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2 T H E C A B I N E T
3 S T A T E O F F L O R I D A _________________________________________________________ 4 Representing: 5 STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 6 DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT 7 ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION FLORIDA LAND AND WATER ADJUDICATORY COMMISSION 8 STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION MARINE FISHERIES 9 TRUSTEES OF THE INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND __________________________________________________________ 10
11 The above agencies came to be heard before THE FLORIDA CABINET, Honorable Governor Chiles 12 presiding, in the Cabinet Meeting Room, LL-03, The Capitol, Tallahassee, Florida, on Tuesday, July 29, 1998, 13 commencing at approximately 9:30 a.m.
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16 Reported by:
17 NANCY P. VETTERICK Registered Professional Reporter 18 Certified Court Reporter Notary Public in and for 19 the State of Florida at Large
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23 ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC. 100 SALEM COURT 24 TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA 32301 850/878-2221 25
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1 APPEARANCES:
2 Representing the Florida Cabinet:
3 LAWTON CHILES Governor 4 BOB CRAWFORD 5 Commissioner of Agriculture
6 BOB MILLIGAN Comptroller 7 SANDRA B. MORTHAM 8 Secretary of State
9 BOB BUTTERWORTH Attorney General 10 BILL NELSON 11 Treasurer
12 FRANK T. BROGAN Commissioner of Education 13 * 14
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1 I N D E X
2 ITEM ACTION PAGE
3 STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION: (Presented by Tom Herndon, Executive Director) 4 1 Approved 7 5 2 Approved 7 3 Approved 7 6 4 Approved 8 5 Approved 8 7 6 Approved 9 7 Approved 9 8 8 Approved 11
9 DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE: (Presented by J. Ben Watkins, III, Director) 10 1 Approved 12 11 2 Approved 12 3 Approved 12 12 4 Approved 13 5 Approved 13 13 6 Approved 13 7 Approved 14 14 DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT: 15 (Presented by James T. "Tim" Moore, Commissioner)
16 1 Approved 16 2 Approved 16 17 3 Discussion 16 4 Approved 23 18 ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION: 19 (Presented by Robert B. Bradley, Ph.D., Secretary) 20 1 Approved 26 21 2 Approved 26 3 Approved 27 22 4 Approved 27 5 Approved 27 23 6 Approved 34 7 Withdrawn 34 24
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1 I N D E X (Continued) 2 ITEM ACTION PAGE 3 FLORIDA LAND AND WATER 4 ADJUDICATORY COMMISSION: (Presented by Robert B. Bradley, Ph.D., 5 Executive Director)
6 1 Approved 35 2 Approved 35 7 STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION: 8 (Presented by Robert L. Bedford, Ph.D., Deputy Commissioner) 9 1 Approved 36 10 2 Approved 36 3 Approved 37 11 4 Approved 37 5 For Information 37 12 6 Approved 50 7, 8 and 9 Deferred 50 13 10 Approved 50 11 Withdrawn 51 14 12 Approved 51 13 and 14 Approved 51 15 15 Approved 52 16 Approved 52 16 17 Approved 52 18 Approved 53 17 19 Approved 53 20 Approved 53 18 21 Approved 54
19 MARINE FISHERIES COMMISSION: (Presented by Russell S. Nelson, Ph.D., 20 Executive Director)
21 A Approved 56 B Approved 56 22 C Approved 57 D, E, F and G Withdrawn 57 23
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1 I N D E X (Continued) 2 ITEM ACTION PAGE 3 BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE 4 INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND: 5 (Presented by Kirby Green, III, Deputy Secretary) 6 1 Approved 65 7 2 Withdrawn 66 3 Approved 66 8 Substitute 4 Approved 66 5 Withdrawn 67 9 6 Approved 67 7 Approved 67 10 8 Approved 67 Substitute 9 Approved 68 11 10 Approved 73 11 Approved 73 12 Substitute 12 Approved 73 13 Approved 74 13 14 Approved 74 15 Approved 74 14 16 Approved 74 17 Approved 75 15 18 Approved 75 19 Approved 75 16 20 Approved 75 21 Approved 76 17 Substitute 22 Approved 105 23 Approved 141 18 24 Approved 147 Additional 25 Approved 117 19 Substitute Add. 26 Withdrawn 147
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22 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER 148
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 (The agenda items commenced at 9:55 a.m.)
3 GOVERNOR CHILES: State Board of
4 Administration.
5 MR. HERNDON: Governor and Members of the
6 State Board, Item Number 1 is approval of the
7 minutes. Before you adopt that motion, let me just
8 note that we have two possible corrections that we
9 may need to make to those minutes.
10 We want to review the actual audiotape before
11 we do that, but if you wouldn't mind, in the
12 context of the motion, make motion to adopt them
13 pending a possible correction at the next time.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: We'll entertain a motion
15 that you think we'd like to recommend these
16 minutes.
17 MR. HERNDON: With reservation, of course.
18 TREASURER NELSON: So with the reservation
19 that he might like to have the minutes approved, I
20 would make that motion, Governor.
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: How many billion dollars do
22 we have under your control?
23 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: With trepidation, I
24 will second it.
25 MR. HERNDON: Thank you.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: It's been moved and
2 seconded, and without objection, it's adopted.
3 MR. HERNDON: Item Number 2 is approval of
4 fiscal sufficiency for an item not to exceed $260
5 million for the State Board of Education, Public
6 Education Capital Outlay Refunding Bonds, 1998
7 Series.
8 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I'll move it.
9 TREASURER NELSON: And I'll second.
10 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
11 objection, it's approved.
12 MR. HERNDON: Item Number 3 is the resolution
13 of the State Board of Administration rescinding the
14 fiscal sufficiency authorization for the unissued
15 portion of the State of Florida, State Board of
16 Education Lottery revenue bonds, Series 1998A and a
17 resolution of the State Board of Administration
18 approving the fiscal sufficiency of not exceeding
19 $200 million State of Florida, State Board of
20 Education Lottery revenue bonds, Series 1998B.
21 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Move the item.
22 TREASURER NELSON: Second.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
24 objection, it's approved.
25 MR. HERNDON: Item Number 4 is approval of
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1 fiscal sufficiency of an issue not exceeding
2 $55,675,000 Board of Regents, University System
3 Improvement Revenue Bonds, Series 1998.
4 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Move the item.
5 TREASURER NELSON: Second.
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
7 objection, it's approved.
8 MR. HERNDON: Item Number 5 is a resolution of
9 the State Board of Administration of Florida
10 approving the fiscal determination of an amount not
11 exceeding $14,690,000 Florida Housing Finance
12 Corporation Housing Revenue Refunding Bonds, for
13 the apartment complex known as Hunter's Ridge at
14 Deerwood Apartments.
15 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Move the item.
16 TREASURER NELSON: Second.
17 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
18 objection, it's approved.
19 MR. HERNDON: Item Number 6 is to request your
20 approval to file a lawsuit for the refund of
21 Illinois Real Estate Transfer Tax against Cook
22 County, Illinois and the Illinois Department of
23 Revenue.
24 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Move the item.
25 TREASURER NELSON: Second.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
2 objection, it's approved.
3 MR. HERNDON: Item Number 7 is the submission
4 of the investment performance and fund balance
5 analysis report for the month of June 1998.
6 TREASURER NELSON: Move it.
7 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
9 objection, it's approved.
10 MR. HERNDON: Governor, that completes the
11 agenda of the State Board. With your permission, I
12 would recommend that you convene yourselves at the
13 Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund Corporation.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: We are so convened.
15 MR. HERNDON: If I could ask Mr. Watkins and
16 Mr. Nicholson to join us here at the podium,
17 Governor, you'll recall that this Financing
18 Corporation was created in the statutes to actually
19 take up the task of issuing bonds in the event that
20 a hurricane had occurred.
21 As part of that responsibility, we've been
22 undertaking since earlier this spring the
23 preparatory work leading up to a possible issuance
24 if the storm were ever to occur; so what we have
25 most recently concluded and with your assistance
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1 and the other two members of the Board, Mr. Watkins
2 and Mr. Nicholson, is a proposal to you this
3 morning based on our work plan to approve a list of
4 prequalified underwriters.
5 We went through a public RFP process which led
6 us to the selection of a group of national,
7 regional and minority underwriting firms. This is
8 not the final action that we will take on this
9 item, but rather it is to select this group of
10 prequalified firms from the larger list of
11 respondent firms.
12 If a storm were to occur, we would come back
13 to you with a request for a formal approval of the
14 actual underwriting team which we would intend to
15 select from this prequalified group; so what this
16 essentially is is the initial step towards that
17 selection were a storm ever to occur, and certainly
18 we hope that does not.
19 At the present time, the Board has no
20 financial advisor under contract nor does the
21 corporation for the very simple reason that we have
22 largely completed most of our preparatory work, and
23 with your action here this morning, we will be
24 essentially poised on the brink of a final action
25 pending what we hope is never a storm.
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1 We do not have an F.A. on board at this time.
2 We do plan on using some of the firms that are on
3 this prequalified list on a non-reimbursable basis
4 for some technical assistance from time to time,
5 but that's essentially all that they'll be called
6 upon to do at this point.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Is there a motion?
8 TREASURER NELSON: I move it.
9 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: And I'll second.
10 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
11 objection, it's approved.
12 MR. HERNDON: That completes the agenda of the
13 Hurricane Catastrophe Fund Finance Corporation.
14 Thank you for your time.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right. We will adjourn
16 on that Board and thank you.
17 (The State Board of Administration Agenda was
18 concluded.)
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Division of Bond and
2 Finance.
3 MR. WATKINS: Item Number 1 is approval of the
4 minutes of the July 14th meeting.
5 TREASURER NELSON: Move the minutes.
6 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
8 objection, it's approved.
9 MR. WATKINS: Item Number 2 is a resolution
10 authorizing the competitive sale of $200 million in
11 Lottery Revenue Bonds. It's the second installment
12 of the Lottery Revenue Bond program.
13 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move the item.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and --
15 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: -- seconded. Without
17 objection, it's approved.
18 MR. WATKINS: Item Number 3 is a resolution
19 authorizing the competitive sale of up to
20 $55,675,000 of Board of Regents, University System
21 Improvement Revenue Bonds.
22 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
23 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
24 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
25 objection, it's approved.
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1 MR. WATKINS: Item Number 4 is a resolution
2 authorizing the issuance and competitive sale of up
3 to $260 million in PECO Refunding Bonds.
4 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
5 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
7 objection, it's approved.
8 MR. WATKINS: Item Number 5 is a resolution
9 authorizing the redemption prior to maturity of
10 State of Florida, Pollution Control Bonds, Series
11 U.
12 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
13 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
15 objection, it's approved.
16 MR. WATKINS: Item Number 6 is a resolution
17 authorizing the issuance of up to $750 million of
18 Department of Transportation Turnpike Revenue
19 Bonds.
20 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
21 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
23 objection, it's approved.
24 MR. WATKINS: Item Numer 7 is a report of
25 award of $26,155,000 of Board of Regents, Housing
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1 Revenue Bonds for our University of Florida
2 dormitory.
3 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Moved.
4 MR. WATKINS: The bonds were sold competitive
5 sale and awarded to the low bidder at a true
6 interest cost of 4.90 percent.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: 4.9?
8 MR. WATKINS: Yes, sir.
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Very good. Moved and --
10 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
11 GOVERNOR CHILES: -- seconded. Without
12 objection, it's approved.
13 MR. WATKINS: Thank you.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Have we had much lending in
15 the way of 4 percent interest rates?
16 MR. WATKINS: Interest rates are at
17 historically low levels; so to the extent the State
18 of Florida needs to incur indebtedness for
19 infrastructure improvement, now is a very good time
20 to be borrowing.
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: I notice you're refinancing.
22 It's a great time to refinance too.
23 MR. WATKINS: Yes, sir. We've been executing
24 refinancing probably for the last three years to
25 take advantage of lower interest rates and save the
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1 State money on future debt service payments.
2 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
3 MR. WATKINS: Yes, sir.
4 (The Division of Bond Finance Agenda was
5 concluded.)
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Florida Department of Law
2 Enforcement.
3 MR. MOORE: Good morning, Governor and
4 Cabinet. Item 1 is the minutes of the May 12, '98
5 Cabinet meeting.
6 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
7 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
9 objection, it's approved.
10 MR. MOORE: Item 2, Governor, is the Annual
11 Status Report on the Department of Law Enforcement
12 Program Performance Based Budgeting. It identifies
13 those 69 measures that were in law, and then this
14 report codifies the Department's performance on all
15 of those 69 measures.
16 I'll tell you that we met all of them except
17 14. I'm very proud of the men and women of the
18 Agency for that, and on those 14, we're making
19 progress to remedy the shortcomings on each of
20 them.
21 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
22 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
24 objection, it's approved.
25 MR. MOORE: Item 3, Governor, is the Office of
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1 Program Policy Analysis and Government
2 Accountability, OPPAGA. It's their report card on
3 the Agency on those same performance outcome
4 measures that were in law for the past fiscal year.
5 They point out there and validate the findings
6 that are in that report, and they give us a solid
7 "A" -- my term, not theirs -- in terms of the
8 performance of the Agency. Again, they point out
9 some of the significant achievements that we've
10 made without additional resources.
11 I, again, am very proud of the men and women
12 in the Agency for that. An example of some of
13 that, Governor, would be, we did 19 percent more
14 criminal investigations with only a 1 percent
15 increase in resources. We handled on the average
16 500 additional forensic examinations a month in our
17 laboratory system.
18 We achieved and sustained a 98 percent
19 satisfaction performance level from our customers
20 in the Florida Crime Information Centers, some
21 10,000 of them who together transmitted over 400
22 million messages across that network last year, and
23 98 percent of them rated it as very high.
24 Again, I think that goes to speak to the
25 caliber of men and women in the organization.
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1 OPPAGA makes a series of 8 recommendations --
2 excuse me, 10 recommendations. Eight of them we
3 agree with and concur wholeheartedly.
4 The other 2 we have some reservations about
5 frankly, and we're in the process of examining
6 them. They deal, one, with closing the Key West
7 crime laboratory, and there's a lot of geographical
8 and logistical considerations that caused us to put
9 that laboratory there in the first place with the
10 backing of the Legislature; so we're carefully
11 examining with the agencies down there how to
12 handle that recommendation.
13 The second recommendation they make that we do
14 not concur in as of yet deals with discontinuing
15 our process of monitoring the training schools for
16 police officers and correctional officers in the
17 State of Florida. I think that serves a real
18 purpose, and we're working very closely with the
19 Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and
20 Training to examine that recommendation as well.
21 On both of those, I will report back to you and to
22 the Legislature in the next 90 days.
23 TREASURER NELSON: Governor?
24 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
25 TREASURER NELSON: As I understand it, one of
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1 the recommendations by OPPAGA is to discontinue the
2 DARE program in Florida in the school system. The
3 recommendation is to discontinue it unless
4 statistical analysis can show its positive effect
5 on reducing Florida's arrest rate and drug use.
6 I'm sure that there are thousands of teachers
7 and parents and administrators with firsthand
8 knowledge of the positive impact the DARE program
9 has had on the students and the community; so I
10 would question that recommendation.
11 MR. MOORE: Treasurer Nelson, we, too,
12 question that recommendation. We are in the
13 process of trying to do an empirical evaluation of
14 that whole business with DARE working jointly and
15 cooperatively with Florida State University, but
16 you know as well as I do -- and Commissioner
17 Brogan, we heard firsthand down at the summit on
18 Safe Schools last week that it's impossible to
19 separate a lot of the problems we're having in our
20 schools from drugs.
21 It's impossible to separate the vast majority
22 of our violent crimes from drugs; so I'm of the
23 opinion at least now -- we'll try to keep an open
24 mind, but I'm of the opinion that this may very
25 well be one of those programs where you can't have
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1 a longitudinal study that makes a linear
2 relationship on a one-to-one basis for what's going
3 on.
4 I know that we have a half a million kids
5 who've been through this program, and it's my
6 sense, having one that's been through it as well,
7 that they come away with a better appreciation for
8 respecting other people, a better appreciation for
9 playing by the rules and for doing what's right; so
10 I think that's one of the issues, Treasurer Nelson,
11 that we'll move very slowly on.
12 You and the Members of this Cabinet will be
13 involved in the final decisions in that regard.
14 DARE is not the only program out there that does a
15 good job. There's others, but we know for a fact
16 that over the last 10 years, this one has
17 produced -- at least, I believe, some very solid
18 results.
19 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Governor, if I may. I
20 won't spend a lot of time on this, but I concur
21 with both Commissioners Nelson and Moore. I've
22 been at this for 20 years, and with all due respect
23 to OPPAGA, I wish they would look at some programs
24 that are not evidencing children's ability to read,
25 write and calculate mathematically and can be
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1 documented and proven so, that they would recommend
2 we eliminate versus a program that I think is a
3 little more difficult to quantify and qualify, no
4 question about it, because what that program tries
5 to do is alter lifetime habits and lifetime
6 attitudes toward the problems of drug and alcohol.
7 I think it's like anything else. You see in
8 some places where the DARE program is having a very
9 positive impact and is being done well, and no
10 doubt, there are places where the DARE program
11 isn't being done as well and may have less of a
12 positive impact.
13 But I'm concerned at a day and time where we
14 see drug use among teenagers and others excalating,
15 not decreasing, that we would look at programs like
16 DARE for elimination. I think that's sort of a
17 broad-brush reaction to the problem of quantifying
18 and qualifying.
19 I'm like the Commissioner. I want to keep an
20 open mind about these things, but I think we've got
21 to be very careful about branding a program that if
22 you went to most districts that used DARE and said
23 get rid of it, you'd be in for a heck of a dogfight
24 because parents love it, students love it, teachers
25 love it, and they believe it's having an impact.
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1 MR. MOORE: Common sense needs to take on a
2 premium in this examination.
3 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I would just add,
4 Governor, if I might, that it isn't just DARE that
5 they've been asked to evaluate. There are other
6 special programs that also have a difficulty in
7 getting that linear relationship, such as the
8 investigative support centers, that we have to
9 really be careful with; so it's more than just DARE
10 that OPPAGA has them to look at, and we need to be
11 real careful with it, Tim, and I know you will be.
12 MR. MOORE: Yes, sir. Governor, Item 4 is the
13 Department's Performance Contract for the fiscal
14 year '98/'99, the contract between you and the
15 Cabinet as head of the Agency, and myself, that
16 then serves as a basis for the performance contract
17 we've got in place with all of our members and the
18 work plans we have for all of our members in the
19 organization; so we can stay focused on those 70
20 measures now that the Legislature wants us to
21 accomplish with this appropriation in this year.
22 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: I move approval of the
23 item, Governor.
24 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
25 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
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1 objection, it's approved.
2 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Governor, if I may,
3 while Commissioner Moore is at the podium, just
4 take a minute to commend him on something. We have
5 been working as you-all know on the background
6 check issue in the State of Florida for several
7 years trying to make it a background check system
8 for instructional and noninstructional employees
9 that will further help guarantee high-quality
10 adults working with our boys and girls.
11 One of the problems that we continue to face
12 over time has been the problem of time. As we've
13 worked with Commissioner Moore and the FDLE, we've
14 been able to turn those state background checks
15 around in a matter of days, usually three or four
16 days maximum.
17 The problem that we continued to face with our
18 background check program was at the federal level.
19 Trying to access the FBI background check
20 opportunities was putting us in a position where
21 sometimes a person whose fingerprints went to the
22 FBI and the NCIC check may be there as long as four
23 to six months which puts school districts in a
24 precarious position.
25 There's really only two options. One is to
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1 either not hire the person for fear that something
2 may turn up. The other was to put somebody with
3 children and then hope and pray during the period
4 of that four to six months that nothing happened or
5 nothing popped up to indicate that was a bad
6 choice.
7 I really commend Commissioner Moore. He has
8 been working with the Department of Justice and the
9 FBI, and even though the FBI is headed toward a
10 brand new system which will ultimately give
11 everyone greater access, he has finally convinced,
12 with his hard work, the FBI to recognize there are
13 a few of us that are much further down the road
14 with this whole process, and therefore give us the
15 ability as a state to access that system beginning
16 in September.
17 The long and short of it is that come
18 September, we're going to have the best background
19 check system in the nation, and that will allow us
20 to turn these background checks around in the same
21 time period that we're currently doing with the
22 Florida Department of Law Enforcement therefore
23 helping to further ensure the best people in front
24 of our children each and every day.
25 I just wanted to take a chance to thank you
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1 and commend you for that, Tim. I know how hard it
2 was, and I appreciate your hard work on it.
3 MR. MOORE: Thank you, Commissioner Brogan.
4 Thank you, Governor.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
6 (The Department of Law Enforcement Agenda was
7 concluded.)
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: The Administration
2 Commission.
3 DR. BRADLEY: Item Number 1, recommend
4 approval of the minutes for the meeting held July
5 14th --
6 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: So moved.
7 DR. BRADLEY: -- 1998.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and --
9 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
10 GOVERNOR CHILES: -- seconded. Without
11 objection, it's approved.
12 DR. BRADLEY: Item Number 2, recommend
13 approval of the transfer of general revenue
14 appropriations for the Department of Agriculture
15 and Consumer Services.
16 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
17 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
19 objection, it's been approved.
20 DR. BRADLEY: Item Number 3, recommend
21 approval of the transfer of general revenue
22 appropriations for the Department of Children and
23 Families.
24 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Move.
25 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
2 objection, it's approved.
3 DR. BRADLEY: Item Number 4, recommend
4 approval of the transfer of general revenue
5 appropriations for the Department of Corrections.
6 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
7 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
9 objection, it's approved.
10 DR. BRADLEY: Item Number 5, recommend
11 approval of Items A and B for the Department of
12 Environmental Protection.
13 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Move.
14 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
16 objection, it's approved.
17 DR. BRADLEY: Item Number 6 requests approval
18 of temporary transfer of $100,000 from trust funds
19 in the state treasury to the County Article V Trust
20 Fund, pursuant to section 215.18, Florida Statutes.
21 We have some folks who would like to address you on
22 that, Governor. Senator Thomas is first.
23 SENATOR THOMAS: Governor and Members of the
24 Cabinet, this is an emergency in responding to
25 needs of a small county. It mirrors what's
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1 happening in all of the counties. Article V was
2 never implemented.
3 The Constitution Revision Commission is
4 addressing that issue. We have made some runs to
5 address the problems of conflict of interest.
6 Wakulla -- the revenue base is just torn asunder
7 with what we presently have to see in the conflict
8 cases, and the supremes that rule it, if one member
9 of a public defender's office has a relationship
10 with anybody on the public defender's staff, then
11 it's, as a law firm, a conflict; so it has just
12 caused an abundance of hardship. This is a good
13 thing. I want to thank Bob Bradley and the others.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Senator, if that happens in
15 the State Attorney's Office, I can appoint and move
16 another state attorney to that.
17 SENATOR THOMAS: We'd like to see that come
18 back. At one point --
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Well, my understanding is
20 there was a bill. What happened to that bill?
21 SENATOR THOMAS: The public defenders didn't
22 like it.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: Public defenders didn't like
24 it?
25 SENATOR THOMAS: That became a big issue on
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1 it.
2 GOVERNOR CHILES: Is that the basis of now we
3 release this money, or we give this money because
4 the public defenders didn't like it?
5 SENATOR THOMAS: Well, they didn't like to
6 send people across the lines as you do the state
7 attorneys I assume.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Well, I'm not sure the state
9 attorneys like it.
10 SENATOR THOMAS: Well, you did a good job,
11 Governor. I hope the people will approve the
12 Article V change.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Well, I would hope the
14 Senate would approve and the House would a bill
15 that would allow in one of these incidents like
16 this. We'd send a public defender from another
17 place into there.
18 SENATOR THOMAS: Your staff and ours have done
19 studies, and it just is falling apart, but the case
20 that was so highlighted was Monticello with a state
21 trooper. It's happening in Gadsden County. I
22 think there were four charges on one murder that
23 went on and on and on, and then it was sent to
24 another county, and it's still back.
25 Wakulla is being eaten up with it, but
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1 somebody has got to find a permanent answer because
2 they're taking all the ad valorem tax money and
3 shifting it strictly into the courtroom.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Well, I think there is the
5 big problem with the Article V and the cost.
6 There's this other problem that now we're seeing in
7 which it looks like whenever there's a complicated
8 case, Murder One, somehow the Public Defender's
9 Office finds some kind of reason, and then we have
10 to hire private counsel --
11 SENATOR THOMAS: Every time.
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: -- or any county has to hire
13 private counsel.
14 SENATOR THOMAS: If they don't need a public
15 defender, they go and get a Dexter Douglass.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Again, I would hope the
17 Legislature would address that problem and give the
18 Governor the authority.
19 SENATOR THOMAS: We are continuing on Article
20 V. We started year before last, and this past
21 session with some appropriation, but none of
22 significance. That's a $600 million issue
23 statewide, and I think we have probably $10 million
24 in here or 20 or some smaller amount. But we will
25 never solve the problem at the rate we're going.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: No, sir, but again, we have
2 public defenders in every county in every circuit,
3 and being able to transfer some of those or to send
4 those in, I suspect that we would quit seeing some
5 of these minor conflict things raised if you can
6 send the public defender in from another place.
7 SENATOR THOMAS: Governor, the sheriff is here
8 from Wakulla. All these counties that work with
9 the Public Defender's Office try to get some of
10 that initiated by their own efforts, but it is
11 rebuffed by the group as a whole. It really is.
12 It's shameful to disregard funding of your
13 justice system. Jane Gayle Boyd is here and she
14 works with myself.
15 MS. BOYD: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,
16 and we appreciate you-all taking a look at this.
17 Governor, we hear your challenge, and you're right.
18 We do need to address it, and I'll be glad to stand
19 there and debate those issues, but I think the
20 thing I want to point out this morning is that this
21 is a county that has always gone above and beyond
22 to take care of themselves.
23 They're at their 10 mill cap. When they
24 needed to build schools, they levied extra tax on
25 their own citizens to get the money to build the
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1 schools. They've always been out there and done
2 what they needed to to meet their obligation, and
3 this is above and beyond the capabilities that they
4 have.
5 Having eight capital cases in one year is an
6 unbelievable situation for a small county, and we
7 appreciate your consideration and help in this
8 issue for moneys that are there and available to
9 address this and helping us just -- consider having
10 them a little bit earlier than normal.
11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Governor, if I
12 can.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes.
14 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Governor, the
15 public defender in this particular circuit, I
16 think, has gone out of her way to not declare
17 conflicts whereas other circuits might have because
18 she understands the problem that the smaller
19 counties have, and she's been working with a number
20 of others in trying to change it. The public
21 defender here is I know part of the solution and
22 not part of the problem.
23 DR. BRADLEY: Governor, there are two other
24 people who are here I should mention if you'd like
25 to hear from them, Sheriff Harvey and the Clerk of
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1 the Court, Brent Thurmond.
2 SHERIFF HARVEY: Thank you, Governor. I do
3 appreciate you looking at this issue. You can
4 imagine in a county of --
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: Sheriff, I didn't see your
6 name on a list this morning, did I?
7 SHERIFF HARVEY: I got your shoesaver out of
8 there, Governor. In a county that generates less
9 than $3 million in ad valorem revenue, and when we
10 have a catastrophic murder case like this that
11 could cost us $600,000 in conflict attorney fees, I
12 think you see the dilemma that I'm in when I have
13 to go and say, I need some additional deputy
14 sheriffs, and my county commissioners tell me,
15 Sheriff, I'm sorry, we've appropriated all the
16 money we can find for conflict attorneys.
17 That doesn't help our victims. It doesn't
18 help our citizens that we have to respond to when
19 we have a call for service; so it is a very
20 important issue. I hope the Legislature will
21 address it. I hope that you will approve this
22 $100,000 which is about one-sixth of the problem.
23 We'd appreciate it very much.
24 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
25 MR. THURMOND: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm
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1 grateful for a chance to be here. My name is Brent
2 Thurmond. I'm the Clerk of Court in Wakulla
3 County. I'm in that awkward position of working
4 both with the county finances and the burdens that
5 we face there and the court system.
6 I'd just like to thank you for the help that
7 you're in a position to offer us this morning, and
8 I'll pledge to you that I'll certainly do
9 everything I can to work with the Legislative
10 process in addressing both our short-term financial
11 crisis and the long-term statewide solution to this
12 problem. Thank you.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
14 DR. BRADLEY: That's all, Governor.
15 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move the item.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and --
17 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: -- seconded. Without
19 objection, it's approved.
20 DR. BRADLEY: Item Number 7, this item was
21 withdrawn.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
23 (The Administration Commission Agenda was
24 concluded.)
25 *
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Florida Land and Water
2 Adjudicatory Commission.
3 DR. BRADLEY: Item Number 1, request approval
4 of the minutes of the June 24th, 1998.
5 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
6 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
8 objection, it's approved.
9 DR. BRADLEY: Item Number 2, recommend
10 acceptance of the report on the "Save our
11 Everglades Program." We have Rick Smith here if
12 you have any questions.
13 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: I will move the item.
14 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I'll second it.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: It's been moved and
16 seconded. Without objection, it's approved.
17 DR. BRADLEY: That's all, gentlemen. Thank
18 you.
19 (The Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory
20 Commission Agenda was concluded.)
21 *
22
23
24
25
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: State Board of Education.
2 DR. BEDFORD: Governor Chiles, Commissioner
3 Brogan, Members of the State Board of Education,
4 good morning. Item 1, minutes of the meeting held
5 June 9th, 1998.
6 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
7 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
9 objection, it's approved.
10 DR. BEDFORD: Item 2, a report on Florida's
11 System of School Improvement and Accountability
12 Revised as prepared by the Florida Accountability
13 Commission.
14 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move Approval.
15 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
17 objection, it's approved.
18 DR. BEDFORD: Item 3, adoption of a resolution
19 requesting the Division of Bond Finance of the
20 State Board of Administration of Florida to
21 authorize the issuance and sale of not exceeding
22 $200 million State of Florida, State Board of
23 Education Lottery Revenue Bonds pursuant to Florida
24 Statutes.
25 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
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1 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
2 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
3 objection, it's approved.
4 DR. BEDFORD: Item 4, adoption of the
5 Fourteenth Authorizing Resolution to the Master
6 Authorizing Resolution adopted on July 21st, 1992,
7 authorizing the issuance of not exceeding $260
8 million State of Florida, Full Faith and Credit,
9 State Board of Education, Public Education Capital
10 Outlay refunding bonds.
11 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
12 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
14 objection, it's approved.
15 DR. BEDFORD: Item 5 is the Status Report on
16 Critically Low Performing Schools for your
17 information. We have with us from staff, Andrea
18 Willett, and we have about a 10-minute power point
19 presentation for you at this time. Andrea?
20 MS. WILLETT: Good morning and thank you for
21 the opportunity to speak with you this morning, and
22 I bring you very, very, very good news. We have in
23 the past had some problems in schools. We have
24 some -- we're moving forward, and I think that it
25 is important that you get an opportunity to
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1 celebrate the success that we're very proud of
2 today.
3 Schools with critically low student
4 performance is a relatively new phenomena in
5 Florida. In 1991, we started with Florida's System
6 of School Improvement and Accountability, and we
7 talked a great deal about how we thought it ought
8 to look.
9 However, in 1995, you, as the State Board of
10 Education, said, we're going to put a little teeth
11 behind this. The phrase we use here in Florida is:
12 "We're going to fish or cut bait," and we said, we
13 will have accountability standards, and here's
14 where we're going with that.
15 By 1998, we had only 20 schools left
16 potentially to face State Board of Education action
17 whereas at the beginning of 1995, we had originally
18 identified 158. The minimum criteria for
19 elementary and middle schools you will see on the
20 screen, and they are in the blue packets in front
21 of your chairs there.
22 We're looking at a percentage of students who
23 were not able to perform above the 50th percentile
24 nationally in reading or mathematics, and who could
25 not perform at 3 or above on Florida Writes at both
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1 elementary and middle schools.
2 At the high school level, we used the high
3 school competency test looking at their ability to
4 perform in both communications and mathematics, and
5 again, looking at their ability to actually produce
6 writing.
7 Let me remind you that the law said that we're
8 going to hold schools accountable. The school is
9 the unit of accountability, and that U.S. State
10 Board of Education, after three consecutive years
11 of not meeting the standards that you just saw,
12 were to direct districts to take required action.
13 You had both a law and a rule to authorize you to
14 do that.
15 The potential actions that you could have
16 taken or could be taking or could be thinking about
17 taking were listed in the statute. Basically you
18 could tell them to add resources or change
19 practices. You could talk to them about resolving
20 any equity issues.
21 You could talk to them about contracting for
22 educational services. A variety of very open
23 options was available to you. The most important
24 one was the last one, others as deemed appropriate.
25 So in '95/'96, we had 158 schools spread across
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1 the State of Florida, large school districts, small
2 school districts, large schools, small schools, a
3 variety of students in those schools.
4 In '96/'97, we moved out of 158. We reduced
5 that by 55 percent to 71 schools. Sixty-five of
6 those schools were in their second year of
7 designation; so things were getting a little more
8 serious for them.
9 Six were in their first year of designation,
10 and we were down to 12 districts. In April of
11 1998, we began the school year with only 30 schools
12 on the list, again, about a 60 percent reduction.
13 Twenty of those schools were third-year schools.
14 They had that final year to make changes sufficient
15 to move out of critically low performing school
16 status, or they would be standing in front of you
17 looking at required actions.
18 Ten of those schools were brand new. Again,
19 they were spread across eight districts, and they
20 were from the north to the south across the State
21 of Florida. The piece that gets lost when we talk
22 about critically low performing schools is what has
23 happened to the rest of the schools because the
24 Department does not just work with critically low
25 performing schools.
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1 We, for the first time in '97/'98, over half
2 the schools in the State of Florida have no scores
3 below the state criteria. They were all above
4 that, and that was a real first; so as we were
5 moving through this process, we were, of course,
6 and are focusing on schools that are having low
7 performance. We were also assisting other schools,
8 and they are also moving up.
9 The Department of Education has done this
10 through a limited amount of additional funds that
11 went to each school when they were first
12 designated. We talked a great deal about staff
13 development, offered them staff development through
14 the current avenues in the Department of Education
15 across the state, just in time, training for their
16 teachers, for their principals, for their staff,
17 for their parents.
18 We gave them continued ongoing technical
19 assistance, a great deal of support, a great deal
20 of hand-holding, a great deal of you-can-do-it kind
21 of activity and helped them organize partnerships
22 with their communities, with their university
23 system, with their community colleges, with their
24 business partners to make a difference in the lives
25 of children in these schools.
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1 The next three slides really talk about some
2 of the sample activities that schools have done,
3 and as you just sort of glance at those, let me
4 just in general talk to you about what schools do.
5 Schools that have come off the list have
6 aligned their curriculum first and foremost.
7 They're testing what they're teaching, and they're
8 emphasizing the learning of that teaching: special
9 classes, special activities, special techniques
10 that they're using.
11 These schools have also looked carefully at
12 leadership. Many of the schools have, in fact,
13 changed principals because it takes a different
14 kind of principal to work in a school like this; so
15 we had some very highly skilled principals who were
16 working very hard with staff members.
17 We had mentors for principals, lots of
18 different activities, but leadership both at the
19 schools and district level was paramount to moving
20 these schools forward, and finally, just as in real
21 estate, it's location, location, location. In
22 education, it's focus, focus, focus. We gave them
23 a very clear target.
24 It was important that students learn how to
25 read, write and calculate mathematically. We were
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1 holding schools accountable for that, and schools
2 were looking at not whether they had been taught,
3 but whether or not students were learning; so it
4 was really an emphasis on the performance.
5 Here's the celebration part. Instead of
6 standing before you with 20 different schools and
7 principals, and 7 school superintendents, I'm
8 standing before you to tell you that there are no
9 schools that are currently in third-year status.
10 None of the schools that were originally on
11 the list are still in that performance status.
12 They have all moved up sufficiently; so there are
13 none to report to you and none that require your
14 action.
15 That's the good news. However, these schools
16 are very fragile schools. They are not certainly
17 out of intensive care by any means in the terms of
18 what is going on. They are moving forward. We are
19 continuing to support them.
20 We collaboratively developed recommended
21 action plans that might have been brought to you
22 with the 20 schools and with those 7
23 superintendents, and I'm pleased to tell you that
24 although right now, we have no statutory authority,
25 and we're just doing it on our charm and good
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1 looks, that most of those schools have, in fact,
2 incorporated many of the recommendations we've
3 offered and are moving forward, and we are
4 continuing to support them this year as well.
5 Those draft recommendations that we offered to
6 them were basically in the areas of, again, looking
7 at curriculum instruction and assessment in the
8 areas of reading, writing and mathematics, those
9 areas that we hold schools accountable for, and
10 asking them to infuse even more carefully Sunshine
11 State Standards and move their children in the
12 direction of preparation for the Florida
13 Comprehensive Assessment Test.
14 The partnerships that had begun, we continue
15 to build those and continue to work with them,
16 forge that with both the districts and the
17 communities in which they resided.
18 State university system partnerships were used
19 and have been expanded and have been built upon,
20 and we continue to focus upon data-driven reform
21 and just aggregating the data because there are no
22 children that should be left behind in this
23 accountability process.
24 That's a real important piece of where it is
25 we are now, and where it is we are heading
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1 particularly as we look at the Federal CSR, which
2 are Comprehensive School Reform dollars, and the
3 Florida School Recognition Program that the
4 Legislature authorized just this past session.
5 The accountability for that activity is
6 currently, as you saw in the earlier slides,
7 resting with district-selected norm reference tests
8 and Florida Writes test and the high school
9 competency test.
10 As we move to implement the Sunshine State
11 Standards, which you also unanimously adopted, and
12 move into assessing students on those standards,
13 FCAP, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test,
14 will become part of that accountability system, not
15 for this year's list of schools, but beginning with
16 next year's transition time.
17 We will use it in school accountability to
18 help identify critically low performing schools.
19 We will use it in the School Recognition Program.
20 We currently have a statute that allows us to let
21 students waive the high school competence test if
22 they score high enough on the Florida Comprehensive
23 Assessment Test.
24 Eventually, we'll look at putting Florida
25 Writes into that assessment. We'll be using it for
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1 bright futures. We'll be using it to determine
2 college-ready diplomas, and to determine whether or
3 not students have to take the common placement
4 test.
5 In summary there's a couple of steps I'd kind
6 of like us to follow, and the first one is
7 "celebrate." 158 schools were in serious trouble,
8 and of 2.5 million school children across the State
9 of Florida, that's a significant number of kids.
10 We've helped them. You've helped them by
11 putting into place an accountability system that
12 has some real expectations for all children across
13 the state, and it was not easy. Education in these
14 schools is not for wimps. These principals and
15 teachers worked extremely hard, and their districts
16 worked very hard alongside of them.
17 Secondly, we continue to work with these
18 fragile 20 schools as well as the new critically
19 low schools that will be designated this fall when
20 the data are collected and looked at. We
21 anticipate a handful. They will still be under the
22 current system of accountability using the criteria
23 that you saw earlier in the presentation.
24 Group 2 are those schools that are not
25 critically low, but they're awfully close, and we
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1 don't want to let them slide. Certainly the whole
2 issue of closing the gap and taking this aggregated
3 data is one that we are moving toward and will
4 continue to emphasize.
5 Our third step is we're going to have to raise
6 the bar. We've done very well. We have proven
7 throughout the State of Florida it's not the
8 children. It is the system that we put in place
9 that holds the children to high expectations and
10 supports them as we move them to those high
11 expectations; so we've got to raise the bar to make
12 that even higher and do a better service to our
13 children as well.
14 Once we get to that point, we do it all over
15 again, and celebrate the fact that school
16 improvement is for all children. We have no
17 children left to throw away, none that we can shove
18 on the side, and all the schools are accountable
19 for all the kids at all times; so I salute you and
20 I thank you for allowing us to put this system into
21 place. I hope that you will be just as receptive
22 when we come to you and talk to you about the new
23 criteria for the next time.
24 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you. That's a great
25 report. We're delighted to see that kind of
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1 progress that we've made. From where we started,
2 that's a major, major, major, major achievement,
3 and it shows that if you really set the standards
4 and then give that kind of help and support, that
5 people will adhere to those goals.
6 We're goal-oriented people. We like to know
7 where the bar is, what the goal is. Very good.
8 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Governor, I, too, would
9 like to thank my colleagues on the State Board of
10 Education. I know it is one part of the function
11 that we all serve as Cabinet Members, but I know
12 how attuned each and every one of you are to the
13 issue of education.
14 You've been so supportive when we brought
15 things to you that have been easy to pass and some
16 things that we brought to you that have been
17 controversial and yet have, I think, panned out
18 over time to be very successful. This falls into
19 that category.
20 I know how difficult this one was at the very
21 beginning, and some of the backlash and reaction
22 that all of us faced as members of the State Board,
23 but I think over time, as we have seen these
24 schools move to a greater level of success and as
25 Andrea mentioned, know that they've got miles to go
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1 in many cases.
2 As we come back and talk about now raising the
3 bar, which is the logical next step, we do
4 appreciate your continued support on these efforts,
5 and we congratulate the people who really make it
6 work out there.
7 Those are the teachers and the parents and the
8 students and the people on the front lines who are
9 the ones who really are out there celebrating their
10 success as we move to the next phase of
11 accountability; so thank you-all again very much
12 for your continued support. Andrea, thank you for
13 the presentation.
14 DR. BEDFORD: Oftentimes, we forget to salute
15 people like Andrea and her bureau for the good work
16 they do. I would hope that you would have joined
17 me in applause for her.
18 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Absolutely.
19 DR. BEDFORD: I think we fully expected to be
20 here this year talking about some schools that were
21 going to be in need of your services, and we're
22 quite proud of the fact that they're out there
23 improving on their own rapidly.
24 Item 6, Miami Dade Community College Request
25 for Establishment of a Special Purpose Center at
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1 the Tamiami Aviation Center.
2 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
3 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
5 objection, it's approved.
6 DR. BEDFORD: Item 7, Rule 6A-4.006,
7 Amendment, General and Professional Preparation.
8 We're asking to defer Item 7, Item 8 and Item 9
9 pending a ruling from the upcoming DOAH hearing.
10 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Governor, I would move
11 deferral of Items 7, 8 and 9.
12 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
14 objection 7, 8 and 9 are deferred.
15 DR. BEDFORD: Item 10, Community Colleges,
16 Rule 6A-14.073, Amendment Expenditures.
17 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
18 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
20 objection, it's approved.
21 DR. BEDFORD: Item 11, Rule 6A-14.0734,
22 Amendment to Bidding Requirements. We are asking
23 to withdraw.
24 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move withdrawal.
25 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
2 objection, it's withdrawn.
3 DR. BEDFORD: Item 12, Rule 6C-4.001(3),
4 Amendment: Powers and Duties of University
5 Presidents. This is a State university system
6 rule.
7 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
8 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
10 objection, it's approved.
11 DR. BEDFORD: Item 13, Rule 6CER98-1,
12 Amendment: Tuition, Fee Schedule and Percentage of
13 Cost. Items 13 and 14 go together. Item 13 being
14 the emergency rule to get it in effect now. Item
15 14 to follow the regular deadline.
16 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: I move approval of Items
17 13 and 14, Governor.
18 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Items
20 13 and 14 without objection, approved.
21 DR. BEDFORD: Item 15, Appointment and
22 Reappointment to the District Board of Trustees,
23 Edison Community College, appointment John P.
24 Cardillo, Richard S. Monson to a term expiring May
25 31st in the year 2002. The reappointment of Cathy
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1 S. Reiman to a term May 31st, 2002.
2 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
3 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
5 objection, it's approved.
6 DR. BEDFORD: Item 16, Appointment and
7 Reappointment to the District Board of Trustees,
8 Pensacola Junior College, the appointment of Joseph
9 R. Youd, Jr., the appointment of Antoinette L.
10 Goodman, the reappointment of Diane P. Appleyard to
11 terms ending May 31st, 2002.
12 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
13 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
15 objection, it's approved.
16 DR. BEDFORD: Item 17, Reappointments to the
17 District Board of Trustees, South Florida Community
18 College, Robert E. Hanchey, Jane S. Cline, Dorothy
19 C. Stidham to terms ending May 31st, 2002.
20 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
21 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
23 objection, it's approved.
24 DR. BEDFORD: Item 18, Reappointment to the
25 District Board of Trustees, North Florida Community
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1 College, the appointment of Richard H. Brashear,
2 the reappointment of Elesta C. Pritchett and Sandra
3 K. Haas, terms ending May 31, 2002.
4 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
5 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
7 objection, it's approved.
8 DR. BEDFORD: Item 19, Reappointment to the
9 District Board of Trustees, Miami-Dade Community
10 College, reappointment of Louis Wolfson, III and
11 Newall J. Daughtrey to terms ending May 31st, 2002.
12 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
13 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
15 objection, it's approved.
16 DR. BEDFORD: Item 20, Reappointments to the
17 District Board of Trustees, Gulf Coast Community
18 College, reappointments, George W. Duren, Hugh V.
19 Roche, Jeannette B. Chapman to terms ending May
20 31st, 2002.
21 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
22 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
24 objection, it's approved.
25 DR. BEDFORD: Item 21, Appointment to the
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1 District Board of Trustees, Manatee Community
2 College, the appointment of Gilbert A. Smith to a
3 term ending May 31st, 2002.
4 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
5 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
7 DR. BEDFORD: Thank you.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Without objection, it's
9 approved.
10 DR. BEDFORD: Thank you. That concludes
11 the --
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
13 TREASURER NELSON: Governor, I have one
14 question --
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
16 TREASURER NELSON: -- if I may. It is, along
17 with the Department of Education, if there's a
18 representative of the State University System, I
19 would just encourage you-all when we set up the $20
20 million endowment for the Business Ethics
21 Scholarship Program, that the endowment having come
22 from the fine that I levied on Prudential for the
23 deceptive scheme called "churning," and then we had
24 the Legislature appropriate a million dollars from
25 the Insurance Commissioner's Trust Fund to
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1 kick-start this endowment so that those
2 scholarships -- and that would be a total of some
3 750 full tuition scholarships on the basis of need
4 which start this fall.
5 I want to encourage both the State university
6 system and the Department of Education to
7 communicate so that we can get that money
8 transferred out of the Insurance Commissioner's
9 Trust Fund so that it can have the effect that the
10 legislation appropriation was intended, that is, so
11 that those 750 scholarships can start this year.
12 MS. WILLETT: I'll convey the message.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you very much.
14 DR. BEDFORD: Thank you.
15 (The State Board of Education Agenda was
16 concluded.)
17 *
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Marine Fisheries Commission.
2 DR. NELSON: Governor and Members of the
3 Cabinet, Item A in the agenda is a rule which will
4 extend the prohibition of sale of certain
5 undersized fish.
6 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
7 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
9 objection, it's approved.
10 DR. NELSON: Item B in the agenda extends the
11 500 trip limit, commercial trip limit, for black
12 drum to those harvesters fishing from shore.
13 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
14 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: And second.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
16 objection, it's approved.
17 DR. NELSON: Item C on the agenda --
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
19 objection, it's approved.
20 DR. NELSON: Item C on the agenda conforms
21 state regulations to recent changes in federal
22 regulations in the Gulf of Mexico, Red Snapper
23 Fishery.
24 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move Item C.
25 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
2 objection, Item C is approved.
3 DR. NELSON: At this time, I would like to ask
4 permission to remove -- withdraw Items D, E, F and
5 G from the agenda for the purposes of withdrawing
6 these rules, and I will be making a recommendation
7 to the Commission that we go back to square one and
8 start working around some of the issues that have
9 been raised recently and revisit this whole package
10 of --
11 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Governor, I would move
12 withdrawal of Items D, E, F and G.
13 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
15 objection, they're withdrawn.
16 DR. NELSON: There are two individuals who
17 traveled here. They would like to speak. The
18 first would be Mr. Jim Harvey.
19 MR. HARVEY: Thank you. Good morning,
20 Governor and Cabinet.
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: Good morning.
22 MR. HARVEY: I traveled up from West Palm
23 today. I got up at four o'clock, and I appreciate
24 the opportunity of being able to say just a few
25 short words on this important subject to the fish
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1 farmers of Florida.
2 I'm the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
3 of South Florida Aquaculture, a large hybrid
4 striped bass farmer located adjacent to the
5 Everglades National Park. I'm also on the Board of
6 the Florida Aquaculture Association and the finfish
7 representative to Commissioner of Agriculture
8 Crawford's Aquaculture Review Council.
9 Maybe more important than that, I'm the
10 two-term past chairman of the Florida Conservation
11 Association and a former Marine Patrol auxiliary
12 man. It's from a combination of those experiences
13 I would like to convey to you that the rule that we
14 have before us today won't accomplish the goals
15 that have been set out for the program.
16 The history of hybrid striped bass tagging is
17 clear. It was tried a number of years ago, and it
18 failed. The only fish that's currently being
19 tagged now are wild-caught fish that are caught out
20 of Lake Okeechobee in an attempt to distinguish
21 those fish from other wild-caught fish from Lake
22 Okeechobee.
23 There are other methods of determining where
24 fish come from and where fish eat that are much
25 more effective. We believe that this set of rules
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1 is ineffective, expensive and old-fashioned. Other
2 than that, it's good.
3 What I had heard, rumor had it, that you were
4 desirous of either voting these regulations up or
5 down. I would suggest to you that the few of us
6 that made it up today kind of feel like there's --
7 in Chuck E Cheese -- we still have Chuck E Cheeses
8 in South Florida.
9 Maybe you don't have them up here anymore, but
10 they have this one little game where you have to
11 take a padded mallet and you kind of whop a padded
12 peg, and these things go up and down and you can't
13 really figure out which one you need to apply
14 pressure to the head to make it go down to make a
15 point.
16 We feel the same way about this kind of
17 regulation. This rule has sort of oozed around for
18 a long time. We do believe that this is the time
19 when the staff and the Marine Fisheries Commission,
20 to whom I have a great respect -- I think -- I've
21 met a lot of the Marine Fisheries Commissioners.
22 They're good people, honest people.
23 I think there needs to be an up-front dialogue
24 with fish farmers and the Commissioner of
25 Agriculture, and the next time a rule ever comes
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1 before the Commission, it ought to be well worked
2 out, effective and not so burdensome on the
3 industry. Thanks.
4 DR. NELSON: Mr. Randy Hagood.
5 MR. HAGOOD: Good morning, Governor and
6 Cabinet Members. My name is Randy Hagood. I'm the
7 operational director of American Aqua Resources.
8 We're a marine fish farm in St. Lucie and Indian
9 River County.
10 Ever since I heard about the Marine Fisheries
11 Council's proposed rule to individually tag redfish
12 and spotted sea trout, I tried to make the position
13 known from our company's standpoint and from
14 aquaculture in general, that individually tagging
15 these fish would not work for us.
16 I traveled to the Aquaculture Review Council
17 meetings, the Marine Fisheries Council meetings,
18 the Cabinet Aide's meeting and now the Cabinet
19 meeting itself to make that point known. I hope
20 that the next time the Marine Fisheries Council
21 reviews this issue, that they will allow industry
22 representatives to at least be involved in the
23 drafting of such rules, so that we don't come down
24 the same road again trying to prevent the passage
25 of something that won't work for aquaculture.
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1 Thank you.
2 DR. NELSON: Thank you.
3 (The Marine Fisheries Commission Agenda was
4 concluded.)
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Board of Trustees.
2 MR. GREEN: Item 1, Florida Keys National
3 Marine Sanctuary Annual Report. Governor, we have
4 one speaker, Carl Hagencatter, executive director
5 of the Conch Coalition.
6 MR. HAGENCARTER: Thank you, Governor Chiles
7 and Cabinet for letting me speak here. I have a
8 short letter from the Board of Directors of the
9 Conch Coalition that I would like to read to you.
10 "Two years ago on November 5th, 55
11 percent of the electorate of Monroe County
12 said no Florida Keys National Marine
13 Sanctuary. Three other candidates who
14 supported the sanctuary were also defeated
15 after a state record of 75 percent of voter
16 turnout.
17 "The defeat would have been greater if
18 property owners who couldn't vote in the
19 county could have voted as well. Like any
20 good salesman, the sanctuary folks are
21 going to tell you that things are great in
22 Monroe County now that they are here.
23 "Nothing could be further from the
24 truth. A new election comes September 1st.
25 The Conch Coalition, who prides itself on
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1 keeping its hand on the pulse of the
2 people who work, sacrifice and truly love
3 the Florida Keys, predict an overwhelming
4 win to kick out the remaining residue of
5 people who are recognized as traitors,
6 turncoats and sellouts of basic American
7 freedoms.
8 "The fishermen have tried to work with
9 the sanctuary throughout the whole process
10 and ended up biting the proverbial
11 regulatory bullet. The fishermen have been
12 excluded from specific areas which only
13 puts more concentrated pressure in other
14 areas where other user groups enjoy little
15 or no regulation.
16 "The Board of Trustees in their
17 resolution on January 28th, 1997 warned
18 NOAA that the following were not resolved.
19 Number 7, Purpose/Goals, the measures of
20 its success associated with the Western
21 Sambo Ecological Reserve and prospects
22 designating additional ecological reserves
23 in the future as proposed in the draft
24 management plan.
25 "We already know that the impact to
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1 fishermen in the Sambo zone are over
2 $1,700,000 with the State signing off on 65
3 percent of those impacts. The proposed and
4 presently proceeding regulatory process in
5 Dry Tortugas contains eight times as many
6 fishermen with impact to the fishery
7 expected to be around $13,600,000.
8 "The total impact to all amended
9 groups is in excess of $27 million. The
10 Office of the Governor in a letter to
11 Secretary William Daily in the Department
12 of Commerce on March 20th, 1997, kept the
13 authority to initiate proposed changes.
14 "I quote from that letter. Quote, the
15 State reserves the right to initiate
16 proposed changes to the plan and NOAA, if
17 necessary, shall initiate the federal rule
18 promulgation process required to make the
19 revisions for sanctuary regulations
20 requested by the Board of Trustees.
21 "You, sir, have the right to make NOAA
22 go back and stop these impacts to the
23 citizens and business of Florida which they
24 have already admitted may be an impact in
25 the Federal Register. Our question to the
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1 Board of Trustees is, are you going to
2 start that process and help to stop the
3 damages?"
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: We'll certainly consider it.
5 MR. HAGENCARTER: Thank you, sir. Who should
6 I get with?
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: You can get with Danny Fuchs
8 and Estus Whitfield.
9 MR. HAGENCARTER: Thank you.
10 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
11 MR. GREEN: Item 1?
12 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move acceptance.
13 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
15 objection, Item 1 is approved.
16 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: I'm sorry, sir. Could I
17 ask you a question? Generally speaking -- and I
18 understand the gentleman's concern regarding
19 western Sambo, but relative to the whole issue,
20 that was a pretty significant move for the State
21 Board of Trustees.
22 In the Department's opinion, do things seem to
23 be working out generally speaking, and I know we've
24 got a long way to go on some of the specific
25 issues, but generally speaking?
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1 MR. GREEN: Commissioner, we think they have.
2 There's been quite an effort to try to involve the
3 community in decisions that are being made down
4 there in the sanctuary, and overall we think that
5 it's been a positive move.
6 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Thank you, Governor.
7 MR. GREEN: Item 2, recommend withdrawal.
8 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move withdrawal.
9 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
10 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
11 objection, Item 2 is withdrawn.
12 MR. GREEN: Item 3, modification of a
13 five-year sovereignty submerged land lease.
14 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
15 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
17 objection, Item 3 is approved.
18 MR. GREEN: Substitute Item 4, modification of
19 a 20-year sovereignty submerged land lease.
20 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
21 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
23 objection, it's approved.
24 MR. GREEN: Item 5, recommend withdrawal.
25 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move withdrawal.
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1 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
2 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Item 5
3 is withdrawn without objection.
4 MR. GREEN: Item 6, approval of an initial
5 20-year sovereignty submerged land lease.
6 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
7 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
9 objection, it's approved.
10 MR. GREEN: Item 7, an option agreement/survey
11 waiver for Belle Meade CARL Project.
12 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
13 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
15 objection, Item 7 is approved.
16 MR. GREEN: Item 8, option agreement for Belle
17 Meade CARL Project.
18 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
19 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
20 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
21 objection, Item 8 approved.
22 MR. GREEN: Substitute Item 9, thirteen option
23 agreements to Save Our Everglades CARL Project.
24 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
25 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
2 objection, it's approved.
3 MR. GREEN: Governor, we have three speakers
4 on that and would like to briefly --
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: On Item 9?
6 MR. GREEN: Yes, sir.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right.
8 MR. GREEN: The first one is Bill Roberts.
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: We will withdraw the motion
10 and the vote; so we'll have a chance to hear from
11 the speakers.
12 MR. ROBERTS: Governor and Members of the
13 Cabinet, I'm Bill Roberts, and I represent the 13
14 corporations and Clifford Fort who are the owners
15 of this property. I don't often ask to speak when
16 we have recommendation of approval on an item, but
17 I did want to say, this is a culmination of more
18 than five years of negotiations.
19 If it were not for the effort, the
20 extraordinary effort of the staff of the Board of
21 Trustees and Estus Whitfield along with Ed Kuester,
22 Perry Odom, Kirby Green, Mike Ashey and Pete
23 Mallison, we would be litigating instead of
24 reaching this settlement.
25 I just wanted to recognize and commend them
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1 for their effort in making this whole process work.
2 This is a critical parcel of land for the
3 rehydration of the Everglades and just thought they
4 should be recognized. We appreciate it.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you. I hope we can
6 pass this again. Is there a motion?
7 MR. GREEN: Governor, we have two more
8 speakers.
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Oh, we've got more speakers?
10 Okay. Well, we'll --
11 MR. GREEN: Pete Mallison and then Steve
12 Lewis.
13 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Kirby is enjoying the
14 congratulations he's getting here.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes.
16 MR. LEWIS: Thank you, Kirby, and thank you,
17 Governor, for giving me the opportunity to just
18 give you a status report. You may remember that
19 approximately a year ago last August we presented a
20 settlement agreement, which Mr. Roberts referred
21 to, for your consideration.
22 This settlement agreement required that at
23 least 50 percent of 39 -- of in excess of 3900
24 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Board of
25 Trustees had to agree to sell their property if we
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1 would appraise it under a process that involved a
2 joint selection of the appraisers.
3 To date, we have had 3,186 of the plaintiffs
4 of a required half, which would have been about --
5 less than 2,000 sign up for that. That represents
6 82 percent of the plaintiffs. The settlement
7 agreement required merely 50 percent.
8 Through this agreement, we will anticipate
9 acquiring approximately 7,000 additional acres in
10 this project from, as I mentioned, in excess of
11 3,000 owners. The reappraisal under the terms of
12 the settlement agreement have been completed, as I
13 mentioned, through a joint selection process, and
14 we anticipate the closings on these properties will
15 begin next month.
16 Also, I would remind you that we received a
17 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant to buy
18 property within this project that constituted $25
19 million. That is, also, going to go a long way
20 towards allowing us to complete this important
21 project for the rehydration of the area of Florida.
22 Like Bill, I would, also, like to mention that
23 the Lewis and Longman law firm was particularly
24 instrumental in making sure that the settlement
25 agreement was successful, especially Steve Lewis,
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1 and I would also personally like to offer my
2 congratulations and thanks to my assistant, Mike
3 Ashey, and his assistant, Rob Lovern, and John
4 Costigan of the General Counsel's office who
5 assisted us in this tremendous exercise. Thank
6 you.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
8 MR. GREEN: Steve Lewis is the last speaker.
9 MR. LEWIS: Governor, Members of the Board,
10 I'm Steve Louis for the Lewis and Longman law firm.
11 To paraphrase everything that Pete and Bill said,
12 this really wouldn't have happened but for the
13 spirit of cooperation that we had from the DEP and
14 the staff.
15 Pete, Mike Ashey and others were very
16 instrumental in helping us forge this settlement
17 agreement. The item -- the reason I'm speaking is,
18 there is language in the item that discusses that
19 in our settlement agreement, we had first priority,
20 and no other acquisitions could proceed until we
21 were taken care of.
22 However, there is enough money, particularly
23 with the grants and the federal government, that
24 it's been set aside to ensure that we do, in fact,
25 get these closings accomplished. Thus, we don't
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1 have any objection to proceeding with this and some
2 of the other acquisitions that may be coming down
3 the pipeline.
4 I kind of felt like during this process, I was
5 hurting cats. This was a very, very difficult
6 thing to resolve, and I am convinced that but for
7 the staff of the Department of Environmental
8 Protection, we would have never gotten here.
9 They do need to be recognized for that.
10 There's 3300 people out there that were suing the
11 State, and essentially we've kind of wiped that off
12 the docket.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you. We're delighted
14 to hear those good words about DEP.
15 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Governor, move the item
16 be denied.
17 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right.
18 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Just kidding. I would
19 move approval and thank everyone who worked so hard
20 on this one. I know a lot of time and energy went
21 into this one, and you're all to be commended for
22 it. It's a very important acquisition.
23 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
24 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
25 objection, it's approved and thank you very much.
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1 MR. GREEN: Item 10, option agreement for
2 Wekiva-Ocala Greenway.
3 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
4 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
6 objection, it's approved.
7 MR. GREEN: Item 11, Wakulla Springs
8 Protection Zone CARL Project Acquisition
9 Delegation.
10 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
11 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
13 objection, it's approved.
14 MR. GREEN: Substitute Item 12, acquire an
15 undivided 50 percent interest from the St. Johns
16 County and the Brevard Coastal Scrub Ecosystem.
17 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
18 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
20 objection, Item 12 is approved.
21 MR. GREEN: Item 13, Option Agreement/Survey
22 Waivers/Charlotte Harbor CARL Project.
23 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
24 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
25 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
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1 objection, it's approved.
2 MR. GREEN: Item 14, an Option
3 Agreement/Florida Springs Coastal Greenway.
4 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
5 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
7 objection, it's approved.
8 MR. GREEN: Item 15, Option Agreement/Survey
9 Waiver/Shell Island.
10 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
11 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
13 objection, it's approved.
14 MR. GREEN: Item 16, Purchase
15 Agreements/Survey Waivers/Cape Romano Barrier
16 Island.
17 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
18 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
20 objection, it's approved.
21 MR. GREEN: Item 17, Purchase Agreement for
22 the Department of Agriculture and Consumer
23 Services.
24 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
25 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
2 objection, it's approved.
3 MR. GREEN: Item 18, Option Agreement/Florida
4 Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission.
5 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
6 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
8 objection, it's approved.
9 MR. GREEN: Item 19, Purchase Agreement for
10 FSU's Board of Regents.
11 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
12 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
13 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
14 objection, it's approved.
15 MR. GREEN: Item 20, St. Johns County School
16 Board Dedication. Governor, I need to make a
17 statement on this one. The lots are smaller than
18 five acres in size in a total, and the value is
19 less than $100,000.
20 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move approval.
21 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
23 objection, it's approved.
24 MR. GREEN: Item 21, Surplus Land Sale/Orange
25 County.
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1 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Move approval.
2 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
3 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded.
4 Without objection, it's approved.
5 MR. GREEN: Substitute Item 22, City of Key
6 West/Houseboat Row. We have four speakers. The
7 first speaker will be John Costigan, attorney with
8 our staff, to lay out the litigation history.
9 MR. COSTIGAN: Good morning. Chronologically,
10 I will start right in, Governor and Members of the
11 Cabinet. In the 1970s, the City of Key West
12 decided to remove Houseboat Row. At that time, the
13 city characterized Houseboat Row as a problem as
14 unauthorized residential floating homes and other
15 structures.
16 The City itself passed an ordinance under its
17 police power to attempt to remove Houseboat Row
18 which resulted in litigation in which the City's
19 ordinance was rendered unconstitutional in the
20 early '80s.
21 As a result of that ruling, the City came to
22 the Board of Trustees in 1982 and asked the Board
23 of Trustees for permission to enter into a
24 management agreement with the Board for the express
25 purpose of removing Houseboat Row.
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1 The Governor and Cabinet at that time agreed
2 with the City of Key West, and a management
3 agreement was entered into in early 1983 that
4 called for the City to present a basic plan for
5 removal and restoration of the area.
6 The City embarked upon that program. The
7 first thing the City did was to determine which of
8 those structures could remain temporarily while the
9 City went forward and spent approximately $1
10 million expanding its marina, its city-owned
11 marina, at Garrison Bight for the purpose of
12 relocating the vessels.
13 The residents at Houseboat Row, the 26
14 structures that were allowed to remain after that
15 execution of the management agreement in 1983,
16 signed leases with the City, temporary leases,
17 agreeing to move their structures or their floating
18 homes to Garrison Bight Marina at such time as the
19 City advised that Garrison Bight Marina had been
20 expanded to accommodate them.
21 The City even went so far as to measure each
22 of these structures on Houseboat Row to ensure that
23 the facilities at Garrison Bight would accommodate
24 them. The expansion of Garrison Bight Marina took
25 a while, and in the early '90s, the City approached
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1 completion of that expansion and began addressing
2 the question with Houseboat Row's individuals of
3 moving their structures to Garrison Bight Marina.
4 They were not agreeable to honoring the terms
5 of their leases with the City and removing to
6 Garrison Bight. The City of Key West, at that
7 time, approached the Department of Natural
8 Resources and staff to the Board of Trustees and
9 asked the State of Florida and DNR to assist them,
10 if it became necessary, to sue the Houseboat Row
11 residents to make them live up to their promises in
12 the lease, live up to the terms of the management
13 agreement and to clean up Houseboat Row.
14 The Houseboat Row residents responded with the
15 filing of their first lawsuit against you, the
16 Board of Trustees and DNR in the United States
17 District Court in the Southern District, and they
18 claimed in that lawsuit and they sought a ruling by
19 the federal court that the United States of America
20 had preempted the area of anchoring and mooring and
21 regulating live-aboards and what happens on the
22 water.
23 That resulted in a decision in late 1993 by
24 the United States District Court that held
25 expressly, no, the United States had not preempted
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1 this field, that you, the Board of Trustees, under
2 the Public Trust Doctrine, have a fiduciary duty to
3 hold and manage in trust for all the people of the
4 State of Florida sovereign submerged lands, and
5 that you have and had the authority to enter into
6 the management agreement and to compel unauthorized
7 structures to vacate the public's land.
8 The next step taken by the Houseboat Row
9 residents was to sue you and the City of Key West
10 and DNR and, I think DER at that time, alleging
11 under section 403.412, Florida Statutes, which is
12 commonly referred to as the "Private Attorney
13 General's Act" litigation for purposes of
14 environmental pollution, sued you and the others
15 alleging that you had failed in your
16 responsibilities by failing to move other vessels
17 and structures on which people were living in the
18 Key West area, specifically those structures out in
19 Cow Key Channel, out from Houseboat Row.
20 This lawsuit was primarily an effort to
21 distinguish themselves from the people in Cow Key
22 Channel to try and draw a public perception that
23 they were okay and the people out there were not.
24 That litigation was finally dismissed this spring,
25 early 1998.
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1 In the meantime, in early 1994, the City of
2 Key West, the petitioner here today, and the Board
3 of Trustees, we, on your behalf, after receiving
4 authorization from the Attorney General under
5 Delegation ED-10, proceeded to sue the 26
6 structures and its residents for ejectment by you,
7 the Board of Trustees as the underlying owners, and
8 the City, under count 2, for eviction under the
9 terms of the leases.
10 This litigation lasted three to four years and
11 resulted in April 1997 in a final judgment by the
12 circuit court in Key West of a judgment of
13 ejectment on your behalf saying, it's your property
14 on behalf of the public, generally, Houseboat Row
15 has no entitlement to be there, and they should
16 vacate the area.
17 The residents of Houseboat Row appealed that
18 decision to the Third District Court of Appeal.
19 The City of Key West and the Board of Trustees were
20 the respondents or the appellees in that appeal,
21 and the Third District Court of Appeal this spring
22 affirmed that decision.
23 An effort was made by Houseboat Row to take it
24 to the Florida Supreme Court, and that was
25 unsuccessful. Now, during this time last fall, the
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1 residents of Houseboat Row were successful in
2 placing before the voters of the City of Key West a
3 referendum.
4 That referendum curiously phrased states:
5 "Shall the City petition the State of
6 Florida to acquire Houseboat Row for the
7 purpose of assessing and collecting taxes
8 to the City of Key West, connecting
9 houseboats to the City's sewer system at
10 individual houseboat owners' expense, and
11 providing for payment to the State of
12 Florida for the use of the submerged lands
13 by Houseboat Row."
14 Now, despite this referendum, initially the
15 City of Key West voted, I believe, 5 to 2 to
16 continue its effort with the Board of Trustees to
17 seek removal of Houseboat Row. The City was then
18 threatened by Houseboat Row with recall petitions
19 of those five commissioners alleging that they
20 would be in violation of, in effect, the City
21 charter if they took that position.
22 The City then submitted its petition to this
23 Board asking that Houseboat Row be allowed to
24 reside permanently on public land. There's one
25 additional piece of litigation that was filed at
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1 about the time the Court issued its final judgment
2 last spring -- I mean, spring 1997, and that was a
3 suit against the City and against you, as the Board
4 of Trustees, alleging that you had violated the
5 Sunshine Law by having secret meetings.
6 They actually alleged that I sort of appointed
7 myself as the Governor and Cabinet, and I had
8 secret meetings. I assure you it's not true, but
9 that litigation was sort of a red herring that was
10 filed by them to try to divert attention, the
11 Court's attention, from entering a final judgment,
12 and yesterday I received a faxed copy of the
13 voluntary dismissal of that litigation.
14 At this point, all litigation is concluded.
15 The circuit court, Third District Court of Appeal
16 and the Florida Supreme Court have ruled against
17 Houseboat Row remaining. The City is here before
18 you asking -- the staff feels in its recommendation
19 for something that is contrary to many, many things
20 contained within your long-standing policies and in
21 the rules and the law.
22 They are asking you to act contrary to 15
23 years of cooperation with the City of Key West and
24 at great expense in trying to deal with the problem
25 of Houseboat Row. They're asking you to do
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1 something that is contrary to long-held principles
2 under your public trust fiduciary responsibilities
3 regarding the preemption of public lands for
4 private use.
5 They are asking you to act contrary to your
6 own rules prohibiting non-water dependent
7 structures and residential housing on sovereign
8 submerged lands, and frankly, they're asking you by
9 doing this, by making these exceptions, to send a
10 signal to the City and its other alleged 800
11 live-aboards and its affordable housing problems
12 and to others who would live on the public's land
13 around Florida, that it's okay to do so.
14 For these reasons, the staff has clearly
15 recommended that the Board respectfully say no to
16 the City of Key West, that, no, Houseboat Row
17 cannot remain on the public's land and preempt it
18 for its own personal use, and at the same time as a
19 result of the Cabinet aides' meeting last week, we,
20 Department of Environmental Protection and staff,
21 agreed to not go out immediately and enforce the
22 order of ejectment, but to allow the City and
23 Houseboat Row an additional six months within which
24 to move these structures and these vessels to some
25 other appropriate location. Thank you.
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1 Any questions?
2 GOVERNOR CHILES: Questions?
3 (No response.)
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
5 MR. GREEN: The next speaker is Bob Tschinkel,
6 city attorney for the City of Key West.
7 MR. TSCHINKEL: Governor and Members of the
8 Cabinet, thank you very much. My name is Bob
9 Tschinkel. I am the city attorney of Key West. I
10 have a brief presentation for you. With me is
11 David Holtz for the Center of Marine Conservation,
12 who will also have a brief presentation, and then
13 our Mayor, Sheila Mullens, would like to make a few
14 concluding remarks. Also, with us in the audience
15 today is our city manager, Julio Avael.
16 Yes, it's true that the City did join with the
17 State in the eviction and the ejectment action and
18 your victory was our victory, and we think it was a
19 correct victory, but some things have happened
20 since then.
21 There was a referendum that found that -- that
22 approved by the voters that approved the idea of
23 preserving Houseboat Row, and what followed that
24 was some soul-searching by the members of the City
25 Commission as well as citizens alike who started
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1 wondering what it was that we might lose if we lose
2 Houseboat Row.
3 Feeling developed that Houseboat Row is a part
4 of the fabric of our city, or as a preservationist
5 might say, part of the city's vernacular, and we
6 started thinking of Houseboat Row in terms of
7 preservation.
8 Our proposal to you today is to change
9 somewhat the recommendation of your staff to you.
10 Staff has asked you to defer ejectment for six
11 months and to deny our petition. We would instead
12 ask you to just defer the ejectment and hold denial
13 in abeyance while we explore certain things.
14 We'd like to look at Houseboat Row in terms of
15 preservation akin to historic preservation. We
16 have a talent for historic preservation in Key
17 West. We have a thriving historic district. We
18 have a Community Redevelopment Agency that has
19 revived our Key West Bight Harbor area and also
20 preserved our Bahama Village neighborhood from
21 gentrification.
22 We've also recently set up a Naval Property
23 Redevelopment Authority to take surplus naval
24 property, and when we do that eventually, there
25 will be a redevelopment of that property with an
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1 eye towards preservation as well.
2 The City of Key West is a place, to a great
3 degree, where the past informs the future, where
4 the idea of water-oriented activities of a port
5 like Key West and a commercial and a former
6 shrimping center like Key West, where
7 water-oriented purposes are part of our heritage.
8 That's how we started to see Houseboat Row.
9 As we explore preservation of Houseboat Row,
10 we would also offer to you that perhaps the
11 administrative rules of the Department, of DEP, be
12 changed to provide a preservation exception to
13 live-aboards.
14 There's one other point I'd like to make. By
15 coincidence, the City of Key West and DOT have been
16 engaged in a five-year plan to restore, repair
17 redesign South Roosevelt Boulevard, and why that's
18 relevant is that the houseboats are attached to a
19 T-wall that is part of South Roosevelt Boulevard.
20 South Roosevelt Boulevard is owned by the
21 State through its Department of Transportation; so
22 in a sense, the City is not an appropriate
23 applicant to ask you for a submerged land lease
24 today, and we framed our petition to you not to ask
25 you for a submerged land lease, but instead, to
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1 defer your decision on the submerged land lease
2 until we can become a more appropriate applicant to
3 you.
4 This fall, I anticipate that the City and DOT
5 will be entering into negotiations to conclude a
6 five-year project whereby the City might become the
7 owner of the South Roosevelt Boulevard. It's
8 something DOT would like to have happen if for no
9 other reason but every time there's a slip and fall
10 or an accident along Roosevelt Boulevard, we get
11 into a problem of who the appropriate defendant is;
12 so we would like to come back to you at a later
13 date and be that applicant for the submerged land
14 lease. Thank you. I'll defer now to David Holtz.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
16 MR. HOLTZ: Thank you. My name is David
17 Holtz. I'm the Florida Keys Program Manager for
18 the Center for Marine Conservation, and we're a
19 national environmental organization that's
20 concerned with the abundance and diversity of our
21 ocean.
22 I'm here just to let the Governor and the
23 Cabinet know that we have been asked by the City,
24 and we have accepted, to provide assistance as they
25 develop a plan, a comprehensive plan, to deal with
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1 what I believe is really a much larger
2 environmental question than Houseboat Row, the 26
3 boats, but rather the hundreds of boats that are
4 anchored on state-submerged lands and other areas
5 around Key West.
6 I believe that it would be -- make my job much
7 more difficult in addressing this long-standing
8 problem if the State were to take action to evict
9 Houseboat Row at this time.
10 I think it would make it more difficult for a
11 couple of reasons. One, there isn't enough
12 resources on the part of the State to be able to
13 adequately deal with the hundreds and hundreds of
14 boats that have anchored off the shores of Key West
15 over recent years for a number of reasons.
16 There just isn't the resources; so that means
17 that those owners of those vessels are going to
18 have to be engaged in a cooperative effort with the
19 State and the City to develop a comprehensive plan
20 much in the way a similar plan was developed in
21 Boot Key Harbor in Monroe County.
22 Another hat I wear is to chair the County's
23 Marine and Port Advisory Committee. That took us a
24 couple of years, but we have come up with an
25 arrangement with the live-aboard community there
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1 that both satisfied environmental concerns and
2 allows them to primarily live the way they have
3 wanted to live.
4 I just wanted to request that you consider
5 giving us the opportunity to address this larger
6 issue by giving us a time to include Houseboat Row
7 in a comprehensive live-aboard plan that will
8 address our water quality concerns. Thank you.
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
10 MS. MULLENS: Good afternoon, I appreciate the
11 opportunity to address you today. I'm here -- my
12 name is Sheila Mullens. I'm the Mayor of Key West,
13 Florida, and I'm here to request a deferment on
14 both items for the following reasons: I think that
15 the City Attorney pretty much covered the
16 referendum by the voters, and in this week, I have
17 received a lot of phone calls from constituents
18 since we were here before the Cabinet aides, and
19 they have been asking for this deferment.
20 It is a historic neighborhood. I have a
21 letter from Sharon Wells who now sits on our HARK
22 Board, and if I could just read one excerpt:
23 "At the opposite end of our island
24 lies Houseboat Row. It's a small community
25 of houseboats and live-aboards which has
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1 played an important role in Key West's more
2 recent history for over nearly 50 years.
3 "It has survived as a cohesive
4 neighborhood providing housing to artists,
5 writers, fishermen, tourist industry
6 workers and locals of all walks of life,
7 and over the course of its life, the Row
8 has evolved as a popular visual attraction
9 to millions of tourists who discover and
10 explore Key West.
11 "Houseboat Row has played an intrinsic
12 role in Key West's cultural ambiance for
13 almost half a century."
14 And then she gives her qualifications of which
15 I have told you. I realize that, you know, this is
16 a difficult situation for you because it is against
17 policy, and it puts the Board of Trustees in a
18 difficult position.
19 However, this isn't a water-quality issue
20 involving Houseboat Row because they are not
21 polluting even at this present time. They're using
22 pump-out, and they have regular garbage pickup and
23 so forth, and as David Holtz mentioned, this is a
24 part of a much larger problem.
25 We have in excess of a thousand live-aboards
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1 around the island of Key West, and I think that the
2 City and the State will have a very difficult time
3 resolving these definite pollution problems on the
4 part of some of these live-aboards if we don't have
5 the trust of the people who are involved in this
6 and the people of the City of Key West.
7 I would like you to defer on both of these
8 items so that we can elicit the help of the people
9 and their cooperation and this comprehensive
10 live-aboard plan, that regardless of what happens
11 with Houseboat Row, we are going to proceed with
12 anyway because it's a water-quality issue that we
13 have to deal with.
14 We are dealing with a new commission now, and
15 also there's a different spirit of cooperation on
16 the part of the people of Houseboat Row because
17 they've exhausted their own possibilities. These
18 groups that we're trying to call together to be a
19 part of our water quality -- excuse me,
20 comprehensive live-aboard plan will be members of
21 the state and federal agencies, people from the
22 city, live-aboards, and we need time to get this
23 task force together.
24 If we can have this deferment, we don't know
25 yet at this point what the conclusions that the
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1 comprehensive live-aboard plan group will come up
2 with. If Houseboat Row has to be relocated, we
3 will need time to find a place to relocate them
4 because since Garrison Bight's completion, other
5 boats have now moved into the spaces that were
6 being held for Houseboat Row; so that possibility
7 doesn't exhibit for them any longer.
8 We are getting some Navy reuse properties on
9 the other side of the island, and there's a
10 possibility that some of our charter boats could go
11 over there, and Garrison Bight where the bay bottom
12 is owned by the City would be a suitable place for
13 the houseboats, but that's not possible right now.
14 If they are allowed to stay and they are
15 hooked up to a sewer system, one of the things that
16 people have said to me this week is, they want to
17 make sure that no changes are made in our land
18 development regulations or in our zoning that would
19 make it possible later for commercial development
20 to ever happen at this site; so this is a very thin
21 line between preserving this place and preserving
22 what a lot of people in Key West consider to be a
23 heritage that we're losing quickly.
24 There's a homogenization going on in Key West.
25 We're trying to stop that, and Houseboat Row is one
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1 factor in the many, many factors that make Key West
2 a unique and different place. In order to get the
3 help of our citizens in this really much needed and
4 very large project, I'm asking you to defer on both
5 of the items so that we'll have time to come up
6 with this comprehensive live-aboard plan, and based
7 on their conclusions, either relocate Houseboat Row
8 to another place or make sure, if we can have the
9 conveyance from FDOT, that no abuses of the
10 environment occur, and that no future development
11 as a marina ever happens in that spot.
12 So I would ask for your help and consideration
13 on this issue. As elected officials, you know what
14 a position it is when you're an elected official
15 and the people in your city have asked you to carry
16 their ideas forward, and this is what we're here
17 today to bring to you. Thank you very much.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
19 MR. GREEN: That completes the speaker list.
20 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Governor, could I get a
21 feel for the amount of time they're talking about
22 deferring, how much deferral is needed? I mean, 22
23 years or 38 years or 6 months?
24 MR. GREEN: Comptroller, the discussions we've
25 had with the City is by the time we get the task
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1 force together, we outline a plan and we put that
2 plan into some type of action, we're looking at a
3 minimum of 18 to 24 months before we would be in
4 position to move the people off of Houseboat Row,
5 if that was the outcome of the study, to some other
6 location; so it appears that the total time between
7 now and when we would actually take some action
8 with deferral with their recommendation would be at
9 least 18 to 24 months.
10 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Okay. So a couple of
11 years is what's being looked for.
12 MS. MULLENS: And I would just like to add
13 that I know that you hear often that people are
14 going to do things and that -- you know, then it's
15 very hard to see the results. In this case, we
16 will be willing to report and work with the DEP and
17 give you regular reports, and if we do not fulfill
18 the obligations that we commit to at any time
19 during that time, we understand that Houseboat Row
20 could be evicted if we don't comply with what we
21 have said we will comply with.
22 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: This has been going on,
23 Governor, for a long time obviously, since 1970,
24 and I guess, you know, there's been a lot of
25 acrimony and suits and conflict over this thing.
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1 It looks to me like finally maybe people are --
2 GOVERNOR CHILES: It's been going on about as
3 long as the monkeys have been on the island.
4 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: You got it. -- maybe
5 coming together on this thing, and I would be
6 inclined to consider giving them a deferral with
7 the idea that they report back periodically, and if
8 they don't meet the cut, then we take whatever
9 action is appropriate.
10 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Governor, I have a
11 question also --
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, ma'am.
13 SECRETARY MORTHAM: -- of any of the three
14 speakers. I received a letter from Reef Relief
15 which is obviously a group down in your local area.
16 It's actually two paragraphs, and they seem to
17 contradict one another.
18 The first paragraph basically says that this
19 is a great and wonderful thing, and then it
20 proceeds in the second paragraph to say that the
21 State and the City need to deal with the water
22 degradation, and that, in fact, the property owner
23 should be cited for maintaining a public nuisance
24 and for allowing daily violations of state water
25 quality standards to occur.
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1 I guess my question is that, I believe the
2 Mayor stated that there is no water degradation,
3 and I have a real -- I mean, there seems to be a
4 differing of opinion. I'd like to know what is
5 correct.
6 MR. HOLTZ: Perhaps I can clarify that 'cause
7 I am familiar with the letter and the intent of
8 Devonne Cuerlo who wrote the letter. The situation
9 is that she refers to two things, Houseboat Row in
10 the first paragraph, and that second paragraph
11 actually goes to the issue that I raised which is
12 the larger problem.
13 That area she refers to in the second
14 paragraph is part of an area that is not part of
15 Houseboat Row, but where live-aboard vessels are
16 anchored which is a water-quality problem that
17 needs to be addressed.
18 There are other areas similar to that; so I
19 think the point she's making is that she would like
20 to see us keep Houseboat Row for the time being,
21 but address this larger problem. I would like to
22 do that as well.
23 Those vessels that she refers to out in Cow
24 Key Channel present a water-quality problem, no
25 question about it, and that isn't the only area.
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1 It's a huge problem actually, and it's growing, and
2 I don't see it getting -- changing much, and I
3 think that's the distinction she's making.
4 SECRETARY MORTHAM: So specifically to the
5 area that we're dealing with today, there is not a
6 degradation of the water supply you're saying?
7 MR. HOLTZ: Well, I'm not going to say one way
8 or another 'cause I don't know the answer to that.
9 I think that there are 26 vessels in the area that
10 you're dealing with today. I don't know the
11 status. I assume when the Mayor -- the Mayor has
12 visited those homes, and she's inspected them. I
13 haven't.
14 Regardless of that, even setting aside that
15 issue, those are 26 houseboats, and there are
16 hundreds and hundreds of other anchored vessels out
17 in state-submerged lands and other areas like the
18 one referred to in this letter that we know from
19 other water-quality testing that's been done, that
20 there is a water-quality problem with.
21 I don't know personally whether there's a
22 water-quality problem at Houseboat Row or not, but
23 it's 26 vessels compared to hundreds in other
24 places. The other places including that area that
25 Devonne Cuerlo referenced in that letter you have.
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1 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Governor, if I may.
2 But if I understood what I've heard here this
3 morning, that when -- if you are given a deferment
4 on this particular issue, you are addressing the
5 totality of the live-aboard issue that you have in
6 Key West, and you will not only resolve the
7 Houseboat Row situation, but the total aspects of
8 the live-aboard situation in Key West.
9 MR. GREEN: That's part of the discussions
10 we've had with them is it has to be a total
11 package. One distinction I'd like to make sure
12 that you understand. These 26 or 27 houseboats are
13 really not what you would typically classify as a
14 houseboat.
15 They're not capable of navigation like a boat
16 that someone lives aboard on. These have been
17 permanent for a long period of time. Some of them
18 are on barges, and they've built a superstructure
19 on top of them; so these aren't the typical
20 houseboats.
21 Some of them are very large. These aren't the
22 typical houseboats and live-aboards that you would
23 think of; so we draw a distinction between the two.
24 We see this as an issue that's starting to deal
25 with what type of uses are we going to allow on all
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1 of the sovereign submerged lands of Florida.
2 If we're going to allow them to be used for
3 low-cost housing in this area, then we feel like
4 there are going to be other areas of the state that
5 are going to ask for those same considerations; so
6 it's a real big issue.
7 It's one that's been under study for a while,
8 and we're at this point, and we think we should
9 move forward with the staff's recommendation.
10 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Governor, as the chief
11 historical officer in the state, I'd just like to
12 say that certainly Monroe County and Key West in
13 particular have received many dollars from a
14 historic preservation aspect, and they do have a
15 very, very rich historical background, and they've
16 done very well in preserving it.
17 I would agree with the Comptroller that I
18 wouldn't have a problem with a deferral so long as
19 the City was willing to take on the much larger
20 issue which is all of the houseboats in that area,
21 and that it was done in a somewhat more condensed
22 time frame.
23 I mean, we have -- I think the Governor
24 mentioned, it's probably been going on now for some
25 20-plus years at this, and it would seem to me
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1 that, you know, we need to move forward. Incumbent
2 upon this Cabinet to do that; so I don't know what
3 the exact time frame might be, but certainly, I
4 think that it's in everybody's best interest to get
5 this moving on.
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: What's your pleasure?
7 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I will try to make a
8 motion, Governor, that I think might make some
9 sense, and that is that we defer this decision at
10 this point, and that we ask them to come back,
11 let's say in three months, with their plan.
12 At that time, we will look at what it is they
13 are proposing to do with a reasonable time
14 schedule, and if that plan makes sense and looks
15 like it's going to ultimately resolve the problem,
16 then we can march forward, or we can make a
17 determination then to execute the Houseboat Row
18 displacement or whatever you're calling it --
19 moving them anyway from one point to another.
20 SECRETARY MORTHAM: I'll second that.
21 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: General, is
22 that motion in essence to defer this item and then
23 action on it next time, or just defer the item and
24 in three months have to give report? If we just
25 defer the item, and if they don't have a report, we
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1 can just take action.
2 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: It is the intent that
3 in three months, we would make a concerted decision
4 either to execute the removal of the houseboats
5 from Houseboat Row or that it be effected, or
6 support a plan that they have developed that will
7 lead to the resolution of the Houseboat Row problem
8 the other live-aboard problems that they have there
9 in Key West.
10 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: If I understand
11 it, Governor, I guess it would be that we're
12 deferring the item for three months, and if they
13 cannot plead mercy well enough, we'll convict them.
14 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I guess that's one way
15 of putting it, yes. If they cannot --
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: So the hatchet
17 will fall in three months if they don't have a
18 plan?
19 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Yes. If they cannot
20 show that they are going to solve this problem and
21 do it reasonably expeditiously and solve the total
22 problem as well as the Houseboat Row problem, then
23 I think it'd be incumbent upon us to, in fact, let
24 the ax fall.
25 GOVERNOR CHILES: Further discussion?
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1 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Governor, I think while
2 the Cabinet process has pros and cons, I guess,
3 depending on who you talk to, one of the pros it
4 certainly has is an ability to light a public fire
5 under some issues that probably should have been
6 cleared up before they ever reached the State Board
7 of Trustees.
8 We've found it over and over. We've found it
9 several times in the Keys, and I think that the
10 General is right. This probably should have
11 already been handled, but in light of the fact that
12 we have not lit a public fire under the issue, I
13 think the 90 days is a very reasonable position
14 with the full knowledge that at the end of the 90
15 days, without a reasonable plan being brought
16 forward, we have a staff recommendation that, I for
17 one, am ready to move on.
18 GOVERNOR CHILES: Can you just explain to me
19 now how this three-month thing will differ from the
20 staff recommendation that we have?
21 MR. GREEN: As I understand it, we would defer
22 the item for three months. During that three-month
23 period, we would work with the City to set about
24 some criteria, some planning points, and some
25 timetables that they would have to meet and that we
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1 would have to meet in trying to resolve this issue.
2 We would bring that back to you in three
3 months and report to you on that plan. If that
4 plan was sufficient, we would defer action until we
5 could complete the plan or until deadlines in the
6 plan begin to slip.
7 If they begin to slip, we would bring back the
8 order of ejectment. If not, at the end of the
9 planning period, we would bring back an item that
10 would explain what the resolution would be, some
11 time tables for resolving, and move forward in that
12 and still holding the ability to eject if the plan
13 was not being accomplished.
14 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: The difference, as I
15 see it, Governor, is that this proposed motion does
16 not deny out of hand the City's petition at this
17 point in time. It doesn't really have a direct
18 impact on the six-month delay in the movement or
19 executing the movement of those houseboats.
20 What it does do is say, we're not going to
21 deny the petition at this point in time. We're
22 going to give you three months to get your act in
23 one bag and come back with a plan that really makes
24 sense and everybody agrees to it, 'cause we've
25 never had -- I don't think -- the people willing to
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1 sit down collectively and try to solve this
2 problem. There's always been adversarial
3 positions taken, and it looks to me they're willing
4 to try to solve the problem.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
6 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Question to
7 Kirby. Kirby, is there a chance that in three
8 months you might come back and say that as opposed
9 to waiting six months to evict, you may be
10 recommending for us to wait three months to evict,
11 in other words, the six months' clock can still be
12 ticking during that time?
13 MR. GREEN: It's possible if the plan is not
14 coming together, or if we start to see that there
15 is a slowdown in the ability of the City or the
16 willingness of the City to move forward, then, yes,
17 sir, we could come back.
18 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: And I certainly could
19 see that, too, General.
20 GOVERNOR CHILES: I think that's good. I
21 think that -- my question really was, are we doing
22 something that's just going to delay this this much
23 further, and I know that's not true.
24 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Not the intent.
25 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right. Those in favor
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1 of the amended recommendation signify by saying
2 aye. Aye.
3 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Aye.
4 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Aye.
5 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Aye.
6 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Aye.
7 TREASURER NELSON: Aye.
8 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Aye.
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Opposed, say no.
10 (No response.)
11 GOVERNOR CHILES: It's approved.
12 MR. GREEN: Item 23, Amendments to rule
13 chapter 18-21, extended term leases. We have five
14 speakers. The first speaker is Mark Ebelini.
15 MR. EBELINI: Good morning, Governor Chiles
16 and Cabinet members. My name is Mark Ebelini. I'm
17 an attorney from Ft. Myers, Florida representing
18 the developer and the association serving the
19 Barefoot Boat Club, a nonresidential boating
20 condominium in Collier County.
21 The boat condominium has 90 dry-storage units
22 and 18 wetslip units, has a pool and a clubhouse as
23 well as related facilities on approximately 1/2
24 acre of state sovereignty submerged lands.
25 We are before you today to address the term of
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1 the extended term leases. We requested the maximum
2 available term for extended leases be 30 years
3 rather than the 25 that's in place in the current
4 rule and in place in the proposed rule that's
5 before you today.
6 A problem has arisen with the boating
7 condominium based on the provisions of the
8 Condominum Act, in particular Section 718.401 which
9 provides that if a nonresidential condominium
10 includes recreational facilities or common elements
11 or other commonly-used facilities on a leasehold
12 that the lease must have an unexpired term of 30
13 years on the date the first unit is conveyed, and
14 that is in place in the Condominium Statute.
15 In this case, we have a lease that is
16 currently due to expire later this year. It was
17 about 2 1/2 years when the condominium was
18 completed. In this case, there are commonly-used
19 facilities on the submerged land being 6 wetslip
20 units that are used to store boats that are being
21 removed from the dry-storage facility or are going
22 to return to the dry-storage facility.
23 The issue of the lack of a 30-year lease has
24 been raised by a few unit owners in a declaratory
25 judgment lawsuit regarding the condominium legality
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1 without a 30-year lease. We're seeking to solve
2 this problem for the benefit of all the unit owners
3 in the condominium by virtue of having a 30-year
4 lease available, and there might be other boat
5 condominiums which are available which are not
6 actually aware of this problem that have come up
7 and was not realized, in fact, by the developers of
8 this particular project.
9 The Barefoot Boat Club, in this case, this
10 project leases about one-half acre of submerged
11 lands that was expressly disclosed in the
12 condominium declaration that there was a submerged
13 land lease with the State of Florida.
14 Mr. Russell, planner and the developer of the
15 condominium, is here today. His plan was to create
16 a boating condominium, and this was known by the
17 Department of Environmental Protection when they
18 issued the permit to construct the facility, and it
19 was known by the Division of State Lands when they
20 issued a modified lease so we can complete the
21 project.
22 There's been some concern that the State
23 doesn't want to get involved in condominiums.
24 Well, in this case, the State is involved. There
25 are 25 leases to condominium associations in
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1 Collier County alone, and 12 in Lee County.
2 There's also a concern, well, is this a
3 condominium that we are dedicating state lands to
4 condominium ownership? That was not the case. The
5 declaration provides that the developer's interest
6 in the submerged land lease is now -- would be part
7 of the condominium, and the condominium
8 association, a corporation, would hold the lease
9 much as is done in other cases.
10 Now, this doesn't come up much in residential
11 condominiums because we don't have the problem with
12 a 50-year lease requirement because it's not a
13 common element. Here the use of state lands is
14 essential for this facility.
15 You asked why would you do anything for boat
16 condominiums in this process? Will you look at the
17 boat -- the Barefoot Boat Club. It's a facility
18 that's a state-of-the-art facility representing an
19 extreme use of funds on a relatively small amount
20 of submerged land.
21 This was an exotically intruded, low-quality
22 eroding mangrove shoreline that has been enhanced
23 with exotic removal, riprap, mangrove planting,
24 no-wake zone, three miles of channel markers and
25 structures that are basically state-of-the-art, PVC
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1 reinforced concrete pilings.
2 This is an extremely well-done project, and
3 what we've done is we've proposed two rules very
4 quickly, two alternatives. One, simply amend the
5 rule to allow up to 30 years. The other one is to
6 restrict the 30-year availability to leases for
7 condominiums.
8 If you decide to retain the extended term
9 leases -- and we ask that you do so -- we do
10 request that you consider this because you have a
11 well -- in this case, a very well-done facility,
12 and you'll promote good, efficient uses of State
13 lands if you allow boat slip condominiums 30-year
14 leases.
15 You'll have a well, high-quality use of
16 State-owned submerged lands, and you'll have a
17 facility which can, in fact, meet the requirements
18 of its lease and the lease payment. Thank you very
19 much.
20 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Governor, I have a
21 question for staff in regards to that gentleman.
22 Is there anything that precludes someone from
23 coming in and asking for a lease in excess of 25
24 years?
25 MR. GREEN: At this time, at staff level,
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1 there's a maximum time period proposed in the rule
2 amendment and in the current rule. We have always
3 taken the position that you have the ability to
4 waive those rules and do things outside those rules
5 when you think it's justified; so on a case-by-case
6 basis, I think it's our opinion that we could come
7 to you and ask you if you felt like it was
8 justified, based on some criteria, to extend beyond
9 what is a maximum term of lease by rule.
10 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Okay. So your answer is
11 yes?
12 MR. GREEN: Yes.
13 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Thank you.
14 MR. GREEN: Governor, if I could, I just found
15 out that some City Council members from
16 Jacksonville need to be back for a meeting late
17 this afternoon or early tonight. Could we
18 temporarily pass the next two items --
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
20 MR. GREEN: -- and go to that item, and then
21 we'll come right back to these?
22 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
23 MR. GREEN: This additional Item Number 25,
24 City of Jacksonville, Partial Release of
25 Restrictions. I need to do two clarifications, and
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1 then call on -- we have two speakers. By rule,
2 there needs to be a determination that there are no
3 present or future public purposes for retaining
4 these deed restrictions.
5 We think with the $3.9 million expenditure in
6 public areas, that that public purpose has been
7 preserved, and, two, that the parcel in question
8 does not have any fragile, environmental,
9 historical, archaeological or recreational
10 resources that require protection.
11 This is a filled sovereign submerged land
12 parcel that's now in a parking lot, and we think
13 that we can confidently say that we meet the test
14 there. There aren't those resources that need to
15 be preserved on this site; so we think we meet the
16 statutory test.
17 Thirdly, as a condition of granting approval
18 of the removal of restrictions, staff is
19 recommending that in the event that the hotel does
20 not commence construction in a three-year period
21 from the date of the execution of the instrument,
22 that these restrictions automatically go back onto
23 the property, so that they would have to come back
24 and remove them again if they decide to do
25 something else with the property other than the
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1 current proposal.
2 With those understandings and staff
3 recommendation, the first speaker is Don Davis who
4 is president of the Jacksonville City Council.
5 MR. DAVIS: Thank you very much. Governor
6 Chiles and other Honorable Members of the Cabinet,
7 I am Don Davis. I'm president of the Jacksonville
8 City Council, but this morning I am the Acting
9 Mayor of the City of Jacksonville in view of the
10 fact that our Mayor, John Delaney, is a featured
11 speaker at a growth management conference in
12 California and cannot be with us today.
13 First of all, I want to thank the Cabinet and
14 thank the aides of the Cabinet for agreeing to put
15 us on the agenda today, and I especially want to
16 thank you for deviating from your agenda to move us
17 up a little bit because we do have a City Council
18 Shade Meeting at 2:30 that many of us have to get
19 back for.
20 We have a delegation of officials and other
21 representatives of our community here today in
22 support of this project, and I would like to
23 introduce just a few members of this delegation.
24 First of all, I have three colleagues of mine on
25 the City Council, At-Large Council Member, Dr. Glen
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1 Chandler Thompson, Council Member Terry Fields,
2 Council Member Terry Wood, and we have a member of
3 our House delegation representative, Tony Hill,
4 with us in the audience as well.
5 I, also, would like to introduce Mr. Rich
6 Miller who is the executive vice president of the
7 HBE Corporation, the parent company of the Adams
8 Mark Hotel chain, and Mr. Tom Petway, the chairman
9 of our Jacksonville Economic Development
10 Commission.
11 We also have several representatives of the
12 Mayor's staff and also representatives from the
13 Jacksonville Economic Development Commission's
14 Downtown Development Authority and the Convention
15 and Visitors' Bureau.
16 We are here this morning to ask your approval
17 of a partial release of restrictions on a
18 2.272-acre parcel of land in Duval County. With
19 your approval, we will build a 950-room Adams Mark
20 hotel on the riverfront in downtown Jacksonville.
21 The HBE Corporation will invest over $100
22 million to build this hotel which we view as the
23 beginning of the transformation of the downtown
24 area of our great city. We've been working to get
25 government off the riverfront in Jacksonville,
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1 Florida for over 20 years.
2 We took the first step towards this goal in
3 the last year or two by moving out of the City Hall
4 building on the riverfront to a renovated historic
5 building in the center of downtown and putting our
6 old previous City Hall building on the market for a
7 private development.
8 This hotel would be the second step towards
9 revitalization of downtown Jacksonville. As we
10 speak, two other government buildings, an old jail
11 and a juvenile detention center that are on the
12 riverfront are scheduled for imminent demolition to
13 provide for additional contiguous riverfront
14 property for private development.
15 After several months of public hearings, this
16 project is supported by our Mayor, the Jacksonville
17 Economic Development Commission, the Downtown
18 Development Authority, the Convention and Visitors'
19 Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce, and after numerous
20 committee meetings, hours and hours of debate and a
21 very thorough discussion of all the issues, both
22 pro and con, it was approved by a 15-to-2 vote of
23 the City Council with one member absent and one
24 member declaring a conflict.
25 We appreciate very much your consideration
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1 this morning of our request, and I or several
2 resource people in our delegation are here and
3 available to answer any questions that you might
4 have. Thank you very much.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir. Questions?
6 (No response.)
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
8 MR. GREEN: The second speaker is Paul Hardin.
9 MR. HARDIN: Thank you, Mr. Green. My name is
10 Paul Hardin. I'm a lawyer from Jacksonville. I
11 represent HBE who is the parent company of Adams
12 Mark. I believe Mr. Green and Council President
13 Davis covered the issues that I was here to cover.
14 I'll be happy to answer any questions other
15 than that. We need to get back to Jacksonville,
16 and we appreciate your support in approving these
17 agenda items as set forth by Mr. Green. Thank you.
18 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Governor, just a fast
19 question.
20 MR. HARDIN: Yes, sir. It doesn't have to be
21 fast. I was trying to move fast.
22 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: During the discussions
23 with staff on this one, it came to our attention
24 that the NAACP had raised some concerns regarding
25 some of the corporate operation, but that those
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1 have been satisfied via a plan that was put forward
2 by the corporation. Am I safe in saying that
3 everyone is now satisfied with that particular
4 issue?
5 MR. HARDIN: Yes, sir, I think, Commissioner
6 Brogan, actually most of the issues were raised by
7 some representatives of the Jacksonville City
8 Council in addition to the NAACP. Those issues
9 have been put to rest.
10 Adams Mark has prepared and delivered a plan
11 which takes into consideration both construction
12 activity on the site as well as future employment
13 on the site. The members of the Council who raised
14 that issue are happy with that resolution, and we
15 think all those questions have been answered.
16 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Thank you, sir.
17 GOVERNOR CHILES: Further questions?
18 (No response.)
19 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
20 MR. HARDIN: Thank you, Governor.
21 MR. GREEN: Governor, I believe that's all the
22 speakers on this item.
23 SECRETARY MORTHAM: I move approval.
24 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second.
25 GOVERNOR CHILES: It's been moved and
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1 seconded. Without objection, it's approved.
2 MR. GREEN: Back to Item 23, the second
3 speaker is Ed Ruff.
4 MR. RUFF: Good morning, Governor Chiles and
5 Members of the Cabinet. Thank you for your time
6 this morning. Twenty-six years ago we came to
7 Florida from Ohio with our family and spent 24
8 years in the residential real estate business, and
9 throughout that time, we boated a great deal in
10 southwest Florida with our families as they grew
11 up, and we determined, in talking to our buyers,
12 that the boating facilities in our area and
13 frankly, in Florida were sometimes less than
14 adequate.
15 Their choices were not good. Sometimes the
16 older marina is in disrepair, the yacht club
17 facilities were rather expensive; so we determined
18 about three years ago to attempt to build a
19 dry-storage/wetslip facility that would meet the
20 current requirements of our folks and develop a
21 prototype for the 21st century in this area.
22 We set about to build Barefoot Boat Club. A
23 year later, we finished it, and by all accounts, it
24 is the prototype for the 21st century. The marine
25 industry and government agencies and the neighbors
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1 and our buyers and the owners or boaters all speak
2 very highly of it.
3 Now, I invite you, if you're down in the
4 Naples area, to take some time and let me show you
5 Barefoot Boat Club 'cause it is different I promise
6 you. During the process of developing the boat
7 club, we went through a very arduous permitting
8 process.
9 We dealt with the Department of Environmental
10 Protection and with the Internal Improvement Trust
11 Fund, and the Department of Environmental
12 Protection had to approve us to build the boat
13 docks in the submerged lands on the water.
14 The Internal Improvement Trust Fund had to
15 give us a lease, and the two things had to be
16 accomplished before we could actually build the
17 boat docks that service the upland dry-storage
18 building, clubhouse facility, swimming pool, tiki
19 bar and gas dock and ship store and things like
20 that.
21 This process -- in this process, you have to
22 hire a lot of professionals, attorneys, engineers,
23 both environmental and civil, architects, and this
24 process cost about $150,000 to get to the point
25 where we can actually sign a lease for that
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1 submerged land and build those boat docks.
2 After going through all of that arduous
3 regulatory process, moving the submerged lease term
4 from 25 years to 30 years seems like a small thing,
5 but it does bring the condominium laws and the
6 submerged lease laws in sync. That's really all
7 we're asking for so that they agree with each
8 other.
9 Then in the future, as we build condominium
10 boating facilities, we won't have to deal with this
11 one little glitch in the law, but thank you for
12 taking the time for looking at this issue and ask
13 you to allow us to obtain a 30-year submerged lease
14 from the State.
15 Any questions, I'd be glad to answer.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Questions?
17 (No response.)
18 MR. RUFF: Governor Chiles, Members of the
19 Cabinet, my name is Perry Odom, General Counsel for
20 DEP. Mr. Ebelini indicated in his remarks that he
21 needed it to go to 30 years because the condominium
22 law says you have to have that much time in order
23 to do a lease.
24 He did not refer to the entire subsection of
25 the statute on leaseholds which, I think, is
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1 significant because I think that what we're dealing
2 with really is the issue, do you, as the Board of
3 Trustees, want your submerged lands submitted into
4 condominium ownership.
5 Let me just refer to section 718.401. It
6 says:
7 "A condominium may be created on lands
8 held under lease or may include a
9 recreational facility on a leasehold if on
10 the date the first unit is conveyed by the
11 developer, the lease has an unexpired term
12 of at least 50 years."
13 Then it goes on to say:
14 "If the condominium constitutes a
15 nonresidential condominium or time-share,
16 the lease shall have an unexpired term of
17 at least 30 years."
18 The key here is the phrase: "A condominium
19 may be created on lands held under lease." Mr.
20 Ebelini indicated that they did not and were not
21 going to submit the land to condominium ownership.
22 I submit to you that under the condominium law, if
23 they're going to have common elements consisting of
24 wetslips, or if they're going to have part of the
25 condominium property consisting of wetslips, they
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1 have to submit it to condominium ownership.
2 The statute dealing with condominiums says:
3 "Condominium property means the lands,
4 leaseholds and personal property that are
5 subjected to condominium ownership, and
6 then it defines common elements as the
7 portions of the condominium property which
8 are not included in the units but are part
9 of the condominium property."
10 The point I'm getting at is the only reason
11 you would need to extend the term to 30 years for
12 condominium purposes is if you have, as the Board
13 of Trustees, as the owners of sovereign submerged
14 lands, made the determination that you are willing
15 and desirous of allowing the submerged lands to be
16 submitted into condominium ownership, to be owned
17 by the condominium association, because that is the
18 only way that you can create common elements or
19 that you can create wetslips as part of the
20 condominium property.
21 Now, this is a policy question, but I felt it
22 incumbent upon me as General Counsel to your staff
23 to advise you of this. If this is your choice, if
24 you wish to submit it into a condominium ownership
25 thing, then the 30 years would be appropriate for
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1 nonresidential. Fifty years would be appropriate
2 for residential. That's a policy decision that
3 needs to be made. Thank you.
4 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Governor, as a
5 non-attorney, is there a problem with putting it in
6 condominium ownership?
7 MR. ODOM: Well, I think there is Madam
8 Secretary, because we --
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: We've never done that
10 before?
11 MR. ODOM: No, not to my knowledge. It's a
12 departure from the customary practice if you do put
13 it in the condominium ownership. Then it's
14 subjected to all the provisions of the condominium
15 law meaning it would be owned by the members in the
16 condominium property.
17 It would be subjected to the provisions of
18 what the Condominium Law requires. It would be
19 subject to all the provisions. Do you want to do
20 that with sovereign submerged lands?
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: Are they asking for that, or
22 are you just saying that they don't really need the
23 30 years because the only reason they'd need the 30
24 years was if we were going to do that?
25 MR. ODOM: That's what I'm saying, Governor.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: I see. So they're not
2 actually making a request.
3 MR. ODOM: They're asking you to go to 30
4 years.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: They're asking for 30 years,
6 but they're not asking for a request of sovereign
7 ownership, right?
8 MR. ODOM: Not at this time.
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Okay. But your point is
10 that if they're not asking for that, this provision
11 that they were citing is not necessary to keep us
12 from giving them a 25-year legal lease --
13 MR. ODOM: That's right.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: -- as opposed to a 30-year
15 lease?
16 MR. ODOM: That's right.
17 GOVERNOR CHILES: Is that right?
18 MR. ODOM: Now, a 25-year lease would not be
19 subjected to condominium ownership. It would be
20 leased by the --
21 GOVERNOR CHILES: I see.
22 MR. ODOM: Just it is -- just like a lease is
23 now, yes, sir.
24 GOVERNOR CHILES: Okay.
25 MR. ODOM: Thank you, Governor and Members of
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1 the Cabinet.
2 MR. GREEN: The next speaker is Charles
3 Eldridge.
4 MR. ELDRIDGE: Governor and Members of the
5 Cabinet, I'm Charlie Eldridge from Tampa, and I'm
6 not an attorney. However, I am here before you as
7 Secretary of the Florida Council Yacht Clubs which
8 is an organization consisting of 34 not-for-profit
9 clubs around the State of Florida with well in
10 excess of 40,000 members.
11 We have a history of working for boating
12 safety and with the boating public, of educating
13 children and handicapped in the ways of sailing and
14 boating. We have worked continually for many years
15 with the State, in particular with the Department
16 of Environmental Protection, in helping them arrive
17 at figures, working to get laws passed, and to sit
18 on various boards.
19 We have worked on this submerged land issue
20 for several years. We've discussed many points.
21 We've come down to two that we feel appropriate.
22 Because of our public service and the work we do
23 with the public, we feel that we're entitled to
24 come under the 30 percent discount rule from the
25 leases that have been extended in the past.
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1 We also feel that the 7 percent fee that is
2 figured on a perceived rentable space is not
3 doable. I think that the paperwork would drown it.
4 We're proposing that you do the 7 percent of the
5 gross receipts from dockage rentals.
6 We today are reporting to the sales tax people
7 and to the IRS on what our rental fees are. It's a
8 very -- it is continually audited. It is a very
9 easily attainable figure on which to base this fee.
10 Last week up here we were asked if perhaps we would
11 concede the 30 percent rule in return to going to 6
12 percent on the actual gross receipts.
13 We thought that this would be something that
14 we could live with, and so on that basis, we are
15 proposing an amendment to the submerged land
16 leasing to change the fee from 7 percent of the
17 perceived rentable space to 6 percent of the gross
18 receipts from dock rental.
19 I've been advised from the Department of
20 Environmental Protection, or I believe that I have,
21 that this is revenue neutral, a new term to me, but
22 that this would not affect you there. This fee
23 reduction would be possible because of the 30
24 percent discount that we would not be getting and a
25 number of other people wouldn't be getting, and it
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1 would serve as a compromise.
2 It would help the boating public and keep us
3 from dropping more objections on you on this. We
4 spent a long time working on this, and we think
5 that this is both an equitable and very fair
6 arrangement for these charges.
7 We don't think it's fair that you're not
8 taking into consideration the shipbuilding, the
9 shipping repair, and that you're talking to address
10 the boating public to carry the bulk of these fees
11 where, for example, a restaurant built out over the
12 water doesn't have any measure so far as their
13 sales. They just pay the 11.3 percent rent.
14 I have Jeremy Craft here with me to help me
15 with any questions that I can't field if there are
16 any.
17 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
18 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Kirby, I can ask you.
19 The 30 percent, was that not originally created to
20 provide an incentive to first come/first serve
21 public use, and if we would look at changing the 30
22 percent, could it not act as a disincentive that
23 could come around to haunt us on the other side?
24 MR. GREEN: Yes. The idea of the 30 percent
25 discount was to act as an incentive to have more of
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1 the facilities open to the public where citizens
2 could get to the water through these facilities
3 instead of them being private facilities; so that
4 was part of the makeup of the decision on the 30
5 percent discount was to ensure that it was open to
6 the public.
7 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Kirby, to
9 follow up on that, the last gentleman that spoke
10 said that if we go to 6 percent of actual, that
11 it'd be revenue neutral, but does it also mean
12 getting rid of the whole 30 percent for the entire
13 state of Florida? Is that what he's saying, or is
14 it --
15 MR. GREEN: No, sir, it doesn't. The 30
16 percent discount would still stay in place for
17 those that are 90 percent open to the public.
18 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: How is it
19 revenue neutral then?
20 MR. GREEN: Well, it's kind of convoluted, but
21 I'll try to go through it real quick with you.
22 What we did is we went to our files and looked at
23 the 124 leases that paid something other than the
24 $.11 per square foot as the base lease rate.
25 They pay 7 percent of their anticipated
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1 revenue off of the total number of slips that they
2 had. We looked at that figure. Then we used those
3 124 facilities, computed what we thought their
4 gross revenue would be based on what they've been
5 paying us.
6 Then we took 6 percent of that. It looked
7 like 6 percent of that total was about -- assuming
8 about a 90 percent occupancy rate, would be a
9 deficit to the trust fund of about 100 -- excuse
10 me, $230,000, but to offset that, if we reduced the
11 number of facilities that had the 30 percent
12 discount available to them, that brought revenue up
13 by about $125,000, so the two more or less offset
14 each other to make it revenue neutral.
15 Now, those are just numbers that we pulled out
16 of the files. We haven't been able to confirm
17 those numbers from any exterior sources, but based
18 on that review, it would appear that going from 7
19 to 6 percent and going from a potential revenue to
20 gross rental sales would be neutral if you reduced
21 the 30 percent discount ability.
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Statewide?
23 MR. GREEN: Yes.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: So that's what
25 I was saying. You have to get rid of the 30
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1 percent in order to make the revenue neutral.
2 MR. GREEN: Well, you have to reduce it. The
3 number of eligible facilities would be reduced
4 under the proposal.
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right. Is this the
6 staff recommendation now?
7 MR. GREEN: Well, we've got two more speakers.
8 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right, sir.
9 MR. GREEN: John Sprague.
10 MR. SPRAGUE: Good morning, my name is John
11 Sprague. I'm here representing the Marine Industry
12 Association of the State of Florida. I am also the
13 owner of a 37-year old, 50-slip marina facility
14 that just is in the process of coming off of
15 grandfather onto a lease.
16 We have worked with staff for some time and
17 your staff in trying to get through this rule to
18 get it friendly to both sides. We feel we've
19 pretty well done that. There's only two issues now
20 which are really the cost and fees that I believe
21 staff felt was an issue for you to pick up as far
22 as policy.
23 First of all, on the 30 percent discount, in
24 that change, the 30 percent was removed from all
25 the facilities. We understand there's even like a
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1 seaplane base they have, and said, well, with my
2 seaplane base out, another seaplane base can go
3 there. I get 30 percent too.
4 We felt that the Blue Ribbon Committee
5 originally under Governor Graham set that thing up
6 to make sure that the public has access to the
7 waters. By tightening that up, that allows this
8 rule as presently to only be given to marinas that
9 have at least 90 percent of their slips open to the
10 public on a first come/first serve basis.
11 There's also the issue of extended term
12 leases. The leases, by going to 10 years, help the
13 facilities because of our costs, and our costs in
14 going through the process are passed on directly to
15 the public.
16 It is also a saving to staff having to only do
17 it every 10 years instead of 5. Extended term
18 beyond that may be needed on a case-by-case basis
19 depending upon financing or the needs of that
20 particular facility.
21 Hopefully that section will stay in. It's
22 still under your discretion whether anybody gets an
23 extended term lease, but also remember that the
24 facilities pay considerably more money for the
25 extended term lease; so if we do away with that
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1 lease process, it will bring less revenue in for
2 the Department as well.
3 The final issue is fees. The fee formula,
4 first of all, the way it is, I defy two people to
5 sit down -- and I own a marina and I sat down with
6 my wife to sit down and try and figure out the fees
7 based on my own marina, and I defy anybody under
8 the existing rule to come up with the same figure
9 twice as what's owed the State of Florida.
10 That tells me as a taxpayer that we need to
11 fix this rule. We felt that we needed to go to 7
12 percent of gross originally to at least make it so
13 everybody knew what that figure was. It's our
14 gross docket figure. It's easy. We have it in our
15 receipts every single month that we take in and
16 that we deposit in the bank.
17 We were supposed to get some information from
18 staff, from our own industry to try and find out
19 what the dollars and cents would be. We found that
20 very difficult to be. Whether or not some of our
21 facilities are actually paying 7 percent of actual
22 instead of perceived or whatever, but we could not
23 get clear answers enough to give your staff of the
24 Department of Environmental Protection a sufficient
25 answer as to what that revenue change would be.
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1 However, under the present rule, we believe
2 that probably it would be revenue neutral if it
3 went to the gross because we think a lot of
4 facilities are paying that anyway, and it
5 definitely would be easier and more accountable
6 than what it is now.
7 There is another issue, however, which the
8 Yacht Council brought up, which is that there is,
9 my understanding, $220,000 in savings coming from
10 the 30 percent discount that certain facilities are
11 not going to receive under this rule change the way
12 it is now because they're not open to the public,
13 first come/first serve.
14 The question is whether or not we can apply
15 some of that to a discount to the marinas that are
16 open to the public on a first come/first serve
17 basis. If we look at most of the leases that we
18 understand that are not marinas, most of them are
19 paying the base fee which is a much less fee than
20 we're paying marinas, and yet the marinas are
21 what's giving the access to the public of the
22 waters in the State of Florida, and the other
23 leases aren't.
24 Why are we charging the residents of the State
25 of Florida a higher fee to come get access to the
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1 water than we are other leases that are issued in
2 the state? The other issue of 7 percent of gross
3 is, don't forget, that if we have 7 percent of
4 perceived, as the occupancy rate of the marina goes
5 down, the actual pass-through cost to the boater
6 goes up from 7 percent because we pass that cost
7 off.
8 If we are 50 percent occupancy in our marina,
9 we still pay the same rate to the State of Florida
10 as if we're full which means now we're going to
11 charge our customers 15 percent pass-through fee
12 for that dockage when we're only 50 percent full;
13 so it's not 7 percent of that figure. It is an
14 escalating amount depending on how full that marina
15 is.
16 We asked -- and the bottom line is that you
17 would consider doing 6 percent of actual. We
18 believe that that is revenue generated from that 30
19 percent, and also keep in mind that we have 500
20 facilities coming on-line that are coming out of
21 grandfather.
22 My understanding from the Department of
23 Environmental Protection's staff is that at the
24 base amount, that it is approximately $600,000 a
25 year; so it is the increase needed, the staff needs
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1 and the Department needs, to help manage this whole
2 program, and that going with 6 percent of actual,
3 which will help our residents directly, would not
4 affect that income coming in the state. Thank you
5 very much.
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you, sir.
7 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Governor, could I ask a
8 quick question of that gentleman?
9 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
10 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Did I understand you to
11 say that regardless of whether it's 7 percent or 6
12 percent, it's passed on to the customer?
13 MR. SPRAGUE: Yes, sir.
14 MR. GREEN: The last speaker is Gerald Ward.
15 MR. WARD: Officers and Governor, good
16 afternoon. It's already that time. I'm Gerald
17 Ward, professional engineer and consulting engineer
18 at 31 West 20th Street, Riviera Beach in Palm Beach
19 County. I'm a processor of sovereignty submerged
20 lands authorizations for some 28 years.
21 More specifically, I participated very heavily
22 in the development of these existing rules in
23 1982/1984 on behalf of the Florida Engineering
24 Society, Conservation and Environmental Water
25 Quality Committee which continues interested today.
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1 Like all processes of development --
2 GOVERNOR CHILES: You're the one that helped
3 screw them up to start with.
4 MR. WARD: But it's also a revenue generation
5 for the state and providing for the use of the
6 public lands. Like all processes, the developing
7 of the guidelines and standards, this rule-making
8 has had lots of input and discussions.
9 We're over two years into it. You had it on
10 your September '97 agenda. It was withdrawn. This
11 year I would tell you that no different than the
12 sale down in the Keys. You have to compliment the
13 Department of Environmental Protection staff for
14 its communication to the regulated or proprietary
15 public, and it's now been deferred twice as you see
16 at the top of the agenda item again, three times
17 with the TP earlier today.
18 The combined rule amendment before you is only
19 about 17 pages. Fifteen of these 17 pages are real
20 needs to help the administration by your staff
21 enhance revenue generation. There's some raised
22 minimum fees and some other things are in there
23 that there are no controversies over them.
24 It's in large part, a product of 14 years of
25 staff and the public using these rules you gave to
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1 DNR and DEP to provide for the reasonable use and
2 return to the citizens of the State. I would urge
3 you to adopt these amendments today.
4 If certain issues sort of get wrapped around
5 the axle post, I suggest you maybe excise out --
6 and you only heard about three issues of that area
7 of which are contained on two pages in the rule.
8 The large body of the amendments are needed today,
9 and it modernizes the rule after 14 years.
10 In short, the sausage is ready. Just to
11 shorten your time frame, I would comment the same
12 comments apply to Item 24 which you'll take up
13 next; so you don't have to hear from me then. It's
14 only been deferred twice, but those special event
15 lease rules and guidelines are well needed also. I
16 would hope you take action on both items today,
17 please.
18 MR. GREEN: That completes the speakers,
19 Governor. Governor, when we were sent out to work
20 on this submerged land modification to the rules,
21 one of the things that we were asked to do was to
22 look at the revenue that was generated by the rules
23 and whether or not they were adequate or not.
24 We asked the marina industry to help us with
25 some figures that we didn't get because they tried
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1 very hard, but some of their members just wouldn't
2 give them the numbers. What the 7 percent is based
3 on is the Blue Ribbon Committee's recommendation.
4 They went out and they surveyed the other
5 states in the union and found that the rates were
6 from around 5 percent up to about 15 percent
7 depending on where you were. At that time, we
8 picked about the median of that and said 7 percent
9 seemed to be okay based on that survey of other
10 states.
11 We haven't seen anything, any information that
12 says that we should do different than that. It is
13 true that we think that if we go to 6 percent, we
14 keep the rule revenue neutral in terms of the
15 reduction of the 30 percent discount population; so
16 if you went to 6 percent, it would keep it neutral.
17 We don't have any basis to tell you 6 percent
18 is better than 7 percent, or 5 percent is better
19 than 6 percent; so all the advice I can give you is
20 that if you go to 6 percent, it is revenue neutral
21 we think.
22 Seven percent has been based on what we think
23 is the average nationally off what states are
24 charging for submerged land leases; so that's --
25 and we -- our recommendation was to stay at the 7
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1 percent.
2 GOVERNOR CHILES: At the 7 percent, but what
3 about the 30 percent?
4 MR. GREEN: And reduce the population to 30
5 percent; so you would actually have an increase in
6 revenue of about $225,000 a year in the trust fund.
7 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Governor, I'd like to move
8 the staff recommendation with an amendment to read
9 that the lease fees should be based on 6 percent of
10 actual revenues and not on potential wetslip value.
11 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right. You've heard the
12 motion as recommended. Is there a second?
13 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Second. This is not
14 necessarily a caveat to support the motion, but is
15 it possible that we could come back then in a year
16 and have actual figures to lay side by side with
17 previous years when we were at 7 percent to see
18 what sort of an actual impact that had over the
19 course of the 12-month period if we make this
20 change today?
21 MR. GREEN: Yes, it is. In fact, one of our
22 directions to us a few years ago was to go back and
23 look at all of the lease fees that we charge.
24 That's the next thing we're going to bite off, is
25 to take on a study that would address all those
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1 fees; so we anticipate coming back to you with that
2 type of a report within the year.
3 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Thank you.
4 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
5 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Just a
6 question. Is it clear in the leases that you
7 perceive an extended term lease initially that
8 you're not entitled to an extended term renewal; so
9 if you get the extended term first, you would
10 automatically get the same term later, the 5-year
11 or 10-year or whatever?
12 MR. GREEN: Yes, sir, we think that in the
13 terms of the lease that we sign, there's a
14 condition that requires them to be in compliance
15 with all rules and statutes at the time of renewal,
16 and that means, at least to us, the way we've
17 interpreted it, that we would reevaluate, and if
18 the concerns are not there that gave them the
19 original extended term, they would go back to the
20 standard term.
21 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: What about the
22 issue of a person who gets a discount and is
23 approved for a first come/first serve? Must they
24 advertise that in their advertisements when they
25 advertise it? Must they say, we're first
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1 come/first serve? Is that a requirement?
2 MR. GREEN: It is a requirement where they
3 advertise for their rental slip services. If
4 they're having a boat sale or something else at the
5 facility, we have not made it a requirement that
6 they advertise in that advertisement that they're
7 open to the public also; so it's only when they're
8 advertising their rental service for slips.
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: If someone gets
10 a 30 percent discount because they're on a first
11 come/first serve, if they don't advertise that, we
12 may very well be giving them a 30 percent discount,
13 and they're just taking advantage of us. Can we
14 modify the rule to require that? Would that be a
15 problem? I just want to make the requirement to
16 where if they get a 30 percent discount, you have
17 to advertise it.
18 MR. GREEN: As I understand it, that's what
19 the rule does.
20 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right. Further
21 discussions?
22 (No response.)
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: Those in favor of the motion
24 as submitted, signify by saying aye. Aye.
25 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Aye.
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1 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Aye.
2 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Aye.
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Aye.
4 TREASURER NELSON: Aye.
5 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Aye.
6 GOVERNOR CHILES: The rule is carried.
7 MR. GREEN: Thank you. Item 24 is Amendments
8 to Chapter 18-21, Special Events. We have two
9 speakers.
10 GOVERNOR CHILES: How many?
11 MR. GREEN: Two.
12 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right.
13 MR. GREEN: The first one is Cathy Johnston.
14 MS. JOHNSTON: Hi. Good afternoon. My name
15 is Cathy Johnston. I am a southern regional
16 manager for the National Marine Manufacturers
17 Association. We are the principal trade
18 association for the recreational boating industry
19 representing well over 1500 boatbuilders.
20 About a 100 or more of those builders are here
21 in the State of Florida. We currently produce 24
22 boat shows around the United States. Four of those
23 boat shows happen in the State of Florida. The
24 largest boat show that we produced and one of the
25 largest boat shows in the world was the Miami
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1 International Boat Show.
2 We also produced two shows in the Tampa
3 market, the Tampa Boat Show in the Florida State
4 Boatmen's Boat Show, and I've just announced in the
5 past six months that our largest marine trade show
6 called "IMTEC," for International Marine Trades
7 Exhibit and Conference, will be moving from a
8 40-year history in Chicago to the City of Orlando.
9 We're very excited about that move as well.
10 We have a very unique situation here in
11 Florida. You have two of the largest of the boat
12 shows in the world. The show that we produce that
13 I alluded to before, the Miami Boat Show, and the
14 Ft. Lauderdale Show which happens in October.
15 We bring over half a million people to the
16 state with an economic impact well into the
17 billions of dollars which we've proved via various
18 studies that we've done over the last two years.
19 We don't ask for any subsidies from the State.
20 We've never asked for additional funding from
21 the State. We only ask for a level playing field.
22 We want to do business here. We're happy doing
23 business here, and indeed I've alluded to the fact
24 that we'll be bringing more business into the State
25 of Florida.
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1 We are an ambassador to this state. We
2 promote these shows very heavily through very
3 aggressive advertising campaigns. We take that
4 very seriously. We recognize that there's a great
5 benefit to us to entice as many people to come to
6 our state and visit our shows and buy products from
7 our members as we can.
8 While we do support the rule that's been
9 placed forward, and it's been my pleasure to be on
10 the task force that has been putting this rule
11 together over the last few months, we would ask
12 your consideration on a 5 percent proposed fee
13 versus the 7 percent that is currently sitting in
14 front of you. Thank you for your time.
15 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
16 MR. GREEN: The second speaker is Kay Pearson.
17 MR. PEARSON: Governor and Members of the
18 Cabinet, thank you for the opportunity to be here.
19 My name is Kay Pearson, president of Show
20 Management. We've produced the Ft. Lauderdale
21 International Boat Show for the last 23 years as
22 well as the Brokerage Yacht Show in Miami Beach,
23 the Palm Beach Boat Show and several other shows in
24 the State of Florida.
25 I think clearly we're talking about income to
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1 the state on this special events rule and the
2 changes that are being proposed, and one of the
3 significant points that has not been brought out is
4 the synergistic relationship between a successful
5 show and the development of additional businesses,
6 marine-related businesses, in that area.
7 In the case of Broward County, while the sales
8 from the show are very significant -- we had over
9 $400 million in sales last year -- it's important
10 to note that over the last eight years, 60
11 exhibiting firms from that show have established
12 permanent offices in the Broward County area, and a
13 number of these are yacht builders from Europe,
14 from all over the rest of the world, as well as
15 from states within the United States.
16 This impact obviously involves additional
17 employees, involves additional taxes, involves
18 additional -- bottom-line revenue to the State of
19 Florida which is an ongoing relationship not only
20 with the Ft. Lauderdale Show, but with other
21 successful shows.
22 The issue on the fees is that with the
23 reduction of the 30 percent discount on the 7
24 percent fee, it really supports keeping the revenue
25 at a revenue neutral basis, reducing the fee to 5
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1 percent.
2 Lastly, I think it's significant to note that
3 while we are enjoying a boom right now, an
4 unprecedented level of sales -- particularly on the
5 large yachts, but it's really permeating the entire
6 industry -- at some point, this will slow down, and
7 as that does, any tax or fee that is viewed to be
8 punitive by those participants in these shows, they
9 do have options.
10 They can decide not to participate here, or
11 they can participate in shows in other states; so I
12 would encourage you to keep a favorable climate for
13 these firms to participate in shows in Florida, and
14 hopefully we'll continue to produce significant
15 revenues for the state. I thank you for your time.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: Thank you.
17 MR. GREEN: That's all the speakers, Governor.
18 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: I would move the staff
19 recommendation with the change that we go back to 5
20 percent gross receipts instead of the 7.
21 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
22 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Do I understand again
23 that that is perceived to be cost neutral,
24 projected to be?
25 MR. GREEN: As I understand it, yes, sir.
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1 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Again, I would recommend
2 that we find out a year from now just to make sure.
3 MR. GREEN: Understood.
4 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: The 7 or 5 percent, Mr.
5 Green is revenue neutral?
6 MR. GREEN: As I understand it, right now
7 currently the boat shows have qualified for the 30
8 percent discount.
9 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Have qualified?
10 MR. GREEN: Have qualified. When we remove
11 that exemption and decrease that population to keep
12 the boat shows' revenue neutral, you can go from 7
13 percent to 5 percent, and it keeps it neutral.
14 GOVERNOR CHILES: It does?
15 MR. GREEN: Yes.
16 GOVERNOR CHILES: So this is different. The
17 other one was 6 percent, but this one is 5.
18 MR. GREEN: Right. And it's on a different
19 population.
20 COMMISSIONER MILLIGAN: But it is revenue
21 neutral as far as your assessment?
22 MR. GREEN: Yes, it is.
23 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right. It's been moved.
24 Is there a second?
25 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
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1 GOVERNOR CHILES: Yes, sir.
2 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: If this is not
3 revenue, then by next year can we take it out of
4 Kirby's salary?
5 GOVERNOR CHILES: All right. It's been
6 seconded. Those in favor say aye. Aye.
7 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Aye.
8 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Aye.
9 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Aye.
10 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Aye.
11 TREASURER NELSON: Aye.
12 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Aye.
13 MR. GREEN: Substitute Additional Item 26,
14 recommend withdrawal.
15 COMMISSIONER BROGAN: Move withdrawal.
16 SECRETARY MORTHAM: Second.
17 GOVERNOR CHILES: Moved and seconded. Without
18 objection, it's withdrawn.
19 MR. GREEN: That completes the agenda.
20 (The Trustees of the Internal Improvement
21 Trust Fund Agenda was concluded.)
22 (Meeting concluded at 1:00 p.m.)
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1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
2
3 STATE OF FLORIDA:
4 COUNTY OF LEON:
5 I, NANCY P. VETTERICK, do hereby certify that
6 the foregoing proceedings were taken before me at the
7 time and place therein designated; that my shorthand
8 notes were thereafter translated under my supervision;
9 and the foregoing pages numbered 1 through 147 are a true
10 and correct record of the aforesaid proceedings.
11 I FURTHER CERTIFY that I am not a relative,
12 employee, attorney or counsel of any of the parties, nor
13 relative or employee of such attorney or counsel, or
14 financially interested in the foregoing action.
15 DATED THIS 11TH DAY OF AUGUST, 1998.
16
17
18 ___________________________ NANCY P. VETTERICK 19 100 SALEM COURT TALLAHASSEE, FL 32301 20 (850) 878-2221
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