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T H E C A B I N E T
S T A T E O F F L O R I D A
Representing:
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION
DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE
DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
FLORIDA LAND AND WATER ADJUDICATORY COMMISSION
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND
VOLUME I
Pages 1-75
The above agencies came to be heard before
THE FLORIDA CABINET, Honorable Governor Bush
presiding, in the Cabinet Meeting Room, LL-03,
The Capitol, Tallahassee, Florida, on Tuesday,
January 25, 2000, commencing at approximately
9:07 a.m.
Reported by:
LAURIE L. GILBERT
Registered Professional Reporter
Certified Court Reporter
Certified Realtime Reporter
Registered Merit Reporter
Notary Public in and for
the State of Florida at Large
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
100 SALEM COURT
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA 32301
850/878-2221
2
APPEARANCES:
Representing the Florida Cabinet:
JEB BUSH
Governor
BOB CRAWFORD
Commissioner of Agriculture
BOB MILLIGAN
Comptroller
KATHERINE HARRIS
Secretary of State
BOB BUTTERWORTH
Attorney General
BILL NELSON
Treasurer
TOM GALLAGHER
Commissioner of Education
* * *
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
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January 25, 2000
I N D E X
ITEM ACTION PAGE
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION:
(Presented by Tom Herndon,
Executive Director)
1 Approved 5
2 Approved 5
3 Approved 6
4 Approved 7
5 Approved 7
DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE:
(Presented by J. Ben Watkins, III,
Director)
1 Approved 8
2 Approved 8
3 Approved 9
DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE:
(Presented by James A. Zingale, Ph.D.,
Executive Director)
1 Approved 10
2 Approved 11
3 Approved 11
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION:
(Presented by Wayne V. Pierson,
Deputy Commissioner)
1 Approved 12
2 Approved 13
3 Approved 13
4 Approved 13
5 Approved 13
6 Approved 60
7 Approved 60
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
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January 25, 2000
I N D E X
(Continued)
ITEM ACTION PAGE
FLORIDA LAND AND WATER
ADJUDICATORY COMMISSION:
(Presented by Teresa Tinker,
Secretary)
1 Approved 61
2 Approved 61
3 Approved 62
4 Approved 62
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT
TRUST FUND:
(Presented David B. Struhs,
Secretary)
1 Approved 63
Second
Substitute 2 Approved 63
3 Approved 69
Substitute 4 Approved 70
Substitute 5 Approved 71
6 Approved 72
7 Approved 72
8 Approved 73
9 Approved 73
10 Approved 74
11 Withdrawn 74
12 Approved 74
Dead Head Logging 63
CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER 75
* * *
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 5
January 25, 2000
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 (The agenda items commenced at 9:33 a.m.)
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: State Board of
4 Administration.
5 MR. HERNDON: Good morning.
6 Item Number 1 is approval of the minutes of
7 the meeting held December 14th, 1999.
8 TREASURER NELSON: I move it.
9 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
11 Without objection, it's approved.
12 MR. HERNDON: Item Number 2 is approval of
13 a fiscal sufficiency of an amount not exceeding
14 seventy-five million three hundred thousand
15 dollars, State of Florida, full faith and
16 credit State Board of Education, capital outlay
17 bonds, 2000 Series A.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a motion?
19 TREASURER NELSON: I move it.
20 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: And second it.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
22 Without objection, it's approved.
23 MR. HERNDON: Item Number 3 is approval of
24 a fiscal determination of amounts not exceeding
25 thirteen million eighty-five thousand tax
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 6
January 25, 2000
1 exempt, and three million four hundred and
2 seventy thousand dollar taxable, Florida
3 Housing Finance Corporation housing revenue
4 bonds, the series to be designated later for
5 the Nelson Park Apartments Project.
6 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Move Item 3.
7 TREASURER NELSON: Second it.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
9 Without objection, it's approved.
10 MR. HERNDON: Item Number 4, approval of a
11 fiscal determination required by Article VII,
12 Section 16(C) of the Florida Constitution of
13 one or more series in an aggregate amount not
14 exceeding a hundred and fifty-nine million
15 nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand
16 nine hundred and twelve dollars, Florida
17 Housing Finance Corporation homeowner mortgage
18 revenue bonds, Series 2000 3 through 9; and not
19 exceeding one million Florida Housing Finance
20 Corporation down payment assistance note, the
21 FNMA Second Mortgage Program, Series 2000-A.
22 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I move Item 4.
23 TREASURER NELSON: And I second it.
24 MR. HERNDON: I might note, Governor,
25 before you adopt just --
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 7
January 25, 2000
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.
2 MR. HERNDON: -- to make the -- it clear
3 that -- that this min-- the date was corrected
4 on this to read February -- or excuse me --
5 December 10th. We had a -- a date
6 transposition, and I wanted to just note for
7 the record that that was corrected.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay. There's a motion and
9 a second.
10 Without objection, it's approved.
11 MR. HERNDON: Item Number 5 is a report by
12 the Executive Director on the fund activity
13 analysis report for the months of October and
14 November 1999.
15 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: And accept the
16 report.
17 TREASURER NELSON: And I second that
18 acceptance.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
20 MR. HERNDON: That completes the agenda.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Tom.
22 (The State Board of Administration Agenda
23 was concluded.)
24 * * *
25
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE 8
January 25, 2000
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Division of Bond Finance.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the
3 minutes.
4 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there is second?
6 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
8 Without objection, it's approved.
9 Item 2.
10 MR. WATKINS: Item 2 is a resolution
11 authorizing the competitive sale of up to
12 seventy-five million three hundred thousand
13 dollars in capital outlay bonds for school
14 construction.
15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
16 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
18 Without objection, it's approved.
19 MR. WATKINS: Item Number 3 is a report of
20 award on the competitive sale of
21 twenty-eight million one hundred forty thousand
22 dollar Board of Regents housing revenue bonds
23 for a student housing facility at the
24 University of Central Florida.
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion, Item 3.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE 9
January 25, 2000
1 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
3 Without objection, it's approved.
4 MR. WATKINS: Thank you.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Ben.
6 (The Division of Bond Finance Agenda was
7 concluded.)
8 * * *
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ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE 10
January 25, 2000
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Department of Revenue.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the
3 minutes.
4 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
6 Without objection, it's approved.
7 Item 2.
8 DR. ZINGALE: Item 2, request approval for
9 authority to file with the Secretary of State,
10 amendments to Rules 12A-1, Sales and Use Tax;
11 12C-1, Corporate Income Tax.
12 These rule amendments repeal language
13 already contained in statutory provisions as
14 redundant or incorporate recent statutory
15 changes.
16 We did have a taxpayer file a rule
17 challenge to 051. We worked it out in this
18 rule. The taxpayer still has a problem. We're
19 in litigation on that problem.
20 We have committed to work with the
21 taxpayer, take those issues to the Legislature.
22 It is primarily a disagreement, not in this
23 rule, but between the Department's
24 interpretation of the statute. And it either
25 should be addressed in litigation or in
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE 11
January 25, 2000
1 statute.
2 Request approval.
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
4 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
6 Without objection, it's approved.
7 DR. ZINGALE: Item Number 3, request
8 permission to submit the Department of
9 Revenue's strategic plan for 2000 through 2005
10 to the Executive Office of the Governor for
11 review.
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
13 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
15 Without objection, it's approved.
16 Thank you, Jim.
17 (The Department of Revenue Agenda was
18 concluded.)
19 * * *
20
21
22
23
24
25
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 12
January 25, 2000
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: State Board of Education.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Like to move the
3 minutes from -- for the November 9th meeting.
4 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
5 MR. PIERSON: Also -- also November 23rd --
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Sorry.
7 MR. PIERSON: -- and December 14th.
8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: 2-- November --
9 November 9th, November 23rd, and December 14th
10 meetings minutes.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion.
12 Is there a second?
13 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
14 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
16 Without objection, it's approved.
17 Item 2.
18 MR. PIERSON: Item 2 is a resolution
19 authorizing competitive sale of
20 seventy-five million three hundred thousand
21 State of Florida capital outlay bonds, 2000
22 Series A.
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
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January 25, 2000
1 Without objection, it's approved.
2 MR. PIERSON: Item 3, Broward Community
3 College request for a special purpose center in
4 Weston.
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
6 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
7 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
9 Without objection, it's approved.
10 MR. PIERSON: Item 4, Broward Community
11 College request for a downtown center
12 designation.
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
14 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
16 Without objection, it's approved.
17 MR. PIERSON: Item 5, Community -- Florida
18 Community College at Jacksonville, request for
19 a center.
20 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion for
21 approval.
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
24 Without objection, it's approved.
25 MR. PIERSON: Item 6 is a report on teacher
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 14
January 25, 2000
1 preparation. We've had a request from
2 Dr. Gilmer, Florida State University, to speak
3 on this item.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Dr. Gilmer.
5 DR. GILMER: Good morning.
6 My name is Dr. Penny Gilmore. I'm a
7 professor of chemistry at Florida State
8 University.
9 I'm a coprincipal investigator of a
10 National Science Foundation grant called the
11 Florida Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher
12 Preparation.
13 This is a program to improve teacher
14 preparation throughout the whole state of
15 Florida in science and mathematics at the
16 secondary level. So I represent our group.
17 We have eleven institutions, three are
18 community colleges; and eight are senior
19 institutions, all -- and all the senior
20 institutions have teacher preparation programs
21 in science and math.
22 We also have two other institutions that
23 are associates. One's a senior institution
24 with a teacher preparation program, and the
25 other's the community college.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 15
January 25, 2000
1 So, therefore, we represent really
2 nine senior institutions and four
3 community colleges.
4 I have a brochure that I can give you for
5 this program.
6 I also have left my business card.
7 Basically, there's many things about the
8 program that I think are -- are very good, and
9 I'm glad that this committee has met to develop
10 this program.
11 For instance, I think that the broad ideas
12 of having a general education are very good for
13 all teachers. Emphasizing assessment is
14 critical, including formative and summative
15 assessments; and having teachers learn to use
16 portfolios, not only for themselves, but for
17 their students. They can -- students can
18 present what they know through portfolios.
19 Having social foundations, content
20 knowledge is critical in science and math, and
21 having the professional courses.
22 So the broad ideas I think are good, but we
23 do have some suggestions. And we had not
24 really known about this committee's report
25 until last week, and we represent all these
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 16
January 25, 2000
1 institutions. So we'd like to have an input.
2 Some suggestions include under general
3 education. For instance, in the science
4 courses, I think it's good that all teachers
5 would have these science courses, but there are
6 only 3 credit courses, which means it's only
7 the lecture portion of the -- the course, no
8 hands-on experience, the experiential part. We
9 feel that's critical.
10 So maybe you can -- and to keep it to
11 12 hours, you could have three 4-hour courses
12 instead of four 3-hour courses. So that's one
13 possibility.
14 Also there might be some choices.
15 For instance, in the social sciences, it
16 prescribes exactly four. But every teacher has
17 exactly the same thing. It's almost like a
18 cookie cutter model.
19 But if they had some choices, still you
20 could keep it the four courses. I think it's
21 important in social science. I mean, you're --
22 you're dealing with students who need that
23 social interaction and understanding things.
24 But having exactly the same four for every
25 teacher is a suggestion that you might have
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 17
January 25, 2000
1 some choices.
2 Under the content knowledge, one thing that
3 I think is very important is -- and I know this
4 is a broad overlook. But one thing you might
5 do is have experiential courses, not just lab
6 courses that are prescribed courses, but to
7 have more open-ended opportunities for teachers
8 to do, like, in science or math, research or
9 experiential programs.
10 We have worked with the -- with the Florida
11 Department of Environmental Protection having
12 teachers having experiences in -- with the DEP
13 scientists. And this has added tremendously.
14 This is both for the prospective and practicing
15 teachers working together, we have a program
16 called Co-Learners.
17 In the field experience, you have the
18 teachers working for their entire undergraduate
19 program at exactly the same school. I think
20 it's important that they work their whole
21 undergraduate program at a school, but I think
22 having an opportunity to work at a variety of
23 schools, maybe one with higher minority
24 population, others -- other types of
25 populations might be good. So that's a
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STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 18
January 25, 2000
1 suggestion that we have.
2 Also I know on the internship, you
3 recommend at least 10 weeks, which I think is
4 appropriate, with the goal of going longer,
5 I think is appropriate.
6 But for interns to be able to afford a
7 whole extra year of undergraduate education,
8 paying might be good in your recommendations,
9 to include how they might be able to be paid
10 during that internship, because they'd be
11 teaching in a school.
12 So that's a possibility.
13 And under professional knowledge, I did not
14 see any course in technology. Maybe you
15 want -- and I think it would be good to have
16 technology incorporated in all courses.
17 At Florida State University, we're getting
18 to do this more and more, but I don't think all
19 places do. And -- and I think it's important
20 that they learn that technology. That's the
21 wave of the future. So I think there needs to
22 be a program in that.
23 And I did not see any mention, although
24 maybe it's implied in the professional
25 knowledge, that teaching diverse populations,
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 19
January 25, 2000
1 which I think is critical. We work with -- of
2 our institutions, three are -- represent
3 minority institutions: Florida A&M University,
4 Bethune-Cookman, and Florida International
5 University.
6 And -- and we have a growing minority
7 population. We need to address that. So I
8 think that needs to be part of the
9 recommendations.
10 And also with students with other
11 languages. I did not see any mention of that
12 in the program.
13 So those are suggestions that we have that
14 I would like to include in the record.
15 Thank you.
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: We -- we
17 appreciate that. And this does go to
18 rulemaking. And you will have the
19 opportunity -- I think the 31st of this month,
20 there will be hearings throughout the state.
21 And I think one of -- is located here in
22 Tallahassee, and I think it would be very good
23 for you to let those people at the hearing
24 process hear your suggestions also.
25 DR. GILMER: Thank you.
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STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 20
January 25, 2000
1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Thank you.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much,
3 Doctor.
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: And now we'd like
5 to have a presentation on the committee's
6 recommendations, Governor.
7 MR. PIERSON: And presenting will be Dr. --
8 David Ashburn, the Director of Division of
9 Human Resource Development.
10 MR. ASHBURN: Good morning. I think we
11 have our technology in order, I hope.
12 Governor and Cabinet, I'd like to present
13 the survey results for the Teacher Preparation,
14 and also a -- recommendations from the Teacher
15 Preparation Committee.
16 Preparing tomorrow's teachers to meet the
17 needs of Florida's diverse student population
18 is, of course, a very major challenge facing
19 teacher preparation programs for the
20 21st century.
21 Annually, about 6,000 plus teachers are
22 graduated from Florida's 29, both public and
23 private institutions, with teacher approved --
24 teacher approved preparation programs,
25 statewide approved programs.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 21
January 25, 2000
1 The purpose of our presentation is
2 two-fold: First, to report the recommendations
3 of the Teacher Preparation Program Committee,
4 which was mandated by the State -- by the State
5 Legislature. And also to present the results
6 of the customer satisfaction survey.
7 If you understand the importance of this,
8 the -- the -- and I'm sure you do -- the
9 Legislature felt that the establishment of a
10 committee would be very important in the
11 process of -- of determining the needs of our
12 teacher preparation programs.
13 Also they felt that a survey of teachers
14 who had just been through the teacher prep
15 programs in 1997-98, and actually would be
16 teaching in 98-99, a survey of them to
17 determine their feelings about what they had
18 received in teacher prep programs, as well as
19 their principals, had these -- these teachers
20 in the programs, would be important.
21 Keep in mind that these two activities were
22 done simultaneously. However, the satisfaction
23 surveys are pretty much in accord with the
24 recommendations of the committee.
25 You have a chart that I have before you
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 22
January 25, 2000
1 there, and also I believe have copies of this
2 chart. If you would look at the right-hand
3 corner of that, you'll see in a -- in the
4 assessment area, there was con-- there were
5 concerns.
6 There are actually concerns in five areas:
7 Assessment, subject matter, the role of the
8 teacher, the technology, and classroom
9 management.
10 The area of assessment, the survey -- and
11 by the way, as you look at the chart, we're
12 talking about the two bottom areas of the
13 survey in terms of -- of quality.
14 In the teacher survey, there were four
15 areas: Very well prepared, well prepared,
16 minimally prepared, not prepared; and in the
17 principal survey, it was very strong, strong,
18 adequate, and weak.
19 So in the area of assessment, 75 percent of
20 the teachers report minimal to no preparation
21 in assessment for State exams such as FCAT.
22 Thirty-four percent of the principals
23 report that their teacher performance levels
24 were either adequate or weak. Those are the
25 two lowest levels.
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STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 23
January 25, 2000
1 In the area of subject matter -- that's in
2 the left side of the -- your chart there --
3 45 percent of the teachers reported feeling
4 inadequately prepared for -- in the knowledge
5 of the Sunshine State Standards. Of course,
6 these standards are adopted statewide, and are
7 expected to be taught to all of our students.
8 Forty-seven percent of the principals
9 report low levels of performance on the part of
10 those first-year teachers.
11 In the middle of the chart, you'll see
12 the -- to the left side, role of the teacher,
13 the ability to work with families. Obviously
14 in this day and time, it's extremely important
15 that our teachers are prepared to work with the
16 families and with the -- actually with the
17 community in which the students come.
18 You'll notice that 47 percent of the
19 teachers report minimal to no preparation in
20 terms of how they are to work with families.
21 Thirty-four percent of the principals
22 report adequate to weak preparation on the part
23 of those teachers.
24 If you look to the bottom, you'll see in
25 terms of technology, the ability to use
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 24
January 25, 2000
1 technology in the classroom, 43 percent of the
2 teachers report low levels of preparedness;
3 47 percent of principals report adequate to
4 weak performance in terms of the teachers out
5 of the teacher prep programs.
6 Classroom management, that's the ability
7 obviously to manage the classroom, manage
8 student behavior.
9 Forty-two percent of the teachers report
10 low levels of preparedness, and 31 percent of
11 the principals rate teachers' performance as
12 adequate to weak.
13 Overall, I should point out, the first-year
14 teachers generally felt satisfied with their
15 preparation, and the principals generally felt
16 satisfied with their teachers' performance.
17 Those are the five areas in which there was
18 the most concern, however.
19 These five areas are also targeted for
20 improvement in the Teacher Prep Program
21 Committee recommendations.
22 The Teacher Prep Program Committee, as I
23 said earlier, was mandated by the Legislature,
24 1999 Legislature. This committee was comprised
25 of key stakeholders.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 25
January 25, 2000
1 In fact, I -- you have a brochure,
2 I believe, on the -- on the committee report.
3 On pages 6 and 7, you'll notice a list of those
4 committee members. They represent deans of
5 both public and private institutions; they
6 represent college univ-- and university
7 presidents, both public and private; community
8 college presidents; school district
9 superintendents; teachers; principals; and
10 faculty of -- of teacher prep programs.
11 So we have a very -- a good cross-section
12 of individuals to give us input into this
13 process.
14 Today, we also have with us
15 Dr. Bill Proctor, who's President of
16 Flagler College, in our audience who will give
17 a supporting statement a little later.
18 We also have Mrs. Stephanie King -- you've
19 heard her name called already this morning,
20 who's our Florida Teacher of the Year for
21 2000 -- and she will also be bringing you some
22 additional remarks a little later.
23 The purpose of this Teacher Prep Program
24 Committee, as identified by the Legislature,
25 was to establish a core curricula for
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STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 26
January 25, 2000
1 State-approved teacher education programs. And
2 I want to be sure we keep that in mind as we're
3 talking here, as we're talking specifically
4 about teacher prep programs.
5 There will be other ways that -- that
6 teachers will become capable and -- and
7 empowered to teach through alternative
8 education programs and the like.
9 But we're talking about the formal process
10 through which we have established for teachers
11 to go through in order to be prepared to teach
12 in our public schools.
13 This core curricula is to focus, according
14 to the Legislature, on the knowledge, skills,
15 and abilities essential to instruction in the
16 Sunshine State Standards, with clear emphasis
17 on the importance of reading at all grade
18 levels. And you'll see this as we present this
19 this morning.
20 The State Board, you, are charged with
21 receiving this report, and then we will develop
22 rules based on this particular report. And
23 ultimately, you are going to be asked to adopt
24 rules to carry out the recommendations.
25 We go to the core curricular
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STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 27
January 25, 2000
1 recommendations. They fall into two
2 categories: Student recommendations, and
3 program recommendations.
4 First, we will go to the core curriculum
5 recommendations for the students to enter the
6 program.
7 For entry into a teacher prep program, the
8 committee is recommending that every student
9 that enters the teacher prep program should
10 have past the CLAST. That's the College Level
11 Academic Skills Test.
12 It's also recommended to have a 2.5 grade
13 point average in the courses that they had
14 prior to the teacher prep program.
15 In the core curricular areas, it also
16 recommended that there be emphasis on general
17 knowledge, content knowledge, professional
18 knowledge, methodology, and internship. And
19 I'll talk more specifically about each of
20 these.
21 In the general recommendations for a sound
22 liberal arts background, it was mentioned
23 earlier that we have specified courses. It was
24 felt that for teacher prep programs, student --
25 students entering and -- and going through
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STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 28
January 25, 2000
1 those programs should have a very sound
2 background in terms of the -- the content
3 knowledge that will be expected, by the way,
4 for instruction in the Sunshine State
5 Standards.
6 I will -- you'll hear me say Sunshine State
7 Standards probably a number of times today.
8 But the importance of this is that these are
9 what our students are expected to accomplish,
10 to achieve in, when they go through the K-12
11 program.
12 In order for student teachers to be able to
13 teach in these areas, they need to have a very
14 sound background in this area, and that's the
15 reason you'll see a rigorous curriculum for
16 them.
17 In the area of communications, it -- the
18 committee has recommended 9 semester hours
19 total, that's 6 hours in English, and 3 hours
20 in speech. And in the English area, there
21 would be emphasis on writing and literature.
22 In the science area, they're recommending
23 12 semester hours total, and they've had these
24 broken out by 3 hours in physics, 3 hours in
25 earth science, 3 hours in chemistry, and
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1 3 hours in biology.
2 There was much discussion about the rigor
3 of these courses before they were adopted.
4 The math area, 9 semester hours, and you'll
5 notice there's 6 hours at the college algebra
6 and above level. In addition, 3 hours in
7 geometry.
8 In the social sciences area, they requested
9 that there be 15 semester hours total, 3 hours
10 in world geography, 3 hours in world history,
11 3 hours in American history, 3 hours in
12 economics, 3 hours in basic psychology.
13 And then in the area of humanities,
14 6 semester total hours, 3 hours in philosophy
15 in which there would be embedded a logic
16 portion, and 3 hours in fine arts.
17 We -- the committee believes that this will
18 provide a very strong background for teachers
19 in terms of a basic education program that they
20 would need for instructing in a K-12 program.
21 The know-- in the area of knowledge of
22 content recommendations, there -- they
23 requested there be substantial knowledge in the
24 content area, and there be a very strong
25 understanding of Sunshine State Standards.
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1 There would be nothing to prohibit the
2 experimental -- or experiential activities that
3 was discussed earlier today. This could be
4 embedded into those programs we believe.
5 Professional knowledge recommendations,
6 skills necessary to promote learning in the
7 areas of reading literacy acquisition, safe
8 learning environment, assessment, growth and
9 development, and sociological foundations. And
10 I will speak to each of those.
11 In the area of professional knowledge, in
12 the area of reading literacy acquisition, the
13 early -- in early childhood and elementary
14 education, it was requested that we have
15 12 hours in that area. This would center
16 around the topics that you see listed on the
17 screen: Assessment, prescription, and
18 instruction in terms of reading.
19 Again, this is at the elementary and early
20 childhood levels. What we're saying is that
21 there needs to be very strong emphasis on
22 diagnosing students' needs in the areas of
23 reading and allowing them certain prescriptions
24 for those needs that they have.
25 Reading across the content areas, in other
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1 words, going beyond just the basics of reading,
2 but being able to read in all of the subject
3 areas.
4 Children's literature would be a portion of
5 this 12 hours, foundations of reading would be
6 included, and primary and intermediate reading
7 would be in that area.
8 Also at the secondary level, currently
9 there is no requirement for any reading
10 instruction for secondary instructor. It's
11 been recommended that if we're going to make
12 sure that reading is an important area of
13 instruction throughout the curriculum, that
14 secondary teachers also be prepared.
15 And so they've asked for 3 hours in the
16 areas of assessment of reading problems and
17 content area strategies.
18 In the area of safe learning environment,
19 the committee has recommended 3 hours, and this
20 would include classroom management. Notice
21 that was one of the areas in which there was
22 weakness felt on the part of the new teachers.
23 School safety; educational law, so they
24 know their rights and the rights of the
25 students; and ethical behavior, how students
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1 should be treated.
2 Human development and learning under
3 professional knowledge, 3 hours they're
4 recommending. Behavior and cognition would be
5 a portion of that. And memory and learning and
6 brain research.
7 Basically this whole idea of learning how
8 students learn, and being able to provide
9 instruction in the -- in such a way that
10 students would be -- it would be easier for the
11 students to comprehend and develop the skills
12 necessary for progression from one grade to
13 another.
14 In the area of assessment, they've
15 recommended 3 hours to include a number of
16 things, primarily that they prepare students
17 for the Sunshine State Standards, FCAT
18 assessments, and other State assessments.
19 Content measured by the State exams,
20 reading and interpreting data. If teachers are
21 going to be able to diagnose the problems of --
22 of students in the area of -- of assessment,
23 they need to be able to know how to interpret
24 the data they receive on the statewide exams;
25 understand the grading systems that exist both
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1 locally and statewide; alternative and
2 authentic assessments; knowing how to diagnose
3 both in terms of using alternative and
4 authentic assessments.
5 We have a number of students, it was
6 alluded to earlier, who are not -- or who have
7 special needs, and teachers need to be able to
8 understand those needs and be able to assess in
9 an alternative way to meet the needs of those
10 particular students.
11 They should understand testing and
12 assessment terminology goes along again with
13 understanding the data they receive. And the
14 relationships between the standards --
15 statewide -- Sunshine State Standards, the
16 assessments, the outcomes that are expected,
17 and the performance that is expected on each of
18 those particular outcomes.
19 The area of professional knowledge
20 continues recommendations, sociological
21 foundations of education, the principles --
22 focus should be on sociological foundations.
23 In other words, in understanding context in
24 which education exists.
25 You'll notice there are no credit hours on
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1 that. That could be interspersed throughout
2 the curriculum.
3 In the area of methodology, they should
4 have the skills necessary to impart knowledge,
5 a variety of instructional strategies, again,
6 for the -- the diverse population they will be
7 receiving in Florida.
8 About -- there are three states that
9 have -- or four that have tremendous diverse
10 populations, Florida is one of them. And we
11 need to make sure that our diverse population
12 is -- is understood and appropriate instruction
13 is -- is directed towards the needs of those
14 students.
15 The area of the use of appropriate
16 technology, it was -- it was stated earlier
17 that we didn't have a course or a number of
18 hours for this. This was discussed by the
19 committee. The committee came up with the
20 recommendation that they felt that technology
21 really should be interspersed throughout the
22 curriculum received during a -- a college
23 program.
24 And there should be specific emphasis in
25 those programs in terms of teaching, using
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1 technology.
2 So technology is a very important part, and
3 should be an important part of all course --
4 courses.
5 Again, the effective teaching strategies
6 for diverse population cannot be
7 overemphasized, and it is on -- in the report.
8 I understood earlier it was overlooked.
9 But on page 12 of the report, it --
10 (Commissioner Crawford exited the room.)
11 MR. ASHBURN: -- does mention the diverse
12 populations, including limited English
13 proficient students as well.
14 In terms of internship, the skills
15 necessary to effectively direct and facilitate
16 student learning, an important part of this.
17 There was much discussion about the length of
18 an internship program. It was alluded to
19 earlier that there should be something like a
20 year-long internship.
21 Actually the committee came down with
22 10 weeks as a minimal program for an
23 internship. One of the recommendations did
24 include an extension to a year-long program for
25 those institutions that would desire to do so.
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1 The idea of it being in one school for a
2 full year, or for a -- multiple areas within
3 the school, or different schools, that was also
4 argued and debated. They came up with a full
5 year as -- as probably the best possible
6 because that would give them a length --
7 (Commissioner Crawford entered the room.)
8 MR. ASHBURN: -- of time for staying in the
9 same school.
10 However, that's not a firm commitment.
11 That was something put in the -- the committee
12 to just give direction to the -- the university
13 system.
14 Also the internship should be supervised by
15 high performing educators. Those educators in
16 the school system, in the -- in the
17 universities and colleges should have the
18 skills necessary for -- as an instructor as
19 well. That's really what that is --
20 (Secretary Harris exited the room.)
21 MR. ASHBURN: -- speaking to.
22 There should be experiences of progressive
23 responsibility. In other words, teachers would
24 not go in and be given the entire load of -- or
25 teacher load when they enter a -- an
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1 internship, but they should be allowed to
2 gradually take over until they're -- they're
3 competent in all areas.
4 And then the demonstration of the educator
5 accomplished practices. These are practices
6 that you approve as a State Board, and we're
7 saying that the internship should emphasize
8 these throughout all of their activities that
9 are experiential should emphasize these.
10 In terms of program completion
11 recommendations, the requirements incentives
12 also were very important in our
13 recommendations. They said they should pass
14 the subject area exam, pass the professional
15 knowledge exam, all of this before they
16 complete the program.
17 Now, some colleges and universities do that
18 already. Others don't. Remember, we're
19 talking about both public and private
20 institutions that would have a State approved
21 teacher prep program. And we do have 29 of
22 those in this state.
23 So this does not just apply to public
24 universities, it would apply to both private
25 universities who want to be State approved in
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1 terms of their teacher prep program.
2 They should establish eligibility for a
3 professional level certificate. And we feel
4 that the teachers who go through these programs
5 should earn some State funded bonus in terms of
6 probably entering the -- the system at a higher
7 level in terms of their salary, as opposed to a
8 teacher who did not go through one of these
9 special rigorous teacher prep programs.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Jack, are you -- so you're
11 recommending that -- that the -- the current
12 way of receiving a teacher's certificate and
13 gaining a degree would still apply, but this --
14 (Secretary Harris entered the room.)
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- would be in addition to?
16 MR. ASHBURN: No, sir. It would apply for
17 those that didn't have a teac-- a State
18 approved program.
19 But every program, the 29 that now are
20 currently approved by the State, would have
21 this program --
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
23 MR. ASHBURN: -- and they would not be
24 approved unless they had this rigorous program.
25 However, if someone came from a university
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1 that was not under this, there would be
2 alternative ways that they could receive --
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Like another univ--
4 MR. ASHBURN: -- certification.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- another state or --
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Another state.
7 MR. ASHBURN: Yes. That's correct.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: All right.
9 MR. ASHBURN: That's correct.
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: We -- we only
11 produce -- well, less than half of the teachers
12 that we need here in Florida. So there's a lot
13 of other states that we're the recipient of
14 their education.
15 MR. ASHBURN: And that's been a big bone
16 of -- of contention, if you want, because many
17 people do have concerns with this, because it
18 is very rigorous, and we feel that the
19 committee is taking a bold step here to say,
20 Florida's going to be on the cutting edge in
21 terms of teacher prep programs, and they're
22 going to be rigorous enough that we do produce
23 top quality educators for the State of Florida.
24 The general recommendations -- and I -- I
25 want to point out that this particular slide --
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1 if I have the right one up there -- does have
2 encouraged.
3 These that you'll see now are not what the
4 committee said you have to do to have a teacher
5 prep program, but they are encouraged to do the
6 following things in terms of -- of innovations.
7 First of all, provide innovative field
8 experiences in -- and internships, establish
9 charter teacher preparation programs. The idea
10 here was in some areas, there may be some
11 initiatives that would go far beyond what we
12 have here, and --
13 (Attorney General Butterworth exited the
14 room.)
15 MR. ASHBURN: -- they want to charter a
16 special kind of program. We need to look at
17 that as a possibility for them.
18 Expand partnerships among school districts,
19 community colleges, and universities. This has
20 been encouraged over and over again. We never
21 feel that we have enough of that. We need to
22 continue to do that, strengthen that, so that
23 all parties are a part of this process, and
24 we're all working together for the good of the
25 students in the K-12 program.
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1 Also prepare professional development plans
2 for students. That's professional development
3 plans for -- for the people leaving the teacher
4 prep program.
5 In other words, as they leave, all of --
6 every one of us has some area in which we can
7 improve. This would say they know up-front
8 where they need to improve. And as they enter
9 the profession, they begin a plan to actually
10 improve even better than they were when they
11 graduated.
12 Recommendations for quality assurance,
13 rigorous assessment during the -- the program,
14 continuous quality improvement for the teacher
15 prep programs, model competency assessment
16 systems.
17 In fact, they -- they -- we recommend that
18 they be the -- on the forefront of -- of
19 providing competency assessments, direct -- in
20 other words, provide the leadership.
21 Quality assurance through program approval
22 process. And, of course, we have that in
23 place. We encourage as many other institutions
24 that would like to go through this to do so.
25 The next few slides will sort of give you a
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1 summary of what the new parts of -- of this
2 are. Now, I've given you a great deal of
3 detail. But -- and -- and I hope this is not
4 confusing.
5 But if you look at these last -- these are
6 the things that are actually new. A lot of
7 these things are in the program now, but these
8 are brand new.
9 Entry into the -- the teacher prep program.
10 Student would pass the class. That would be
11 required. That's new. That's not currently
12 required of all teacher prep programs that are
13 approved by the State.
14 Demonstration of mastery of new content
15 standards. And that's the new standards
16 that -- that you have approved for teachers.
17 For teacher preparation programs,
18 establishment of a prescribed generally ed
19 course of study. That's what we went over when
20 we talked about the actual courses that they
21 would have to have in the areas of math and
22 science and so forth.
23 Establishment of specified professional
24 knowledge course requirements. This again
25 would apply to all of teacher prep programs
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1 approved by the State.
2 Courses and experiences to meet limited
3 English proficient legal requirements. Make
4 sure that when they finish their teacher prep
5 program, they're qualified to teach students
6 with limited English proficiency, and they
7 don't have to have the current in-service
8 program that is required if they have not.
9 Ten-week minimum internship would be an --
10 an absolute.
11 As far as the -- again, the program
12 completion requirements, pass the subject area
13 and professional knowledge exams before they
14 leave the teacher prep program. In other
15 words, before they're -- they're given that
16 status.
17 And, again, State funded bonuses for
18 approved program graduates.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: What's the amount of --
20 what's -- what's the recommended size of the
21 bonus?
22 MR. ASHBURN: It's been tossed around at
23 5 percent above the base pay at least.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Would they have to teach --
25 MR. ASHBURN: They didn't really come up
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1 with a specific amount or whatever.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: They would have to
3 teach.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
5 MR. ASHBURN: Okay?
6 And then in closing, I'd like to announce
7 to you that we do have planned for
8 January the 31st, five regional meetings for
9 input into this report from the public. And
10 this is all stakeholders. This has been sent
11 out to the Colleges of Education, District
12 school superintendents have been apprised of
13 these.
14 And anyone who has any kind of additional
15 recommendations as were given here this morning
16 may do so at these meetings. You have those
17 listed, I believe, for you: Panama City,
18 Tallahassee, Miami, Orlando, and Largo.
19 We -- we would encourage people to attend
20 these, and to provide some input to us.
21 At this time, I'd like to ask -- and I'll
22 ask them to just follow one another, if
23 Mrs. Stephanie King will come forward as
24 Florida's Teacher of the Year for 2000, give
25 some supporting remarks; followed by
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1 Dr. Bill Proctor, who's President of
2 Flagler College.
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Both of which
4 served on the committee, I might mention.
5 MR. ASHBURN: Thank you.
6 MS. GOODSON: I'm not one of the speakers.
7 But we've had a complaint we can't hear. So
8 I'm moving the mic slightly.
9 Sorry.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well done.
11 You go, girl.
12 MS. KING: Can you hear?
13 We have a rule in my classroom, if you
14 can't, you raise your hand, you don't throw
15 things.
16 MS. GOODSON: It's not in here, it's on the
17 Internet.
18 MS. KING: Oh, okay. Very good.
19 MS. GOODSON: -- I'll let you know.
20 MS. KING: It's a pleasure to --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Welcome back.
22 MS. KING: -- address you today, and to
23 have had the honor to participate in discussing
24 teacher preparation.
25 As you know, approximately 30 percent of
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1 our graduates in teacher preparation stop
2 teaching after the first three years; and in
3 some areas, it's up to 50 percent.
4 We're pleased to try to help to develop a
5 program that will do two things: One, be
6 certain that our teachers feel very well
7 prepared.
8 I noticed in the statistics that you've
9 heard that it's often the teachers who begin
10 teaching that say they want more, they need
11 more, they're willing to do more.
12 And we think that this program provides
13 that.
14 The second thing is that all of us who
15 teach know that knowledge is critical to our
16 field, and we -- we pride ourselves on our
17 knowledge, and that this program supports the
18 need for being well versed in a -- a broad area
19 of subject matter. It's critical.
20 Particularly the new research that
21 indicates that interdisciplinary studies are
22 more powerful, and that our ability to draw,
23 regardless of what subject we teach, from the
24 wide base of human knowledge makes such a
25 program, we think, very, very powerful.
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1 And the last item I want to speak to is the
2 issue of technology and the discussion of
3 lecture versus hands-on activities in any
4 particular university course.
5 What we know from the research is teachers
6 tend to teach in the ways that they have been
7 taught. And the more that universities infuse
8 technology in every course in which they train
9 teachers, the more that they mix lecture with
10 hands-on activity and experiential knowledge,
11 the greater the tendency will be that the
12 teachers who are trained by such programs will
13 use those techniques with their students.
14 So we're hopeful that such a program will
15 help us to move in those directions.
16 So when you hear the word "teacher," it'll
17 be a -- a word of respect and honor, as it
18 should be.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Stephanie, can I ask you a
20 question?
21 MS. KING: Certainly.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: When you all were
23 deliberating, did you -- was there a discussion
24 about these suggested new requirements adding
25 time to graduate in adding additional --
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1 MS. KING: Absolutely.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- a rigorous -- a rigorous
3 quality that might --
4 MS. KING: -- make it --
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- excuse --
6 MS. KING: -- harder to get teachers?
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah. There could be a --
8 a balance question of there's a -- at least we
9 read about a pending --
10 MS. KING: Teacher shortage.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- teacher shortage.
12 MS. KING: Yes.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: So how -- how did you all
14 deal with that issue?
15 MS. KING: Well, we discussed it at length.
16 And we want to say this: If this State is
17 committed to outstanding education, then you
18 need to have skilled practitioners.
19 And one of the things that's a separate
20 task force to address is the issue of how do
21 you keep skilled practitioners working in our
22 schools.
23 And we -- we are between the rock and the
24 hard place. What we've noticed is, as women
25 and minorities and skilled people across the
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1 expanding economy --
2 (Attorney General Butterworth entered the
3 room.)
4 MS. KING: -- have greater options, the
5 only reason that you -- we're going to get
6 outstanding people in our classroom is by
7 dealing with the work situation.
8 And that we decided was a separate issue.
9 We had been charged with the job of writing a
10 prescription for what would produce quality
11 teachers in our classroom.
12 And we would love, I'm sure, many of us, to
13 have the other charge as well, to look at the
14 workplace and see what it would take to keep
15 high quality people continually performing at
16 the level of excellence that this state needs
17 and deserves.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thanks.
19 MS. KING: Thank you.
20 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Thank you.
21 Dr. Proctor.
22 DR. PROCTOR: Good morning, Mr. Governor,
23 members --
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good morning.
25 DR. PROCTOR: -- of the Board.
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1 I have no need to impose on your time,
2 other than to make just two brief comments, if
3 I may.
4 I was on the subcommittee that dealt with
5 the general education core requirements. And
6 what I want to assure you is that every course
7 listed was subject to considerable debate.
8 I suppose if you'd had another committee,
9 you might have had a slightly different course
10 here or there. But each one was deliberated at
11 some length.
12 And with respect to the science and math
13 requirements, I was particularly impressed with
14 the comments of the teachers who were on the
15 committee and their advocacy for those courses.
16 My other comment has to do with the
17 question of the absence of technology, ESOL and
18 ESE in this general education core.
19 Admittedly, they are not there, because
20 this is a general education core. But you will
21 find them throughout the report. And
22 particularly, you will find them embedded in
23 the accomplished practices.
24 And ESOL runs through the accomplished
25 practices, as does the use of technology.
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1 So in most of our programs, I know in ours,
2 we used to have a course in technology. That
3 became somewhat outdated, because in most of
4 our courses now, we have to infuse technology
5 throughout a number of the courses. So having
6 a single course has kind of passed as a
7 procedure.
8 Other than that, Mr. Governor, unless there
9 are questions, I'll be glad to respond.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Thank you, Doctor.
12 I'd like to move approval to move this
13 forward for rulemaking, Governor.
14 TREASURER NELSON: May I ask a couple of
15 questions?
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Absolutely.
17 TREASURER NELSON: Are we at the point --
18 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Sure.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah.
20 TREASURER NELSON: Could I ask: On all of
21 the suggestions, which I appreciate the
22 Department doing this analysis, what assurances
23 are we going to have that the Colleges of
24 Education are -- are going to implement these
25 recommended changes?
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1 DR. PROCTOR: Mr. Nelson, could I get a
2 clarification on that?
3 There are those that will be required if
4 they're going to be State approval, and then
5 there are those that are suggested.
6 Are you referring specifically to the
7 suggestions, or to -- the requirements will
8 have to be followed if they're going to achieve
9 State approval?
10 TREASURER NELSON: I'm -- I'm talking about
11 the report that we've just heard --
12 DR. PROCTOR: Yes, sir.
13 TREASURER NELSON: -- which has a -- a
14 number of excellent suggestions.
15 DR. PROCTOR: At the conclusion of it, yes.
16 TREASURER NELSON: That's correct.
17 DR. PROCTOR: Right.
18 TREASURER NELSON: What -- how -- how are
19 we going to make sure that the Colleges of
20 Education implement these recommendations?
21 DR. PROCTOR: The suggestions.
22 Well, of course, you could -- ultimately
23 you could embed them in the State approval
24 process as a matter of the criteria if you
25 wanted.
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1 At this time, I -- I personally don't think
2 that's necessary, because most of the colleges
3 of which I'm familiar are proceeding along that
4 line.
5 I can cite in our own case, we have not a
6 formal, but a very informal and close working
7 relationship with the Florida School for the
8 Deaf and Blind.
9 A number of the schools are --
10 Dean Lafferty has several relationships set up
11 with -- with local high schools.
12 But if there's a suggestion there that you
13 think is particularly important, then it could
14 be embodied in the approval process as a
15 criteria.
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, I think the
17 answer to your question is that when, in fact,
18 this rule is passed, it -- for State
19 institutions, it will be what is set as the
20 curriculum requirements for education.
21 The private schools, which Dr. Proctor is
22 the president of, gets to make a choice on
23 whether they'd like to do it or not.
24 But as he says, our approval requirement
25 that would go through as the Department of
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1 Education approves schools for education, that
2 could well make a difference in whether they're
3 approved or not.
4 TREASURER NELSON: Well, I think it's a
5 step in the right direction. But I think in
6 the past, we've seen, as in many, many reports,
7 they go on the shelf, and they don't get
8 attended to.
9 Let me ask a -- a question of the
10 Department, either of you, Tom, or -- or
11 perhaps one of your other representatives.
12 It's my understanding that Florida
13 presently is recruiting a very high percentage
14 of its teachers from out of state so that maybe
15 65, 70 percent of the teachers are coming in
16 from out of state.
17 Will the higher standards that we're trying
18 to incorporate in the Colleges of Education
19 here in the state of Florida, will those higher
20 standards also be required of the out of state
21 teachers that we are going to be recruiting
22 into Florida?
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, the
24 standards for the -- the teaching prep college
25 courses that are given by schools that are
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1 out of state obviously are going to be whatever
2 those schools choose to have, and whatever
3 those states require of them.
4 But we will be bringing to the Legislature,
5 and I will be basically announcing today, the
6 new -- what we are recommending for teacher
7 certification.
8 That is the method by which we will be
9 setting the expectations and the measurement of
10 the expectations for teachers, not only from
11 Florida, through these rigorous programs that
12 we're recommending, but also for those teachers
13 that do come from other places that are
14 recruited to come to Florida.
15 TREASURER NELSON: Governor, may --
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes, sir.
17 TREASURER NELSON: -- I ask another
18 question?
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah, absolutely.
20 TREASURER NELSON: The committee
21 recommended that the College of Education
22 should provide more courses and field
23 experiences that include the use of technology
24 in the classroom, and I commend you for that.
25 Who is going to ensure that the College of
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1 Education -- the Colleges of Education are
2 infusing the use of instructional technology
3 more into their courses?
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, when you go
5 through the process of being accredited by the
6 Department of Education, there is a visit,
7 there's a measurement, and we are also required
8 under the A+ plan to include technology in
9 teacher certification.
10 So they're going to get it two ways: One
11 in the method by which we look at the -- at the
12 schools that are teaching education, to see to
13 it that they are embedded.
14 The second thing is that when, in fact,
15 they come in for certification, part of their
16 certification requirement will be -- technology
17 is included in that certification exam.
18 So you're going to get it from -- from both
19 directions.
20 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. Did the gentleman
21 there have something you wanted to add?
22 MR. ASHBURN: There was another comment
23 made back here that you might want to be aware
24 of, and that is that one of the teacher prep
25 processes is that those teachers that are
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1 prepared in our institutions, in order to
2 continue as teacher prep institutions, have to
3 have 90 percent of their people who are
4 employed eligible for reemployment.
5 In other words, when they get into the
6 field, 90 percent of those people in the field
7 that come out of these programs need to be
8 either asked to return -- they don't have to be
9 reemployed -- but they have to be eligible for
10 reemployment.
11 And that's, again, an attempt to try to --
12 to move that -- that bar up a little bit.
13 TREASURER NELSON: You cited in this
14 report, there was a '97 report by the College
15 of Education deans that indicated that many of
16 the colleges were equipped with outdated
17 instructional technology. So what you see then
18 is this report being implemented to -- to
19 change that.
20 And --
21 MR. ASHBURN: Yes, sir.
22 TREASURER NELSON: -- and you believe that
23 the -- the overall implementation, that you can
24 see that it is going to be implemented, it's
25 not just going to be set on the shelf.
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1 MR. ASHBURN: Yes, sir.
2 The -- the -- the information you put into
3 these rules, when we bring them back to you, if
4 you approve those, then each teacher prep
5 program must abide by those requirements in
6 order to be State approved.
7 We have a committee that goes into the
8 system and actually evaluates the programs
9 periodically to determine whether or not
10 they've met these.
11 And the Commissioner actually sends a
12 letter out indicating whether they're fully --
13 met fully these -- these criteria or not.
14 And they are required to improve those
15 areas of deficiency if they want to remain
16 approved by the State.
17 DR. PROCTOR: If I might add.
18 MR. ASHBURN: Sure.
19 DR. PROCTOR: I might just add one word on
20 that, Mr. Nelson.
21 We just went through State approval again
22 at our institution. And part of that approval
23 process is when the reviewers meet with
24 students, question them about their exposure to
25 technology, and other things.
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1 But at the same time, we bring in
2 principals and teachers out in the field, and
3 they are questioned about the quality of the
4 teacher training program with emphasis on
5 technology.
6 I would tell you though, keeping up with
7 technology is one of the big -- big challenges,
8 because it just seems to stay a light year
9 ahead of us. But it's a struggle.
10 TREASURER NELSON: Thank you, Governor.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
12 Thank you.
13 So, Commissioner, we have to accept this
14 report, this --
15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Yes, accept and
16 move it to rulemaking. And then when it --
17 when they -- when we go through the rulemaking
18 process, it will be back for final approval so
19 that these --
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: We need a motion.
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I have made that
22 motion.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there --
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- a second?
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1 It's been moved and seconded.
2 Any other discussion?
3 Without objection, it's approved.
4 I guess we'll see this back --
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: When the rule --
6 when it goes out through the process, it will
7 be back.
8 MR. PIERSON: Item 7 is an amendment to
9 Rule 6A-14.072, Financial Records and Reports.
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
11 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
13 Without objection, it's approved.
14 (The State Board of Education Agenda was
15 concluded.)
16 * * *
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25
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: What have we got next?
2 Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory
3 Commission.
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the
5 minutes.
6 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Getting good.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
8 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
9 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
11 Without objection, it's approved.
12 Item 2.
13 MS. TINKER: Item 2, recommend approval of
14 the proposed final rule establishing the
15 Capital Region Community Development District.
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
17 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
19 Without objection, it's approved.
20 MS. TINKER: Item 3, recommend approval of
21 the proposed final rule amending the boundaries
22 of the Dunes Community Development District.
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
24 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
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1 Without objection, it's approved.
2 MS. TINKER: Item 4, recommend approval of
3 the proposed final rule establishing the
4 Fleming Island Plantation Community Development
5 District.
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
7 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
9 Without objection, it's approved.
10 (The Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory
11 Commission Agenda was concluded.)
12 * * *
13
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Secretary Struhs.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the
3 minutes of November 9th and November 23rd.
4 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
5 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
7 Without objection, it's approved.
8 MR. STRUHS: Good morning.
9 Agenda Item Number 2, we're seeking
10 approval of an application for modification of
11 a five-year Class IV special event for a
12 sovereignty submerged land issue, subject to
13 payment of $2,346.
14 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Motion.
15 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a
17 second.
18 Any discussion?
19 Moved and seconded.
20 Without objection, it's approved.
21 MR. STRUHS: I'm sorry. Governor, I've
22 been advised, you may want to raise another
23 issue that's not on the agenda?
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, there was a -- a
25 gentleman that came, Mr. Monroe, who at the
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1 previous agenda -- the previous meeting we had
2 a discussion about dead head logging, and he
3 felt he was impacted.
4 And I wanted him to come and just express
5 his feelings. I don't think, because there was
6 no notice given, that we can do anything, but
7 perhaps DEP could look at the issue and get
8 back to us at the next meeting.
9 If Mr. Monroe's here, here's your shot.
10 Perhaps you could explain to us what -- how
11 you felt that the decision made was -- put you
12 in limbo, and then we'll ask -- if it's
13 appropriate, we'll ask the Department to -- to
14 look at your case.
15 MR. MONROE: Okay.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good morning.
17 MR. MONROE: Good morning. I'm
18 Scott Monroe.
19 I've got a couple of issues and comments as
20 to how the moratorium has affected me.
21 I wasn't issued my permit until
22 November 3rd of '99. When I got my permit, the
23 area of the river that I requested, unbeknownst
24 to me, had been worked extensively since
25 February.
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1 As of this time, three weeks ago, I
2 drift dove -- literally dove 18 miles of the
3 river, and pulled up three logs. It's -- it's
4 not economically feasible for me to continue
5 doing it at that location. I didn't make
6 enough money that day to pay my help and my
7 expenses for the day.
8 You know, in -- in all the paperwork that
9 I've gotten, you know, it says here the Board
10 of Trustees changed its policies concerning
11 your operations in order to address these
12 concerns.
13 I guess the biggest question I have is what
14 about addressing my concerns of how I'm going
15 to pay my bills until April 25th?
16 You know, getting into this, I've invested
17 a lot of money, and I'll spend a lot of money
18 that I have to pay bills on every month. Since
19 this moratorium came into effect, I haven't
20 made any money since before Christmas.
21 I've got bill collectors constantly calling
22 me, harassing me, wanting money. It's
23 affecting my credit. And even more so than
24 that, it's affecting my integrity because I
25 give people my word that I'm going to do
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1 something, and I can't do it.
2 You know, your credit follows you for
3 seven years; your integrity, that follows you
4 for life. And I just -- I don't see any -- any
5 end to it.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, you know, we -- we
7 have a -- I think you're in a unique situation,
8 which is why I'd like to ask the Department
9 to -- to work with you and look at this, since
10 you were in limbo.
11 But there is a moratorium for very sound
12 public policy reasons that -- that we passed.
13 And so we're going to have to sort this out,
14 recognizing that the policy, until the
15 Department comes back to this Board is that
16 there will be a moratorium.
17 So if -- if you could -- I wanted you to
18 speak, even though you weren't on the agenda,
19 and we can't do anything about it because it
20 hasn't been noticed.
21 But I wanted my fellow members of the --
22 the Board to understand your situation. And if
23 you could work with Secretary Struhs and his
24 staff to see if there's a way that we could put
25 this on the item in Bartow, or -- or two weeks
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1 after that, if you don't want to go down to
2 Bartow.
3 MR. MONROE: Actually, Bartow's closer for
4 me than this is.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good. The Cabinet for a
6 Day works again.
7 MR. MONROE: I just -- I'd like to see a
8 resolution --
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: I understand.
10 MR. MONROE: -- you know, on this that --
11 that's, you know, that everyone can live with.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, we'll do our best.
13 Appreciate you coming.
14 MR. STRUHS: Governor, members of the
15 Cabinet, I've -- I've actually been advised
16 that there are probably approximately half a
17 dozen individuals in Florida who are in the
18 same position as -- as Mr. Monroe.
19 And we believe we can probably work out an
20 arrangement where we can actually provide them
21 the necessary permits that they need to operate
22 and still work within the constraints of the
23 last decision of the -- of the Cabinet for
24 that -- for that --
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: If you can do --
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1 MR. STRUHS: -- period.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- that, then
3 this -- then you say we don't have to come back
4 on -- with -- with a change?
5 MR. STRUHS: What I'd like to be able to do
6 is to take a couple of days and -- and make
7 sure we're on solid ground. And if we can, get
8 the permits issued to those -- or at least
9 offer them to those half a dozen individuals,
10 and -- and avoid the need to take it up again,
11 we'd like to be able to do that.
12 In fact --
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I'd like to move
14 instructions to do that, Governor.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Very good.
16 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: I'd second that.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: As long as we talk to the
18 members of the -- the Board, just to make sure
19 that we're on solid --
20 MR. STRUHS: We'll --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- legal ground.
22 MR. STRUHS: -- we'll keep your Aides
23 advised as to our progress.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I'd be
25 concerned if anybody out there would have any
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1 objections. I don't know of anybody that does.
2 So maybe we -- if anybody does object, we may
3 have to have a hearing on it.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: If you could just work
5 with --
6 MR. STRUHS: Yeah.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- if this can be done --
8 MR. STRUHS: I think we could deal with it
9 administratively --
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- in a bulletproof way,
11 fine. But if not, I think we're going to have
12 to do it --
13 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- at the Cabinet meeting.
15 MR. STRUHS: Item 3?
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.
17 MR. STRUHS: City of Punta Gorda lease
18 modification.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 3.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
21 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
23 Without objection, it's approved.
24 MR. STRUHS: Substitute Item 4, we're
25 recommending approval.
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 4.
2 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
4 Any discussion?
5 Without objection, it's approved.
6 MR. STRUHS: Substitute Item 5, and I -- I
7 would like to just read this one for -- for the
8 record.
9 Recommending approval of a consideration of
10 lifting the moratorium on disclaimers involving
11 permanent improvements after the Supreme Court
12 of Florida's decision of September 9, wherein
13 dredging was found not to be a permanent
14 improvement under the Butler Act.
15 An application for a disclaimer to
16 submerged lands beneath a dock encompassing a
17 fraction of an acre, more or less, and to
18 delegation of authority to the Secretary of
19 DEP, or his designee, to deny applications for
20 dredged areas, and to issue disclaimers for
21 fill and wharfs that are otherwise not
22 controversial.
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 5.
24 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there any discussion?
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1 MR. STRUHS: I can -- I can put this in
2 plain English.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Maybe you should, since
4 this is a --
5 MR. STRUHS: Yeah.
6 Which is, the Supreme Court ruled that
7 under the Butler Act of 1921, dredging was not
8 to be considered a permanent improvement.
9 Having resolved that at the highest level
10 in the courts, we are seeking your delegation
11 to me -- to the Department actually, to proceed
12 now with issuing disclaimers so that, in fact,
13 if you have a permanent improvement as defined
14 under the Butler Act, the State disclaims any
15 ownership in that submerged land.
16 If it's not considered a permanent
17 improvement, which would now include dredging,
18 we would not offer that disclaimer, with the
19 commitment that in those gray areas where if
20 there's a question, we would bring them back to
21 the -- to the Cabinet.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any discussion?
23 There's a motion and a second.
24 Without objection, approved.
25 MR. STRUHS: Item 6, we're recommending
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1 approval.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 6.
3 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
5 Without objection, it's approved.
6 MR. STRUHS: Item 7, recommended approval.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 7.
8 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
10 Without objection, it's approved.
11 MR. STRUHS: Item 8, recommending approval.
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 8.
13 I think it might be good if you just read
14 the title of that --
15 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- for those
17 people that might be on the Internet, so they
18 can keep track.
19 They might not have the item numbers.
20 MR. STRUHS: Yes. Item 6 was the Florida
21 Keys Ecosystem CARL project.
22 Item 7 was the Perdido Pitcher Plant
23 Prairie.
24 Item 8, the Coupon Bight Key Deer CARL
25 project.
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 8.
2 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
4 Without objection, it's approved.
5 MR. STRUHS: Item 9 is an option agreement
6 for the Spruce Creek CARL project.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
8 MR. STRUHS: Recommending approval.
9 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 9.
10 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved --
12 SECRETARY HARRIS: And I would just like to
13 say how -- how important this is historically.
14 As the Chief Historic Officer, we're really
15 pleased about this.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a
17 second.
18 Any other discussion?
19 Without objection, it's approved.
20 MR. STRUHS: Item 10 is the Hanson/Crawford
21 option for managing the agency design--
22 I'm sorry, the Hanson/Crawford option, and an
23 agreement for managing agency designation for
24 the Garcon ecosystem CARL project.
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 10.
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1 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
3 Without objection, it's approved.
4 MR. STRUHS: Item 11, we're withdrawing.
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to
6 withdraw.
7 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion to
9 withdraw, and a second.
10 Without objection, it's approved.
11 MR. STRUHS: Item 12 is an option agreement
12 for the Butler Properties of West Florida,
13 Incorporated, and addition to the Eden State
14 Gardens Project.
15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to approve.
16 SECRETARY HARRIS: Second.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
18 Without objection, it's approved.
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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75
January 25, 2000
1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
2
3
4
5 STATE OF FLORIDA:
6 COUNTY OF LEON:
7 I, LAURIE L. GILBERT, do hereby certify that
8 the foregoing proceedings were taken before me at the
9 time and place therein designated; that my shorthand
10 notes were thereafter translated; and the foregoing
11 pages numbered 1 through 74 are a true and correct
12 record of the aforesaid proceedings.
13 I FURTHER CERTIFY that I am not a relative,
14 employee, attorney or counsel of any of the parties,
15 nor relative or employee of such attorney or counsel,
16 or financially interested in the foregoing action.
17 DATED THIS 3RD day of FEBRUARY, 2000.
18
19
20 LAURIE L. GILBERT, RPR, CCR, CRR, RMR
100 Salem Court
21 Tallahassee, Florida 32301
850/878-2221
22
23
24
25
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
T H E C A B I N E T
S T A T E O F F L O R I D A
Representing:
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION
DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE
DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
FLORIDA LAND AND WATER ADJUDICATORY COMMISSION
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND
VOLUME II
Pages 76-268
The above agencies came to be heard before
THE FLORIDA CABINET, Honorable Governor Bush
presiding, in the Cabinet Meeting Room, LL-03,
The Capitol, Tallahassee, Florida, on Tuesday,
January 25, 2000, commencing at approximately
9:07 a.m.
Reported by:
LAURIE L. GILBERT
Registered Professional Reporter
Certified Court Reporter
Certified Realtime Reporter
Registered Merit Reporter
Notary Public in and for
the State of Florida at Large
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
100 SALEM COURT
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA 32301
850/878-2221
APPEARANCES:
Representing the Florida Cabinet:
JEB BUSH
Governor
BOB CRAWFORD
Commissioner of Agriculture
BOB MILLIGAN
Comptroller
KATHERINE HARRIS
Secretary of State
BOB BUTTERWORTH
Attorney General
BILL NELSON
Treasurer
TOM GALLAGHER
Commissioner of Education
* * *
78
January 25, 2000
I N D E X
ITEM ACTION PAGE
Substitute 13 Approved 267
CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER 268
* * *
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 MR. STRUHS: Substitute Item 13, four
3 different items. First is authorizing the
4 Department, Secretary, or his designee, to extend a
5 bona fide offer, and to approve the agreement for
6 sale and purchase of approximately 355 acres from
7 Anderson Columbia and the Anderson Mining
8 Corporation.
9 Item 2, substitute the appraisal selection
10 process provided for the agreement in lieu of the
11 process established for a rule.
12 Three, designate Columbia County as the
13 managing agency.
14 And, four, confirm management policy
15 statement.
16 And I'd like to just expand on that a little
17 bit, if I might.
18 What this is, as you well know, is an option
19 to acquire an operating rock quarry that is
20 immediately above the Ichetucknee Trace from the
21 Anderson Columbia Company.
22 This, in fact, is really not substantially
23 different than most any other acquisition decision
24 that is presented to you for your consideration.
25 There are, however, two distinguishing
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1 characteristics.
2 The first is that the option to acquire this
3 property is available at all, and the second is how
4 this opportunity, in fact, became available for your
5 consideration.
6 This property, as you may recall, has been
7 on the State's acquisition priority list for several
8 years. Until this day, however, these protections
9 have been unavailable because we did not have a
10 willing seller. That has changed, and now we do.
11 This opportunity is essentially derived
12 from, but not dependent on, the settlement of some
13 regulatory actions taken against the company by the
14 Department.
15 It's important to be clear that we've
16 resolved all of our outstanding regulatory issues
17 with the company, regardless of whether you choose to
18 exercise the acquisition option here today.
19 We pursued this opportunity in this fashion
20 for two reasons: One, obviously environmental
21 scientists and environmental advocacy groups have
22 long held that acquiring this property is the single
23 most important thing we could do to protect
24 Ichetucknee Spring.
25 But at the same time, we did not want, as
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1 part of the resolution of regulatory issues, to in
2 any way tie your hands, or bind the Cabinet to any
3 particular decision on the acquisition.
4 This is obviously not a typical way for the
5 Department to bring these kinds of options to you.
6 However, I would argue that Ichetucknee is not your
7 typical spring.
8 Would also like to point out, just as a
9 point of interest, that interested on the regulatory
10 side of the equation, this case was important in its
11 own right. In this case, the Department, for one of
12 the very first times ever, made the case that a
13 permit applicant's compliance record shall be
14 considered in determining whether or not an applicant
15 can provide the necessary reasonable assurance that
16 the permit conditions will, in fact, be met.
17 Pursuing that point has resulted in the
18 resolution of all the outstanding environmental
19 regulatory issues with that company, and it has
20 yielded protections that go well beyond what would
21 have otherwise been achieved under law.
22 They, in -- in summary, include a corporate
23 compliance system, a number of commitments, including
24 a management system, employee education, and regular
25 environmental audits by third parties. It includes
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1 the installation of pollution control equipment that
2 goes far beyond what the law currently requires.
3 And then further, a third party being
4 brought in to regularly inspect that equipment to
5 make sure it's being operated appropriately;
6 providing, at the company's expense, additional
7 monitoring of air quality in the vicinity; includes
8 a -- really a futuristic system of continuous
9 emissions monitoring where probes will
10 round-the-clock keep track of what's coming out of
11 the stack, and then make that available to the public
12 24 hours a day in realtime via the Internet.
13 By the way, this really puts Florida on the
14 cutting edge in terms of environmental regulation
15 worldwide.
16 The company has also agreed to endow a
17 million dollar trust fund that will provide for
18 ongoing scientific research in the Ichetucknee area.
19 And they have also, as part of a settlement,
20 agreed to gift to the State a 21-acre site on the
21 Outstanding Florida Water known as the
22 Blackwater River, and known locally as the Bagdad
23 site.
24 The -- the particular -- regarding -- the
25 particulars regarding the acquisition and the pricing
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1 of the property probably bears just a moment of -- of
2 review.
3 It's our expectation, based on preliminary
4 reviews, that the appraised value of this property
5 will fall somewhere between 23 and
6 27 million dollars. The plan is to, in fact, pay
7 approximately 70 percent of the appraised value. And
8 if 70 percent falls within that range, that's the
9 price we would acquire it for, if you -- if you agree
10 to proceed.
11 In the event that 70 percent of the
12 appraised value should exceed 27 million dollars,
13 it's capped, the acquisition is capped at twenty
14 seven. It just never -- it never goes beyond that.
15 In the event that 70 percent of the
16 appraised value should fall below 23 million, in that
17 instance, we would make a 70 percent offer.
18 And should that offer be declined, we would
19 then come back to the Board of Trustees seeking
20 eminent domain authority in which we could then
21 establish the full 100 percent value of the property.
22 But in any event, it would not go more than 23
23 million dollars.
24 The bottom line is, expectation is the
25 property would be acquired for 70 percent of its
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1 appraised value. In no instance would we ever pay
2 more than 100 percent.
3 Having said that --
4 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Yeah.
5 MR. STRUHS: -- and having --
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah.
7 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: You sort of
8 lost me on this.
9 Let's -- let's just say for a hypothetical,
10 if it comes in at twenty-three million
11 five hundred thousand, would it be -- do we pay
12 twenty-three million, or do we pay 70 percent
13 of 23.5?
14 MR. STRUHS: If it comes -- if the
15 70 percent appraised value falls in that range
16 of twenty-three to twenty-seven, that's --
17 that's what we pay.
18 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: So we pay
19 100 percent then.
20 MR. STRUHS: No.
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: No. Pay
22 70 percent if it comes in --
23 MR. STRUHS: If 70 percent of the appraised
24 value --
25 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Oh.
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1 MR. STRUHS: -- falls between twenty-three
2 and twenty-seven --
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay.
4 MR. STRUHS: -- that's what you pay. So if
5 it were twenty-three-and-a-half million, you
6 would pay twenty-three-and-a-half million.
7 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay.
8 MR. STRUHS: I'd like to point out that
9 this -- this issue has drawn considerable
10 public interest, and there are a number of
11 elected officials that we'd like to recognize
12 in the audience who have -- have requested --
13 TREASURER NELSON: Governor, may --
14 MR. STRUHS: -- the opportunity to speak.
15 TREASURER NELSON: -- I ask a question
16 before we go --
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes, Commissioner Nelson.
18 TREASURER NELSON: David, we have a process
19 that we go through when we buy CARL lands to
20 protect the -- the public on the appraisal to
21 try to get to the correct value.
22 Now, can you explain to us what is the
23 difference between the normal CARL appraisal
24 process, and the one that you're proposing here
25 today?
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1 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
2 Ordinarily, we would -- well, in this
3 instance, we would not even have had the
4 opportunity to negotiate with the company
5 because they were an unwilling seller.
6 So the fact that this was on the CARL list
7 for three or four years, and there was no
8 movement or no activity, that would have been
9 the normal course of business.
10 What the agency -- what the Department
11 attempted to do in resolving all of its
12 regulatory issues is to provide an additional
13 benefit by convincing this party that they
14 needed to become, or should become a willing
15 seller, which then allowed us to engage in
16 these kinds of negotiations.
17 Ordinarily, under the -- the -- the CARL
18 process, the State attempts to negotiate the
19 very best price that they can. And as you well
20 know, and have -- have impressed upon me on
21 more than one occasion, the State never seeks
22 to spend more than 100 percent of the appraised
23 value.
24 In this instance, because we were
25 essentially leveraging some of our standing,
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1 given the regulatory issues on the table, we
2 sought to get something even better than an
3 acquisition at 100 percent, we sought to get an
4 acquisition at substantially less than that.
5 And that's why we came up with the formula
6 that, in our estimation, will probably allow
7 you to acquire the property, if you choose, at
8 70 percent of its appraised value.
9 It's -- it's a possibility that there's
10 always a margin of error --
11 (Commissioner Gallagher exited the room.)
12 MR. STRUHS: -- but there's a possibility
13 that it could be less than 70 percent of the
14 appraised value. It could be 65 percent of the
15 appraised value.
16 Because, in fact, if it -- if it comes in
17 more than twenty-seven, the benefit accrues to
18 the State.
19 The company obviously had its interests to
20 protect and established that twenty-three
21 marker so that in the event that 70 percent of
22 the value comes in below twenty-three, we at
23 least have to come back to them with two -- two
24 bona fide offers providing them the various
25 benefits that come within the eminent domain
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1 proceeding.
2 But there again, the company has agreed
3 that if we enter into that track, that they
4 would -- that the -- that the State would never
5 pay more than twenty-three.
6 TREASURER NELSON: Well, if we are
7 basically charged with making sure that -- that
8 the State buys a piece of property for the
9 accurate fair market value price --
10 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
11 TREASURER NELSON: -- and we have a system
12 set up on any CARL purchase that we're familiar
13 with, two appraisals, the appraisals are -- are
14 basically secret, and then the negotiations
15 occur, what is it in this process that gives us
16 the assurance that we're not overpaying for
17 this piece of property?
18 MR. STRUHS: I see. A fair question.
19 In fact, no difference at all. We are --
20 we are -- we will be using the -- the standard
21 prescribed CARL process that the State has
22 regularly used for determining the appraised
23 value of this property.
24 The only -- the only difference is is the
25 company has agreed up-front that if -- if that
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1 appraisal is complete, as we would do any
2 ordinary appraisal, and -- and it -- and
3 70 percent of that appraised value falls within
4 a certain range, then we get essentially a
5 30 percent discount.
6 TREASURER NELSON: Well, you say there's no
7 difference. But --
8 MR. STRUHS: The determining -- determining
9 the appraised value, there is -- there is --
10 there is no --
11 (Commissioner Gallagher entered the room.)
12 MR. STRUHS: -- difference in how we would
13 ordinarily --
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: From what I --
15 MR. STRUHS: -- appraise the value of the
16 property.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: From what I can sell --
18 say -- or look -- just looking at this, I don't
19 think that -- if we could use this for the
20 purchase of all the CARL properties, we should
21 sign up. I mean, this is a better deal for the
22 State.
23 The fact is, no buyer -- no seller would --
24 would give up their -- the -- the rights that
25 they have in our current process, unless they
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1 had these mitigating circumstances in front of
2 them, such as the ones that this seller had.
3 Isn't that -- I mean, we're -- they're
4 locking down a -- an appraised value of no more
5 than 100 percent, and in like-- in all
6 likelihood, it'd be 70 percent.
7 TREASURER NELSON: Governor, if I may?
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah, sure.
9 TREASURER NELSON: Well, I guess the
10 question is: What assurance to us that this
11 appraisal process will reach an accurate
12 reflection of 100 percent.
13 MR. STRUHS: Okay. The --
14 TREASURER NELSON: Because this is a
15 different appraisal process, is it not, from
16 what is the traditional CARL acquisition.
17 MR. STRUHS: Let me -- let me walk you
18 through that. There -- there is, as you know,
19 a preapproved State list of -- of appraisers,
20 and the appraisers will be selected from that
21 list.
22 And it -- it's -- the process works where
23 I think the -- the State selects three from
24 that list, and the company will select three
25 from that list.
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1 And then through a process of -- of
2 negotiation, it's then narrowed down to two
3 appraisers, one that the company -- represents
4 the company, one represents the State.
5 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. Now, how does
6 that differ with the normal CARL acquisition?
7 Selection of appraisers.
8 MS. ARMSTRONG: May I?
9 I think it's --
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: The next step is where --
11 SECRETARY HARRIS: The fact that they have
12 a choice.
13 MR. STRUHS: Ordinarily, the -- if -- if it
14 were not this kind of situation, we would have
15 selected -- the State would have selected a
16 single appraiser from -- from the list of
17 approved appraisers.
18 In this instance, because it is an unusual
19 situation in which we are taking an unwilling
20 seller, and making them a willing seller, the
21 agreement is that they would get to pick an
22 appraiser, we would get to pick the appraiser.
23 And then if I -- if you'd allow me to
24 continue, that if -- if the -- if the appraised
25 values of those two -- two appraisers are
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1 within 20 percent of each other, we would go
2 with the higher value.
3 And if it were -- yeah, if it were -- if
4 it's within 20 percent, we go with the higher
5 value; if it is greater than 20 percent --
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: We go with the lower value.
7 MR. STRUHS: -- we go with the lower -- we
8 go with the lower value, plus 20 percent.
9 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. Now, that's the
10 formula that you've come up for this. But I --
11 I want to go back to the question of the -- of
12 the selection of the appraisers.
13 Okay. I want to go back --
14 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
15 TREASURER NELSON: -- to the question of
16 the selection of the appraisers.
17 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
18 TREASURER NELSON: I want to know
19 specifically what is different in the selection
20 of the appraisers under this agreement, as
21 opposed to the traditional CARL acquisition.
22 I -- I don't have a clear answer on that.
23 MR. STRUHS: The way it's going to work in
24 this situation is the State of Florida will
25 pick three appraisers from the preapproved
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1 list. The company will select three appraisers
2 from the approved list. Working together, they
3 will narrow that down to two appraisers.
4 Those two appraisers will then
5 independently go off, do their work, come back
6 with their numbers.
7 TREASURER NELSON: So that differs from the
8 present CARL process in that the State only
9 picks the appraisers in the present CARL
10 process.
11 MR. STRUHS: Right. This is --
12 TREASURER NELSON: In this case, the -- the
13 seller is picking the -- one of the appraisers;
14 is that correct?
15 MR. STRUHS: Right. This is a -- this is
16 more typical of a business-like approach to
17 negotiating the value of this property.
18 TREASURER NELSON: Is our present -- answer
19 this for me --
20 If you would, Governor.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah. Please.
22 TREASURER NELSON: -- is our present CARL
23 appraisal process, is that etched in law, or is
24 that etched in a Department rule?
25 MR. STRUHS: Rule.
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1 TREASURER NELSON: In a rule.
2 And I take it under that rule, there is an
3 ability for the Department to -- to sidestep
4 that rule if there are extenuating
5 circumstances --
6 Mr. Green, from a legal standpoint, what's
7 the answer to that question?
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: He's not lawyer.
9 MR. GREEN: I'm an engineer, I'm not a
10 lawyer.
11 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. Then --
12 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Then your
13 answer --
14 TREASURER NELSON: -- do you have --
15 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- ought to
16 be right.
17 TREASURER NELSON: -- one of your
18 Department lawyers, or someone that can answer
19 the specific legal authority.
20 MR. GREEN: Treasurer, I can tell you
21 that -- that we've been in a lawsuit before on
22 Golden Gate Estates, and we used this precise
23 methodology to help choose the appraisers.
24 The issue there was, they, the community of
25 Golden Gates, had no confidence in our
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1 independently selected appraisers to come to
2 value.
3 So what we agreed to do is set up a
4 committee that would work together to choose
5 appraisers that they would have confidence in,
6 and the Department would have confidence in, as
7 we move forward.
8 That's the same thing we're doing here.
9 TREASURER NELSON: Did you have the legal
10 authority to do that under the existing DEP
11 rule?
12 MR. GREEN: We -- we did that, yes, sir,
13 under the existing rule. And, therefore, we
14 had the authority.
15 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. I see people back
16 there with quizzical expressions on their
17 faces, and I'd like to know what the quizzical
18 expression is.
19 MR. STRUHS: Is this the man that had the
20 quizzical expression?
21 TREASURER NELSON: That's one of them.
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: He's a
23 lawyer, that's why.
24 MR. COSTIGAN: I'm John Costigan, Deputy
25 General Counsel with the Department. I don't
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1 have a quizzical expression.
2 You have done this before. You have the
3 statutory authority set forth in 259 to alter
4 or waive this -- this appraisal process,
5 provided an equal protection is afforded.
6 That's expressed in the statutes.
7 So one of the requests here is for you to
8 give them the authority to employ this
9 procedure on appraisals.
10 I was part of the Golden Gate Estates
11 resolution that we brought to you about
12 two years ago. And it involved the exact same
13 methodology of picking an appraiser.
14 What we did was let the other side into the
15 process because in -- in that dispute involving
16 4,000 property owners in Collier County, the
17 claim had been made for a number of years that
18 the State had, in effect, cooked the appraisal.
19 So we let them into the process of picking
20 the appraiser in that one. And, in fact,
21 this -- this procedure was barred from that.
22 Now, another -- as an aside in that one,
23 that -- that didn't have a cap, it didn't have
24 a floor --
25 TREASURER NELSON: Right.
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1 MR. COSTIGAN: -- we brought it to you,
2 and --
3 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. Thank you for the
4 answer.
5 MR. COSTIGAN: Thank you.
6 TREASURER NELSON: That's what I wanted to
7 know.
8 All right. Now, Governor, I have one final
9 question.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Sure.
11 TREASURER NELSON: All right. From -- from
12 our standpoint, since we have to be concerned
13 about the value of the property --
14 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
15 TREASURER NELSON: -- what is your
16 reasoning that the public's interest is
17 protected on achieving an accurate price in the
18 situation that you have outlined, which
19 deviates from the normal standard policy in
20 that -- in that the willing seller gets to
21 choose one of the appraisers?
22 Now, what is the protection to the public
23 from your standpoint in that that normal
24 appraisal process has been changed?
25 MR. STRUHS: The process is a -- is a
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1 transparent one. It's a public one. All the
2 information that the appraisers have available
3 to them, and their recommendations back to us,
4 is -- is open for your review, and -- and that
5 of anybody else.
6 These appraisers are preapproved, they are
7 part of the qualified appraisers who use
8 standard -- you know, industry standards in
9 their profession.
10 TREASURER NELSON: How many of those
11 appraisers do we have preapproved?
12 MR. STRUHS: How many are on the State
13 list?
14 TREASURER NELSON: Yes.
15 MS. ARMSTRONG: Several hundred --
16 several thousand.
17 TREASURER NELSON: Several thousand.
18 MS. ARMSTRONG: There would be few of that
19 that have the expertise, however.
20 MR. STRUHS: The other thing I would add is
21 that typically when you're doing this kind of
22 appraisal, the -- there is the need for
23 specialized knowledge, in this case, geology.
24 The appraisers are authorized in this
25 instance to -- to bring in that kind of
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1 expertise. And they will use the same data
2 from -- from -- from the -- the geological
3 scientists to -- to perform technically their
4 appraisal.
5 TREASURER NELSON: Thank you, Governor.
6 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I just have
7 one question, Governor.
8 And it comes -- and it's not a -- I did not
9 mean to ask this question because now I'm --
10 I'm confused.
11 The -- the -- you said that if it comes in
12 between twenty-three and twenty seven, we pay
13 100 percent of the -- of that value.
14 MR. STRUHS: No. I'm sorry.
15 SECRETARY HARRIS: The --
16 MR. STRUHS: And I -- I apologize if -- if
17 I misspoke. But let me just try it again
18 because --
19 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Because
20 that's what I --
21 MR. STRUHS: Yeah. This is --
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I thought I
23 understood before I came in here. Now --
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: It's this.
25 MR. STRUHS: The -- the appraisers will
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1 obviously come back and tell us what their --
2 what their appraised value is, and then through
3 that process, will come up with a number. And
4 that will be the 100 percent appraised value.
5 We then discount that down to 70 percent.
6 If that 70 percent falls between twenty-three
7 and twenty-seven million dollars, which we
8 expect it will, that's what the State would
9 pay.
10 If for some reason the 70 percent value of
11 whatever that appraisal is, is more than
12 twenty-seven, you only pay twenty-seven.
13 So, in fact, it becomes more than a
14 70 percent discount, it could become a 65,
15 60 percent.
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: So -- so
17 about the -- my original question before: If
18 it comes -- if the appraisal comes in at
19 twenty-three five, how much do we pay?
20 SECRETARY HARRIS: Seventy percent.
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: If the
22 appraisal -- or 70 percent of the appraisal?
23 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: No, no. No.
24 If the appraisal itself comes in. That's what
25 I --
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Oh.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good question.
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: The first thing
4 you do is take it down to 70 percent of that.
5 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: But then
6 that --
7 MR. STRUHS: Right.
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- then that
9 brings the purchase price then below --
10 MR. STRUHS: Below twenty-three.
11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: --three,
12 which means then we go to eminent domain
13 process?
14 MR. STRUHS: No. In that instance, what we
15 would do is we'd actually make the offer at
16 70 percent --
17 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay.
18 MR. STRUHS: -- of twenty-three-and-a-half,
19 which, I'm sorry, I can't do in my head.
20 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I don't
21 either. But --
22 MR. STRUHS: But the company might accept
23 that offer.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay.
25 MR. STRUHS: In the event that they choose
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1 not to, we would then make a second bona fide
2 offer, and that offer would obviously be set by
3 you --
4 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay.
5 MR. STRUHS: -- as a Cabinet, assume that
6 that offer is 100 percent -- certainly no more
7 than 100 percent.
8 But in any event, it would never go above
9 23 million. You would never pay more than
10 100 percent of the appraised value.
11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: But the
12 appraised value -- and here's where you
13 confused me a little bit there --
14 MR. STRUHS: Sure.
15 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- if we
16 have two appraised values from two different
17 appraisers, and one is 20 percent higher, we go
18 with the higher one.
19 MR. STRUHS: In terms of determining the
20 initial appraised value, there will be two
21 appraisals done. If they -- if they're
22 close --
23 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: You go with
24 the highest one.
25 MR. STRUHS: -- if they're -- if they're
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1 within 20 percent of each other --
2 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: You go with
3 the highest --
4 MR. STRUHS: -- you get the higher one.
5 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Right.
6 Now, in a normal procedure -- a normal CARL
7 procedure, if you have two appraisals, and one
8 is 20 percent higher, what is your authority,
9 what do you usually do? Do you offer the
10 highest?
11 MR. STRUHS: No. I have notes on this.
12 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Because I
13 just want to make sure. I mean --
14 MR. STRUHS: Yeah.
15 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- from what
16 the Commissioner has stated to make sure
17 that -- and I think you protect the State, I'm
18 not sure -- this is why I'm questioning this
19 here -- to make sure we will never pay
20 100 percent more than we would have paid under
21 another type of process anyway.
22 MR. STRUHS: Right.
23 You know, just in the interest of time,
24 it's going to be faster if I have somebody else
25 answer that than my -- rifle through my --
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1 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: We can even
2 answer this later on during discussion,
3 Governor.
4 I -- I just want to -- I think we should
5 close this, if we're going to close it, to make
6 sure we're never going to --
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: If --
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- not going
9 to be put in that box and --
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: If -- if you --
11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: And they can
12 answer it at 4:00 o'clock, whenever this thing
13 is over.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thanks, Bob.
15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Governor --
16 Governor, if I may.
17 The -- the process is if you have -- if
18 you've got a -- an appraised value that is
19 23.5, 70 percent of that is sixteen point
20 four hundred and fifty thousand.
21 And then you put 20 percent on that, which
22 will make the offer be nineteen million seven
23 hundred and thirty. So it would be less than
24 the twenty-three, that seller has the option to
25 accept that or reject it.
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1 If they reject it, then we have the option
2 to then go to eminent domain.
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: What?
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: This --
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, you asked
6 the question: What if they had a
7 seventeen point -- if it was
8 twenty-three point -- twenty-three point five
9 million appraisal.
10 And the answer to that is: One, it would
11 be below twenty-three. The actual offer we
12 would make would be nineteen million
13 seven hundred thirty thousand.
14 And the seller has the option to accept
15 that or reject it. If they reject it, then the
16 State has the option to go for eminent domain.
17 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Whosever
18 (sic) going to say it's -- it's very clear.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: The --
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: And what it is, it protects
21 the State in ways that the typical process
22 would not do, and it's -- it's only -- the only
23 reason we have this power is that this was an
24 unwilling seller who became a willing seller
25 because of negotiating on other items that
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1 you're fully aware of.
2 So --
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Have a
4 lawsuit on it.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- it -- if we could have
6 this process in place for every piece of
7 property we buy --
8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: It'd be a good
9 thing.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- it'd be -- well, it'd be
11 impossible, and -- and we would -- it probably
12 violates some rule somewhere, because it -- it
13 protects the State, it protects the seller --
14 the buyer of this property in ways that the
15 typical process doesn't -- doesn't allow.
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Governor, my
17 original reading was that's how I -- the
18 conclusion I had. But now after hearing some
19 of this stuff, I'm not quite sure that it might
20 just not hit a valuation where it might not.
21 I -- I just want to make sure on all
22 values, it does. It -- there might be some --
23 some gap period where it may not, but --
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, if the price
25 reaches -- goes below a certain threshold, the
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1 seller does not have to sell. Then we go to --
2 to a different process. That's the -- that's
3 the difference that maybe wasn't explained
4 as --
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: And if it goes
6 above, we can't go more than twenty-seven
7 million. So --
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: And if the two
9 appraisers --
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- it doesn't
11 matter what it is --
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- the other question that
13 you brought up, the two appraisers, if there is
14 wide variance, which is a legitimate question,
15 the -- it defaults to the -- to the lower
16 price.
17 MR. STRUHS: Right.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: And if it's within the
19 twenty margin, it -- it goes to the higher
20 price. So --
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: As long as it's --
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- but we al--
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- not more
24 than --
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- we always assume that
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1 the --
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- twenty-seven
3 million --
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- appraisers are going to,
5 you know, do it right -- do what's right, and
6 come up with the same conclusion that
7 eliminates the possibility of some wild
8 estimation that may go way above whatever --
9 what we think.
10 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Well,
11 theoretically, if you're taking a 30 percent
12 discount, and the most it can go up is
13 20 percent, you're probably going to save
14 10 percent.
15 I mean, that -- that would -- that would --
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Very good.
17 SECRETARY HARRIS: Yes. Exactly.
18 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I mean --
19 SECRETARY HARRIS: That's true. That's
20 exactly right.
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: For a lawyer, that
22 was very good math.
23 SECRETARY HARRIS: That's exactly right.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: That --
25 that'd be the simple solution. But --
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1 SECRETARY HARRIS: Yeah. That --
2 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- when I
3 started hearing more of this, I wasn't quite
4 sure we were going to fit in that category.
5 That's all.
6 MR. STRUHS: Governor, and -- and members,
7 there --
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Don't have
9 the lawyers do math. I mean, it's not --
10 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
11 Just like you don't want secretaries to do
12 law.
13 I -- I do want to emphasize one -- one
14 point though that I may not have made as clear
15 as I should have.
16 In -- in the event that we were to -- and
17 this is, I think, unlikely. But in the event
18 that we were to go down the -- the path where
19 the State wanted to exercise eminent domain, in
20 that instance, of course, the jury will
21 ultimately decide what the value of that land
22 is.
23 Again, highly unlikely, but it is
24 conceivable that it could come back and -- and
25 determine that the value of the land is forty
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1 or fifty million dollars.
2 In that instance, the State would never
3 have to pay more than twenty-three.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Even in the agreement that
5 we have.
6 MR. STRUHS: Right.
7 SECRETARY HARRIS: Twenty--
8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Twenty-seven.
9 SECRETARY HARRIS: -- twenty-seven.
10 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Twenty-three.
11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: The math is
12 twenty-seven.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Twenty-seven.
14 TREASURER NELSON: Governor, may I ask
15 another question?
16 MR. STRUHS: Yeah. That's -- that's
17 incorrect. It's twenty-three.
18 SECRETARY HARRIS: Twenty-three.
19 MR. STRUHS: It's twenty-three.
20 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: So if you go to
21 eminent domain --
22 SECRETARY HARRIS: Between --
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- the most we pay
24 is twenty-three?
25 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Yeah, this is --
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Oh. Because we
2 went below that to start with. Got you.
3 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Commissioner.
5 MR. STRUHS: The most you would ever pay in
6 an eminent domain is -- is --
7 The simple point is: The State would never
8 pay more than 100 percent of the value. And --
9 and, likely less.
10 TREASURER NELSON: David, has the State
11 ever deviated from the normal CARL appraisal
12 process, save for the Golden Gates Estates --
13 MR. STRUHS: I don't --
14 TREASURER NELSON: -- situation?
15 MR. STRUHS: -- I don't know the answer to
16 that, but I can --
17 TREASURER NELSON: Well --
18 MR. STRUHS: -- obviously get that.
19 TREASURER NELSON: -- I -- can we get that
20 from your --
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I --
22 TREASURER NELSON: -- General Counsel?
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- I can answer
24 it.
25 We bought property down in the Keys, and
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1 because the seller was unwilling to sell it at
2 100 percent of --
3 (Governor Bush exited the room.)
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- what we had it
5 appraised, the law was amended to allow a -- a
6 15 or 20 percent addition. And it -- after
7 that law was passed, it came back to the
8 Cabinet, and we paid more than that.
9 So there -- there have been other ways in
10 which we've paid more than 100 percent of the
11 appraisal because we wanted to acquire that
12 land, and it was very important to acquire it.
13 So --
14 TREASURER NELSON: Can I get the
15 perspective of the General Counsel of the
16 Department?
17 MR. STRUHS: If she's available.
18 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Golden Gates
19 is very unique, 4,000 small little lots.
20 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Yeah.
21 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: And we
22 had -- we had the --
23 MR. STRUHS: John.
24 MS. DONALDSON: Good morning, Treasurer.
25 I'm Teri Donaldson, the new General Counsel
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1 for the Department of Environmental Protection.
2 I've only been on board a few months, so I
3 don't have much historical perspective to
4 answer your question.
5 My deputy, John Costigan, though, has
6 informed me, and he's been around for many,
7 many moons, that he cannot recall any other
8 incident other than Golden Gate.
9 TREASURER NELSON: Okay. Then the public
10 policy question, to me, is: Is this sufficient
11 justification to deviate from the time-honored
12 practice that we have done all the other CARL
13 projects?
14 It may be, I want to hear the testimony, as
15 it was with our collective --
16 (Governor Bush entered the room.)
17 TREASURER NELSON: -- determination with
18 regard to Golden Gate. But that, to me, is a
19 major public policy question on the question of
20 valuation.
21 MR. STRUHS: Governor, we do have a number
22 of speakers, and I'd like to just note there
23 are some elected officials who -- who would
24 like to be recognized, and -- and perhaps
25 provide a -- a brief set of comments.
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1 If we could --
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: How many speakers do we
3 have, Secretary?
4 MR. STRUHS: We have -- we have very many.
5 But -- but what I'd like to do is -- I'd
6 like -- we'd like to limit -- we'd like to
7 limit -- if it -- if it's agreeable to you and
8 the Cabinet, this to no more than another hour.
9 And I'd like to at least identify the elected
10 officials first.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: If there are a lot of
12 people speaking, maybe we could -- ask that
13 everybody's -- I -- people -- you know, I've
14 got this problem with people coming far -- to
15 come -- if -- if they could keep their remarks
16 brief, I would rather allow people to speak
17 that want to speak.
18 And if it takes more than an hour, I'm
19 here. Everybody else can -- I mean, we'll --
20 MR. STRUHS: Okay.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: That's my job --
22 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- and I think people have
24 a right to have their voice heard. So --
25 MR. STRUHS: I'd like to then --
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: General Butterworth said we
2 were leaving at 4:00. We'll see if we can beat
3 that.
4 MR. STRUHS: If -- if I could then identify
5 some of the elected officials --
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: But brevity -- in return
7 for that, brevity, or if -- if it's been said,
8 and you feel like you have to say it again the
9 same way, maybe there's a -- a way to feel like
10 you've spoken through someone else.
11 But if you could just -- if we could get
12 through this, it'd be great.
13 MR. STRUHS: Our lead-off speaker then
14 would be the State Representative from that
15 part of the state, Mr. Dwight Stansel.
16 And he will be followed by the
17 County Coordinator from Columbia County, who is
18 here representing all of their Commissioners.
19 In fact, all of the County Commissioners are
20 here this morning.
21 And then following that would be the --
22 Commissioner Don Odom from the Suwannee County;
23 and then the Mayor of Lake City, Mayor
24 Ray Kirkland, in that order.
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: Very good.
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1 Representative, welcome.
2 MR. STANSEL: Thank you, Governor, Cabinet.
3 I don't know if being first is good or bad.
4 You're either dispensable, or the victim, or
5 something possibly. So --
6 I come before you today to urge you to
7 support Secretary Struhs' proposal. We've
8 heard so much talk about the Ichetucknee River
9 and the Ichetucknee Trace area in the recent
10 couple of years, and now you have an
11 opportunity to do something about it
12 positively.
13 There's already some positive things been
14 done. In Columbia County, through the Florida
15 Community's Trust Fund and the Columbia County
16 Commissioners' purchase of Alligator Lake and
17 the future storm water retention and treatment
18 areas that's going to be built in the city of
19 Lake City, and that is the head -- head of the
20 Trace, those are some very positive things.
21 The DEP's requirement that we do an
22 Ichetucknee Trace study for possibly a regional
23 utility system in the area, to replace the
24 septic tank systems that's there.
25 But apparently one of the most troublesome
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1 areas is -- is this piece of property that's --
2 that's being discussed this morning.
3 I'm certainly not a geologist, and I can
4 assure you, I haven't been there and went down
5 in those holes. I have no desire to. But I do
6 listen to the experts in the -- that field.
7 And apparently it is a very sensitive area
8 pertaining to the Ichetucknee River and the --
9 and the whole Trace area. And I can tell you,
10 based on the conversations I've had in my
11 District, and I represent a very large
12 district, all of five counties and parts of --
13 of two others.
14 But most of the conversation and the phone
15 calls that we've had at our District has been
16 support of the Secretary's goals that he has
17 here.
18 There's already some talk about some of the
19 great recreational possibilities that this area
20 will provide. Columbia County has a dire
21 interest in being a public -- in a public --
22 public relationship with the State to manage it
23 and use it for a recreational facility. They
24 have some plans for that already if it could
25 work out.
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1 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
2 MR. STANSEL: When I was elected, I told
3 people in our country rural area that I would
4 make my decisions based on pure facts and good
5 country common sense. And I do that about
6 99.9 percent of the time. I do let one little
7 thousandths of emotion enter into it sometime,
8 I know.
9 But based on that criteria, that is the
10 reason I stand in support of the Secretary's
11 proposal to you today. I support it. And any
12 way I can help you in your decision making, I
13 invite you to our -- to our area any time
14 possible, I -- I will work with you on that.
15 That's all I have.
16 Does anyone have any questions? I'll be
17 glad to entertain any right now.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Representative.
19 MR. STANSEL: Thank you.
20 MR. WILLIAMS: Governor, members of the
21 Cabinet, thank you for your leadership, and for
22 this opportunity.
23 I've been asked to speak to you in behalf
24 of the Board of County Commissioners of
25 Columbia County.
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1 And for the record, my name is
2 Dale Williams, and I am the County Coordinator.
3 I -- all five of the County Commissioners are
4 present. I will introduce them in just a
5 minute.
6 But I think it's important, as we begin
7 this discussion, to point out to you that of --
8 three of the five commissioners are not only
9 native Floridians, they are, in fact, native
10 Columbia Countians.
11 The other two have lived there so long,
12 quite frankly, we had to remind them that they
13 weren't.
14 But what this simply means is, we all grew
15 up in the area thinking that we were experts
16 when it come to the Ichetucknee.
17 If you needed to know where the mullet ran;
18 if you needed to know where the best place to
19 crawfish was; if you needed to know where the
20 fence was cut to get to the river, we were
21 experts.
22 But a few things happened that changed all
23 of that just a few short years ago. A couple
24 of years ago, the County received a phone call
25 from a guy named Jim Stevenson. Jim is the
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1 Director of the Department of Ecosystem
2 Management with DEP.
3 And our first reaction was is, oh, no, here
4 comes a State bureaucrat, he's going to tell us
5 how we need to run things and what we're doing
6 wrong.
7 But a surprising thing happened. Jim come,
8 and he walked in and he said, look, Florida's
9 springs are in trouble. And he give us a bunch
10 of examples where not only were the springs in
11 trouble, but, if anything, they were classified
12 as just almost nonexistent any longer.
13 And he didn't ask us to do anything, except
14 to form a partnership with the State to look
15 and see if we couldn't learn more about our
16 Ichetucknee, and what we may could do to
17 preserve it and protect it.
18 And things do not change easily in
19 Columbia County. But what Jim did is he
20 brought a number of people to the table, he
21 formed a working group. It was a diverse
22 group. There were biologists; there were
23 geologists; there were average, every day
24 common working people; there were people
25 representing the farm element. A little bit of
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1 everybody. A lot of diversity.
2 And as time went on, we began to gather
3 information, and we began to educate ourself.
4 And we began to learn that what we did on the
5 surface affected what come out at the spring.
6 And we began to learn that if we allowed
7 cattle to walk into the streams and creeks, we
8 were affecting the river.
9 And we began to learn that if we allowed
10 septic tanks, unlimited, in the Trace, that we
11 were affecting the river.
12 And so we took this knowledge, and we went
13 back, and as a County, we said, what can we do?
14 What can we do as a County to help protect and
15 preserve our Ichetucknee.
16 And we first looked at the basin itself.
17 We said, what is the Ichetucknee basin? And we
18 had it defined at the 50 foot contour interval.
19 And we decided it should be the 75 foot contour
20 interval, so we broadened the bases.
21 We decided that densities within that Trace
22 for homes should not be more than one unit per
23 10 acres. We did that.
24 We began to realize that the streams and
25 creeks emptied into openings, which affected
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1 the river. So with your help, through some of
2 your programs, we set out to acquire those that
3 we could better protect and preserve them.
4 We limited and endorsed new changes to all
5 the mining policies within the
6 Comprehensive Plan to ensure that no new mines
7 could be allowed in the Trace.
8 We become partners with all the State
9 agencies: Water Management, DEP, and
10 et cetera, to continue to identify resources
11 that we could use in order to better the
12 Ichetucknee.
13 We believe as a County that we have done
14 what we can reasonably do. And long before
15 there were other issues, Columbia County, on
16 its own, tried to acquire the mines that are
17 before you today.
18 When I first approached, in behalf of
19 the Board, the owners of the mines, we
20 approached them with the concept of a donation.
21 Loud but proud, we did it, you know. The worst
22 they could do was ask us to leave.
23 They did not do that. They were kind.
24 They just give us an economics lesson in
25 operating lime rock mine.
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1 From there, we went and we even attempted
2 through Congress to -- to endorse tax credits,
3 not tax deductions, but tax credits, as a means
4 of securing the mines.
5 It was by no small effort of the Secretary
6 to get the issue brought before you today. I
7 know that that's been a bone of contention. I
8 understand that. The County Commission has
9 friends who are on the other side of the issue.
10 But the simple truth is is we commend the
11 Secretary for what he did, or otherwise we
12 would not have this opportunity today to even
13 discuss it.
14 And so toward that end, the Board has
15 approved a resolution, which I will like --
16 would like to read, and then I'd like to
17 introduce them.
18 This is Columbia County, Florida,
19 Resolution Number 2000R-2. It's a resolution
20 of the Board of County Commissioners of
21 Columbia County, Florida, supporting the
22 acquisition of and boundary amendment, to the
23 Ichetucknee Trace Lime Rock Mines Conservation
24 and Recreational Lands Project.
25 Whereas, the Ichetucknee Springs and River
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1 are outstanding natural resources of important
2 social and economic value to Columbia County
3 and the State of Florida; and
4 Whereas, the Ichetucknee Trace lime rock
5 mines may pose significant threat to the water
6 quality of the Ichetucknee; and
7 Whereas, all mining activities must be
8 stopped as the blasting and excavation of the
9 mines pose too great a risk to the future of
10 the Ichetucknee Springs and River; and
11 Whereas the most feasible method to
12 accomplish the cessation of all mining
13 activities is through the acquisition of the
14 Ichetucknee Trace lime rock mines; and
15 Whereas Columbia County has become an
16 active member of the Ichetucknee Springs Water
17 Quality Working Group; and
18 Whereas, the Columbia County Commission
19 supported the addition of the Ichetucknee Trace
20 lime rock mines to the Conservation and
21 Recreation Lands priority list in 1997; and
22 Whereas, the Columbia County
23 Comprehensive Plan has been amended to prohibit
24 any new mines in the Ichetucknee Trace and the
25 high aquifer recharge areas of Columbia County;
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1 and
2 Whereas, the Columbia County land
3 development regulations provide that the zoning
4 is restricted to one dwelling unit per 10 acres
5 within the Trace; and
6 Whereas, Columbia County has provided for
7 additional setbacks along identified creeks and
8 streams that would affect the Ichetucknee; and
9 Whereas, Columbia County has participated
10 in grant programs to acquire sensitive
11 geological features pertinent to the
12 Ichetucknee; and
13 Whereas, Columbia County has participated
14 in a joint project, with the Suwannee River
15 Water Management District, and the City of
16 Lake City to study storm water management
17 programs that may be beneficial to the
18 Ichetucknee and the County as a whole; and
19 Whereas, the County Commission agrees to
20 become the lead agency for managing any lands
21 purchased in the Ichetucknee Trace for water
22 quality protection.
23 Now, therefore, be it resolved that the
24 Board of County Commissioners of
25 Columbia County strongly supports the
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1 acquisition and boundary amendment to the
2 Ichetucknee Trace lime rock mines, Conservation
3 and Recreational Lands Project, unanimously
4 passed and adopted in a regular session the
5 20th day of January, 2000.
6 I have to apologize for the length. The
7 County Attorney gets paid by the hour.
8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Tell them --
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can you --
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- like it is,
11 Brother.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can you please recognize
13 the Commissioners so that we can move on? I --
14 MR. WILLIAMS: I would --
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: That's a very good
16 presentation.
17 MR. WILLIAMS: -- love to.
18 Governor, if I would, would all five of the
19 County Commissioners --
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
21 MR. WILLIAMS: -- please stand for
22 Columbia County?
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: We welcome you all.
24 Thank --
25 MR. WILLIAMS: Commissioner
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1 Ronald Williams.
2 Raise your hand.
3 Commissioner Dewey Weaver, Commissioner
4 Zimmie Petty, Commissioner Kenneth Witt, and
5 Commissioner James Montgomery.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Welcome.
7 MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, ma'am.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Secretary.
9 SECRETARY HARRIS: Yes. I have a question.
10 It's impressive what the Commissioners have
11 done proactively over the years to help keep
12 the Ichetucknee clean. I've -- I've tubed it,
13 I've canoed it. It's a very -- very special
14 place.
15 What -- it seems that everyone's addressing
16 the process of -- of the purchase of the mine,
17 whether it's the appraisal process, or the --
18 or other issues.
19 What isn't addressed in the resolution, and
20 what's the sticking point and the difficulty
21 for all of us, of course, is the permitting of
22 the plant which is linked.
23 MR. WILLIAMS: Uh-hum.
24 SECRETARY HARRIS: And so the issue --
25 I guess my only concern is that we all want to
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1 purchase this mine, and we're going to work out
2 what the appropriate process is.
3 This resolution, of course, by the
4 Commissioners, that was approved unanimously,
5 doesn't address the -- you know, it addresses
6 the purchase, which within the purchase --
7 MR. WILLIAMS: Uh-hum.
8 SECRETARY HARRIS: -- includes the linkage
9 of the permitting, which it's my understanding,
10 there's no -- we -- the Department -- the DEP
11 has no grounds to refuse the permit, but it's
12 just the linkage.
13 When you approved this, and with the
14 resolution, there wasn't also the endorsement
15 of the -- the concrete plant.
16 So was this entire approval process done
17 and reached through the understanding that the
18 linkage to the concrete plant existed?
19 MR. WILLIAMS: No. Please understand our
20 desire to purchase the mines acquired before
21 there ever was a cement plant issue.
22 SECRETARY HARRIS: Right.
23 MR. WILLIAMS: And so the cement plant was
24 only the tool that got the issue to the
25 forefront to be discussed.
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1 As far as Columbia County's position, the
2 Board of County Commission discussed the item
3 during a regular meeting, and decided to be
4 neutral on the issue.
5 It's in Suwannee County, not Columbia --
6 SECRETARY HARRIS: Uh-hum.
7 MR. WILLIAMS: -- the mine site. The issue
8 is viewed as having two parts: One, it's a
9 land use issue, which the Suwannee County Board
10 of County Commissioners, not Columbia County,
11 will determine; and it's the issue of the State
12 permitting, which, of course, your agencies
13 will determine.
14 So the County Commission felt like there
15 was nothing that they could add to the debate.
16 And, therefore, there's been one of neutrality.
17 We, too, wish that these were separate
18 issues, because there are people who will speak
19 against the mine purchase, for the reason you
20 said, that are our friends.
21 And quite frankly, we wish that that was
22 not the case. But unfortunately it is. But
23 nonetheless, we are pleased that it's to this
24 point.
25 And, again, we urge you to act to purchase
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1 the mines.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: General Butterworth.
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Sir, on
4 behalf of Col-- of Columbia County, Columbia --
5 Columbia County would -- would urge this --
6 this Board to -- to split the issues?
7 MR. WILLIAMS: Well, that would be fine
8 with us. We -- we are neutral in the issue of
9 the cement plant. We do desire for the mines
10 to be purchased.
11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: But
12 Columbia County, I believe, has an excellent
13 record -- and you ought to be commended of what
14 you have been doing over the -- over the past
15 few years, reference this mine and --
16 MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you.
17 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- we do
18 commend you for that.
19 MR. WILLIAMS: We appreciate that.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
21 MR. WILLIAMS: Governor.
22 MR. STRUHS: Mr. -- Mr. Don Odom, who is
23 the Commissioner from Suwannee County, is -- is
24 going to speak.
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: Commissioner, welcome.
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1 MR. ODOM: Good morning, Honorable Bush,
2 and the rest of the Cabinet.
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: We're not
4 Honorable.
5 SECRETARY HARRIS: And the rest of the
6 Cabinet.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: We're just the
8 rest of the Cabinet.
9 MR. ODOM: And you, too, Ms. --
10 When you said make it short and sweet,
11 that's right up my alley.
12 So I won't -- it'll take longer than this.
13 I'm here just as Chairman of the Board of
14 Suwannee County, and -- and supportive of
15 Suwannee County.
16 That's why I'm here, in support of them.
17 And we are 100 percent agreeing that the mine
18 should be bought.
19 SECRETARY HARRIS: Governor --
20 MR. ODOM: And so that -- that is what we
21 are. We're just trying to be a good neighbor
22 because Suwannee County does meet
23 Suwannee County along the Ichetucknee River.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Absolutely, Commissioner.
25 Secretary Harris.
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1 SECRETARY HARRIS: Thank you.
2 I'd like to ask you the same question, but
3 more directly to Suwannee, since that's the --
4 if you're 100 percent in agreement, we all --
5 we all are, that the mine needs to be
6 purchased.
7 What is the Commission's position on the
8 permitting of the cement mine -- or the cement
9 plant, or did -- you know, was that part of the
10 discussion for the approval of this contract --
11 MR. ODOM: That --
12 SECRETARY HARRIS: -- negotiation.
13 MR. ODOM: About the permit being their
14 permit, you mean, being -- I think that's a
15 separate issue.
16 SECRETARY HARRIS: It's -- it's linked
17 in -- in the -- in this agreement.
18 MR. ODOM: I don't think that was the issue
19 brought up. The -- the issue -- what I
20 understand is the -- the mine issue's a
21 separate issue than the -- than the air permit.
22 Is that --
23 SECRETARY HARRIS: Well, the settlement
24 deal says that the company -- if the -- the
25 company does not get the permit, then it -- it
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1 doesn't have to sell the mine. And so it's
2 just -- it's linked.
3 MR. ODOM: Well, if it's linked, we're
4 still in favor of it anyway.
5 SECRETARY HARRIS: Okay.
6 MR. ODOM: Thank you.
7 SECRETARY HARRIS: Thank you.
8 MR. STRUHS: Mayor Ray Kirkland from
9 Lake City.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Mayor, welcome.
11 MR. KIRKLAND: Thank you, sir.
12 Governor, members of the Cabinet. Pleased
13 to be here on behalf of what I thought the
14 issue was, and that is that we support.
15 I deal in my business an awful lot in
16 perception, and always have. As a matter of
17 fact, I've been very close to mining. My
18 livelihood was for 20 years for a phosphate
19 mining company.
20 I know what perception is, and I know that
21 I can't tell you anything about the techniques
22 and -- and technical parts of this.
23 But I do know that from the people that
24 I've talked with in my city, that the
25 acquisition of the mine -- which again, I
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1 thought was the purpose of this, and this is
2 the issue -- the acquisition would be in the
3 best interest of our state and our county, and
4 our city.
5 And in the interest of brevity, I hope
6 you'll give me some points for being short and
7 sweet.
8 Thank you.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Mayor, you win lots of
10 points doing that. I appreciate it.
11 Thank you.
12 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: One question
13 of the Mayor.
14 Since you've been in this business, sir,
15 the way it's -- it's presently drafted, and
16 Secretary Harris has stated, there is so many
17 conditions precedent that we may very well vote
18 today this item positive, and in two years from
19 now, the State is not going to own this mine.
20 So I mean, I think everybody should --
21 who's out there, really wants this, should
22 really look at this issue. Because you may not
23 have -- you may not be getting what you think
24 you're getting.
25 Because the State will not be driving the
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1 train. The company will be driving the train.
2 So I think you should think about that.
3 I'm not saying it's not going to happen. I
4 don't know.
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Can I ask a
6 question though?
7 I recognize that, and I think that's an
8 important issue to know about.
9 But is the reason not to buy the mine
10 because that might happen? I mean, that's
11 where I'm -- I'm having a balance problem.
12 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I think it's
13 probably at the end of the line for us to
14 discuss. But I think a lot of people out here
15 do not know it was a linked issue.
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Yeah.
17 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: So that's --
18 that seems to be the issue.
19 SECRETARY HARRIS: I just think it needs to
20 be discussed. I mean, we -- we're talking
21 about all the issues concerning the purchase of
22 the mine, which everyone believes is important,
23 and we can debate the -- the different
24 processes that we do that.
25 But it can't be left out that part -- that
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1 one of the conditions is -- is that -- is the
2 linkage of permitting the cement plant.
3 And that's -- I mean, there's -- we cannot
4 not permit it, it's my understanding, based on
5 the company's record. DEP has looked at this.
6 But it's part of -- of this opportunity.
7 And so I think it needs to be discussed in --
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well --
9 SECRETARY HARRIS: -- all terms. And --
10 and if you're approving it, then you -- then I
11 just want to know that you understand that
12 you're saying that you support this, but with
13 the understanding that part of that deal is
14 the -- the permitting of -- of the mine. And
15 if we -- if it's not permitted, then the
16 company can walk.
17 MR. KIRKLAND: Madam Secretary, may I
18 remind you then the -- in the former
19 dissertation here by our County Coordinator, he
20 mentioned that this is not something that just
21 developed.
22 But maybe three or even four years ago,
23 the -- the County of Columbia was interested in
24 purchasing this mine.
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: I think -- I think,
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1 Secretary, the other speakers that are going to
2 speak will probably address the linkage issue.
3 I'm just speculating on that.
4 And -- and I think that, Secretary Struhs,
5 if, when we're completed, or during this
6 process, if there needs to be additional
7 information on the -- the settlement and the
8 unique nature of what is being required for the
9 permitting of this, all the three or four
10 permits, I think it's appropriate to talk about
11 it.
12 I don't -- we're -- no one's playing any
13 games here. This is -- it is linked. And the
14 option is either we do it as a package, and the
15 Cabinet should consider it that way. I don't
16 think we -- we sh-- we would be untruthful
17 in -- in -- you know, not addressing the issue
18 head-on if we -- if we adopted a policy, well,
19 this is just -- we're just buying a piece of
20 land here. We're not. We're doing more than
21 that.
22 And I think it's appropriate to -- to use
23 this period of time to discuss these things and
24 consider what the options are if we don't.
25 It's appropriate -- I'm glad you brought it up.
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1 SECRETARY HARRIS: You know, and I just
2 wanted -- and I have a question for
3 Secretary Struhs, but we're concentrating so
4 much on -- on the appraisal process, I didn't
5 want to get into it.
6 But as -- when we're having the testimony
7 of the support from the counties from Suwannee
8 and others, I just wanted to get their feedback
9 if they were supportive if that was part of the
10 decision.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: All right.
12 MR. STRUHS: Our next speaker -- in fact,
13 probably not a speaker, but just some folks who
14 wanted to be recognized: Mr. Azell Nail, who
15 is the manager of Ichetucknee Springs State
16 Park.
17 And he brought with him various members of
18 the park's citizens support organization.
19 Did you want to stand, please?
20 MR. NAIL: Governor, Cabinet, folks come
21 along with me is Joan Shelton with the local
22 historic society in Fort White; Sam Cole, the
23 park biologist; Wesley Jones, the Assistant
24 Park Manager in Ichetucknee Springs; and
25 Gary Wilbur. He is with the Chamber of
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1 Commerce there in Fort White.
2 And Sheila McKenzie, who is President of
3 the CSO for Friends of the Ichetucknee; and
4 Chuck Brannaka, who is also a member of the CSO
5 for Ichetucknee.
6 Thank you.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Appreciate y'all coming.
8 MR. STRUHS: We -- we've tried as best as
9 possible to group the speakers into various
10 positions just to make it easier to follow the
11 conversations.
12 The following individuals, and there's a
13 long list of them -- we have one, two, three,
14 four, five, six -- we have 18 individuals who
15 would like to address you in opposition of this
16 agenda item.
17 And then we have approximately the same
18 number who would follow them in -- in support.
19 And first up is Virginia --
20 And I guess before we begin is if you want
21 to give us instructions in terms of how much
22 time --
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Sure.
24 MR. STRUHS: -- you would like to --
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah. I think --
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1 MR. STRUHS: -- allocate.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- if we could keep
3 everybody's remarks to -- to --
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: A minute.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- 3 or 4 -- you know, 3 or
6 4 minutes at the max. And try to keep what's
7 said -- don't -- don't -- we don't have to
8 repeat over and over again.
9 If there are nuances that might add to
10 the -- the value of the conversation, that's
11 great.
12 And -- and I think, given the fact that I'm
13 sure Cabinet members will want to ask questions
14 as well, that will -- that may be extended.
15 But please respect that so that we all can
16 complete this.
17 MR. STRUHS: Okay. First up,
18 Virginia Seacrist.
19 And what I'm -- what I'm going to do,
20 Governor, is -- is -- is in the interest of
21 time, try to get a cue in place so that we can
22 move more expeditiously.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good morning. Let's --
24 MS. SEACRIST: Yes. Hi. Sorry.
25 I'm Virginia Seacrist, and I'm representing
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1 a -- approximately 10,000 or more people who
2 have signed petitions.
3 Yes.
4 You've seen these petitions before,
5 Governor Bush.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: I have.
7 MS. SEACRIST: But I just wanted to show
8 you that we have, as you remember, over
9 10,000 signatures. And I'm sure that if we
10 tried -- we stopped getting signatures when you
11 first denied the permit. So many, many more
12 people are contacting me now.
13 So I am -- I think I am speaking for the
14 public who loves the Ichetucknee River. And I
15 appreciate being able to go first so that I can
16 try to cover everything that I think's
17 pertinent, and then those people who are
18 following me will give you the details.
19 But I want to propose something different
20 today. You know, we are involved in this legal
21 process, and we are in -- we're at war. And I
22 am really a very peace-loving person, and
23 that's why I go to the Ichetucknee, as a matter
24 of fact, because it's my -- it's my spiritual
25 haven.
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1 And so I'd like to rise to a level above
2 war and into a spiritual level of maybe
3 compromise.
4 I will tell you that I have met with Joe
5 Anderson and his men. And I've -- think that
6 I -- know that both you and David Struhs and
7 Joe Anderson and I, and all of us, love the
8 Ichetucknee River.
9 Because you canoed down it and took the
10 time, and I was very pleased that
11 Secretary Nelson came over to look at the whole
12 situation. And I know that there's not a
13 person in this room who doesn't love the
14 Ichetucknee River. And I think we all want to
15 protect it.
16 So I'm suggesting that in a spirit of
17 compromise -- number one, I must say that
18 people are slow learners, and I'm a teacher and
19 I know that. So I'm going to say what I have
20 to say first, and then I'm going to give some
21 background information, then I'm going to say
22 it again.
23 All right. I don't think you should
24 approve this deal, because it is a deal,
25 number one.
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1 We were not involved in this deal. DEP and
2 Anderson's lawyers were involved in this deal.
3 As a matter of fact, Anderson's lawyers wrote
4 the deal. And I wasn't -- I wasn't contacted,
5 nor were any of us who are concerned about the
6 river contacted.
7 As a matter of fact, we were called to the
8 head springs, and the deal was announced. And
9 I guess I was really surprised, because we were
10 going to have a meeting in December for
11 two weeks to discuss, you know, the mercury
12 issue and all the other issues that are still
13 involved in the cement plant.
14 But here we are with a -- with a situation
15 where if we do one thing that's good, we're
16 going to do something else that isn't good.
17 As a matter of fact, Joe Anderson is going
18 to give up one mine, and he's going to have
19 another mine, which is bigger, right bes-- the
20 same distance from the Ichetucknee River.
21 And he's going to, in addition, have a
22 cement plant, which we all know is going to
23 have emissions, and we all know that's in
24 court.
25 And if we could just stop fighting and
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1 using lawyers, we would all realize, you know,
2 that whatever goes up into the air is going to
3 come down into the water.
4 The fish are already laden with mercury,
5 and that's just one of the things. You know,
6 we have an ecotourist business here which is
7 already established.
8 And, Governor Bush, I have here the
9 Environment 21 magazine where you had your
10 candidate speech. And this was a wonderful,
11 wonderful environmental magazine and issue.
12 I just want to reassure everybody in this
13 room that you care about the environment,
14 because you've said -- in this magazine, you
15 said, I don't -- I hope you don't mind. I'm
16 just going to read a few quotes.
17 First --
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: It was very eloquent, I'm
19 sure.
20 MS. SEACRIST: I'm sorry?
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'm sure it was very
22 eloquent.
23 MS. SEACRIST: It was. And -- and,
24 you know -- well, anyway, I have faith in you,
25 and I have faith in everybody.
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1 So -- I heard you say on NPR just recently
2 the -- about the Everglades, that the
3 environment is the economy. And that is also
4 true of the Ichetucknee area. The environment
5 is the economy.
6 You suggested that the Brownfields
7 Redevelopment Act, the Act should help reduce
8 development pressures on Florida's limited
9 supply of greenfields, and that substainable
10 constr-- sustainable construction consists of
11 building structures and developments to new
12 standards for conservation of energy, water,
13 and other limited resources.
14 Clean water and air are limited resources.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Ms. Seacrist, can you come
16 to a close?
17 We're -- you're already past 5 minutes,
18 and --
19 MS. SEACRIST: Oh, I'm --
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- so right off the bat,
21 we're already --
22 MS. SEACRIST: All right. Okay.
23 Well, no one's going to repeat what I have
24 to say.
25 You said what is needed is -- now is
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1 government leadership and incentives to
2 encourage these smart practices.
3 I suggest that we need to give Joe Anderson
4 some incentive to move his cement plant from
5 where it is.
6 The -- I'm a member of the North Florida
7 Tourist -- Ecotourist Task Force, and there are
8 11 north Florida counties. And lime rock is --
9 lime rock is all over the counties.
10 If we could give him some incentive to move
11 his cement plant and to buy both mines. Buy
12 both mines. We want to protect the
13 Ichetucknee. And that is how to do it.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
15 MS. SEACRIST: That's the essence. And
16 I think that you should -- you should form a
17 council that includes government, industry, and
18 those of us concerned about the river.
19 And Joe Anderson actually suggested this,
20 too --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
22 MS. SEACRIST: -- as a monitoring --
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
24 MS. SEACRIST: -- factor.
25 Thank you very much.
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1 MR. STRUHS: Okay.
2 MR. BRUDERLY: Morning.
3 I'm Dave Bruderly, and I'm here to speak to
4 the point that eight wrongs do not make a
5 right.
6 And I see eight -- at least eight things
7 wrong with this deal. And I -- I've called it
8 appeasement, and I think that's a good term for
9 it.
10 Virginia mentioned that folks are slow
11 learners. Well, we went through this process
12 in Alachua County a couple of years ago with a
13 company called Florida Rock. And what
14 Alachua County learned at that time was that we
15 have a long way to go before we start
16 integrating the concepts of industrial ecology
17 into the concepts of ecosystem management.
18 I want to speak to the fact that I
19 appreciate the dilemma that Secretary Struhs is
20 in. And he's been given a very difficult job.
21 And I think he's done a pretty good job for a
22 Yankee who just -- just moved down here, with
23 trying to understand how Florida ecosystems
24 work. But he's still got a lot of learning to
25 do.
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1 I've been here since 1974, and I still
2 don't know everything that I think I know. We
3 all have a lot of learning to do.
4 And one of the things that we've got a lot
5 of learning to do about is the impacts of the
6 cement industry on north -- north central
7 Florida. And we have not done our homework on
8 studying the impacts of that industry on north
9 central Florida.
10 Hernando County, Alachua County, and now
11 Suwannee County are on a very short learning
12 curve.
13 This particular cement plant requires
14 absolute assurance -- absolute assurance that
15 no harm shall be done, not only to the
16 Ichetucknee, but to the Santa Fe River and the
17 Suwannee. These are Outstanding Florida
18 Waters.
19 And with all due respect to the Department,
20 I have yet to see any definitive
21 environmental -- comprehensive environmental
22 assessment on the impacts of the mine -- the
23 900-acre mine, which is the size of the mine,
24 I believe, and the associated cement plant, on
25 the Suwannee River system, including the
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1 estuary. We're going to be -- permitting --
2 we're permitting a cement plant that's going to
3 put out over 1,000 tons a year of
4 nitrogen oxides.
5 We've been beating up on the agriculture
6 industry and the septic tank folks to try to
7 reduce nitrogen discharges into the
8 ground water.
9 Well, in Tampa Bay, we've learned that
10 nitrogen also falls out of the sky.
11 Fifty percent of the loading to Tampa Bay is
12 nitrogen coming from the sky, from
13 air pollution, from power plants, from
14 automobiles, phosphate plants, and
15 cement plants.
16 We have not done our homework on that issue
17 of protecting the Outstanding Florida Waters of
18 the Suwannee estuary.
19 The mercury issue is in litigation. I
20 submit to you that the linkage just caused by
21 that litigation is enough to kill this deal.
22 If the citizens prevail on the mercury issue,
23 and I think they will, then the Department will
24 have to modify the air construction permit in
25 some way to compensate for that.
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1 We can debate -- I don't know the details
2 of that. That's to be determined. But that
3 could queer any deal that is -- any settlement,
4 any purchase agreement that you all decide to
5 move forward with.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: So it's -- that's an
7 interesting -- it's a good point, that if these
8 permits are not issued, they're challenged,
9 several of them are in court -- or one of them
10 at least is in court if -- if they're not
11 granted, this -- this won't go forward.
12 MR. BRUDERLY: That's -- that's correct.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: That's --
14 MR. BRUDERLY: I would submit to you also
15 that the Department has done the best job it --
16 it thinks it can do on the air permit for the
17 cement plant in terms of technology analysis
18 for emission controls and so forth.
19 I would, however, submit that the
20 Department has only followed the letter of the
21 law -- very narrowly, I might add -- and has
22 not pushed the envelope on doing everything
23 that it could do to protect this pristine air
24 shed -- relatively pristine air shed from
25 degradation from emissions.
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1 We failed to do that in Alachua County.
2 And as a result, the Alachua County Commission
3 appointed an -- a volunteer board of nine
4 professionals, academics, consultants, and
5 industry representatives, who just yesterday
6 released the findings and recommendations on
7 the state of air quality in Alachua County, in
8 addition to all of our surrounding neighbors,
9 including Suwannee County.
10 And what this tells everybody is that all
11 these counties are interconnected when it comes
12 to air pollution, because the wind blows in
13 many different directions. And we are dealing
14 with a regional issue.
15 And if we want to keep our skies blue and
16 clear, we need to -- we need to start working
17 in that direction.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Doctor, can you please wrap
19 up --
20 MR. BRUDERLY: So I'm going -- I'm going to
21 give you guys a copy of this report.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay. Thank you.
23 MR. BRUDERLY: The other major issue that
24 this -- this process brings to -- to light is
25 the -- is the weakness of the State's mining
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1 regulations and laws.
2 You are going to appraise a mine as if
3 there was no threat to the Ichetucknee. Every
4 cubic meter, every ton of rock in this Anderson
5 mine will be appraised as -- at its full value.
6 There are no restrictions in place today
7 that would prohibit them from mining rock that
8 is over the Trace.
9 And I submit we have the cart before the
10 horse. I support what Ms. Seacrist said.
11 I think we should basically kill this deal and
12 go back to the negotiating table, and bring
13 Sierra Club and Save Our Suwannee, who are not
14 part of the negotiated settlement, bring them
15 to the table, and let all of us put all of the
16 issues on the table, and do an environ-- a
17 proper ecosystem management that includes
18 industrial ecology, and do a comprehensive
19 environmental review of this whole banana, this
20 whole enchilada, before we go out and spend a
21 lot of money on appraisals, and all this other
22 stuff, which may end up buying us a pig in a
23 poke.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
25 MR. BRUDERLY: I also submit we haven't --
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1 I also haven't heard anybody say anything about
2 due diligence.
3 And if you're buying an industrial site,
4 there's a little law out there called
5 Comprehensive Environmental Response and
6 Liability called CERCLA, Superfund, hazardous
7 waste.
8 What are we buying in the way of long term
9 environmental liability from existing
10 contamination?
11 I don't know.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, sir.
13 Thank you.
14 Who's next?
15 MR. STRUHS: Michael Samuels.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Hello, Michael.
17 DR. SAMUELS: Hi, Jeb.
18 How are you doing?
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Most of us are e-mail
20 buddies. So --
21 DR. SAMUELS: Yeah.
22 It's -- I really appreciate the ability to
23 be here, and speak to you, Jeb Bush, Governor,
24 and Cabinet.
25 And also to Suwannee County and
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1 Columbia County officials, lovers of the river,
2 people who are here.
3 I'm a physician. I've worked with cancer
4 patients, people with respiratory diseases.
5 For 30 years -- I live in San Francisco, which
6 is -- I can't see the Ichetucknee River from my
7 house in Marin County.
8 I was brought down here by the Florida AIM,
9 Arts and Medicine Department at University of
10 Florida, Shands, where I'm on the Board to help
11 with art -- with leukemia in children, and was
12 introduced to the wonderful Ichetucknee, and
13 fell in love with it.
14 I've written 17 books, one of them on
15 environmental health with Sierra Club called
16 Well Body, Well Earth.
17 In the process of that book, I visited tire
18 burning cement mines in England and in Texas.
19 And I can tell you that no matter what the
20 figures that come down in that sheet of paper
21 to the DEP for the criteria pollutants, being
22 next to a tire burning cement plant is a very
23 different experience.
24 They're all built in magnificent valleys
25 with creeks and streams coming down, because
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1 that's where the limestone is. They're all
2 beautiful of where the cement plant comes in.
3 All of the health studies -- no matter what
4 temperature the stuff is burned, a tire now is
5 not made of rubber. It's made of nylon and, as
6 all -- we all know, thousands of compounds.
7 When those compounds are burned and -- on
8 my website, www.ichetucknee.org, we've got all
9 of these compounds listed and their subtle
10 mixtures and how they cause human cancer.
11 That stuff goes up in the air, it peaks at
12 11 miles in its fall, goes 47 imperceptible,
13 and then the plumes start. And if you've seen
14 my book, Well Body, Well Earth, the plumes come
15 from Cleveland to Maine.
16 They go up like a mountain and come down.
17 And that's the acid rain.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: So --
19 DR. SAMUELS: So that --
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- Doctor, would you then
21 suggest that there is no place for a cement
22 plant in any place, I mean, based on that?
23 DR. SAMUELS: I would say that right now,
24 of the several industries in the world that are
25 the most polluting, and the most difficult to
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1 control, and the most -- most in need of
2 research, and by research, tire burning cement
3 plants is a top five.
4 And they also burn all over the world toxic
5 waste.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Would you -- would you --
7 DR. SAMUELS: Now, the Anderson plant has
8 said it's not going to burn toxic wastes.
9 It's -- tires is tire derived fuel, TDF. Toxic
10 waste is the next step.
11 There's about 21 in the United States that
12 burn toxic wastes. And this is part of a
13 recycling approach. These are not
14 incinerators, they're not kilns, they have no
15 regulations on them.
16 I think that -- there's two issues here,
17 and the -- we're here today because of the
18 acquisition of the mine.
19 But the first issue is is fate has chosen
20 to put this mine at the intersection of the
21 Ichetucknee, Suwannee, and Santa Fe River.
22 This is really, really the reason -- I think if
23 it had put it somewhere up in the country, the
24 whole thing would have gone unnoticed.
25 That's sad because I think this is --
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1 they're dangerous industries.
2 Where they've been in England -- solid
3 studies in both England and Texas have shown
4 asthma, emphysema, lung disease, lung disease
5 in children, and cancer all go up.
6 No matter what the levels that -- that
7 wonderful Secretary Struhs has done. I know by
8 law he's got to permit that plant if those five
9 levels meet DEP.
10 But this is such a more complicated issue
11 than that, and there will be cancer and
12 emphysema and asthma in the surrounding
13 counties, and probably as this builds up, from
14 Tallahassee to Jacksonville, because those
15 plumes go from Cleveland to Maine. The acid
16 rain in Maine is from those plumes.
17 A plume is a -- the reason the tall stacks
18 are there is they put the stuff coming out,
19 which is vaporized, so we breathe it, and it
20 dissolves in water.
21 A tire is turned into air and water. And
22 that stuff blows above the grass, so it doesn't
23 just fall, it goes at the first layer of air.
24 And that's why the peak studies in England
25 from the tire burning plumes shown the massive
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1 stuff falls right about where the Iche is. So
2 129 pounds of mercury --
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can you --
4 DR. SAMUELS: -- is going to go into the
5 Iche.
6 In San Francisco Bay, they only allow
7 100 pounds per polluter. In the State of
8 Maine, they only allow 100 pounds, polluter.
9 Because mercury is bioaccumulated.
10 So that my -- my basic position here is
11 that -- I think the major threat to the Iche is
12 the cement plant, not the mine. I think
13 they're linked, they're married, they're stuck
14 together like lovers. We -- we can't take them
15 apart, the deal didn't take them apart.
16 I tremendously respect and honor the work
17 that you guys are doing in dealing with this.
18 The attempt to stop it by the previous
19 environmental record was a wonderful heart
20 raiser for the people involved.
21 I think it illustrated your tremendous
22 desire to protect both the river and the
23 environment.
24 I also agree with Virginia. I think
25 that -- I don't think it's in Anderson's best
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1 interest to put this mine in this place for its
2 whole career future.
3 That's -- if that plant has to be built, it
4 should be built and regulated to the best of
5 its ability in an industrial area away from
6 these resources.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you,
8 Doctor. Thank you for coming.
9 DR. SAMUELS: Thank you very much for --
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Nice meeting you in person.
11 DR. SAMUELS: It's really nice seeing all
12 of you in person.
13 David, nice meeting you, and --
14 MR. STRUHS: Thank you, Doctor.
15 DR. SAMUELS: And my website's
16 www.ichetucknee.org is open to all of you. I'd
17 love to hear from all of you, including
18 Joe Anderson, the writers, everybody.
19 See it --
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Who's next?
21 MR. STRUHS: Dr. Max Wilson is next. A
22 property owner in the area.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'm sorry. Your name, sir?
24 DR. WILSON: Good morning.
25 MR. STRUHS: Max Wilson.
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1 DR. WILSON: My name is Max Wilson.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Welcome.
3 DR. WILSON: I'm very happy to be here, to
4 have the opportunity to appear before the
5 Governor and the Cabinet.
6 SECRETARY HARRIS: Can he speak closer?
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can you get closer to the
8 microphone, sir?
9 DR. WILSON: I've been a --
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: There you go.
11 DR. WILSON: -- a citizen of Florida since
12 I was born here in 1932. Some of you may have
13 heard of Lake Okeechobee down that way,
14 you know.
15 And my father in 1920 got his drinking
16 water by walking out in the lake and filling a
17 bucket and walking back.
18 So I recognize the awesome responsibility
19 that -- that the Cabinet has in making these
20 decisions. I recognize that you function in
21 discharging these responsibilities in an arena
22 of -- of legislation, rules, regulations, and
23 law.
24 But I'm going to ask today that we all
25 consider another rule in making decisions, and
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1 that is the rule of common sense as mentioned
2 by --
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Representative Stansel.
4 DR. WILSON: -- Stansel, and so wonderfully
5 exercised by King Solomon, and seems to have
6 disappeared from our society in the last
7 several years.
8 I'm here to speak on behalf of the
9 Ichetucknee River and the Santa Fe River and
10 the Suwannee River, these magnificent creations
11 of God, who he saw fit to place in
12 north central Florida.
13 The government of the State of Florida saw
14 fit to create it and preserve it in a State
15 park several years ago for the pleasure of the
16 citizens of not only our state, other states,
17 everybody.
18 And I realize that man has done wonderful
19 things with his ingenuity; and government,
20 business, and individuals have created many
21 things that have improved the quality of life.
22 Also with good intentions, they have also
23 done many things that turned out to be an
24 ecological catastrophe. At least that's what
25 they tell me about Kissimmee River, and my
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1 clean Lake Okeechobee. And now we're embarking
2 on restoring the Kissimmee River.
3 I suggest to you that man is ingenious,
4 creative, and can do wonders. But I do not
5 think he can recreate the Kissimmee River,
6 Mother Nature.
7 We've all read recently about the water
8 table in north Florida being at a ten-year
9 level low. We hear people coming from the rest
10 of the state commenting on the critical water
11 situation in Florida.
12 We've heard testimony -- you've heard more
13 than I have. I'm pretty dumb about all this.
14 But the experts have testified that, oh, this
15 mining and so forth won't hurt anything; and
16 other experts, equal experts, have testified
17 that it will.
18 Common sense tells me that if the County of
19 Columbia in which I live is going to limit the
20 density of the Ichetucknee Trace to 5 -- to
21 10 acres, why didn't they -- why do they limit
22 it to 10 acres elsewhere else? Why not limit
23 it to 5 acres?
24 Common sense tells me, if you're going to
25 acquire one mine in the same location, you need
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1 to acquire both.
2 Common sense tells me that economically,
3 any company can place a cement plant and a --
4 and a mine in an area that is not threatening
5 to a sensitive ecological treasure.
6 Thank you.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
8 Who's next?
9 DR. WILSON: Phone number? What'd I say?
10 MR. STRUHS: We ask that of everyone, by
11 the way.
12 (Commissioner Crawford exited the room.)
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: If you don't want to give
14 it, don't.
15 MR. STRUHS: Anthony Cirigliano, please.
16 MR. CIRIGLIANO: Thank you, Governor,
17 members of the Cabinet.
18 This is -- this is a welcome opportunity to
19 go over some numbers I've -- I've investigated
20 regarding the three parcels.
21 You're only purchasing three parcels of
22 property in this Kirby mine vicinity. It's an
23 incomplete purchase at best. I have a diagram
24 up there that delineates the three Anderson
25 properties.
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1 One of them is 120 acres. It's got a just
2 value for land of $120,000. It's got a class
3 value in which the -- the owner pays taxes of
4 $30,240.
5 It's got a second parcel that's 80 acres.
6 Its land use is nonagricultural, it's got a
7 just value of $96,000. The applicant pays
8 taxes on $96,000.
9 It's got a third parcel of land of
10 150 acres where it appears that the major
11 mining operations are taking place. It's got a
12 just value of $159,000. The applicants pay
13 taxes on $48,000.
14 Obviously the total here only equates to
15 $375,000 of land value.
16 (Commissioner Crawford entered the room.)
17 MR. CIRIGLIANO: They pay taxes on $174,000
18 of taxable value. How we got to 20 million
19 remains a mystery. And that mystery we need
20 experts for.
21 General appraisers do not have the
22 capabilities to appraise business damages that
23 we're looking at in this case. I -- please
24 ensure that the appraisers selected have those
25 capabilities.
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1 One -- one other issue is that, as I
2 indicated, those are three parcels. I believe
3 there's another one located right next to it.
4 It's owned by Kirby Development Company. That
5 is an 80-acre site.
6 It's got a land value -- and this is
7 unbelievable to me, an 80-acre site -- of
8 $10,120 that taxes are paid on.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Wow.
10 MR. CIRIGLIANO: Also to the north of the
11 site is a 296-acre parcel, about 80 percent
12 crop land, about 10 to 15 percent trees, and
13 what appears to be a rock transfer station on
14 the lower southern right-hand corner of the
15 property.
16 I'm -- you know, one of the questions that
17 I have is: Where is Anderson going to move his
18 mining operation?
19 Is he going to move it across the street?
20 I've heard that the County has regulations that
21 won't allow that.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: That's right.
23 MR. CIRIGLIANO: Hopefully they're in
24 place.
25 But where will it go? Will it go to the
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1 Ichetucknee?
2 Will it go to the specific site where the
3 cement plant is proposed? Are we going to
4 increase the mining operation just as close to
5 that river as before?
6 What are we really -- really accomplishing
7 by tying the cement plant to this purchase?
8 If there are health, safety, and welfare
9 issues associated with this property, then the
10 State should enact eminent domain processes.
11 DOT does it all the time to enlarge our
12 roads. Why not in this case?
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
14 MR. CIRIGLIANO: Thank you very much, sir.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thanks for coming.
16 MR. STRUHS: Governor --
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Where is the -- where -- is
18 there a -- that's an excellent question about
19 the mining operation.
20 Is there any -- been any conversations
21 about --
22 MR. STRUHS: Yes. The Commissioners from
23 Columbia County -- I'm sorry, the
24 Commissioners --
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: I know that.
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1 But I'm talking about where -- is this
2 mining operation necessary -- is it directly
3 related to the cement plant in terms of raw
4 material?
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Yes.
6 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Where will the mining
8 material come from?
9 MR. STRUHS: At the site where they're
10 producing the cement.
11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Got a --
12 MR. STRUHS: At the new site.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Which they already have a
14 permit for.
15 MR. STRUHS: It's in --
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Another mining operation.
17 MR. STRUHS: Well -- yes. It's -- it's in
18 the works.
19 SECRETARY HARRIS: Secretary --
20 MR. CIRIGLIANO: I just might like to add
21 that they use that mine for road building
22 processes, not for the cement plant. The mine
23 that is -- is proposed for purchase.
24 My question was: Where does that -- where
25 is that facility now going to be placed, that
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1 road mining --
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: We'll have it answered by
3 the end of the afternoon. I'm curious, too.
4 It's a good question.
5 SECRETARY HARRIS: But -- I have a question
6 just as a -- on follow-up on that other -- on
7 the Kirby mining location. That's -- that's
8 the Santa Fe Basin, right, not the Ichetucknee?
9 It's the Santa Fe.
10 MR. STRUHS: Yes, ma'am, that's correct.
11 It's an entirely different basin.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Who's next?
13 MR. STRUHS: Governor, if -- if I could
14 just interject for -- for point of
15 clarification.
16 Some issues were raised in -- in this last
17 speaker's presentation regarding the
18 considerations that would be included in the
19 appraised value of this -- of this property.
20 I'm -- I think it's important to understand
21 that as they do their appraisal work, they're
22 not appraising this as if they were purchasing
23 the business. And they're not appraising this
24 in terms of what the property's potential
25 real estate development potential might be.
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1 Rather, they are limiting themselves only
2 to the actual value of the resource, in this
3 case, the -- the remaining rock. So it's a --
4 it's a very conservative approach to -- to the
5 appraisal, which obviously works in -- in the
6 State's interest.
7 Having said that, the next speaker is
8 Linda Pollini.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Welcome.
10 MS. POLLINI: My name's Linda Pollini. I'm
11 from Archer, Florida.
12 It came to my attention today, and I'd like
13 to just read this off the agenda today for some
14 people who hadn't read the whole thing.
15 It says: Closing is contingent upon
16 Suwannee American Cement Company, Inc.,
17 receiving all State and local authorizations to
18 construct a cement plant in Suwannee County.
19 Okay. These are my comments:
20 The purchase of this mine is a good -- good
21 idea, except for one item: The linking of the
22 sale to the permitting of a cement plant
23 3 miles from the State Park exit.
24 Coal and tire burning factories are major
25 contributors to the global problem of acid rain
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1 because they release hundreds of pounds of
2 sulfur dioxide every day.
3 A recent TV interview with a representative
4 from Anderson Columbia revealed that he had
5 just returned from a tour of a Swiss plant that
6 had state of the art technology installed.
7 So now he is aware of how a clean plant
8 should be constructed. But in the next breath,
9 admitted that they would not be installing this
10 technology in the newly proposed plant by the
11 Ichetucknee.
12 European count-- excuse me, European
13 countries have this technology because the air
14 is so bad over there, acid rain is eating away
15 at the famous monuments in Rome, and the
16 Black Forest in Germany is no longer a forest,
17 but hills covered with barren stumps.
18 Even in our own country, a friend told me
19 of a recent trip through the mountains of
20 Tennessee. In Rabin Gap, he asked a
21 park ranger why many of the trees were dead.
22 And he replied: Acid rain.
23 Unless you install the European technology
24 that would reduce the sulfur dioxide
25 significantly, you are contributing to this
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1 global problem.
2 Do not link this sale to the permitting of
3 another smokestack polluting industry. I urge
4 you to find a way to stop plants and other coal
5 and tire burning factories from -- from
6 contributing to this global problem.
7 Reject the deal if it is linked to the
8 cement plan permit.
9 And also, as a sidelight, 200 doctors in
10 Alachua County have signed a letter of concern
11 of the health problems associated with these
12 plants.
13 Thank you.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much for
15 coming.
16 Who's next?
17 MR. STRUHS: The next speaker is
18 Angela Pate, and we were not able to identify
19 her.
20 Is she in the audience?
21 MS. ABBOTT: No. She's not here.
22 MR. STRUHS: I'm sorry. She's not?
23 MS. ABBOTT: No.
24 MR. STRUHS: She's not available.
25 So the next speaker is Burkett Neely.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good afternoon.
2 MR. NEELY: It's afternoon already.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Oh, yeah.
4 MR. NEELY: My name is Burkett Neely. And
5 I'm speaking as a resident of Columbia County,
6 and on behalf of 25 property owners that live
7 along the Santa Fe River in both Columbia and
8 Gilchrist County.
9 This group's not formally organized, but we
10 do have meetings and discuss issues that impact
11 our community and the resources that we so much
12 enjoy.
13 Before my retirement in 1989, I was a
14 manager of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services
15 Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge for
16 17 years.
17 And General Butterworth may remember me as
18 one of the original plaintiffs in the
19 Everglades lawsuit.
20 This -- this group of property owners are
21 greatly concerned about the health of the
22 environment, the impacts that -- from the
23 proposed construction of the cement plant,
24 which is linked to the purchase of the existing
25 gravel pit, rock pit.
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1 This linkage seems to be holding the State
2 in a -- a hostage for 27 million dollars in
3 order to get their permit. We have a problem
4 with that.
5 I think there are several questions that
6 you need to consider before you decide what
7 you're going to do.
8 Is the State of Florida and its residents
9 getting a good deal on the offer to sell the
10 Anderson mine?
11 There seems to be much confusion over
12 exactly what deal has been negotiated between
13 DEP and Anderson.
14 Is this deal in the best interest of the
15 people and the resources of Florida?
16 What about the other mine, the Kirby mine,
17 that's right adjacent to the Anderson mine, is
18 it not going to be purchased and all mining in
19 a sensitive area be stopped?
20 Has the mining issue been studied
21 adequately, or are we buying a pig in a poke?
22 Who determined the price for the swap and
23 the permit -- the swap, the permit for the
24 mine?
25 We're concerned about the decisions that
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1 have been made without having all the answers
2 to -- having answers to all the questions. We
3 urge you not to make a hasty decision on this
4 issue until you can be assured that the people
5 of Florida are getting a fair deal and that the
6 resources and environment of a very popular
7 recreational area are fully protected.
8 Don't take a chance, because if you guess
9 wrong, it's irreversible.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you for coming, sir.
11 MR. STRUHS: Tom Greenhalgh.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Welcome, Tom.
13 MR. GREENHALGH: Good afternoon,
14 Governor Bush, and Cabinet.
15 My name is Tom Greenhalgh. I'm a Florida
16 licensed professional geologist.
17 I would like for you to think about it a
18 minute. I've worked for 15 years on
19 groundwater issues in the state of Florida.
20 In my professional opinion, I don't think
21 that the mine is going to be a great
22 environmental threat to the Ichetucknee system.
23 There's going to be a lot of discussion
24 following and the people that are in support of
25 that.
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1 And what I would like to see, if -- if
2 possible was is a -- the technical and
3 scientific staff in the -- the Department
4 actually get together, or have a small group of
5 them get together and decide, really is there
6 an issue associated with that.
7 I spoke before the Cabinet Aides. And when
8 I was there, Mr. Stevenson indicated that he
9 had taken a water sample from that quarry, and
10 it had 7 milligrams per liter nitrogen in it.
11 I did a quick calculation this morning
12 based on a rough area in that mine, and came up
13 with 142,767 pounds of nitrate potentially in
14 the water in that pit.
15 And the reason I bring up that issue is is
16 there's a lot of things that are going to
17 affect the springs in Florida, not only
18 Ichetucknee.
19 But if you're aware of it, there's a
20 little -- about 200 springs right there in the
21 Suwannee basin.
22 And if you want to spend money or authorize
23 the expenditure of money, I think it would be
24 much more important to address the
25 contamination issues that are going to actually
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1 affect the groundwater, and then ultimately
2 those springs, and then surface water bodies.
3 So what I'd like to say is: I don't think
4 you should purchase it, and I would like to see
5 you convene a group of knowledgeable
6 professionals in that field to advise you on
7 it. And that's -- that's how I conclude my
8 statements.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
10 MR. STRUHS: Joe Little.
11 MR. LITTLE: Governor, members of the
12 Cabinet, I'm Joe Little. I'm from Gainesville.
13 I'm a lover of the Ichetucknee River. I oppose
14 the linkage that is before you.
15 I cannot provide you any of the technical,
16 geological, ecological, biological details. I
17 want to pose this question as a matter of
18 perspective. This is a kind of a trick.
19 I would suggest, other than perhaps people
20 behind that podium, no one knows who
21 William Bloxham was here, no one knows who
22 William Lamar was here, no one here knows who
23 William Reynolds were. And perhaps some of you
24 don't know who they were.
25 They were gentlemen who in the year 1900
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1 had an opportunity to institute plans to
2 protect the Everglades, to protect the
3 development of our beaches in Florida, to
4 protect all of our pristine waters in Florida,
5 and who didn't do it.
6 They were the Governor, the
7 Attorney General, and the Controller of the
8 State of Florida in the year 1900. I'm sorry,
9 I don't know who the other officials were at
10 that time.
11 It's hard to fault those gentlemen, because
12 no one was here 100 years ago saying: We have
13 got this threat to these valuable resources of
14 our state that we can now do something about
15 that will forever be lost if we don't.
16 You are in a different position. We have
17 blessed few precious resources remaining in a
18 pristine state in Florida. One of them is the
19 Ichetucknee River.
20 To put a cement plant within sight of the
21 Ichetucknee River is a desecration. It's a
22 desecration you can protect.
23 So I say, members of the Cabinet, and the
24 Governor, direct your staff to do what is
25 necessary to protect this resource, and those
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1 of equal sanctity in our state, and do it now.
2 I oppose the linkage, and I respectfully
3 submit that you, Governor, and you, members of
4 the Cabinet, should do so as well.
5 Thank you.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
7 MR. STRUHS: Is Lars Anderson here, please?
8 MR. ANDERSON: Hello.
9 Thank you for allowing me to speak.
10 My name is Lars Anderson. I'm a river
11 guide and an historian with the
12 Adventure Outpost in High Springs.
13 As a river guide, I'm one of the hundreds
14 of thousands of Floridians who earn their
15 living in the state of Florida -- in the
16 State's thriving ecotourism industry.
17 Thirty years ago, there was no such thing
18 as ecotourism. Jobs like mine did not exist.
19 But in the past few decades, people's
20 understanding and appreciation of nature have
21 grown at a fantastic rate.
22 The once non-existent ecotourism industry
23 is now a major part of Florida's economy.
24 Today the State of Florida is working hard
25 and investing a lot of money to promote the
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1 real Florida. And I can tell you as a guide on
2 our -- on over 30 Florida waterways, there's no
3 better example of the real Florida than the
4 Ichetucknee River.
5 For me personally, as an ecotourism
6 provider, I'm concerned about the outcome of
7 these hearings and about the proposed cement
8 plant and the mining operations taking place in
9 the Ichetucknee Trace. But it is as a
10 historian that I am very worried.
11 Our state is littered with the ruins of a
12 lot of bad ideas of the past. The drainage
13 systems of south Florida, the
14 George Kirkpatrick Damn on the Oklawaha River,
15 the dikes and canals on Paynes Prairie, just to
16 name a few.
17 These are -- all stand as obsolete
18 monuments to some really bad ideas of the past.
19 But these weren't evil schemes thought up
20 by evil people. They were ambitious projects
21 undertaken by well-meaning, hardworking people
22 who simply did not have all the facts.
23 They did not understand the complexities of
24 the Everglades water flow, or the uniqueness of
25 the importance of ecosystems such as the
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1 Oklawaha River and Paynes Prairie. They were
2 working under a cloud of ignorance.
3 Today we can no longer claim ignorance. We
4 know how complex and sensitive places like the
5 Ichetucknee River are. In 1970, the State
6 acknowledged their awareness of this fact when
7 they purchased the land around
8 Ichetucknee Springs and made it into a State
9 park.
10 And last year, over 150,000 visitors, both
11 local, and from other states and overseas,
12 showed that they, too, appreciate the
13 Ichetucknee.
14 Two years ago I had the privilege of taking
15 a writer from National Geographic down the
16 Ichetucknee. I was surprised when I met her to
17 learn that she had been sent all the way from
18 England to write about Florida.
19 I was even more surprised that she had
20 heard a lot about the Ichetucknee and knew that
21 this was a place she had to see as part of her
22 article.
23 Another subject we know more about than our
24 predecessors is air pollution and
25 water pollution.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can you --
2 MR. ANDERSON: We've gained a lot of new
3 understanding --
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- close, sir?
5 Can you wrap it up?
6 MR. ANDERSON: Oh, okay.
7 So, please, let's learn from the mistakes
8 of the past, let's use the wisdom we've
9 accumulated; and at the same time, acknowledge
10 that there's a lot we do not know.
11 We are running out of the real Florida. We
12 no longer have a surplus of natural areas to
13 experiment and play politics with.
14 This should not be a choice of one or the
15 other, of either allowing the cement plant to
16 be built or allowing mining to continue in the
17 Ichetucknee Trace.
18 These are both bad ideas, and we all know
19 it. So please do not allow the cement plant to
20 be built, and let's stop the mining on
21 Ichetucknee Trace.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you for coming.
23 MR. STRUHS: Susie Caplowe, please.
24 Good morning, Susie. How are you?
25 MS. CAPLOWE: Good morning.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good afternoon, Susie.
2 MS. CAPLOWE: Good afternoon, Governor and
3 Cabinet.
4 My name is Susie Caplowe. I'm here today
5 speaking for Kathy Cantwell, who is a resident
6 in Gainesville. She's the local Sierra Club
7 Suwannee/St. Johns Conservation Chair, and she
8 couldn't make it here today.
9 I do have a -- a statement from her that
10 I've given to your Aides, and I'll hand it up
11 to you now.
12 As you know, you've had communication from
13 us before that while we support the purchase of
14 the mine, we don't like the linkage of the
15 purchase of this mine to the permitting of the
16 air permit.
17 And my understanding today is that
18 David Bruderly handed out this report to you
19 today --
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes, he did.
21 MS. CAPLOWE: -- which Kathy was cochair
22 of.
23 And in her statement today that I will give
24 to you, she discusses a lot of the serious --
25 the health effects and -- it's a little bit
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1 technical, and I'm not going to go into it
2 because I'm not an expert. But it does say
3 that the air quality will be impaired by this,
4 and you need to look at it seriously.
5 And it's unfortunate that DEP has sort of
6 tied your hands today, and we don't understand
7 where it broke down within the -- the process
8 that they had to -- that they didn't have the
9 environmental regulatory protection, you know,
10 to deny the permit -- I'm not making that
11 clear.
12 Let me -- we're concerned that DEP
13 apparently did not have the regulatory
14 authority it needed to enforce environmental
15 and public health protections, and they,
16 therefore, felt compelled to cut this deal to
17 negotiate this settlement before you today.
18 And we don't understand where that went wrong.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
20 MS. CAPLOWE: Thank you.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
22 MR. STRUHS: Thanks, Susie.
23 Mr. Bill Ogle.
24 MR. OGLE: Governor, members of the
25 Cabinet, thank you very much. I'm a lawyer,
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1 and I'll be brief.
2 (Attorney General Butterworth exited the
3 room.)
4 MR. OGLE: First I want to thank all of
5 you, and especially General Butterworth --
6 I'm sorry he's not here to hear this.
7 But he and Diana Sawaya-Crane, John Rimes
8 of his department, have been courageous in
9 their help of us in the land use case which we
10 are fighting now in the Circuit Court, and in
11 the -- now in the appellate court system of the
12 State of Florida to try to stop the use of this
13 land for a cement manufacturing plant.
14 Some questions have been raised in that
15 regard. I'd like to answer them, because I
16 know a little bit about -- about what was said
17 in the State court trial a few months ago.
18 And we found out for the first time that
19 they are going to actually be blasting at the
20 site, which is now proposed for the cement
21 plant, to -- to bring out over a million tons
22 of lime rock annually for 50 years.
23 We had not known that before, and perhaps
24 you had not known that as well.
25 And what's ironic about this particular
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1 case is that even though people from all over
2 the world treasure and use the
3 Ichetucknee Springs -- and all over the
4 state of Florida, certainly -- there is no
5 mechanism to screen this application, other
6 than you, to determine its effect upon the
7 Ichetucknee River.
8 Columbia County, whose -- whose
9 representatives are here, has had no chance to
10 study and screen this application for a cement
11 plant.
12 Suwannee County has only a very small part
13 of the Ichetucknee in it. And according to
14 the -- the Comprehensive Plan of
15 Suwannee County, all that had to be done, all
16 that was done, which has now been approved by
17 the Circuit Court --
18 (Attorney General Butterworth entered the
19 room.)
20 MR. OGLE: -- is that a site development
21 plan was approved. There has never been a
22 determination that this blasting underneath the
23 ground at the water table level, 100 --
24 let's see -- a million tons of cement annually
25 is not going to effect the Ichetucknee River.
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1 You're the only ones that can make that
2 determination. So there's no question here
3 that we want to protect the Ichetucknee River.
4 Everybody wants to do that.
5 That's why everyone pretty much agrees that
6 the purchase of the old -- the old cement
7 facility -- or the old limestone facility.
8 The question is: Is -- the question is not
9 should that be purchased, but how it should be
10 purchased. A vote against it doesn't mean -- a
11 vote against this proposal doesn't mean not to
12 purchase it, it means not to approve the cement
13 plant without at least a study.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Mr. Ogle, your --
15 MR. OGLE: I'm just about done.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- your lawyerly
17 conclusion.
18 MR. OGLE: Lawyerly closing now.
19 There will be, if this is approved, after
20 50 years, 50 million tons of rock by dynamite
21 blasting extracted from this site for cement
22 use only.
23 In addition to that, once you buy the old
24 lime rock pit, there will be several hundred
25 trucks a day of limestone in addition coming
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1 from this facility. All of the lime rock for
2 this facility is coming from that site.
3 It will result in a 900-acre lake 100 feet
4 deep. And we're only hoping that it won't
5 damage a river that was here when the King of
6 Spain claimed this land in the name of God.
7 We are the -- you know, you, as our
8 representatives, are the only thing that stand
9 between this pristine river and the 900-acre,
10 100-foot deep lake, a million tons of rock
11 annually extracted by blasting.
12 Thank you very much.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
14 MR. STRUHS: Mr. Svenn Lindskold.
15 MR. LINDSKOLD: Good afternoon, Governor,
16 and Cabinet. It's a pleasure to be here.
17 My name is Svenn Lindskold, and I'm the
18 President of Save Our Suwannee. And we
19 currently have an action going against the
20 State with regard to the cement plant.
21 It turned out that as a neighborhood
22 environmental organization, we became sort of
23 the coordinating element in the entire
24 movement, and the Court actions that are going
25 against you are supported by hundreds of people
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1 throughout the state, not just our
2 organization.
3 And in our DEP action, our appeal of the
4 permit, we have been joined by Florida Sierra,
5 who's already spoken. We greatly appreciate
6 all of the efforts that they have made.
7 I'm here then to speak on the issue of the
8 mine acquisition. And as a member -- Save Our
9 Suwannee's been a member of the Water Quality
10 Working Group for the Ichetucknee for years,
11 and we support the acquisition of these mines,
12 as we have repeatedly and consistently over the
13 years.
14 However, you tell me if we have an appeal
15 going to -- in the effort to get this permit
16 denied, how can I support that acquisition?
17 Don't tell me to drop the suit. We've
18 already been asked to do that. We're not going
19 to drop the suit. We're going to hearing on
20 February 14th.
21 We thus have to -- have to disapprove and
22 disagree with the linkage that everyone has
23 mentioned.
24 There are a couple of general things that I
25 would like to mention to the Cabinet, not to be
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1 repetitious of what others have said.
2 I would like the Governor and Cabinet --
3 and we've discussed this with Florida Sierra --
4 to instruct the Department of Environmental
5 Protection to go back and work on some
6 regulations with respect to limestone mining in
7 Florida. There's not much regulation. There
8 are some permits, rather token permits.
9 But bear in mind that taking limestone in
10 Florida is invading the aquifer. And we know
11 the importance of water quality and water
12 quantity for the future of Florida. If we're
13 concerned with the -- with the future of
14 Florida, we've got to be concerned with that.
15 Whether we're talking about the Florida
16 aquifer, the Biscayne aquifer, or whatever.
17 So DEP should prepare some more careful
18 regulations having to do with that. And you
19 should inspect and examine them and recommend
20 them to the Legislature, if necessary.
21 There should be studies in this -- in this
22 area that -- where the cement plant site is
23 proposed, where the limestone rock has existed
24 for 60 years, where Anderson will move their
25 operations when the Ichetucknee Trace lime rock
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1 has been -- they make no secret of that.
2 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
3 MR. LINDSKOLD: They will move their
4 operations from the Ichetucknee Trace to the
5 cement plant site where they have six, seven,
6 nine hundred acres of lime rock to work with.
7 So we have to know that at that site, that
8 is land that has been geographically determined
9 to be highly vulnerable, highly vulnerable to
10 sinkhole development.
11 And right across the road from this is
12 what's known as Sims Sink, a 2-acre property
13 owned by the Nature Conservancy, which they
14 were interested in acquiring because it's one
15 of the few places where there's successful
16 habitat for what's called the Red Eye Craw--
17 Cave Crawfish.
18 And there's just a couple of sinks in that
19 area. And according to some biologists, to
20 alter the custom water level in that sink would
21 have disastrous --
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can you --
23 MR. LINDSKOLD: -- consequences for that --
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can you wrap it up, sir?
25 MR. LINDSKOLD: -- particular species.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can you wrap it up, sir?
2 MR. LINDSKOLD: Yes, indeed.
3 The final thing that I would like to
4 mention is that I'd like you to converse with
5 DEP on the question of gifts.
6 The public perception is that the company
7 has to provide so many goodies, and then
8 eventually they can get straight with the
9 State, and -- and get their permit. I know
10 this is not the DEP intention to do that.
11 But the public would like to have permit
12 requirements that are followed impartially.
13 And that means that we have to bring our air
14 requirements up to date so as to deal with
15 particulant matter 2.5 with NOx and ozone.
16 And that -- as others have mentioned, that
17 the State should encourage a considerable
18 buffering around important State properties
19 such as this.
20 The Federal system has Class I areas where
21 they have strict limits with respect to air
22 pollution. We ought to --
23 (Secretary Harris exited the room.)
24 MR. LINDSKOLD: -- work for that -- with
25 that.
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1 What I would suggest that you do today is
2 approve the appraisal process, but don't
3 improve the -- approve the deal.
4 Come back after the appraisal process is
5 concerned, satisfy yourselves and satisfy us
6 that it was from start to finish, an entirely
7 fair process, a reasonable process, and the
8 public has been in every way defended.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
10 MR. LINDSKOLD: I appreciate very much the
11 time. And I encourage you to confront the
12 difficult dilemma you have. We have a
13 difficult dilemma not knowing which side we're
14 on either.
15 Thank you.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
17 MR. STRUHS: We're delighted that the Mayor
18 of Fort White has joined us, Mr. Truett George.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: How many more,
20 David?
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Welcome, Mayor.
22 MR. GEORGE: Thank you.
23 Governor and Cabinet, thank you very much
24 for allowing me to speak before you today.
25 I have taken a soft stance on taking a hard
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1 position on the cement mine and the acquisition
2 of the Kirby mine pit area.
3 My concern is is that everyone in here is
4 very much against some things, and there don't
5 seem to be too many people for any particular
6 avenue here.
7 If there is a concern that the Kirby pit is
8 injurious -- possibly injurious to the
9 groundwater affecting the Ichetucknee River, I
10 have a concern as to why there's not the same
11 concern for the property where the cement plant
12 is going to be. It's in a different county
13 than I am, and I've been careful not to step on
14 anybody's toes.
15 I have an opinion that our part of the
16 state, with the groundwater situation as we
17 have it with over 200 springs in our area, that
18 any tampering with -- in the mining area is
19 going to be injurious. I don't have that
20 proof.
21 I'm not sure that anybody has any proof
22 whether that's true or not. I would suggest
23 that you proceed carefully.
24 I expect that we're going to have a cement
25 plant. I'm not in favor of that. But I expect
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1 that there will be controls in place to make
2 sure that's a safe mining operation to the best
3 of your ability.
4 I question whether you have the ability to
5 guarantee to anyone that we're not going to
6 damage our environmental systems in north
7 Florida. I'm not sure that anybody could tell
8 you you're going to damage them or you're not
9 going to damage them. Proceed carefully.
10 My major concern as the Mayor of Fort White
11 is that we've been told that if it all happens,
12 we're going to have an influx of 690 trucks per
13 day running through downtown Fort White.
14 That's about 50 percent more trucks than we
15 have people in the town of Fort White. We're
16 having a new high school open there with
17 1200 students.
18 I'm really concerned about the impact
19 traffic-wise to the infrastructure and to the
20 health and well-being of the people of
21 Fort White.
22 I would sure like to see the Ichetucknee
23 protected, and I speak in favor of acquiring
24 the Kirby land pit area. And if you could do
25 it, let's buy the cement plant site and close
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1 that down, too. That would suit me, and
2 I think it would suit my constituents very
3 well.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
5 MR. GEORGE: I will ask you -- I will tell
6 you that I've had two television crews come to
7 my place of business wanting to talk to me
8 about cement plants.
9 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
10 MR. GEORGE: I've told them that I could
11 not speak in favor of cement plants, and they
12 wanted to know who they could talk to that
13 would be in favor of the cement plant.
14 I have been able to tell them that I don't
15 know a living soul who is in favor of a
16 cement plant.
17 MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE: Joe Anderson.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Mayor.
19 MR. GEORGE: Thank you.
20 MR. STRUHS: Mr. Charles Lee.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Attorney General
22 Butterworth does not believe you can do this in
23 2 minutes, and I told him you could.
24 MR. LEE: Governor, I don't know if I can
25 do it in 2 minutes --
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well --
2 MR. LEE: -- either, but I'll try.
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- Butterworth --
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Don't --
5 MR. LEE: Governor, Charles Lee,
6 Senior Vice President of Florida Audubon
7 Society. And we are here today to support the
8 agenda item, and to urge you to go ahead and
9 authorize the process to purchase this mine
10 site.
11 We do so, Governor, mindful of the fact
12 that for in excess of half of a decade, the
13 Ichetucknee Springs Water Quality Working
14 Group, which has included a number of experts,
15 including individuals with our local chapter of
16 the Four Rivers Audubon Society, have focused
17 on what the greatest threat to the
18 Ichetucknee Springs system are.
19 And --
20 (Secretary Harris entered the room.)
21 MR. LEE: -- and clearly in their view, the
22 greatest threats to the Ichetucknee Springs
23 system are the fact that the current mine site,
24 which is proposed to be purchased, literally
25 sits over an underground conduit, which is
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1 called on the surface the Ichetucknee Trace,
2 that brings the water to Ichetucknee Springs.
3 And when you see the photographs that
4 Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Skiles will present a
5 little bit later, you will see the relationship
6 that this mine has to the direct threat to the
7 integrity of that spring.
8 The mine urgently needs to be purchased.
9 And we believe that the item on your agenda
10 today offers a good way for you to go ahead and
11 purchase that mine.
12 Now, I'd like to say something about
13 linkage, because people are talking about the
14 linkage between this purchase item, and a
15 cement plant, which there is obviously a lot of
16 strong opposition to, a cement plant which is
17 being permitted elsewhere in the permitting
18 process by the Department of Environmental
19 Protection.
20 You need to read the agenda item closely.
21 There is no linkage in this agenda item that
22 facilitates the approval of the cement plant.
23 If you vote no on this item today, the
24 approval of the cement plant is going to go
25 forward in the processes it's already in. A no
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1 vote today is not a no vote that will close out
2 the cement plant.
3 And -- and I think that a lot of people
4 believe that this is a forum to oppose the
5 cement plant, which obviously is a very
6 objectionable feature in the neighborhood that
7 it is located in.
8 Unfortunately for those people, this vote
9 will not resolve that issue in their favor if
10 you vote no. The only thing that happens if
11 you vote no is you fail to purchase the mine
12 site, which is the most serious threat to the
13 spring.
14 And I -- and I think that would be a
15 distinct disservice to the environment, and
16 that's why we in the Audubon Society believe
17 you should go ahead and authorize this item to
18 purchase the mine site today.
19 Now, I think it's important to
20 understand --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Wrap it up --
22 MR. LEE: -- something about the structure
23 that -- that -- of -- of this arrangement.
24 Make -- make no mistake about this. This
25 item is headed to an eminent domain proceeding.
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1 I think that the likelihood is near certainty
2 that when the appraisals come in for this
3 355-acre property in Columbia County, this
4 property is not going to likely appraise at
5 $64,000 an acre. That's what 23 million
6 dollars translates to for 355 acres.
7 The appraisal is very likely to come in
8 substantially below 23 million dollars. This
9 item will go to eminent domain.
10 The question you need to ask yourselves as
11 managers of the State's assets is: Would you
12 rather go into an eminent domain proceeding
13 with an upset price, a cap on the maximum that
14 you would have to pay, regardless of what a
15 jury would award, and with a cap on the
16 attorney's fees that relate the attorney's fees
17 to your second offer.
18 Or would you rather go into an
19 eminent domain proceeding, which you could do.
20 You could go into eminent domain outside of
21 this deal today --
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Charles, would you --
23 MR. LEE: -- you have the --
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- wrap up, please?
25 MR. LEE: -- authority, but the reality is,
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1 you would fail to go in with those protections.
2 You get that cap and those protections by
3 voting yes on this item today.
4 And for that reason, we think you should
5 vote yes. We think the item is not directly
6 linked to the approval of the cement plant,
7 it's the other way around.
8 If they don't get their approval in the
9 appellate process, they could walk from the
10 deal. But this does not facilitate the cement
11 plant.
12 We think a yes vote's the right thing to do
13 for the environment and the Ichetucknee.
14 Thank you.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Your
17 predecessor would not --
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: I lost.
19 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- limit him
20 to -- the rest of us couldn't do it either.
21 I mean, no one's been able to --
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'm not going to -- I'm not
23 going to say I ever can either in the future.
24 MR. STRUHS: Mr. Dicks from Lake City.
25 MR. DICKS: Good morning. My name is
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1 Lenvil Dicks. I'm a real estate broker and
2 land developer in Lake City.
3 I'll put your mind at ease real quick on
4 two points: First, I'll be brief; second, I'm
5 not an expert on anything. Which gives me a
6 great deal in common with some of the folks
7 that I've been listening to.
8 I have -- I've been a resident of
9 Columbia County for almost 72 years. I know I
10 don't look that old.
11 But I remember going to the
12 Ichetucknee River in a Model T Ford. And I'm
13 sure I've probably went several times before
14 that, but I was too young to recollect.
15 That stream and those springs are very dear
16 to my heart, and I, along with most other
17 people, want to see those springs preserved.
18 That lime rock mine needs to be purchased
19 while Joe Anderson is -- is at a point where
20 he's willing to sell it, and with a -- a floor
21 and a ceiling on what you would have to pay for
22 it.
23 And so I would urge you to -- to go ahead
24 and acquire the lime rock mines.
25 I had not planned to even mention cement
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1 plant, but I can't resist the urge to bring
2 this to your attention. Everybody concedes
3 that the Ichetucknee Trace runs roughly from
4 Rose Creek Sink, and runs almost due southwest
5 to the head spring and the other springs in
6 that area.
7 The cement mine is several miles away from
8 the Ichetucknee further southwest. What
9 conclusion you want to draw from that might be
10 the same as mine. I hope it is.
11 And I thank you for your attention.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Mr. Dicks.
13 MR. STRUHS: Mr. Randy Hatch.
14 MR. HATCH: Governor, Madam Secretary,
15 gentlemen, I'm Randy Hatch from Branford,
16 Florida, one of nine generations of Hatches
17 in -- in the Branford area and the southern
18 Suwannee County area.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Wow.
20 MR. HATCH: We've been there so long that
21 we all had to figure out how to eke a living
22 out of that sorry soil and -- and still
23 maintain our standard of living and our -- and
24 our quality of living.
25 I think we've done a pretty good job of it.
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1 Not just us, but other old-timers in the area.
2 And we -- we've done such a good job of it,
3 that most of the state seems to covet what
4 we've been so careful to protect.
5 We do things based on the best information
6 available at the time. We try to use the best
7 technologies at the time.
8 And to that end, I feel like that the --
9 the -- the Department of Environmental
10 Protection has -- has done everything that they
11 can do to assure that the cement plant issues
12 is one that doesn't pose a significant threat
13 to the Ichetucknee.
14 And according to the best information
15 available right now, the mining operation in
16 Columbia City does.
17 So we urge you to -- to go ahead, purchase
18 the mine, get that other thing -- I have no
19 problem with the linkage. I think the cement
20 plant's going to be good for the south end of
21 Suwannee County, the County Commissioners feel
22 that, the City Commissioners think that in
23 Branford, the business people in the area think
24 that.
25 You've got sort of a -- a tough way to go
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1 because you're on a tight rope. And we can
2 understand it. My family saw this happening
3 years and years ago before the State was
4 involved.
5 The lower -- the lower Ichetucknee was
6 busted up into little lots with septic tanks
7 and wells; the lower Santa Fe, the same thing.
8 My family very quietly started buying
9 riverfront property on the Suwannee to keep
10 that from happening.
11 And for 30 to 40 years, we've paid the
12 taxes on it and haven't cut a tree. But we've
13 kept it from being developed.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: If you can close it --
15 MR. HATCH: We did that because we --
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- that'd be great.
17 MR. HATCH: -- we believe in our -- our
18 ecosystem down there and wanted to protect it.
19 At the time, the upper reaches run by
20 J.P. -- well, who was it?
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Mr. -- if you could -- if
22 you could close, I'd be grateful.
23 MR. HATCH: Okay. It was owned by -- by a
24 foreign interest, and it was protected.
25 But now the mine needs to be bought to --
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1 to protect the head springs.
2 And we thank you.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
4 MR. STRUHS: Mr. Floyd Messer.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good afternoon, Mr. Messer.
6 MR. MESSER: Good afternoon, Governor,
7 Cabinet.
8 My name is Floyd Messer. I'm a businessman
9 in Columbia County. I'm also a property owner
10 in Suwannee County. I've also spoke at all the
11 public forums concerning the cement plant.
12 I own property within 6 miles of the
13 proposed cement plant, and thousands of acres.
14 I spent a lot of money on the environment.
15 I'm a Floridian. I'm eleventh generation.
16 That takes you back to 1700s. So I love my
17 state and I love the part of the country that I
18 live in.
19 I do believe that you support the purchase
20 of the mine. The cement plant we have -- we
21 have cement plants all over the
22 state of Florida. This would be the best
23 cement plant in the United States of America
24 from the technology standpoint, as has been
25 pointed out.
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1 I didn't come to argue the cement plant
2 today, but obviously it's become an issue.
3 I'd like to once again bring to your
4 attention that by not buying this property does
5 not have anything to do with the completion of
6 the permitting of the cement plant.
7 We have laws in the state of Florida that
8 allows business still to do business, even
9 though it's harder to do business every day
10 because of our laws. But once a man meets
11 these laws and requirements, they should be
12 allowed to do business in this state.
13 I don't care to -- to jump on all the
14 people that spoke before me today, because
15 we've already had those rounds, and they've
16 been real challenges, and -- and I've got to
17 know them all real well.
18 However, we spent money on swamps in this
19 state that nobody enjoys, nobody can see, a
20 bear can't walk through it.
21 Millions of doll-- Pinhook Swamp --
22 everybody been to Pinhook Swamp raise their
23 hand. Nobody can raise their hand up there,
24 because you can't get in it, you can't see it,
25 there's no access to it, but we own it.
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1 There's an opportunity to protect the
2 environment. We know the Suwannee and the --
3 and the Trace of Ichetucknee Springs flows
4 somewhere about this -- this pit. I'm not here
5 to say that an earthquake won't cause a
6 problem, I'm not -- not here to say that
7 blasting won't cause a problem.
8 I do know if we stop it, that it'll help
9 us. So the question here isn't is a cement
10 plant going to be stopped by not buying this
11 facility. I suggest, no.
12 I suggest that we must buy this pit to
13 protect the springs. The cement plant should
14 go about its permitting process by the laws of
15 the state of Florida.
16 Those laws are met -- that permit ought --
17 also should be given to the business people who
18 ask for the permit, just as all the other
19 permits have been given in this state. And no
20 other reason.
21 I don't feel personally that we have a
22 pollution problem with the cement plant with
23 the things that we have now negotiated in place
24 to protect --
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: If you could close --
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1 MR. MESSER: -- our water --
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- sir, it'd be great.
3 MR. MESSER: -- in our state.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: If you could close your
5 remarks.
6 MR. MESSER: I -- I thank you for your
7 time, and I --
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: That's a --
9 MR. MESSER: -- wish that you would
10 continue --
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Very good.
12 MR. MESSER: -- purchasing --
13 Is that close enough?
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: You're the only guy that
15 listened to me. I like that.
16 Thank you for coming.
17 MR. STRUHS: Mr. Frank Sedmera.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Go meet Mr. Lee.
19 Charles Lee's over there, and teach him how to
20 do that.
21 I'm sorry. Your name, sir?
22 MR. SEDMERA: My name is Frank Sedmera.
23 Good morning --
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good afternoon.
25 MR. SEDMERA: -- actually.
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1 And -- ladies and gentlemen.
2 I am -- these comments are being submitted
3 on behalf of Four Rivers Audubon, but I'm also
4 a member of the Ichetucknee Springs Water
5 Quality Working Group, worked on the mine
6 acquis-- mine subcommittee of that group, and
7 the land acquisition committee. But these
8 comments are on behalf of the Audubon group.
9 And I appreciate what Mr. Lee said a little
10 bit earlier about what the real issues ought to
11 be this morning.
12 Four Rivers Audubon Society wishes to
13 register its support for the acquisition of the
14 Anderson mine property, Ichetucknee Trace,
15 Columbia County, subject to defensible land
16 value appraisal.
17 Columbia County has a long history of
18 scientific verification of groundwater
19 contamination from poorly treated surface
20 waters. As far back as 1978, the
21 Suwannee River Water Management District staff
22 produced --
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: If you could summarize the
24 letter, it'd be --
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: We've got the
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1 letter.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: We got the letter.
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Tell us what it
4 says.
5 MR. SEDMERA: I would like to read it, if
6 you don't --
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, you --
8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: It'll take only
9 3 minutes.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: We could read it faster.
11 Why don't you just add other --
12 MR. SEDMERA: Pardon?
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, just -- if you could
14 summarize it, or just --
15 MR. SEDMERA: Well, one -- one major point
16 that hasn't been made -- I haven't heard it
17 made yet is --
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Perfect.
19 MR. SEDMERA: -- people are drinking this
20 water. It's not just coming up in the spring.
21 And so my letter -- these comments include
22 some references to that. So I would like to
23 read those, please.
24 The -- the region that we're talking about,
25 the Ichetucknee Trace where the Anderson mine
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1 is located, is an area where the limestone has
2 fractured. There are sinkholes.
3 Cave divers have certified by using tracing
4 techniques that there's a connection between
5 Rose Creek Sink and the Ichetucknee Springs.
6 These divers believe that they were quite close
7 to that Anderson mine property when the air
8 supply forced them to return to the surface.
9 What we do know is that upgradient of that,
10 Columbia City School was forced to resort to
11 buy -- drinking bottled water when some sinks
12 further to the north and further upgradient yet
13 of the place that we're talking about was
14 receiving flood waters from urbanized Lake City
15 and Columbia County.
16 So there is definitely -- there are people
17 that are drinking this water, and we think that
18 should be definitely made as a point this
19 afternoon. Not just water coming up out of the
20 springs, which is certainly very important.
21 So we're talking public health, as well as,
22 you know --
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: That's a good --
24 MR. SEDMERA: -- the economy, if you will.
25 And if we really appreciate the fact that
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1 the County Commissioners, the Lake City
2 Commissioners, and County Commissioners, have
3 done what they have done, which you've heard
4 in -- in ways of addressing issues even further
5 to the north than where we're talking about
6 now.
7 This mine should be purchased using
8 defensible appraisal techniques, and we
9 definitely support that.
10 Thank you very much.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much for
12 coming, sir.
13 MR. STRUHS: Mr. Jim Poole.
14 MR. POOLE: Thank you.
15 And good afternoon, Governor and Cabinet
16 members. Jim Poole, Executive Director of the
17 Lake City/Columbia County Chamber of Commerce
18 and Economic Development Authority.
19 Governor, I've been in a meeting this
20 morning with Enterprise and Tony Villamil and
21 them on the plan that you've assigned us to
22 come. And so I've been in and out, and I
23 apologize for that.
24 I think enough people have expressed our
25 point of view. We do support the efforts to
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1 have the mine purchased by the State and turned
2 into a recreation area.
3 We think that ecotourism is important. We
4 have a large tourism based industry in
5 Columbia County, along with the other
6 industries that we have.
7 So we do ask that you do support this
8 purchase and -- based on that.
9 Also can't ever go without an opportunity
10 to brag on one of our companies. We hear much
11 of the downside of a company like
12 Anderson Columbia.
13 I can tell you from the position that I
14 serve in that I -- they're one of the first
15 people I can always go to in a time of
16 emergency to ask for help, whether it be a
17 disaster like we've had through the floodings,
18 or other type deals, whether it's to help with
19 Christian Service Centers to help with youth
20 activities to donate ball fields, to do work
21 for free. They do all of these impacts into
22 our community. And for that, they deserve a
23 lot of credit, too.
24 So I think that we would like to recognize
25 them for the corporate citizen.
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1 So sometimes you don't hear some of the
2 good things that a company does for a
3 community.
4 Rural Florida, as I just mentioned to you,
5 we're very challenged. We're trying to find
6 jobs and to create economic development. It's
7 hard enough without always having to try to
8 find a way around different oppositions and
9 stuff.
10 And for that, once again, please support
11 these efforts and help us develop Kirby pit
12 from a mine into a nice recreation area that'll
13 generate more jobs in the future.
14 Thank you.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
16 Thanks for coming.
17 MR. STRUHS: Mr. Eddy Hillhouse.
18 MR. HILLHOUSE: Good afternoon.
19 My name's Eddy Hillhouse, and I represent
20 the Suwannee County Chamber of Commerce, the
21 Suwannee County Tourist Development Council,
22 and the Suwannee County Development Authority.
23 Our Board's position on the cement plant
24 permit issue has always been that as long as
25 they met all the regulations required by DEP,
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1 that we supported them. We still hold that
2 position as long as they meet all the
3 requirements that are now set out.
4 As far as the purchase of the Kirby pit, we
5 feel that would be a fringe benefit of the
6 cement plant that wasn't before -- that wasn't
7 available to Columbia County or the State
8 before.
9 So we support this purchase and we sup-- we
10 also support the cement plant.
11 Thank you.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
13 MR. STRUHS: Mr. Jim Eaton.
14 MR. EATON: Governor and Cabinet members,
15 I'm Jim Eaton. I'm here this morning as
16 attorney in representing Anderson Columbia, the
17 seller of the property.
18 Just like briefly to touch on a couple of
19 issues without running the gamut of all what's
20 been said here this morning.
21 First of all, I've got a -- an aerial photo
22 that -- bring it up where you can actually see
23 it. This has received very little attention
24 this morning.
25 But this is a piece of property of Bagdad,
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1 Florida.
2 Jim, I think you've got that upside-down.
3 I hate to say that to you. But --
4 It's still being given away, upside down or
5 not.
6 That property outlined in white on the
7 banks of the Blackwater River is 21 acres.
8 It's an industrial site that is actually
9 Florida's oldest industrial site, going back to
10 1835.
11 And that has been an object of controversy
12 between the company and the DEP for a couple of
13 years now.
14 As part of the negotiation, we have
15 agreed -- the company has agreed to donate this
16 property, which has 2100 front feet along the
17 Blackwater River, which is also an Outstanding
18 Florida Waterway, as is the Ichetucknee and the
19 Santa Fe, at the conclusion of the acquisition
20 process for the Kirby mine.
21 So whatever numbers eventually derive for
22 the purchase of the Kirby mine, in effect, you
23 get this piece of property for free.
24 Now, the company values it at approximately
25 2 million dollars. It has deep water access.
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1 As I say, it's one of the oldest industrial
2 facilities in Florida. It started life as the
3 Bagdad Lumber Company in 1835.
4 Just briefly to move on -- so before we
5 leave that, just to say that acts as a further
6 2 million dollar discount to the value of
7 whatever process or -- or -- the process leads
8 to for the Kirby mine.
9 I'd like to sort of pick up where
10 Charles Lee left off. I think he made very
11 cogent, to the point, arguments.
12 The fact of the matter is --
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Jim, can you get a little
14 closer to the mic? Just raise it up.
15 MR. EATON: Yes, Governor.
16 I think he made very -- Charles Lee made
17 very cogent remarks here this morning. I'd
18 like to pick up where he left off.
19 The fact of the matter is, Secretary Struhs
20 is a very tough negotiator. We were at this
21 with him for approximately six months, he and
22 his staff.
23 It's true that these three agreements --
24 and, in effect, there were three agreements.
25 The first was a settlement agreement of all the
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1 outstanding regulatory issues.
2 The second was an agreement dealing with
3 the cement plant air permit. Those two
4 agreements, the parties are the DEP on one side
5 and the companies on the other for both of
6 those two agreements.
7 The third agreement is the agreement that's
8 before you here today. That's the purchase
9 agreement for the Kirby mine property.
10 The reason that -- that the first two are
11 not before you is the legal authority there is
12 vested in the DEP, not the Governor and
13 Cabinet.
14 But this third item, whenever the Trustees
15 are to authorize a -- a purchase, must be
16 authorized by this body. So hence the reason
17 we're here today.
18 Our company's view of what the property's
19 worth is -- is this: When the State expressed
20 an interest in it, the company commissioned
21 KPMG, a well-recognized national accounting
22 firm, to do what admittedly is not a fee
23 appraisal. It was a business valuation of the
24 property.
25 That business valuation gave us a -- a
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1 range of values from the high twenties to the
2 low thirties. For the sake of discussion here
3 this morning, we'll say 30 million dollars was
4 about where that came in.
5 That was really based on the value of the
6 mineral in the ground. We have Qore Property
7 Sciences, which is a national -- nationally
8 recognized geology firm, that did a survey for
9 us of the available lime rock at the site.
10 They came back with 49 million short
11 tons -- that's the way they refer to
12 lime rock -- of proven reserves, at a mineable
13 depth in the ground.
14 So any -- any value that is eventually
15 derived at for this property will key on the --
16 the proven mineral reserves, and the process
17 will be that there'll be an independent geology
18 survey. You won't take the one that the
19 company did, there'll be another one done.
20 But that's why the company feels that this
21 is such a valuable piece of property.
22 A little north Florida topography here.
23 This lime rock mine is the closest mineable
24 lime rock to the entire Jacksonville region.
25 That's -- that's what gives it value for -- as
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1 far as this company is concerned.
2 The -- the next closest mine is down at
3 Newberry. Other than that, you have to go
4 about 60 miles south, because Florida has a
5 lime rock layer underneath the entire state.
6 But for most of the state, the lime rock is
7 at a nonmineable depth when you're in the north
8 part of the state. When you get further south,
9 the Dade County, it's 3 -- you know, 3 feet,
10 5 feet down. It's -- it's right there.
11 But when you're using this material for
12 road building, the distance that you have to
13 haul it, because it's so heavy, greatly
14 increases the price.
15 So what -- that's a short course on why
16 this is valuable to this company in its
17 business.
18 We can produce lime rock products for sale
19 to our own road building company at a range of
20 $5 to $8 a ton.
21 In the Jacksonville market today, similar
22 companies in our business routinely pay
23 anywhere from 10 to $14 for the same material.
24 Much of that material has to be brought in
25 boxcars from south Florida, which is what
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1 inflates the cost.
2 So companies never made a big practice of
3 selling to others because they wanted to keep
4 the lime rock for their future business needs.
5 Off of that, I'd be happy to answer any
6 questions.
7 But I think that the company's view is that
8 the Secretary and the Division of State Lands
9 drove a very hard bargain, that -- you know, we
10 feel like, you know, you have to look at the
11 downside as well as the upside.
12 The downside for this company could be, as
13 Charles Lee pointed out, we could very well end
14 up in eminent domain here. If there's a major
15 dispute as to value, we cannot agree. What the
16 company has agreed to do in this document is
17 waived its right to contest eminent domain, and
18 agreed to cap the amount that can be awarded at
19 23 million dollars.
20 I hope that Charles is wrong in the sense
21 that we won't end up there. But the company
22 has to look to the possibility that that will
23 occur.
24 So imagine a scenario, if you're a mine
25 owner here, and in the business, where -- in
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1 eminent domain, you -- you come back with a
2 12 million dollar number, or a 14 million
3 dollar number, and you then get to give this
4 property that we just showed you in Bagdad
5 that's worth about two million bucks, you've --
6 if you're in the company's shoes, you've just
7 given away a very valuable asset.
8 And with that, I'd close my remarks and
9 urge --
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Jim.
11 MR. EATON: -- the Cabinet to approve.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any questions?
13 General.
14 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: If I might,
15 Governor.
16 Jim, there's been considerable discussion
17 today about the linkage between the purchase of
18 the property and the approval of the cement
19 plant.
20 And -- and there's a -- a feeling in some
21 cases that there is the perception perhaps of
22 being held hostage. And then in the other
23 hand, there is the statement that -- including
24 from Mr. Lee, that it really is a meaningless
25 relationship.
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1 Would the company be willing to drop that
2 linkage from the agreement?
3 MR. EATON: Well -- well, respectfully,
4 Controller Milligan, I -- this is a point that
5 due to some inquiry from some of the
6 Cabinet Aides, you know, I have discussed with
7 the Anderson family, who are the owners of the
8 company.
9 Their feeling is no. And -- and the reason
10 is this really goes to the heart of a bargain
11 that was driven by the DEP and the company.
12 If you go back, you know, this company
13 really applied for an air permit, garden
14 variety air permit for a cement plant. The DEP
15 chose to deny that permit.
16 At that point in time, the battle was
17 joined legally and -- and we're still in --
18 before an Administrative Law Judge to go to
19 hearing on February the 14th on that issue.
20 But at the point at which the DEP denied
21 the permit, then it became a question on their
22 side of the table, DEP's, of how confident were
23 they that they would prevail and be able to
24 deny the permit.
25 And on our side, the company's side, of how
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1 confident were we that we could prevail. And
2 discussions started, and there are many, many
3 moving parts to this.
4 But the -- the basis of the bargain, if you
5 will, is that the company agreed to give up an
6 asset that they feel is very, very important to
7 their business, that provides some competitive
8 advantage, in exchange for the State's
9 willingness to go along with what the company
10 felt like was its right from day one, which was
11 the air permit.
12 So, I mean, yes, in that negotiation, there
13 was a linkage.
14 Now, today in front of you, just
15 practically speaking, as Charles Lee said, if
16 the -- if the Cabinet were to deny this item
17 and vote no, the legal process will go forward.
18 And unless the Sierra Club and Save Our
19 Suwannee were to prevail in the administrative
20 hearing, the company will have its air permit.
21 And there's one other outstanding issue on
22 the comp plan that was over in Circuit Court in
23 Suwannee County. That's already been heard by
24 the Circuit Court there, and decided in the
25 company's favor. That matter is now on appeal
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1 to the First District.
2 Those are the only two outstanding items.
3 So I -- I think respectfully, the answer is
4 the company would decline to -- to -- we would
5 say the issues were linked before, they're not
6 now. But we would decline to -- respectfully
7 to do that.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: General Butterworth?
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I think --
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Or Gen-- do you have any
11 other --
12 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Well, then from your
13 answer, there is considered at least by the --
14 the ownership of the company, and you as their
15 representative, that there is -- is a linkage.
16 MR. EATON: (Nodding head.)
17 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Okay.
18 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: You admit
19 there is linkage, right?
20 MR. EATON: I'm sorry?
21 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: You -- you
22 admit there is linkage.
23 MR. EATON: Well, we would admit that
24 there -- there is linkage. To the extent we
25 just outlined, it was certainly integral to the
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1 process if you know what was negotiated here.
2 TREASURER NELSON: I --
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I
4 obviously --
5 MR. EATON: But I would --
6 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- I am
7 obviously reading --
8 MR. EATON: -- also say --
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I am
10 obviously reading from a wrong agreement. So,
11 please, if you will --
12 MR. EATON: Uh-hum.
13 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- present
14 to us the most recent agreement, because I -- I
15 see here, it says: If, however -- it's on
16 page 4:
17 If, however, the Department denies the
18 permit, or proposes to make any substantial
19 changes to the permit, or any conditions
20 thereto that are not acceptable to Suwannee,
21 then Suwannee ACCC-- ACCI, and AMC shall have
22 no obligations under this settlement agreement.
23 Certain conditions precedent are the
24 permit -- let's see -- ACI's -- ACCI's and
25 AMC's obligation to close on the sale of the
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1 property pursuant to purchase agreement shall
2 take effect only after the permit, all other
3 State approvals, and the site development plan
4 approval have been issued and become legally
5 effective.
6 The time for filing all litigation or
7 appeal with respect to such approvals has
8 expired. Any such litigations and appeals have
9 been resolved in a fashion that results in the
10 issuance of required approvals in substantially
11 the form requested by Suwannee.
12 And I believe there's a two-year drop-dead
13 date, so if everything is not done in
14 two years, it's over.
15 Now, I -- from what you've just said, Jim,
16 obviously this part of the agreement is not --
17 is no longer part of the -- of the agreement
18 with the State.
19 So if that be true, I don't think -- you
20 may not have a problem.
21 MR. EATON: Well -- well, obviously, it is
22 part of the agreement --
23 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay.
24 MR. EATON: -- General. I mean, the --
25 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Then you
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1 have a problem.
2 MR. EATON: -- the agreement in front of
3 you. And it -- it -- as I said a minute ago in
4 my comments, it really formed the basis of the
5 bargain, you know, if you will, and I don't
6 think we'd be standing here today, you know,
7 if -- if that was the case.
8 But looking prospectively for another part
9 of the agreement gives this body -- because
10 there's many time deadlines in here in this
11 agreement.
12 This agreement was put in front of the
13 Cabinet about two months ago, was due to come
14 up at the Cabinet meeting in early December.
15 We could have started that discussion,
16 you know, then, and continued it today.
17 Now, we -- we put a time limit in there of
18 January 31st, because we would -- respectfully,
19 we'd like to know if you want to buy the
20 property or not.
21 The -- again, the Bagdad property that you
22 just saw, we've been unable as a company to use
23 that property for the past two years. We look
24 forward two years, you know, if this takes that
25 long, to continue to not to be able to use that
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1 property.
2 So we'd at least like to know the direction
3 we're going in, and sooner rather than later,
4 because we -- we're also still mining at the
5 Kirby mine site, which is upsetting to a lot of
6 the folks here who feel like that activity
7 ought to cease sooner rather than later.
8 And we're told, this process will take at
9 least nine months to a year, even if you
10 approve the agreement today.
11 So that would be -- that's a long winded
12 way to answer --
13 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Just a
14 follow-up, Governor.
15 This is the only -- the way I read this,
16 even if somebody in administrative hearing,
17 whether it be Sierra or someone else, prevails,
18 even if we vote yes today, Suwannee can get out
19 of it.
20 So really what -- what might end up
21 happening, Jim, and correct me if I'm wrong,
22 that if we vote yes, we could delay the -- the
23 time when the State could actually buy this --
24 this mine, because if, in fact, two years from
25 now, nothing has happened, Anderson can walk,
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1 and we're -- and we're stuck in the same
2 position we are in right now.
3 And I -- I have no idea how long these --
4 these lawsuits will last. Most of them last
5 much longer than -- than two years, especially
6 if the appellate court reverses the trial
7 court.
8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well --
9 MR. EATON: Well, just if -- if I might,
10 General, you're a better lawyer than I, and
11 have a whole lot more legal staff.
12 But respectfully, you know, there's only
13 two -- two things here: There's an
14 administrative hearing that's due to commence
15 shortly. The hearing officer should have an
16 order back to the DEP. I would think within 60
17 to 75 days after that, they'll make their
18 decision, file their final recommended order.
19 And then that would allow still a
20 year-and-a-half for the First District Court of
21 Appeal to dispose of that issue, which is ample
22 time, according to my experience.
23 Similarly, the issue that's -- the land use
24 issue is already up on appeal. And unless the
25 First DCA takes longer than two years, I just
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1 don't think that that's a realistic
2 possibility. That's our view.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Commissioner Gallagher.
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I think that all
5 of us on this Cabinet, and I'm sure many people
6 in the audience, are extremely frustrated with
7 the linkage; the feeling that we buy this so
8 they can get that; and all of those issues.
9 And I'm as frustrated.
10 A person -- a land owner that we want to
11 buy property from may change their mind if we
12 make an offer. It can happen. This happens to
13 be linked to some way that'll make it happen.
14 But one could say, I'm just not going to do it,
15 and then you want to eminent domain or
16 something, you can.
17 So this isn't much different than that,
18 although there are some real ways we know they
19 can.
20 I think that the purchase of this mine is
21 much more important, to me, the opportunity to
22 own it and shut it down, than the seller might
23 not sell, for whatever reason.
24 The idea is that it -- we don't have an
25 opportunity to buy if we don't vote for the
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1 offer.
2 So, therefore, I would -- I would make a
3 motion that would say that we approve the
4 offer, and also probably condemn the -- the
5 concrete plant at the same time, although we
6 don't have a -- we don't have a lot of
7 authority to do that, but I -- I wouldn't mind
8 making that -- making that -- that the motion
9 so that we can at least let our feelings out
10 that, yes, we want to buy --
11 SECRETARY HARRIS: Can't do that.
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- that mine, but
13 we don't really care a whole lot about a
14 cement plant.
15 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Governor, if
16 I can respond to that.
17 I think the only problem with that would be
18 that that'd be a violation -- that may be a
19 solution, and Columbia County would like it.
20 But the only problem would be, it would
21 already be a violation of Anderson's agreement,
22 and they would -- and then they would -- if you
23 want to go with the agreement, you -- you've
24 just violated the agreement by what you've
25 done.
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, that -- but
2 that's still their choice. Their choice has
3 always been there.
4 We -- the courts are going to say whether
5 or not they're going to build a cement plant.
6 It's out of our hands. And -- but the purchase
7 of that property is in our hands. And I think
8 that it is extremely important.
9 Even though I don't like the mine -- the
10 cement plant, I think buying that mine is -- is
11 an environmental interest in this state, and to
12 the people of this state, and that we should do
13 that, and not forego that opportunity.
14 And so that's why I make that motion.
15 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: If I can make a
16 quick comment, to follow up on the
17 Commissioner's comment.
18 You know, there's been some discussion
19 today about perception. And we're dealing with
20 really a policy here that is giving the
21 perception at least, if not in fact, that
22 elements of the state, or the local community,
23 or the local governments are, in fact, being
24 held hostage as a result of this linkage.
25 Perception is a -- is a deadly thing. And
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1 I -- and I have a bit of a problem with a
2 policy that allows the idea of linkages such as
3 this, you do this, and I'll do that, and -- and
4 the impact that it has in terms of -- of being
5 held hostage, even if it is just perception.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Commissioner Crawford.
7 Can we --
8 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Well --
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: We might want to ask
10 Secretary Struhs to comment on some of these
11 questions, because he was the other side of
12 the --
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Bargain.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- negotiating. I --
15 I think --
16 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Well, I -- I
17 don't --
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- that's appropriate.
19 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: -- I don't really
20 think it's --
21 Governor, if I could, I don't think it's
22 really a question of linkage. I think it's a
23 question of there was an agreement that was
24 reached, and the question is, is it a good
25 agreement for the State.
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1 The way it works in this state, as I
2 understand it -- I guess I've been in this
3 business for a few years.
4 I grew up in Polk County, and I've heard a
5 lot of complaints about mining. Mining is a
6 tough thing. I still hear complaints. We have
7 a lot of phosphate mines down there.
8 But the way it works in this state, if you
9 buy some acreage and you want to mine it, you
10 apply for a permit. If you meet the legal
11 standards for that permit, you get the right to
12 mine. And I may not like it, and you may not
13 like it, but until the Legislature changes the
14 law, you're going to get that permit.
15 And the way I see this thing as it
16 developed was, the Secretary first looked at
17 the permit, didn't like it on the
18 concrete plant, tried to stop it, realized they
19 probably couldn't stop it.
20 But in the process, seized an opportunity
21 for the State to gain from the purchase of the
22 Kirby pit.
23 So, you know, that is the way I see that --
24 the way this came about. And in my view,
25 you know, that's a good deal for the State.
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1 So I'm going to vote to purchase the Kirby
2 mine.
3 I don't see it as an endorsement of the
4 concrete plant. And, frankly, I certainly
5 don't think the Florida Audubon Society is here
6 today endorsing a concrete plant.
7 But I think we all are endorsing the
8 environmental benefit of purchasing the Kirby
9 mine. And -- and that's what really is before
10 us.
11 And to -- to the extent that that was the
12 part of an agreement, part of the deal, it just
13 so happened it is a good deal, and that's why
14 I'm going to support it.
15 SECRETARY HARRIS: Governor, I have a
16 couple of questions for --
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.
18 SECRETARY HARRIS: -- Secretary Struhs.
19 I think we're all frustrated, everyone in
20 the audience, across-the-board, on some of
21 these issues. No one's thrilled with
22 50 million tons and dynamiting near the
23 Ichetucknee.
24 But the issue before us today -- and I've
25 kind of been going through all this and
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1 studying these all last night, the letters --
2 has much more to do with the fact that the
3 air permits are -- have already been written
4 and noticed.
5 We're not here to say what -- we don't have
6 that choice. Those decisions have
7 already been made.
8 Secretary Struhs and DEP worked diligently,
9 we know how much they care about the
10 environment; and they saw the opportunity to go
11 in and settle some of the enforcement cases,
12 which you wouldn't have had the chance to do
13 before; and to go in and have an opportunity to
14 buy this very important mine.
15 The issue of the cement plant is not
16 something that this body has the purview to
17 decide. That's already decided.
18 So -- but in the interest of that, I have
19 two questions for Secretary Struhs.
20 The first is: This -- this perception of
21 the linkage and this linkage that is in the
22 contract, is that -- that's in no way going
23 to -- to stop you from pursuing every necessary
24 condition on the -- the permitting, on the
25 enforcement, on even modifications, I heard
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1 the -- I heard General Butterworth read that
2 dramatic modifications or something, that
3 indicated something.
4 But if we -- it's not going to keep you
5 from permitting, from approving, from
6 enforcing, and even modifying in some cases --
7 MR. STRUHS: We will --
8 SECRETARY HARRIS: -- that's -- any of the
9 necessary conditions for the State.
10 MR. STRUHS: It will not.
11 SECRETARY HARRIS: The second question,
12 which is to me even more important because some
13 of these issues are -- are going to be -- we'll
14 face in the future.
15 There's obviously a need to -- to address
16 this -- this regulatory issue, maybe
17 cement plants that are close to our outstanding
18 rivers, things like this, so all of the State
19 mining regulations --
20 MR. STRUHS: Uh-hum.
21 SECRETARY HARRIS: -- I grew up in
22 Polk County, too. I've heard about mining for
23 always. But phosphate mining is -- is
24 different, and there are different regulations.
25 So are you working closely with the
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1 Legislature to enhance those -- those reg--
2 regulations so that perhaps we won't face these
3 kinds of situations in the future, and we can
4 protect springs such as the Ichetucknee and the
5 river?
6 MR. STRUHS: Yes.
7 Madam Secretary, I appreciate that
8 question, because one of the things that it
9 does is it -- is it reveals the fact that of
10 all the testimony you have heard here today, no
11 one has suggested that we have not applied
12 every law available to us as intended and,
13 in fact, as vigorously as possible. So nobody
14 has suggested that.
15 To the extent that there are perceived
16 failures in terms of what the law has allowed
17 us to do, that's something that obviously needs
18 to be taken up with the Legislature.
19 Specifically to your question in terms of
20 how we deal with rock mining, this has
21 obviously brought to, not just my attention,
22 but I think to Florida's attention, the
23 opportunity to perhaps revisit the way we
24 regulate rock mining.
25 And we have our geological survey looking
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1 at that issue literally as we speak. And we
2 would obviously be happy to come back to you
3 and to the Legislature with recommended options
4 in terms of how that might be improved in the
5 future.
6 But the point is: Every law available to
7 us has been exercised diligently and -- and
8 accurately.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'll ask.
10 Secretary Struhs, are there any more
11 witnesses, or are we --
12 MR. STRUHS: We --
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- Mr. Eaton the finish?
14 MR. STRUHS: Governor, we -- we've
15 concluded with the witnesses -- or the -- the
16 testimony from the public.
17 We had reserved a number of folks from the
18 Department who can either do a quick
19 presentation now, or they can simply be
20 available to answer questions.
21 The individuals we have here, if there are
22 any more questions regarding the appraisal
23 process, I'd ask Eva Armstrong to address
24 those.
25 We have -- actually no longer a member of
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1 State government, but -- but former,
2 Wes Skiles, here with Karst Environmental, a
3 world renowned underwater photographer,
4 cave diver, and -- and hydrogeologist who would
5 be happy to -- to weigh in.
6 And to Jim Stevenson, who heads up the --
7 the Florida Springs Program could also give
8 a -- a scientific explanation as to why this is
9 an integral part of protecting the
10 Ichetucknee Spring.
11 So we have them available, and we can call
12 them up now, or we can --
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Anybody have any
14 questions --
15 MR. STRUHS: -- whatever your pleasure is.
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I have just
17 one -- just --
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes, General.
19 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- one
20 question.
21 And this is with what -- what
22 Secretary Harris stated, and that is: If the
23 Department wished to make any substantial
24 changes to the permit, then, of course,
25 Suwannee could walk. Anderson could -- could
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1 walk.
2 But if it is not substantial, what happens
3 then?
4 MR. STRUHS: Then obviously, they would not
5 exercise that option.
6 I would -- I would add -- but I --
7 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: It says here
8 that any condition -- but who determines
9 whether it's not -- it's substantial or not?
10 The Court, you, or Suwannee?
11 MR. STRUHS: I'm -- I'm going to give you a
12 longer answer than you want, but I think
13 it's -- it's probably important.
14 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay.
15 MR. STRUHS: You need to begin at the
16 beginning. And to recognize that from the very
17 beginning, both parties, DEP as the regulator,
18 and Anderson Columbia as the applicant, have
19 believed that this plant was, and is
20 permittable.
21 There -- there has never been a difference
22 of opinion on that. And, in fact, it was on a
23 permitting track.
24 As we were getting ready to prepare that
25 permit, we recognized that this company, this
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1 applicant, had a -- a record of environmental
2 violations that was unresolved.
3 And given that record, we exercised a
4 previously little used authority to deny that
5 application, to deny that application, as long
6 as they -- as long as that record prevented
7 them from providing a reasonable assurance that
8 they could not meet the permit conditions in
9 the proposed permit.
10 That obviously led to litigation, and that
11 led in terms -- that litigation in terms led to
12 this -- this settlement proposal.
13 But under the laws of Florida, they were,
14 before this ever began, before a suit was ever
15 filed, on track to fully meet all the legal
16 requirements for that plant at that location.
17 What we have extracted, if you will, as a
18 result of exercising that authority, are
19 concessions and investments that go far beyond
20 what we could currently allow under Florida
21 law.
22 So all this is above and beyond what would
23 ordinarily be required.
24 So when you get to -- back to the -- the
25 General's question regarding the possibility of
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1 the permitting process not being drawn to
2 completion, and that then allowing the company
3 the option to not fulfill -- or -- or close
4 this deal, that is a highly unlikely scenario.
5 The -- if you -- if you vote -- to put it
6 another way, if you were to vote yes on this
7 agenda item, the permitting process for the
8 cement plant is going to continue; if you vote
9 no on this agenda item, the permitting process
10 for the cement plant is going to continue,
11 in -- in any event.
12 And, in fact, regardless of your decision,
13 those same protections that go above and beyond
14 what are currently required under Florida law
15 stay in place. So that public health
16 protection is -- is still a part of the
17 arrangement.
18 TREASURER NELSON: Governor --
19 MR. STRUHS: And just one other point.
20 TREASURER NELSON: Okay.
21 MR. STRUHS: We specifically allowed
22 two years to resolve any of these outstanding
23 appeals of that permitting process to avoid the
24 situation -- or at least certainly dramatically
25 minimize the situation where you would actually
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1 approve this agenda item, and then for some
2 kind of unforeseen complication in the
3 permitting process, the acquisition would not
4 go forward.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Commissioner Nelson --
6 TREASURER NELSON: Dav--
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, first, did you get
8 your -- I don't know if you got your question
9 answered about substantial change.
10 If you could -- if you could answer that.
11 The -- the question is: Who determines in
12 this agreement what substantial change is, the
13 definition of it.
14 MR. STRUHS: Well, let me --
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a --
16 MR. STRUHS: -- check -- let me check with
17 counsel.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- there's a question of
19 contract law, and -- or is there a defined
20 term, or --
21 That was the question, wasn't it?
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Yes,
23 Governor. Thank you.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: I appreciate the
25 information you provided, because it did bring
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1 light again, similar to what Mr. Lee said about
2 what -- what we're here for.
3 But this is a separate question.
4 MR. STRUHS: If you could give me a moment,
5 please.
6 The -- and if -- if there were a
7 disagreement over a change in the -- in the
8 permitting process, an unforeseen change in the
9 permitting process, the parties, meaning
10 Anderson Columbia, and DEP, would try to -- to
11 resolve those, obviously.
12 If we were unable to do that, in fact, it
13 would go to court, and it could be pursued --
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: So it's --
15 MR. STRUHS: -- through litigation.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- how -- what most things
17 would be --
18 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay. I
19 obviously have -- I still have the wrong page
20 of the contract, and I apologize for that,
21 David.
22 But it says: Any conditions thereto that
23 are not acceptable to Suwannee shall have no
24 obligation under this settlement agreement.
25 So it's not two ways. It's not a court,
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1 it's one way.
2 Now, of course, I'll be glad to defend you
3 and say that they don't have the right to do
4 that, because I kind of think that this wording
5 is very weak on behalf of the -- of the State.
6 Very weak for us.
7 But I'll still be glad to defend you. I
8 have no problem at all doing that.
9 I would like -- this is why I think that if
10 we could get them to unlink this, if we could
11 redraft this page 4, if I can see the real
12 page 4 floating out there, I'd have a much --
13 I'd have a much higher comfort level. I really
14 would.
15 David, I think you've done a wonderful job
16 here on this issue, I really and truly do. And
17 I think you attempted to put a couple of things
18 together.
19 But I'm just worried, and as
20 General Milligan stated, perception; and as
21 Commissioner Nelson stated, policy. This is
22 going to come back and bite us.
23 I really think -- I don't know why we're
24 under a January 31st deadline day. It's almost
25 like when you get the call on -- the call that
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1 says you can do it today, you can do it today;
2 if you don't do it today, the deal's no good.
3 It may not be a bad deal to sit down and
4 work out the real page 4.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Commissioner Nelson.
6 TREASURER NELSON: I would only add to
7 that.
8 David --
9 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
10 TREASURER NELSON: -- clearly you were
11 trying to do something in the interest of the
12 State of Florida, and I commend you for that.
13 You saw that you could get a win-win.
14 What you've done is you have put us in a
15 policy position of the perception of approving
16 the cement plant if we buy the mine, which most
17 of us up here want purchased.
18 And it is only augmented by the language
19 that the Attorney General just called your
20 attention to, which says that if the Department
21 denies the permit, or makes any substantial
22 payment, the company shall have no obligations
23 under the settlement agreement.
24 And that is the -- the Hobson's choice that
25 we have here, which is a very difficult one
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1 because of the perception of what is in the
2 best interest of the public.
3 MR. STRUHS: I -- and I appreciate that.
4 I think it's a fair point, and -- and I'll
5 grant you that.
6 I would, however, with -- with all due
7 respect, suggest that it's largely an academic
8 point in that the permit conditions by the
9 applicant and the regulating agency, have
10 already been resolved.
11 I mean, the -- we know precisely what it is
12 we will be requiring the permit, and the
13 applicant has acceded to all those
14 requirements.
15 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: If it were an
16 academic point, then the owner would withdraw
17 the linkage.
18 TREASURER NELSON: Yes. And -- and to
19 add --
20 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Add --
21 TREASURER NELSON: -- to --
22 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- I might -- I
23 might also add, it's not just an academic point
24 or a point associated with this particular
25 event. We're talking about policy in terms of
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1 future events.
2 MR. STRUHS: One of the things that
3 happened to me on the way in here this morning
4 is somebody stopped me in the hallway and they
5 said, so, if you had to do it all over again,
6 would you have made available this opportunity
7 to the Cabinet?
8 And I didn't have to hesitate but for a
9 moment, and the answer is clearly yes. We
10 could very easily as a regulatory agency, as an
11 Executive Branch agency, have resolved all
12 these regulatory issues, and never touched
13 this -- this mine.
14 We chose to do that, we chose to create
15 this additional opportunity -- essentially an
16 option for your consideration. But we wanted
17 to do it in a way where we were not binding the
18 Cabinet.
19 We -- it would be illegal and -- and wrong
20 for us to take any steps that would bind you to
21 a particular decision.
22 And that's why we resolved it in a way
23 where all of our outstanding regulatory issues
24 are not just adequately resolved, but, in fact,
25 remarkably resolved, in many respects, going
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1 far beyond what anybody I think would have ever
2 dreamed of just a few months ago in terms of a
3 corporate-wide compliance program, the gifts of
4 other important lands, restitution, the list
5 goes on and on.
6 That stands alone as -- as a -- as a
7 resolution of long-standing environmental
8 problems of which we're very, very proud. And
9 we tried to set it up so that would be a
10 stand-alone arrangement.
11 You may or may not choose to exercise this
12 additional option we've presented to you. And
13 whatever your decision, we're -- we're very
14 proud of what we were able to achieve on the
15 regulatory side.
16 To the extent that there is a -- a
17 perception of linkage, I would suggest that
18 there is a long tradition in resolving legal
19 issues, particularly in the environmental
20 field, of global settlements.
21 Global settlements, where in the interest
22 of all the parties, and the interest of
23 expediency, you put everything together. And
24 this comes as close to that as possible, while
25 at the same time, preserving your independent
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1 decision making authority.
2 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I -- I am pleased
3 that you acknowledged that decision making in
4 the sunshine is a healthy way of doing
5 business.
6 Thank you.
7 SECRETARY HARRIS: Governor --
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: The -- I think one of the
9 things -- one of the ways to look at this is --
10 one of the ways --
11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: There's a
12 relative out there.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: One of the ways that we
14 could look at this is, there is a -- what
15 happens if we don't do this?
16 And there the question is: Is -- what is
17 the risk of -- related to the permitting?
18 Secretary Struhs has told me, and has told
19 everybody here, that they're completely
20 convinced that this plant is permittable.
21 So the chances are, after the very able
22 Office of the Attorney General and -- and other
23 groups that will use their -- their rights in
24 the court system, the -- I assess the risk
25 that -- in the end of the day, this is going to
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1 be a permittable plant.
2 And then we -- and so, therefore, that will
3 happen. It may happen two years from now, may
4 happen three years from now. But we don't get,
5 as I understand it, the other benefits of
6 having taken advantage of this opportunity.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: And --
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: So that's -- that's one
9 question. That's -- that's --
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: And the mining
11 continues.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Absolutely.
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: In other words,
14 the one thing --
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: That's --
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- about this
17 is --
18 SECRETARY HARRIS: And there's no taxes.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- the mining
20 stops. So that's a very important part of it.
21 TREASURER NELSON: If we, Governor, agreed
22 to this today, and the appellate court
23 reversed, then there's no deal because of the
24 linkage here.
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: But any purchase
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1 that we --
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Absolutely.
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- agree to, the
4 seller doesn't have to accept it. I mean,
5 the -- a normal -- a normal offer we'd make
6 from this Cabinet to purchase a piece of
7 property, the -- the seller could say I've
8 changed my mind any time.
9 This just happens to be one that's in
10 writing with reasons why.
11 SECRETARY HARRIS: Governor --
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.
13 SECRETARY HARRIS: -- if -- if we take what
14 Commissioner Nelson just said, and if we agree
15 that -- to this today, and the courts rule in
16 favor of Sierra, then it's the same as we voted
17 no.
18 But if we agree to this today, and they
19 uphold that decision at the permitting, then at
20 least we'll have the mine.
21 And I think what -- what Secretary Struhs
22 was saying, and -- and it occurred to me,
23 because I was very concerned about the
24 perception and the -- the linkage scenario,
25 that perhaps really rather than not negotiating
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1 well, perhaps Secretary Struhs and the DEP
2 negotiated very well.
3 Because if, indeed, this permitting process
4 is going to go forward if we vote yes, and this
5 permitting process is going to go forward if we
6 vote no, then at least he created the
7 perception that this was a negotiating point
8 when it wasn't, when we had -- when it's going
9 to go through anyway, was able to bring them to
10 the table for all of these enforcement issues,
11 was able to get Bagdad, and was able to
12 accomplish the -- the sale of the Kirby mine.
13 So I'm going to support the -- the
14 acquisition of the Kirby mine and --
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any other comments or
16 questions?
17 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Just -- just one
18 quickly to Commissioner Nelson's --
19 Treasurer Nelson's concern that -- and I guess
20 maybe the Attorney General as well, that there
21 seems to be not a guarantee that if we vote for
22 this today and if something happens, there's
23 no -- not a guarantee that we actually may get
24 the mine.
25 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Right.
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1 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: But -- but then the
2 remedy for that concern is not to vote against
3 the purchase of the mine, because that will
4 certainly guarantee that we won't get it.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Exactly.
6 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: So it's -- I would
7 think, even if you have that concern, you'd
8 go ahead and vote for it today.
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: That's the
10 Hobson's choice we have here.
11 And if I can just read something here more
12 into the record. And the votes aren't here for
13 it, but I think this is really one way out.
14 Another way out, which I think I'd prefer
15 would be -- and maybe it's the worst way,
16 because if you -- everybody get more e-mails.
17 The issue is page --
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Not all of us read our
19 e-mails, General.
20 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Right.
21 Page 4, I obviously don't have the right
22 page, and I -- and if we can work on this
23 page 4, and -- and the linkage would not be so
24 strong, I would not be as -- as concerned about
25 perception.
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1 We still have policy problems insofar as we
2 never bought land like this before, but I think
3 that Dave has done a great job. If I had a --
4 a gold pencil, I'd go over there now and just
5 put a big gold star right behind that --
6 the board behind him.
7 But I'll go with this one, which basically
8 first says that -- that we -- this agreement
9 for sale and purchase presents this Board with
10 two very undesirable choices:
11 Either not approve it today,
12 Anderson Columbia withdraws its agreement to be
13 a willing seller.
14 On the other hand, Anderson Columbia has
15 placed so many conditions precedent to the sale
16 of the mine that there are no guarantees the
17 people of Florida will be able to acquire the
18 property.
19 One of the most troublesome conditions is
20 that all State and local approvals must be
21 granted and -- and be legally effective on the
22 cement plant before closing the mine.
23 In addition, any litigation must be
24 resolved in favor of Anderson Columbia, thereby
25 linking two unrelated issues. The purchase
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1 perhaps is not controversial, but the cement
2 plant obviously is.
3 As you know, the Office of the
4 Attorney General has intervened and than
5 challenged to the local approval. The reason
6 for my -- for my interventions are clear.
7 I believe that local government approval of
8 a cement plant is material and inconsistent
9 with the County's Comprehensive Plan. The
10 County's interpretation that a high impact
11 industrial resource based project such as a
12 cement plant may be authorized in a rural,
13 agriculturally designated area by merely filing
14 a site and development plan short-circuits the
15 substantive and public resource protections
16 included in a plan.
17 If the County's decision is allowed to
18 stand, then the County would be free to permit
19 any such high density development without
20 meaningful standards.
21 This would preclude the public from
22 meaningful participation because the public
23 would not know what type of project may be
24 authorized by the County officials in over
25 90 percent of the county, including the most
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1 environmentally sensitive lands.
2 This is not just some procedural defect.
3 The County should have required either an
4 amendment to the comprehensive plan; or at the
5 minimum, that the development be considered as
6 a special exception. Either of these would
7 have assured a full airing of the important
8 issues at the local level.
9 We filed a Notice of Appeal of a local
10 judge's decision. And because of that appeal,
11 even if the DEP permit is issued, the applicant
12 cannot proceed to construct the plant.
13 If Anderson Columbia is confident of its
14 ability to win the appeal, it should agree to
15 sell the mine separate from the local approval.
16 If Anderson Columbia is not willing to do
17 that, this Board has other means to acquire the
18 mine other than approving this agreement for
19 sale and purchase.
20 The statute grants the State the authority
21 to pursue eminent domain under certain
22 circumstances.
23 Therefore, I would move this Board, direct
24 staff to propose to Anderson Columbia an
25 agreement for sale and purchase that does not
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1 tie the acquisition to the issuance of permits
2 or of the local approvals.
3 TREASURER NELSON: I second the motion.
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I would like to
5 offer a substitute motion.
6 I happen to like everything that the
7 Attorney General said. I have one major
8 concern though. And that is that if, in fact,
9 we would do this, I think we've set the
10 precedent that eliminates Secretary Struhs and
11 his organization to have and perform global
12 settlements that will give us the opportunity
13 to take lands with willing sellers, as opposed
14 to eminent domain processes, which, as we all
15 know, are very expensive.
16 And so because of that, I'm going to offer
17 a substitute motion that says that we approve
18 it, although the approving of the purchasing --
19 my motion would say, that has in our minds, is
20 the approval of the purchase, period,
21 notwithstanding other agreements that are made
22 by other bodies besides ours.
23 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: I agree.
24 I think that -- I still feel like that to
25 approve this is not an endorsement of any
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1 permitting process that's outside the purview
2 of this body, and we're not endorsing a cement
3 plant.
4 We're simply endorsing the purchase of this
5 property, which is before us, and I would -- I
6 second that substitute motion.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: So it's -- this is the
8 first time as Governor we've had one of these,
9 so I want to make sure I do this right.
10 There's a substitute motion that has been
11 seconded.
12 Is there any discussion on that?
13 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Yes,
14 Governor, I -- I have some discussion here.
15 I don't disagree with what -- what -- what
16 Commissioner Gallagher is saying at all. But
17 unfortunately we have a page 4.
18 So you're basically saying then that you
19 are agreeing to this without page 4, because
20 with page 4 here, it's linked, whether you want
21 it linked or not, whether you -- whether you
22 want to vote for it or not, you are voting for
23 this cement plant. It's there. It's in black
24 and white with yellow highlighting.
25 The -- so I don't -- so I mean, I know
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1 where you're trying to go, I know what you're
2 trying to say.
3 But I'm not sure you want to go there.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any other comments?
5 SECRETARY HARRIS: Yes.
6 TREASURER NELSON: Yes.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.
8 TREASURER NELSON: Go ahead. I defer.
9 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Well, I was just
10 going to comment that I do take exception to
11 the Commissioner's comment in reference to
12 tying Mr. Struhs' hands because I --
13 Secretary Struhs' hands, because I don't see
14 that happening at all as a result of -- of what
15 we may do in support of the Attorney General's
16 proposal.
17 That does not tie his hands in any future
18 activities where he wants to look at things in
19 the global manner. It just does in this
20 particular case remove the contingency, or
21 the -- the linkage.
22 And so I -- I -- I think your argument is
23 fallacious in terms of why it -- we need to
24 have a substitute amendment.
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, if I may
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1 argue.
2 I'm going to be a very upset person if
3 because we don't do the substitute, that we
4 lose the opportunity to purchase this property.
5 And that's where I'm coming from.
6 And I -- I think all of us don't like the
7 perception of linkage, we don't like any of
8 those tie-ins.
9 But I think we also have to realize that by
10 with-- withdrawing this opportunity to purchase
11 the property, we may either pay a lot more, or
12 not get it.
13 And the other thing you have to remember
14 is, the mining continues to happen at that
15 site, unless we go with this agreement to get
16 it to stop.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Secretary Harris?
18 SECRETARY HARRIS: Yes.
19 Governor, I support the substitute
20 amendment in that the permits are going to
21 occur if we vote yes; the permits are going to
22 occur if we vote no.
23 However, if we vote yes, we have the
24 opportunity to purchase the mine, we have an
25 opportunity on the appraisals to obtain the
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1 capping of the fees of the attorneys, and
2 there's opportunities that we wouldn't
3 otherwise have if we go back to a negotiated
4 settlement.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any other discussion?
6 TREASURER NELSON: Yes, sir.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Commissioner. Excuse me.
8 TREASURER NELSON: I think that we would be
9 setting a tremendously strong precedent of
10 wrong public policy if we approved a document
11 that said that if any substantial changes to
12 the permit, the air permit, are made, that the
13 seller has no obligations.
14 For us to make a public policy decision of
15 the acquisition of environmentally sensitive
16 land to that kind of condition being put upon
17 by the proposed seller, I think is -- is a
18 reckless precedent that we need to consider in
19 our vote here.
20 And, therefore, I oppose the substitute,
21 and support the original motion of the
22 Attorney General.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: General Butterworth.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I think
25 you're tired of hearing me, Governor, but --
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: You can bring up page 4 one
2 more time?
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: When I told
4 you 4:00 o'clock, I -- I didn't realize that
5 there'd be that significance to it.
6 As Commissioner Nelson stated, it's bad
7 public policy of not being able to make any
8 change.
9 But I'd just like to add the extra words:
10 Or any conditions thereto that are not
11 acceptable to Suwannee.
12 I think we could resolve this issue perhaps
13 with a deferral. If the four votes are there,
14 I would urge you, please, to consider perhaps a
15 recess, perhaps a deferral. Because I don't
16 think you want to go on record with this
17 paragraph.
18 I just do not think you want to.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Can I ask the
20 General a question?
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah.
22 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: If that paragraph
23 didn't exist, and let's say that that -- that
24 agreement didn't exist. Let's say that we had
25 a -- a person out there that went and talked to
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1 DEP and said, by the way, I think if you make
2 an offer under the offering side of this, I
3 might agree to it.
4 And it came to the Cabinet. Because there
5 are some things that are floating. We -- we
6 would most likely take that shot and agree to
7 that, because the other side wasn't there.
8 Almost everybody here has said that.
9 Any other seller could, for any reason
10 whatsoever, whether it's as obnoxious as this
11 here, or any other reason he wanted to dream
12 up, say, by the way, I changed my mind, I want
13 to keep mining there. I got a big offer from
14 somebody else, and I think it's -- and -- and
15 I'm going to be able to sell a lot of
16 lime rock, and so I'm going to keep the mine
17 going. And that's where we'd be, the same
18 place.
19 So I'm concerned that we're going to
20 lose -- somebody may come along and lime rock
21 may be very valuable all of a sudden because
22 the Legislature starts looking at the -- at the
23 problems of taking lime rock out, and makes it
24 tougher to be in the lime rock business and
25 mining. And all of a sudden, this mine triples
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1 in value, and we never get a chance to buy it.
2 And so if y'all are willing to take that
3 chance --
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a --
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- that's what
6 you're doing.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a
8 second for the substitute amendment. I think
9 we've talked about it enough.
10 All in favor of Commissioner Gallagher's
11 motion, say aye.
12 THE CABINET: Aye.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: All opposed.
14 TREASURER NELSON: No.
15 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: No.
16 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: No.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: It passes by 4/3.
18 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Which takes
19 5 votes I think, doesn't it?
20 SECRETARY HARRIS: No.
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: It doesn't?
22 Oh, okay.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Takes 4 votes.
24 Now, I guess -- is that -- we have to vote
25 on the --
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1 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: No, we're done.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: That's it.
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: We're done.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay. That's it.
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: End of meeting.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
7 (The Board of Trustees of the Internal
8 Improvement Trust Fund Agenda was concluded.)
9 * * *
10 (The Cabinet meeting was concluded at
11 1:45 p.m.)
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January 25, 2000
1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
2
3
4
5 STATE OF FLORIDA:
6 COUNTY OF LEON:
7 I, LAURIE L. GILBERT, do hereby certify that
8 the foregoing proceedings were taken before me at the
9 time and place therein designated; that my shorthand
10 notes were thereafter translated; and the foregoing
11 pages numbered 76 through 268 are a true and correct
12 record of the aforesaid proceedings.
13 I FURTHER CERTIFY that I am not a relative,
14 employee, attorney or counsel of any of the parties,
15 nor relative or employee of such attorney or counsel,
16 or financially interested in the foregoing action.
17 DATED THIS 3RD day of FEBRUARY, 2000.
18
19
20 LAURIE L. GILBERT, RPR, CCR, CRR, RMR
100 Salem Court
21 Tallahassee, Florida 32301
850/878-2221
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