 Minutes To Make Our Formal Presentation Which Was Trying To Hit The Highlights. When You Look At -- At The Resumes, The Only Real Resume That I Would Point Out To The Commissioners Is The Resume That They Included In Their R.F.Q. Book For The Project


Superintendent With Chris-Tel's Name On It. Nowhere On That Document Did It Say That That Superintendent Worked For Another Firm. All They Had On That Resume Was That -- That This Was A Resume Being Issued By Chris-Tel With No Date Of Employment. Because He Didn't Work For Them. He's Working For A Superintendent Not Even On Their Staff. They Are Clearly Asking For Chris-Tel's Staff Experience. Not The Experience For Any Experience. We Talk About The Experience Of The Managers. We Know They Had A Shortcoming In The Experience With The Project Manager So They Included A Consultant Also From A Subcontractor, A Civil Subcontractor That They Specifically Put Forward As A Consultant To Assist Them During Preconstruction Services To Provide Constructability Reviews. Again, Stating That Chris-Tel Is Coming Forward For A Road Project Without The Minimum Required Experience Established In Your Criteria. Talk About The P.I.O. Not Disputing That They Mentioned In Nicole Wesley's Resume That She Could Be Performed Some Of These Duties. But Elsewhere In The R.F.Q., They Specifically Did Not Address It As It Was Required. And Even More Importantly, It Was A Requirement That Their P.I.O. Be Present At The Presentation And This Person Was Not In The Room And Was Not At The Presentation. Finally, C.E.I. Services. C.E.I. Services, It Is Very Clear From Listening To The Presentation, All Of The Audio Presentation That It Was Intent Of The C.E.I. Services To Be Included As Part Of This C.M.'S Scope Of Services And That Was Confirmed By Sarah Clark In The Q&A Period And In The Final Deliberations. And Bob Konig Made It Very Clear They Did Not Have C.E.I. Services As Part Of Their Services That They Would Provide As A C.M. But They Would Bid It Out At A Later Time To Provide An Independent Third Party. Is That Done At Times? Absolutely. But That Was Not The Requirement Of The R.F.Q. Again, I Go Back To These Are Very Clearly Established Items In The R.F.Q. That Would Equate Chris-Tel To Be Nonresponsive In The Initial R.F.Q. In The Written Response. That's The Other Thing That I Wanted To -- Chris-Tel's Attorney Made Mention That Only Three Items Were Required For Written Response. That Is Not The Case. The Consultant Is Requested To Prepare A Written Presentation Setting Forth A Summary Of The Information Presented During The Interview. That Is The 21 Points That Was Required And We Confirmed That With Procurement. So, Again, Nonresponsive As Part Of Their Written Response Of Step Two In The R.F.Q. Process.

Thank You Very Much, Commissioners. Any Question.

I Have A Question.

Commissioner Kiker?

Thank You Very Much For Your Presentation And I've Got A Lot Of Other Questions I Would Rather Be Talking About Right Now Other Than What We Are.

We Would As Well.

My Question And I Hope I Got These Right. I'm Going To Give Back To Commissioner Mann. Because Everything I've Heard So Far Is Process Related. And I Understand That.


But From What I'm -- But What I Understand From Our Attorney And From The Ruling Of What's Supposed To Take Place Here, Do You Believe That There Was Anything That Was Dishonest, Fraudulent, Oppressive Or Illegal? Are You Making Those Charges? Any One Of Those?

To The Extent That That Is The Standard Which The Commission Is Making Its Decision On, We Did Include Some Arguments Regarding Bias And Favoritism That Were Made In Our Formal Written Protest That Would Get Into Some Of The Additional Criteria. As Far As Illegality If You Want To Construe That As Not Following The Stated Criteria And What We've Argued Here Today, We Will Argue That Also Complies With That Standard.

I Didn't Understand Your Answer. I'm Sorry.

Answer Is Yes.

Which One Of Those? Can You Repeat Them Again?

Dishonesty, Fraudulent Or Illegal.

I Would Argue On Based On The Arguments That We're Presented With Today, The Actions Could Be Perceived As Illegal And They Did Not Follow The Laws, Rules And Statutes And Case Law Governing The Bid Process And I Would Argue That There May Have Been Some Oppressiveness And The Changes In The Selection Criteria And In The Scope Of Work During The Bid Process. And I Believe That That Would Probably Be The Sum Total Of What We Are Arguing Here Today Other Than What We've Stated Previously.

So If I'm To Understand It Correctly, You Think That The County, Not Chris-Tel Which Is Pretty Much Here The Discussion So Far. But Your Real Reasoning For Being Here Is That You Think That The County Acted Illegally And That The County Was Oppressive?

Correct. We Believe That The County Acted In An Arbitrary And Capricious Manner Which Is The Required Standard And They Actedish Irrationally And Illogically Based On The Criteria.

I'm Trying To Clarify. Arbitrary And Capricious Doesn't Factor Into The Standards Of The Four Things That We Just Talked About. That They're Not The Same. That's What We've Been Told Today. Is That Correct?

Commissioners, I Believe That Their Council's Argument, I Don't Want To Misstate It For Him That The Arbitrary Capricious Standard Melds Into One Of Those Initiated Standards That I Just Spoke To You About.

This Is A Question That I Posed First To You Guys. This Is A Question That Goes To All Three People Playing Lawyer In Here Today. Mr. Edmond, To You And Then Back To The County Attorney. It Has To Do With A Point That You Guys Made In Your Notice Of Intent To File A Protest Dated October 10th. Under Section Four. And It's A Bullet Point. 32 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

Selection Criteria Call For The Top Three Point Totals To Be Invited To A Second Round For Presentations. We've Been Talking About This, Top Three Rank Would Get Invited To A Final Interview. And The Language That I've Just Had, That I've Just Learned About Here, That Follows This In Whatever Rules And Standards We Got Here Said "In The County's Best Interest, The Committee Can Add More To It." Am I Saying That -- Does That Make Sense? I Think You've Addressed This Very Point, Mr. Edmond, That You Recognize And I Would Almost Stipulate That In Addition To The Three Top Ranked In Terms Of Points Achieved In The Process So Far, If It's In The County's Best Interest, Others Could Also Be Brought Forward For That Final Interview Process. Now, What My Question Is, I'll Put In The Point Of -- Form Of A Statement. It Seems To Me If The Members Of That Selection Committee Can Use In Their Own Judgment, In Their Own Mental Definition In The County's Best Interest, Seems To Me All The Other Things That Y'all Have Talked About This Morning Are Really Irrelevant. Why Do We Have All These Standards And These Rules And These R.F.Q. Points That You Have To Qualify For If, In The Final Analysis In This Process, If It's In The Best Interest Of The County And The Judgment Of The Committee Members, They Can Invite Anybody They Want. Now, There's A Question In That And I Would Like Your Reaction To It.

I Would -- I Appreciate The Question. I Think That Goes To The Heart Of The Matter. And There Really Are Two Ways I Can Address That. That Question. First And Foremost Is What You Just Said, Commissioner Mann Is One Of The Exact Reasons We Are Protesting Is That In Order To Have An R.F.Q., You Have To Have Stated Criteria And You Have To Be Able To Follow That Criteria. We're Arguing That The County Changed The Game Throughout The Entire Process. Not Just With The Selection Criteria But With The Scope Of Work. And Commissioner Mann, What You're Focusing On Primarily Is The Short List Inclusion. After The Short List Inclusion, That's When The Scope Of Work Changed And That's When A Lot Of These Other Issues That Wright Discussed Occurred. I Would Also Argue That If You Take Into Totality The Issues That We Had With Regard To The Information That Was Submitted During The Presentations Which Occurred After The Short List, With Regard To Their Qualifications, Not Just Whether Or Not The County Can Include Them But Whether Or Not They Are Both Responsive And Responsible For Purposes Of Being Able To Bid This Project. We Believe That Was Overlooked As Well. So It's Not Just Our Argument Is That The -- Is That The County Did Not Have Unfeddered Discretion To Choose Whomever They Please. They Must Follow The Staging Criteria And Can't Constantly Change The Criteria And Can't Change The Scope Of Work Halfway Through The Project On A $50 Million Job.

Let Me Interrupt You And Either One Or Both Can Respond To This. Still At The Point Of Whether Y'all Were Ranked As One Of The Top Three. Understandably, Then You Would Come Back For Based On That Criteria Chance To Have The Oral Interview.

Are You -- But Are You -- Are You Allowing At That Point In That Whole Process Of The Selection Process That Chris-Tel Or Abc Construction, Anybody Else Who Had Originally


Submitted A Proposal Still, If In The Minds Of The Folks Making The Decision, If They Thought It Was In The Best Interest Of The County. At That Point, It Seems To Me And I Didn't Hear You Say This Is Not The Case, That The Committee Could, In Fact, Interview Whoever They Wanted.

The R.F.Q. Would Seem To Indicate That. However, I Think You Would Agree The County To Maintain The Objectivity In Any R.F.Q. Process Needs To Be Very Careful In How Or By What Decision Making Process They Go Through To Bring Somebody Else Into The Presentation Other Than The Highest Ranked Firms. I Go Back To The Example That I Gave You About The Florida Southwestern State College Project That We Were Recently Awarded. We Were Sixth Place Similar To Chris-Tel Was On This Project. However, The Major Difference Here Was Being In Sixth Place, We Still Had Highly Experienced Staff Members That Had Extensive Experience On Florida Southwestern State College Campuses.

I Remember That Argument. In Fact, It Stuck Out In My Mind Because It's The Reverse Of What Chris-Tel Found Itself In Later On In This Deal. I Understood That. Counsel, Back To You Probably, Though. What I'm Trying To Get To Understand Here, Did -- Did The County In Its Selection Process Violate Any Standards By Adding Chris-Tel To The Interview List?

I Would Argue That The Decision Was Not In The Best Interest Of The County For Multiple Reasons.

Ok. I Don't Want You Getting Into That Argument Because That Argument Is In The Minds Of That Selection Committee. And They Obviously Disagreed With You In That Process. I'm Just Wondering If Technically It Was Ok For Them To Do That And It Seems To Me, Frankly That When You Say In The Best Interest Of The County, That's A Hole So Wide You Could Drive A Mac Truck Through It.

If You Could Silence Your Cell Phones I Appreciate That.

Quick Question. This Gets Back To The Process. You Are Talking About Changes In The Criteria As The Process Continued. Was There A Change In The Scoring Of The Companies? Did That Change, Too? Was That Just An Initial Way To Selling Elect Participants?

If You Are Talking About The Short List?

Say You Scored 90 Points. Did It Change To 91, 92 As The Process Went Through After The Short List Was Picked.

In The Example I Gave?

In Reality You Scored 90 Or 93 Before You Were Picked On The Short List. Did That Number Change? After That List Was Picked?


No, It Did Not.

Ok. It Did.

You Are Talking About Our Scoring?

Yes.

We Can't Hear You.

If You Are Talking About The Scoring We Received On The Florida Southwest State College?

No This Project.

On This Project There Were Scores Changed. Rob's Scoring Sheet Came In. He E-Mailed It To Himself Prior To The Meeting. The Initial Scoring He Scored 423. As A Result -- 43. As A Result Of The Comments Made During The Deliberations His Scoring Was Changed To The Scoring Sheet Says 80. When You Do The Math The Score Was A 70. He Scored It A 70 As A Result Of The Deliberations During The Short List Meeting.

That Is Not Normal?

Well, I Would Find It Unusual. Typically There Is Not Extensive Conversation. You Have Some There Might Be Some Sway. To Go From 43 To 70. That Is Drastic That Is Not Going To Happen Without The Soft Skills Emphasized Over And Above What The Rfq States As The Minimum Experience Required To Be Considered For Further Oral Presentations.

Thank You.

If There Are No Further Questions I Would Like To Ask The Folks To Come Up For Rebuttal.

If I Might In Hopes Of Putting There One Issue To Bed Anyway And Reading Specifically From The County's Request For Qualification Page 12 Evaluation Criteria Read In The Totality. The Firm Offering The Best Interview/Presentation In The Opinion Of The County Will Be Awarded A Contract. The Respondents Achieving Three Highest Short Scores Will Be Short Listed And Invited For Interview Presentations The County May Short List Firms If It Feels It Is In The County's Best Interest.

Mr. Chairman He Just Read What I Initially Said Myself. In The County's Best Interest. That Was The Ps That Was Not Included In The Document That I Read. That Is Why I Want To Understand What That Meant. It Seems To Me That In The Best Interest Of The County That Was My Question To Them, To Them And To You. What Does That Mean? It Sounds Like It Is In The Mind Of That Selection Committee Was In The Best Interest Of


The County. Nothing Else Mattered. We Can Bring In Anybody Who Was Initially Win Of The Applicants.

Commissioners I Want To Put That Section On The Record.

That Is My Purpose. Write Left Off The Second Part. I Was Putting Weight On The Points And Scores And Top Three Were At The Top. I Understood That. When I Found The Ps In The Best Interest Of The County We Can Add Other Folks. That Is When My Point Is It Seems To Me That Just Opens The Flood Gates For Anybody To Come In Who Is Technically Qualified To Begin With And Put The Papers In And Submit It. You Can -- If I Am On The Selection Committee The Best Interest Of The County. Those Boys Have Been Around Here Along Time. I Think They Are Good They Should Be In There Notwithstanding Any Other Arguments. They Are Legal. They Can Be Brought Back In That Process. No Platter What. It Is In The Best Interest Of The County. I Don't Know That We Are Arguing Anything Here.

I Don't Think We Are, Commissioner. My Purpose Was To Put That Entire Section On The Record.

And I Was Trying To Help You.

Thank You, Sir.

Thank You Both For Teamwork. Let's Have The Folks Up Here.

Mr. Chairman I Could Ask Mr. Ed Wards For Your Comments Since We Are On That Phase. What Do You Think About In The Best Interest Of The County?

On That Phase And I Do Appreciate The Question. I Tried To Address It In My Opening Remarks. Obviously, My Suggestion Was It Does Confer Broad Discretion On The Committee. I Am Not Suggestions That Would Be Unfettered. What I Actually Suggested Is The Best Interest Standard Is Really And This Clause Is Not A Typical Of The Rfq Document. It Is Not A Typical For The Body To Have A Minimum Three To Five Bidders Short Listed But We Can Consider Others. It Has To Be Within The Bounds Of The Law. It Is Not Unfettered. If It Is Determined A Company Is Responsive They Can Be Short Listed If Someone Determines In Their Own Mind-Set Based Upon The Evaluation Criteria Other Bidders Other Than The Top Three Are Capable Of Doing This Work. It Is Not Unfettered. It Is Not Have The Ability To Drive The Truck Through The Blind Hole. There Needs A Determination Of Responsiveness Which I Believe There Was. There Needs To Be A Determination Based Upon Evaluation Criteria. I Don't Know The Preliminary Evaluation Criteria Was Done. I Have The Criteria Utilized? The Actual Rankings Which All Scored Them In The 80s. We Say Scores Is Not Important. What Is Important Is That A Determination Was Made. It Had To Be Made As A Matter Of Law That There Was Responsiveness And That They Were Susceptible To Awards As Well As The Other Bidder On The Short List. 36 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

Are You Ready To Begin Rebuttal. Shall We Start The Clock?

Start The Clock. This Is Part Of The Rebuttal.

Thank You, Guys.

I Believe That I Have Answered The Question. If I Haven't I Will Try To Elaborate.

I Am Odd.

Let Me Address Commissioner Kicker's Point. I Think The Question That You Tried To Proffer To Wright Was Did The Score Of 93 Or Whatever It May Have Been At The Short Listing Did That Change Subsequent There After? Once You Were Recommended For Short List Regardless Of The Score You Start From A Fresh Slate With All Other Bidders That Are Notified Of Being On The Short List And Then Sent To The Interview Presentation Process. So At That Point In Time They Don't Carry With Them The Sixth Crank. Wright Doesn't Carry It With Them. Every Win Starts From Scratch Based Upon The Next Phase Of The Process. The Scope Of Work Alteration Argument. It Is Important To Note And It Is Discussed On This Briefly In My Initial Comments. The Two Changes To The Scope Of Work With Respect To Quality Control And Pre-Construction Services. There Is Not A Single Shred Of Evidence Or Argument That That Change Of Work To The Extent You Can Consider That A Change In The Scope Of Work And I Disagree With Council As To The Materiality As To Whether Or Not That Eliminated The Construction Service The Initial Rfq. This Is A Construction Management Contract. It Does Not Contemplate They Perform Construction Services. I Don't Think Their Material In The Literal Sense. If You Look At What They Contend Are Changes In The Scope Of Work, Where Is The Evidence It Was Done To Favor One Particular Firm Over Another. It Doesn't Exist. As I Noted Before When The County Sent Out The Criteria It Sept It To Everybody. That Change I Am Using The Change In Quotes. That Change Was Applicable To Everybody. Everybody Had The Chance To Respond To It, All Five Bidders Did. Not A Single Bidder At That Point After The September 12th Conference Went Out Not A Single Bidder Said Wait You Are Changing The Rules Of The Game. I Would Submit There Was A Duty To Do So And They Didn't Do It. No One Did Until Someone Found Out At The End Of The Day They Were Second And They Thought They Should Have Been First. I Didn't Address That Argument Which Was Addressed Briefly In The Rebuttal. That Is The Issue Of Waiver. This Is Important Not To Give Merit To Irresponsiveness No Compliance But To Show And We Think We Have Clearly Established The Response To Those Arguments That We Were Responsive. There Was No Alteration Of The Criteria For The Rfq. There Was An Interesting Comment That Questions The Ability If You Had To Protest At The Time That The Short List Notification Is Posted. If You Specifically Look Into The Bid Documents, The Bid Documents Reflect Decisions Which Are Subject To Protest. I Will Quote. Notices Reflects Interim Decision By Evaluation Committee To Short List Submittals. There You Have 72 Hours To File The Notice Of Intent. It Was Not Done. Arguments With Respect To How They -- With Respect To How They Filled Out The Documents. You Heard The Argument Also How That Was 37 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

Insufficient. That Information Was Available For All Bidders To Challenge At That Point In Time. It Wasn't Done So. The Short List Criteria. We Can't Challenge This Because We Have To Get To The Discovery And Documents. Everyone Knows The Criteria. It Is Published. If You Feel It Wasn't Followed You Have 72 Hours To Tell Someone It Wasn't Followed. When It Is Not Done The Law Is Clear Anything Up Until The Point In Time That The Short List Notification Is Issued Their Arguments Deal With The Responsiveness Which Was Of Record, The Documents Were Of Record, The Short List Was Of Record. What Transpired At The Meeting Was Of Record The Short List Criteria Was Of Record. That Was Posted July 17 Of 2014. Three Days Fell On Weekend. They Had Until July 22 To File The Notice Of Intent. They Did Do That. What Are The Ramifications? They Are Clear. You Waive Any Allegation The County Failed To Add Here To The Procedures. Any Contention The Creation Was Improper. That Moots The Entirety Of The Question What Was The Discretion To Have The Ability To Add More Than Three Firms. You Also Moot Out And Waive The Argument That Any Bidder Was Not Responsive. All Of The Information Necessary To Challenge The Arguments Was Redly Available. That Is Why It Is Within The Bid Documents To Require They Do That. It Is Important For A Couple Of Purposes. One, Obviously, It Is To Let The County At This Point Know. Wait There Is A Perceived Impropriety With The Documents Or Bidders' Response. We Need It Addressed Now. The Second Important Factor Is To Allow A Bidder That Is Relying On The Process That If They Are Not Objected To After Being Short Listed They Can Rely On The Process Before They Spend Hundreds Of Thousands In Proofing Forward With Their Presentation. That Is Why You Have The Requirement In There. It Is Simply They Did Not Protest Those Particular Issues. At The End Of The Day This Protest Started Out In The Initial Document As A Contention That This Process Was A Forgone Conclusion From The Inception. We All Know The Ramifications What That Truly Means And What The Arguments That Would Necessarily Have To Prove To Show What That Means. Now We Are Hearing As Far As The Favoritism Is Concerned It Is Not That But Certain People Might Have Steered. I Would Submit There Is No Evidence Of Any Of That If You Argue It Is A Forgone Conclusion You Are Arguing A Conspiracy Of Such Broad Implications That Implicate A Lot Of Individuals Within The County Office. That Argument Cannot Be Sustained. That Is Why We See The Backpedaling From The Protest That Did Suggest That Certain People Steered Things. That Is To Suggest The Evaluation Committee Members Did Not Have The Ability To Thank As Commissioner Man Noted. They Followed The Process. Everything Is Proper. There Is A Complete Failure To Establish Any Evidence Of Argument Of Arbitrary Behavior. No Illegality They Failed As A Matter Of Law. It Is My Firm Belief And Opinion That This Bid Protest Should Be Rejected And The County Should Move Forward With Approving The Notice To Award It To Crystal. If There Are Other Questions I Would Be Happy To Answer It?

Any Further Questions? I See None. Thank You. At This Time It Is Up To The Board To Deliberate And Discuss The Issue. Is There Anyone Who Has Any Items For Discussion?


I Have Lessened To Both Sides. For 10 Years In My Off The Commission Career I Was Involved In Helping Develop A Business And Build A Business For A Consulting Engineering Firm In Florida. I Was Involved In Many Of Rfq And Rfp Situations Similar To This One A Little Different Because Qualifications Were Important As Well. In My Judgment What Happened To Me Was Very Similar. There Were Times When Our Firm's Written Proposal Scored Lower. We Were In The Short List And Through The Oral Presentation We Won The Job Or Came Close To Getting The Job. These Are Types Of Businesses You Lose More Than You Win. You Understand That. In This Case Wright Construction Was Number 6. Then Moved Through A Different Process And The Southwest State College Concern And We Congratulate Them For That. In This Particular Case Crystal Construction Was Last As Far As Points With 83. Right Was First At 96. It Started When The Oral Presentations Evolve. I Am Not Getting To Detail. I Trust The Staff Recommendation In The Case And This Is What I Support.

I Have A Motion Option A Award The Contract. Recommendations? I Have A Motion On The Floor. Is There A Second?

Second.

Second By Commissioner. Any Further Discussion? Commissioner Manning.

I Pointed Out We Don't Do This Very Often. My Apologies To You Folks That Picked This Terrible Day To Come Through This Process. This Is Not The Kind Of Thing That Any Government Looks Forward To. Particularly When You Are Judging Your Own People And Their Actions. In My Review Of This The Specifics Of This Case It Has Come To I Have Concluded I Don't Like The Process Period. There Are A Lot Of Things We Do Every Tuesday When We Get Together At Meetings And You Don't Like The Process, Change It. Before We Leave Here Today No Matter How This Vote Goes, I Want To Say Publicly I Don't Like The Process. I Don't Like What Could Be Characterized By Disinterested Third-Party Something That Resembled A Fraternal Order. This Is We Have A Situation Here Where The Very Players All Deal With Each Other Every Day Of The Week. Every Wednesday They Get Together In A Committee And Staff Meeting. Most All Of The Same Players Are All In Attendance, They Are All Friend Also. They Have Worked Together 10 To 15 Years. Now They Have To Judge Each Other. A Review Committee Of The First Committee Has To Make Those Decisions. Those People Work For Each Other Or Directly Beside Each Other. That Is Not A System That Bears A Lot Of Scrutiny. I Just Don't Like The Process. I Think In My Very Strong Suggestion And I Touched Base Briefly Is I Want You All To Explore This To See If We Can Avoid These Kinds Of Things Later On. This Degenerated Into Personalities And Trying To Read Minds And Motives Whether They Were Illegal Or Not Nice, I Don't Know. This Process If It Weren't Also Entangled With Positions And Personalities, I Don't Think We Would Be Here Today. I Don't Think The Protests Would Have Occurred. I Don't Know How The Process May Have Played Out And Who May Have Gotten The Recommendation. I Don't Like This Process. I Hope In The


Future We Can As A Commission Work With Staff And See If We Can Get Some Outside Input. I Would Like To See What The Bia Had To Say. Everybody Is In This Little Game Together And Nobody Wants To Complain Because The Fact Is The Way This Process Works Wright Is A Favoured Contractor For Years As Has Chris-Tel. They Are Appointed Because They Are Good At What They Do. It Is Too Bad That Two Of The People We Enjoy Their Services Find Themselves In This Arena Today Making These Decisions That Solo Man Wouldn't Want To Pick Over Who Gets The Baby And Which Half. These Are Awful Decisions Affecting People Who Are Highly Regarded In Their Industry And With Our Own People Historically. I Am Resentful Of The Fact This Process Has Allowed Us To Be Forced Into This Position. That Is Why I Kept Asking What Am I Supposed To Do With All Of This. These Are Good People. The Folks That Work For Us Are Good People. They Are Entangled Here. Things That Trouble Me Out Of This Whole Thing. Doug How Was One Of Them Before You Got Here That Said When We Lost Our Last County Manager This Is The Character Of A Person That We Need Here To Get Us Through Rough Times. You Are Right In The Middle Of Across Fire, Doug. I Tell You. I Will Be Honest. I Want To Say This Out Loud. The One Reference Where It Was Made To You Where You Asked The Person What His He Wanted To Make A Motion You Said Before I Take That Motion What Is It Going To Be? If This Chairman Said That To Me, I Would Walk Out Of This Room In Protest. I Would Head To My Computer And Send A Message To Theth Chicks Commission Challenges That Behavior. That Is Un-Democratic. That Little Comment Probably Not Meant. You Might Have Had A Twincle In Your Eye When You Made It. It Sounds Like A Statement I Would Make. It Is Wrong. It Should Not Be Part Of This Pro Sess. That Is Why The Allegations Grow To This Man Tried To Lead The Process. When You Add The People Making The Decision That Work For You Or Under You In The Chain Of Command This Is Out Of Control. I Am Bitter. Not At You, Doug Or Anybody In The Process. I Respect Booth Sides Of This Deal But I Don't Like The Way It Works. We Argue Process A Lot. We Have Had A Chance To Review The Process And I Don't Like It. I Am Asking You All To Expand Your Thinking With Me. Join In And Let's See You At A Workshop Where We Can Go Invite Other People Like The Horizon Council. What Are Their Thoughts On It? I Am Sorry For Preaching But Some Things I Wanted On The Record. I Know We Can Do Better In This Process Than We Are Doing Today. Sermon Is Over. Thank You.

Commissioner Kicker.

I Will Change The Subject On That. You Know It Is Uncomfortable When We Have Two Different Organizations That We Are Dealing With Here. Not To Exclude The County. When We Get Into This Process Fort Myers Beach Is Near And Dear To Me. Having Been A Past Mayor And I Live There. My Preference When We Would Get To These Situations Is To Talk About What Are You Going To Do About The Waterline Improvements That The Town Is Making? How Are You Dealing With It? What Are You Doing With The Potential Conflicts With Landowners That Think You Are Taking Away Property They Owned For Years Which They Haven't. What About The Season When The Town Goes From 10,000 People To 50 To 60,000 Over The Weekend? Or How Are You Going To Deal With The Traffic? This May 40 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

Be One Where You Might Be Careful What You Wish For Because You Might Get To Deal With These Problem. I Would Much Rather Have That Conversation To Find Out Who Is Best Qualified For This. That Is Not Our Role. What I Understand Our Role To Be Is Not To Deal With The Process That Is Presented To Us Because I Think You Guys Have Stated Your Case Very Well That The Process Could Use Improvement. On That Point I Agree With Commissioner Mann I Hope We Have A Discussion About The Process. I Don't Think This Is The Place To Have That Is What This Gets Down To Which We Run Into In Lee County Of Late Wand Problem We Are Dealing With Is When The Board Makes A Decision Is That Is It Legal Or Not Legal? It Is When We Start Letting Emotions In Front Of Us Before We Decide On The Legality Of The Situation, The Process Is Not Part Of That From What I Understand Today And From What I Understand Is That It Is Your Legal Opinion That We Should Continue With Chris-Tel And Enter Into Negotiations, Is That Correct?

My Recommendation Would Be In Support Of The Motion, Yes.

Thank You.

Commissioner Pendergrass.

On The Process I Think Both Applicants Are Qualified And Thank You For Being Here. I Want To Review The Tapes. My First Indication Is To Go Through The Process Over Again Asking Questions. After Going Through The Process Twice And Listening To The Tapes And To Understand It I Feel Bad For Both Sides. I Will Support The Motion Today.

One Last Comment. I Am Not Going To Support The Motion Not Because I Am Opposed To It. One Option Would Be To Put It Back Out On The Street And Try Again. Frankly, That Would Be My Preference. That Is Where I Am Headed. We Will See How The Motion Goes.

Thank You, Commissioner.

That Was One Of My Motions Initially. My Concern Is This Road Should Have Been Fixed Years Ago. It Is Going To Be A Long Project. My Problem Going Back Through The Process How Long Is That Going To Take? I Asked Staff That How Long To Go Back And Delay The Process. That Is My Concern Going That Direction.

Just To Tag On To What Everyone Else Said Here. I Agree We Probably Ought To Have A Workshop To Relook At The Process And Understand It And Have A Conversation To Improve It. I Entertain After This Motion A Motion To Give Staff A Direction To Schedule A Workshop Accordingly. To The Folks Both Teams Presented Compelling Cases Today. Both Teams Had Great Arguments. To The Folks At Wright Construction If I Was In Your Shoes I Would Have Protested, To. You Were Not Wrong. You Have Good Argument Also. If I Saw It The Way You Saw It I Would Protest It As Well. In My Mind The Problem Is The Bar Is So High To Deny A Bid -- Sorry To Grant Process To Prove Fraud Or Dishonesty Or Arbitrary The Bar Is So High I Don't Feel Like We Reached That Bar Based Off The Arguments We Heard Today. Like I Said. I Think This Was Worth A Second Look. In The 41 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

Future We Look At The Process As Well. I Will Go Ahead And Support The Motion As Well. At This Time Any Further Discussion From The Board Members? Ok. Are There Any Objections? Ok. One Objection From Commissioner Mann. Motion Carries 4-1.

Thank You Commissioners. Every Process Can Always Be Better. We Are Happy To Look At The Process. I Want To Say On The Record That Doug Has My Complete Support And Trust. Our Rules Call For Decision Making Based On What Is In The Best Interest Of The County. I Have Listened To The Tapes And Reviewed. I Have Never Doubted For A Moment Doug's Integrity. It Is Suggested Today That May Have Been In Question But He Is A Trusted Adviser. Has Been And Will Continue To Be. A Valued Member Of This Executive Team. Thank You.

I Would Like To Make That Motion That We Schedule A Workshop To Talk About The Issues That Have Come Up Today And Mr. Manning Is Ready To Second It. One Last Comment And I Apologize For Dragging This Out. Transparency Is The Word Of The Day In Government. The Last Five Years That Is What People Talk About Transparency. I Would Use Shakespeare Describing Ceasar's Wife As A Person Who Should Be Beyond The Appearance Of Indiscretion. That Is What I Am Talking About Here. I Preceded You In Talking Within Man I Will Throw In Everybody Else In The Mix Here Today. It Is The Appearance Of Indiscretion And The Articles That I Read In The Paper. They Questioned The Process And Whether It Could Be Manipulated. I Don't Want Them Writing That. That Is Where I Come From. Not Criticism Of Our Competent Team. We Need To Avoid The Appearance Of Indiscretion. The Process At This Point Doesn't Do That. That Is My Motion.

Zoo I Have A Second? Second By Commissioner Manning? Further Discussion On That? Any Objections To Scheduling The Workshop As Commissioner Mann Suggested. Motion Carries.

May We Have A Break?

I Have A Motion For Recess.

Make It Five Minutes.

Five Minute Recess. We Will Be Right Back.

Thank You For The Brief Break. Next On To Agenda We Will Go To Walk Ons And Carryovers. We Have None For This Meeting. Following That Is Commissioner Items. Commissioner Manning Any Items?

Commissioner Mann.

Lord No.

Commissioner Kicker.


I Will Ruin That And I Apologize. I Have A Couple Commissioner Items. We Need A Quick Discussion On The Possible Scheduling Conflict That Commissioner Manning Brought To My Attention Related To The Third Wednesday Zones. Can You Explain.

I Was Asked To Be Rea Son Of The Fire Cleaves And They Meet On This Third Wednesday Of The Month At 9:00. When There Are Zoning Cases I Would Be Here For Important Ones. There Is A Schedule Conflict I Wonder If Staff Could Resolve That.

Do We Want To Then Are You Asking As A Board Would We Give Staff Direction To Look For An Alternative Time To Meet For The Third Wednesday.

That Is My Request To The Board It Is Up To You.

How Does The Board Feel.

I Would Like Staff To Look Into It. If We Do It On The Fly We Are Going On Top Of A Bunch Of Other Meetings We Are Not Aware Of. I Would Like Them To Work It Out And Bring Back A Recommendation.

Nish Else Have Feelings?

Don't Want To Denigrate The Efforts Of The Fire Chiefs Or The Importance Of Thely A Don. I Strikes Me That If You Miss A Couple Of The Meetings We Could Probably Get Along. The Liaison Means Communicating Not Necessarily Sitting There To Be Bored Through Stuff We Don't Care About. I Don't Feel The Panic To Change What We Are Doing Here. That Is My Thought.

I Kind Of Missed That. As Far As Zoning Or The Fire Cleaves?

The Zoning Clearly Would Take Priority Over The Chiefs.

You Said We Don't Care. I Didn't Know What You Are Referring To.

I Want My Fire Put Out When My House Is Burning.

I Want To Be Clear. On The Board's Instructions Here. You Would Like Us To Look For Alternative Days For Zoning Meeting? Is That What You Are Asking.

Roger, If I May, There Are Times When We Have Zoning Cases. One Or Two Cases And They Go Quickly. If We Could Add To The Agenda Or Find Another Day For The Second Set Of Zoning Cases That Would Be Beneficial. If Not I Will Be Here For Important Zoning Cases. I Bring It To Your Attention. There Is A Conflict.

I Wanted To Make Sure.

I See Two Shaking Heads. Do We Have Four Shaking Heads.

Look At It. 43 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

For The Staff You Got Direction Take A Look At It. Thank You Very Much. I Have An Item In Relation To A Memo That The County Attorney Sent Out Last Week On December 31st To The Board Of County Commissioners. There Was One Thing That Struck Me That Is Going To I Am Trying To Head Off A Problem For The Public And Staff. That Is In Relation To The Deadline To Have Permits Submitted In Order To Be Able To Qualify For The March 13th Impact Reduction Whatever Happens With Them On That Date. Our County Attorney Offered In His Memo If The Board Desires To Clarify That Permits Can Be Submitted Through March 13th To Be Eligible For The Lower Impact Fee Rate. Language Can Be Added To The Ordinance As Has Been Done In The Past. My Understanding Is That With The Upcoming Expiration Date Or Sunset Date Of This Ordinance The Process Is Going To Go Different Than In The Past. You Have To Have What We Are Telling People Concerning To This Memo. You Have To Have The Permit In Hand. The Staff Can't Guarantee The Last Day To Make Your Application To Have That Permit In Hand. I Think We Could Add Clarity And Definition To The Process By Amending The Ordinance As Outlined In The Memo By Allowing Permits To Be Submitted Through March 13th To Be Eligible For The Lower Rate. My Thought Was I Would Bring It For Discussion And Offer It To The Board.

As Part Of That, Mr. Chairman, We Should Allow For Three, Four, Five Six Months To Process. If There Is A Rush Of Permits Coming Into The Shop Then That Is Going To Happen. I Just Offer That As An Amendment To Your Amendment.

I Don't Know That I Can Make A Motion. I Need Somebody To Make The Motion.

I Will Make The Motion To Do What You Just Said On The Record. Also Give 90 To 120 Day Process For Those Applications To Come Back And Be Certified.

By Way Of Historical Information In The Past This Was A Six-Month Period. For Whatever Reason That Did Not Make It To The Ordinance Due To Exspire In March.

I Will A To Six Months.

Wait A Minute A The Motion.

We Have A Second For The Amended Motion?

Will Second It.

Ok. Do You Have Comments? Let's Have The Comments.

Six Months? We Gave Them Two Years. You Are Going To Give Another Six Months? I Don't Understand The Process Here Today. Why Can't We Take This Up This Afternoon When We Are Talking About.

I Thought That Is What We Are Going To Do. I Am Surprised We Are Talking About It Now. 44 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

I Thought That Was Our First Discussion. We Talked In My Office Yesterday That This Was Going To Be One Of The First Subjects That We Needed To Cover.

Mr. Chair.

Thank You. We Did Talk About It In His Office Yesterday. It Was Not Scheduled To Be Part Of The Conversation For Impact Fees. In Our Discussion It Is Appropriate If That Is The Conversation You Want And It Is Easy To Amend.

I Say That Is Because Of What Commissioner Mann Said The Following Conversation About Impact Fee Is Dependent On This Decision. I Am Thinking We Need To Do It All At Once And Make Sure That The Dots Connect Here.

I Have A Question. I Was Going To Bring This Up Today Myself. Thank You For Bringing This Up. My Question Is The Process. We Are Talking About 90 Days, 180 Days. Do They Get The Reduction The Current Rate We Are Charging For The Fee If They Apply Before March 13th Or Six Months Beyond That. In The Past People Applied Before March 13th And Got That. Now They Have To Have Proof By That Date. No Date When It Is Approved. It Could Take A Year To Get A Permit. It Has Been Recorded.

Resubmittal. My Question And Thank You For Bringing It Up. I Support What You Are Doing. Can We Do This Today Or If We Wait To Do It At The Next Meeting Is There An Issue? We Can Only Talk About It And Bring It Up At The Next Meeting Which Will Be Two Weeks Away. Have You Reviewed That, Chairman, As Far As The Timeline? Do We Bring This Up In Two Weeks. If Not I Support It Today.

I Defer To The Staff An What Is The Difference Between Today Versus Two Weeks?

I Think With The County Attorney Referencing Is Amendment To The Ordinance, Is That Correct?

Yes If We Are Going Down This Path It Would Be Necessary For An Amendment To The Ordinance. As Stated You Can Not Give That Direction Or Take The Official Action At Your Workshop This Afternoon. What You Would Be Saving By Taking Action Today Would Be Potentially Two Week Time Gap Between Today And The Next Meeting On The 20th. Either Way It Would Be Able To Be Put Into Place Prior To The Expiration Which I Believe Is March 13th.

Commissioner For Example If You Voted If You Took This Up Today And Voted Now Then We Would Begin The Process Of The Amending The Ordinance. If You Want To Discuss It This Afternoon We Would Based On Consensus Conversation Today We Would Come Back At The Next Board Meeting To Coddy Fiall Of That On A Blue Sheet For You To Vote And Commence At That Time.

Ok.


Thank You, Commissioner.

I Don't Mind Acting On It Today. I Am Not Against That. There Are Other Components. I Mean What Is The Trigger? Is It When You Apply, When You Pay Money? What Happens If The County Sends It Back For Revision Because They Didn't Fill It Out Correctly? Who Is Controlling That? Does That Reset The Clock? Does That Give Us The Guarantee That Anybody That Fulfills That In February Is It Going To Be Processed In Time? I Personally From My Understanding Is That, You Know, The 80/20 Rule Applies. It Is Not Half The Permits Have Been Done By March 13th And Half After March 13th. 80% Of The Permits Are Handed In Before March 13th. Are We Ready To Manage That? I Am Sure Your Answer Is Yes, But I Think That There Is Some Uncomfortableness If You Will.

Commissioner That Is What I Am Trying To Avoid As Well. We Can't Guarantee An Approval Date For The Permit. We Don't Know What Is Going To Be Submitted And What It Is Going To Look Like When Submitted. That Is What The Question Says. Does It Allow Permits Submitted On Or Before March 2015 Not Approved Assessed At The 20% Impact Rate? The Answer Is No. It Doesn't Provide The Review Period For Permits Submitted On The Deadline. It Said Here Is Our Alternative. If The Board Desires To Clarify Permits Can Be Submitted Through March 13th. I Look At Past Practice. That Is How We Had Done It In The Past. We Allowed The Permits Through The Deadline.

That Is Not What They Are Saying.

Right. We Can Change What They Are Saying Through Amending The Ordinance. That Is What I Was Looking For The Motion For Today.

I Made My Case. That Is All. If You Can Ensure That No One Gets Left Behind On This Thing Or If They Get Caught Up In The Wheels That Says We Are Going To Wait Until You Can't Respond In Time Does The Six Month Window Really Work? When Do You Set The Clock On The Window? You Know, If We Can Give Direction That Allows For That I Am Good With That.

That Is The Motion On The Floor?

Is That It? I Want To Make Sure That Is Right.

I Want To Hear The Motion On The Floor. We Are Taking Action That Is Going To Complicate The Other Stuff That We Are Having A Workshop Set Up For. It Is How Much Is It Going To Be? When Is It Going To Trigger? We Are Talking About This Afternoon. I Don't Know What You Are Asking Us To Do Right Now.

If I May. Commissioner Mann If There Is A Date Stamp And It Is Received By The End Of The Day On The 13th It Is In. After That It Is Not. The Processing Time Is What We Need In The 6 Month Period. That Is All I Am Saying. Those That Are Not In On Time Are Not Eligible For The 20% Rate.


I Agree With That 100%.

That Is Not Going To Change What We Talk About Today. That Is My Thought.

That Is Preparing.

It Is Extending The 80% Reduction For Another Six Months. That Is What You Are Doing.

How Has It Not? Anybody Didn't Get It In.

Application Wise Correct.

I Understand What You Are Saying. The Way Illinois It If You Apply The March 14th You Are Out Of Luck.

I Looked. I Withdraw My Objections. You All Do What You Must. Go For It. The Way I See It If You Apply For The Permit Today To Build A New Restaurant There Is No Way You Can Get Approved By March 13th,Uled Get The New Rate After March 13th This.

This Is A Deadline As Opposed To You Don't Know If You Applied Today If You Get That Or Not.

The First Time Home Buyer The Tax. They Could Add Just The Budget For That.

Do You Have A Second On The Motion Yet?

I Seconded It Myself. Commissioner Manning Made It. I Can Second. I Can't Make The Motion.

If It Helps The Board's Deliberations Keep In Mind You Are Not Adopting An Ordinance Today Or Change. You Are Merely Providing Direction To Our Office To Prepare The Necessary Amendment Subject To A Public Hearing At A Date Certain.

Direction To Your Office To Prepare The Amendment. We Will Get A Chance To Vote On The Amendment. Any Further Discussion On That? Any Objections?

Oh, Yes.

Motion Carries Four-To-One. Show One Objection Commissioner Manning. That Concludes My Commissioner Items. Committee Appointments. Commissioner Manning?

One New Appointments To The O And M Committee Fred Waters.

Second.

I Have The Second Any Objections? No Objection Motion Carries. Commissioner Pendergrass Any Appointments?

One Reappointment Of Jennifer Heygan To Community Sustainability. 47 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

No Objection. Motion Carries. I Have One New Appointment And Three Reappointments. Appoint Delay To The Partnering For Proposed Review Panel. Reappoint George To The North Fort Myers Sidewalk Unit. Gerald Wilkinson To The North Sidewalk Unit And Reappoint David To The Tropic -- Tropic Isles. No Objection Motion Carries.

Three. Clarence Bowman To Street Lighting. Denis And Mohammed To The Lee High Street Lying.

Motion And Second. Any Objection?

No Objection.

I Have Theory Appointments To The Harlem Heights Streetlight Unit. Marion And Ortiz And An Appointment To The Streetlight And Thomas Leonard.

Second.

Any Objection?

Motion Carries. Thank You Very Much. County Manager Items.

Nothing Today.

Thank You Very Much. County Attorney Items.

Nothing Further. Thank You.

Thank You Very Much. At This Time We Have Reached The Public Presentation Of Matters By Citizens On Our Agenda. We Have A Good Stack Of Comment Cards. Everybody Is Welcome To Speak At This Time Who Turned In A Comment Card To Give Public Input. I Have Noticed Several Comment Cards Are Related To One Particular Topic That Mr. Joe Butler Has Been Passionate About. I Am Going To Offer Him The Opportunity To Speak First. In An Effort To Expedite The Process. You Are Welcome To Take Your Full Three Minutes. If You Wish To Wave Your Time In Support Of The Comments Mr. Butler Makes Initially You Are Welcome To Do That In An Effort To Expedite The Process By Saying I Wave My Time In Support Of Mr. Butler's Comments. That Is An Opportunity. Of Course, You Are Free To Come And Talk. When I Call Your Name. Let's Start By Having Joe Butler And Theresa Butler After Him. You Will Have Three Minutes And The Lights Will Indicate Your Time.

From Afternoon. I Am Joe Butler. I Didn't Want You To Get The Impression That Nobody Else Is Interested In This. I Also Have 20 E-Mails From People That Couldn't Make It. What I Would Like To Open Up With Is Basically What I Have Been Asking Right Along. We Have An Ordinance, You Are The Governing Body You Will Help Us Do The Maintenance On The Road. We Have Had A Number Of Situations Where We Have Been Told What We Can Do, What We Can't Do And Back And Forth. Latest Was That Chapter 197 Sections 36, 32


Superseded Your Ordinance. I Didn't See It. It Clearly States About The Capital Improvements. I Went Over To The Tax Office And Presented The Tax Paper That Was Chapter 197. I Brought The Ordinance And I Said Does This Supersede This? They Said That They Explained To Me This Is The Tax Roll And What You Agreed On. As Far As The Ordinance They Didn't See Any Superseding That Would Happen. My Question Can We Get An Inter Fund Loan That Has Been Done Before To Get The Side Roads Done As The Project Is Progressing? We Are At The D-Day. The Company Is Out There Now. They Are Grading The Road. I Would Like To Get The Side Roads Done At The Same Time. The Way To Do It Fiscally Responsible In My Opinion Is To Ask For The Inter Fund Loan From You To Pay You Back Over A Period Of Time After We Find Out How Much It Is Going To Cost. $495,000. One Question I Would Like To Clear Up On The News Last Night A Statement Was Made That We Were Trying To Get Emergency Funding From You. We Have Never Asked For Emergency Funding. We Have No Problem Paying Our Way. We Paid Our Way Through The Capital Improvement. No Problem Paying Our Way. We Need Help To Get The Entire Place Done. If We Do What We Are Told We Are To Be Doing Now Is Take Small Portions Over A Long Period Of Time. It Will Take 20 Years To Get The Roads Done. 20, 25 Years. I Think That Is Impractical. If We Can Get It All Done Now With Your Help, Do The Project At One-Time, Pay You Back, End The Whole Thing. That Is All I Am Asking. I Am Beating A Dead Horse. I Know When You Come Down Here Like I Do Constantly You Get That Reputation They Told Me Of Being A Pain In Did You Know What. I Am Trying Not To Do That. Then I Was Told To Get Ducks In The Row Because I Am The Only One Complaining, You Don't Have Anybody Supporting Me. I Do.

Thank You. Theresa Butler.

Mr. Chairman, What He Is Asking For Can We Get Comments From Someone That Is That Doable Or Not Do-Able? Why It Is Or Is Not? Just Cut To The Chase. Let's Figure Out What Is Going On.

Mr. Chairman.

The Difficulty With This Matter And It Has Been Presented To Mr. Butler Repeatedly.

There Is Our County Attorney.

Hello. It Has Been Explained To Mr. Butler In Meetings In Which Both Myself And Members Of Your Administrative Staff And My Staff Have Participated In. It Sound It Is Simple On The Face. The Problem Is Not The Loan Of The Money. It Is The Means By Which That Loan Is To Be Repaid. In The County We Utilize The Collection Method Which Is Chapter 197 That Mr. Butler Indicated. He Received That Information From Me. In Order To Utilize The Chapter 197 Florida Statutes Collection Method You Have To Abide By That Statute. Sounds Reasonable. That Statute Has Certain Time Lines That Have To Be Adhered To. Those Time Lines Are Put In Place To Assure Full Public Participation In The Process. So That Those Being Assessed, Asked To Pay Back This Debt Are Given Adequate Notice And


Opportunity To Come Before You And Be Heard. That Practice Is Coddy Fid In Your Own Administrative Codes By The Creation Of New Msbu And Tu. That Is The Petition Process To Which You All Have Been Subjected To Over The Years That Requires A 50 Plus One Showing Of Interest In The Neighbourhood. The Purpose Behind That Petition Process Is To Afford Notice And Opportunity To Participate From Those That Are Going To Be Affected. So The Question Is Not In Terms Of Whether The County Has The Lawful Authority To Make A Loan Or Not. That Is An Administrative Question But With That Correllarries Can Be Drawn Between That Situation And The Situation Which The County Did Make A Loan Which Was On A True Emergency Baseis Because It Was A Concern That The Arch Way Was Falling Into Public Rights-Of-Way. Notwithstanding That Issue The Concern Of The County Staff That Has Been Expressed Is How Does That Lope Get Paid Back In Mr. Butler Would Like The Board Of County Commissioners To Impose That Requirement And Not Go Through The Public Hearing Process. That Would Not Comply With Your Own Administrative Code And That Would Not Allow Us To Utilize The Chapter 197 Collection Method To Get Paid Back. That Is The Crux Of The Argument Or Discussion.

So The Real Problem Here Is Do We -- Do We Have To Have An Election In All Respects? Does It Have To Be An Election With 51% Majority To Enact This Request?

Yes, Sir. That Is Your Normal And Regular Process.

Who Do They Go To The Make That Happen? Would We Ask For That Or They Ask?

They Would Ask And Approach County Lands With That Request.

Have They Been Asked?

The Appropriate Department Would Be The Office Of Mstbu, The Division Of Construction And Design. Melissa Can Work With The Citizens In Moving Forward With Their Desire To Complete All Of The Side Streets Within The Capital Improvement Project.

Commissioners The Original Msbutu Created Did Not Include The Side Streets. That Is The Difficulty.

Does That Mean Another Mstu Has To Be?

Yes, Sir, Yes, Sir.

That Is All I Have.

Thank You Very Much. Let's Continue.

Wait A Minute, Mr. Chairman. Wait. I Am Trying To Make This Easy For Everybody. If I Understood The Question And His Answer It Is That If Every One Of You Here Today Come Up And Stand Up And Take Three Minutes And Ask Us To Do What He Asked Us To Do The Answer Is We Can't Do It, Not Today. I Am Trying To Save People Agony And


Commissioner Kicker Was Going What Is The Next Step. You Are Saying We Have To Recreate 50% Plus One Of All Residents Before We Can Accommodate This Request?

Yes, Sir.

So For Everybody To Ask Us The Same Thing Over And Over Again Our Lawyer Is Going To Tell Us One More Time That We Can't Do It.

We Have A Process. That Process Should Be Followed In This Instance As It Has In All Other Previous Instances. If You Want To Utilize 197 Collection Method You Have To Follow The Requisites Of That State Statute. As You Know In Terms Of Hire Ark Key Of Regulation Your Ordinances Fail Because They Are Inferior In Dignity To The State Law.

How Long Would This Process Take? If These Folks Went Home To Say We Want To Do That. You Said They Have To Do A Petition. What Happens? We Have To Tell Somebody What To Do Here Other Than Be Mad At Us.

We Already Did It.

You Already Submitted?

I Conttell You Exactly How Long It Would Take But It Would Be Several Months.

Do You Need Direction From Us To Try To Hold Their Hand To Work Them Through The Process To Get This Done? What Do You Need?

Commissioners Additionally The Difficulty Is Separate And Aside From The Process To Get The District Created. None Of This Work We Are Talking About On The Side Roads Has Been The Subject Of Competitive Bidding. We Do Not Absent A Waiver From The Board Of County Commissioners Just Rush Out And Tack On A Bid To A Contractor That Is Already Out On The Site. We Have A Bidding Process. We Have A Procurement Process. You Went Through An Hour And-A-Half Procurement Protest Hearing. We Have A Process This Project Would Be Subjected To. None Of That Has Taken Place In This Instance.

Mr. Chairman, That Is Crucial To What They Are Talking About. The Point They Have The Contractors Out There. What About We Have Done Thousands Of Change Orders Here In Lee County Government. Don't Do That. We Don't Work That Way In Here And I Will Leave If You Do That Again And I Bet Four Others Will Go With Me. We Don't Do That. I Am Trying To Help You Guys. That Is What We Are Having The Dialogue. How Do We Get Where You Want To Be? We Have Real Legal Obstacles. One I Am Trying To Overcome I Know We Do Change Orders In Other Contracts. There Is Some Difficulty In Doing It From This Particular Case. Help, Help. We Are Slowing This Down To Try To Help. Why Can I Not Do A Change Order? What Could Be Done? I Am Following The Commissioner Kicker. How Can We Help These Folks.


The Money Is Not The Problem. I Have Heard That. The Money Is Not The Problem. The Problem Is Up To Have An Mstu Separate To Be Established And A Vote By 51%. 50 Plus 1. If You Were One Of The Ones Against It You Would Like To Have Your Vote And It Has Got To Be In Done In A Certain Process To Be Legal. It Has To Be Done Another Way.

There Is A Public Hearing Before The Board.

Public Hearing. What Else Has Got To Happen?

We Have Done That.

Not In Here You Haven't. You Have?

Let Me Just A Second. Let Me Defer To The District Commissioner.

Mr. Chairman, The Commissioner Is Correct. You Would Have To Set Up A New Mstu Based On The Scope Of The Work. It Is Not In That Petition. We All Know This. We Have Been Back And Forth Over This Plenty Of Times. If There Is 50 Plus One Vote. 50% Plus One Vote Of Those Coming Out, Eligible Voters They May Set Up A Separate Mstu Apart From The One Set Up For This Particular Project. Correct Me If I Am Wrong. Ok. They Will Have To Go Through A Process And Deal With The Coordinator And Start All Over Again. That Is The Statute.

You Have To Go. Come To The Podium And Identify Yourself.

I Am Joe Butler. What I Am Saying We Have An Ordinance When We Sent Out The Original Petition. The First Was Four The Capital Improvement Project. Second Was To Form The Committee. That Is This One Here. We Did 51 Percent. We Had 62% With The County What They Wanted On Both Of Them. Capital Improvement Project And/Or Nance. We Came Before You And Followed Everything. We Did Publications And Everything According To The Ordinance It Says By Creation The Operation And Maintenance Benefit Unit Consisting Of The Unit Shall Be The Responsibility Entity For The Operation And Maintenance. It Clearly States Road Maintenance Within Cherry Estates. It Names The Streets. If You Are Saying That Then This Is Null And Void And We Have To Start Over Again?

You Have To Set Up A New Mstu To Fix The Side Roads. That Is For The O And M Process Of The Roads. That Is The Statute.

Ok.

Will The Board Go Back To Public Comment?

At This Point I Know That Commissioner Manning Has A Handle On This. You Know. Let's Follow Your Lead. Let's Get This Done. You Have The Support From The Board.


I Am Happy To Work With These Folk Also. I Have Been Out There Dealing With The Staff. Don't Shake Your Head, Ma'am. Please Don't Shake Your Head. Please Don't Shake Your Head.

I Will Call You If You Have A Comment Card I Will Call You. I Think To Keep Them Legal We Should Do It Is Legal Way. That Is What We Have Been Told By Our County Attorney. I Am In Support Of What They Want To Do. I Want To Do It The Right Way.

I Agree. Thank You, Commissioner. At This Time I Will Call Theresa Butler For Comment.

I Am From Cherry Estates I Am Here For The Same Reason An Inter Fund Loan. What I Don't Understand When In Was Set Up The Attorneys In 2011 We Set Up Two Petitions That We Signed. Msbu And The Maintenance The Operation Maintenance Fund. Why Did We Sign Two Petitions? That Operation And Maintenance Fund Is Why We Signed Two Petitions To Avoid The Hassles With Dealing With The Side Roads. That O And M Fund Covers Every Side Road Including The Parkway After The Parkway Is Completed. Denise Has Been Working With Us For 10 Years And Now She Is No Longer Here. She Was Removed From Our Project. Now It Was Set Up That Way Intentionally. Are You Going To Tell Me That Your Attorneys Back In 2011 And Denise Didn't Know What They Were Doing Back Then? We Signed Two Petitions For This Reason. O And M Covers Everything Once The Capital Improvement Is Dub. There Is No Cap On That Operation And Maintenance Fund. We Can Assess Ourselves Every Year In April Or When We Have A Committee Meeting. We Can Assess An Increase That Member In Order To Get Our Roads Done. This Is What It Was Set Up For. We Do Not Need Another Petition. We Have Been Stone Walled, We Have Been Everything. We Have Come Up With, We Have Met With One Attorney. We Have Met All Three Of Your Attorneys Here. You Just Stone Wall Us. We Do Not Need Another Petition. I Can't Believe That In 2011 Your People Were All Wrong. You Signed Everything. You Signed Our Ordinance, Agreed To Everything. So Are We Wrong? Were Your People Wrong In Doing This? Where Do We Go From Here? We Can't Do Another Petition. That Is Unheard Of. Nobody In The History Of Lee County Has Ever Had To Go Through What We Have Been Through. You Made Us Go To Court And Spend $100,000 When We Didn't Have To. You Had The Certificate Of Dedication December Of 1974. All Our Roads Are Dedicated. Your County Attorney Says, No, The Developer Is Suing Us, You Spend $100,000 And Delay On Three Years. That Was Wonderful. Let's Lay It On The Taxpayer. That Is Great. We Come Back. We Win. That Is Great. Let's Do The Petition. Talk About Administrative Codes 50 Plus One. Your Attorneys Made Us Get 60 Or Better. Why? Another Change.

Thank You, Miss Butler. Can I Ask Mr. County Attorney And I Am Sorry For Opening Up A Can Of Worms. Why Doesn't The O And Mmstu Cover Fixing Side Road.

Given The Scope Of Workness. It Is Capital Improvement Not Ownership And Maintenance. Exseemeds The Scope Of O And M. Capital Project.


O And M The Is Fixing Potholes Not Repaving The Road?

The Work Needed On The Side Roads Is A Capital Improvement Project, Not O And M. The Units Previously Created With Regard To The Side Roads Deal Exclusively With O And M. That Is The Distinction.

Mr. Chairman, You Are In The Right Direction. People Are Not Clear. I Am Not Clear. They Think That They Accomplished Everything That Was Required For Them. Now They Want To Spend A Little More Money And They Think That Is Covered Under The Definition Of Operation And Maintenance. He Is Saying That Is Not In The Definition Of Operation And Maintenance. That Is Hard For -- I Don't Know What Is A Pothole, Re-Surfacing An Entire Street. A Nomnot Clear. Maybe My Lawyers Are To Tell Me, Staff, Who Do I Have Here? I Want Them To Understand If We Can't Help Them Today What Has Got To Be Done. They Think They Can Use Their Operation And Maintenance Money And They Are Committed To Pay It Back. Nobody Seems To Be Objecting To That. We Are Told Legally We Can't. I Am Trying To Follow Where You Were. I Am Trying To Get Us Out Of Here. How Do We Resolve This Definition Thing? I Don't Know When Re-Surfacing Or Just Fixing A Pothole Is A Capital Project And They Don't Either. If It Is Defined As Capital Project You Can't Do It Under The Existing Structure. That Is What We Are Up Against. They Think We Can. How Do I Get There, Roger, Can You Help?

I Don't Have An Answer For You For That Question Today. If The Board Were To Instruct Us I Am Trying To Think What The Instruction Would Be That Would Allow A Way To Expedite. We Would Have To Come Back. I Don't Know The Answer Today. This Item Wasn't On The Agenda. We Are Not Prepared For This Entire Conversation Today.

I Think That Is Fair That You Are Not Ready To Give An Answer Today. It Is Fair That We Understand The Roll Of The People That Live In This Neighbourhood That Is Obvious. It Is Obvious This Board Is In Support Of Commissioner Manning Taking This Thing Forward And Working With You. You Know, If It Is A Matter Of I Would Say One Of The Instructions That This Board Might Talk About Is To Our Legal Department. Can You Make This Happen Legally Under The Existing Agreement That They Have Right Now? Is There A Way To Do That Yes Or No. You Don't Have To Do It Today. Come Back With That Answer And How We Might Accomplish It. Second One I Think Commissioner Mann Hit On It. Give Us An Expedited Way To Make This Thing Happen. I Think You Said Two Or Three Months Other Whatever It Is. We Have Got To Be Careful We Don't Set Expectations We Don't Meet. We Need To Come Back With That Answer. How Long, What Is The Process? Who Is Doing It. Let's Get On With This Thing. It Is That Simple. You Are Not Getting An Immediate Answer Today That Is Obvious. Sorry.

I Want To Say That As Far As Giving Direction To Staff I Am Willing To Make It A Priority From My Office To Follow Up With This. To Make Sure This Happens As Soon As Possible. I Go Back To The District Commissioner. He Can Work On It. Thank You For Coming. Three Of Us Weren't Here In 2011 When This Started. This Is New. I Have Talked To Joe A 54 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

Few Times. I Am Aware Of The Process. A Lot Of The Historic Stuff We Are Learning About As We Go. Be Patient With That. I Am Will To Make It A Priority For My Office To Direct Staff To Work With Them, To Find Out The Process, I Know With The Statute You Are Not Age To Do This But You Add Another Mst.

Can We Make That An Item In Two Week Also. Can You Give Us Aheads Up On What To Do?

Sure.

In A Couple Weeks We Could Give An Answer From Legal And From Staff On How To Make This Happen.

Mr. Chair, I Don't Want Them To Leave Think You Go There Hasn't Been An Effort To Make This Happen On The Part Of The Legal Staff And Administrative Staff. It Is Explained In More Meetings And Hours What The Process Is, How Long It Takes, What Needs Done. The Folks Just Refuse To Accept That And Want It Done A Different Way. We Are Happy To Come Back And Show You How Long It Takes As Quickly As We Can Get It Done Within The Confines Of The Law. Happy To Do That. We Can Give You That Explanation In Two Weeks Easy. You Know. Please Don't Think For A Moment That Anyone Is Getting Stone Walled Or Anyone And Here Is Digging In Heals, We Don't Have A Reason To.

You Want A Motion Then? Yes Motion.

Any Further Discussion? Ok.

It Was For Staff To Come Back In Two Weeks?

Yes, Sir.

Next Meeting.

Explanation And Definition Of Operations Versus Capital Outlay.

We Will Show You.

Everything We Need To Know And Then Some So That In Two Weeks When They Come Back To Hear The Report We Will Know More Than We Know Today.

Let Me Defer To The County Attorney. Do I Need Public Comment On The Motion Before We Vote On It?

Yes.

Let's Do This Then. I Will Continue With The Comment Cards. We Will Take Public Comment On That. If You Wish To Support The Motion On The Floor Which Is Could You Explain It One More Time.


To Direct Staff And Legal To Come Back In Two Weeks Full-Blown Explanation What The Expectations Are And How To Proceed With Dates That We Can Achieve.

In The Most Expedish Us Manner Possible.

Yes.

So If You Would Like To Have Your Cards I Will Call You. If You Would Like To Waive Your Three Minutes And Say I Support The Motion You Are Welcome To Stand And Do That. That Might Expedite, Gets Us Out Of Here Faster. You Are Welcome To Come Use Full Three Minutes If You Would Like. Mr. Butler And Mrs. Butler We Know Where You Stand On The Issue. Let Me Get Through The Public.

This Is Good. Is That Ok?

Sure, Sure.

Great. They Are Waving In Support Of The Motion On The Floor. Thank You Very Much. Come On Down.

You May Be Seated. Your Support.

Pull The Mic Phone Up.

Our Roads Are Maintained Not Rebuilt. That Is What Our O And M Is About. Capital Improvements Are Rebuilding. In Other Words You Are Telling Me That In 15 Or 20 Years When Cherry Parkway Needs To Be Graded, And Paved Again We Have To Apply For Another Capital Improvement?

Yes.

More Petitions?

Then I Don't Understand What The Purpose Of Our Operation?

The Statute, Mrs. Butler. Our Hands Are Tied. We Want To Expedite This. Let Us Do It.

Ok.

Thank You Very Much. Any Further Public Comment On The Motion That Is On The Floor? Ok. Go Ahead. Please State Your Name For The Record. You Have Three Minutes. Please State Your Name For The Record.

Doctor Santos. I Am A Board Certified Cardiologist. I Am Part-Time Resident As Cherry Estates. I Just Reviewed The Constitution Of The State Of Florida. It Saws-All Political Power Is In The People. Article One Section One. Commissioner Manning I Like You. I Told You You Are Much Hand Somer In Person.


Plastic Surgery.

Miss Brady We Have Met Before At A Meeting. I Don't Spend That Much Time. I Plan To Retire There. I Do Want To Speak On Behalf Of These People. We Have America Here. We Have Retired Servicemen, Police Officers, Firefighters, Retired Fbi And Secret Service, Teachers, Doctors, Lawyers, We Are All Here For One Reason To Stop Falling On Our Faces Down Our Roads. As A Physician I Have Attended Two Or Three People Who Center Injured Themselves On The Roads. They Are Infrastructure Problem They Have Been There For 40 Years. We Deal With That. I Have Been There Since 2011. I Am A Doctor. I Know Plumbing That Is It. I Do Know Right From Wrong. I Know That Unless An Ordinance Violates State Law Our Statute It Should Stand. We Passed An Ordinance O And M. We Have O And M Spunked To Repair Our Roads. I Don't Know This Gentleman. I Know That Mr. Butler Our Representative And Spokesman Has Been Told To Watch His Step To Speak Cautiously. I Don't Like Your Tone, Mr. Butler. He Is Our Voice. We Have 120 People Here. We Have More. We Are Turning To You Our County Elected Official And Your Staff To Help Us. I Have Foul Lenoff My Bicycle It Hurts. I Am 49 My Bones Don't Break Yet Thank God. They Will One Day. These People They Are Not Going To Live 30 Or 40 Years No Disrespect. To See The Roads Fixed. We Need This Done As Soon As Possible. I Urge You To Please Move On This.

We Will Expedite This In The Most Legal Manner Possible. I Underline Legal That Is What We Are Going To Do. We Are Not Going To Put You Or The Board In Jeopardy. Thank You Very Much For Your Comments.

Ok If There Is No Further Public Comment Is There Any Further Discussion On The Motion? Are There Any Objections To The Motionna No Objection Motion Carries Man Nuss.

Can We Discuss How Good Looks Her Is? We Have To Go There?

That Is For The Workshop This Afternoon.

All Right. Thank You Very Much. At This Time I Will Let You Exit Real Quick Did You Would Like To Exit. We Have A Couple More Items Left. Thank You. We Appreciate Your Patience This Morning. Is There Anybody Else Who Is Still Here And We Are Going To -- I Apologize. Let's Get Back To Order. Thank You.

I Can Sue My Colleagues. That's Right.

Before I Close The Public Presentation Of Matters By Citizens After That We Are Going To Have A Work Session Update To Take Public Comment On The Topic Of The Day Impact Gees For The Work Session. Anybody That Wishes To Speak Before I Close The Public Presentation Of Matters By Citizens. Is It On Impact Fees? I Will Get You In The Next Public Comment Section. Ok. Let Me Turn To Our County Manager For Our Work Session Update To Key Up What We Are Talking About Then We Will Take Public Comment.


This Afternoon We Will Be Discussing The Impact Fee Ordinance, The March 13th Sunsetting Of The Ordinance And Transportation Needs And Start Gauging The Will Of The Board On Actions To Be Taken In That Regard.

Thank You, Mr. County Manager. Any Discussion By The Board? Ok. Can I Call Brenda Thomas Followed By Tina.

These Are Nice Hardwood Floors By The Way.

Good Afternoon, Chairman And Commission. I Would Like To Thank You For Your Consideration Of The Extension Of The Impact Fees For Change Of Use. Thank You For Your Consideration For The Extension On The Impact Fee Period Of Which They Are Going To Be Considered. My Name Is Brentake Thomas Executive Vice President Of The Lee Building Industry Association. It Represents 450 Companies Comprised Primarily Of Developers. Builders Subcontractors And Suppliers. They About Over 9500 Employees Working Here And Living Here. In Reference To The Impact Fees. We Would Like To Thank The Board For Supporting The Decrease In The Fees. It Is A Positive Stimulus To Our Recovery Of The Industry. The Economy Is Fragile. The Industry Is Not Yet At Sustainable Levels. The Lbia Is Opposed To Impact Fees As A Form Of Taxation And They Should Remain As They Are. However We Do Recognize The Need For Funding For Infrastructure. We Would Be Open To A Discussion To Sustain The Needs Of The Community But At The Same Time Not Having A Dill Latearious Effect On The Industry. It Is A Fact That Housing Creates Jobs And Revenues To Support The Lee County Economy. For Every 1,000 New Homes Built In Lee County Over $1.5 Billion Is Added To Our Local Economy. Plus Another $117 Million Is Added Annually To The Tax Rolls. Over 2700 New Jobs Are Created. Increasing Impact Fees Will Have A Chilling Effect On New Home Construction, Housing Affordability, Tax Revenues And Job Creation In Lee County. This Is About The Economic Welfare Of The Community And Creation Of Jobs. We Appreciate Your Time Today And Full Consideration Of This Situation That We Are In And We Stand To Support You And Work With You To Find Funding For The Infrastructure Needs. Thank You Very Much For Your Time.

Thank You. Next Is Tina. Then Jonathan.

Thank You. Good Afternoon. I Appreciate The Time To Be Here. I Am Tina Matt. A 17-Year Resident Of Lee County. I Raised Two Children Here. I Own A Small Business Employing 8 People. I Am A Grateful Survivor Of The Big Crash Along With Other People Around Here. In The Past 10 Or 12 Years Are Anything But Easy For My Company And Family. We Are Finally Beginning To See Return Of The Local Economy. It Is Tenuous And Everybody Is Cautious. As Soon As We See Daylight There Are Set Backs. The Policies Set By This Board Have A Profound Impact On The Business Environment. That Is Why During The Past Year There Is A Group Of Business Leaders Who Formed An Organization Called Team Lee. A Business That Supports Good Public Policy In Lee County. Not Special Interests. Taxpayers, Residents, Business Owners, Community Leaders And Job Creators. 58 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

We Care About What Happens In Our Community. The Members Of Team Lee Support The Public Policy Decisions That Help Lee County Continue On The Path To Economic Recovery. We Haven't Yet Referred Stability Or Sustainability. Along With Others I Have Spent More Than Six Months Participating In Discussions And Reviewing Stats Regarding The Impact On The Market. The Fact Is The Home Building Industry Will Be Crippled If These Fees Return To 100% On March 13th. There Is Rhetoric Going Around And Headline Also. If You Talk To The Homebuilders Who Have Been Grinding It Out During The Recession They Are Still Struggling. Listen, Please, To The Data And Facts About The Market And It Is Easy To Understand The Implications For The Hardworking Families Priced Out If The Full Increase Goes Through. Thank You For Your Actions Two Years Ago. We Are Asking For Your Help Today. Continue To Reduce The Fees To Keep The Businesses Open, Continue Creating Jobs, Continue Paying Taxes And Continuing To Call Lee County Home.

John Shan, Then Randy.

I Am The Division President For Dr Horton. I Thank The Commission For Having The Impact Fee Reduction Over The Past Two Years. I Want To Echo What Tina Said About Being A Homebuilder. I Have Been In The Market And I Enjoyed It Going Up And Down. Even Though There Is Recovery With Not Sustainable. There Are A Lot Of Facts And Data. What I Want Is Who There Affect Also. It Doesn't Affect Me I Have 270 Homes In Construction. I Own 1,000 Lots A Nine Figure Investment In Lee County. I Will Not Be Impacted. Who Is Impacted Are The People Working For You. In Lee County The Median Income Is $47,000 Household $65,000 Your We E Be Makes $46,000. At 4 And Three-Quarters Percent A Single Parent Can Afford A $130,000 Home In This Market. A Family Can Afford A $186,000 Home. That Is What The People Who Work For You Can Buy Today. 8% Of The Permits Come Out Under $200,000. Only One-Third Of The Market Works. 600,000 People In The County. 212,000 In The Work Force. You Are Reducing The Purchasing Power Of The Family Or Blue Colour Retiree Or People Not Bringing Affluence From Other Places Up North. It Is Impairing Ability To Purchase A New Home. We Will Be Able To Survive. We Are Largest From America. We Have A Huge Investment In The Economy. We Will Do Well. The One Or Two Or Five Homes A Year Builder Are Going To Be Wiped Out. The People That Want To Buy The Folks That Work For This Team That Want A Child And Need Another Bedroom They Can't Buy A New Home. They Are Priced Out. It Affects The Buyer More Than The Builder. Raising The Fees Will Cut The Purchases Power Substantially For The Buyer.

Thank You. Randy. After Randy Is Randy Mercer.

Good Afternoon, Frank You Will Love This. I Am Randy Tebow. I Am The Owner Land Solutions, Business Owner. As You Are Aware My Company Specializes In Tracking Of Permits And Sales Of New Homes In Lee, Collier And Charlotte Counties. I Want To Thank The Commission For Making The Bold Move To Reduce Impact Fees To Ignite A Much


Needed Construction Activity In Lee County. It Worked Very Well By Creating Thousands Of New Jobs And Making It Feasible For New Home Communities And Home Buyers To Get A Home That Wouldn't Have Happened Without Reduction Youen Acted. Over 100 Of Millions Of Dollars New Construction Was Ignited. The Long-Term Effect Will Be Many Times Over The Amount That The Fees Were Reduced. I Am Here Today To Put Aside The Rhetoric And Headlines To Get To The Facts. Where The New Home Construction Market Really Is In Lee County. So You Can Be Informed To Make The Decision To Keep The Largest Job Source And Revenue Generator In Our County Growing. I Am Here Today To Ask To You Extend The Decision For Impact Fee Himself For Several Reasons. Lee County Is Not Recovered From The Real Estate Bust Of 7, 8, 9. We Are Far From The Sustainable Market. Good Signs With Increased Permit Activity I Plead Not To Focus On The Percentages Of New Permit Activity Rather Than The Actual Volume As The True Indicators. The Real Numbers. As Of Year End 2014 Total Permits Reached 4300. That Is Much Better Than We Were In 2009. Far Below The Levels In 2000 Prior To The Building Boom. I Repeat That. Year's End We Are Not At 2000 Year Levels. For Building Permits. Housing Market Is In Recovery Mode. It Is Far From Sustainability 6500 Permits. We Anticipate The Permit Activity Is Reaching A Plateau Leveling Offer As We Run Out Of Cash Buyers And These With Solid Credit Histories And Seeking Higher For Middle America Buyers. We Will Reach Around 6,000 Permits In Lee County In 2015. It Is Unlikely We Will Get Back To 2,000 Levels. The Current Market Cycle Is Different Than What We Had In 2002 To Fix. We In A Cost Driven Market. The Market Driven Everybody Could Buy A Home Or Five. My Time Is Up. Thank You. I Hope You Make The Right Decision.

What Did You Think Of Charlie Edwards Kids This Morning? Outstanding. Randy Mercer Then Board Member Kathleen Morgan.

Thank You Four Much. I Was Born In Florida, Business Owner Founder Of Cre Consultants. I Have Information I Would Like To Give To You Folks For Your Meeting Today If I Make You May Present That. Commissioners Thank You Very Much I Am Grateful You Are Here And All Of The Folks In Here Earlier Aren't Against Impact Fees. I Was Worried When I Saw The Room Filled Out. Briefly You Have Heard Everything That I Was Going To Say Except A Couple Facts There. Is Absorption We Deal With. It Is Simple. It Is The Space Occupied Minus The Space Vacant. We Judge That Over A Period Of Time For Your Information Lee County Class A And B Office Space Absorption In 2013 Was 355,400 Square Feet. In 2014 It Was 150,500. That Is A 205,000 Square Foot Drop In Occupancy In The Office Market. Industrial Dropped 557,000 To 398,600. That Is 159,000 Square Foot Drop In 2014. 28.6%. Retail Same. It Dropped From 11 4,000 800 To A Whopping Negative 165,000. That Is 144% Drop In 2014. We Are Not Out Of The Woods Yet. Any Additional Statistics You Need To Back That Information Up I Will Share With You. We Have Been Down This Road Before. We Have A Long Way To Go Before We Are Recovered. Today Because Of The Reduced Impact Fees We Have Had A Chance To Give More People Some Jobs And Discussing With Our Leaders Over The Last Six Months It Is Obvious A Lot Of Money Is 34506ing From Lee County If We Raise These Impact Fees. I 60 This transcript is actually a copy of the live closed captioning text that was broadcast at the meeting and to be used as a reference only. Lee County is not responsible for content or any errors contained within. For the official minutes of this meeting visit the Clerk of Courts Minutes Department at http://minutes.leeclerk.org/

Would Urge You To Please Consider The Facts Not Just Rhetoric Before You Raise The Fees Back Up To The Existing Level. I Thank You For Your Actions Two Years Ago And Now And I Implore You To Continue The Impact Fee Reduction For Another Two Years To Allow For This Growth To Reach A True Recovery. Thank You Very Much For Your Time Today. I Appreciate Everything You Do For Us.

Thank You Very Much. Miss Morgan.

Good Afternoon. My Name Is Kathleen Morgan. I Am The Board Chair For The Lee County School Board. I Am Here To Request On Before Of The Board Of Education That We Meet Shortly To Have An Informed Conversation About Impact Fees In Which We May Answer Questions With Data And Respond To Individual Concerns. School Board Member Esand We As A Board Have Repeatedly Requested An Opportunity To Meet With The Board Of County Commission To Talk About Impact Fees. Our Formal Request In November To Meet With The Commission In December Was Rejected. I Am Here To Respectfully Request That You Consider Our Ongoing Desire To Begin A More Collaborative Relationship To Meet Periodically To Discuss Matters Of Mutual Concern. We Have The Said Constituent But Different Responsibilities. They Expect Us To Comment With Our Areas Of Responsibility Not About The Competencies And Responsibilities Of Other Elected Officials And Boards. When Our Responsibilities Converge We Need To Engage And Exchange Information To Serve Decision Making For Both Of Us. Making Our Actions Transparent. Comprehensible And Credible For The Constituents. Recognizing The Board Of County Commissions Strong Desire To Expand And Diversify The Local Economy I Suggest That These Opportunities Come Not With Retirees But With Younger Workers With Families. Families Relocating To Lee County From Within Or Outside Florida Want Evidence That The County Is Committed To Supporting Public Education. Starving The Public School System For Capital Dollars Which Are Needed To Meet Growing Needs Is Not The Right Signal Nor Is Lack Of Managing Growth A Good Signal. The Lee County School District Is Open To An Initiative By The Board Of County Commissions To Be Informative Conversations About Impact Fees And Matters Of Mutual Concern. Let's Get Started. Thank You.

I Have To More Cards. Mike Who I Do Not See. He Is Gone. Then Brad Cornell Has Taken Off. Does Anybody Else Wish To Speak Regarding The Workshop This Afternoon? All Right. When You Are Done Can You Fill Out A Card For Us. I Will Take A Look. It Is A Big Stack. Thank You. State Your Name For The Record Please.

Good Morning Commissioners. I Am Mark Moore I Speak On Behalf Of The School District Of Lee County As The Director Of Planning Growth And School Capacity We Believe A Quality Education System Is A Key Driver Of Quality Of Life. To This The School District Is Admitted To Providing The Highest Education. We Have Failed Challenges With The Greatest On The Horizon. As The Community Returns To Prerecession Growth Rates So Does The Enrollment. I Appreciate All Of The Statistics In The Business Community Our


Enroll Men Is Increasing 2% Annually. At The Same Time We Have Received Very Also If Any Capital Funding From Tallahassee. Our Projections Show This Growth Will Continue In The Next Five To 10 Years Which Will Surely Exhaust Our Capacity And Most Of Our Schools In The Eastern And Southern Parts Of The County. With Grim Prospects Of New Schools With The Current Revenue Streams We Started Exploring Options To Find Capital Locally. Full Restoration Of Impact Fees Contributed To The Much Needed Funds To Ensure The School District Meets The Needs. We Encourage You To Make Education A Top Priority And Continue To Provide High Quality Education. Restoration Is One Way To Ensure This Happens. Thank You For Your Consideration.

Thank You Very Much. Anybody Wish To Comment On The Work Session? Ok. I Will Close Public Comment. I Would Like To Say The Work Session Is To Start At 1:30. I Would Entertain A Motion To Push That To 2:30 To Have Lunch Before The Work Session.

This Is An Advertised Meeting?

County Attorney.

Yes, Sir We Would Go Over And Post The Meeting Then Also Station A Staff Member There To Let Them Know That Any Members Of The Public Let Them No, We Are Starting At 2:30.

I Have A Motion For 2:00. Second For 2:00. Ok. All In Favour Of 2:00.

Public Input?

All Right. We Will Reconvene At 2:00 For The Work Session. Meeting Adjourned. Thank You.
