A
SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
JUNE
18, 2007
The Lake County Board of County Commissioners met in a special
workshop session on Monday, June 18, 2007, at 9:00 a.m., in the Board of County
Commissioners’ Meeting Room, Lake County Administration Building, Tavares,
Florida. Commissioners present at the meeting were: Welton G. Cadwell, Chairman;
Jennifer Hill, Vice Chairman; Elaine Renick; and Linda Stewart. Commissioner Debbie Stivender was not present. Others present were Sanford A. “Sandy”
Minkoff, County Attorney; Cindy Hall, County Manager; Wendy Taylor, Executive
Office Manager, County Manager’s Office; and Susan Boyajan, Deputy Clerk.
2007 FINANCIAL CONDITION ANALYSIS
Mr. Jason Showe, Revenue Coordinator,
Office of Budget, gave a history of the origination of the facts and figures of
the Financial Condition Analysis, which was a 2003 publication entitled
“Evaluating Financial Condition, a Handbook for Local Government.” This report contained a total of 22
indicators, as well as descriptions, graphs, warning trends, and analysis, but
his presentation would provide an overview of what he considered the most
critical of those indicators. He
emphasized that the important thing to note was the trends on those charts,
which showed where they thought the future was going to head for those
indicators.
Mr. Showe started with a population
analysis, which he believed was one of the most important indicators, noting
that strong population increases were still being projected in the County. He explained that in 2006, the population was
a little over 276,000, and that the increasing trend was going to create additional
pressure for infrastructure as well as services, such as water supply, traffic
circulation, open space, and government infrastructure. He also commented that although there were
peaks and valleys in the population percentage increase chart, it was important
to note that most of the growth fell between four and five percent annual
growth, which indicated good and strong growth.
He commented that Lake County was also outpacing the growth in the
state, with double the amount of growth than the state as a whole from 2000
through 2006. He pointed out that they
expected those over 64 years old to continue to be a strong portion of their
population, and that the growth of the population under 18 was declining
slightly, but that was still a definite portion of Lake’s population to
consider.
Mr. Showe gave a snapshot of what the
County’s 2006 revenues looked like at the end of the audited year. He commented that the biggest change shown in
the chart was their increased reliance on tax dollars, pointing out that taxes
made up 52.6 percent of their revenue in 2000 and 64.5 percent in 2006. He explained that this was due to an increase
in population base, tax base, and property value Lake had seen in that
time. He also noted that licenses and
permits dropped dramatically because they had moved Building Services out of
the general fund, and that the other categories had remained fairly level,
which is what they liked to see as they continued to move forward. He stated that there were strong increases in
the value of 1 mill, noting that the 2007 value of $17.9 million per 1 mill was
142 percent higher than in 2000, as a result of good property value increases
in the County. He showed that the annual
commercial and residential growth in 2006 was strong, and even though they both
had come down in 2007, the growing trend was still continuing. Also, he pointed out that residential
continued to be a majority of the land value, but commercial was slowly showing
some increase in that.
Mr. Showe noted that one area that
was showing a little bit of decline in recent years was their intergovernmental
revenue, which was completely subject to legislative issues, and that they
would be keeping their eye on those revenues with what was going on in the
state legislature. He explained that the
main two articles in this revenue were Revenue Sharing and the half cent sales
tax, and 2007 was experiencing a ten percent downturn in the half cent sales
tax, which was typical of what other areas of the state were experiencing. He explained that Intergovernmental Grant
Revenues consisted of Affordable Housing, Public Transportation, Section 8, and
CDBG (Community Development Block Grants) and were grants that they got from
both the State and the Federal government.
He emphasized that they were reliant upon those grants to provide those
services, and it was important to keep track of what the County was collecting
from those, so that if those grants were eliminated, they would know how much
that would impact their general fund.
Mr. Showe then showed a chart of the
2006 expenditures in terms of category, noting that Public Safety was still the
County’s number one general fund expenditure.
He mentioned that courts expenditures had decreased from 2.3 percent in
2000 to 1.2 percent in 2006, due to Article V, and that the County had seen
some slight increases in Human Services and Culture and Recreation. He commented that the chart showed that the
County’s expenditures have basically remained the same, even as their budget
has grown, showing that they were maintaining a commitment to all the
categories. He also mentioned that the
County was keeping pace with the number of employees to the number of citizens
in the County, but that the cost of the fringe benefits for those employees had
increased due to increasing retirement and insurance rates that had been felt
in all industries. He reported that
since 2001, the County’s current revenues had exceeded their current
expenditures. He showed how the County
was maintaining their roads and what the cost of that was, stating that in
2000, it cost about $3,200 to maintain one mile of road and in 2006, that was
up to over $5,300, due to a lot of factors, including a backlog of maintenance
needs, increased population, and declining infrastructure.
STATE OF THE ROADS
Mr. Jim Stivender, Jr., Public Works
Director, commented that last week at the Florida Association of Counties,
there was a lot of discussion about what would happen regarding taxation, but
his group was talking about the ability to maintain their existing
infrastructure while facing skyrocketing costs.
He stated that they had tried every different option to deal with this
issue. He explained that the Road
Operations Division of the Public Works Department were responsible for
maintenance of the signs, signals, striping, drainage, and roadways contained
in the County maintained road network.
Mr. Kristian Swenson, Road Operations
Division Director, explained that they broke down the Road Operations into
three sections, one of which was the Administration Section, which provided
management support, and that the other two sections dealt with maintenance. The Direct Maintenance involved the hands-on
service, such as mowing, fixing potholes, and maintenance of roads, and the
indirect maintenance were the same type of tasks, but just provided by private
industry.
Mr. Stivender stated that the County
was broken down into three maintenance areas, which were Area I (Leesburg),
Area II (Minneola), and Area III (Umatilla).
He went on to explain that the biggest change was in the Minneola area,
which was the whole south end of the County, and that the Umatilla area was
everything east of Tavares. He explained
that the rating system they used was a nationally recognized system, and that
they had been refining it over the last four years.
Mr. Swenson continued to explain that
their direct-maintenance employees looked at every road in the County annually,
took measurements, documented where there were curves and sidewalks, and looked
at the condition. He specified that the
PASER (Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating) system had ratings that went
from 1 to 10, taking into account cracks, number of potholes, and things like
that, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. He also pointed out a chart on Page 6 of the
booklet that showed the life span of Lake County roads and how by year 15, the road
really started to fall off and became an area of critical concern. Also, he noted the chart on the next page
which showed the general information about the road inventory and how many
miles of road the County had and how many of those were asphalt and clay. Mr. Stivender pointed out that they had been
working to reduce the amount of clay roads, because the cost of equipment and
maintenance of those were much greater than for paved roads. They also pointed out that waiting until
roads got below a rating of 4 would cost a lot more to repair, because the only
alternative would be resurfacing as opposed to other types of repair or thin
non-structural overlay, and waiting until a road deteriorated beyond that point
would impact customer service and rideability.
Mr. Stivender commented that they
were working on ways to extend the life of the roads as much as possible to
decrease the amount of resurfacing that needed to be done.
Mr. Swenson related that 56 percent
of the County’s roads were in the area of critical concern or rapid deterioration,
and specified that page 11 in the booklet broke down the areas of critical
concern by Commission Districts. He also
mentioned that pothole repairs were more common, pronounced and expensive for
roads rated under a rating of 6, especially in wet weather. He stated that the annual inventory they had
previously mentioned was used to compile their road resurfacing program, and
that the lowest rating and the highest traffic count would be a priority for
resurfacing. It was also mentioned that
the rate of resurfacing each road was about every 100 years, making it
imperative that the roads be maintained so that their lifespan extended that
long, especially in the face of drastic increases in the price of asphalt since
2003. Mr. Stivender emphasized that he would
put any new dollars into the resurfacing of existing roads and that he was
concentrating on that portion of their infrastructure.
Commr. Cadwell asked Mr. Stivender if
there were any innovative ways brought up at the Orlando conference to fund
resurfacing.
Mr. Stivender responded that the only
thing that was discussed, which was very complicated, was MSBU’s, where an area
would identify and vote to bill themselves for resurfacing roads, and that some
Counties’ subdivisions were all set up that way.
Mr. Swenson pointed out the three
future maintenance strategies shown on page 16, and that Strategy 1 was to let
a road deteriorate to a category 6, just as it gets to an area of critical
concern, and then put on a sealcoat. He
specified that Strategy 2 was to allow a road to decline to a category 4 and
perform an asphalt overlay to increase it up to a category 6, where it would be
sealcoated; and Strategy 3 was to allow the road to deteriorate to a 4,
resurface with a conventional asphalt overlay, and bring it back up to an
acceptable level of a 9 and then allow it to deteriorate to a category 4
again. He noted that the cost of
Strategy 1 was the cheapest, Strategy 2 was slightly more expensive, and
Strategy 3 was double the cost of Strategy 1; and he commented that they had
used a combination of all three strategies.
Mr. Swenson pointed out that page 19
contained charts which showed the amount of roads, broken down into Commission
Districts, in the categories that were currently needing treatment and the cost
of that, and that the total cost of needed repairs was currently about $43
million. Mr. Stivender pointed out that
impact fees were not used for this type of maintenance, and that they had about
$1.5 million in sales tax, but that they were looking at shuffling that a
little bit to try to bump that number up to keep pace with the cost of
resurfacing. He commented that $43
million would put them on a pace that would be the best case scenario, and
although he realized that that was probably not realistic, he wanted to show
the Board the real numbers. He also
emphasized that they were focusing on the worst situations regarding
resurfacing concerns. Mr. Swenson
commented that unfortunately the subdivisions and residential type roads were
falling off the program because of lack of resources and trying to keep up with
the main thoroughfares with high traffic counts.
FIVE-YEAR SIDEWALK CONSTRUCTION PLAN
Mr. Jim Stivender, Jr., Public Works
Director, stated that the sidewalk program had been planned since the sales tax
had passed in 2003, some of which was supposed to go towards sidewalks. He stated that the price of concrete and the
acquisition of the right of ways had made it more difficult and reduced the
amount of projects that they could undertake.
After being bombarded with many requests for sidewalks, they had
developed a matrix to rate the requests, and he requested that the Board let
him know if they were on the right track with this rating system and the
program. He pointed out that they had
listed 11 projects for the next five years, based on the revenue that they
had. Some of the factors that they had
looked at included whether they connected to parks or schools, whether there
was shopping in the area, paved shoulders, and whether they were missing links
to other sidewalks. He commented that
the other question was whether to raise the percentage above 5 percent of the
penny sales tax next year to increase the revenues for sidewalks.
He went over the projects
individually, starting with their number one project, which was CR 455 in
Montverde. He commented that there was a
school there and that they were helping to fund a study on CR 455 to refurbish
and rework the entire secondary road corridor.
He noted that years ago that was a truck corridor, but now they got a
lot of residential and school traffic out there, and there were no sidewalks at
all.
The second project Mr. Stivender talked about
was Hancock Road and Johns Lake Road in Clermont. He commented that they had gotten many calls
on this and that it justified accessing all the school sites. He noted that a problem was that Johns Lake
Road had an inadequate right of way, and they would have to acquire that. He stated that there were a lot of children
walking in that area and a substantial amount of traffic, and that many other
roads in this area had sidewalks on one or both sides. He stated that the Villa City Road area in
Groveland had a similar situation. He
specified that there was a large residential population to the north walking
into a commercial area, and that it was a high-rated area for sidewalks. The two issues to address in that project would
be a narrow right of way and working around the wetlands in the area.
The next one on their list of
projects was the #2 Road in Howey-in-the-Hills, which they had been interested
in for a long time. He pointed out that
there were a lot of subdivisions west of town, government buildings, and the
post office. Another project he
mentioned was Eudora Road in Mount Dora, where there was a six-foot sidewalk on
the west side where the elementary school was, but that a lot of the children
lived on the east side. He commented
that they would need to get a piece of right of way from several property
owners to try to get a staging area on the east side of that road to cross the
street and go into the subdivision behind the commercial area there.
He went on to say that they had
gotten a lot of requests for sidewalks for the Grassy Lake Road and Washington
Street area in Minneola, where there were two elementary schools, a cemetery,
and a large residential area. He
commented that trying to address pedestrian traffic there was going to be a
challenge, because that road was the only way to get in and out from Old
Highway 50 to Washington Street to get to any of those facilities. He then went on to address Dillard Road in
Tavares, near Eustis, to link pieces of sidewalks that were built with
different road projects, which would form a continuous sidewalk from the
Huffstetler sidewalks, which were already in place, down to and across US Hwy
441. Another project was Thomas Avenue
in Leesburg, which was a back door from Leesburg to Fruitland Park. He commented that there were parts that
already had sidewalks and that this would link Griffin Road up to Martin Luther
King Blvd. He noted that there were
several apartment complexes that were not there a couple of years ago and
pedestrians that walked along the side of the road where there were no
sidewalks.
Mr. Stivender spoke about some
projects that had already been in the rating program and that they were already
in the process of working on. One of
those was for the south side of Lane Park Cutoff in Tavares, which was the
location of the middle school. He stated
that they were in the process of acquiring the last two or three pieces of
right of way and wanted to get that one out of the way within the next few
months. He also mentioned that there
were residential areas and the Bragg Center all together at that location. He stated that Mohawk Road in Minneola was a
similar situation, and that it would connect to the South Lake Trail. The last one on the list was CR 450A (Willis
McCall Road) in Umatilla, and he noted that the cost of that was a little
higher than expected, because they needed to put a railing in because there was
a ditch to the north of it. He commented
there were a lot of children walking in that area and other sidewalks near
there.
Mr. Stivender stated that they would
like to get the Board’s approval on those projects to move forward with a
formal adoption so that they could proceed with the projects. He commented that the last pages of the
booklet contained additional sidewalk projects that did not fall in the matrix
for funding and were on hold.
Commr. Cadwell commented that he
thought this matrix was a good system, and that they just needed to make sure
that they moved the projects up as they could.
Commr. Renick commented that she
believed that putting the emphasis on where there were schools was a good way
to rate them.
RECESS AND REASSEMBLY
At 10:00 a.m., the Chairman announced
that the Board would recess for ten minutes.
PROPOSAL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLIANCE
Mr. Daryl Smith, Environmental
Services Director, stated that he had talked with the Board at the last
workshop about a month ago about the enhanced environmental compliance
initiative that they were working toward, and wanted to get some feedback from
them and to make sure they were heading in the right direction. He noted that at the last meeting they
proposed two options, one of which was that they would undertake the
responsibility for just enforcing the laws that were out there and the permits
that DEP and the Water Management District would issue, and if someone did not
have a permit, then they would make sure to bring them into compliance and fine
them until they came into compliance.
The other option that was presented was that they would start from
scratch and get into the permitting business themselves on an ongoing basis. He recapped that the Board chose Option No. 1
and decided that they would hire another position to help them with that
environmental enforcement. He commented
that that position would be in next year’s budget, and until they got that
resolved, they did not know how they would move forward with that program.
Mr. Smith reported that they had been
working on an ordinance that Mr. Mike Bowers, their Division Director, was
going to introduce to give them some ideas of how that might work. One of the things they had seen as they had
been moving forward was an exciting interim, in-between option which would
allow them to be delegated the authority to enforce the ordinance and the
requirements that were in place by either the DEP or the Water Management
District, and were in initial discussions with both of those organizations
regarding that.
Commr. Cadwell asked if those
agencies were offering any type of funding help if those agencies had to use
less of their personnel.
Mr. Smith responded that they hoped
there would be, but they did not know at this point.
Commr. Hill commented that she
believed that this was mandated, but asked if it was an option that they could
do.
Mr. Smith stated that currently they
had a certain amount of ability to enforce in the compliance area, but they
wanted to do more and recommended to the Board to give them the ability to do
so. He also commented that they did not
have enough staff to follow up on as many of those violations as they had, and
neither did the DEP or Water Management District.
Mr. Bowers stated that currently if
they saw a violation, they went out to assess the violation and then turn it
over to the permitting agency, because they did not have any permitting or
enforcement authority. He added that the
difference between Option 1 and what they currently did was that they would
continue to do what they did with the permits being issued by the State, but
when they found someone that was in violation and did not have a permit, they
would be able to fine them for not having a permit, but not for what they were
doing, since they did not have permitting authority. He specified that the fines they were
proposing ranged from $250 to $500, which was concurrent with what Code
Enforcement was fining. He went on to
explain that the alternative 2 would work very similar to the storage tank
program where they would be delegated enforcement authority from the permitting
agency and would be able to take it to their own code board and fine them. He noted that the ability to do that would
come from adopting their Florida Statutes and their fining matrix.
Commr. Renick stated that she wanted
the County to do this, because she wanted effective protection for their
environment, and she was hoping that they could put more control in the
County’s hands so that they would not have the abuses that she believed they
had now. She hoped that if they could
take over more, received the fines, and had control, then it would work better.
Commr. Hill believed that the other
agencies should shift some additional money when they shifted additional responsibility
to the County. She commented that if the
County was going to take it over, she would rather them have the permitting
ability also.
Commr. Cadwell commented that he was
excited about going to Option 1, because they had a long discussion about going
to the next step. He opined that Option
1 was a great first step for them and would allow them to know what was going
on and be able to do something quickly to get it rectified.
Mr. Bowers also noted that
Alternative 2 was an in-between step on the way to doing the permitting. He commented that the tradeoff was that the
other agencies might not be able to wholly fund a position, but the County
would have local control and would be able to do something about violations
right away. He pointed out that any of
the fines that they did get would go to them instead of to the State.
Mr. Smith stated that they had the
ordinance drafted, but they were still working on a stop order procedure that
was not incorporated into it right now and were still working with the County
Attorney’s Office on that.
Commr. Renick asked if Mr. Smith was
leaning toward Alternative 1 or Alternative 2.
Mr. Smith responded that they were
looking on getting some feedback from the Board that day regarding whether they
wanted them to pursue the possibility of getting delegation authority from
either the DEP or the Water Management District. He stated that if they chose not to, then
they would just proceed with the development of the ordinance that they
currently had and not follow that course.
He also noted that they were not talking about going to any full-blown permitting
process at this time, but just the delegation possibility.
Ms. Cindy Hall, County Manager, asked
if the funding would be the same for both alternatives.
Mr. Smith responded that it should be
the same, but that if they accepted delegation, they would have to know what
their responsibilities were and be assured that they could do that with one
person.
Mr. Bowers commented that there would
be a lengthy application process that they would have to go through to be
approved to be a delegate, and they would find out at that time what would be
required and assess whether they had the personnel to do that and how many
people they would need. He opined that
in talking with the different agencies, he got the feeling that they had what
the agencies were looking for.
Commr. Stewart commented that she
thought this should be a priority.
Commr. Renick stated that she thought
that Mr. Smith and Mr. Bowers were absolutely headed in the right direction.
DISCUSSION OF LDR’S FOR INDUSTRIAL
USE
Ms. Carol Stricklin, Growth
Management Director, stated that this was the second part of the discussion
regarding performance standards for industrial uses, addressing noise, odor,
vibrations, and some of the impacts that were seen from those types of uses and
how they could strengthen their performance standards for better code
enforcement in those areas. She noted
that she would address site development standards for heavy industrial uses at
this workshop, and that these standards would apply to development of those
sites or additions to existing sites.
She pointed out that those standards would not address locational
criteria for future land use or zoning, and that would be the next piece that
would come up out of the Comprehensive Plan update and the Future Land Use
Map. She further explained that they
would address how sites that had that zoning would be allowed to develop.
She stated that she would walk
through the ordinance that was included in the packet and explain how they were
proposing to amend their existing regulations to better protect the residential
areas. She explained that the Code
classified industrial uses into heavy and light, and that they were looking
primarily at heavy industrial uses, because those were the concrete plants and
other types of uses that tended to have impacts on adjacent properties. She stated that the ordinance would reword
those definitions to allow uses to be classified as either heavy or light and
authorized the County Manager or designee to make a determination based upon
those impacts when a use might fall into heavy industrial.
She reported that the next thing the
ordinance did was to look at the table of allowable uses, which was the chart
in the Code that specified where heavy industrial uses were allowed. She explained that currently heavy industrial
uses were considered permitted in those zoning districts where it was an
allowable use. Her department was
suggesting that they amend those standards so that when a heavy industrial use
was proposed within 500 feet of a residential property or PUD zoning, it became
a conditional use and would require a public hearing.
Commr. Cadwell asked if this would
apply to the Christopher C. Ford Commerce Park.
Ms. Stricklin responded that this
would apply to the Industrial Park.
Commr. Cadwell commented that he had
a problem with that, even though he understood that they were doing it only for
the industries they would worry about.
Ms. Stricklin pointed out that they had
also attached a “Footnote 24,” creating a new section that would define what
the conditions of approval were, specifically having to do with requirements
for minimum setbacks, noise attenuation measures (including the conducting of noise
studies), hours of operation, screening of outdoor storage of materials, and treatment
of dust.
Commr. Stewart asked what was
required now of the heavy industrial that was already established next to
residential neighborhoods as far as noise.
Mr. Stricklin responded that the
noise standards were in the County Code, and they had to do with a nuisance
standard pursued through Code Enforcement.
She commented that they had received direction from the Board to look at
other ways of controlling noise impacts, perhaps looking at a standard based
upon decibels or something that was specifically measurable. She also confirmed that if they amended their
noise standards in the County Code, it would apply to existing uses. She further explained that they were
suggesting that during the development of new sites, it would give them the
ability to look at noise attenuation measures at the time the site was built,
such as placement of machinery, screening of machinery, concrete walls to block
sound, and those types of things as part of the new site plan approval. She noted that hours of operation was an
issue that frequently arose with heavy industrial uses and one she thought they
would have a lot of discussion about, because certain types of industrial uses,
such as concrete plants, were required to operate outside of what was
considered normal business hours. She
explained that they were supplying materials that were needed at certain times
of the day and would have trouble conforming to the County’s hours of operation
restriction.
Ms. Stricklin stated that the final area
of change had to do with the landscaping requirements, and that currently they
had bufferyard requirements that looked at the zoning of the site and the
adjacent site, and there was a table that defined what type of bufferyard was
required. Her department was proposing a
new bufferyard standard of 50 feet as well as additional screening requirements
within that bufferyard that could be imposed for the most intense industrial
use adjacent to residential.
She related that based upon the
Board’s direction, they would go in front of the Local Planning Agency for
their review and bring this back to the Board for a public hearing.
Commr. Cadwell stated that he would
like to have a discussion with staff about the DRI, because he had concerns
about the logic of that. He noted that
they had their own architectural rules and extra rules already and that they
probably already did everything they would do in a CUP.
Commr. Renick commented that the new
regulations would only add an additional 20 feet of buffering, and she had
noticed that a 100 foot buffer was not unusual in some ordinances she had
researched for a heavy industrial use such as a concrete plant.
Commr. Cadwell commented that if a
business was in industrial zoning and surrounded by industrial, to make them go
through a CUP would not be a good thing from a business and economic
standpoint, if they were not close to residential houses.
Ms. Stricklin commented that a big
issue with those industrial uses was encroachment by residential, where
residential uses had established themselves around a business that did not have
anything around it for many years.
Commr. Cadwell established that the
Board was comfortable with the direction that staff was moving in, and he
stated that he would meet with Ms. Stricklin on the CUP and DRI issue itself
regarding the industrial park.
DISCUSSION OF myregion.org POLICY
FRAMEWORK
Ms. Cindy Hall, County Manager,
stated that the County had been involved with the How Shall We Grow process
since its inception a couple of years ago, and it was concluding in
August. She related that one of the
things each of the jurisdictions was asked to do was to present the policy
framework that they had developed as six broad goals that were representative
of the feedback that they got from citizens in the entire region. She explained that the myregion.org group
would like each jurisdiction to actually sign and indicate support of the three
documents she had given to the Board members, which were the Regional Policy
Framework and Action plan, the Regional Growth Compact, and the Map with
population centers. She also specified
that in the Policy Framework, there were six policies that they had identified,
with some action steps and implementation strategies, which were in the process
of being revised. She pointed out that
the second document given to the Board was the Compact, which reiterated the
six policies that were listed in the policy framework, and it was basically an
agreement to work regionally on all of those types of policies so that there
was a regional effort to pursue that vision.
She stated that the third item in the packet was presented at a joint
meeting of all the cities and all elected officials, which was a map with the
centers of population identified. She
also commented that Mr. T. J. Fish, Executive Director of the Lake-Sumter
Metropolitan Planning Organization (LSMPO), had been working with the cities to
ensure that they were comfortable with the type of population circle that was
put on the map, and was in the process of getting feedback from the
cities. She asked the Board for feedback
or consensus about the three centers of population that were in the
unincorporated area, which were the Villages, the Four Corners area, and the
Mr. Plymouth-Sorrento area. She also
asked the Board for feedback or consensus regarding all three documents
presented.
Commr. Cadwell commented that the
framework they put together, the shared vision, and the maps were pretty
realistic, and he would encourage the Board to support it. He also commented that the question would be
how they would implement it.
Commr. Hill asked how binding the
agreement would be, such as the part where they were going to equitably
distribute the cost of developing alternative water supplies.
Ms. Hall responded that most of those
were to encourage or support those types of words that were almost
philosophical in nature and not asking for money, but just to participate in
those types of discussions. She stated
that the County’s policy was to work with the cities to help them develop their
water systems. She also opined that it
was her understanding that they were not requiring the governments to behave
any differently than they currently did, but it was a philosophical exercise to
look at all of those issues from a regional perspective.
Commr.
Renick commented that she was not sure that it accomplished a whole lot, and that
they had the MPO Alliance, the Regional Planning Council, and a lot of other
entities that looked at working cooperatively with the surrounding regions. She opined that they had already gone through
all of that and that it seemed redundant to her. She also commented that she did not think
there was anything in the myregion.org documents that worried her, because she
did not think it was in any way binding.
She stated that the Board’s region was Lake County, and that they looked
out for Lake County, but that they had worked with other counties on joint
things when they needed to.
Commr.
Cadwell stated that in the past, they had come together with other counties to
solve an issue. He commented that under
every category, since he had been on the Board, there had probably been at
least one issue that they had to do something together with other regions. He believed that this would be a good
guideline or framework to work under for a solution to a particular problem
affecting the region as a whole. He also
commented that this would include a larger region than they had ever included
before. He noted, however, that he
understood Commr. Renick’s doubts.
Commr.
Hill commented that she was concerned that agreeing to create a regional
multi-modal transportation system, such as light rail, would shift the State’s
dollars and take away from the County’s local road dollars.
Ms.
Hall stated that she did not think there would be any shift in funding, and
that she thought that they were moving toward the MPO Alliance as a
transportation entity. She also
commented that it was meant to create a better communication mechanism from a
regional perspective and for Lake County to be a participant in the discussions
that would go on.
Commr.
Hill commented that she did not see the need to create another transportation
authority other than the MPO and was concerned that doing so could take it out
of the County’s hands and that there was a shift in general against local
control.
Ms.
Hall stated that she would certainly be willing to give feedback to the
myregion.org people, and if there was concern about whether it locked the
County into any kind of funding or about losing an element of local control,
she could take that back to them.
Commr.
Cadwell stated that they had until August to research it more and get all of their
questions answered.
OTHER
BUSINESS
IMPACT
FEE DISCUSSION
Commr.
Cadwell stated that when they had large increases in impact fees in the past,
the Board had randomly come up with a percentage that they would increase them
just to keep everyone satisfied and on the same page. He mentioned that he had talked to everyone
he could think of on the state and national level about this subject, especially
pertaining to commercial and industrial, and he was looking for an economic
indicator they could use on the commercial and the industrial in a scientific
way. He had ideas that he wanted to
discuss with staff about how Lake County could create their own CPI, where they
would decide what applicable indicators they would use. He mentioned that Mr. Bob McKee, Tax
Collector, was willing to work with staff as a constitutional officer and
present his ideas to do that. Commr.
Cadwell wanted to know if there was interest from the Board in this as an
option as they go through the process of discussing it. He pointed out that he was not endorsing that
at this time, but just wanted staff to look at it.
Commr.
Hill commented that the League of Cities was concerned about whether the
methodology of the way they did impact fees was correct and if there was a
different way and how they would compensate for commercial and industrial.
Commr.
Renick stated that even though she was for slow growth, she was referring to
residential growth, and she was hoping that they could get the County less
dependent on the housing industry by bringing in other industry and businesses.
Commr.
Cadwell concurred and commented that they still had to compete.
Commr.
Stewart stated that it was commercial and industrial that she was also concerned
about as they discussed the increases in the impact fees.
Mr.
Sandy Minkoff, County Attorney, stated that if the transportation impact fees
were based on traffic generation and if they could demonstrate that the traffic
generation was different, then they could adjust the study. He commented that they could not adjust the
impact fees in one category to save another, but they would have to make up
those revenues using another revenue source.
Commr.
Stewart noted that in several studies on impact fees she had seen, cities that
passed high impact fees had not lost any kind of business, industrial, or
residential growth.
Commr.
Cadwell commented that he was concerned about this great of an increase and
wanted the Board to be conscientious about what they were doing.
ADJOURNMENT
There
being no further business to be brought to the attention of the Board, the
meeting was adjourned at 11:30 p.m.
__________________________________
WELTON
CADWELL, CHAIRMAN
ATTEST:
__________________________
JAMES
C. WATKINS, CLERK